Cornman8700
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MTB4 Ω 3
🕑 Added 2025-06-23 08:00:23 +0000 UTC*****
SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [ERROR: REDACTED]
ADDENDUM NOTE: 3 months after the battle of Krimsim.
*****
Mattias was poring through notes as fast as ink. Baras came out from behind him, a spear in one hand and a branch in the other. Mattias jumped up when he heard the branch snap, and Baras started laughing, holding out both ends of the broken stick.
“You know I don’t like surprises,” said Mattias.
“Yes, yes I do,” said Baras. “Which is why it is so funny!”
Mattias rolled his eyes and glanced at Baras’s spear, noting that it was dry and clean, despite the man’s hunt. Mattias ignored the soft hunger in his belly and returned to his work, shuffling pages back into the loose bindings. Baras completed his journey to the campfire and sat on an upturned log next to it. A companionable silence passed between the pair as Baras watched the flames, mind adrift.
“I ran out of ink again,” said Mattias. Baras turned from the hypnotic flicker and nodded.
“No kidding,” said Baras. “You’ve written a whole scroll there.”
“More than two standard scrolls, actually,” said Mattias. Baras raised his eyebrows approvingly and turned back to the glowing warmth.
“Stretching your supply,” said Baras. “Of course, you don’t have to write everything. That would save a lot of ink, too.”
“This is important,” said Mattias. “People will look back on these days and they’ll want an accurate account of them.”
“I suppose,” said Baras. “Though I wish it did not drive you so late into the night.”
“You are up equally late.”
“Hunting.”
Mattias glanced at the spear again. “Not successfully.”
“Yes, well, you try hunting near all of this,” said Baras, gesturing towards the main camp.
Mattias wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and sighed. “That is unfortunate, but predictable, the rise in monsters aside.”
“I don’t know how everyone is going to eat.”
“Nor do I, but Brae’ach does not seem worried. Perhaps we should not be, either.”
Baras tapped his spear on the ground a couple of times and shifted his weight on the log. He returned to his contemplation of the fire, then asked, “What do you think he meant when he said ‘I will make you hunters of your enemies?’”
“Oh,” Mattias started. He reached into his pack and pulled out a thinner but much more ornate leather book binding. He carefully opened the cover and sifted through papers slowly and with great care. “Ah,” he said, as he picked up one particular page and read it over.
“By the logic of his statement,” said Mattias, “we must forsake all things and follow him in order to achieve that goal. Though, I am not sure if traditional linguistic interpretation applies to the manner in which he spoke.”
“I know,” said Baras. “It was weird. Strange. Like hearing yourself tell a lesser version of yourself something you always but never knew was true.”
“Hmm,” pondered Mattias. “Yes, that does seem to be an apt, if inadequate, description.”
“But I wonder what enemies we will be hunting,” said Baras. “And what it means to give up everything. I’ve never had much to give anyway, so I don’t know what I can offer.”
“I had very much,” said Mattias. “But sadly, my possessions did not include sandals meant for walking long distances, and thus my feet now have terrible blisters. I have since learned that there were many such vacancies in my assets. I had fooled myself into thinking I had everything, when I had so very little of any real value.”
“You could just buy new sandals,” said Baras.
“No, I couldn’t,” said Mattias. “Someone has to hunt for the leather, someone else has to tan it, someone else has to cobble it. Without them, I couldn’t buy a single shoelace. I imagined myself a master of industry when I couldn’t even clothe myself.”
Baras considered Mattias’s words, before looking down to his tunic and picking at it. “My wife made me this,” he said.
“And it cost you nothing, other than love,” said Mattias. “Something I could never afford.”
A third voice joined the conversation from the darkness beyond the campfire’s light. “A sad state of affairs, if it were true,” said Brae’ach, as he walked from among the towering trees to greet the men.
“Unifier!” the pair said.
“Love only costs everything else,” said Brae’ach. “You can have all you want as long as you put it first.”
Mattias and Baras looked to each other, unsure of how to respond. Baras scratched his head.
“Come,” said Brae’ach. “I have found what I was looking for.”
Mattias and Baras exchanged more glances, but Brae’ach strode into the forest without saying anything more. They followed behind with uncertain steps.
The journey was nearly an hour, and not a word was spoken between the three while they wove between mighty trees and passed through thick foliage. They finally emerged from the woods at the foot of a massive rocky outcropping that rose high over the surrounding hills and forest.
Brae’ach continued onward without pause, walking up to the stony wall and beginning to climb. Baras shrugged his shoulders and followed. Mattias looked down to his sandals, frowned, then took them off before joining.
The night was dark and the climb high, but every handhold Brae’ach touched gave a soft glow, which Baras deftly followed, cresting the top only a minute after the Unifier. Despite Brae’ach’s guiding light, Mattias followed the handholds with fearful inexperience and took nearly another half-hour to finish the climb. The pair at the top patiently waited for him.
Finally pulling himself over the edge, Mattias gasped for air and rested on his hands and knees for several moments before raggedly attempting to stand. Brae’ach and Baras took each of the man’s arms and helped him up, and after another brief pause, Mattias signaled that he was okay and they could keep going.
A thin trail wound around the top of the cliffs, and after a brief walk, Mattias could just barely make out the figure of a man at the trail’s end, his clothes and features obscured by the dark. Stepping carefully in Brae’ach’s footsteps, he and Baras followed until the stranger was only a few dozen feet away. The man was looking out over the surrounding forest and the nearby river, as though he could actually see anything under the sparse starlight. Brae’ach stopped and gestured for Mattias and Baras to do the same, which they did.
Brae’ach stood still for several minutes. Finally, the night-gazer dropped his head, shook it, and turned around. Mattias squinted through the gloom, unable to clearly make out most of the man’s face. However, there was one feature that stood out in the dark, as though it refused to be muffled by light’s absence.
The man had a very large mouth, with something moving inside it.
“Still trying after all this time,” said the stranger. His voice and tone were not dissimilar to how a shark might greet a pufferfish.
“The same to you,” said Brae’ach.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “A man has to eat.”
“And yet here you are,” said Brae’ach. “Tell me, are you satisfied yet? Have you had enough?”
The man’s expression was unreadable, as obscured by shadow as it was, but Mattias still got the impression that the stranger was scowling.
“What’s your plan this time?” the stranger asked. “Try and lure them all in one by one before the curtain closes? Set up traps to funnel them back to the mountain?” The thing in his mouth twitched. “At least I get a little of what I want some of the time.”
“Not exactly,” said Brae’ach. “I’m activating the monoliths.”
The stranger paused for several seconds, scoffed, looked away, and said nothing. After another moment, he tilted his head and turned back to Brae’ach.
“No,” he said, tone strained with consternation. “That can’t be. No deity would allow it.”
Brae’ach spread his hands, the casual motion carrying as much weight as the crag they stood upon. “There is one,” he said.
The stranger stood quiet for a full minute, the thing in its wide mouth swaying ponderously. “How?” he asked.
“A heartfelt prayer from a man desperate for salvation.”
There was another long pause between the two speakers. Mattias heard something moving, briefly interrupting the silence. It sounded wet, though that was all Mattias could discern from the noise. He wasn’t even certain what direction it had come from.
“You’re crazy,” said the stranger, snapping Mattias’s attention back to the man in the dark.
“I’m driven,” said Brae’ach.
For the first time, Mattias saw what appeared to be a curl at each end of the giant mouth on the man’s face. It was turning upward.
“We can win,” whispered the man.
“Yes,” said Brae’ach. “We can.”
The stranger’s hands curled into fists. They began to shake in a building fury, and Mattias thought the stranger might attack, but he began laughing wildly instead. Mattias had a strange sensation that he was lying on a dinner plate.
“Alright, Unifier,” said the stranger. “Let us Consume.”
*****
*****
USER REQUEST: Excerpts from the Word of Brae’ach, chapter 8.
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Note: The following text has been abridged based on USER profile. Rerun request for unabridged text.
*****
When Brae’ach walked down the rocky mountain road, it shook under the march of the crowd that followed him.
. . .
When Brae’ach came to Iun’s house, he discovered his mother was sick with a fever born from the night fog that was prevalent during that time. Brae’ach touched the woman’s hand, and she shone like the starry black, rising from her bed and drifting like the evening clouds, united in majesty.
As that evening came, Timo and Miran had brought many who were possessed by maligned spirits. They howled loudly, and none could hear themselves speak over their rancor. With a Word, Brae’ach halted their screeching, for they now sang a chorus of the same song, which was pleasing to the ear and awed many who heard it.
. . .
Then Brae’ach boarded [a] ferry with his followers. The lake was large and the crossing long, and when they were halfway across, a mana storm swept over the lake and radiated upon the boat . . . [Brae’ach] then rose and rebuked the storm with a Word, for it also craved purpose, and then it turned from a raging phantasmagoria to a serene and even rainbow. As the boat sailed through the rainbow, all of [his] followers were filled with magical power.
. . .
“You still do not understand.”
. . .
“Everything that assails you is purpose waiting to be heeled.”
End of Volume 4
Comments
yohan gu
It didn’t look like Fortune at all. And Fortune already knew about the monoliths, so that can’t be Fortune even under a different appearance
yohan gu
It would appear so. I enjoyed the playful imitation of scriptural tones in these addenda
coffeeicecream
Are you setting Braeach up as some twisted version of Jesus?
Nine
So that’s fortunes real name? Consumption
