(TLO) Chapter 98: Igor's Respect (Patreon)

Seth’s return to his room was heralded in morning’s silence. He found his brothers groggy and awake. They were the same as they were every morning, their readiness for the day tainted by a reluctance to engage it.

When he walked in, Forlorn was the only one not fully dressed. He wore a trouser, and an undershirt dangled from his shoulders, half worn, paused between being put on and being taken off. He wore no shoes and his cassock of grey was nowhere in sight.

Standing at the entrance, Seth spared him no longer glance than the time it took to note this.

The rest of his brothers were ready to go, fully garbed in their cassocks and boots, calloused hands hidden in the pockets of cassocks or casually leaning against something. Now that he thought about it, none of them ever had their hands simply dangling, left to the casualness of doing nothing. They were always occupied, always touching something. And when they were not, then they were hidden. Even his were hidden from sight, clasped behind his back as Jabari’s often were.

His brothers stared back at him in silence. Fin’s gaze held a touch of disappointment that he found his minds fancied.

Is he unhappy we survived? one asked mockingly.

He might not be, another replied. What are the chances he made a bet again, against our success?

As if privy to his fractured minds Fin turned a frown to Timi and signed, it’s your win. I’ll pay by sunset.

One of Seth’s mind laughed with the hearty exuberance of a large drunkard. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he wants us dead or just wants to make money.

Who said it can’t be both, another teased.

Seth listened even as he took stock of his brothers present. Jabari, true to his nature, had been right. They were all present, all accounted for, all Iron… All except Josiah.

They had lost another brother. And to the task of evolution?

Just how bad had they had it?

But considering his brothers seemed to have gone past it already, he kept the loss in his mind and moved on from it. Maybe it made him a bad person, but the truth was simple enough: he doubted he’d ever mourn the loss of any of his brothers except Timi.

Barnabas watched him with magenta eyes that held a mix of worry and relief. Whatever raised such dissonance in his gaze Seth deemed of little import.

Jason stared at him, waiting.

Curiosity filled him slowly, a wonder at what his brother awaited when he realized his eyes were not on the boy. It made him realize he watched each of them from his periphery, eyes never shifting from one to the other. Yet in it he saw them all so clearly. It was a strange thing to him. Perhaps he now used his eyes as his minds had once done. Seeing without looking.

He finally moved his eyes from Forlorn. When they met Jason, the brother afforded him a respectful nod. He returned it with all the zeal it had contained; with a touch of comradery but no emotion.

When his gaze panned slowly to Timi, the focus of the boy’s relief was almost a physical thing. With how fixated his brother’s attention was on him, he doubted he’d even seen Fin’s sign.

He raised his hands and signed. I’m back.

Timi did not sign back, did not speak. Instead, he strode forward and pulled him into a massive hug.

His senses filled with his brother’s presence and he noticed subtle differences. The first was in the boy’s height. He had grown larger. He loomed now, an inch taller, maybe two. He also had a girth to him. It was not the corpulence of the spoiled rich that let themselves go. It was the bulk of the muscular who ate too much. In the size of him it was a bear hug, a comfortable one against his soft body. Seth allowed himself rest in it for a moment before Forlorn spoke.

“Are you sure you should be here?”

Against Seth, Timi bristled and he was forced to tap his brother lightly. It signaled his need to be released. It also signaled his command that the boy be calm. It was a slow pat against his back that could’ve meant anything in the wide range of comforting actions.

Timi read it accurately, and released him.

Seth’s feet touched the ground gently, lowered from the hug. He took a moment to adjust his cassock then turned to Forlorn. He did not need his eyes to attend him, but if he did not look at him, how would he know he had been acknowledged.

Forlorn raised a hand in feigned helplessness. “I’m not the only one thinking it, just the only one saying it.”

Seth nodded slowly. Then, with the calm of a particularly vile thief, he grinned. “Curious about where I’ve been?”

Forlorn gave no expression as he slid his feet into his boots. But Seth’s eyes were sharper now, better. He caught the mild strain in his jaw and knew Forlorn was affected. It must have irked him to believe Seth received special attention on this.

“Sadly,” he continued, tone intentionally mocking, “I can’t tell you. Just know I have been out acting on the good of the seminary.”

Beside him Timi frowned, perplexed. He noted it but did not appease it. That would be done at a later time. For now, he was curious of how Forlorn had grown.

“The seminary’s loyal dog,” Forlorn retorted, a step too slow, words hesitant by the barest tone.

Seth would not have caught it if he hadn’t been listening. If his attention had not been on his brother it would’ve sounded like every barb he threw every other day. It made Seth wonder.

“You should say it with a bit more confidence,” he told him. “A little more certainty.” He took a step towards him, slow, intentional, only to find himself stopped by Timi’s hand on his shoulder.

That was odd. Timi never stood in the way of violence, even if only perceived.

Forlorn saw it and smirked. “Your lap dog remains ever loyal. Saving his master from a truth he cannot see.” He strapped his boots and took his cassock from one end of his mattress.

Rather than wear it, he threw it over one shoulder, its collar held in one hand, and strolled out of the room. He glared at Seth as he past but naught more. Seth’s gaze followed him out.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Barnabas,” he answered without looking away from the entrance.

“His usually not this—”

“I just got back, brother,” he interrupted with a sigh. “I am not ready for your false excuses for our brother’s stupidity. Keep it for yourself and someone else. Forlorn is a turd. It’s that simple. Whatever gem you’ve found at the heart of the turd those not change the fact that he is still a turd.”

Fin chuckled in the corner.

They filed out of the room later, unhappy for their lessons but surprisingly not unwilling. Their stroll led them away from the training field for the day of the sword, reminding Seth he had no idea what day it was. He turned to his time keepers to help him.

“What day is it?” he asked his minds.

Thursday, they answered.

“Thursday,” Timi said at the same timed.

He nodded amiably to his brother. So it was Reverend Oscar’s day with them. He wondered, as they walked, if training as an Iron was going to be different.

They walked the path designed for them, passed through an arched corridor dug into the side of a building they had never had the luxury of entering and deluged into a cacophony of buildings. Their destination lay in one of the ones to the right. It was the same hall in which Emriss taught them to shoot.

However, Oscar was not the one waiting. At the center of the massive hall, hands folded over his chest, Igor stood as still as a statue. At his waist was his wooden sword, strapped as it always was whenever he instructed them.

“Today,” he said, baleful, after they’d settled down, “a prodigal brother returns. The seminary has deemed it fit to accept him back considering he has met the requirements for which you were all sent out. He has returned before the end of a month, and he has returned as an Iron soul mage.”

He paused here, waited. When no sound was made, no questions asked, he continued.

“As such, we will be repeating the events that occurred on your return. He is your brother. And as such, must know what you know.”

Without further words, he stood to the side. “Fin. Present your convergence.”

Fin stepped forward in brisk military steps. He stopped where Igor had stood and took a deep breath. He deepened it as if anxious, then let it out loudly. He lifted a single leg from the ground and spoke.

“[Stomp]”

He brought it down, and it hit the ground with a heavy thud. A tremor spread through the ground, then the sand trembled and the ground quaked. It shook their stance, stumbled the brothers so that they struggled to right themselves. Then it passed, like a wave spreading outwards.

Igor stood unmoving to the side. “An acceptable display, Fin. I believe by Gold you will be more than capable of shifting more than the soil with it. Next.”

Jason stepped up. Where Fin had simply done what was required, he walked all the way to the edge of the hall and returned dragging one of Emriss’ targets.

He dragged it all the way back and placed it for all to see. Satisfied with its positioning, he turned a questioning attention to Igor.

The Reverend reached for his wooden sword and offered it to him.

Armed sufficiently, Jason held the sword out before him in a double handed grip. Its tip pointed skyward and he took a breath as deep as Fin’s. He let it out equally the same.

If it took them all this long to activate their skills, using it in combat would be nigh impossible.

Jason raised the sword higher and activated his skill.

“[Phantom Strike]”

The wooden sword came down with a force Jason should not have been able to exert. It struck the round target at the top. The sand around him pushed out in a ring of force. The sound of breaking wood echoed around them.

Seth frowned at the skill. It was a simple skill. Powerful, but simple. Yet what worried him was in the sound. It hadn’t just been loud. Like the target, cleaved in a jagged cut about eight inches deep, it had also been broken. The space of the crack in the sound was barely discernable. He thought back to it and found it fractions of a second long.

When Jason stepped away from the target, returning the wooden sword to Igor, he saw why. At the side of the target was another crack, this one deeper and worse than the one above it.

“Two strikes in one,” he mumbled to himself.

“Next,” Igor declared, casually.

There was a moment when no one acted. Then Barnabas stepped out. When he stood where their brothers before him had stood, he wiggled his arms out beside him. He resembled a lithe fighter trying to loosen his arms. However, he did not bounce on his feet.

Arms satisfactorily loose, he took a deep breath of his own and activated his skill.

“[Shadow Parade]”

Where their brother’s convergent skills had been physical, his was nothing as such.

Black mist spilled from his hands held out beside him. In his cassock they looked as if they spilled from his sleeves. It grew slowly but continued to flood outward, growing, thickening, like the mist beyond the seminary walls. When it filled the space around him and was wide enough, larger than fifteen feet on all sides, Forlorn threw something into it.

Seth’s awareness flickered mildly. Something was different, skewed, wrong. He tilted his head to the side and something came at him with enough force to wound him during his time before Iron. It shot out of his shadow, missing him and flying into the distance of the hall.

Barnabas offered him an apologetic smile as the mist around him dissipated.

“As powerful a skill as it is,” Igor said. “It will only be truly useful to you when you learn to move while using it. Until then, you will be an asset to whatever team you find yourself in.” His attention swiveled to Forlorn. “And while I appreciate your learned intelligence to know how to choose from which shadow swallowed objects will return, the next defiance on your path will be met with a defiance on my path. Emriss is not the only Baron capable of long lasting violence. Now step out and do what is required of you.”

Barnabas stepped back in line, a mild embarrassment on his face for Forlorn’s action.

Forlorn stepped out without hesitation. He walked up to the broken target, placed a hand on it, and looked at Seth with a feral grin. He activated his skill without delay.

“[Die]”

Something odd happened in the brief moment before the skill was triggered. Seth felt it but did not see it. Sensed it but could not understand it. It stood beyond the scope of his intelligence. A moment after, the target slowly necrotized under Forlorn’s touch. It turned a greenish black, growing from where Fin touched it until it was nothing but dead wood. Then it fell apart.

The process lasted barely ten seconds. Through it all, Forlorn’s gaze never left Seth. His grin never slipped.

“An impressive feat,” Igor commented. “But as I have told you before. That arrogance on your face is useless. Against a soul mage of the same authority, its effects will not be as devastating. While it might help you attain victory, if it wishes to kill your opponent then its effects would take far longer. Likely minutes.”

Forlorn returned to his place in line with a scowl that managed to look smug.

“Next.”

Timi stepped up. Seth noted how he seemed to walk like a moving mountain. He watched his brother take his position as those before him. When he raised both hands to his side, Seth caught the uncomfortable frown on Igor’s face before he activated his skill.

“[Judgement]”

What happened next were results more confusing than the sensation Forlorn’s skill had given him.

The world rumbled around Timi. Seth felt the odd sensation of reia flooding around him. In his awareness he felt his brothers wince and barely restrained discomfort. Timi’s skill pulled the reia around them towards him, then expelled it, and Seth’s jaw dropped.

Igor’s frown deepened.

Timi stood, both hands held out beside him. Around him the world stood hazarded, like broken glass. The boy was surrounded by cracks in the world. They were many, twenty by Seth’s count, and reaching. Spread over a radius of ten feet beside and behind him.

When they reached farther, stretched an inch more, Igor chided him.

“That’s enough, Timilehin.”

The boy looked at Seth as the skill faded. The cracks healed, the thin lines of eerie white fading away. Seth knew what his brother wanted. Acknowledgement. But what right did he have to acknowledge something so powerful. How did he acknowledge something so devastating; something so well beyond him; something he could not face?

In its presence, the only solution he found was to flee. But it was Timi, his only friend in the seminary. A child that for some reason, despite the very sheer power of him, chose to answer only to him. He would acknowledge [Judgement] because that privilege was his brother’s gift to him.

He nodded gently, a soft smile on his lips. Only then did Timi return.

Igor frowned at the empty space where Timi had stood. “Seth,” he said n looking at it, “You have seen the power of your brothers, their skills attained through convergence, their evolution to Iron. Now it is their turn to see yours.”

Seth stepped up to his place casually, then turned to Igor. “I will need a sword.”

“Strange.” Igor took his sword from his side and offered it to him. “For one barely above average in its use, you have converged a skill dependent on it.”

Seth took the weapon without a response. He did not speak. He did not reveal emotion.

He took the sword from Igor, walked back to the place where Timi had stood, gauged it so that it was fifteen feet from the Reverend, faced him, and took his stance. It was the only way to show the Reverend the true weight of the skill. To pit it against the man was to test its strength.

He bent his knees forward, feet shoulder length apart with one a step behind the other. His feet steady, he leaned slightly into his forward foot. His left hand held the wooden sword in place and his right hovered above the hilt. It was a stance he had taken too many times; times no man would ever be able to count. It came to him as easy as breathing. When he met Igor’s gaze, the man’s eyes were manic, filled with a glee that contorted his face.

He had used his convergent skill only once but knew he could do it again. There had been so much put into its activation the first time but he knew they were unnecessary now. All he had to do was activate the skill. But the look on Igor’s face goaded him. He knew he would need more.

We don’t think we need that much more, one of his minds panicked.

We agree, another added, hurried. We don’t think we need to go that far to—

He cut them off as he focused his attention on the world around him. It sharpened considerably. The world that had been brighter since awakening in the pond after his evolution sharpened all the more. He felt everything around him. The slightest wrinkle in Igor’s cassock that was supposed to be smooth. Timi’s watchful patience. Forlorn’s derisive, mocking smile. Jason’s anticipation of another sword skill. Fin’s simple curiosity. Barnabas’ attention on Forlorn…

…Igor’s interest.

Skill [Fractured Mind] is in Effect.

Igor smiled something feral and it was all the command he needed

New Event: [Igor’s Interest]

You have garnered the attention of the Reverend Igor. Keep it and excel. Take the path laid out before you and show him what it means to intrude on the domain of another.

Objective: [Strike Igor 0/1]

Possible Reward: Igor’s Respect

Seth’s hand met the hilt of the sword, wrapped around it firmly. His lips parted slightly. The skill activated, as if of its own volition. Its name left his mouth like the cracking of a boulder.

“[Echo Draw]”