Fated (Chapter Twenty-Nine)
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mindcrackloveChapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/F
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kingdom of Variat, Minecraftia. October 3, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
Samuel pulled the boat over to the shore and gently shook the others awake. “We’re here.” He told them, getting to his feet. “We’re just minutes from Tirisk.” The river going south into Variat was much faster than most rivers in Minecraftia, and thus the group had gotten to their destination relatively early in the morning.
Tranpar jumped up immediately, excited to be in a city for the first time. “Ooo! Samuel, look at the walls! The wood in this region must be very strong if they’re making walls out of it, or there might just not be anything better. Oh! How many people do you suppose are in Tirisk, Samuel?” Tranpar was bouncing. “There’s bound to be a ton.”
“Thousands. It’s a huge city.” Samuel shuddered. He hated being near cities, hence his dislike for anything to do with them. In large groups of people he felt crowded, overwhelmed, and in a city there was no way to escape that. He wanted to get in, find the descendant or descendants, and get out as quickly as possible.
Tarsen groaned as he looked at the walls. “Never thought I’d return here again.” He mumbled. “Not a fan.”
Samuel tilted his head. “Why?”
“I grew up here.” Tarsen didn’t say anything more, but Samuel nodded, understanding that some people didn’t look back on their childhoods with fondness.
Onai looked over the walls, nodding slightly. “We are seeking the one who lives in the shadows of the fortunate and the one whose voice is quieter than the darkest night.”
Valkan groaned. “That was clear as mud. Care to elaborate, shadow boy?”
Onai looked over at him, rust-colored eyes locking onto Valkan with a blank expression. “I don’t know anything else.”
Valkan hissed at him, making his brother scoot away.
“I think our best way to find ‘em is to split up.” Tarsen told them.
“We only have one stone.” Samuel protested. “Do we just meet back up here at a certain time?”
“Yeah. That sounds like a fantastic idea.” Tarsen grinned at him. “Do you want the stone or should I take it?”
“I think I’ll hold onto it.” Samuel muttered. “Less likely for it to get lost.”
Tarsen rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself. Let’s go in teams of two. Gotta have a city buddy.”
Valkan scoffed at him. “Is that really necessary?”
Tarsen nodded. “I grew up here. Believe me, you need a city buddy.”
Valkan hissed but grabbed his brother’s arm. Samuel took Tranpar’s hand.
Tarsen immediately regretted his decision to bring it up when Onai stepped up to him. “Let’s go, city buddy.”
Tarsen shuddered. “Alright, fine. Let’s go.”
Few things freaked Tarsen out, but shadow elementalists were one of them.
Anything that manipulated the stuff of nightmares that he tried to forget.
Tarsen shrugged it off, leading the group to the gate. The guard raised an eyebrow at the bizarre group. “Your business here?”
“Here to buy some supplies.” Tarsen told her immediately.
She looked them over before shrugged. “Fine. Head on in. Don’t cause any trouble while you’re here- I know your type.”
“Nope, I won’t cause any trouble.” Tarsen mock saluted before heading in through the gate.
“Meet back here at noon.” Samuel told the group, pointing at the ground for emphasis. “It’s midmorning now. That’ll give us a few hours to search. Hopefully fate will draw us to them without the need to test everyone in the city.”
“Right. Let’s go, creepy shadow kid.” Tarsen set off down a narrow city street, Onai trailing behind him. Tarsen shook off the awful feeling the shadow elementalist gave him, shook off the heavy feeling of what his life had been like when he had previously lived in the city.
It wasn’t important enough to think about.
Meanwhile, Samuel wasn’t feeling that great either. He held Tranpar’s hand tightly as he navigated the streets, avoiding people and trying not to draw anyone’s attention. His senses were feeling overloaded and he didn’t like it, feeling trapped within the walls of Tirisk.
He was so preoccupied trying to continue breathing normally that he bumped right into someone. The girl, almost as tall as he was, fell onto her back. She flinched in pain as she hit the ground and looked up to identify what had knocked her over.
“Sorry! Sorry, my fault.” Samuel held out his other hand to help her up. She nodded silently and took it, standing. Samuel quickly looked her over, noting the brown hair and dark eyes. “Sorry.” He repeated. She just nodded again, shrugging it off. She made a quick hand gesture and started to move away.
“Hey! What did that mean?” Tranpar called after her. She looked back and made a series of hand motions at him. “What-”
“Tranpar.” Samuel snapped, jerking his hand. “Sorry.” He apologized again. “Tranpar doesn’t have any social skills or common sense.”
She responded in hand signals.
“Yeah. We’re looking around for some- hey wait a minute!” Samuel pulled the stone out of his pocket. “Our shadow elementalist told us to look for someone whose voice was quieter than the darkest night. I, um, don’t mean to offend you or anything-” She signaled something in response, making him nod. “Right. Yeah, could you just…hold this?” He held up the glowing stone. “If it lights up, it means you’re one of us.”
More signs. “Yes. I’ll expl-”
“Can you explain to me?” Tranpar demanded. “What is going on? Why is she doing that with her hands? How do you understand her? What is she saying?”
Samuel sighed. “Sorry about him.” He turned to Tranpar. “She’s mute, Tranpar. She can’t speak. She’s signing because it’s the only way she can communicate.”
“Oh! How can you understand her?”
“A friend of mine lost his voice at a young age.” Samuel ignored Tranpar’s further questions and handed the stone to the girl, watching it light up. He nodded slightly and took it back from her. “I’ll explain what I mean by the fact that you’re one of us, but maybe not in the street. Do you have somewhere we could go?” She shook her head. “Okay. Let’s find somewhere off to the side to talk about this.”
She hesitated in following him but decided that if he had wanted to hurt her, he probably would have done so already. Plus the kid didn’t seem scared at all, just interested in his surroundings. She nodded and followed them out of the main road off to a smaller, less crowded side street. Samuel sat on a box and the girl and Tranpar followed suit, relieved to be off of their feet.
“My name is Samuel, and this is Tranpar.” Samuel began. “You see, there’s a prophecy that we’re all a part of- it’s a little weird, but hear me out…”
~~~
Shred shuddered as she glanced ahead and to her right, at the jungle trees of Sunspire.
Nia raised an eyebrow at her. “You don’t like Sunspire?”
“Not really.” Shred admitted. “There’s some scary stuff in there.”
“Other than Skullblades?” Adrian grinned at her and moved to avoid the swat she aimed his way.
“Yes. Other than Skullblades.”
“Like what?” Niel tilted his head.
Shred shuddered again. “You don’t want to know.”
“But-”
“If the Skullblade doesn’t want to think about it, you don’t either.” Nessy informed him, crossing her arms. Shred nodded in agreement.
“As long as we don’t have to go in, we should be okay.”
“We’ll be past the jungle by sundown, I should think.” Nia assured, unrolling to map to double check. “Don’t worry. We won’t get eaten by a scary jungle monster.”
Shred’s retort was interrupted by Mira squeaking and pointing excitedly at a fish. “Fis! Fis!”
“Fish.”
“Shh! Shreh!”
“Shred.”
“Shreh…d. Shred.”
Shred grinned widely at the baby dragon (startling her friends) and scooped her up into a hug. “Good job!”
Mira squealed in delight and snuggled against Shred’s chest, wiggling happily. “Shred!”
Shred laughed as Mira crawled to perch on her shoulders, having to hunch over to keep the baby dragon from falling.
“Whenever she tries to do that to me, she gets caught in my hair.” Nessy muttered. “Which leads me to wonder- why do Skullblades always cut their hair short?”
“It gets in the way.” Shred shrugged. “Long hair gets caught in the heat of battle. Short hair won’t. You don’t get anything from long hair.”
“It looks nice.”
“Skullblades don’t put much stock by physical appearance.” Shred straightened up as Mira jumped down and tapped her mask.
Features hidden from all, even themselves.
“Especially in Sunspire and Skullbit, long hair will get caught in the branches of trees and vines.” Shred continued. “They’re dangerous places, especially Sunspire, and you do not want to be stuck somewhere for long in Sunspire.”
“I doubt it’s as dangerous as the ruins of the Dalania.” Adrian remarked, looking behind him. Even the burned zone outside of Dalania had faded from view, but the memory of it was fresh in their minds. “I’m glad to be out of there.”
“Same here.” Niel leaned on Adrian slightly. “That place was scary.”
Adrian sighed, having a second reason that he was happy to be out of there; he had felt the same urges that had made him transform that first time more strongly when within the ruins of Dalania. They had faded somewhat, but he knew that he couldn’t hold them back forever. He only hoped he could get away from his friends before he fell into that rage again.
Nessy leaned back against Teramelle. “At least we haven’t run into any of those huge monsters since that one- I’m assuming it’s one of those Hostile things. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Nia shuddered. “Me neither. You could see the malice in that thing’s eyes. It was so…unnatural, like it was never finished and abandoned halfway through creation. Only a creator could make something like that and leave it abandoned, but still allow it to have that much power…”
Or a worldbuilder that had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
Niel shivered. “I don’t want to meet whoever made that.”
Teramelle snorted, as if in response. Mira looked up curiously at the sound and perked her ears, looking over at Teramelle. “Tare.” She decided, curling up on Shred’s lap.
“So sayth the dragon.” Nessy said solemnly, earning laughter from the group.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad day they were having.
The good wouldn’t last, though.
It never does.
-~-
Vechs paused as he heard voices speaking quietly, in the tones of those who didn’t wish to be heard. He almost continued walking but he heard his name, moving to stand beside the closed door in order to hear better.
“…and Vechs’ family isn’t exactly the most mentally stable.” Blame said, as if finishing a long rant. “I’m worried.”
“He’s immune to the curse, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to normal insanity.” Paul reasoned. “You’re sure he has that orb back?”
“It’s not under the blanket. Paul, it’s making him hallucinate. Aureylian saw him- it killed him in one of his own maps! That’s really unlike him to let that happen. We need to step in before he loses his mind.”
“We need to handle this carefully.” Paul told him, and by the sounds of footsteps, it sounded as if Blame had started pacing. “If we just confront him, he’ll deny it or run. We need to somehow get it from him…”
Vechs huffed, moving away from the door. He didn’t need help. He was fine. He flinched away from a shadow and kept walking, telling himself it wasn’t the orb. He had been hallucinating before that, hadn’t he? He was fine. It was just his imagination. Just-
He shrieked as a blade whizzed at him from the shadows, Kormaeix slithering towards him.
“N-no! Go away! You’re dead! Go!”
“Hss-ss-s! That’s what you think…” The Hostile slashed at Vechs and he changed into his monstrous form, slashing at Kormaeix with his claws before fleeing down the hallway. He heard the snakeman pursuing him so he rushed into the portal hub, ducking through the first door he could fit through.
He sighed in relief as he wasn’t followed and sank into a sitting position on the floor, breathing heavily.
He refused to admit the fact that maybe the orb wasn’t so healthy for him. He refused to admit it, even as he pulled it out of his toolbelt and checked up on the Hostiles.
He froze as his view stopped on Kyilld, eyes widening.
What he saw made his stomach drop and filled his heart with terror.
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Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 06:48 am (UTC)The descendants are discussing the Hostiles. I feel sorry for Vechs if he hears them discussing how terrible the person who made them must be. He really did just make a mistake. A big one, but a mistake.
And the bold text was great this chapter! I enjoyed it. I did miss the chapter yesterday, but I understand why the update schedule is longer now.
(::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015 06:27 am (UTC)-TLL
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Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 09:59 am (UTC)Also hell. That ending D:
/#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/
no subject
Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 10:40 am (UTC)G.C. (::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
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Date: Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015 06:29 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Sunday, September 6th, 2015 04:13 pm (UTC)BLAME DESERVES LESS PAIN
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Date: Wednesday, September 9th, 2015 07:09 pm (UTC)-TLL
(Why are we talking in caps?)
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Date: Sunday, September 6th, 2015 04:14 pm (UTC)