Robert Vlaho
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[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 6 - The Netherecho
🕑 Added 2023-07-05 21:45:00 +0000 UTCThe vast fields were much quieter during the day than at night. But they were perilous nonetheless.
There was no such threat to this man, however. He donned red robes accented with thick violet string, and his long, messy, white hair partially covered his tattooed face, which was drawn in neat, red lines leading from his eyes and branching down his cheeks.
Standing confidently and eyeing the horizon, he frowned in dissatisfaction. After over a day of scouting, he had gathered enough evidence. Their fear had, sadly, been warranted.
A zero-step passage to realm C-000421 had appeared.
A sizeable serpentine monster slithered nearby, carefully approaching his position. His wrists opened, and his blood formed jagged blades that rushed at the creature, tearing its body to shreds before it could even begin to react.
With the unfortunate news finally confirmed with certainty, he took a deep breath and headed back out.
The passage itself had already been reinforced with a heavy metallic door, and the man simply put a thumb to a small surface to make it open. The instant the barrier rose, he came face to face with the numerous messengers here to confirm the news.
He nodded, and the crowd almost instantly dispersed, rushing to disclose the information to whoever had sent them here.
Now, it was time for his reward. With measured, unrushed steps, he walked over to a nearby tent. It occupied the entire street. The citizens had all been thoroughly compensated for the inconvenience, and at this point, the entire area had already been completely evacuated.
The moment he pushed the cloth aside and entered the tent, he came face to face with a bastard he absolutely didn’t want to see.
“Janhalar, lovely to see you here!” The cheerful man dressed in casual streetwear greeted him. He had jet-black hair, and his face was relatively ordinary, even if quite appealing.
All the man got in return from the bloody arch was a curt grunt and a spiteful glance.
“Come on, man,” the man said, rushing to get in front of him. “Not even a hug?”
There was no such thing as a leader of the twenty-fifth district. But this man was the closest thing it had to an owner. And it wasn’t just the district. It was the entire city of Pittersville. Dismissing him completely was entirely within Janhalar’s rights, but he was in a good mood today, so he would at least greet the man.
“Hello,” he said—and absolutely nothing else.
“Bah—bahahahahahaha!” The man broke into laughter. “You’re as talkative as the last time I met you.”
“Why are you here?”
The man seemed offended by that question. “Am I not allowed to thank you in person for your services?”
“If possible, yes, I’d like to forbid you from doing so.”
“Don’t be like that, man!” He waved. Suddenly, his posture tensed, and he sighed deeply. “So… you’ve confirmed it?”
Janhalar nodded. “Indeed.”
The city lord simply shrugged in response. “I say we’re lucky that it appeared here. If it broke somewhere in the wild, it would have been a fuckin’ disaster.”
Janhalar nodded again.
“Ah, alright, alright,” the man said. “I can tell you're itching to see the goods. Let’s go.” He moved out of the way, revealing the room full of objects, all neatly arranged in display cases.
Janhalar glared at the man, but he simply rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, you grump. I didn’t touch anything.”
There was no way he would believe that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, either. So, he simply moved past the man and walked into the room.
Nearly all the items were covered in dried blood, some more than others. Clothes stripped from dead victims, weapons, random jewelry, or objects used for self-defense—these items all possessed a quality that simply couldn’t be artificially replicated.
It was blood spilled in tragedy, and more specifically, directly caused by the appearance of a passage.
However, simply looking at the objects wasn’t enough to tell if they were of any value. So he closed his eyes.
Instantly, they shot back open as he rushed toward a peculiar object. Moments later, he held what appeared to be an ordinary plastic bag. A smelly, dried, brown substance was on it, and it wasn’t blood.
But what the object was, or what it was covered in, wasn’t important. What he had seen in the netherecho was.
With an angry scowl, he turned around and spat. “Harold!”
The casually dressed man cocked his head. “What’s wrong? Ah, I saw that. Pretty crazy that—”
“Where is it!?” Janhalar rushed at the man, holding the torn bag like a lunatic. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice!?”
“Whoa, there, calm down…” Harold said, eyes growing colder. “We wouldn’t be throwing any unbased accusations around, now—?”
“Don’t give me that fucking shit!” Janhalar said. “This is a catalyst! Of a unique vestige—no… a remnant!? And yet it isn’t beside it in the netherecho! How do you explain that!?”
“First of all… I’m gonna need you to show me some manners,” Harold said, his eyes squinting as he moved his hand, firing a small, brown ball of energy at the ground. Before Janhalar could react, it morphed into asphalt serpents that wrapped all around his body, baring their teeth at his throat.
Sweat dripped down his side, and his heart beat wildly. The man wasn’t weaker than him, and any further tantrums could cause the situation to escalate. But he wouldn’t back down here.
However, before he could continue, Harold interrupted him. “Just calm down, ok? If it's a unique, it could have used something as a vessel and escaped. It could have latched onto the victim’s bloody clothes and only manifested later.”
Janhalar held back a scoff. Such a thing was improbable, but… it wasn’t impossible. As he calmed down further, he realized that the man wouldn’t do something as stupid as taking a unique when there was this much evidence that it had manifested.
“I understand…” He had overreacted. But, with something like this on the line… his rash behavior was far from unjustified.
Harold removed the constraints, and Janhalar dusted his robes.
The city lord walked over to the pedestal that had held the item and picked up the paper beside it. “Freddy Stern, alive. See? It probably hitched a ride with him,” he said, putting the report into his pockets. “If a unique had appeared, this dude could be in some deep shit. You wait here, and I’ll go fetch it for you.”
“What!?” Janhalar yelled as he stepped forward. “Do you seriously think I’d let you handle thi—!?”
“Mate,” Harold said, interrupting him. “You don’t have a fucking choice. This poor boy went through some horrible shit just a few days ago,” he clicked his tongue as he scratched his head behind his ear. “This is why I don’t get you freaks. If you appeared before this guy looking like that, he’d probably get a heart attack.”
“Hmph—” he scoffed. As if he cared about some puny mortal.
Still, he wouldn’t fight the lord on this, even if he really wanted to. All he could do now was grit his teeth.
And wait.
***
Coming back from the toilet, finally clean, Freddy took a deep breath.
Breaking the seal on either of the three scrolls before he read through this book was positively idiotic. There was no rush. Freddy picked up the guide and started reading it. It wasn’t long until he realized something quite upsetting. “This book is boring as shit…”
Freddy had done quite a bit of self-education, so he wasn’t completely ignorant of what textbooks were like. And that’s what this was. A textbook. At first, he was pretty confident that this knowledge was essential, but the longer he went on, the more he felt like it was pretty useless crap that did little more than drag the text out longer than needed.
‘Rift history… Arch history… Major organization history, man, what the hell is this!?’
Strongly resisting the powerful urge to skip it all, he sat down and read through it.
‘The rift happened on blah blah… People fought back, more prominent fighters manifested vestiges, blah blah, founders, Archs United… Ugh.’
Worst of all was that this was all stuff he already knew. But, fearing he would miss something important, he kept pushing through it. By the time he was done, he was confident—he could have skipped all that without any problem.
The following section was simply titled ‘Gathering,’ and Freddy put the book down for now as he went to eat. Two sandwiches were in his fridge, a step up in quality above the crap he usually ate.
Once finished, he picked up the book and continued reading. “Fuck this, man,” he said as he skimped over most of the text. It was dull, irrelevant stuff again discussing boring ether theory.
Ether was quite simple, even intuitive, as far as Freddy was concerned. It was mystical energy that came from who-knew-where, and whenever it touched something, it became like the thing it interacted with.
He briefly glanced at all the paragraphs until something important finally grabbed his attention.
‘… this process, named ‘ether shift,’ is how wisps are created.
Wisps are particles of attuned ether and are its most commonly found form. Collecting wisps is called ‘gathering.’ Gathering is…’
The passage continued briefly, describing how it was done, but it was relatively simple, even if there were several methods to doing so. However, rather than put the guide down and try it, Freddy’s attention was grabbed by the next section.
‘The Ethercosm and the Netherecho.’
***
Freddy put the book down beside him as he got into a seated position on the bed. Although it didn’t matter what pose one did this in, he still decided on the cross-legged meditation pose. Simply because he found it cool.
Sitting like that on a bed gave him a backache, though, so he decided to lie down instead.
Now, it was time to focus. Apparently, it could take a while the first time, so Freddy prepared himself to stay like that for as long as it took.
His breathing was regular, and his bodily needs were pushed aside as he focused, seeking the center of his being.
***
A grand white star, a massive celestial object, appeared before him, making him feel infinitely tiny in its presence as he—
Gasp.
Freddy opened his eyes as he got up, startled. The book didn’t mention anything about that jumpscare. It looked like it was described in the book, but… man. The apparent size of that thing gave him chills that no scary story ever could.
This time, he entered expecting to see the same thing. And there it was.
His first star.
There was no actual size in one’s inner ethercosm. This was only a matter of perspective. With some focus, Freddy pulled back, distancing himself to get a better view.
‘Yeah… that makes a lot more sense.’
While observing the entirety of it, it was utterly empty. Darkness was all he could see in the weird space within, and the overbearing star he had seen looked like nothing more than a speck of dust, to the point that if he lost focus, it took him a while to find it again.
Focusing on the star again, Freddy appeared before the weird object. It truly felt enormous, slowly roiling with wild energy. He felt giddy looking at it.
‘Holy shit, I have a goddamn star in my soul!’
If he had a voice or any sort of body within this space, he would be cackling merrily in joy. But it was scary, too. As it stood, the star was entirely white, meaning it was utterly unattuned. While this sounded like something special, in reality, all it meant was that his essence was useless.
Freddy kicked his consciousness back out, finding his body covered in sweat. That was quite an unusual experience, but he must get used to it since he would see that place many times in the future.
Now, Freddy once again calmed himself. What he was about to do now was considerably more difficult. And very dangerous.
Frankly, he was hesitating, and it was entirely justified. Even the book had recommended seeking therapy if he couldn’t cope with what he was about to see. But it was enough stalling.
Once again, he calmed himself and appeared within his ethercosm. Then, with some focus, he imagined a door. It took some work, but a regular wooden door soon appeared before him.
There was no body with which he could grab the handle, but there was no need to do that. Leaving the first time only required two things—an imaginary exit and the intent to move through it. So, he imagined precisely that—and appeared within the netherecho.
He was surrounded by what he could only describe as a rainbow fog painted onto reality by broad brush strokes. As the mist gradually dissipated, or rather, as it was erased, an object was revealed to his side.
It looked like a massive mannequin lying down on a surface. It also appeared painted onto reality, and it wasn’t long until he realized what he was looking at. That was no mannequin. That was his body.
And it wasn’t huge. Instead, he was tiny. Taking a look down, he observed the projection he found himself in. He couldn’t see his face, naturally, but he appeared to be wearing a cyan dress or robes.
The fog surrounding him continued its decline, but not all of it was disappearing. What appeared to be minor, colorful splotches of floating paint remained behind—wisps. They fluttered and moved through the air, slowly falling or rising into the air, unfettered by air or gravity, neither of which really existed here, and morphing in ways appropriate to the element they were related to.
The projection he found himself embodying had many similar functions to his true body, even if they felt strangely exaggerated. And the way it would be for his actual body in such a situation, his heart was raging wildly, so much so that he could see a cartoony heart pushing his robes out.
He stared at the dissipating fog, slowly getting cold feet as it grew increasingly distant. Before long, it would reveal at least one, and rather than run, Freddy decided to stay behind and observe.
The fog reached the ground below his bed, and the head of a creature popped out. “Guys, we gotta hurry!”
‘Oh, shit, oh fuck, God!’
It looked almost like a cartoony alarm clock, and its entire body was a deep grey. It was quite small, too, only about perhaps twice the size of Freddy’s balled-up fist. It wasn’t that scary, which was what Freddy told himself, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a wild vestige. And they could, and would, get aggressive.
The projection of someone like Freddy was miserably fragile, and if it were destroyed… he would die. What stood less than a meter away from him could easily turn into a foe, and if it decided to attack, Freddy had but a moment to react and leave before it reached him.
It was like standing naked before a lion preparing to pounce.
As the clouds of colors receded further, he realized that everything in the netherecho looked like little more than a cartoony interpretation of the actual physical object. That made sense since everything in the netherecho was merely a concept.
“Secrets… are good. And I’m… the best… at keeping those, yes, very secretive.” As the fog revealed the chest beside Freddy’s bed, he spotted another one. It looked like a shriveled, obese old man with a key hanging on a necklace around his neck.
“I’ll break the sun! Just you wait, you slithery little glow ball! I will get you eventually!” Yet another one appeared, this one at his window. It looked like a glass panel with a ray of floating light traveling through it and breaking at the halfway point.
There was some sort of non-descript muttering coming from beneath Freddy’s bed, and as the rainbow mist finally reached his fridge, it revealed another one standing beside the glass of water. It looked like a transparent orb holding shifting liquid within.
It was weeping. “Can someone please just kick it out already…? Waaaah!”
“Shut up!” The shriveled old man sat atop his chest yelled. “You will rustle my secrets awake! Scoundrel!”
"Such puny tears can not quench that sky bastard," the glass panel proclaimed dramatically.
“Waaaah!”
None of them appeared aggressive, at least not from this distance, but that wasn’t enough to make Freddy feel entirely safe. His projection’s palm sat on the thigh of his body, and the moment he felt that either one of them was even a little hostile—
“It—It is you…” a deep, gurgly voice said.
It was considerably louder than that of any of the vestiges, and as it spoke, all the other vestiges turned to face the garbage can.
Freddy wanted to leave with every ounce of his being, but he needed to see what it was first. A decision he sorely regretted as a bloody skeleton thrice the size of any of the vestiges appeared from behind his garbage can.
“You have finally arrived.”
Comments
Beeees!
Oh man, this shit is getting wacky and I'm all here for it
