Chapter 6: An Eventful Few Days
TRISTAN
Tristan tried to push away from the far-stronger man. “Dad, let go. I’m fine! I’m--ow--fine!”
“Are you now?” the cat-eyed woman asked from the doorway. “You’re welcome, then.”
Tristan grimaced, realizing he hadn’t thanked her yet. He caught her eyes, making sure to hold them as best he could. She’d already admitted to being a domain preserver, which was clearly high enough tier to be intimidating. He assumed she was weaker than his father, but there was still something in her eyes that frightened him. He nodded to her. “Thank you, truly.”
Marrik also turned to face their host. “Azura, I know we’ve had our issues, but..."
Tristan, sat up suddenly on the bed, unable to believe he’d heard that correctly. Azura? Had he really stumbled into the domain of Azura without knowing it? He really was lucky to be alive.
“He’s your son,” she interrupted, “what else could I do? I couldn’t have him die in my domain.”
There was a moment of silence as Marrik rose. He extended his large, calloused hand. “And for that I, Marrik Hammerson, offer you an Oath bound to my Path.”
Tristan’s mouth suddenly went very dry as he watched his father’s hand hanging unanswered in the air. The old woman’s cat-like eyes narrowed slightly.
An Oath could only be given freely, never under duress and never forced. It also had to be accepted freely. Whatever terms both parties agreed to would be unbreakable. Truly and totally unbreakable.
“You don’t need to--" she began.
“I do,” the armorsmith interrupted. “By my name and Path, I give my word to assist you once when asked, or to come to your aid once when called.”
The cat-eyed woman stared at the offered hand. “What nature of favor?”
“Anything that wouldn’t harm me, my son, or my wife.”
She hesitated. “That’s... nearly unlimited. That’s--"
“Powerful. Aye.”
She considered. “I’ll never need it.”
“Then don’t invoke it,” Marrik said.
“Duration?”
He kept his hand out. “Until you invoke it.”
The woman sighed, finally clasping his hand. “I accept.”
A rush of wind swept through the room like a gale, centered on their grip.
“It is sealed,” Marrik said, turning toward his son. “Can you walk?”
Alarmed by what he’d witnessed, Tristan took a moment before he swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Yes sir.”
His father hitched his thumb over his shoulder while maintaining eye contact with the woman. “Then go wait for me outside. I’ll only be a minute.”
Tristan knew better than to argue. He’d already begun to feel the raw weight of guilt weighing down upon him. “Yes sir,” he said before forcing his legs to carry him slowly down the hall.
No sooner was he out of the room than the door slammed shut and an audible humming noise filled the air.
Clearly whatever was being said within was not for Tristan to know.
- - - - -
AZURA
As Hammerson’s [Dome of Silence] sealed them in, Azura tried to keep her outward calm. It had been many a year since anyone over tier 2 had dared enter her domain. Yet within the last day, there’d been seven. Eight, if she counted the astral horse. And now a tier 4 with Strength enough to pop her head like a balloon was within striking distance.
The strain of keeping her domain calm was giving her an intense headache. She had to convince it that this isolating dome was not aggression, and there was no need for any response. Hammerson was, at least temporarily, an ally. He’d given her an Oath, of all things.
It had been an eventful few days.
She thought sitting might ease her pounding head, but with only the bed as an option, she would rather blood spurt from her nose. Marrik Hammerson had made very clear how he felt about indecency, especially toward his marriage. She knew better than to try and plant seeds in Hammerson’s garden.
She settled into a slouch against the armoire and tried to hide how thinly she tolerated his creating a dome in her domain.
“What is it you don’t want the boy to hear?” she asked.
Even with the dome, Hammerson’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Did you take their souls?” He had never been one to mince words. He no doubt had used [Identify] to see the jump in her levels.
Azura contained the smile that wanted so desperately to spring to her lips. “They died in my domain.” They were hers now, to do with as she pleased.
The smith jutted his chin out a bit, biting back his initial response. “Then they both are truly gone?”
Azura nodded.
“Do you think...?”
Azura waited, but he didn’t finish the question aloud. “Your son suspects at least, and would know if he wished to,” she supplied, peering through the magic dome and wooden walls like the glass of a greenhouse. She could see the boy was torn up about it even now. She saw the pain saturating his heart, the doubt running amok in his mind. The innocence and naivety of youth. She sighed and shook her head. “He blames himself.”
She watched Hammerson’s face crumble briefly as he realized this was something he could not fix. Like a split stalk, the boy would now grow in a different way.
He let out a deep sigh. But he didn’t drop the dome.
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“What more have we to discuss?” she asked, slightly concerned.
Hammerson’s face hardened with a new resolve. “Do you know who did it?”
She slowly blinked her large, catlike eyes at him, well aware at how disconcerting most people found them. She wondered why it mattered and dug toward his motives. “You’re not a fighter, and you never have been.”
But then she saw his eyes dart toward her front porch.
She leaned in. “I think you worry about what he will be, once the sprout grows a tougher stalk.”
“I’d like to keep him safe. That’s all. If someone were to come to my shop looking for him--"
“If they’d wanted your boy dead, his soul would already be in my garden. I saw what they did. I saw the battlefield--and the remains. The boy wasn’t far removed. There were tracks around him. He is incredibly lucky to only bear a scar.”
The words hung in the air a long while, and then the dome dropped.
“Thank you again,” Hammerson said as he walked out the door.
In a rare moment of sympathy, Azura actually followed him. “There were five of them, Hammerson. And they somehow hid until the fighting started.” Then she added the one admission that frightened her. “They even managed to hide the Brightshield from me.”
The smith didn’t look back, instead putting his huge hand on his son’s shoulder.
She noticed the boy wasn’t that much smaller than his father, but she wondered how long that would be true. He still had a lot of growing up to do if he was motivated to avenge his hero.
- - - - -
TRISTAN
“But I couldn’t help him,” Tristan continued to explain. “I don’t know why I thought I could.”
They had been walking side by side through the forest, and it had been silent most of that way. Then his father had asked, “What were you thinking? Why did you leave without telling anyone?” and Tristan’s floodgates had opened.
Now he’d told his father everything. A strong hand reached out to squeeze the boy’s shoulder gently. “We wouldn’t have left the Roadside Inn without you. You only Awakened three days ago, boy. You’re level one, gods’-sake. What did you expect?”
“I guess I expected him to win,” he finally admitted. “He was the Blessed Brightshield, Dad! The Beacon of Hope, the Light of Truth--!”
“And a mortal, just like you. And like me,” his father finished. “He was only level 103, Tristan. And I know that seems like a lot to you, but level’s not the only thing that matters when it comes to reaching divinity.”
As if anyone could ever be ‘only’ level 103. Then he registered something. “Wait, how do you know what his level was?”
His father cleared his throat, dropping the hand from Tristan’s shoulder. “I, uh... rather, we... partied together. Once.”
Tristan fully stopped in the middle of the road. “I’m sorry, what did you just say? Why did you never tell me you were in a party with the Brightshield? The Legendary--?”
“Yes,” his father cut him off before another dozen titles were listed. “A long time ago. Before you were born, obviously. And only once, as I said. I went through one dungeon with them, just to see what it was like. Honestly, he pretty much carried me. Even then, the man wasn’t just a tank; he could deal damage as well as any fighter I’ve seen. It wasn’t fair how he could just light up that sword of his and..." He caught himself rambling, even if Tristan had been absorbing every word.
“It didn’t really work out though,” the older man continued. “My arms were strong, of course, but my kind of Path just isn’t up for that kind of grinding. All the killing, over and over and over. It’s not how I’m meant to use my hammer. It took a day to wash the blood out of everything.” He shook his head. “I had to forge a new hammer to forget.” An older, larger hammer Tristan had never seen before appeared in his father’s hand from his magical storage. “This is my scar. It reminds me of what I learned that day: that fighting is not my Path. What have you learned from your scar?”
Tristan was frowning as his father finished. He was more impressed than ever with his old man, which had already been a lot before. But he was stuck on something that he couldn’t quite reconcile.
“The Brightshield... he never stopped progressing, did he?” Tristan asked, feeling unsure of his starting point and worried he might cast a shadow on the memory of the Legend.
His father laughed. “Hesden blessed Brightshield? The man was divinely incapable of doing less than his best.”
“But even he wasn’t strong enough,” Tristan said quietly. “How could he have lost? That woman said it took only five people...” Tristan struggled even to say it, though he knew it had happened. “Just... how? Their party must have been obscenely strong.”
“Or incredibly well prepared,” his father countered. “It’s true that I’ve never met anyone as individually strong as the Brightshield, but this was definitely planned. The man was gravely injured before he even came to us, and any hunters worth their Path would have known his best skills and brought hard counters to them. You should never underestimate the power of proper preparation. As a smith, you know we always visualize, plan, measure, and remeasure everything before beginning the first heat. High tier combat requires no less effort.”
That all made sense to Tristan, but he still knew that wasn’t why he felt so awful. Was his father ignoring the biggest potential pitfall to spare him? He felt the still-warm talisman in his pocket. “I think he was also distracted. Trying to protect me. If I hadn’t been there...”
His father exhaled softly but didn’t encroach on Tristan’s space. “Honestly, you’re probably right. The man was more selfless than a priest of the Sovereign. There’s no doubt in my mind he was as worried about your safety as his own.” He sighed. “Or possibly more. His Path was tricky, as are many. He likely would have had to abandon it to let you come to harm.”
Tristan heard the ring of truth in that. It only slightly eased the guilt he felt. “But if he had let me die, he would have survived.”
The man moved in front of his son and lifted his chin with one finger. “But that is not who he was, so stop blaming yourself. You are not responsible for his fall. You didn’t gain experience from his death. He walked his Path his way, making his own choices the whole blessed time.
“He saved you, Tristan, and I will always be grateful to him for that. He ended his Path so that yours could truly begin. Do not mope about and ruin his last great gift! Live up to it, and recognize that his sacrifice is a part of your Path now. Take the challenge he’s set before you. Make his sacrifice worth it.”
Then the big, calloused hands wrapped around Tristan and pulled him tight.
Tristan tried to hold back his tears as his breathing became jagged. He was totally overwhelmed. This was by far the most emotion his father had ever shown him, not tempered with any criticism at all. And it was all so supportive, which had always been his mother’s role. To draw this out of his father... he was blown away. He knew that sounded stupid as he had never questioned his father’s love, but it was one thing to feel it passively and another to see it like this.
His hand traced the scar on his chest. I am lucky to be alive. I’m still unforged, just a craft in progress, and this was my first heat. It won’t be the last. But if I’m going to forge myself into something better, I’ve got to strike while the metal’s hot.
His father no doubt understood and was trying to help Tristan shape himself in his own way. “I was an absolute idiot, wasn’t I?” Tristan asked, chuckling a little as he pulled away.
“Wasn’t your brightest moment,” his father replied, smiling with a touch of the same reservation that Tristan saw all the time in the forge. He clearly appreciated Tristan’s new attitude, but likely saw other issues too. After another quiet moment, he slapped his son on the back with a laugh. “Now let’s go see if your mother’s going to kill you. Do not show her that scar.”
Tristan laughed with him, knowing the man was only half kidding. He couldn’t imagine how much she must have worried.
As the first houses of Woodsedge began to peek through the trees, he used his tattered green shirt to dry his face. He didn’t want his mother to see how much he’d been crying, especially now that he had Awakened.
Other than covering the center of his chest, he tried not to worry over his appearance. If anything, he reckoned coming into town wearing battle-damaged gear might even boost his reputation. It definitely didn’t hurt that his newly-forged abs and arms showed through the tatters.
As his father moved to shelter Tristan from the gazes of the folks on the streets, Tristan kept his hands at his sides.
He’d been out of the forge for two full days now, and he had projects queued up in his mind to help push his experience fast. Some, his Class would definitely help him with, but others...
His fist tightened around the talisman, all that remained of the Brightshield. Tristan would find a way forward. No matter what else his father had said, one bit had stood out above the rest: he had to make the Brightshield’s sacrifice worth it.
He couldn’t do that as just a tier one blacksmith. What he needed most of all now was to level up.