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47. Discord
🕑 Added 2022-02-06 17:57:12 +0000 UTCKliss emerged out of the hole in the ground, lugging an enormous, diamond-shaped, black rock in her hands.
She carefully deposited the rock on a mossy floor with a huff and wiped sweat from her mud-covered face.
“If you’re an aberration and you’re planning to exhaust me to the point where I can’t use my arms and legs at all, it's working,” she groaned and panted, pulling herself out of the muddy hole. “Equality, that was bloody heavy! First you've made me carry a huge hexagonal rock from your house to this damn tower ruin and now you've asked me dig up an even bigger and heavier rock.”
She sat on a root, grabbed a large, metal flask from the pile of her things and started to gulp the water down greedily. Then she poured some of the water on her head and let out a big sigh.
“You still think I’m an aberration?” I emerged from the hole after her, carrying two shovels.
“If you are an aberration, you’re a very high-level one,” Kliss said. “One that can trick a LV 99 Truth-sensing rune and therefore far beyond my ability to subdue. I should report you to the Imperial authorities and run away, very, very fast, while not looking back.”
“Why aren’t you running then?” I smiled.
“Oh, I’d like to run, but I’m too tired. I’m just going to lie down here for a bit and try not to pass out,” she muttered, sliding off the root and stretching out on the mossy ground.
“You know, when you said you need my aid, I didn’t think it would be lugging giant rocks out of the ground sweating my ass off,” she said as she rubbed her sore arms.
“It’s a very important giant rock,” I noted.
“Important how?” Kliss curiously looked at the mud-covered rock.
“I believe it’s the Hex-beacon of this tower,” I said.
“So, you don’t know? You made me dig a very large hole in this old, decrepit tower for a rock that might be an old Hex-beacon?” She groaned.
“Correct,” I commented.
“I feel like this is a very poor use of my time as the Overseer of Skyisle,” she sighed.
“You’re welcome to go back to your musty, old office in the Church of Equality and do whatever it is Overseers do. Sort paperwork? Berate Instructor Wiklogg? Make plans to crush potential Skyisle insurrections?” I commented as I grabbed the steel flask from her and gulped water down. Spring was slowly turning into Summer and the days were becoming sunnier and hotter.
“Did you just drink from my flask?” She blinked.
“I did, what are you going to do about it?” I challenged, looking at her from above.
“You’re lucky I’m so damn exhausted,” Kliss yawned. “You know, I did most of the work. You’re supposedly twelve and yet… you dig like a six year old at best.”
“He made a very tragic mistake of getting stabbed in the head by some villain who was supposed to be his oath-sworn friend,” A nest of bees commented from above. “If only some nasty Overseer didn’t put my poor Dante out of commission for years, he’d already be level twenty.”
Kliss flinched.
“Delta, do you mind not tormenting Kliss?” I asked.
“I’ll torment her as much as I want, you’re not the boss of me!” Delta shot back.
“But I thought you’re his assistant?” Kliss muttered to the nest.
“I’m a free… person, I do what I want.” Delta growled. “Unlike some Overseers.”
The Overseer’s look darkened, her slightly cheerful mood extinguished. “Maybe I should go? …I dug out your giant rock.”
“You ain't’ going nowhere,” Delta resounded out of the nest. “You know way too much. You’re staying here, under my constant observation. Consider yourself our prisoner.”
Kliss squinted at me. She didn’t look happy about this development.
“She’s kidding,” I said.
“I’m not kidding,” Delta said. “Dante, you’ve told her way too much. All she has to do is call her superiors on that blue communication orb in her table and we’ll be dead in a day.”
“You’re not our prisoner, Kliss.” I said.
“Okay, MY prisoner.” Delta declared derisively.
[Delta, what is your problem?] I sent via the Tether.
[She’s my problem. I don’t like her getting involved in our plans or knowing about our tower. Which I discovered, by the way. She now knows about our secret base and can lead all of our potential enemies to it! I’d like to Veto her presence here, but we’ve never discussed Veto-ing powers.]
[Why didn’t you say anything earlier?] I asked.
[I see how you’re looking at her,] Delta commented. [Don’t think I didn't notice!]
[How? What are you even talking about?] I asked irritably. Delta and I never had an argument before, never disagreed on anything. Was this it? Was this the point of our divergence, our split?
[Like a cat looks at a tasty mouse!] She declared.
[What?] I asked. [How is she a mouse?! She’s bigger and taller than me!]
[Admit it!] Delta huffed.
[Admit what?] I asked exasperatedly.
[Fine, don't admit it. Consider me disappointed in your choices.]
[You said, you’ll follow me no matter what!] I complained.
[Yeah, I’m following you. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to complain about this unfortunate development.]
[She helped us dig out the beacon!] I raised my mental voice. [It would have taken me weeks, maybe longer to do it alone!]
[Could have recruited our Dad,] Delta replied.
[Dad’s got enough problems at home, he can barely pay for our upkeep.] I said. [I don’t want to involve our parents in this!]
[So you want to involve an enemy in it?] She growled. [You’re not thinking rationally! What we’re doing here is more important than whatever problems you think Dad has!]
“Dante? W-what’s going on with your face?” Kliss asked. “It’s like you’re talking to someone I can’t see.”
I blinked, and noticed that I was staring at her chest. She had managed to move closer to me while I was preoccupied with arguing with my sister. I looked up at her face.
“We’re deciding whether to kill you now or later!” Delta announced from the nest.
“Again, she’s kidding.” I said.
“Umm… I don’t know what your relationship is with Delta,” Kliss sighed. “But I get the feeling that she doesn’t like me.”
“Great, now she’s referring to me in the third person!” Delta whined from the nest.
“Delta is my sister,” I said. “Delta, can we please not fight? I don’t like whatever this is.”
“I don’t like it either, but I’m afraid I’ll get stung if I try to leave,” Kliss said dryly.
The large nest buzzed angrily, the swarm emerging from within. Kliss slid closer to me. I noticed that she was shaking ever so slightly.
A girly figure made of bees formed in front of us. Delta shook her head and tapped her foot. “You’re sitting too close.”
“I’m sitting… too close?” I blinked.
“To her,” a hand made of bees came up, pointing at Kliss.
“And this is a problem, how?” I inquired.
Kliss closed her eyes and started to whisper something softly to herself. Probably a prayer. Or perhaps she was arguing with her Vows. She was terrified of Delta. Terrified of the fire-bees, likely since that day when Delta burned her alive. I slid closer to her and defensively put my hand over her shoulder.
Delta gasped. Kliss stopped trembling.
“P-please don’t hurt me,” Kliss opened an eye and glanced at Delta. “I’ll be good, I p-promise.”
“Stop trying to play damsel in distress!” Delta tapped her foot. “He’s not going to fall for it!”
“I’d like to point out that I’m in extreme distress right now, because I was just told that I’m being kept prisoner under threat of being burned alive by a swarm of bees.” Kliss pointed out. “Also I’ve been told that I’ll be executed soon, regardless of what I do.”
“Damnation,” Delta exhaled. “You win this round, temptress! Aight, scooch over.”
The girl made of bees stepped forward and sat on my left side. Kliss flinched visibly on my right.
[Delta, why must you torment her?] I asked. [Also, temptress? Are you… jealous of her or something?]
[I spent an indeterminate period of time trapped in the Astral because of her. She needs to suffer for her crimes,] Delta commented. [Why would I be jealous of a murderous bitch?]
Delta’s neck lengthened, her head facing Kliss. An array of fiery stingers ignited inside the skull-like structure made of bees looking like two orange eyes. “Boo!” She barked.
Kliss opened her eyes and scrambled backwards. She fell off the rock with a yelp.
The girl made of bees took off from the rock, reforming above the panting, terrified Overseer.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did,” Delta said. “You’ve murdered my brother. I don’t care if you were led by your dominant Vow or whatever. Make one wrong move, just TRY to hurt him again and I will burn you alive.”
Kliss gulped.
“Delta,” I stood up.
[No, Dante. She needs to know this. I permanently lost at least a quarter of my memories to the Astral phantoms!]
[We don’t need to antagonise her. Terrorising her is counter-productive to our goals.] I sent back.
[She IS our enemy and to think otherwise is a mistake. I’ve almost lost you, forever. Without you, I am nothing. Without you, I have nobody. The people of Novazem will always see me as an aberration, just a ghost waiting to steal their flesh! I’ve never had a childhood, never got to enjoy having parents!]
[We can try to implant you into mom, grow you a…]
[No, Dante. I’m perfect as I am now. I am free. The Vow on me is sleeping, because it doesn’t recognize me as a human or even alive… but it might wake up, take full control if I am bound to a human body. You need me to watch over you, now more than ever. You’ve made the choice to reveal many of our secrets to this lumbering, dangerous idiot. I’m not going to be a weak, defenceless child bound to the house, bound to our Mom’s demands for a decade.]
“I-if you’re going to execute me for hurting your brother, just do it now, instead of delaying the inevitable…” Kliss whispered. “Almost every moment of existence is painful for me. The competing Vows are tearing my body and soul apart. I have to constantly beg the Vow of Friendship for help, so that the Overseer’s Vow is weakened, contained, pacified. He wants me to notify the Empire. He wants me to do my job. He won’t kill me, but… he’s been with me since I was ten and he knows how to hurt me.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“He is looking over me, judging my every waking moment,” she cried. “He is torturing me when I close my eyes or when I fall asleep, showing me images of my parents and long-gone friends as bloodless, broken corpses. He shows me… the fallen hex-beacon towers, Cessna in ruins, the white spires of the Equality cathedral burned and broken, streets filled with the dead. Grand avenues covered in rubble and dust, empty of humanity. Only silver Phantoms roam the silent streets, long, ghostly tentacles trailing behind them.”
I blinked as Kliss wept beneath Delta.
“He shows me all of this… and he tells me that it’s all my fault. That this future will come if I don’t stop the two of you now… if I don’t confess my sins to Inquisitor Jubz! …So, just kill me now and end my suffering, I beg of you!” She wept as she sat on the ground, her fingers digging into the moss as she fought against her primary Vow.
The true monstrousness of the Vows became even more apparent to me at that moment.
I stepped to Kliss and hugged her. She wept into my embrace, a girl tormented by her first Vow, chained by Goddess Equality and her congregation into eternal servitude.
Delta growled.
[You were like this, twelve years ago.] I looked at the girl made of bees, seeing her silver ghost beneath the buzzing, constantly moving insects.
Delta tilted her head.
[Don’t you remember?] I asked. [You were bound, led by Phantom-Sasha’s infection. You wanted to kill me. You carved my mind and soul apart with your blades. You aimed a destruction spell at me. You weren’t that different from Kliss. I freed you from Sasha’s chains and I intend to do the same for Kliss.]
[But… I…] Delta blinked. [You… Argh!]
The swarm of bees covering her figure broke apart, retreated back into the nest.
[I’m sorry Dante…] She whispered. [I just want to protect you.]
[I know,] I said. [Can you just… trust me?]
She crouched down to our level. [I don’t want to fight…]
[Me neither,] I replied.
Delta’s ghost cuddled up to my side as I held Kliss, the broken Overseer of Skyisle, in my embrace. Our trio sat beneath the thousand-year-old ruins of the Hex-beacon tower. Wind tagged at the orange leaves of the Mystic tree above us, rays of brilliant sunlight cutting through the air.
I started to sing the Song of the Alanian Sentinel and Delta mentally joined in with her human voice and also with the soft buzz of the bees from overhead. The song of the Alanians resonated, magnified within the tower and I heard it then, realized the answer to the mystery of the spell that didn’t rely on skills, as I closed my eyes.
The tower itself was responding to our song, adding to the melody with the whisper of the wind, with every blade of flowing grass in the ground, with every stone around us with the sway of branches of the enormous tree above us.
It was weak, incredibly so, but the cumulative effect made a difference, providing a calming effect that I could actually feel take hold of my mind. It wasn’t our magic, wasn’t our mana being spent. It was the ancient Alanian tower, every stone within it including the Hex-Beacon now sitting on the ground beside us... responding to the song and singing it back to us… as if it was actually… alive.
