Sayrin passed in and out of consciousness for several minutes, each time he regained consciousness left him more confused and uncertain than the last.
He saw his son standing over him at various angles, he saw crowds of people, some he recognized, some he didn’t. He saw people clad in the green robes from the church of the healer, he saw, at one point, the mustached man with whom he’d been dueling laying in a bed next to him, clean white linen sheets pulled up to his shoulders so that he was unable to see if the man still held onto any lingering injuries from their fight. But then the next moment he blinked, and the man was gone, replaced with an empty bed and neatly folded linens. At one point, he saw Mata, standing over him with a kerchief to her face, sobbing quietly and all alone. That one stayed with him.
But more than the things he saw and remembered from when he was conscious, were the visions and dreams he had from when he wasn’t.
He knew his ability had been a trade off, he knew it had been slowly getting better with each rank, and that if he advanced just once more, he wouldn’t have to worry about these… episodes any more, the only problem was actually getting there. In his waking nightmares, in his visions of the worst that had been, the worst that was, and the worst that could ever be, he saw everything. Every possible scenario played out under the suns bright light that could ever be, ever mistake he ever made, every embarrassment or shame he carried on his back, and every wicked thing he had ever done to another. He knew the price to be paid, he knew if he let the nightmares take over for a night, the next day he would usually have his sanity back, his freedom and his mental faculties.
But… sometimes Sayrin couldn’t bear the nightmares any more. He would often times cut them short, choosing temporary reprieve in the night over a better day tomorrow. This choice always haunted him, always made him second guess himself and always, always appeared in his dreams.
What if Sayrin had simply allowed the nightmares to reign supreme on that night, what tragedies could have been avoided the following day? What actions of his that he regretted and what words could have never been said if he’d simply allowed the pain to continue for another night on. Another hour on. Another minute.
But at his heart, Sayrin knew that these were never really options. That his nightmares could always, would always win. So long as they maintained their grip on him, he would never be able to outlast them, never be able to purge them from his mind.
Sayrin was a nightmare, and the nightmares were inside of him. He had, through action and inaction, through words and through deeds, chosen this life for himself. Now he must live it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Grounded. Kya didn’t know the rest of the plan past get the monster on the ground because she didn’t need to be told the rest of the plan. Kya had seen time and again, Alder's ability to mess with the density and the solidity of different parts of earth. He had numerous times this night alone, altered the ground to give Wade a softer landing, and more impressively, and possibly more relevantly to the situation at hand, she had watched Alder sink both her and Rory into the ground by crafting quicksand where they had stood.
She knew, or at least she suspected, that the moment they got this beast on the ground, the fight would be as good as ended. Of course, things were never that simple, nor would they be.
Still, as she activated her slow fall and pulled her dagger back out of the falling beast's punctured wing joint, she had the best vantage in the forest to watch it fall and crash heavily to the ground. This was it. This was the end. Kya had come out here on this dark and cloudy evening to get some quick experience, knowing that the next threshold was just around the corner for her. But as with all things in this place, it had turned out vastly more complicated than it really needed to be.
Drifting slowly downwards, Kya waited until she was directly over the last and only relatively uninjured wing before canceling her ability and plunging down dagger first into the membrane of the wing. It came apart with a snap and a tear, like the surface of a drum drawn so tightly that the smallest puncture and the whole thing comes apart.
Taking advantage of the fact that the creature was momentarily stunned from its unceremonious fall from grace, Kya worked her dagger up and down the entire length of the wing. It might not die, but it wasn’t getting back up in the air anytime soon.
She leapt off the beast the moment she felt the ground begin to shudder and shake. She floated away from it as she saw Alder, Wade by his side, making a series of complex movements, each one ending with a firm and powerful stomp into the ground. With every footfall, and every punctuating step that came with it, the ground all around the monster grew less and less stable, and eventually, the monster itself began to sink deeper and deeper into the ground. However, what was a rapid and seamless process for someone the size of a normal human being, was less rapid and less substantial for a being the size of a minivan with three wings to match.
Waking from its stupor, the enormous creature began to thrash about wildly, eventually folding in its leaf shaped wings until it was at last clawing itself forward on what looked like three long thin legs covered in bone white spikes and cracked with tears and divots.
It let out another roar at the trio, this one less assaulting than the last, rather more frustrated and angrier if Kya’s gut told her anything.
Any feelings of empathy and compassion that may have been fostering in her heart, died the very next moment when, after closing its jaws, it used the two side wings to claw forward, and then tried to use the third atop its body like a scorpion stinger, stabbing forward with blinding speed.
The three scattered like bugs before a vacuum cleaner, all diving in different directions and all trying to simply not be skewered like shish kabobs. Well, Kya had thought that all three jumped. She saw Alder jump at the same time she did, he went low to the dirt, taking on a second armor of stone atop his more traditional metallic one, while Kya went high, already ingrained to use the slow fall ability to grant her greater jumping ability.
Wade, on the other hand, had chosen to stand her ground. What either of them had truly expected, Kya didn’t know, but Wade clearly didn’t want to run from this thing any more, and was determined to end the fight on her terms. One way or another.
Slapping away the barbed spike on the jelly bat matron’s arm with a blow that seemed both much more powerful and was able move much more quickly than anything she’d seen her do before, and then before the monster was able to, Wade filled her lungs with air and released a sharp, throat scarring, gut wrenching, animalistic and guttural shout of aggression and power at the matron.
The entire clearing went still for a fraction of a second, just the smallest of moments where the monster seemed almost taken aback to be spoken to in such a way, before it responded in kind, screeching and bellowing at the top of its lungs, so loudly and forcefully, that the trees nearby whipped back and forth, the ground cracked and Kya slapped her hands to her ears as she recoiled from the blow.
She almost took the high ranking potion Alder had given her but held off just in case she would need it should something go wrong. Instead, she withdrew one of her more mundane kinds and downed it in a flash, still using the other hand to clutch at her aching forehead.
When she had recovered enough to look back and see what was happening, she almost stopped in sheer bewilderment and disbelief. Wade was wrestling with the third spiked wing, apparently having the strategy of “it can’t stab me if I'm standing right here with it!”
Not knowing what else to do, she quickly looked to Alder who was… who was currently trying to put on stone cuffs to the wing closest to himself, in an attempt to further immobilize, and restrict its movements and make it easier to just deal with overall.
“What a crazy bunch you all are…” She muttered to herself, then took a weight reduced leap forward, flying until she was just overhead, and then once more plunged straight down at the beast “You guys can’t have all the fun!”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Carcello waited outside the infirmary room with his mother, Mata. His mother had just come back out from her one on one time with him, but despite his insistence and urgings, his mother said that they couldn’t possibly play a song here in the infirmary, what would they do if, gods forbid, they bothered another patient or even made their condition worse? No, she’d been against it quite adamantly from the beginning.
Now, he sat in one of the relatively comfortable waiting chairs as his mother paced back and forth, back and forth.
“Mom, you have to go in there again, you have to sing for him. I can even send for your v-”
“No, Car, you must listen when I speak, or else we’ll be doomed to repeat the same questions and answers for all time. Your question is answered, now let it be.”
“No mother, I can not. Father is in there, and we both know what’s going on. You don’t want to tell the healers, fine. I can respect that there are things you don’t wish to…”
He trailed off as a healers aide walked by, giving them a look under a raised eyebrow, but otherwise not saying much of anything else.
After he was sure the aide had gone out of earshot, Carcelo continued “I can respect that there are things about the family you wish to keep to the family only, but there has to be a better way than this.”
He watched his mother bring up her thumb and chew absently on the nail there, before finally saying “Yes, I can agree with that, but… what is the-”
“You mom! You’re the better way, you have to sing a song for him, we both know that works, all three of us know it works, so please mom, just a quick simple song so he can wake up, or at least to recover just a little bit faster. Please Mom?”
After several more minutes of frantic pacing back and forth, back and forth, Carcelo was about to ask his question again, to ensure that it was the thing at the forefront of his mother's mind, when finally, she stopped and looked at him, the words dying on his tongue.
“Alright, alright. But make sure that there isn’t anyone nearby, and you will have to wait outside. It won’t do at all for someone to overhear this.”
Jumping to his feet, Carcelo gave his mother a big hug, and then dashed off to the rooms on either side and confirmed they were empty.
Nodding, Mata went quietly inside the room with her husband still lying asleep and unresponsive. She could still see evidence that what Carcelo said was true, he was covered in a cold sweat, and his eyes moved frantically under their lids.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out as a sigh, waited for the knock at the door to prove she was in the clear, and once it came, she began to sing, softly and slowly, each word imbued with one of her first ever class abilities. The song of peace.
~ ~ ~
Several minutes later, as Carcelo stood outside the door and listened as his mother finished her song. Then he heard muffled conversation and he felt his heart melt a little knowing that meant his father was okay, that he would survive if nothing else.
He wasn’t entirely certain about the other man, but he would find that out later, and either reassure his father with it, or distract his father from it. Either way was fine with him. For at the very least his father was okay.
A few minutes more passed by the hushed tones carrying on, and Carcelo’s mind, now freed from its storm clouds and burden, were able to wander from one topic to the next without much care for the in betweens.
Finally, he heard a small knock on the door from behind and moved out of the way as his mother walked out again.
“I’m headed home. Car, he… he should be fine now.” His mother said, her eyes red and puffy, her voice shaking only slightly. “He wants to see you, however. Best get in there and talk with him, then you come on home too. I’ll have the staff whip up something nice for us to eat together, like those fluffy dessert cakes you like to eat in the mornings.”
He nodded and then gave her a quick hug, which had grown slightly silly now that he was fully grown and dwarfed his much shorter mother. “I’ll see you at home mother, and thank you, genuinely.”
Dabbing quickly at her eyes again with the same old handkerchief, she said goodbye once more, and then she was gone. Taking a deep breath, Carcelo entered the room, and closed the door behind him.
Sayrin, his father, sat up in bed, resting comfortably against the pillows stacked up behind him. He was gazing out the farseeing window, currently showing the beautiful beaches of the Nioa islands. This place was on one of the interior levels of the city, which meant even if they did have windows, they’d be a relatively bleak affair showing shadow and stone. So many places, health clinics especially, opted for the slightly more expensive, but significantly better for morale, farseeing windows. They could be enchanted to show an image of another place far away to help feel like they were really outside.
Turning his gold and orange eyes on him, Carcelo let out an involuntary shudder as he met his father's gaze.
“I think,” started Sayrin, “I owe you a great deal, son.”
Shaking his head vigorously from side to side, Carcelo said “No, father, please. I am your loyal son, to do otherwise would be nonsense.”
“You have always stepped in to care for me when I suffer one of my… episodes. You called for a medic right away and ensured I was seen to by proper church healers. You even convinced your mother to sing in public again, which she has not done for many… many years.”
His mouth gaping somewhat like a fish, Carcelo said after a couple failed attempts “Yes father, well, it was what you needed at the time. I wanted to ensure that you were helped.”
Sayrin looked at his son for several more minutes, before finally sighing and looking back out the window at the black sands and crystal clear waters.
“Carcelo, I know it hasn’t always been-”
“Dad!” Carcelo suddenly found himself on his feet, not remembering how he got there, but before the nerve left him, said “Dad, you’re... I think you should be- that is to say, uh, grounded.” He started off at almost a shout but quickly lost steam partway through the statement and ended it in almost a cough as he swallowed hard on accident.
A faint smile playing at his lips, while equally threatening to turn into a frown, leaving Carcelo completely in the dark about how to read the current situation.
“I’m what?” he asked, slightly amused, slightly bemused.
“Grounded" he said, vigorous despite the trepidation. "Father, you have a deployment coming up, you’re taking mom with you, which I think is great, of course, but you need to be able to take care of her in a foreign country, and how are you going to do that if you can’t even take care of yourself!”
The sheer weight of his words hit them both simultaneously, each one a new weight added to their shoulders, making them slump and slouch in identical ways.
Sayrin nodded, taking a deep breath and releasing a ragged sigh “You are right… son, you are right, and... you have always been right.”
Looking up and meeting his eyes again, he said “I will never understand your way of thinking, but I do understand your way of reasoning. I will, for you and for your mother, stay at home these next few days until I leave with your mother.”
Almost disbelieving that his father had actually made concessions to him, admitted he had been wrong and Carcelo had been right… he truly didn’t know what to do next. After all the years of acting as a go between, for the family and their father... this was unprecedented.
“Ah, okay, good, good. I expect that, uh… will help then.”
Speaking gruffly, as he took in another deep breath “Yes, I- I believe it will.”
They both sat there in silence, neither sure what to do next. Finally, and thankfully, Sayrin spoke up, a note of hesitance in his words as he asked “So… do you… want to play tiles?”
Then, maybe with not quite enough voice and quite a bit more breath than intended, Carcelo answered "Oh! Yes, alright."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It took them all working in tandem nearly another twenty minutes to finally… finally subdue the beast.
It did not go gently, it did not even know the meaning of the word gently, as it was shoved head first into the woodchipper that was the goodnight.
After securing the two remaining limbs to the ground, Alder began to once more sink the remaining parts of the body as deep underground as he could.
Above, Wade had finally decided she’d had about enough of the final remaining extremity giving them trouble and causing them no end of grief, so she decided that there would in fact be an end. It came in the form of the once more incredibly powerful one off attack with her ax, entirely separating the limb from the body.
From there, it was relatively simple. The three of them, in a single unified effort, had taken hold of the things snout and held its mouth closed as Kya got to do the honors, launching her venomous dagger directly between its eyes.
Under the glow of the two moons, one vibrant green, one pale blue, Kya, Alder, and Wade watched as the enormous creature absolutely explode into shadows, vaporous trails of, whisps and tendrils of absolute darkness almost seemed to come alive and be given physical form as they trailed their way up the entire body of the once proud matron Jelly Bat.
She had seen the sparks of the lesser monsters. She had seen the brilliant flames from the younger juvenile, and even beheld the death flames of Arthers son, Douglass, an earth user.
Absolutely nothing could have prepared her for the sight and majesty of the 2-Star’s flames. It was like they had been given their own personal aurora borealis, streaks of light pouring out from the depths of deepest shadow to light up the area all around them. The flames were harmless, they didn’t contain any heat or at least weren't hot enough to do anything. In the places the dancing lights touched trees, the leaves simply took up the rhythm and danced along.
All three of them, as if in agreement over the matter, silently watched the lights weaving their way through the area all around them. These ones lasted for several minutes, but they didn’t care, they were bloodied, and bruised, but not broken. They had worked well together, and Kya was happy with how the fight had gone overall. As she watched, Kya removed the cork from her ears and then tossed them aside into the forest.
Finally, after the last vestiges of color and light had faded into the night sky, did Alder finally speak.
“I know the two of you just ranked up, but that means that uncommon 2-Star should have done a respectable amount for you Wade, and it should have absolutely rocketed you Kya.”
Wade nodded her affirmation “I can feel it. I gained an immense amount of progress towards my abilities for that, at least a good week's worth of hunting smaller prey.”
They both looked expectantly at Kya, but she didn’t notice as she was already busy reading her character screen.
- - - - -
Character Screen
* Name: Kya Ophelia
* Race: Human/Founder
* Race Benefits: Loot the Corpse, Identify, Translation
* Class: {Space} - 1-Star - 37%
* Class Abilities: Push and pull - 2-Star - 00%, Slow Fall - 1-Star - 12%
* Class Benefits: Aura, Inventory
- - - - -
“I only got about a twelve percent increase in my ability.” She said, not a little disappointed. She had just killed a monster a full and entire star ahead of herself, granted with substantial help from the allies she had with her, but that was still almost nothing compared to what it should have been. She had been expecting to open it up and see it already at forty or fifty percent. She was feeling a little dejected about the lower-than-expected power jump, but quickly put those feelings aside when she saw the faces on the other two.
“Over a ten percent increase from a single fight!?” Alder asked, a look of pure envy on his face “That’s disgusting.”
“Wha… Wade is it really that-”
“Do not… don’t talk to me for a minute. I understand that you are still only on your second ability on the first star, but yeah that's just… unfair.”
A small smile creeping onto Kya’s face made the other two both scoff and start to walk away, shaking their heads in unison.
“Wait, where are y'all going? Don’t you want to look at the loot?”
Both stopping and turning back, Alder looked like he might be about to spit at her “I knew that was your loot ability… but you have an identification as well? Looting, info, rare classes, girl if I had half your luck, I’d be a 3-Star captain already. I’d probably have a really cool house, maybe one of those self heating bubbly pools in the back, that would be divine.” Alder seemed to get caught up in his own daydream, completely losing the thread the conversation until Kya brought out three unique items that she’d received as rewards for the monster kill.
“I figure we each take one? You guys did most of the work, so you take first and I’ll take whatever’s leftover.” Kya said, using identify on all three in rapid succession to more easily compare their results.
- - - - -
- Item: Scepter of the Night Mother
- Rarity: 2-Star - Uncommon
- Description: The Scepter of the Night Mother calls back to the monster from which it was taken. Channel mana into the jewel at the scepters top to generate a piercing screech. Will alert others to your presence, but also serves to both give you information on your surroundings as well as a low-level mental attack.
- Enchantments: Echolocate, Basic Mental Screech
- Requirements: 2-Star class rank
- - - - -
- Item: Claw of the Night Mother
- Rarity: 2-Star - Common
- Description: This dagger was made directly from the severed claw of the monster for which it is named. Not only is it extremely durable to exterior damage sources, but each wound inflicted with the dagger will imbue the {Vulnerable}status.
- Enchantments: Basic Durability, Basic Infliction
- Requirements: 2-Star class rank
- - - - -
- Item: Ring of the Night Mother
- Rarity: 2-Star - Common
- Description: Carrying a fragment of the Night mothers' own tooth, this ring will grant powerful resistances to all mental and sound-based attacks.
- Enchantments: Advanced Mental Resist, Advanced Sonic Resist
- Requirements: 2-Star class rank
- - - - -
“Alright so basically, the ring will let you resist mental and sound attacks, the knife makes people more vulnerable to stuff, just like… generally speaking, and the scepter will release a weakened form of the jelly bat's screech that will both hurt people and tell you where stuff is.”
Wade looked thoughtfully at each one, while Alder also looked lost in thought, before seeming to snap out of it and give Kya a sharp look. “Did you just call the thing we fought… a Jelly bat?”
A slight shade of red coloring her cheeks, Kya said “Well, it looks exactly like the body of a jellyfish and the head of a bat, what else would you call it?”
“The Chiroptera” they both said back in unison, like she was being an absolute idiot for not realizing that two and two made four.
Sighing, and waving a hand at them, Kya said “Oh just pick a lousy prize would you.”
Both of them laughing, they each took a prize they wanted, Alder the staff, and Wade the ring.
“Oh, fuck yeah! A 2-Star dagger!” Kya said, excitedly running over and grabbing the dagger. It looked absolutely wicked, the barbed tip and rigged back giving way to the honed edge at the other side and the… Why was it getting hotter?”
“Guys? Why does this keep getting hotter?”
“Oh yea, put it in a spatial bag until you are at least a 2-Star, or else it will gradually get warmer and warmer in your hand until it eventually burns you.”
“When the hell did, they start doing that?” instantly tossing the dagger into her storage space without a second to lose.
“Uh, since always pretty much?” Wade said, looking searchingly at Alder “You know more about the technical stuff than I do, what’s happening there?”
He just snorted a laugh as he began to lead the trio away from the remains of their battle and said “I don’t know much more than you Wade, let's be honest here. But from what I do understand, the item's magic is stronger than your own, which means that your senses quickly become overwhelmed even just from holding it..?” He trailed off towards the end, making it unclear if he was asking a question, or giving an explanation.
“So basically” Kya finished with a laugh “Don’t touch it til you’re stronger, and if you want to know more, go ask Maggie.”
“Yes”
“Exactly”
Shaking her head and letting out a laugh, Kya followed along after them as they returned to town for a well-deserved rest.