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Kernstalion 2 - 48: Renown
🕑 Added 2022-01-08 10:14:07 +0000 UTCEst, wake up!
Casiron's voice rippled through my mind, and I groaned as the headache hit me.
The daylight poured in through the cave entrance, tinted slightly green by the long helms of grass swaying beyond. The floor and walls of the cave gleamed oily, but smudges clearly marked where we had walked. My large leathery pack lay to the side of the entrance.
I pushed myself up on my elbow, and Libidi's long thin charcoal-like hand slipped down from my chest. She lay beside me, curled up like a cat, one arm outstretched where it had wrapped around me.
Eliandra's not going to like this, I thought with a sigh as I got up.
As I gazed at Libidi, memories of Eliandra played through my mind. How much longer would she need to be in the pod? How great would it have been if she was with me now? I sighed and turned to the entrance.
What's wrong?.
I see large plumes of smoke in the distance, and there was a group of odd gray birds flying past just now, Casiron replied.
"Shit," I grunted as I turned to Libidi and shoved her arm. "Wake up," I said.
The previously motionless black form of the Isirow uncoiled like a snake, moving a foot away and in a ready position, dagger in one hand and looking around with sharp eyes.
"Casiron says odd birds are flying around, and there is smoke in the distance," I said.
As she slowly got up, I moved to the entrance and stepped to the edge. The grass was only a few feet away, and down looked like a swaying and deceptively soft landing instead of a dozens-of-feet dead drop.
Come down and let's get out of here, I said as I stepped away and began gathering my things.
A faint rustling came from above, and I lifted the massive leather bag. A second later, a scratching of nails and bustling sound came from the entrance, and Casiron climbed down. He clutched the sides of the opening and stuck his head inside. As soon as his neck was beside me, I began attaching the bag. Libidi gathered her belongings, and a few moments later, Casiron was climbing down with us.
The flying things were partially humanoid, but unlike anything I've seen before, Casiron said, the surprise heavy in his voice.
I frowned at that. Casiron had been around for a long time, and if he was unsure what they were, that couldn't mean much good. I thought about it for a moment, then grunted as I realized something else.
"Casiron, talk out loud if it's just us three," I said.
"Alright."
Casiron voice rumbled deeply in his chest as we reached the ground, and he began pushing his way through the blinding thicket of grass.
When we finally reached the road, there was no sight of flying humanoid things, but I saw a mass of smoke curling up on the horizon. It was in the direction we would be going.
"That is at least days of travel," Libidi said softly.
I nodded and pulled up my map to see what town or place was there. As I did, I noticed a dozen new lines of text on the bottom of my status window. My eyes widened as I read the first one, then quickly continued reading down.
> Your title, "Fearless four-armed Prime, was repeatedly used to describe you
> Individual status alerts removed for this notification
> You've gained karma: 129
> Raparion used 50 karma to complete the small ecosystem in your mindscape
> Raparion used 1 karma to create: mental purifying bird - male
> Raparion used 1 karma to create: mental purifying bird - female
> You have consumed poisonous meat from another world
> Your demonic poison resistance is temporarily increased by 1
> You have created a high-quality utility item
Who knew of one of my titles and could be sharing it? It took only a moment for an answer to pop into my mind. Galir and his caravan must have reached some city or town with people and were talking about me. Although I liked the amount of karma, the gains left me conflicted. I was trying to keep a low profile, and this was hardly that. I frowned, then continued down and balked as I saw how much karma Rap had used already.
I need to talk with him soon, I thought as my gaze lingered on the lines with the mental purifying birds, wondering what they would do.
"Est?"
I looked up to see Casiron's head turned my way, his eyes large and dark pools.
"One moment," I said, returning my attention to the information.
So, eating stuff from other worlds can have interesting consequences, I thought as I looked at my temporary boost to demon poison resistance. I didn't really need it for anything, and I wondered if this would count for each time I ate something from another world or just the first.
I read the last line, happy to see that the system designated my scissors as high quality., but suddenly confused. It took a moment before I remembered why I had opened my status in the first place, but as soon as I did I looked at my map. The next town along the road was an hour or two away. It was the last one before we would reach the Gougian Connect and Tenziran. There was no label beside it, which meant that none of those people we rescued had known it, but that had happened before.
Casiron had slowed down, his head turned around on its long neck as he gazed at me with his dark eyes. Libidi sat before me, between two of the spines on his back, also turned around. Her face was so close that I could feel her breath on my face.
"Just some odd prompts," I said. "It looks like the smoke is coming from the Gougian Connect. Let's go to the last town quickly."
"Alright, hold on," Casiron rumbled, and he leaped forward, picking up speed.
Libidi breath stopped as her head snapped back from the quick acceleration.
"^&*(%" she growled as she turned her back forward.
I didn't mean that you should go full speed, I told Casiron while I reached around Libidi and grabbed hold of the back so I wouldn't slide off.
Casiron just barked a short laugh but didn't slow down.
--
I lay flat on the grassy hill and quietly examined the small town below. Like the others we had come across, it had been ransacked, and the were gates bashed down. The figures of murdered villagers were visible strung up along the sides of the taller buildings beside one of the squares. A few figures were moving around, and a burst of laughter echoed up to my position.
Vile, evil creatures, Casiron hissed in my mind. How can they defile a whole village then run around and play like children?
I don't know, I said. But you are sure there are only five?
I felt Casiron do something, his mind-expanding in a way I couldn't mimic, before snapping back to normal.
Three in the center, one in the main building, and the last one hiding at the side of the gate, Casiron reiterated.
Alright. You stay here and be ready to come to our aid, I said as I turned to Libidi.
The Isirow's ice blue eyes sat like gems in her emotional charcoal black face.
"We need to sneak up there and take them out," I said.
It wasn't really true. We could just take a detour around the town to get to Tenziran, but as I heard more roaring laughter echo up, I grit my teeth in anger. Images of murdered men, women and children, strung up along the walls of the towns we had passed appeared in my mind. Casiron was right. These people were evil.
Libidi didn't seem to mind. Instead, she turned to me and startled me as she began rapidly forming a gesture spell with her hand. The patterns her fingers made looked different from how my spells worked, and it lasted for a full minute.
I gazed at her, wondering why she had never used a spell before. I had always thought she didn't even know any!
When she finished, it felt like a shadow fell across me, and I looked up to find the sky still blue, no cloud in sight.
"Don't move too fast, and keep close," Libidi whispered. She crawled forward without any more explanation.
I followed her, wondering if we were invisible or something. Even with three hands left and far more muscles, I could barely keep up to the gracefully moving Isirow, and holding my ax didn't make it any easier.
On our stomach, crouching down the hill took over twenty minutes, and when we finally reached the bottom, I had finally pinpointed where the guard at the gate was. A shadowy figure stood pressed against the left side of the gate, partially obscured by the unhinged gate. Libidi continued forward, me in tow.
We reached the side of the wall beside the gate without razing any alarm, and I pressed my back against the cold stone. Libidi made another gesture, and the sun seemed to return from behind a cloud. Then she raised her hand and pointed at the ground while locking my eyes.
Yeah... I'm no dog, but I get it, I thought and nodded.
Libidi turned and, with oily, soundless movements, moved along the wall, crouched down, then disappeared around the edge.
I counted in my head, and when I reached six, Libidi looked around the corner and beckoned me forward.
Six seconds to assassinate a guard, I thought as I felt like whistling.
I snuck forward and looked around the corner. At first, I didn't see anything, then I noticed a foot sticking out from behind the gate debris. Libidi sat crouched near the other side, looking around the cobblestone road that moved through the town towards the other wall.
All these villages look the same, I thought as I moved next to her.
Corpses hung everywhere, bloated and with flies buzzing around them.
Est, did you two make a noise? Casiron's voice sounded in my mind, and I gestured at Libidi to wait.
No. Why?
The other guards suddenly joined back in the middle of the square and are now sneaking your way.
I felt my hairs stand on end as I looked at the narrow road leading towards the town's center. It bent around an angular building thirty feet in, blocking the view. I put my hand on Libidi's shoulder and pulled her head closer to me before putting my lips beside her ear.
"The guards are incoming, sneaking through the middle road," I whispered.
Libidi's eyes went even colder than they were usually, and she nodded. She scanned the buildings, then pointed at a small building to the left of the road. It had an entrance pointed towards us and a window to the side of the road and reminded me of a shop.
Libidi didn't wait for me but moved forward at a deceptively fast and completely soundless pace. It was as if pillows covered her feet.
I need her to teach me how she does that, I thought as I snuck after her.
The blowing wind and the buzzing of the flies couldn't completely cover the soft sounds of my boots tapping and scraping on the stones.
Libidi had just reached the building, while I was only halfway there when a soft twang came from the end of the street. I immediately dropped to the ground, and the sound of something flashing through the air was instantly followed by a kick in my shoulder. A flower of pain bloomed outwards, and a tingling sensation followed.
"There's another one in the building," a gritty voice shouted.
I scrambled up, put a hand on my shoulder while looking at the other side of the road. It was empty for a moment, then a leather-clad figure wielding a crossbow that seemed too large for him stepped around the corner. A smooth, featureless leather mask covered his face, and two narrow black eyes focused on me behind the thin wedge in the middle.
As soon as a target appeared, my mind calmed, and in a single smooth motion, I raised my free arms and fired three bolts.
"&*()&," the figure shouted, jumped back, and managed to dodge two of the bolts.
The third one struck his upper leg, and he yelped as his crossbow arm flailed. A soft thud came from his crossbow, and the bolt feared off to the side, rattling against a stone wall before ricocheting away.
I lost track of the others, but I think they went into the adjacent building, Casiron's voice rumbled calmly in my mind.
I didn't respond but jumped inside the building. Libidi wasn't anywhere insight, and I sighed as I focused on my shoulder. My fingers were wrapped around a short metal shaft. The shaft was thrumming and shivering as if moving from inside. Confused, I turned my head to look at it, and I saw the flesh around the wound was rumpling and shivering oddly. The pain inside hadn't lessoned, and it almost felt like something was gnawing at my-
Shit!
I ripped the bolt out of my arm in a panicked jerk. The pain was excruciating, and a whole chunk of my muscle and flesh came with it, leaving a hole where I could fit three fingers in. Blood sprayed out, then poured down my arm. Luckily the sides began closing in almost instantly, the blood flow slowing down. But, even then, I felt like gagging and looked at the bolt in my hand. The top of it was wiggling, a small monstrous mouth at the tip snapping at things, still spitting out chunks and slivers of my flesh.
Fucking kidding me!
I snapped it in half before tossing it to the corner of the room.
A slight scuff was all the warning I had, and I dodged sideways, raising my ax behind my back like a shield. Something slammed into it, shoving the smooth surface against my back. I stumbled forward two steps, barely managed to keep my footing, and swirled around to see a slim person with short hair peeking over the edge of his leather face plate flip through the air. He landed like a gymnast, holding two daggers out.
I raised my arms and fired three bolts at close range.
"Wha-"
One of my bolts sprouted from the center of his mask like a small branch, interrupting him.
I was about to relax when the hairs on my arms stood on end.
The figure remained standing, his arms outstretched and the eyes behind the slit in the leather glowed green as I heard a rattling sound. Then the bolt wobbled left and right and was pulled inside the mask.
I didn't wait for another second, jumped forward, and brought my ax down low across the ground, aiming for his legs. The figure jumped three feet up, but I'd anticipated something of the sort and spun the ax sideways and up. The black blade slashed up and through one of his legs. A glass-shattering scream echoed through the room as the figure's leg flew away from his body in a spray of thick, murky red blood.
Some flew my way, and it was as if time slowed down. I saw black and tiny, tadpole-like things squirming in the blood, and I ducked and rolled away, trying to dodge out of the way of the blood.
My back slammed into a table that blocked my way, but for a moment, I thought I'd managed to dodge whatever the hell that blood was infested with. Then my left bottom arm started itching like crazy. I looked down, noting a few drops of blood smeared across it. A dozen of the tadpole things were digging themselves down like maggots in old meat.
A soft ping came from my status window, but I ignored it as the blood drained from my face.
"Fuck," I snarled as I frantically tried to come up with a solution.
Fire, I thought, and I dropped my ax and began casting Controlled Conflagration.
Either because of the adrenaline or because my body subconsciousness knew I had no other choice, two of my three hands flashed through the movements faster and more accurately than I'd ever done before, and two balls of green fire formed in my hand. The blood maggots or whatever they were had burrowed down, but I could see small bulges below the skin as they squirmed up my lower arm. Without waiting or trying to move the fire, I simply grabbed the spot where they were, covering it with the fireball in my hand.
A sizzling sound, like bacon on a plate, came, and I gasped in agony. I almost automatically released my grip, then gritted my teeth. I held my hand down while looking for more of the wriggling things. After a second, I lifted my hand, looking at the black imprint of a hand on my arm, burst and cracked in the middle with blood spraying through the cracks. I didn't see anything moving, nor felt any, which might be because the pain was covering it up. Then a single little bump moved from the side of the charred area and towards my elbow. I jabbed my finger at it, fire licking around my nail. Something popped under my finger, and for the first time in a long time, I felt my stomach heave.
I turned my head away just in time to prevent vomiting across my arm. The contents of my stomach splattered across the floor, some landing on my ax. As soon as it was out, the roiling stopped, and I looked down at my arm again. I didn't see anything move, but I kept looking. The idea that one of those things had somehow survived and was still inside me was creeping me out.
Seconds ticked by, then a minute, and another. Finally, I took a deep breath and looked around the ground. Blood lay everywhere; more of the tiny tadpoles squirm inside. A burning rage built in me, and I realized I was still holding the two fireballs. I willed the fire to swirl around without holding back, covering the ground and any spot I saw blood with tadpoles. The blood turned black, the small tadpole things growing before splattering like a squashed grape.
When I was done with the ground, I willed the fire over my ax until any smear of blood was gone. Then I looked at my arm again. There was no sign of the things, and the pain was rapidly diminishing as the swelling lessened. The blood had stopped flowing, leaving a black cracked crust shaped like a hand on my lower arm. There was a single dot above it, and when I carefully picked at the crust, I peeled part of it away. The skin below wasn't fully healed yet, and it reminded me of when I'd picked at scabs as a kid.
As the fear and disgust slowly faded, I suddenly wondered about something. Why was I healing this fast?
After a second, I recalled the demon poison I'd been infected with before.
Right. The regenerative burst, I thought as I remembered the ability the third level of demon blood poisoning gave me.
I took one more look at my arm, scanned the blistered and smoking room for any more of the blood, then grabbed my ax and ran out of the door.
It was deadly quiet outside, with no movement anywhere. There was no sight of Libidi or the crossbow wielder from there. Besides that, I had not heard from Casiron since his last warning.
What's going on? I mentally asked him.
There was no response, and I frowned as I quickly confirmed I could still feel his presence. However, it was weak, as if something was blanketing it.
A soft clang of metal on metal came from further down the road, and I rushed there. I didn't think stealth would get me anywhere, as everyone here so far had proven better at it than me. As I ran, I felt the wounds on my arm heal further, bits of cracked muck falling off every few steps. I kept sneaking a look at my arm, trying to make sure there were no more odd things moving below my skin.
Gonna have nightmares from this shit, I thought as I reached the corner.
I stopped, took a breath, and took a quick look.
Two figures were dancing through the next part of the road. Libidi ran up the side of a building, did a backflip to dodge a sword slash, then struck at a nimbly moving, leather-covered figure. A third one lay like a crumpled heap in the middle of the street, a dagger buried in its back.
I ran forward, towards Libidi's opponent, cursing as my feet thudded heavily on the ground.
The two jumped back and turned to me.
"Est, capture him!"
Libidi's shout caught me by surprise, but the guard, or assassin or whatever he was, turned and ran, giving me no time to wonder. Libidi went after him, and I followed. The guard took the next corner by running across the wall of one of the buildings, and his limbs moved as if they were lacking bones and joints. Libidi followed, only marginally less graceful.
I, on the other hand, grunted as I slid across the slippery cobblestones and slammed shoulder-first into the stone building.
I need to practice my movement, I thought as I looked to the left, where they had gone.
The road ahead split apart, and the two were already twenty feet towards the split. I ran after them, scanning the buildings. When they went right, I searched for a door in buildings to my right. An idea I'd seen in many movies played through my head, and as I couldn't catch up like this, I ran to the door, yanked it open, and looked at the littered back room of some house.
Things lay scattered everywhere, but as soon as I saw a door on the far end of the room, I jumped inside. As I dodged through the rural living room and towards another door, I noticed a table with plates on it. An image of people eating just before being killed by monstrous mutated demons played through my head.
I stopped when I reached the door. There were no sounds beyond it, so I just kicked it open and jumped out. Something moved to my left, from the corner of my eyes, I saw metal gleaming. Instinctively I fell into one of my ax stances, a quick two-step and a slice with my ax without looking.
A dull groan followed, and I felt my ax slam into something, knocking it back. I quickly turned and saw the guard, a few steps away on his back. His hands were covering a gaping wound on his stomach, and blood lay splattered everywhere as I heard him gasp for breath.
I jumped when I saw the same black tadpole-like things squirm around in the murky red liquid. A look at my ax saw more of the blood, and I immediately scanned my body, searching for a splatter of any kind.
"Est, don't move," Libidi hissed a few steps away.
She moved towards me, taking a wide berth around the dying guard. She had her dagger out and was staring straight at my shoulder.
"Don't!" she snapped again as I was about to turn my head to look.
I stayed perfectly still as she moved beside me, reached out with her dagger, and placed it against the side of my neck. I swallowed as she
held my eyes.
"Don't move," she hissed, and I nodded.
Then she made a quick scraping motion across the top part of my armor. Something flicked down, and I saw a small splash of blood.
"It's gone," she said, and I almost sank in relief.
“&*)(#^@ *(&^^%%^^”
I looked at the guard, his words sounding like someone trying to bark while having a cold. He was pointing a shaking hand at Libidi, then burst out in a soft, wet laugh. A moment later, his head fell back, his hands sliding from his stomach from which more tadpole infected blood leaked.
"What the hell was that?" I grunted as I turned to Libidi.
Her face was emotionless but pale, and she turned to look at me.
"We need to burn this thing and the other two. Did you get any blood on you?"
I grunted and raised my arm, which was still covered in some black gunk behind which a pink outline of a hand sat.
"Yes, but I burned those things out."
Libidi dropped her knife, grabbed my arm, and raised it to inspect it. She continued, prodding my flesh all the way up to my elbow, and when she got there, she sighed in relief.
"You were fortunate," she said.
"What the hell are these things?" I snapped, angry and fearful at the same time.
Libidi looked at me quietly, pointedly.
"Right," I said as I began casting Controlled Conflagration, almost immediately bodging it and starting again.
"They are Troachir seeds," Libidi said, staring at the now-dead being on the ground. "If you hadn't gotten it out, it would have buried itself in your bone marrow and started growing, slowly taking over your skeleton until it would form a new Troachir."
"Well, fuck," I said as I failed the casting and started again.
"They are from Leralion," Libidi said, causing me to fail again.
I stopped for a moment and looked at her.
"Are you saying that the Nail Hounds are infected by some demonic seed from your world?"
Libidi nodded, not getting my poor excuse for humor or ignoring it.
"Great. As if Kernstalion doesn't have enough problems of its own," I said before focusing on my casting.
