Chapter 363 - Necessary Pain (Patreon)

“Is he well?” asked Sasha, sitting cross-legged on the couch. Pudge paced nearby, clearly in a state of unrest.

“I think so,” he admitted, though he wasn’t certain that he believed his own words. Zeke had once again put himself in harm’s way, and as a result, he’d nearly died. He’d pulled through – in no small part due to Kianma’s efforts – but would that always be the case? It was easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Zeke would always recover, but Pudge had seen too much to actually believe that. “I don’t know. I just wish he would be more careful.”

The problem wasn’t that he’d thrown himself into battle. That was expected and probably necessary. The real issue came from the fact that the entire situation had been completely avoidable. If Zeke hadn’t sought out the ice palace, the frost elf never would have been forced to respond. But what did he do after winning that battle? He’d doubled down, practically forcing Sasha to cast a spell that ultimately resulted in the formation of the false ice elemental.

“You can’t be careful with quests,” Sasha said. “That’s not how it works, Pudge. Think about the Ixilak Hive. None of us had to go in there, but we did it anyway because that was how we could progress. And you took it even further than the rest of us, too.”

“I know, but…”

He trailed off. Sasha was right. Back in those so-called Trials, he’d pushed himself to the very end, conquering an entire level alone. In the moment, he’d had his reasons. And he had taken what precautions he could, spending hours sneaking through that final level until he’d managed to kill the queen and complete the dungeon. However, he couldn’t claim that doing so had come without significant danger.

No – putting oneself in mortal danger was the only real way to progress. Perhaps he could have continued to gain levels much more safely, but without risk, those levels would be hollow. More, he’d have never completed his quest, and as a result, he’d have been fighting without his most powerful skill. As such, he’d have probably died on the long trek from the Pale Moon Territory to the tundra of the Ianthian Wastes.

Still, he considered Zeke’s actions to be reckless.

“I think you’re just frustrated that you weren’t able to help more,” Sasha said, leaning forward a little.

That was probably true, too. Pudge knew he’d been blessed with uncommon power that put him on a level far above most normal people. But it wasn’t enough. He’d barely been capable of tipping the balance against the false ice elemental. If it had been even a little more powerful…

Pudge tried to push that thought away, but it stubbornly clung to his mind. Above all, though, he knew he needed to progress. He needed to develop in such a way that he could truly make a difference when Zeke inevitably bit off more than he could chew. To that end, he’d started to plan.

As of yet, it mostly boiled down to spending every spare moment in the Hunting Grounds honing his fighting technique, but soon enough, he intended to branch out into other, more concrete areas. Like hunting down and killing monsters and meditating on his two paths. That way, he could gain levels and learn how to leverage the power that came with increased stats to the best effect. Soon, he hoped to gain a new skill as well.

The only problem was that there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. There was so much to do that the moment he started to put plans into action, he felt overwhelmed by the sheer scope of his intended training regimen.

“Take it piece by piece,” Sasha advised, putting her hand on his shoulder. At some point, Pudge had stopped pacing, and Sasha had risen from her spot on the couch. But the moment he felt her presence, he realized that he’d been on the verge of panic. Not because he feared for himself. Rather, he was terrified that he wouldn’t be whatever Zeke needed him to be. What if he was too weak to save his companion? What if he tried and failed? What if…

What if Zeke died?

Pudge’s heart nearly seized when that thought took hold of his mind. The idea of life without Zeke was…more than just difficult to imagine. It was horrifying. Even being separated for as long as they had been had been difficult to endure. But going through the rest of his life knowing that he would never return to Zeke’s side? The mere thought was enough to drive him to panic.

“It’s okay,” Sasha soothed, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze. It was such a small gesture, but it was enough to stave off the panic. “One piece at a time. That’s what I do with my spellwork. You wouldn’t believe how complex it can all get, but if I just focus on one little piece at a time, eventually, it’ll all come together. That’s what you have to do, Pudge. Just take it step by step until you get where you want to go.”

Pudge took a deep breath. One step at a time. That wasn’t so different from how he’d approached the journey through the wilderness. Looking at a map and knowing that it would be hundreds, if not thousands, of miles before he reached his destination was overwhelming, too. If he tried to focus on the entirety of the journey, he would have collapsed under the weight of it all. However, so long as he concentrated on each individual day, he could bear it. So it would have to be with his training regimen.

For now, he would focus on his technique. Then, he’d add the other steps when the time came.

“What do I do in the meantime?”

“Your best,” Sasha said. “That’s all anyone can ask.”

“What if…it’s not enough?” he asked, turning to look her in the eyes.

“It will be,” she answered, and in that moment, Pudge could feel her sincerity. Perhaps she was wrong. Maybe her faith in him was misplaced. But the fact that she believed in him, and without apparent reservation, was enough to push the worst of his doubts to the side. They were still there – maybe they always would be – but with Sasha by his side, they didn’t feel quite as impactful as they otherwise would have been.

At least for now.

After a few moments, Pudge ran his hand through the thick fur on his head, then said, “I need to go check on Zeke. Do you want to come with me?”

Sasha shook her head. “He…unnerves me,” she said. “There’s so much mana in him. I can see earth and unattuned, but there’s so much more there as well. And it’s all tangled up. All of that shouldn’t be able to coexist, and certainly not in someone his level. But he…he seems…it just feels right. Like for him, that’s how it should be. I don’t know what to make of it.”

It wasn’t the first time Sasha had admitted that Zeke made her anxious, but she’d never been so specific before. “Is that not normal?” he asked. He could barely sense mana, much less catalogue its usual patterns.

She shook her head. “No. Not at all,” Sasha stated, plopping back down on the couch. She lay back, and with a sigh, went on, “That’s one of the hardest things about sorcery – getting all the different types of mana to play together. That’s why I have an entire skill devoted to mana conversion. But with him, it’s almost like the rules are reversed. Mana types that should repel one another suddenly stick together like they can’t even exist without one another. Maybe in his case, they can’t. I don’t know. But it just highlights how little I know about how the world really works. It’s as if there’s a whole universe lying just beneath what I can actually see.”

“Oh.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just ‘oh’?” she said. “I just told you that the foundations I’ve built my entire skillset on are not nearly as solid as I thought they were, and all you can say is ‘oh’?”

Pudge shrugged. He didn’t really know what she wanted him to say, mostly because he had trouble visualizing what she described. To him, Zeke just felt like Zeke. There was nothing odd about him, save that he was more powerful than he probably should have been, based on his level. But then again, so was Pudge. And Talia. Even Abby and Tucker could do things they shouldn’t have been capable of doing. So, Zeke’s inflated power was just normal for Pudge.

“I don’t know,” he said. He wanted to say the right thing, but he had no idea what that might be. So, as always, he veered on the side of silence rather than opening his mouth and saying the wrong thing. Neither was right, but the latter would have far more severe consequences.

Sasha sighed again. “Whatever,” she said, waving her hand. “Go off and check on your friend. I’ll just…I’ll just be trying to reconcile my view of the world. You know, nothing huge.”

“Okay,” Pudge said. Then, without saying anything else, he walked away. Before he opened the door and left the room, he heard Sasha’s exasperated sigh. So, he turned back to her and said, “You will figure it out. I have faith in you.”

“You really do, don’t you?” she asked.

“I do.”

She gave him a small smile and said, “Thanks. That…helps.”

Pudge tried to smile back, but given his anatomy, it probably came off as more of a snarl. So, he quickly wiped the expression away and extricated himself from the conversation. Soon enough, he was on his way through the manor. As he went, he found himself admiring things he’d never bothered noticing before. He had no real concept of art, architecture, or design, but he couldn’t deny the admiration he felt when looking at the décor. It was all so comfortable and aesthetically pleasing that it wasn’t difficult to imagine calling the place home.

Of course, it wasn’t his. Not really. The tower belonged to Zeke, and the Lord’s Manor was his home. Pudge was just a guest.

Suddenly, he craved some degree of independence. He wanted a home of his own. Curious, that he’d never felt that way before. Perhaps it was Sasha’s presence that prompted it. When she was around, he desperately wanted to impress her. To show her that he was strong and capable. And living in his companion’s home wasn’t going to do that. Moreover, Pudge wasn’t even certain why he felt the way he did. Certainly, because they had shared such an arduous journey, Sasha knew him as well as anyone. So, impressing her shouldn’t have been terribly important.

But it was – to the point where if he wasn’t worrying about Zeke or his own place in the world, he was agonizing over what Sasha thought of him.

Those thoughts occupied his mind as he left the manor behind. There were a couple of other people who had free access to this level, and Pudge saw a few of them among the manicured bushes and well-spaced trees that made up the manor grounds. The dark elf – Jasper – waved in greeting, and Pudge nodded in return, but he didn’t slow long enough to engage in conversation.  Doing so would have only made him feel worse about his lacking verbal skills, which in turn might have undone much of the good Sasha’s words of encouragement had engendered.

In any case, Pudge quickly made his way to the dais where he selected the Crimson Springs as his destination. A second later, he was whisked away to the cave that held those miraculous healing waters. With their help, he’d recovered very quickly after his abbreviated battle in the ice palace, and after the fight against the false ice elemental, he’d spent another two days absorbing the vital mana. Now, he was in as good of condition as he’d ever been.

Pudge could not say the same about Zeke, who’d barely left those waters in the past three weeks. So, predictably, he found his companion sitting chest-deep in the shallow end of one of the springs, his eyes closed as mana swirled around him. For a long time, Pudge just stood there watching.

Finally, Zeke opened his eyes and said, “You don’t have to watch over me, you know. You can do your own thing.”

“I know,” Pudge said.

Zeke sighed, then lay back. Like that, he let himself float as he said, “I’m still not used to this. You, I mean. At times, I still think of you like you used to be. I know you’re not that person anymore, but…”

Pudge nodded, then sat on the edge of the pool. After a moment of silence, during which he dragged his claw through the slightly bubbling water, he said, “Sometimes, I feel like that, too. Then, I start to feel things I’ve never felt, and everything comes crashing down on me like…like an avalanche of emotions and feelings. I don’t know how to deal with them.”

“Me neither, buddy,” Zeke admitted. “If you figure it all out, let me know, alright? Because I’m clueless when it comes to that kind of thing. Abby was always better at that kind of thing. She understood feelings and emotions and all that…”

Zeke trailed off, almost as if he was lost in thought. That was a change Pudge had quickly noticed about his longtime companion. Perhaps Zeke’s trials within the mines had left him far more introspective than before.

“Do you think she is okay?” Pudge asked.

Zeke answered, “I don’t know, buddy. We probably won’t ever know. Sometimes, I wish I’d handled things differently. I know…I know that what we had was over. But the way things ended, it just feels cruel. What was it like for her? She was stranded all alone in a new world. No support. No friends. Just her against –”

“We all were,” Pudge said. “I was alone. You were alone. Everyone was.”

“Yeah. I know. But I always knew we’d come together. You and me, we’re connected. Same with Talia. Even with Tucker. Eventually, we’ll all get back together,” he said. “But not Abby. She knows it, too. I made that abundantly clear.”

“We could find her,” Pudge suggested. He vaguely remembered the events that had led to the schism between Abby and the rest of the group. However, his sentience had yet to be developed, and so, he wasn’t as viscerally opposed to a reunion as Zeke was. In fact, he would almost welcome it, largely because his memories of Abby were largely positive.

“No,” Zeke said. “I wouldn’t know what to do even we could manage it. Sometimes, I think regret is just meant to stick with us, you know? Like, we can’t change what happened. And even if we could, the facts that drove the decisions are still the same. She betrayed us, Pudge. Plain and simple. Sure, I miss her – or at least the version of her that I knew before she did what she did. But the person I miss doesn’t really exist anymore. Even if we found her and we decided to keep the past in the past, I know myself well enough to know that I could never really forget what she did. Every time I looked at her, I’d see the choice she made back then. I can’t get past it, Pudge. No matter how much I wish I could.”

“Do you? Wish you could, I mean?”

Zeke sat up and, after a few seconds of introspection, shook his head. “No. Not really,” he said. “That’s the thing about relationships. We are what we do. We can say all the nice and pretty things we want to say, but in the end, actions speak more loudly than words. And Abby? She chose her own agenda over our lives. Sure, we didn’t die. It all worked out better than any of us could have hoped. But that doesn’t change the choice she made. And at the end of the day, I made a choice, too. I decided to abandon her in the Eternal Realm. Even if I got over what she did, I doubt she could get past what I did.”

He ran his hand through his wet hair and said, “No, Pudge. That’s over. We need to move past it. And who knows? It was only a few years, right? Well, with our stats, we’re going to live for a long, long time. So, in a few decades, this’ll all just seem like a blip on the timeline.”

Pudge thought about that for a moment. Reducing a relationship like that seemed so sad to him. But he didn’t know how to fix it. Nor was he sure if he even wanted to. Instead, his thoughts inevitably wandered to Sasha. Would she be a proverbial blip on his timeline? Would the same be said of him on hers? Even thinking that almost brought the panic back.

No. He wouldn’t allow that to happen.

After the silence had stretched for a few more minutes, Zeke said, “Alright. I think that’s enough lazing about. It’s time to get back to work.”

“Are you healed?” Pudge asked.

“Healed enough,” Zeke said, though Pudge could see a bit of tension around his eyes. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what we need to do, so I think I have a good idea of how we’re going to tackle this quest.”