Vae Victis - Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Revelations

Mask of the Drainer — No Investment; 7th Carving

I startled and woke.

The light was hitting my face, and the scent of blood filled my nostrils. For a moment, I froze, my mind confused and then I remembered. I remembered my hunt, the injury, I remembered Shimi using a healing potion and then the thirst taking over. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I did while the thirst was riding shotgun. It was still me, only I remembered it as if through a dream, with some holes. It was filled with running, with fighting, with blood.

I opened my eyes, then took a deep breath. Quickly, I stood up and looked around. I was lying next to a dead animal that was torn to pieces. I looked around and saw no sign of Shimi. I released my breath in relief. Then took stock of my situation. I had no idea where I was, which was the least of my worries. My clothes were shredded and soaked in blood, again. I saw faint scars all over my body, which would probably remain until night fell and my power returned. The animal next to me was unfamiliar to me, and it was too torn up for me to really identify any features. It was covered in claw marks, and I had apparently opened its side and pulled its organs out. I clawed its eyes out, and ripped its lower jaw off. I swallowed, and felt the taste of blood, fur, and flesh on my tongue.

My hands were red with blood, and I shuddered to think what I looked like. I stood up and looked up at the sun, it was about midday, if I was judging it correctly. I had half a day to go before night fell. I had to survive in the jungle for half a day while I was weakened. I started looking for any landmarks that I could recognize. Quickly, I realized that I would need to find the river. It was the only place that I knew, and which would let me orient myself. I made the decision, and started walking, I shouldn’t stay in one place for long.

“Saia, you there?”

“Feedback: Affirmative.”

I sighed in relief. “Do I want to know all that happened last night?”

“Feedback: The Host mental state deteriorated, leading to a primal and instinct based behavior.”

Yeah, that was about right. I started walking.

I kept looking around me, the shadows looking far scarier than they did at night. I knew that it was just the side-effect of feeling like a human again, but it didn’t mean that it also wasn’t true. [Lesser Strength] gave me a slight boost during the day, but otherwise I was almost helpless.

I found a tall tree, and decided that I should risk climbing it. If I could see the terrain, maybe spot the river I would at least know if I was going in the right direction. Climbing was… easier than I thought it would be. My nails were still as sharp and tough as they were at night, and with [Lesser Strength] I could pull myself up with ease. A few minutes of careful climbing and I pushed above the treetops to look around. Again, a sea of green and blue met my eyes. Then I noticed something in the distance, a massive red wall with lightning flashing through it, so tall that it towered over even the mountains in the distance. The blight. It took the breath away with its majesty when I had first seen it. It also reminded me of the vision. Of the feeling I felt… I remembered, what I felt with the beast, Sikiri, it was the same feeling I experienced in the vision, the touch of wrongness that the monsters held.

I was a fool, some things were greater than me and my wants.

I gazed at what Shimi had called the mist wall. It looked different during the day, more impressive somehow. I tried to remember where it had been when I had first seen it and then I used it to give myself a rough direction. After one last look, I started my climb down and the search for the river.

* * *

I found the river a few hours later, and one near death experience later. A bird half my size had attempted to swoop down on me. I was lucky that I heard it coming at all, and had the time to evade. I managed to land a solid hit with a rock throw which made it leave me alone. I was probably too alien and too much of an effort to pursue, for which I was thankful.

The first thing I did was wash myself as best as I could. I had already asked Saia to consume all the blood from my body, but I still felt dirty. Then, I headed upstream, hoping to find the waterfall which would then help me find the ruins. I kept my head on a swivel, looking for threats. As the sun started to set, I reached my destination, and from there started my way back to the ruins and camp. Night fell before I reached the ruins.

I hesitated before the crack in the ruins, I hadn’t found Shimi’s body near me, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t have done something before rushing away. It was all a blur. With a deep breath, I entered the ruins and was met with the pale light of the sphere protecting the camp.

“You are back,” Shimi said from near the campfire.

I closed my eyes and whispered a silent prayer of thanks to God that I had turned my back on. I walked forward and saw Shimi tense; he held a dagger in his hands.

“I… I’m sorry,” I said slowly.

He tilted his head at me.

“It was the thirst,” I said quickly. “When you used the potion, I think that it spent all of my stored reserves, it made me hungry. I’m good now.”

He looked at me for another few long seconds and then sighed. “I guess now we know how it affects your kind,” he said. “It was my fault; such tests should be done with greater care.”

I opened my mouth to disagree and then… I sneezed. Then, the Shimi that was sitting slowly turned to mist and I felt cold steel at my neck. I froze and turned my eyes to the side where the real Shimi stood next to me. “I apologize,” he said as he pulled his weapon away. “I had reason to be careful.”

I swallowed and nodded, the sensation of the weapon on my throat a painful reminded that I could’ve died without even realizing it. I knew that Shimi was powerful, even weakened as he was, but I somehow always had this idea inside of my head that I could’ve fought him, or at least that if we ever fought it would be head on. I was on the lowest step of the ladder in this world. And I had to finally admit to myself that I needed help, it was long overdue. I knew why I tried so hard to do everything on my own, why I nearly deluded myself into thinking that I could compare. Living a life where I had no choices of my own shaped me, and this place was my first and probably only chance of a change.

The vision, being chosen as an Exemplar and brought here in the first place. It made me feel like fate was on my side, like this was what I was supposed to do. But now I understood that I had just stumbled onto something that I probably shouldn’t have. I had no right to think of myself as some kind of a savior, someone who was going to prevent what I saw in the vision.

Slowly we made our way to the campfire which somehow wasn’t making any smoke. It was a testament to how exhausted I was, that I didn’t even question how he had managed that. We sat down and he provided a new set of clothes. Then after a while he broke the silence.

“How is your arm?”

I glanced at it, knowing that it should’ve still felt sore but was now perfectly fine. “All healed up.”

“Good,” Shimi said. “Though, I think that we should test the potion on you during the day as well. Just so we know how it affects your changes then, if at all.”

I wasn’t quite sure if that was smart. “Not without blood on hand, I don’t think,” I said.

Shimi nodded. “Yes, that would be prudent.”

“I got another Carving, no skill again,” I told him.

He sighed. “Seventh Carving, it was to be expected. You are unlikely to gain another skill until your First Investment.”

We settled into an awkward silence. I felt like some of the trust between us was broken, and I decided to try and mend it.

“I am sorry for attacking you,” I apologized again.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything, instead he turned to look at the fire softly crackling. I looked at him, seeing this alien being illuminated by the soft light of the fire. It cast him in shadows, accentuating his features. Nine fox tails, fuzzy ears on top of his head, blue skin and orange eyes. A long pointy nose and wide mouth. In the faint light he looked like something out of a story, a trickster demon waiting to steal your soul. No one would ever mistake him for a human. By all rights, I should be afraid of him, I should recoil from what was alien. I didn’t, he had saved my life, twice. And I had saved his.

This world was filled with dangers, I knew that, there were secrets and events happening all around me that I didn’t understand. I was being overwhelmed, I realized. Saia, the message, Kirios, the Grand Spell, all of these things were weighing on me, fighting for my attention when all that I should be doing was thinking about surviving. Planning what I would be doing once I got back to Earth. Would I spread what I knew to others? Should I prepare them for what would happen once our protections were lifted and Earth became a full part of Kirios? Or should I look only after myself, prioritizing my own survival.

“There are things that you should know,” I started.

He looked up from the fire to meet my gaze. “I understand the importance of secrets, you don’t need to share anything that you don’t want to.”

I shook my head. “I do want to. I… I need to, I think, it is important. I’ve not had an easy life, I’ve never had choices of my own. I don’t trust easily, nor do I like serving others. This place, this world, I felt like it was my chance to be free for the first time in my life, that it was an opportunity. I don’t want to die,” I admitted, it was harder and easier than I thought it would be. I wanted to live and experience a life on my own terms. I met his eyes.

“This place is a deathtrap, and I, we both, need help if we are to survive. So,” I paused, taking a deep breath. “As a child I was sold to a powerful man, and I had served for every day since. This,” I raised one hand to touch the raw wound around my neck. “This is from when the people I served, who I considered my family, decided to execute me, to hang me. The Master, the man who ruled where I came from had decided that I failed. I had killed the people that had executed someone under my Master’s domain, a young child, and in doing so I had started a war and caused the death of one of our own. Someone important. My years of service meant nothing before that one mistake.”

I closed my eyes, thinking back on my last day on Earth. I’d spent it in the dungeon, too drugged to do anything to escape. The Master had made his decision, he hadn’t even listened to me. I was sentenced the moment I returned and said what happened. I didn’t understand exactly why, but then again, I didn’t want to. They had thrown me aside.

“I am sorry that happened to you, Marianna,” Shimi said softly.

I met his eyes, and I could see the compassion in them. “Thank you for saying it, but I didn’t tell you to seek sympathy. I just wanted you to know some of my past, so that you understood who I was.”

Shimi looked away, then after a few seconds back to me. “I was seven years old when the Grand Spell brought my world here. I had grown up surrounded by conflict, by death. I lived by mother’s side, learning from her that power was the only thing that could guarantee survival. My mother is not a kind person, I did not learn about love and compassion from her. I have done many things in my life, I had been a soldier, I had been a scholar, I had been a leader. I was… lucky, lucky to have met the right people at the right time, that I had been given opportunities that have granted me great power. Once, I had tried to use my power to do good, I had tried to make the world a better place, a more peaceful place. I failed, and I retreated from everyone, I became an adventurer, seeking knowledge that was lost.”

He grew quiet for a few long seconds, and then spoke.

“In YoKai-ni culture, a name is one of our most important possessions. You must understand, it is not something given out lightly, even when the other person already knows it. To repeat it is to remind the one you are conversing with about who you are. Our true names are only ever used when the situation calls for it, when something of great importance is taking place. Because our names change with us, they tell our story, they reflect our lives and who we are at the moment. The names we have are given to us by others, sometimes it is by someone close, making it a private and intimate thing. Sometimes, an influential figure would get a name from the people around them, their followers or even enemies. At birth, every YoKai-ni is given a single descriptor, it serves as what we call the beginning verse of our name and stays with us for the rest of our life. The name of our family, what we call the end verse is added to it, given to us by one or both parents. But all that comes in between has to be earned. The name my mother gave me at birth was Shadow, for I was born in the Shadow of the Old Tree. With my mother’s end verse I was once the Shadow Beneath the Light of the Broken Moon. That name had changed many times in my life, as I grew, as I changed, as I made friends and enemies.”

He kept his eyes on mine, and I could feel the weight of what he was about to share with me. It was an important part of his world, of his culture and people.

“My name is the Shadow That Quells Empires Stands Grinning And Triumphant Beneath the Light of the Broken Moon.”

I inclined my head. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” I paused, then tilted my head. “Shadow?”

He smiled. “That will do.”

I glanced down at my wrist, the silver brace on it. It was time. “If we are doing introductions, Saia, why don’t you introduce yourself.”

“Feedback: This Unit’s designation is Self-replicating Autonomous Interface Armor unit, Prototype Mark 3, current designation: Saia.”

Shimi, or rather Shadow, looked at my wrist with wide eyes. I rolled my eyes. I held up a hand then cleared my throat. “Shadow, this is Saia, Saia this is Shadow, why don’t you, uh, introduce yourself in person. We organics like to talk to things that at least appear lively.”

“Feedback: There is no difference between my forms, all of them are drone forms. However, this Unit understands your meaning.”

A moment later she shifted over my arm and I rotated my hand to put out my palm, the goo arranged itself in the shape of the dragon. She looked at Shadow and tilted her head. “Statement: Greetings.”

Shadow stood, his tails freezing behind him and his ears twitching. Then his eyes widened, and I saw fear in them. No, not just fear, but terror.

“Statement: This unit’s designation is Self-replicating Autonomous Interface Armor, Prototype Mark 3, current designation: Saia,” she repeated.

“Marianna Rojas,” Shadow said slowly, his body completely still and his eyes glued to Saia. “Why do you have what appears to be a dragon hatchling on your hand.”

I blinked. “You know what she is?”

Shadow’s eye slid up to meet mine, then they narrowed. “Explain, everything,” he said tersely. Then, he pulled himself back. “Please.”

I explained, telling him how I explored the ruin, and how I found the rift. I told him about what I had encountered in there and then how I found Saia. She chirped in with a few clarifications. His expression once I came to bonding was… dangerous, but he didn’t interrupt. Once I finished the story, he looked down at Saia, deep in thought.

“A piece of land, floating in space?” Shadow asked. I had just finished describing what I saw.

“Yes,” I answered. “It was as if someone had just scooped up a hill and a few buildings. It all looked abandoned, though.”

“These monsters that you described,” Shimi started. “I recognize them, deep dwellers, they live mostly in caves on Du’Vir. They came along with the dwarves, though, the ones that I am familiar with are a bit larger and stronger than what you described.”

“What I saw in their memories, it made me think of something,” I started. Shadow tilted his head and one of his ears twitched. “To them it was as if they were in a cave and then they were there, the light that they saw was the same as what I saw when I was brought to this place. If they are from the same time as the dwarves, then I think that the Grand Spell just kept a few of them somewhere, and then dropped them there when it needed them.”

“Why do you think that they were just not brought there from Du’Vir?”

“The fact that you say they are supposed to be larger and stronger. You said that when the Grand Spell takes a world, it floods it with Source, mutating all life?”

Shimi nodded. “Yes… they could have been the same animals, only they had not gone through thousands of years of living on Kirios, adapting to these Source levels. And that place… it could have been a piece of land that the Grand Spell didn’t use.”

“Statement: This unit did not perceive any change in the state of its existence. However, it had become apparent that something had occurred to change the nature of reality while I was abandoned.”

Shadow was pacing about. “You don’t understand what this represents,” he said at last.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He grimaced and paused, he opened his mouth but didn’t speak. Then after a moment he continued pacing. “Dragons are some of the most dangerous beings on Kirios. Only a few are known about, the great dragon of the Storm Peaks on Elvaros, the Deep Terror of Du’Vir, as some examples. They do not interact with people often, and most of those interactions end in blood. Armies had gone after them and were wiped out to the last man, rearranging the landscape in the process. Most people leave them alone. The few times they had acted, it shook the entire world. We had always assumed that dragons have lived in the times of the Ancient Ones. But now… what you told me,” he shook his head. “If they had no connection with the Ancient Ones, if they are… artificial lifeforms like the stoneforged of the dwarves… Saia—”

“—Not necessarily,” I interrupted, shelving the knowledge that there already were artificial lifeforms in this world. His ear twitched as he turned his attention to me. “Well, Saia was made in the image of Ke Erzi, so the dragons that live here could be their remnants.”

He closed his eyes. “Possible,” he said. “But even that would mean so much that you cannot properly understand. We believed that the Elves were the first race brought here since the creation of the Grand Spell, but if they were not, then how many cycles had this world gone through? How many Great Expansions? So much was lost to the ages, that we have no idea about the distant past. We have the remnants of the Ancient Ones, but most of our knowledge is us filling in the gaps based on what we know, or what we think we know. This can change so much.”

He grew quiet, and then glanced at Saia. “Tell me dragon,” he said slowly. “Do your creators have the same markings as the ones you have on your skin? The hexagons?”

Saia tilted her head. “Feedback: Negative, the appearance of all Self-replicating Autonomous Interface Armors is the result of our Structural Biomass.”

Shimi grew quiet.

I spoke. “Why did you ask that?”

Shimi met my eyes. “I met a dragon, once, long ago when I was a child. My mother wanted to… it is not important,” he closed his eyes, his chin turned upward and his expression turned wistful. “It was as green as the deepest forests, as large as a hill, towering above me, its eye as large as my entire body. It was so long ago, but I still remember, it was covered in the same type of markings.”

I glanced down at Saia, at the hexagonal shapes all over its silver surface. That would mean that dragons were probably all artificial. Or the dragon was actually wearing the armor like Saia.

“The truth is, it cannot be changed, only our understanding of it,” Shimi sighed, he turned to look at the corner where the rift used to be. “Dwelling on this will not help us survive the jungle. And I fear that the Grand Spell has new things in store for us. This rift for one, I have never seen anything like it before and I suspect that it is not an Ancient One trap. I fear that it is a spark of change, and that always brings turmoil and death to the world. The last time the Grand Spell introduced something new was when it made the ancient lands soaked with Source wake up, creating the Elementals,” he closed his eyes, almost in remembrance. “Millions died, and the world lost much it has taken us hundreds of years to recover. This time, it has added something new at the same time it is bringing over another world, I fear for the future.”

I grimaced, then decided that I shouldn’t delay much longer. “There is something else that I got to show you.”

I said, he tilted his head and looked at me with an expression that almost made me want to keep my mouth shut. But I had decided on this course, I would be trusting, I would put good into the world and see if it would reward me with the same. If I was going to live free, I would do it on my own terms.

His expression turned pained, and then he motioned for me to go ahead.

I stood and had him follow me. Saia sat on my shoulder as I led him through the corridor, then down the stairs and over the sinkhole, into the small room and a crack leading to the hidden area.

We entered in silence, and he looked around with his eyes wide. “This is incredible, and so preserved,” he said as he looked at mostly ruined furniture. He noticed what had once been a bookshelf. “Bights, books?”

“It’s too bad that they are completely ruined,” I said, there was nothing but dust.

“Ruined?” He asked, his eyes meeting mine. “No, not ruined. It is all here,” he pointed at the bookshelf. “There are people who have skills that can repair them, this place has been sealed. There are no pieces missing. I need to gather this, take it to the people who can restore it. So much knowledge.”

I blinked, I hadn’t realized. There wasn’t anything on Earth that would be able to restore something so clearly broken down. I was impressed. I glanced at Saia, wondering if her creators could’ve done it.

“There is more,” I said then led him to the other room. He froze once we entered, staring at the statue on the other side. Slowly, he walked forward, glancing down at the remains of Kolan Shuk. He stood there in silence for a long time.

I walked up to stand next to him.

“We never knew exactly how they looked,” Shadow said, then bowed his head. “Those images,” he said, turning to look over my shoulder behind us. “It looks like the blight war.”

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know. Instead, I reached for my belt and a small satchel with a crystal inside of it. I opened it and pulled out the white crystal then placed it on the table in front of Shadow.

He frowned at it.

“What is—” the message activated.

“Hello, friend from across time…”

I watched him as his expression went from shock to disbelief. He stood motionless and listened to the message that probably filled in many blanks about the history of his world. Once Kolan Shuk’s message finished, he glanced in my direction, then looked at the crystal.

“Touch it,” I told him.

Hesitantly, he did as I asked. His eyes closed, but I could see them moving behind the eyelids. It didn’t take long for him to step back, his hand pulling away from the crystal as if he was burned by it.

He looked at the crystal for a long moment, not saying anything. I let him digest what he had just experienced, I remembered the feeling all too well. Then, I felt something inside my chest expand. The impression was revealed in my mind, a feeling given meaning.

Ornament of the Revelator; No Investment; 2nd Carving

[One Truth Verified] skill gained.