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JULES
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“Cy!” Jules and Katarina both sprinted to him.
“Jules, what the fuck!? We promised,” she shouted.
The Painter appeared before them both with a grin. Jules grabbed Katarina's shoulder and pulled her back.
“He’s OK.” They all looked up at Cyrus, laid out on his back on top of the spectators’ evaporating corpses. He gave them a thumbs up. “I coat him in magic armor every day, underneath his real armor. You two have just never realized—”
“Why’d you hesitate?” Jules demanded.
A speechless Cyrus held up ten fingers, all still intact. Oh. You hit Level 10.
“So, Jules… Did you Level Up as well?” The Painter asked.
Katarina inched away from them. Rukia hid underneath a bench. Whiskers hauled ass away.
“Uh, no. I’m still at Level 9.”
The Painter furrowed his brow. "Hm. Pity, eh?" The Alter raised a palm to Jules. OK, try to see how he forms the arrow this—
A wide beam of energy blasted Jules to ribbons.
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When Jules' Regeneration finally revived him, The Painter snapped his fingers over Jules’ head. Jules opened his eyes. Twelve people stood over him.
"Wrath?" Nine people.
“How about now?” Six people.
"Did you Level Up?" Three people—Cyrus, Katarina, and The Painter, who all snapped in Jules' face. Jules fumbled around for his Menu.
> [Pang! Light Armor increased to Level 10.]
>
> [Pang! Light Armor increased to Level 11.]
>
> [Pang! Light Armor increased to Level 12.]
>
> [Pang! Light Armor increased to Level 13.]
"Few times." He gave them all a thumbs up, though some of his other fingers were missing.
The colosseum had disappeared, and they were back in the art supply shop.
Suppose I never really left, but I haven’t seen this place in months.
Jules enjoyed the peaceful silence.
> [Paint It Black — Quest Objective COMPLETED: Level Up all combat Skills to 10.]
Son of a bitch System—
“Alright, you’ve won the bet.” The Painter plopped down into his bean bag chair and spread out his arms.
Cyrus and Katarina walked over to their usual chairs and were joined by Rukia and Whiskers. Not fully Regenerated, only Jules’ arms worked, so he army crawled his trembling body over to the feet of his chair. He left a kind of snail trail of blood on the creaky wooden floors.
“Thanks for the help, even if it helped me win the bet,” Jules said. He stared at the legs of Katarina's chair.
“You would've made it today, anyway. I just gave you a little boost to save my own time.”
Can't. Move. But I bet that fucker's looking at Cy right now.
“So, Envy, which story do you want to hear first?”
Asshole.
Katarina pet Rukia head to tail.
Traitorous bitch.
Now, now, Julesie, Rukia chided.
Katarina eyed Jules, still strung out on the floor, healing himself. “Sloth seems appropriate.” Whiskers failed to suppress a laugh.
Too tired… to insult… further…
An involuntary wheezing, gasping, rasping croak escaped Jules' mouth. Oh thank Salvos—two working lungs. Finally.
> [Pang! Regeneration increased to Level 34.]
“Ah, yes. The Horror of Sloth, as it’s known by all. Even the Church calls it that, though for a very different reason altogether. Our hero was born in Zenithoria, the central most trading hub of Zephyria—all of Salvatica, really—on that Fateful Night. He was captured sometime before midmorning the following day. A few of the more zealous Commanders of The Fleet surrounded his home and, after slaughtering everyone there, flew him to Solstice Keep.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“All the way to Obsidia? Why there?” Cyrus asked.
“Idiot," Whiskers said. "That’s where the Church of Salvos is based.”
Idiot? That's Kat's line. Copycat. CopyKat. Oh ow! My spleen, my spleen—
“He was held captive for around the first two years of his life. Tormented, tortured every day. Murdered often. Can’t imagine what that does to you mentally.”
“Lemme fuckin’ tell ya,” Jules muttered.
"Surely it messes with you," The Painter continued. "Well, thanks to Sloth's capture, the Church—and everyone else—learned about Arcanic Regeneration, which incidentally led to the Calamity of Charity by the same cabal. I'm not sure they gathered as much knowledge about Regeneration as I have these past few months."
"Oh yeah, like what?" Jules asked.
"It consumes all your Ryoku, for one, and it appears it can take you into negative territory."
"And for two?"
"Ha! I am working on another theory, but I've healed you both before, a few times. Not sure if you noticed, but I'm trying to figure out how much Ryoku it takes to revive and Regenerate you. It's actually fascinating, the ratio of—"
"Can you fucking do it right now?"
"No, I need to conserve my Ryoku for another excursion, and you need the XP."
"I… You…" Nah, I got nothing.
“Back to our story, obviously Sloth made no attempt to escape, seeing as he was a baby, but no one came for him. He had no family, no allies. And his location was very public. A media frenzy. Until one day, he vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Vanished. Without a trace—At first, and to an untrained eye.”
“So what happened?”
“His sloth saved him.”
“You mean his Familiar is a sloth?” Cyrus asked.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, what else would you expect?" Rukia said.
"I don't know—but when I think of Wrath, I think of a lion, not a fox."
"Oh trust me. She's full of rage." Jules spoke into a small puddle of pooling blood, still facedown on the floor.
“Anyway, he was rescued in an extraction mission—”
“You’re telling me that a two-year-old sloth saved him from the clutches of the Church and Maidens, alone? I don’t buy it.”
“Precisely.” The Painter’s eyes changed colors wildly. “So, who was the outside help? That, I am afraid, is unknown even to me. Safe to say it wasn’t any of the other Arcanics, given your ages at the time.”
“Was it you?” Jules asked. He was too tired to try to imply anything and figured a direct approach might work.
“I suspect it was a colleague of mine, but no. I tried to… visit Sloth once. There were unforeseen complications to the matter. It would have have been nice for me to have had that Regeneration knowledge back then. Regardless, a sloth appeared near the detainment camp one day.”
“Didn’t they think that was kinda odd?” Cyrus asked.
“Of course they did, but then dozens of sloths showed up that night—and sloths aren’t native for over hundreds of miles—”
“So that outside help,” Cyrus said.
“Obviously, let the man finish,” Katarina said.
“Thank you, Envy. Anyway, by then, the Church had learned about Familiars from the Virtues, but they did not know that the Sins also had them, as Greed would be caught much later in life. When the first sloth came, I’m sure they joked about it. No one knew he was actually Sloth until much later. But when there were nearly a hundred… Well, they didn’t have much time left, anyway.”
“So how’d he escape?” Jules asked.
“He vanished, along with all the sloths. Only one witness was left behind. He’d just joined the ranks that week. The rest were massacred, tortured to death in similar ways they’d tormented Sloth. And that witness? They did something special to him. They gouged out his eyes and left him blind. He told the Church they left him a message, that though he didn’t participate in the torture, he had turned a blind eye…Ha! Now that’s poetry in motion.”
“So the Church calls it the Horror of Sloth because of what happened to the Inquisitors, not for what they did to Sloth.”
“That, and the horror that they let a Sin escape from right under their upturned noses, without a trace.” He took another bite from his apple, right near the core. “Anyway, after hearing that story, would you still like to hear the Tragedy of Greed?”
Jules stared at Katarina's chair for a while longer.
Eventually, his legs worked again, so he hoisted himself up on his chair.
Katarina and Cyrus both looked down the entire time.
“Yes," Jules answered. "We need to know.”
The room around them turned into a desert. Sand whipped around Jules’ face and into his eyes.
“He was born to a nomadic desert tribe in Hinomura. Unlike Sloth, Greed lived his young childhood with his family. But when he was five years old, the Iron Maidens, which now had a true form and strength behind them, captured him with the aid of the Elementalists.”
“The Elementalists? Why would they bother with religious affairs?”
“The Church is not apolitical, Cyrus. The Elementalists were at war with the Nomads again, but you wouldn’t have learned about the Sixteenth War between the Nomads and Elementalists in your history books. The Church suppressed it all because they used the war as a proxy to capture a Sin. If word of that got out, well, they need to keep the population in check to capture another one, should the opportunity arise…”
“Plus, the Church likes to keep their optics fresh,” Katarina said. Kat really hates the Church.
“Ah, yes. Anyway, the truth is tens of thousands died to capture Greed. The Elementalists won, so keeping their victory secret was an easy task for the Church of Salvos, who further bribed the Elementalists for their silence.”
“That must be why the Nomads shut themselves off from society,” Cyrus said.
“From what I’ve heard, they only speak to the Elders of the Verdant Domain, along with some other Factions... Ah, you know, I once traveled—" The Painter cut himself off. His eyes shimmered, seemed to almost change color. "Eh, back to the story. By now, the Church was familiar with…Familiars… However, Greed’s was not found. And not only that, but no Nomad who was interrogated knew what animal the Familiar was, or at least admitted to it.”
Jules reached to pet Rukia’s head, but she was on Katarina’s lap. Instead, he found Whiskers’ head by his feet, so he scratched him between the ears.
“Greed was held in captivity for two full years, from five to seven years old. You should surely beware of him, as well. Endless torment makes you loopy, after all.” The Painter smirked at Jules.
“Did his Familiar save him, too?”
“Possibly. Probably. Multiple Nomadic tribes banded together after the war in secret to free him. I never found out where he was being kept, but I do know it wasn’t Solstice Keep again.”
“Some info broker you are. A band of freedom fighters waging war against a cult and a religion… Sounds like a good story for a child.”
“You wound me, Envy." The Painter bit into his apple's core and split it in two. "They did rescue him, and it’s rumored that Greed floats tribe-to-tribe now, constantly keeping his identity and location hidden. In fact, he’s the first person ever to be welcomed like that. When you are born to a Nomad clan, you are forever bound to that single clan for life, but Greed knows no bounds. It would appear he is a unifier of his people.” The Painter turned to his two favorite pupils. “He has certainly been the most interesting Arcanic to watch so far.”
Jules was unfazed by the insult. “Sounds like you have a general idea where he is.”
“A general idea? Of course I do. I have a general idea where every Arcanic is…”
“You said you’d answer all our questions, so spill it.”
“Eh, no. Not today. You need to rest for your next round of training. When you complete magic and crafting, we will have more story time. But for now, children, rest up.”
“What does Greed look like?” Jules asked. He thought back to the time he’d woken up in a dream, in someone else’s body in the desert. Was that him?
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