(TLO) Chapter 157: The Black Mountain (Patreon)

Long before first light, they were risen from their incomplete slumber. It was Ulrich that came for them, instead of John. He woke them with gentle taps and easy words, rousing them as a father would a favorite infant. With an early rise already instilled in them, they woke and prepared in quick time.

Ready, they gathered on the same grounds where the Monsignor had informed them of their part in the world crack.

“Two weeks ago, we got confirmation of a crack in Asia and Africa,” Faust addressed them in his hood drawn cassock and black gloves. “Just last week we got confirmation of another crack in Oceania. Thus, it is with deep worry that I inform you that a crack in North America was confirmed two hours ago. The priests to be dispatched are already waiting for you beyond these walls. So I usher you on, the first of a new line of defense. Go, and may reia guide you.”

With those simple words, Monsignor Faust sent them to their demise.

……………………………………………….

Seth and his brothers were led out of the seminary by a priest they’d never seen before. His hair was wheat white like Barnabas’ and his eyes auburn. He had pale skin and effeminate hands and walked with the grace of a dancer much unlike the other Reverends who walked with a certain discipline that spoke of concealed danger.

Seth wondered if any of his brothers walked the same way. If any of them would ever walk the same way.

They took a new path out of the seminary. A part, unsurprisingly, they didn’t know. Gregory, the priest that led them, led them in silence, an undertaker leading the dead.

Beyond the seminary, the mist greeted them like a deadly friend. Their time training within it for the past month had built a familiarity within them. They no longer feared it. Still, it would be a lie to claim there were not cautious of it.

Beyond the mist, they came to stand at a mountain more than familiar to Seth. Its presence came as no surprise considering how much bickering his minds had done as they’d crossed the paths that led here. He hadn’t been allowed to deduce the path being taken before his minds echoed each observation.

That’s where the king spiders tried to have us for lunch…

…that’s where we had our last stand…

… That’s where we fought those monkeys…

… That patch of mist right there is where we evolved…

… This is where Jabari dragged us through the dirt….

…That was where we almost lost a limb…

…How does Gregory know this place?

Every bickering was the announcement of the mountain. The voices weren’t necessarily loud, but they were plentiful. It made it hard to tell where one mind started and the other ended.

When they arrived at the titan of a mountain, Gregory came to a silent pause, quieter even than the one he’d led them with. Then, as if a presenter at a museum, he spoke.

“Take it in boys. The Black Mountain. An existence that predates the seminary.”

While his brother’s watched with awe, Seth’s hand quietly reached for the twin blades strapped to his back. They were products of this mountain, broken from a part of it east of where they stood.

With each brother outfitted in their choice of weaponery, Timi with his unnecessarily large greatsword, Barnabas with a long sword, Forlorn with his halberd, Jason with two longswords, and Fin with a broadsword, Gregory guided them into a crevice in the mountain.

Seth moved with his brothers armed as he’d once been during his winter test. With his twin blades presented to him after Faust’s announcement, he carried three katana, one on each hip and a third rested horizontally behind him.

……………………………………………..

They walked the length of the crevice and it seemed to go on forever. They walked for what seemed like hours with nothing but last night’s meal in their stomachs and a false hunger for violence in their hands.

The path neither bent nor turned. It was straight as an arrow with rough walls on either side. It narrowed the farther they advanced. The air thinned after a period then returned to normalcy. The mist that plagued the path somehow served as a form of illumination for them. It did not shine and it wasn’t bright. It was simpy a white they could see. Somehow it was more comforting than having to walk in the dark.

They were nearly an hour into the path when the air thinned again. It made breathing difficult and they had to take conscious command of it, breathing through their mouths as well as their nose.

When they were getting accustomed to it, it changed on them. Where it had once been thin and scarce, it became heavy and oppressive. It threatened to crush their nose and clog their airway. It filled their lungs too quickly and barreled its way out with each breath. On occasion Seth heard his brothers gasp for a breath that was as dangerous within as it was without.

Timi had no such struggle. And neither did Seth.

As for Gregory, his only sign of care was in a single backward glance. Certain the seminarians were still behind him, struggling or not, he continued onwards.

It wasn’t long before they left the path.

The end of the path was announced with the thinning of the mist. It emptied out from before them to reveal a world rife with reia. In Seth’s senses, it rippled so violently it was akin trying to see his reflection in a pond of water that had a massive boulder dropped into it.

It was a moment before he realized it was the same way even in his eyes. It hurt to look at.

“So much reia,” Barnabas mumbled in wonder.

Seth doubted any of them had seen so much reia before. But distorting the world was not all that it did. Standing within it was like standing with an eerie pressure on his shoulders. It reminded him of a Baron’s reia released in anger. Luckily for them, it wasn’t enough to bring them to their knees or even halt their steps. It was merely uncomfortable.

Gregory led them forth without a backward glance and they ventured forward within the discomfort.

It was another half hour before Gregory brought them to a stop with a raised fist.

When they obeyed, he walked on further to greet no one. Then, like fireflies coming alive in the darkness of the night, quiet embers of life born from seeming nothingness, priests began stepping out.

Each one was clad in a pale white cassock. In the simplest definition, it was what white would be if it faded. It wasn’t milk and it wasn’t cream. Each cassock was simply a white unable to shine. In the darkness of a first light that had still not come, it made them easy to miss.

And to think they still have the black ones, one of Seth’s minds wondered.

As they came out of nowhere in a place Seth was now beginning to realize was a stretch of land filled with rubbles and half-broken trees, evenly split boulders and craters caused by any number of things, his minds began piecing things together from a knowledge he possessed longer than he’d known them.

Craters and grotesque trees, one thought in awe.

Boulders broken as if someone cut them in half, another noted.

A place that looks as if monsters just finished fighting…

Seth knew the answer even before the voices in his head said it.

“We’re in a dead land,” he muttered.

Ahead of them, meeting with the conglomeration of a still ever growing number of priests, Gregory looked back at him.

“What’s a dead land?” Barnabas asked with a slight panting.

“It’s a land people shouldn’t be able to enter,” Seth answered absently. He could feel the reia pressing in around him but wasn’t certain how he was withstanding it. The rumors about its uninhabitability were born of the simple fact that standing in it, to a Baron, was like standing under the pressure of a Baron’s reia to a gold or silver.

But here he was, an Iron, standing within it. Ahead of him Gregory had returned his attention to the priests whose number continued to grow. His minds did not miss the opportunity to comment.

That’s a large number of priests, they thought. You’d think they didn’t have such large numbers.

“What Iron know it all over here means,” Forlorn stepped in, explaining in a labored breath, “is that it’s a place with reia so dense that Baron’s can’t even survive in it for a long time.”

“I’ve never heard of such a place,” Barnabas said. “And how do you know that’s where we are?”

Seth still stared at the reia around him. It was full with enough force to distort the world visibly as he answered, “Ever heard of the dead accords?”

“I’ve hear of those. They’re pockets of dense reia the government and other organizations keep watch over but don’t enter.”

Seth nodded once. The Dead Accords was something everyone knew, even if only those in power knew their locations. He turned his head to make sure the distortion was happening everywhere and confirmed it was. When he looked behind him, he found the mist was entirely gone. And so was the path they’d walked in through.

That’s so trippy, a mind commented.

With nothing he could do about it, he returned his attention to the reia and continued his conversation with his brother.

“I entered one during my pastoral year.”

“Impossible.” It was Fin who objected. “Only powerful people know where they are. And even if more people did, the government and Barons would not allow it. They would have no reason to.”

Seth turned a raised brow to his brother. “None?”

Fin frowned. “Even if they did have one, they would not allow an Iron into one.”

“I never said I was allowed into one.”

“Then—”

“I only said I entered one.”

“How?” Forlorn asked.

“Someone in one of the adventuring teams found out there was a fissure nest within a place not too far from the place I was stationed. The simple existence of one was a gold mine.”

“Not necessarily,” Jason countered. “Once its closed, that’s the end. And they aren’t as lucrative as people think. Yes, they have a lot of beasts within. But once they’re wiped out and the fissure’s closed, that’s the end.”

Seth nodded. “Like I said, a gold mine.”

Jason opened his mouth, most likely to repeat himself again but said nothing. Instead, he left his jaw hanging. Seth saw the realization on his face even before Forlorn spoke.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Seth shook his head.

“That’s madness,” Fin added.

Seth shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“You said you served with a silver team,” Forlorn said. “They were a part of those that entered without permission.”

Seth nodded. A part of him was enjoying the dawning realization and confusion as it overcame his brothers while Gregory chatted with a bunch of priests.

“What exactly is going on?” Barnabas asked, the sole owner of the dawning confusion.

“You don’t know what a fissure nest is?” Forlorn asked him, surprised.

Barnabas shot him a scathing look. “I know what a fissure nest is, even if I haven’t been in one before.”

“Then why are you confused?”

Jason spoke before Barnabas could give whatever response he had in mind. “A fissure nest releases more monsters to fill the nest if the fissure is not closed on time. Seth’s insinuation of it being a gold mine is if...”

“You don’t close the fissure,” Barnabas finished slwoly, finally joining the guild of dawning realization. “But that makes no sense.”

Seth shrugged.

“And you didn’t tell your handler?” Fin asked.

“Nope.”

“That was irresponsible of you.”

“And dangerous,” Barnabas added, worried.

Inside Seth’s head, a mind asked sacarstically, is he going to ask us if we were hurt, next?

“Where you hurt?” Barnabas continued. “Did anything go wrong?”

Shoot! We should’ve made a wager on it.

Seth chuckled lightly.

To Barnabas he said, “I’m fine, brother. I came back, didn’t I.”

“That’s not the real issue here,” Fin forced on. “There’s a reason fissures aren’t left open for long once found.”

“Because if left for long its rank increases,” Jason said. “What rank was the one you saw?”

“Silver,” Seth answered. There were no Iron fissure nests.

Beside him, standing in an ever present silence, he noted Timi’s frown. He turned to his brother and asked with an impish smile, “Do you have something to say to me, too?”

Timi looked up and to the side in thought. “Yes?” he answered, unsure.

Seth understood Fin’s worry. However, it was unfounded. Fissures released reia beast of whatever rank the fissure itself was. Silver ranked fissures would release silver beasts and gold rank—rare as they were—would release gold beasts. But fissures ranking up was as rare as gold rank fissures. It usually took months of negligence for rank ups to happen.

And ours started producing mutants and golds after a week, a mind thought. So is it really unfounded?

“Yes,” Seth answered with a little too much venom in his voice.

The gold ranks and mutants were an unpredictable situation that existed outside of anything the world knew. He thought of the second fissure that was not a fissure. The second hole in the world, unseen but felt. He thought of the man that had walked into it. The Being Who Didn’t Belong.

That man who had killed his team had claimed responsibility for what had happened to the fissure. And he believed him.

“Rumor has it you and your team didn’t enter for the money,” Timi said finally.

Seth nodded once. “We didn’t.”

“Let me get this straight,” Forlorn said, confused. “The silvers entered because they were trying to evolve?”

Seth nodded again.

“And kept the fissure active so that they had an endless supply of beasts to fight so they could evolve?”

Seth nodded again.

“And dragged you along with them?”

Another nod.

“And you still came back a freaking Iron?!”

Silence followed in the wake of Forlorn’s words.

Barnabas rubbed a calming hand along Forlorn’s back. “All you have to remember is that he was playing support, Forlorn. He was using guns not skills.”

“But I don’t understand it.” He turned to Barnabs, confused. “He had a fissure nest and didn’t evolve. He played support with a gun. Who did he vex so badly to deserve that? Who did he—”

“Form up!” Gregory barked. His order cut their conversation short and all eyes turned to the priest.

“Beyond these parts,” he continued, now that he had their attention, “we will travel a short distance then come up on the crack. Intel reaching me says the crack is massive and has already been cordoned off by the government and Barons for ‘safety’ reasons. It does not matter to us.”

Around him, the priests nodded in agreement.

“We are priests of the seminary,” he went on, “but we are also humans. As such, we will have a brief conversation with those who stand guard. We will request to be let in without hassle. Should they choose to stand against us as they did during the last world crack, then blood will be spilled.”

Forlorn nodded with a touch of glee on his face.

Noticing it, Gregory added. “Not by you. You six will sit and wait. While the Monsignor has deemed it fitting that you enter, you will enter under my rules. None of you will move from where I station you until the entrance has been cleared and you’ve been signaled. The entrance is guarded by gold authority mages and I’d rather not have your deaths on my hands. If you want to die, do so inside the crack and outside my command. Is that understood?”

“Yes!” They chorused as one.

“Good.”

Gregory turned to one of the priests and held out his hand. In response, the man dropped a handgun and a sniper rifle in it. With them, Gregory turned and approached Seth.

“I heard you’re good with guns,” he said. “And your report says your achievements with it during your pastoral year were more than commendable…”

Seth knew the words that would come next and dreaded them as they did.

“…You will be our support.”

For fucksake! His minds bellowed.

“I doubt you’ll be able to do much if we’re to fight our way in,” Gregory continued, “but take a shot if you see one. Plan for the recoil. Luca tells me the kick on it is a bitch.”

Seth took the guns from the man bregrudgingly.

The handgun came with a holder and a strap and he wrapped it around his cassock and secured it awkwardly. The rifle he simply held in his hands.

Gregory turned away from him and returned to the priests. As he did, a consolatory hand fell on his shoulder. His minds informed him of its owner a beat before the person spoke.

“I’m beginning to see why you’re still Iron,” Forlorn said. “Must be tough.”

Seth sighed and hung his head.

“You have no idea.”