Vae Victis - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Discovery

As soon as the night fell, I rejoiced in feeling all of my power again. Wanting to take advantage of as much of the night as possible, Saia—in her bracer form—and I headed toward the far end of the room. I reached the entrance to the corridor and frowned. The doorway was… large, at least double my height and double that in width. The corridor beyond was the same size. I looked back at the room I was in and realized that it too was large. I had assumed that it used to be a hall of some kind, but… why build corridors that were so large? Either this building was once supposed to appear grand, or… the people that used it were… big. Perhaps as big as the dragons. Or I just had no idea about their architecture, either or.

I started walking down the corridor.

There were cracks in the wall, as well as a lot of dust covering the floor. I saw a few openings with stairs leading down beneath the ground, but after only a few steps the openings were buried either by the debris of a collapsed wall or just earth. I got a sense that this place had been here and abandoned for a very long time. Finally, after several minutes of brisk walking I heard something at the edge of my hearing range. I slowed, but didn’t stop. Instead, I gripped my glaive and slowly made my way forward. Quickly, it became apparent that what I was hearing was the sound of flowing water. I reached the end of the corridor and entered a new chamber. It looked like it was a mirror chamber to the one that I jumped in. Except that this one had no cracks that let light in on the ceiling, but it did have a large section of the wall on the far side of the room that was collapsed, and a small stream flowing into the room. That corner was filled with a pool and once I saw that there were no other threats in the room I approached it.

Even my eyes struggled to see much in the dark room so I raised my wrist.

“Can you make me a light? Even faint one will do, I noticed that your eyes glow.”

Saia obliged immediately by creating a narrow band that shone with a pale blue glow. Even that minuscule amount of light was enough for my eyes to see clearly in the dark. I looked down at the pool, saw my own reflection, and froze.

Was that me?I nearly recoiled from the person I saw reflected back at me. My clothes were ruined, torn and soaked in blood, so much so that the original color could barely even be seen. Despite the awful state of my clothes, it was my face that drew attention the most. My neck had a long brand going around it, the noose wound was raw, half scabbed over half scarred, it was a mess at least three fingers thick. Caked blood was everywhere and I could still see some parts of the wound that were wet from the healing skin. I reached up with my fingers, wincing as I was reminded of the pain. I had pushed it into the farthest reaches of my mind, but it was still there.

My chin and mouth were surrounded by black in the dim light, covered with the blood of different animals. My cheeks were smudged with it and my long brown hair matted together. My eyes stared at me from a gaunt face of someone who hadn’t had a rest in days.

I was a mess. I touched the water, the cold of it sent a shock through my nerves. I cupped a bit of it and splashed it on my face, then again, and again, faster. I scrubbed at my face trying to get the blood off. Until I found myself naked and walking into the pool. Time seemed to pass in a blur as I tried to wash all that blood off me.

* * *

A short while later, still feeling tired and raw, but at least somewhat clean. I walked out of the pool and looked down at my dirty and torn clothes. I didn’t have anything else to wear. But then something occurred to me.

“Hey Saia,” I called.

“Feedback: Yes?”

“You can consume organic matter, right? Can you consume the blood on my clothes?”

“Feedback: Consuming the Host’s biomass can only be done with the explicit command from the Host.”

Right, most of that blood was mine. “Do it.”

Saia flowed down on the ground, then over my clothes. It took a lot less time than consuming corpses had. Once she was done, she returned to my wrist and my torn clothes looked a lot less dirty. I put them on, amazed at the fact that I saw no blood on them.

“Thank you,” I told her.

Before she could answer, the world started to shake. A deep rumble rose up from the earth. I stumbled as the ground beneath me shifted. A crack opened up and then spread over to the wall. A piece of the ceiling broke off above me, and I jumped and rolled out of the way.

My ears were filled with the sound of the earthquake’s roar. And then, just as it had come, it slowly abated. The groaning of the earth settled and stilled.

That was a big one. The frequency seemed to indicate that this was a common occurrence in this place. I climbed back to my feet when a sound of something crashing echoed from down the corridor where I came from.

“Fuck,” I whispered one it settled a while later. “What are the chances that the way back just collapsed?”

“Feedback: Insufficient information.”

“Some help you are,” I grumbled, and headed back to check.

As I walked something caught my attention. I saw something in front of us, almost like a shadow or black mist that moved. It was too fast, and I couldn’t be sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The light given off by Saia cast my surrounding in shadows that made it hard to see properly beyond a few meters. I turned to her and whispered. “Saia, can you turn off the light.”

She did as I asked, and as the blue light faded and my eyes adapted. I saw no signs of any movement, but I noticed another light source from up ahead. Immediately, I readied my glaive, then continued on to investigate. It didn’t take us long to reach the source, or at least the way to it. One of the passages leading beneath the ground that was buried collapsed into what looked to be a sinkhole. The stairs down now cut off suddenly leading into a pit of nothingness around two meters across. The light however was coming from the other side, around a bend in the corridor at the bottom of the stairs.

I debated whether or not I should investigate, but ultimately, any clues to my situation were welcome. This was how I found Saia, and even though I was still trying not to think about what being bonded to her meant, she had proven her worth.

I walked down to the edge, then leapt over in one smooth move. Once on the other side I started walking down with care, not making any noise. Once I reached the bottom, the corridor split into two. The one on the left was collapsed, but the right one continued for a few meters before opening up into a room, from where the light was coming from. I headed deeper, still not seeing the source of the light as it was on the side of the room, obscured by the corner. What I saw inside the room was nothing of interest. The white light was illuminating an empty room filled with dust and dirt. Some roots had punched through the ceiling and now stabbed from it into the side of the wall where the stone had collapsed and dirt spilled through. The rest of the room was empty.

I entered and turned toward the source of the light. The first thing that struck me was the scent of stale air. The second was that the light was coming from a hole in the wall, a section of it had collapsed, by the looks of it as a result of the recent earthquake. I approached the hole and peered through. I still couldn’t see the source of the light, but I could see into the room. This once was far different. There were broken tables and chairs, collapsed from the weight of age. The floor was covered with a rotted carpet, and the walls had torn tapestries, a few of them still mostly intact, but many having pieces of them on the ground.

Somehow, this room had to have been preserved, hidden away. It offered me my first real chance at finding answers. I climbed in and crawled through the tight hole to enter the room. Gently I placed my foot on the carpet and looked around. There was a door shaped opening on the wall to my right, the light coming from within. What struck me was that this room was a lot more normal sized, at least compared to the rest of this building. The ceiling was just over three meters high, and the door was maybe wide enough for two people to pass through comfortably.

I looked around the room first. Seeing the collapsed tables with legs rotted and remnants of items on the floor. Most of them were square gray stones, though I couldn’t tell if they were always that or if age had stripped them of everything. Broken pieces of what looked to me like glass were everywhere, near the tables, as if there had been bottles on them once. I walked around, looking at the faded tapestries and not seeing anything that I could discern.

“Saia, do you see anything familiar?”

“Feedback: Negative. The art style does not match anything in my archives.”

I continued, coming up on what had once been a bookshelf, or at least I thought it had, it was covered in piles of dust with a few pieces of long leathery looking strips here and there. If those had been books once, they had a long time to turn into this.

With nothing else of interest to see I turned to the next room. I entered and immediately saw the source of the light. It was a fist sized gemstone placed on top of a stone table at the end of the room. The room was long and gave me the same feeling as churches on Earth. It was all made out of stone and the walls on both sides were covered in an arch with images painted within them that were still somewhat clear, one per wall, it made me think of temples. Everything here looked a lot more preserved. The end of the room had a statue of a winged being, kneeling with its head bowed and hands resting on its knees, placed just above the wide stone table. Below it, I saw something crumpled on the ground.

I entered and first looked around at the images on the walls. The one on the right was painted in hues of red, showing a horde of monsters on an open field. Big hulking creatures with horns, some with wings, others that were grotesquely misshapen. They reminded me a bit of the depictions of demons in Earth’s mythologies. It was a battle, the image was damaged in the corner and I could not see who the monsters were fighting, though the monsters were clearly winning. In the distance the sky was painted as a maelstrom of red clouds, with monsters flying out of its center.

That was… ominous. I turned and looked at the one on the other wall. This one also had the monsters, but only half of it was filled with their depictions. The other was damaged again, so I could not see who the force that opposed them was, but up above in the sky was a figure shrouded in white-blue light, so much so that all features were obscured. It seemed like this being was leading the charge against the monsters.

With little clues there, I moved toward the end of the room. As I got closer I could see what was on the ground. I paused as I recognized bones, it was a body of someone who had died a long time ago. The clothes might’ve been blue once, though by now the color had mostly faded. The skull shape made me look up at the statue.

It was incredibly detailed, enough so that I could see that the wings were feathered and could discern every single one. The being’s face was humanoid, the nose barely existing and looking more like just two holes, the mouth was beneath with thin lips, barely more than a line that was turned downward into a sad expression. The eyes were closed, on either side of the nose in the same place a human would have them. The head extended back into a kind of crest that ended in four triangular points.

It was very clearly an alien, the same as the one to whom the body belonged to. I elected not to touch the body, it didn’t feel right, but instead I looked at the gemstone on the table. It was the only thing that looked like it was in pristine condition.

I leaned down to get a better look and it flashed. Immediately, I jumped back as the light shimmered in the air and then a fuzzy image appeared above it. A moment later it sharpened, and I saw an alien from the waist up, with pale, sickly looking weathered skin, black wings, and blue robes in far better condition than those on the body below. A hologram?

It looked down at me with bright orange eyes, somehow appearing as if it could see through me completely. I froze under that gaze, there was power in it that reminded me of my sire. Then, it started to speak.

The voice that spoke was deep and carrying, it echoed in the stone room. I couldn’t comprehend it at first, but then I felt a pressure inside my head lasting only a split second and I could understand its words.

“…friend from across time. I am Kolan Shuk, and I leave this message, this warning, and a plea, in the hope that all is not yet lost for you and yours as it is for me and mine. Will you do a dead one a favor and listen? I can only hope that you are of a stalwart heart.”

What did I stumble on? I stepped closer, listening to the dead being’s words closely.

“If you are here, listening to this message, then you are trapped in the machinations of the Last Intent, the spell of infinite potential, our curse, our punishment, what could’ve been our salvation if but not for pride. To understand my warning, you must first know some of our past. We called ourselves the Vim, and we were the children of the Way, utilizing the Source to Weave magics that had helped us rule our world and spread beyond it. I shall spare you of the details, I leave behind books of our history pieced together, written by my hand, which you may read at your leisure. Time, time is of importance, even though it might not always seem so.”

I grimaced, from what I had seen, the books didn’t survive. The being shook its head, and seemed to sigh.

“What matters is that the greatest Source wielder among us, Valair Ankah, saw a threat, something for which all of his peers ridiculed and banished him for. In response, he crafted the greatest work any of us had ever even imagined, a thing of legends and godhood. Pure will woven into the fabric of the Way itself, will that rewrote reality. I do not know the truth, I confess. Forgive me for that, dear friend from across time. I remain ignorant, despite my might. From what I had managed to gather since, it is my belief that the events leading to the activation of his great work, his Last Intent, are as follow: In the pursuit of our expansion into our solar system we encountered something, a force of unknown origin of which I had only managed to find fragmented records of in the fall of our civilization. From what I can see, we did not first know of what we have stumbled on, nor I admit, did my people even believe in it. They banished Valair for urging drastic measures, and when they refused him, he took matters into his own hand.”

The being paused, and I could see a weariness in his pose, he was alien, yet his mannerisms were so familiar. I saw the weight of responsibility in his eyes.

“He unleashed a spell of godlike might. A spell that changed how the Source worked, that reshaped our world, and the Weaves of the Way we had crafted over the eons collapsed. Valair put in restrictions in the base nature of reality, and made it so that every being of reason could touch the Source. His spell reshaped the way that Source interacted with Souls and coalesced it into a Soul-wrought Masks as the conduits for the Way's power. They grow with us, granting power and allowing for direct tapping into the reality’s reservoirs of Source for using the Way. It changed everything, and though it offers great power, it is the end of the Vim.”

The being’s tired eyes rose, looking up almost as if staring at something that only it could see.

“The Last Intent’s control over reality is absolute. We’ve learned of this the hard way. My people attempted to return things to what they were, and all such endeavors ended with failure. This last one was… folly, I must admit, I beg forgiveness even from you friend from across time. We failed, and in doing so we sealed the fate of the Vim forever. We will not survive another turning.”

Its eyes turned back down to stare into mine, holding me enthralled.

“I know that you are not of my kind, friend from across time. I know this because I am and have always been a seer. When the Last Intent came into being, we all of us rebelled against it, refusing its offers of power. In time, I had changed my mind, and dwelled deep into the currents of power that it offered. At this time, I hold the Mask of the Fateseer Mage of the Old Ways, I have reached the Eight Investment Fifth Carving, the highest ever achieved by any of the Vim to my knowledge. I have seen the end of my kind, and though we are separated by a gulf of time, I have seen the end of yours. I do not know who you are or even if you will listen and heed my warning, friend from across time, I know only that you will come upon this message. Or perhaps not, perhaps none shall ever find my words, fate is a tangle of threads even I struggle to unwind. Perhaps this is all in vain.”

It seemed sad there, lost, defeated. I looked up at its image, seeing someone who was on their last legs. The being was a seer? Someone who could see the future? I had so many answers, but also so many more questions. Finally, the being seemed to shake itself out of a stupor and continue.

“Hear my warning, the threat is coming, I do not know when or how, but I know that all life is threatened, on this world and all others. I have used my greatest skill to gaze into the future and I see only corruption of Source. A twisted landscape filled with the corrupted Way ruled by vile emotion and defilement of the Way. I do not know how much time you have left. It could be that my message is already too late, or you could have generations still. It matters not, for within this recording crystal, I leave proof in the form of a vision of the past. I had never seen this threat with my own eyes, though I have seen its influence. The vision is a memory pulled from Valair Ankah’s own mind. I recovered it in the ruins of the Emperor’s Palace, who he had once served. I had long tried to glean some meaning or clue from this vision, with little success. It is my belief now that Valair was right, and his drastic measure right. Regardless, I have written down my thoughts for you to find within my library. If you would hear my plea, my warning, touch the crystal, and see all that I have seen, hear all that I have heard. If you have it in your heart to listen to a stranger’s last request, friend from across time, spread my words wide, prepare your people for the threat discovered in my time shall grow until it consumes everything in its path. Prepare and embrace Valair’s gift, his Last Intent, so that you may try and banish what mine had unleashed.” The being bowed its head and cross its arms across its chest. “May the Everlasting Sun always warm your path.”

With that, the recording ended.