Mornn
patreon
Chapter 609 - A sorcerer’s tale
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 17:00:15 +0000 UTCA marked one?
But taking the Regulator title is a bit presumptuous, isn’t it?
Could it be the genuine lord? But why? Especially Ormoncleth, why come and play around disguised as a mortal?
So probably actually a marked one? Both feel possible… But then she died.
Wait, was the hand…
“Gorgeous, isn’t she?” the count asked rhetorically, “I daresay this must be one of the best paintings remaining of her highness. A grim reminder of what was lost, I suppose, yet I only feel nostalgic bliss when I gaze upon her majestic allure. Our queen was certainly the second most charismatic woman after my late wife…” he trailed off with a weary sigh.
“And so… I have many questions, but… How is she the reason everyone here is doomed?” Sofia asked.
The count answered with another sigh. He propped up the painting against a wall and sat back down in his chair, his head thrown back, he looked at the ceiling as he answered, “Our Queen passed quietly in her sleep, about five years ago… It was an unexplained and unanticipated death. The Queen was laid to rest in a crystal coffin, and Chancellor Izzaro took over the reigns of the kingdom for the time being. About a year later, a new unknown plague started ravaging the population…”
In her head, Sofia started connecting the dots.
“Eternal youth…” she mumbled, “Don’t tell me…”
“One year after her passing, the Queen’s body was still as pristine as the first day. It was the chancellor’s idea… A syringe was filled with a few drops of the Queen’s prismatic blood and fed to the sick,” the count explained with a clear shame in his voice, “For those who tasted the blood, the plague was cured in a matter of minutes. We could have stopped there, but the Queen seemed to produce endless amounts of blood, and this is where we all turned mad…”
“I think you can stop there,” Alith said, “it’s pretty obvious where this is headed. All we’re missing is why this ‘madness’ will lead to everyone’s death.”
The count sat back up, his hands joined in front of his blurry face, “As I said, the other side of the moon, our kingdom, is already gone. The queen’s corpse kept bleeding and bleeding, and the people… The people started changing. There is nothing left there, and as the blood seeps deeper and deeper into the ground, more and more of the kingdom changes. It cannot be stopped. For all of us who have tasted the blood, it’s already too late.”
“This is a crazy story… But what is keeping you from leaving?”
The count laughed, “You don’t get it…”
While he said that, Sofia was looking through Pareth’s eyes. She had to strongly hold herself back from retorting that yes, in fact, they really did get it.
The count grabbed a hidden dagger from the interior of his vest, and violently stabbed his own left hand. He raised the bleeding hand to show Sofia and Alith, it was bleeding with iridescent blood. “Beyond saving,” he concluded, clenching his fist, which stopped the bleeding. “That is why you should leave. We here do not have long left. You would also do well to leave the life fruit behind, it is spawned from trees grown of the Queen’s blood, you will only become one of us should you eat that… That bell in your hair, too,” the count said, pointing at Sofia, “It is clearly tainted. I know not where you picked it up, but it would be best left behind.”
Right… Good opportunity.
“That’s a shame. I quite like the soft ringing of this bell,” Sofia said, sounding dejected, as she played with the bell in her hair.
“Definitely a strange-sounding bell…” the count said, “It feels warm and distant. That is quite reminiscent of our Queen, I must say…”
So he can hear it. Safe to assume he’s not been lying until now, then…
“What about the ritual, then?” Alith asked, “What about the lighthouse? The towers? The blessed daggers?”
“The chancellor’s last attempt at righting his wrongs,” the count said, “he’s gone madder than the rest of us. Believes we can yet be saved by harnessing the power of the blood before it changes us. The light is supposed to help us control it, while the ‘ritual’ is… I need not even go into details, it’s pointless. Forget about it. Forget about it all,” the count said, sounding quite annoyed and standing up from his seat. “You know enough now, leave, and if you will, spread this story to the land below. Let our foolishness be a cautionary tale,” he continued as he walked to the door opposite the one leading to the hallway. He did not even look back as he addressed his two guests for the last time, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to spend my last moments with my daughters…”
The door closed, Sofia and Alith were left alone in the drawing room, with the painting still against the wall.
“I feel a bit sad for him…” Alith said, breaking the silence.
“Feeling shared. It was especially hard hearing him talk about his children when… Yeah… I can still see them, right now. They’re… Well, I said it before.”
“Tethered… We still don’t know what to, actually. I have even less of a guess now. If anything, I’m more confused about this place now.”
“This definitely raised many questions… But we also have some answers. And we learned that eating the fruit is a terrible idea, which, you know, I’m glad we found out before you tried eating it.”
“That’s a bit of a letdown, but I can live with it… Do you think the queen was the actual Lord?”
“I don’t know,” Sofia answered, “Could be a marked-one like us. Could be the real Lord playing around… Considering how bad the ‘blood’ seems to have screwed up everything here, I could believe it was the Lord, but then again, why come here as a mortal?”
“Right… I could believe it if he said it was Orator, but the big universe-thing one? Didn’t strike me as the type to come play pretend waving a sword around, from what you described it as. He also said something about ten lords. That’s not very well-aligned with what we know of the actual lords, and-”
Sofia was going to say more, but she abruptly stopped, having noticed something strange.
“What? Is something going on in the real world? Should I turn off the lamp?!” Alith hurriedly asked.
“No… Everything is fine out there. If we can say that. It’s just… I think I saw the painting move.”
“The painting?”
“The ‘Queen’ in the painting, to be exact. But it was so brief… I might be imagining things.”
The queen laughed lightly. In the painting, her mouth moved, “You are getting better at noticing my presence, Saintess.”
Bookie summoned himself suddenly, “Uncle!” he called out to the painting, with a dark tone that he had never used before. “You killed Sofia!” he accused, “I hate you now!” he blamed the painting with a pointed finger, before crossing his arms like an angry child, and disappearing back into his book form.
“A rebellious little one,” the voice from the painting commented, “how nostalgic…” it continued, the words trailing off as if carried away by the wind.
“Wait, Orator, I-” Alith started, being interrupted by Sofia.
“He’s already gone…” she pointed out.
“Asshole,” Alith grumbled in response.
Sofia stared blankly at Alith. “Do you have a death wish?”
“What? It’s not like me saying it out loud changes anything. You think he can’t read our thoughts?”
“I-...” Sofia started, but she failed to find anything else to say. “We should probably leave…”
“Think we can grab the painting?” Alith asked.
“I was wondering about that too, but even if it somehow survives the shift to our reality, we don’t have a working storage item.”
“We grab the painting off of the frame, roll it up and you put that in a bone cylinder. We can carry that. It’ll look good in Zangdar’s main room,” Alith suggested.
“Let’s try it I guess…”
Sofia stood up and grabbed the painting’s golden frame, trying to see if she could find an intended way to separate things up, when she suddenly got a bad, pressing feeling.
Pareth?!
She switched to his vision. Pareth was not looking at the manor anymore, but in a different direction. Something was coming toward him from the distant horizon. Something huge, shining in a myriad of shimmering colors visible even through the moon’s darkness.
“ALITH! THE LAMP! WE OUT!”
Comments
Draxas
I really hope it's Leviathan blood.It's just the sofia choice
Robinn57
Think of Sofia taking stuff shehad taken some statues from the schools arc, but it's unclear what happened to them. Did she leave them with her grandmother before her trial? The details around this incident are uncertain.
E
The silence on the Summon Blood evolution is making sense now. We just learned this moon is saturated in Deep blood from an infinitely-bleeding body. Guess who else in this universe can "bleed" infinitely and just so happens to be on this moon right now? Now to figure out which blood she chose... My money is on Sofia Blood if this arc is going the direction I think it is.
E
Orator is clearly spectating with some movie-theatre-grade popcorn.
Tsorov
I think the dead god is someone else. But I also think that the queen could still be alive, since she has "eternal" youth.
Malphir
Not really related to this chapter but talk of blood made me think about it... What did Sofia end up picking for the Summon Blood upgrade? Or did she yet? Don't really expect an answer since you haven't said in the chapters yet, but we can tack that on to the list of mysteries you're cooking up for this arc. Even if it's not necessarily relevant to it.
Robinn57
Well I am going to bet most answers, and maybe some treasure, are with the dead God. First find out what god it is and then see the memories of said God to see what F up here for the conclusion of the arc other than the GET OUT NOW part. For now I am thinking time loop or memory resetting because of how long, at least a few thousand years, the moon has been this way but only been 5 years since the queen died.
Wensber
I think its less that they can't form new memories and more that the fruit is maintaining a frozen reality from that time. Likely related to the eternal youth. It all depends on how "real" that world is.
Custus
Thanks for the chapter!
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter! I hope they get to nab the painting. Even if it only ends up in Sofia’s inevitable ‘forbidden room for the non-marked’ room
Chance Rose
So I was right on the body being a marked, just not the right one. I mean "right" is a strong term since idk if it was an Orm puppet or actually marked, but close enough. And now considering that this place is linked with Orm and not time, and a large iridescent creature is stampeding towards them, I'm thinking another envoy of Orm is on its way. This whole moon arc is exciting and the mystery just keeps building. I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm figuring they will have to go to the other side of the moon and head towards this izzaro councilor for the real final answers
Cyclone001
I don't think so. The blood seems proof positive that the queen was from the deep, not the god realm. If there are dead gods here, I'd sooner bet on it being something like what is approaching now than the queen.
Tejing
The thing that still confuses me the most is the 5 years thing. My best guess is that something is inhibiting their ability to form new memories, so they have no idea how much time has passed, and keep living on and on, thinking it's only been a little while. That whole "someone with eternal youth died quietly in her sleep, with no apparent cause" thing is super suspicious, too... At least we know where to go next: the far side.
Mornn
But weekends are so nice! They give me more time to think about what to write next :D
Mornn
I did think about it but that's not something he would say, gotta stay consistent
Lazy Monster
True but I was expecting something ominous like “Let me make up for that then. You should run.”
Cyclone001
So... I'm thinking... tethered to what? Sounds like they turned into extentions of Ormocleth itself. It would sorta be consistant with what Shaily experienced in her trial, if all those beings were tethered bits of Ormoncelth. I'm missing too many details to not have serious doubts about this being some Ormoncleth origin story. Wish we got a few more answers from the noble, like more info on the queen, and what he meant by world below. Would have been nice to know more of what he knows vs what he believes about Sofia, the 2nd moon, and the world as a whole. All I know for sure is you're slowly making me dread weekends, Mornn.
Mornn
We can't have him spoil the entire arc now, can we? :)
Matt Grayson
Weirdness continues ramped up to 11. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Shelbo
Hooray for “harvesting cosmic power from a dead creature beyond our understanding and becoming irreversibly changed in horrid and disgusting ways while trying to desperately keep your humanity as your mind drifts farther and farther away from yourself until all that’s left is a mad and twisted creature that attacks all those around it” gotta be my favorite troupe
Wolfknap
You are totally right, because if it isn’t the one they are looking for she is totally going to attempt to feed it to bookie.
Wensber
Even if it isn't, they'll probably be tempted to look for it anyway.
Lazy Monster
Huh, I was kinda expecting Orator to have something more to say.
Emily Gurnavage
“ALITH! THE LAMP! WE OUT!” Short and to the point, lol.
Wolfknap
The thing I’m most confused about right now is the moon has been fucked for a long time. I’m also willing to bet that the body of the god that they are looking for is the queen’s body.
Quentin Cozzi
Thanks for the chapter!
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
