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18. Doing what is necessary
🕑 Added 2023-05-02 17:39:42 +0000 UTCTsworeyn's mind slowly came to consciousness, though fuzzy and incoherent, his body worn out and starved. The Na'vi mind cleared further as his only good ear flicked at the soft sound of something scratching against something.
Feelings of his weakened limbs slowly came back to him and with it, the pain, one in particular around his neck, wrists, and feet, his eyes snapped open and he immediately tried to run away as far as possible but it was impossible.
His back slammed against the pillar to which he was bound, trying to get up again he failed, his feet tied, arms twisted uncomfortably with his wrist clamped down, the bound on his neck was tired to something behind keeping him grounded for good and each movement slowly choked him. His heart hammered in his chest as his feeble muscles fought in vain.
His eyes filled with terror darted everywhere looking for a way out one that didn't exist. Walls were all the Na'vi could see until his eyes locked onto the Demon's almost unnaturally grey ones.
Next to him was also a small creature sleeping peacefully in a ball. A creature that was both familiar and alien but his mind was not in the place to care about this detail.
"Ah, you're finally awake.", the Demon said coldly as he stopped sharpening his strange weapon, a war scythe not that the Na'vi could know.
Then he spoke again slowly standing to his full height appearing taller and more intimidating than any human should have the right to, not that the knew of any other human, "You're scared? Don't look at me like I'm the monster here, or the word <Demon> should be more apt as it is somewhat close in meaning right? You came here yourself."
The source of so many nightmares, pain, and horror he lived through far from his clan, and his family since that event where he failed to kill him and was exiled, forced to cut one of his ears as a mark of his crime for his exile, his thoughts were muddled by fear and hate.
The human spoke in this same strange language of theirs, but this time daring to use a word of the People within, the voice sounding muffled. As the Demon moved closer Tsworeyn's despair and effort to flee kept on increasing, he tried to speak out threats and hiss but what came out only incoherent sounds came out.
Crouching down to meet the eyes level of Tsworeyn the Demon blinked, his two cold gray eyes seemed vacant for a split second before a hopeless sigh escaped his lips.
A bone knife, his bone knife appeared out of thin air in the Demon's left hand causing Tsowreyn to reel back in shock the terror he felt until now amplified even further at the sheer impossibility of what just occurred.
They were wrong, the Tsahìk and Olo'eyktan were wrong, he was right whatever this creature did was not normal, nobody should be able to do this. And whatever he did to help the two youngsters were not out of good intent.
"You can't understand my words and wouldn't if you could in the state you are but I still wanted to tell you this, or maybe it's to myself? I was going to help you, you have lived through some shit recently I can see that, I pitied you even if you tried to kill me once. I was going to help you back into full health, how I wish it was to be the case but…", the Demon trailed off, his voice getting lower and lower almost turning into a growl, flicking the dagger a purplish liquid fell.
"Poison, one made of a mixture of berries, one that wouldn't have killed me but… There shouldn't be poison if your intentions were to ever be peaceful in the beginning, not that intruding into someone else's home armed in the middle of the night is ever good.", he spun the knife into a good handling position one normally would take for a short sword rather than a knife.
"I truly don't have any desire to do this, but I'm selfish and my survival comes first before anything else and you're a threat. I would have left you be but you had to do this. You brought this upon yourself.", the Demon continued, each word getting colder, more frigid than the last even as he clutched the handle of the knife hard enough to cause the wood it was made to start splintering.
The Demon moved again, Tsworeyn's eyes filled with primal terror zoomed toward the bone blade as it was oriented toward the right side of his head.
The realization of his situation finally hit the Na'vi, and all he could feel was true despair, anger, and even regret, however, it was too late. Tears started to trickle down his sunken cheeks as he tried and tried for the umpteenth time to struggle, stand up, and run away.
But all it did was tighten the rope that bound him even further, as Liam had intended for it to do, but the Na'vi even if ignorant of this fact still kept on thrashing around as the ropes literally strangled him. All the little rationality left and slowly slipped into mindless hysteria.
A flash of hesitation passed through Liam's eyes at the scene unfolding before him for the briefest of instants, before his right hand shouted out, grabbing solidly the Na'vi forehead, ending all the struggle as Tsworeyn froze. Unable to move, instincts screaming in disarray.
Keeping eye contact with the Na'vi Liam's face hardened as the hold of his left hand on the dagger tightened further.
Breathing calmly Liam acted, with one swift, clean, and strong motion the blade stabbed with laughable ease through Tsworeyn's skull, there was a sharp pain the Na'vi felt before his world, fear, and despair disappeared all at once.
The blade stopped halfway in the skull as the curved tip poked through the other side of the cranium. Rapid and effective, no need for more pointless suffering.
Taking out the dagger Liam kept eye contact with the now-dead dulled eyes and their unmistakable frozen terror in them for a time until he manually closed them.
His hand holding the bloodied dagger was steady as his gaze moved to it and he sheathed it back into the leather strap around the Na'vi's chest.
He didn't feel guilt, remorse, or the need to throw up at his action; he only felt as if a metaphorical weight was lifted off his shoulder, yet he wasn't happy nor did feel any kind of real satisfaction at the Na'vi's suffering, terrified gaze and death which he was extremely relieved for. The opposite in fact.
And one of the reasons as to why he didn't immediately kill the unconscious Na'vi after discovering the poisoned blade.
A sort of twisted sense of curiosity for this exact purpose and the response he got was mixed and made him learn a lot about himself.
'It was easy… Too easy. Perhaps due to my hatred toward him or the rational need to get rid of a threat or that he wasn't human or all combined… But doing this and taking the life of someone shouldn't feel so easy and… Normal.', Liam thought, puzzled and mildly horrified by his own train of thoughts and how he should feel about this.
It was off-putting, inhuman to some degree, this apathy, desensitization to the act even if it was someone he hated. Maybe the Na'vi word held some inkling of truth.
Liam didn't know if he always was this way or if it was from the moment he arrived or a mix of both. It didn't matter, however, as it was him and only him at the end who choose to do it.
But ultimately if what he did was good or bad was subjective and depended on more factors and points of view than one can count, the Na'vi was depressed, sick, injured, starved, and past the point, one would call the breaking one, but why was he in such a state?
Liam could have helped the Na'vi but he didn't, he wasn't going to save someone who tried to kill him for no reason, and very much in the middle of trying a second time, it was asking for a third attempt, one with a greater chance of success.
People when set on one thing don't tend to change that easily and Liam wasn't patient enough for those people to change even less when it directly put himself and what he held in extreme and immediate danger.
Cowardly to a certain degree for some but Liam took this as being rational and not being a naive moron, not everyone can be changed or even want to. Or even deserve such an opportunity.
Sighing pensively about all of it, it was life he supposed, he would have killed someone at some point and he surely will need to do so again in the future. He just hoped it won't happen much, it felt casual and it shouldn't be but it was.
From another point of view, it was good in fact that he was calm and that his first kill was in a controlled environment but all of it didn't equal him liking it.
Hearing Gladius chirp and arrive behind him made him blink, he scratched the back of the murder chicken's head until it made a purr-like sound.
It was curiously looking at the corpse but lost interest pretty fast, completely different than prior when he dragged the unconscious body and had to forcefully calm down the bird or the Na'vi would have been killed right away.
"We can play after I take care of this…", Liam said, and Gladius tilted its head to the side. Even if the little guy passed most of its time either sleeping or eating due to it being so young it still needed plenty of mental stimulation.
Something Liam was happy to oblige when he could, but something Gladius didn't really understand. It was mentally exhausting at times but something he was also glad. He severely needed those times of relaxation. One right now would be good.
The following hours passed as Liam dug a hole far away from his base, he had already incinerated most of the body and crushed what survived the heat to avoid any would-be scavenger from digging it out.
Not born of his respect for the dead, this one particular, but to get rid of any would-be physical evidence.
No one could directly link him to him having killed the Na'vi, or if they do he can lie. So he didn't fear any retribution, and it was obvious from how this Na'vi acted that he was alone in his physical condition wasn't a good enough indicator.
Why it was the case Liam wasn't sure and didn't exactly care all that much, exile being at the forefront, adding that one of his ears was cut and cauterized and the tip of his neural queue was cut or bitten off? And in the middle of regrowing, which meant it truly wasn't him with the horse.
Exiled conceivably because of 'him' well that must have been how the Na'vi thought and what did it earn him?
Nothing but suffering and death, and only the last Liam was partially responsible as it wasn't him who searched or even truly wanted to kill the Na'vi.
However, Liam felt freer as the one who was lurking around was finally dead, if it was the one who alarmed Gladius he didn't know.
But surely the possibility of there being more Na'vi out looking for him for whatever reason be it good, bad, or neutral was clear and the reason why he will keep the traps all nice and ready.
Such as the still unknown bone carver, it didn't seem like the kind of thing someone in despair and starving would do in his past time.
Day 79.
Liam was moving along the great plain at a pace one would consider for an Olympic marathon but for him was a simple jog.
He was roughly half a kilometer from the shore and two hours and a half away at the same speed he was moving from his base, so approximately 25 kilometers per hour (15.53 mi/h), this was without the pause to drink, eat and take a breather.
He was exploring to find new areas of potential interest notably but not uniquely easier access to the caves system below the great plain than the giant grottos as they clearly were not the safest place to use for cave diving and why he still didn't explore them.
Not that cave diving on Earth was ever safe, to begin with, even less so on an alien moon with a penchant for fauna and flora affected by gigantism.
The potential of getting lost however was minor in his mind as he could locate himself thanks to his link with his tame but he didn't use this as a crutch as even then his sense of direction was extremely good.
In front of him was the spot where the shore and the plain met, growing out from the gravel beach and sea he could see a series of small high islands void of any visible life that formed a sort of archipelago where the seawater surrounding was shallow but from the look of it was but temporary as tide even if different from Earth existed hers.
The thing however that truly picked his interest was the yellow ranging from bright yellow to pale almost white yellow stone that was everywhere from around ponds and thin streams of boiling turquoise water to the column of stone emitting steam. Turquoise water that was denser than seawater.
'A hot spring or some sort of shore thermal vent? And sulfur, a lot of it to boot.', Liam thought, eyes narrowing as he carefully approached one of the smaller islands, not forgetting to put on a pair of boots and gauntlets.
This part was nearly connected to the gravel beach, his nose wrinkled as the distinct smell of rotted egg wafted over him thanks to a sudden shift in the sea breeze.
"Indeed it's sulfur.", he remarked with a smile appearing on his face at this confirmation.
He absolutely needed it and as soon as that thought passed his mind he felt the ground rumble, he backed far away knowing what was going to happen.
And just as anticipated from the pond he just moved away a highly pressurized jet of steam and water high into the clear blue sky, the remnant of the heated air washed over his face with no consequence besides the unpleasant smell and that it was slightly irritating to his eyes.
A shower of extremely acidic and boiling water was the last thing he wanted, the chances were it wasn't going to kill him at all unless he took a dip directly inside one of the ponds and stayed inside for some time. Chances he didn't want to take.
But just the idea of chemical burn and third-degree burn from scalding hot acidic water was a good enough deterrent for him to tread with the utmost care and avoid the deadly turquoise water at all costs.
Steel pickaxe appearing from his inventory with a mental command, Liam switched it to his right hand and tapped with the metal tips one of the knee-high pale yellow stone columns, easily breaking it from the base while he held it in place as he waited for it to be stored.
This procedure was repeated a dozen times over the various variants in the color of the stone that contained Liam noted that there was a variation in purities depending on how intense the yellow was, the more intense the color the purer the sulfur. But they were usually too close to the sulfuric water for his comfort.
It's not like the purity was even a problem to him, processes to purify it existed at worst it cost time. Prime materials are rarely if ever found pure depending on what it is and pure doesn't mean better either, it always depends.
Now he had the last missing pillar of the triad to make black powder aka gunpowder. Not that it was the only use for sulfur, far from it but he always had an affinity for explosions, in video games that is, but that still counts for something considering the new reality he is in.
