mindcracklove | Fated (Chapter Seventy-Three)

tanadin posting in

This chapter's a bit of a breather (mostly), after all that absurd fighting and death in the last couple of chapters.

Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Fated-map-544073443
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RKoeOLYhQctmZ5McNHc_kid0tjfb1BxyuD8i95FmFQE/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter Seventy-Three

Ruins of Dalania, Minecraftia. November 14, year 573. Time instance 483Z.

Samuel paused as the mountains ahead and to the right of them suddenly vanished briefly before reappearing further on, creating a passage deep into the mountains. He checked his map before rolling it up and shoving it in the bag he wore over his shoulder. Thinking about the bag always made him feel weird, as it had previously belonged to Trymdas, but it wasn’t like the guy was using it…

Samuel shrugged his shoulders to make the shiver that ran through him less noticeable as he turned around. “Here’s where we head into the mountains, everyone. There are probably Hostiles in there, still trying to convince Kaepravah to help them. Are we prepared to deal with that kind of thing?”

“We’re low on healing potions.” Altren warned, interrupting the beginning of Shred’s assurance that they were ready. “Not a whole lot I can do about that, though. I can make healing potions outa almost anythin’, but I gotta have plants, and this shithole doesn’t have many of those.”

Shred frowned at him. “We need those. Healing potions save lives.”

Altren threw his hands in the air. “What do ya want from me, a miracle?”

“Yes!”

“I can’t do shit, here, lady!”

“Try!”

Altren glared at her. “I already told ya, I can’t make healing potions with rocks!”

“Give it a shot.” Tarsen suggested. “Shit’s magically charged around here sometimes, right? Maybe you’ll find something useful.”

Altren stumbled over his words for a minute before huffing in annoyance. “Fine! Give me an hour. I’ll see what I can do. But don’t blame me if they’re made of shatterbeast shit and rocks.”

Samuel sighed and nodded, sitting down on a boulder. The others followed suit, sitting down in most cases or, in Shred and Niel’s case, taking the opportunity to get some training in.

Samuel watched, fascinated, as Shred barked orders to Niel as he swung at her. She blocked every strike with ease, but part of it was that she knew what he was going to do. Samuel noticed that both Tarsen and Adrian were watching as well, perhaps out of nothing better to do.

Eventually, Shred told Niel to stop and lowered her swords. “I want you to try to attack me, alright? Try to get through my guard in any way you can. Move around me, feint, whatever.”

Niel looked concerned. “But-”

“You won’t hurt me. I’m a hell of a lot better than you. Fortunately for you, most of your opponents won’t be able to match a Skullblade who’s been training her entire life. Go!”

“What if-”

“GO!”

Niel yelped but swung at her. Unsurprisingly, Shred blocked him. He took a few more swings before Shred growled, “Give me your best shot, tree boy!”

Niel narrowed his eyes and focused more on trying to get through her guard, circling her first one way, then another. He never managed to get past her swords, however, and eventually Shred struck back and knocked the sword out of his right hand.

She shook her head. “You left yourself open to that. Don’t let an opponent disarm you. Without a weapon, you’re an easy target.” She sheathed her swords. “That’s enough for now, I think. You’re still not ready for longer sessions.” She paused, seeing the disappointed look on his face as he retrieved his sword. “You are doing better, though. A lot better.”

Niel smiled at her. “Thanks, Shred.”

An improvement, but perhaps not enough.

They sat down and were only resting for a few minutes before Altren popped out from behind another boulder, making Tarsen almost fall over. He had been gazing off into the distance, Samuel noted, and hadn’t really been expecting the gray-haired alchemist to appear out of nowhere.

“I’ve got something that might be a healing potion. Or it’ll make your skin go purple. Not sure. Who’s mildly injured that’s willing to possibly endure side effects?”

No one volunteered. Shred sighed and got to her feet. “Hand it over. I’ll give it shot.”

Samuel got to his feet as well. “You’re injured?”

“Just a scratch on my arm. I’m fine.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It wasn’t important.” Shred took the potion from Altren and frowned at its murky appearance. “You’re sure this is a healing potion?”

“Do I look like I have any fucking clue what I’m doing?”

Shred sniffed it cautiously and made a face. “What is in this?”

“…You don’t wanna know.”

Nothing particularly hygienic in the ruins of Dalania anymore.

Shred shot him a suspicious look. “How much of this do I drink?”

“The whole thing.”

“Great,” she mumbled, before downing it without any more hesitation.

Shred shivered and handed the vial back to Altren, as both he and Samuel looked on expectantly. She glanced at her arm as it started to itch as it slowly healed, but that wasn’t all that was affected.

Shred yelped as her hair began to grow as well, quickly tangling around her and reaching the ground before slowing to a stop. She growled and struggled to get free, stopping to glare when she heard Tarsen and a few others burst into hysterical laughter.

“Well, that ain’t quite right.” Altren decided. “Less shatterbeast shit, more rocks, I think.”

“ALTREN WHAT THE HELL DID THIS DO?!”

“Pretty sure it just sped up the rate of cells replicating- that’s what healing potions do, after all- except instead of only affecting the wound, it affected every cell in your body. And since hair cells replicate really, really quickly, that happens. Part of the reason my hair’s gray. I’ve fucked that up a few times before.” He grinned sheepishly before starting to mix another potion.

Shred growled and struggled to draw her swords, but she was too tangled in her own hair to get out. “Someone want to help me?” she demanded.

Adrian laughed quietly to himself before getting up and drawing his sword. “Don’t move or I might cut you instead.”

Tarsen got up as well and stood by Samuel, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Do you like ‘em with long hair, or short?”

Samuel sputtered indignantly. “Tarsen! What is that supposed to mean?!”

Tarsen grinned at him before pausing and looking at Shred oddly. “Well, now that’s interesting.”

Samuel turned to see what Tarsen was looking at. He didn’t get it at first, but then it clicked. “You’re blond.” He mumbled. “I thought you had…?” He glanced at the ground and noticed the dark brown hair from before at the ends of her hair. “Huh. You didn’t strike me as the kind to dye your hair.”

“It’s practical, okay? When you’re wearing gray and black, brightly colored hair tends to ruin the whole ‘I am the night’ effect.” Shred tried to cross her arms and growled as she only tangled herself further.

“I won’t tell Ragebent Blade you said that.” Samuel said, rolling his eyes. He pulled out a knife to help free Shred when he heard Tarsen lower his voice and whisper in his ear again.

“You like her more with blond or brown hair?”

“Shut up, Tarsen.”

Tarsen fell into another fit of laughter, to which Samuel grumbled in annoyance before moving to help his friend.

Denying thoughts that Tarsen’s words sparked.

-~-

MC opened his eyes as a breeze seemed to blow through his room. He frowned slightly and sat up, looking around. That shouldn’t be able to happen. He glanced at the jar that he had dumped the bronze sand from his orb into and frowned further when he noticed it twitching. It suddenly whirled around inside of the jar, as if a strong wind was blowing it.

He jumped out of bed and walked over to the jar, reaching forward to pick it up. He heard quiet laughter and whirled around, looking around but not seeing anything.

“What the…”

Another laugh sounded and a cold feeling ran down MC’s spine. He slowly turned again in time to see what appeared to be a translucent green tail vanish into the wall. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but it was gone.

MC shook his head and turned to go back to bed, figuring he was probably just overtired, but jerked away when Altair’s face slowly phased out of the wall, a smirk plastered across his face.

“Hello.” He said cheerfully, before lunging.

MC shouted in terror, bolting out of his room and down the hallway. He ran right into Nebris, causing both of them to fall to the floor.

“Woah, woah! What’s going on?!”

“Altair!” MC gasped.

Nebris’ eyes widened and he jumped to his feet, drawing his sword and looking around wildly. Seeing nothing, he helped MC up and motioned for him to follow. “We need to find Vechs and Blame, right now. We need to find that damn orb.”

Nebris practically kicked down the door to the common room, making everyone inside jump. “Altair’s here! MC saw him!” He barked. “Who has the orb?”

Vechs and Blame were on their feet immediately. “We need to find him, if he’s here.” Blame snapped, looking around at the faces around him.

Paul sighed and stood. “Fine. You can look at it only long enough to figure out if he’s here or not, and if he’s here, we’ll deal with that. Okay?”

“You have it?!” Vechs demanded.

“Yes, I have it. Stay here.” Paul left the room, checking several times to make sure no one was following him. He returned about five minutes later, the Hostile orb in his hands. He tossed it to Vechs, who immediately flipped through the Hostiles to locate Altair.

Vechs watched as Altair descended through the ceiling to a cavern, pausing to hover in front of Specterveil, who seemed to be investigating some carvings on a wall. Specterveil turned around and crossed his arms. “Well?”

“I did as you asked, Specterveil.”

“Excellent. You-”

Paul took the orb back and shoved it into a pocket. “There. See? He’s not here. Fears laid at rest?”

“What was he saying, though?” Vechs demanded. “Maybe he’s reporting back after being here!”

“Nothing could get to the Vortex and back that quickly.” Blame protested. “We’d know if someone used the door, and that’s the fastest way in and out except for your Norazdomu bullshit lightning.”

“He’s not here.” Paul insisted.

“I saw him, though…” MC protested weakly.

Nebris patted his shoulder. “All four of us did. He’s been here…”

“Or you’re hallucinating.” Etho suggested. “Nebris, when was the last time you slept?”

“Umm…”

“Nebris…”

“That’s…confidential?”

“I’m going to knock you out with your own sword if you don’t go take a nap right now.”

“Eeethooooooo!”

“Go. Now.”

“Etho!”

“Nebris!”

The two glared at each other before Nebris gave up and walked out of the room, pretending to be angry. Vechs laughed and sat down on the couch next to Aureylian again, but she gave him a suspicious look.

“When was the last time you slept, sir?”

“Well, you see…”

Aureylian glared at him.

He sighed and got up, leaving the room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

. . . I didn't want to ever know what healing potions are made of.
-Anon Cami

From:

tanadin

They're usually fine, it's just that Altren's are...questionable.

From: (Anonymous)

I don't know about 'they're usually fine', I mean in normal minecraft you fill a bottle with water before brewing in some questionably sourced wart from the nether and then you shove in a gold encrusted slice of melon before being met with the option of adding a dash of glowstone gun or gunpower to top it all off. My issue is with all the literal crap in Altern's potions.
(Hypocritical of me . . . I think.)
-Anon Cami

From:

tanadin

Skera usually makes 'em out of various (overworld) plants and Vicious Wilds water straight from a tree.

From: (Anonymous)

Nothing drastic happened. I like this. You write your characters so well. They each have personalities, and you have the skill of making me laugh even in completely unfunny situations because the characters are funny.

And everyone in the Vortex being sent to bed was hilarious. I loved it. It would also seem that at this point the majority of your readers and commenters are anons/lurkers (myself included.) It's kind of interesting to see the readership you've built up.

(::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)

-the lurkiest lurker

From:

tdscott8

There's about 20ish more people who read this I assume, most of them don't comment though. There's actually a Skype group where a bunch of us just talk about The
Trilogy.

Edited Date: Saturday, January 9th, 2016 12:54 pm (UTC)

From:

tanadin

The
Trilogy

nice formatting, scoot XD

From:

tdscott8

The pause made it More
Dramatic.

From: (Anonymous)

Interesting. Count me corrected. Wish I could be a part of the Skype group. It's not possible right now, though.

-the lurkiest lurker

From:

tanadin

Well, if it ever is possible, you're more than welcome to join. ^^

From: (Anonymous)

Otay. I will remember that. xD

-the lurkiest lurker

From: (Anonymous)

woah woah woah Skype group?

I want in on this :V

-Kluuless being too lazy to sign in

From:

tanadin

Project: Monstrous is a thing. :P Team based around the animation project
but then of course there's theory chat which TECHNICALLY isn't project: monstrous but its mostly P:M members that anyone that's up-to-date reading-wise is welcome to join. :P I just need your skype.

From:

tanadin

And yeah, most of you are anons so I don't actually know who you are :P

From: (Anonymous)

Eh, this is one of the few sites I frequent that I don't have an account for.
-Anon Cami

From: (Anonymous)

Same.

-the lurkiest lurker

From: (Anonymous)

The sleep thing made me burst out laughing while my family was trying to watch a movie. I got so many questioning looks, which made me laugh harder. It's like they're all little children who don't want to go to bed... Which is actually quite accurate to the real people.