(TLO) Chapter 129: Pain And Confusion (Patreon)

Nosam’s teammates were a generic group of adventurers. They wore the acceptable light armor. Nothing too flashy; just right for mages of their authority.

In number they totaled at three girls and five boys.

Introductions went around quickly and easily, and while he paid no attention to their names, Seth knew his minds kept them like seeds in the dirt.

“So what’s with the scarf?” one of the girls asked. There was nothing spectacular about her except her pointy hat and broken smile. “Is it a fashion trend no one knows about?”

Seth considered not answering her for a while before shaking his head.

The girl made a cooing sound. There was wonder and amusement in it. A touch of mockery stained it, but it was mostly amusement.

“Can you take it off?” she pressed. They were walking now, making their way to their expedition.

Again, Seth shook his head.

Nosam led the way with quick strides and a straight back. There was something almost regal about him. His last name slithered into Seth’s mind again. Vague recognition refused to let it go and it bothered him. Things he had a problem remembering usually lived in his past, in a time before his mind broke. A time before Jabari.

Nosam and his team did not submit a contract at the registration desk as they left the guild hall. It touched a wrong spot on Seth but he held his silence to himself as he followed. Far was it from him to tell them how to accept their contracts. For all he knew it could have been a direct contract guild-handed to them.

Now that he thought of it, perhaps he should’ve asked. Seth discarded the thought, not really caring for it.

They stepped out of the hall and into the gentle touch of the young afternoon. The sun was bright at the peak of a mountainous sky all blue with a scattering of grey clouds forcing a gentle touch to its bright light.

“That right there is a hunting sky,” Dare said, taking in a deep breath. He was a boy almost nineteen with a scanty hair on his chin not worthy of being called a beard. It looked hungry but that was an observation Seth kept to himself.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” the girl with the pointy hat said.

Her name’s Fray, one of his minds reminded him. And she likes girls, too.

Seth paused, wondering why this piece of information was pointed out. Unable to see the reason he asked, “And why was that part important?”

“You haven’t heard,” someone else said. He wore trousers too big and impractical for an adventurer. Seth’s mind brought the boy’s name to bear and Seth wondered why someone would name their child Pride.

“I haven’t,” Seth answered.

“The Oracle has predicted the next world crack.”

This time, when Seth paused, it was obvious. For a quick moment his mind went blank. Then, as if guided by a will beyond his own, he stepped aside before the person behind him bumped into him.

Ahead of them Nosam looked back at him. “You good?”

Seth nodded slowly, then continued walking.

The Oracle was rarely spoken of. Even in the seminary it was a touchy subject riddled in more secrets and rumors than the seminary was to the outside world.

A soul mage so strong and powerful they were capable of peering into the path of fate. That was the Oracle. They walked the threads, divining the future in ways none were able to predict. Their very existed was so concealed no one knew any information, even one as tiny as their gender. All that was known of the Oracle was that it informed the government of the next world crack.

“When?” Seth asked absently, mind still reeling from the piece of information.

“A year, at most,” Pride answered.

Seth’s brows furrowed as he continued to walk. They led him down the hall steps and took a left. He followed in dazed silence. Unconscious legs followed Nosam and his team. Seth did not control them, did not use them. That task he allowed to one of his minds as he worked through his daze. The name Oracle had been given by the masses and any other information was disseminated among those with power. Iron authority mages were not among these numbers.

Seth turned silver eyes skyward and took a deep breath. Another world crack.

The very idea of it hit him with a bout of vertigo that did not show as another mind took over his sense of balance. It was as if he’d dropped it like a sleeping child, only to have his friend catch it.

So he wandered after his new team, dazed with none of them the wiser.

He’d been a victim of the last world crack. Not as strong a victim as most others, but it had taken from him. The world had cracked on his left arm, taken its complete control from him and given him a splitting headache in its place.

The last world crack was thirteen years ago. The one before that had preceded it by seventeen years. There was no accurate timeframe but this one felt too soon.

“I finally get to see the insides of a crack,” Scott, the only dark skinned member of the team said.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Fray laughed as they stopped beside a particularly odd car. It had four tires as most cars do but the space for its seats were a bit too small at the back and it had no boot. In the stead of a boot, it had a long cargo bed enclosed with three low walls and no covering. It was a bit too long with an extended open back for a car.

Fray opened the door beside the driver’s place and another girl climbed in. Somewhere, deep in the unnecessary part of his mind, Seth noticed how high the car was. It was a distracted acquisition of knowledge like learning someone had passed by without actually seeing the event of their passing.

“I know Iron mages don’t always find their way into the crack these days,” Scott said. “But there are places that still let their Iron in.”

He climbed into the back, the part without covering and sat on one of the low walls on one side.

Seth followed him mutely.

The adventurer offered him a hand and he took it. It was not that he needed it, he knew it as well as Scott. It was merely a gesture like the clinking of cups before a drink or a fake smile at a boring joke. It was unnecessary but polite.

“You can sit in, Oden,” Nosam called out, standing beside one of the open back doors.

Seth nodded absently but that was all. He did not succumb to the suggestion; he did not move. Inside the car, Nosam sat at the steering wheel. Beside him was Fray. Behind them Pride sat with Joy and Dare.

In his right hand Seth held his rifle case, its metal back reflecting the light of the sun. His left hand, he looked at with a lost wonder. It stared back with a blank passivity as all things without wills of their own did.

The first world crack he had experienced had taken it from him. He flexed the hand slowly, nodding distractedly to another of Nosam’s words and made no move to change his position. He had since forgotten what it felt like to not trust the arm. What it felt like to have the entire arm give out on him when he needed it most.

He felt one of his minds actively bore into his, as if an extension of himself digging a hole into the core of him. It was so sudden it almost sufficed to jerk him from his daze entirely.

“What are you looking for?” he asked in a mumble, still looking at his arm. He turned it one side then the other. It amused him in an odd way.

Where could it be? The mind asked no one, still digging. You were five when it happened, right?

Seth nodded slowly. It was the nod of a man who hadn’t heard the question.

“Just some experience,” Scott said, answering a question not intended for him. “I mean, people come out of cracks with so much more strength. And riches, too.”

“Some never come out too,” Natsuki said. He was a mage with a spear and all that stood out about him was his name. After all, as much as the world had changed, the sight of a true Caucasian bearing a Japanese name was always odd.

“But isn’t the risk worth the reward?”

Was it? Seth wondered, his mind easing to the seminary; to his time towards his evolution to Iron. The struggle Jabari had put him through. The force of his…

Seth turned to look behind him, confused. There was a touch of pain in his mind but mostly confusion. Unbidden confusion. It clouded his mind and shifted his attention.

What was happening?

He turned again, looked in a different direction. He was in the back of an oddly large vehicle. It lurched forward mildly enough that it did not matter to him. Around him, seated in the open back were three others. Scott. Natsuki. And one other whose name he did not know.

Around them the world moved slowly. Whoever was driving navigated around a maze of parked cars, gently but steadily. Seth pulled his mind to the present again. He was in the midst of Iron authority adventurers, going on an expedition to seek out something in a silver rank nest that had already been cleared.

He nodded once. He remembered everything. Nothing was wrong. So why was he confused? And where was that pain coming from?

That’s strange, a mind thought absently. There’s nothing.

“You’re willing to risk your life for a chance to evolve?” Natsuki asked Scott, confused.

“What do you mean? We do it every day. We’re on our way to a silver nest right now. If that’s not a risk, I don’t know what is.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“For one, the nest has already been cleared,” Natsuki raised his hand and ticked off a finger. “For another, we know what we’re expecting to see. We’ve accounted for the worst case scenario.”

Scott snorted. “And what’s that?”

Natsuki twirled a nonchalant hand. “The worse we can run into is a silver beast.”

“And that’s a risk.”

Natsuki threw his hands up. “You can’t compare that to a world crack. It’s like comparing controlled training to a fissure nest.”

“What I wouldn’t do for a fissure nest,” Scott sighed wantonly.

Through it all, Seth battled with his confusion and mild pain. “What’s happening?” he asked his minds.

Sorry about that, one apologized. That was us. We went looking for your memory.

“What do you mean you went looking?”

The third person with them looked at him, skeptically. “You sure this guy’s alright?” he asked his teammates.

Scott turned from Natsuki to study Seth through narrowed lids. “He looks good to me.”

“But he keeps mumbling to himself,” the adventurer said.

Scott shrugged. “Ever heard of prayer?”

The adventurer’s brows furrowed in confusion. “People still do that?”

“Of course they… you know what, I ain’t having this conversation with you.” It was a clear dismissal, buttressed as he returned his attention to Natsuki. “If we want to evolve faster, we need to take risks. We need to throw ourselves into the heart of danger.”

“And where are you in such a rush to that you don’t care about dying?”

“Barony.” Scott’s words were delivered with precision and no hesitation.

Natsuki scoffed at him. “And here I thought you were going to say Herald.”

“I’m trying to climb a mountain not part heaven.” Scott flicked something off his shoulders. “We can start thinking about that once I’m at the top of the mountain.”

“Sure thing.”

Somehow the conversation lulled to silence as they pulled off onto the main road outside the guild hall’s compound. Conversations continued inside the car but inside and outside were two different places in this moment as they sped past cars and on to their destination.

You still with us? One of Seth’s minds asked.

He nodded, eyes closed to his environment in control of a confusion he now realized was waning.

So… we have a bit of bad news.

Seth nodded, conveying his response without words.

You have PTSD.

His confusion was leaving him now. Enough of it was gone for him to muddle through a conversation. As for the pain, it was gone as the winter snow in spring’s wrath. He cracked an eye open and looked at his third companion. He still couldn’t remember his name, and his minds hadn’t deigned it important enough to tell him, not that he couldn’t get it if he wanted.

Certain the adventurer’s attention was not on him, he asked, “What gave you that impression?”

How much do you remember of the day of the world crack?

“Not much. I was five. There isn’t much to remember at five.”

Well we went looking for it and found it.

“And…”

And we couldn’t see it.

“But you found it.”

Yes. There was a pause. Behind a wall of what turns out to be confusion and pain.

Seth’s lips pressed in a thin line behind his shawl. “So that explains that.”

Yeah. Another pause. We can keep going but there’s more pain buried in there. We have no idea how deep it goes or how painful.

“Leave it,” Seth answered, an eye still on the third adventurer as his short, brown hair fluttered in the wind. “There’s no point putting me through a pain I don’t need.”

They drove on a while longer. Nosam proved a skilled driver. It was not in the smoothness of the drive on the tarred road. There was no commendation to give in his steady speed or obedience of road laws Seth did not know. It was in his control off the road.

They took the tarred road for a time long enough to envy an hour but too short to be one. Seth’s minds counted the minutes as they drove, taking annoying pleasure in the monotony of ticking seconds.

They were flanked by trees and forests with more than enough road ahead of them when Nosam veered right. Somehow, despite the suddenness of it, the transition was seamless. One moment they were on smooth road and then they found themselves in the discomfort of a rocky ride.

This ride lasted an equally long period. During this time the sun dipped farther into its descent, praised the skies in a soft orange glow. A beauty of dusk in its regal glory. It peeked through the canopy of trees, seeking them out through every space or hole or crevice the leaves and trees did not protect. When they deluged from the protection of the forest, Seth opened his eyes to the warm touch of the orange dusk.

It bathed his skin like the gentle caress of a mother’s love. The afternoon heat was unseen in its presence. Where the atmosphere had once been mildly harsh before he’d arrived at the guild hall, it was gentle and sweet.

Seth’s enjoyment of the sun was short-lived as they moved on to a mountainous terrain.

“Almost there,” Nosam said.

The words were intended for someone in the car but Seth caught its sound like he caught most things within his reach of awareness. That Nosam had waited till now to offer those words meant few things. One possibility—the only one Seth entertained—was wherever they were heading was within this area.

He turned his head from the dying sun and looked ahead of the vehicle. Beyond them, a distance no more than ten more minutes by car, a mountain stood with a crevice at its foot.

Seth closed his eyes to what was to happen. Ten Iron adventurers had willingly accepted a contract to seek out something in a cleared, sliver rank, enclosed nest. It felt like a plot for a lot of things to go wrong.

“Hey! Oden.”

Seth opened his eyes to the adventurer whose name he still did not remembered.

“You ugly under that thing?” the adventurer asked.

Seth thought about an answer. No one had ever called him ugly. No one had ever thought him ugly. He’d also never thought of himself as ugly.

He opened his mouth to present his answer when his thought shifted. Instead, he said, “You’ve got bigger things to worry about than my looks.”

Again, his attention wandered to the cleared nest. The enclosed nest.

The seminary taught much about enclosed nests. They were bad business.

An enclosed nest was a good way to die.