Catherine was a mess. For the last two hours, reality and illusion merged into an indistinct haze. Shadows flitted at the edges of her perception, fleeting glimpses of figures and objects that seemed to materialize out of thin air only to vanish again into the ether. Her mind churned in a tempest of conflicting thoughts and emotions, each one vying for dominance in the chaos of her consciousness. A battle raged as thoughts that weren’t her own clashed with those that were, a war of ideas and feelings on a battlefield of identity.
But now, in the quiet solitude of an empty store that had shut down for the night, she finally found some lucidity, hiding from what seemed to be the local militia roaming the streets outside. Had the entire village been mobilized to hunt her down? It seemed like it. Perhaps the tales of glitchen being bloodthirsty weren't as exaggerated as she thought.
Every distant echo of footsteps outside amplified her sense of vulnerability, but Catherine's heart had finally stopped hammering against her chest. She pressed her back against the cool mycelium shelving, her breaths shallow as she strained to listen for any sign of movement. The dim light filtering through the windows painted the room in muted hues, casting elongated shadows.
A soft rustle from the corner startled her. She tensed, ready to bolt at the slightest hint of danger. But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she recognized the source: a rat scurrying across the debris-strewn floor.
"Pull yourself together, Catherine," she whispered, the sound barely audible over the distant hum of activity outside, "You cannot remain here forever." Her voice was steady despite the lingering unease.
She cast a wary glance towards the broken window, through which the faint sounds of the search party echoed in the night. "And you'll need to move swiftly if you wish to avoid detection," she added, her thoughts already racing ahead to formulate a plan of escape.
She reached back into her memories before attempting to stand. How much of what she had seen had been real, and how much was the sword's influence? Was a woman really being assaulted? Why would there be sapiens in Jastria? And did that woman really have the face of the girl she had chased halfway across the mountains?
That last possible hallucination puzzled her. It snapped her out of the haze that would have led her to plunging the sword straight into the woman's heart. The theory she currently favored was that it had been conjured by her own subconscious as a defense against the sword, and if it was, it was a damned clever tactic.
If it wasn't a hallucination, it was a coincidence so extreme and horrible that she wondered what cosmic force had developed a vendetta against her.
"That being my dream girl is about as likely as…" she paused, "I'm not even sure what I hoped would happen, but whatever it was, there's no chance of it now."
Her words hung in the air, a bitter acknowledgment of the futility of her desires. She groaned. "Truly, what did I expect?" she lamented, her tone laced with bitter irony. "'Oh, miss sapien whom I have never seen, it's certainly grand and not at all creepy that you stalked me to my home with your cursed blood-drinking sword! How romantic! And how fortunate that I too am attracted to other species of the same gender! We should be wed immediately!'"
Catherine squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears threatening to spill over to remain unshed. Now was not the time for self-pity or introspection.
There was one thing she knew for certain, and she was trying hard not to think too deeply about it. The weight of it continued to bear down upon her. She had taken two lives. Human lives. Sapien, even. Just… cut through them like wheat. And didn't even stay long enough to enjoy the harvest. Their body parts were probably still laying there in that alley, already bled out. Wasteful.
She shook her head, tears leaking out despite her efforts. "Gods, this damned sword is influencing my thoughts," she whispered.
With a sharp exhale, Catherine forced herself to focus on the present. She couldn't afford to dwell on her actions just yet, not when her own survival hung in the balance. Gripping the hilt of the sword tightly, she steeled herself against its whispers. Summoning her anger and frustration, she directed her focus toward the blade, channeling her willpower into a commanding presence that cut through the fog of her mind. With each syllable, her resolve solidified, her mental fortitude bolstered by the force of her determination.
"You... Will... STAY... BACK!" she declared, her words echoing within the recesses of her mind with unwavering authority. The sudden rush of clarity that followed was palpable, as if the sword itself had recoiled from her command.
Seizing the momentary reprieve, Catherine methodically pieced together a mental map of the village, drawing upon her fragmented recollections to navigate its unlabeled streets. Though disoriented, she was not without direction.
Instead of exiting through the window she had broken to enter, Catherine sought out an alternative, her gaze falling upon the door at the back of the store. With caution, she got up and walked over to test the handle. It yielded to her touch.
The room beyond was cramped and dimly lit, its contents a jumbled amalgamation of storage and utility. A smaller window beckoned from the far wall, its narrow frame offering a glimpse of freedom beyond the confines of the store.
Before making her escape, Catherine's eyes swept over the shelves, an idea igniting as she spied a box of brushes, a coil of rope, and a small container of paint. Though not the chalk she had hoped for, they offered potential. She swiftly gathered the supplies.
Catherine painted a sigil upon the floor, its rough edges and uneven lines a stark contrast to the elegant symbol she had intended to make. "'Tis not pretty, but it will work," she said, formed the hand sign, and sang.
Soon, with a pacified rat in hand, she went to the back window and opened it. It led out into a fenced in area with what seemed to be a seldom used walkway behind. Through the rat's keen senses, she explored the path ahead, her consciousness melding with the creature's as she sent it forth into the unknown. The rat explored this path a bit before Catherine herself exited.
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The narrow walkway wound its way through the village's streets, through shadowed alcoves and deserted thoroughfares. With the rat as her guide, Catherine navigated the maze-like passages with ease as she evaded the searching gaze of the militia.
They ventured further, keeping cautious and alert, but the area they found themselves in seemed to be completely empty now.
"Where did everyone go?" she asked. Neither her sword nor the rat had an answer.
It did not take much time to reach the outer wall, but she was far from the portcullis where she had entered. She ran her hand against it's worn yet slick black stone surface. This wall was not nearly as climbable as the one in Misyrea.
With a frustrated sigh, Catherine’s surveyed her surroundings. She saw no one nearby, and neither did her rat friend.
"This won't be easy," she muttered to the rat. She shared feelings of appreciation through her mental link, then sent it on its way and focused her attention toward the task at hand.
Retrieving the stolen paint and paintbrush from her pocket, she took a seat on the ground and used the wall's surface to paint another sigil. Then she got comfortable before bringing her hands together, her fingers intertwining into a specific shape.
Closing her eyes, Catherine's spellsong flowed from her lips.
She knew that finding an animal that could do what she needed would take time, especially at this late hour. It would be far easier to wait until morning, but that meant being alone in the darkness with nothing but her own thoughts—and the insidious whispers of the sword.
"You there!" shouted someone behind her. "Halt!"
Catherine's heart quickened as she heard the command behind her, the authoritative voice slicing through the stillness of the night like a blade. With a measured breath, she stood and turned to face the source of the interruption, her eyes meeting those of a tall man clad in shining armor, his grip firm upon a menacing metal object.
"Are you a guard?" she inquired, her tone tinged with a hint of sarcasm. "Seems you've caught me vandalizing your wall."
The man's response was terse, his posture rigid with authority as he brandished the unfamiliar weapon in his hand. "Throw your blade aside!" he demanded, his voice laced with an undercurrent of threat. "This device is called a pistol. It's not much use against glitchen but it'll cause instant death to anything else. And you're not glitchen, are you?"
Catherine arched an eyebrow. "Quite a coincidence to be carrying a weapon that only kills non-glitchen," she remarked coolly. "Is it illegal to be sapien, then? Are all the guards here so xenophobic?"
"I am Apostle One-Ten, currently the highest authority in all of Jastria," the man declared. "And you are an intruder. Throw your weapon aside or I will pull this lever to activate the mechanism." He raised the gun at her, his finger poised upon the trigger with deadly intent.
"As you command," she sighed, and untied the sheathed sword from her waist, then nonchalantly tossed it into the tall grass.
"Now step forward. Slowly," One-Ten ordered as he watched her every move.
Catherine casually walked toward him as she said, "You can clearly see that I am unarmed and defenseless." She raised her empty hands for emphasis.
Just then, a massive nighthawk dove onto his face, razor sharp talons attempting to tear at his eyeballs. He fought it off of him just as Catherine launched herself into action, her fist connecting with bone-crushing force as she shattered his nose with a single, well-aimed blow. With a second punch he was sent stumbling backward, where the following kick put him on his back.
Disoriented, he attempted to rise, only to be met with a face full of paint that stung his wounds and clouded his vision.
Blinded and bewildered, One-Ten groped at his face, his efforts to clear his eyes hindered by the gauntlet that encased his hand. Meanwhile, Catherine seized the opportunity to uncoil her stolen rope, tossing the hook at the end into the air.
With a deft swoop, the nighthawk intercepted it, its powerful wings soon propelling it toward the top of the wall. As the bird disappeared from sight, Catherine wasted no time, snatching up the pistol One-Ten had dropped in the scuffle, pocketing it as she searched the grass for her sword.
Her fingers closed around the familiar sheath just as One-Ten regained his footing, his face contorted with rage and embarrassment as he charged at her.
Instead of meeting his challenge, she jumped back and upward, grabbing onto the rope that the nighthawk had luckily dropped the end of well enough to hook into the parapet above.
She climbed swiftly with the sword positioned awkwardly over her arms and under her chin, only stopping to look down when she had reached the halfway point. A smile played at the corners of her lips. True to her expectations, One-Ten was climbing after her, his progress hindered by the cumbersome weight of his armor.
With a mischievous smirk, Catherine reached into her boot, retrieving the small knife concealed within.
As One-Ten drew nearer, the realization of his impending fate dawned upon him, his expression shifting from determination to fear. He shouted a curse at her that cut off halfway, same as the rope as Catherine sliced through it, sending him plummeting toward the ground below.
She held the knife's handle in her teeth as she continued her climb. Her arms ached from all the effort, but she felt the sword sharing a bit of vitality to help her along.
Atop the wall, with the expansive sky stretching out above her, Catherine found a moment of respite. She rolled onto her back and gazed upward, her tired eyes tracing the patterns of the stars as they twinkled in the darkness. Beside her, the tired nighthawk nestled into a comfortable position.
"I will have to stay nearby," Catherine murmured. "I must get at those books."
With a long, slow sigh, she closed her eyes. The plan forming in her mind seemed foolish, fraught with uncertainty and peril. As all of her plans were. Yet the allure of knowledge beckoned to her, a tantalizing promise of secrets waiting to be unraveled.
"It will be quite a long time until I can sneak in again. And next time they won't be so lax."
Her eyes shot open. "Wait!" She sat up. "How am I going to get down from here?"
Standing, she picked up her dropped weapons and began to walk along the battlements. It did not take long to notice that there was no way to get up here from the ground, much like the towers in the village. In stories, glitchen always had wings. The ones she encountered did not, but clearly there had been truth to the tales in the past.
"Maybe I should live up here, have my food brought to me by animals," she said, ignoring practical challenges that such a plan would entail, and the fact that she no longer had an easy way to draw sigils.
As exhaustion finally overtook her, Catherine laid on the stone and cuddled with the nighthawk, her weary mind slipping into a realm of dreams and shadows. In her slumber, after she had felt the nighthawk leave to return home, an acute feeling of dizziness overtook her. She did not pay it much mind and slept through.
When she awoke, the first light of dawn was filtering through the canopy of trees above. Catherine found herself lying upon the ground, her body sprawled amidst the underbrush outside the towering walls of the village. Confusion clouded her thoughts as she struggled to make sense of how she had come to be there.
The mystery of her sudden descent from the wall was a puzzle with no clear solution. In the end, she could find no explanation for her inexplicable journey to the forest floor below; an enigma that would haunt her thoughts long after she had left the village behind.