Melenith writhed on the floor with laughter. I wanted to glare, but was too perplexed by the whole development.
[CLOUDSTEEL BASE] was the hilt’s name in my inventory. It had a whole tool tip explanation attached to it: “This serves as the basic block for a modular weapon. It can be used together with any blade, provided the thickness of the blade is less than or equal to 5 mm, and no longer than 1500 mm. Cloudsteel provides the best results.”
“Why is this a thing?!” I asked no one in particular.
Picking up the blade revealed that it retained the previous name Melenith’s rune had given it. It was still [THE BURNING LASH].
“Your weapon seems to have broken, human,” Melenith wheezed out. “Good thing it did not do so when we fought.”
“Yeah, not funny,” I growled, staring at the two pieces.
There were runes engraved on the inside of the blade’s spine, so tiny that I had to squint and bring the thing almost to my nose. I recognised immediately the same power siphon that Melenith had taught me, but not the rest. So, I did the reasonable thing and showed the whole thing to her.
“This is a sticking rune,” she said between hiccups of laughter, lying on her side as she held the grip. “See this group here? Four effects, where two of them are dependent on the state of the third. If there is a blade attached, you will release it when providing energy. If there isn’t one, you will attach it.”
“It’s not arranged like yours,” I said, up on my tiptoes to see properly what she showed me, one hand on her shoulder to steady myself.
The symbols were arranged in a line. Considering the sword’s spine was, at most, about ten millimetres wide, fifteen at best, the script was incredibly fine and barely visible. If not for the small tug on my attention, I never would’ve found it otherwise, and certainly I wouldn’t have seen it.
“How is it connected?” I asked, squinting at the squiggly lines. “Yours has this shape that flows together. This looks like a series.”
Melenith pressed the tip of her pinky claw against the script and traced a fine line. I had to tilt my head and press my cheek to her palm to actually see it.
“Here,” she said, tone amused. “It is a connecting line. You can fashion your runes this way as well.”
“But you said not to overlap designs.”
“This is not an overlap. See?” And she was right. The line was tiny and frail, but it didn’t actually touch any of the other bits of the rune. I needed better eyes to fully appreciate the intricacies of the design, but once I saw it, I could get what the rune smith had done.
I took the hilt back and slid the blade into the tiny slit on the spine, then channelled some power again into the connection. The blade remained firmly affixed to it, as if welded in place. Neat. There was possibility there.
“I am surprised you didn’t know this about your weapon.” Melenith composed herself and rose in a sitting position with her leg tucked beneath herself. “I felt the rune when you allowed me the use of your sword. There is another, engraved along its pommel, that controls who can wield it. It’s how I knew I could not pick it up without your permission. Or your death.”
“Magic bullshit,” I grumbled. “Why doesn’t anyone spell out this stuff? This, like everything else, failed to show up with a manual.”
“Young and full of vim and vinegar, are you?” Melenith cooed. She had her chin in her hand again, smiling as wide as I’d seen her so far. She was enjoying herself.
I cut my thumb on the blade then pressed a bloody fingerprint into the rune. I poured energy down into the other channel and the sword burst into bright red fire, almost too fast for me to draw my hand away. It ate through my MP bar at a spectacular pace.
I didn’t get a notification about the effect, but it was easy to see plainly that I’d get at best ten seconds of activation time at my current level. Still, unlike my other skills, I could simply turn this one off. A bit of care when fighting, and some careful dosing, given the instant activation time, and I could give some glitch artefacts the scare of their short lives.
For a moment I entertained the idea of giving those fucking tree fathers a proper pruning, then remembered that fire and forests generally don’t go well together. It’s all fine and good to kill the pesky things, but I wasn’t going to set the whole Brightleaf aflame just for my petty vengeance.
Melenith’s head drooped on her palm, then dropped. She startled awake, panic in her eyes as she looked about.
“It’s okay,” I said, still holding the blade. “I’m still here.”
I really wished I had more practice with the [ENERGY DETECTION] skill, just to see what was sapping her. As it stood, I didn’t really dare try and experiment right that moment. If she faded away or something, I didn’t want to be unconscious in a pool or my own vomit. After all, my promise was that I’d stay with her until she was ready.
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But it also didn’t seem like she wanted to stay longer. Almost languidly, she crawled next to the core and laid on her side, almost embracing the pedestal.
“My prison.” She reached her hand and set it on the core. Unlike myself, she could touch it. It was her—or hers?—after all. “My hope.” Her eyes glowed past the core and stared at me for a moment, though I may have just imagined that.
“I really wish I could understand more of this,” I said as I walked up to her. I gestured at the room and the crystals and the core. “I don’t know how to help you.”
Melenith’s hair hid half her face. But that blood-red eye that pinned me shone with mirth. “I will have dreams to hold me company. Dreams of a place called Earth, and a land called Romania. I hope you never see that world again.”
That caught me by surprise.
“Why?”
“Because if you see your world again, then She Who Hungers will have found it. And she will bring it into herself. And then your people too shall face the wrath of the sister. Best it remains alone and unknown, lost in the sea of stars. Best you never lay eyes on it again.”
By now she was beginning to fade away. Little by little. Her eye drooped. Blinked slowly. Closed. A smile spread on her lips as she stifled another yawn with her fist.
“Will you be all right?” I asked, feeling useless. “I’ll come back around from time to time and check on the core.”
“I would… enjoy… that.”
And with that, she was gone. Nothing grand or flashy. One breath she was there, the next she was gone. The room shone a little brighter, as if some draw on its power had ceased.
Maybe I spent another ten minutes just sitting there and watching the core. I don’t really know. Unpacking what I was feeling didn’t feel wise, so I waited out the hollow in my stomach and the heat on my face. In the end, I turned, stepped onto the platform, and went back up to the temple room. Part of me expected to see the statue returned. It didn’t. Just an empty dais with a faux-bloodied altar atop it.
You’re being stupid. I knew that. You knew her a few hours. And you don’t understand a single percent of what’s going on here. Why are you upset over things running their course? And that was, of course, true.
But…
Nothing. I forced the thoughts out of sight and out of mind. They slunk off into that great big box where I usually keep everything I don’t want to think about. And just then I didn’t want to think about Eternity’s fairness, whatever her sister was, or if the entity had done right by Melenith and her people. Whatever answers there were to uncover on that front, they wouldn’t change my now and here. All I could do was move forward, try and learn what there was to learn, and make a properly informed decision at the end of this insight bullshit.
What was I deciding on? And what was that candidacy thing that had popped up with the second insight level?
That was part of everything I had to learn, but I clearly had something in store. Methol was living proof of it, given the way she acted. We were not simply people left to our own devices for the heck of it. Eternity wasn’t watching me out of concern, but for usefulness.
Was I being judged as a possible agent for it? Why?
I emerged into late afternoon gloom, beneath a bruised sky of reddish purple. Areestra hung in the sky above, the first sight that greeted me upon exit. The furnars were still asleep, though I could see some of them stirring now, little pockets of movement among the sea of entangled bodies.
Crystal and Tusk were snoring away peacefully by the well.
Methol hadn’t returned yet.
Several paces away, discarded almost as an afterthought, I spied my backpack at long last. It only had a single strap left now, given that I’d cut the other. I picked it up just as Eternity came to land on my shoulder from wherever it had perched and waited.
“Melenith went to sleep,” I said by way of greeting. “Methol’s exploring a hole. Wouldn’t tell me what that was about.”
Ever appeared around my ankles, hopping about like the faux bunny it was.
“I assume Methol did not break protocol,” it said, voice already in a huff.
“She’s keeping lil’ ol’ me out of trouble, if that’s your worry.”
I slung the backpack over my shoulder and checked my inventory. A couple of Ielup’s tonic flasks were broken and some of the food had received an updated status of [POLLUTED], which I assumed was the tonic spill. All in all, the damage wasn’t as great as I’d feared. I still had plenty of the stuff the iepurrans had given me.
“I can now more freely assist you,” Eternity said in my shoulder.
“That’s nice,” I said, still digging through the inventory. “You’ll just refuse to answer eight out of ten questions now instead of nine?”
“I can also warn you of danger ahead of time,” it said, voice annoyed. “I can also make recommendations more easily now, and can follow your wishes more clearly.”
“Lovely. Make a recommendation then.”
In all honesty, I wasn’t even upset or angry at the moment, just tired and hollowed out by the whole thing with Melenith. Much as I tried not to think about her, the whole disappearance thing marked my thoughts. So I wasn’t intentionally terse with Eternity. I’d apologise later.
“Consider using more time before your next node to get information from me,” Eternity said. “I will lose access to the wider database once you synchronise a third node, so I recommend mining out all you can up to then.”
Well, that was actually useful advice.
“I also bring you bad news,” Eternity went on.
“The army of glitch artefacts are at the gates already,” I said, almost by rote. It had been that kind of day and what other bad news could the dragon bring?
“An army implies a multitude. There are currently two enemies already in the village, advancing towards us. I could not head out of Methol’s barrier for a better look.”
“I thought you said you can’t go away from me,” I noted, remembering the time I’d asked Eternity to spy on the river stalker.
“Gaining a second insight has lifted some more of my restrictions. I am now stuck in this shape and cannot materialise far from you, or from a dungeon you are delving.”
Ever grunted at my ankle as I checked my sword and grabbed my shield. “At least you don’t look like Oresstria’s tastiest snack,” it grumbled. “Methol uses me as bait.”
“Now there’s an idea,” I said, more than a little ruefully. “Also, what barrier?”
I hadn’t seen anything of the sort earlier and couldn’t now.
“Methol likes using these protection wards,” Ever said, pointing with a fluffy paw towards the sleeping furnar. “You can go out but can’t come in.”
I’d have to ask her to teach me this one.
Of course everyone was asleep and it was getting dark and Methol was off spelunking and I still craved some fucking coffee to get the edge off this fatigue. Of course there were enemies approaching.
“Where?” I asked, searching through the inventory for a sandwich.
I still had one that didn’t have goop all over it. While Methol’s jerky had taken the edge off my hunger, it still gnawed at my insides. I was in no shape for a long fight, but I could probably deal with just two enemies if they weren’t some spectacular danger hikes.
I munched as Eternity gestured with a wing towards where to go. Stone cold veggies in stone hard bread. Yum yum yum.
It beat raw lizard any day, any how, and I would never thank graciously enough whoever had packed these for me.