Residual (Chapter Ten)
Saturday, April 18th, 2015 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcracklovePoor Blame. Poor, poor Blame. I am so, so sorry Blame.
You will probably be very sad during this chapter (I know I was sad writing it) so consider yourself warned.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Monstrous-Residual-map-526465833
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yvK6D0XzgjhMNjblFFQaAeJ7JkzdidaLJux1S8qsSUA/edit#gid=1227692709
Chapter Ten
Sunspire, Minecraftia. September 13, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
It hadn’t been hard for Paul to convince the others that Blame really, really wanted and needed this detour to Ashwatch. The others were mostly just tagging along because Vechs needed people with him, and Vechs was willing to go to Ashwatch for Blame.
It had been harder for Paul to convince Blame that he needed to rest at least a day before heading out.
Blame had argued and complained and tried to get up, so much so that Paul had mostly spent the day babysitting him and pushing him back down. “If you keep this up, we’ll have to wait through the thirteenth as well.” Blame eventually gave in with a lot of bad-tempered muttering.
At dawn on the thirteenth, two days after Blame had gotten that feeling pulling him towards Ashwatch, he awoke and immediately threw his rough little pillow at Vechs to wake him up.
“Vechs! Get up! We need to get going!”
Vechs grumbled and threw the pillow back, snuggling into his sleeping bag to go back to sleep and hide from rude masked men with projectile weapons.
“Up!” Blame threw it back.
Vechs made a ridiculous hissing sound but then proceeded to ignore him.
Blame sighed and decided to just wait.
Vechs did get up after about fifteen minutes, sitting up and tossing the pillow back. “Is it dawn?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’ve already lost a day of the week we have to get to Ashwatch! We need to get moving.”
“Can you go?”
“Of course I can!”
Vechs shot him a skeptical look. “Can you stand?”
Blame made a face at him. “Of course.”
“Prove it.” Vechs jumped to his feet and crossed his arms.
Blame, currently sitting up, sighed. He painfully managed to stand, moving slowly to prevent further injuring himself.
“We’re going to have to carry you.”
“Screw off, Vechs. I’m fine.”
“We’ll see about that.” Vechs left the tent to go find Paul. Blame trailed along behind him, wincing with every step but evaluating that it was manageable.
He’d desperately walked about a mile across the desert with his leg badly crippled, losing blood from his shoulder, and with a man incapable of walking leaning on him. He could walk through some burned jungle and forest with aching ribs and friends to protect and help him if he needed it.
He got into an argument with Paul about this, the older man finally just throwing up his hands. “Fine, we’ll get moving. But if you feel like you need to rest, say so. We’ll get to Ashwatch in time, don’t worry.”
Blame shrugged and sat down to let the others pack up camp. He would have helped, but Paul insisted that he not do so to spare his injuries. Once the camp was packed up (and Paul insisted that Blame not wear his dark leather armor over his shirt because it wouldn’t be good for his injuries) they set off. Paul was in the lead with the map, followed by Zisteau and Pause, then the injured Blame, with Vechs and Aureylian taking up the rear. They moved slower than Blame would have liked, but he knew he couldn’t move any faster without hurting himself.
Seemingly endless walking.
Zisteau and Pause were discussing animals and the best way to hunt down pigs while Vechs and Aureylian quietly discussed whatever came to mind. Blame was focused on walking and Paul was navigating, taking them north. After a couple more hours, they reached the edge of Sunspire, crossing into the forest (which had barely been touched by the fire) and across the border into Illian. They stopped by the edge of a river after another half an hour, as Blame finally spoke up and said he needed a short rest and that food was probably not a bad idea.
He had to sit down and let Pause and Zisteau set up a fire to cook some food (the ability to make a fire was met with cheers from the group). Aureylian and Vechs retrieved some water and fish from the river and had an interesting discussion about birds by the riverside while Paul changed Blame’s bandages and checked over his wounds.
Vechs and Aureylian soon returned with several fish with arrows sticking out of them (Vechs wouldn’t answer questions as to why but Aureylian informed anyone who asked that Vechs had shot them) and let Zisteau set them up to cook over the fire.
Paul informed Blame that his wounds weren’t too bad and that they would likely be healed a few days after they reached Ashwatch as long as he didn’t aggravate them too badly.
Just after they finished eating and were about to set off again, some inconvenient asshole showed up.
The river near them gurgled and hissed before a jet of boiling water shot out of it. It missed Vechs by inches and instead hit the tree behind him. He jumped to his feet and drew his sword, the others scrambling to respond in kind.
Glar’ren pulled himself from the river and growled. “You’ve destroyed Draemae, have you? Have you? I’m here for his orb, and I won’t even kill anyone right off if you give it to me.”
“Uh huh. No.”
“It was not a request, Davion! Give it to me!”
“No.”
Blame was standing a bit back. He wanted to fight, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t do much, injured as he was.
Glar’ren scanned them quickly before figuring out who was currently the weakest. “Fine. I will kill your friends and take it by force.” He blasted another jet of boiling water from his mouth, directly at Blame.
Blame was forced to drop to the ground to avoid it, gritting his teeth as his wounds screaming in protest.
Glar’ren was about to shoot another blast when Aureylian’s sword jabbed him in the side. His scales deflected it but it definitely got his attention. He swung his claws at her and was met with an arrow to his right eye socket, annoying him as it clattered against the skull and got stuck in it. He took a moment to yank it out, giving Zisteau the time he needed to slash at him with the diamond blade.
Apparently the blade carried a faint magical residue- perhaps due to being forged in the nether- as the ‘immune to mortal weapons’ thing didn’t seem to apply. It bit into Glar’ren’s side and he screamed in surprise. He released a shockwave of water from his body, shoving them all back, and dove into the river to vanish within the currents.
Not the bravest soul.
“Coward.” Vechs spat. He moved to help Blame up. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Blame winced as he took a step. “Let’s get moving before he comes back with friends.”
~~~
The rest of the walk over the next few days was relatively uneventful. They were tense constantly, though, expecting to be attacked by one of the hostiles every few minutes. They were guided by the mountains that ringed the Dragonlands in the distance- Ashwatch was a valley south of the Dragonlands, mostly ringed by smaller mountains with an opening on the southeast side.
By late morning of the seventeenth, they found themselves climbing the hills that were the only way to get into Ashwatch. On a map, it appeared that the mountains cut off into flatter forests and that it was easy to enter. This was not the case; what weren’t mountains were forested hills that were not easy to get over, but it was possible. It slowed down their pace considerably, but Blame didn’t seem too concerned.
“We should get over the hills before nightfall.” he informed the group. “Then we’ll have all of the eighteenth to rest. I suspect the Bloodshadow will be visible tomorrow night.” They pressed onwards, eager to get there so that they could rest.
~~~
The sun was just touching the horizon when Blame (who had forged ahead, leading the way ahead of Paul as he knew this place better than any map) reached the crest of the final hill and paused, looking down. He stopped and let the others catch up, who stopped beside him.
They had reached Ashwatch.
The place had clearly been ravaged by a fire in the past, but after a hundred and twenty-three years, much had regrown. The forest in this area was younger than the forest outside of the valley, but it was a respectable size nonetheless. The remnants of a building were visible- the wood had long since burned away but the crumbling, overgrown remains of the stone foundation and one stone wall were still there. They could see that there was a lake further into the valley, and more ruined buildings near it, but they couldn’t see much detail through the trees.
“Have you ever returned before now?” Vechs asked Blame quietly.
“No. Never.” Blame took in the sight of his old home before beginning to descend the hill into the younger forest of Ashwatch. “People could live here again. If there were other Ashenhorns, we could live here again…”
Vechs would have made a joke about Blame needed to get busy and have a bunch of children to repopulate the clan, but he felt that this wasn’t the time. He and the others quietly followed Blame, not speaking as they just took in the area.
A light breeze blew through Ashwatch, stirring the leaves of the trees and the grass at their feet. They felt like they were walking on sacred ground, and in a way, they were. This was the resting place of all but one of the Ashenhorn clan, and the location of the eggs of the brood of Vallor’roth.
Blame stopped when they reached the remains of the main area of the village. Trees and other plants had not been cleared away, so the clearing around the buildings was nonexistent. The stone remnants had been just as overrun by mosses and vines as the first building they had seen. Blame surveyed the area and then walked into the village, walking where the path used to be.
Vechs started to follow but Paul stopped him, shaking his head slightly. Let Blame remember this on his own, his eyes seemed to say. Vechs nodded and watched Blame with the others.
Blame felt the memories of where everything had been rushing back to him. He glanced at the buildings and could remember what each was. Cutter of Bone had lived here, where all that remained of the building was its long-collapsed fireplace. Here was where Slash the Fallen had worked on armor and blades, the building the best in repair in the entire village as it had been entirely stone. It was still completely unusable and collapsed, overrun entirely by vines. Blame nudged a rock, scaring away a family of mice, before moving on.
Eventually he stopped before where he had once lived. It was one of the most destroyed of all, with only the fireplace remaining, just like Cutter of Bone’s, except half of that was still standing. He picked his way through the plants that had sprung up to look at what did remain.
The stone of the fireplace was faded and scorched, vines overrunning it. He pushed aside some to look to see if the words carved into the top of the fireplace were still there.
They were.
They were too damaged to read, but he remembered them well enough to whisper, “The soul is safest when the name is lost in silence.” A phrase carved into every Skullblade’s mind.
He wasn’t entirely sure that he could recall his name, but he didn’t choose to try. He was safer if he couldn’t remember it. He was Blame the Controller. That was all he needed to know.
He raised his eyes to look over the lake again, when something caught his attention. Near the bank on the left side, he could see something he didn’t remember.
He set off to look, his friends trailing behind him. They didn’t get close and he didn’t notice them, but they did look after him.
He almost wished he hadn’t noticed what he had seen.
Stones. Carved stones.
Graves.
He realized, with a start, that the Sunspines who had rescued him must have recovered the bodies- or at least the masks- of his clanmates and buried them. He found himself grateful, but seeing the names- or at least, the ‘names’- of those he had known hit him like a ton of bricks.
Blame knew he was standing beside whatever skeletal remains had been recovered, and the masks, of his fellows. His friends. The last of the Ashenhorns except for him.
Why had he escaped? He tried to shake off the feeling, the feeling of survivor’s guilt that always hit him whenever he thought about it. But he did wonder, and he did feel guilty, and he knew he shouldn’t.
He walked, reading the names as he was lost in thought, before stopping before one without realizing.
He stood before this grave for about five minutes before Vechs walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Blame.” he said quietly. “It won’t help you to dwell on what happened.”
Blame nodded slightly and let himself be gently led back to his friends, tearing his gaze away from the grave of Control the Broken.
It especially wouldn’t help to dwell on the deaths of his family. Even those he hadn’t liked all that much.
They set up camp a ways away from the village, a fact that Blame was grateful for. They were silent and when they ate, Blame wasn’t hungry. He sat a little apart from the group, not responding to questions and just looking at the trees and watching the sky darken.
He had said that he would explain to them why they were here, explain about the Bloodshadow, and lead them into the catacombs.
But not tonight. That could be done tomorrow, before dusk.
Tonight, he needed to be alone in his thoughts, alone in his home, and alone to compose himself for what must be done tomorrow.
You will probably be very sad during this chapter (I know I was sad writing it) so consider yourself warned.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Monstrous-Residual-map-526465833
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yvK6D0XzgjhMNjblFFQaAeJ7JkzdidaLJux1S8qsSUA/edit#gid=1227692709
Chapter Ten
Sunspire, Minecraftia. September 13, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
It hadn’t been hard for Paul to convince the others that Blame really, really wanted and needed this detour to Ashwatch. The others were mostly just tagging along because Vechs needed people with him, and Vechs was willing to go to Ashwatch for Blame.
It had been harder for Paul to convince Blame that he needed to rest at least a day before heading out.
Blame had argued and complained and tried to get up, so much so that Paul had mostly spent the day babysitting him and pushing him back down. “If you keep this up, we’ll have to wait through the thirteenth as well.” Blame eventually gave in with a lot of bad-tempered muttering.
At dawn on the thirteenth, two days after Blame had gotten that feeling pulling him towards Ashwatch, he awoke and immediately threw his rough little pillow at Vechs to wake him up.
“Vechs! Get up! We need to get going!”
Vechs grumbled and threw the pillow back, snuggling into his sleeping bag to go back to sleep and hide from rude masked men with projectile weapons.
“Up!” Blame threw it back.
Vechs made a ridiculous hissing sound but then proceeded to ignore him.
Blame sighed and decided to just wait.
Vechs did get up after about fifteen minutes, sitting up and tossing the pillow back. “Is it dawn?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’ve already lost a day of the week we have to get to Ashwatch! We need to get moving.”
“Can you go?”
“Of course I can!”
Vechs shot him a skeptical look. “Can you stand?”
Blame made a face at him. “Of course.”
“Prove it.” Vechs jumped to his feet and crossed his arms.
Blame, currently sitting up, sighed. He painfully managed to stand, moving slowly to prevent further injuring himself.
“We’re going to have to carry you.”
“Screw off, Vechs. I’m fine.”
“We’ll see about that.” Vechs left the tent to go find Paul. Blame trailed along behind him, wincing with every step but evaluating that it was manageable.
He’d desperately walked about a mile across the desert with his leg badly crippled, losing blood from his shoulder, and with a man incapable of walking leaning on him. He could walk through some burned jungle and forest with aching ribs and friends to protect and help him if he needed it.
He got into an argument with Paul about this, the older man finally just throwing up his hands. “Fine, we’ll get moving. But if you feel like you need to rest, say so. We’ll get to Ashwatch in time, don’t worry.”
Blame shrugged and sat down to let the others pack up camp. He would have helped, but Paul insisted that he not do so to spare his injuries. Once the camp was packed up (and Paul insisted that Blame not wear his dark leather armor over his shirt because it wouldn’t be good for his injuries) they set off. Paul was in the lead with the map, followed by Zisteau and Pause, then the injured Blame, with Vechs and Aureylian taking up the rear. They moved slower than Blame would have liked, but he knew he couldn’t move any faster without hurting himself.
Seemingly endless walking.
Zisteau and Pause were discussing animals and the best way to hunt down pigs while Vechs and Aureylian quietly discussed whatever came to mind. Blame was focused on walking and Paul was navigating, taking them north. After a couple more hours, they reached the edge of Sunspire, crossing into the forest (which had barely been touched by the fire) and across the border into Illian. They stopped by the edge of a river after another half an hour, as Blame finally spoke up and said he needed a short rest and that food was probably not a bad idea.
He had to sit down and let Pause and Zisteau set up a fire to cook some food (the ability to make a fire was met with cheers from the group). Aureylian and Vechs retrieved some water and fish from the river and had an interesting discussion about birds by the riverside while Paul changed Blame’s bandages and checked over his wounds.
Vechs and Aureylian soon returned with several fish with arrows sticking out of them (Vechs wouldn’t answer questions as to why but Aureylian informed anyone who asked that Vechs had shot them) and let Zisteau set them up to cook over the fire.
Paul informed Blame that his wounds weren’t too bad and that they would likely be healed a few days after they reached Ashwatch as long as he didn’t aggravate them too badly.
Just after they finished eating and were about to set off again, some inconvenient asshole showed up.
The river near them gurgled and hissed before a jet of boiling water shot out of it. It missed Vechs by inches and instead hit the tree behind him. He jumped to his feet and drew his sword, the others scrambling to respond in kind.
Glar’ren pulled himself from the river and growled. “You’ve destroyed Draemae, have you? Have you? I’m here for his orb, and I won’t even kill anyone right off if you give it to me.”
“Uh huh. No.”
“It was not a request, Davion! Give it to me!”
“No.”
Blame was standing a bit back. He wanted to fight, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t do much, injured as he was.
Glar’ren scanned them quickly before figuring out who was currently the weakest. “Fine. I will kill your friends and take it by force.” He blasted another jet of boiling water from his mouth, directly at Blame.
Blame was forced to drop to the ground to avoid it, gritting his teeth as his wounds screaming in protest.
Glar’ren was about to shoot another blast when Aureylian’s sword jabbed him in the side. His scales deflected it but it definitely got his attention. He swung his claws at her and was met with an arrow to his right eye socket, annoying him as it clattered against the skull and got stuck in it. He took a moment to yank it out, giving Zisteau the time he needed to slash at him with the diamond blade.
Apparently the blade carried a faint magical residue- perhaps due to being forged in the nether- as the ‘immune to mortal weapons’ thing didn’t seem to apply. It bit into Glar’ren’s side and he screamed in surprise. He released a shockwave of water from his body, shoving them all back, and dove into the river to vanish within the currents.
Not the bravest soul.
“Coward.” Vechs spat. He moved to help Blame up. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Blame winced as he took a step. “Let’s get moving before he comes back with friends.”
~~~
The rest of the walk over the next few days was relatively uneventful. They were tense constantly, though, expecting to be attacked by one of the hostiles every few minutes. They were guided by the mountains that ringed the Dragonlands in the distance- Ashwatch was a valley south of the Dragonlands, mostly ringed by smaller mountains with an opening on the southeast side.
By late morning of the seventeenth, they found themselves climbing the hills that were the only way to get into Ashwatch. On a map, it appeared that the mountains cut off into flatter forests and that it was easy to enter. This was not the case; what weren’t mountains were forested hills that were not easy to get over, but it was possible. It slowed down their pace considerably, but Blame didn’t seem too concerned.
“We should get over the hills before nightfall.” he informed the group. “Then we’ll have all of the eighteenth to rest. I suspect the Bloodshadow will be visible tomorrow night.” They pressed onwards, eager to get there so that they could rest.
~~~
The sun was just touching the horizon when Blame (who had forged ahead, leading the way ahead of Paul as he knew this place better than any map) reached the crest of the final hill and paused, looking down. He stopped and let the others catch up, who stopped beside him.
They had reached Ashwatch.
The place had clearly been ravaged by a fire in the past, but after a hundred and twenty-three years, much had regrown. The forest in this area was younger than the forest outside of the valley, but it was a respectable size nonetheless. The remnants of a building were visible- the wood had long since burned away but the crumbling, overgrown remains of the stone foundation and one stone wall were still there. They could see that there was a lake further into the valley, and more ruined buildings near it, but they couldn’t see much detail through the trees.
“Have you ever returned before now?” Vechs asked Blame quietly.
“No. Never.” Blame took in the sight of his old home before beginning to descend the hill into the younger forest of Ashwatch. “People could live here again. If there were other Ashenhorns, we could live here again…”
Vechs would have made a joke about Blame needed to get busy and have a bunch of children to repopulate the clan, but he felt that this wasn’t the time. He and the others quietly followed Blame, not speaking as they just took in the area.
A light breeze blew through Ashwatch, stirring the leaves of the trees and the grass at their feet. They felt like they were walking on sacred ground, and in a way, they were. This was the resting place of all but one of the Ashenhorn clan, and the location of the eggs of the brood of Vallor’roth.
Blame stopped when they reached the remains of the main area of the village. Trees and other plants had not been cleared away, so the clearing around the buildings was nonexistent. The stone remnants had been just as overrun by mosses and vines as the first building they had seen. Blame surveyed the area and then walked into the village, walking where the path used to be.
Vechs started to follow but Paul stopped him, shaking his head slightly. Let Blame remember this on his own, his eyes seemed to say. Vechs nodded and watched Blame with the others.
Blame felt the memories of where everything had been rushing back to him. He glanced at the buildings and could remember what each was. Cutter of Bone had lived here, where all that remained of the building was its long-collapsed fireplace. Here was where Slash the Fallen had worked on armor and blades, the building the best in repair in the entire village as it had been entirely stone. It was still completely unusable and collapsed, overrun entirely by vines. Blame nudged a rock, scaring away a family of mice, before moving on.
Eventually he stopped before where he had once lived. It was one of the most destroyed of all, with only the fireplace remaining, just like Cutter of Bone’s, except half of that was still standing. He picked his way through the plants that had sprung up to look at what did remain.
The stone of the fireplace was faded and scorched, vines overrunning it. He pushed aside some to look to see if the words carved into the top of the fireplace were still there.
They were.
They were too damaged to read, but he remembered them well enough to whisper, “The soul is safest when the name is lost in silence.” A phrase carved into every Skullblade’s mind.
He wasn’t entirely sure that he could recall his name, but he didn’t choose to try. He was safer if he couldn’t remember it. He was Blame the Controller. That was all he needed to know.
He raised his eyes to look over the lake again, when something caught his attention. Near the bank on the left side, he could see something he didn’t remember.
He set off to look, his friends trailing behind him. They didn’t get close and he didn’t notice them, but they did look after him.
He almost wished he hadn’t noticed what he had seen.
Stones. Carved stones.
Graves.
He realized, with a start, that the Sunspines who had rescued him must have recovered the bodies- or at least the masks- of his clanmates and buried them. He found himself grateful, but seeing the names- or at least, the ‘names’- of those he had known hit him like a ton of bricks.
Blame knew he was standing beside whatever skeletal remains had been recovered, and the masks, of his fellows. His friends. The last of the Ashenhorns except for him.
Why had he escaped? He tried to shake off the feeling, the feeling of survivor’s guilt that always hit him whenever he thought about it. But he did wonder, and he did feel guilty, and he knew he shouldn’t.
He walked, reading the names as he was lost in thought, before stopping before one without realizing.
He stood before this grave for about five minutes before Vechs walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Blame.” he said quietly. “It won’t help you to dwell on what happened.”
Blame nodded slightly and let himself be gently led back to his friends, tearing his gaze away from the grave of Control the Broken.
It especially wouldn’t help to dwell on the deaths of his family. Even those he hadn’t liked all that much.
They set up camp a ways away from the village, a fact that Blame was grateful for. They were silent and when they ate, Blame wasn’t hungry. He sat a little apart from the group, not responding to questions and just looking at the trees and watching the sky darken.
He had said that he would explain to them why they were here, explain about the Bloodshadow, and lead them into the catacombs.
But not tonight. That could be done tomorrow, before dusk.
Tonight, he needed to be alone in his thoughts, alone in his home, and alone to compose himself for what must be done tomorrow.
no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:18 pm (UTC)G.C.(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:56 pm (UTC)(hes 133 i should not be calling him a child)
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 19th, 2015 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 19th, 2015 01:16 am (UTC)See, there's clearly a different. XD
tbh I do feel a little bad, sorry Blame.
no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:33 pm (UTC)have i mentioned that the skullblades are one of my favorite things about this fic? (not that everything else about it isn't amazing)
god i've been reading far to much angsty stuff recently, i think its begining to affect my sanity
well im off to watch naruto
cookies and hugs for blame
(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 19th, 2015 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:57 pm (UTC)NARUTO ISNT GONNA FIX THAT YA KNOW XD
no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, April 20th, 2015 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, April 20th, 2015 07:19 pm (UTC)