The blood of the circlet’s liberator pours out now, sparkling amethyst in the darkness surrounding stages. A missing head no longer corrects observation with perspective forcing a shift, so the body becomes the focus.
“‘Bearer number forty-six, death by decapitation.’”
No longer needing additional tablets, one who spectates this scene lazily returns extras one at a time to float within the surrounding chamber full of endless more. The chorus whose focus briefly shared in this spectacle returns to its own harmony.
“‘Killer…’?”
That responsible party registers only as a smoldering black abscess distorting the phantom objects and scenery surrounding the dead boy. A whip-like weapon pulls out of dimming view of the ending battle scene.
“‘Both Bearer, environment, and attacker fell into a state of [umbralization]’.” As the song surrounding the unemotional viewer continues, he or she inscribes in a formulaic shorthand of linear scratches upon a magical clay tablet the final moments. “‘The primary sensor finally escaped from the stellar tyrant. Its Bearer represented a potent potential foe toward the Lords of Light. A permanent world-distorting effect follows him’.”
This ‘primary sensor’ glitters even now upon the poor soul’s arm. Vibrant like the illusionary figure in this scene is its inset centerpiece. A circlet of gold with a large precious stone joins dozens of siblings projecting in motion from the chamber’s tall circular walls.
But these worn sensors typically record more than…
“‘The Bearer lasted only an hour before terminating. Killer cannot be explained, a failure to record the paradox it represented. A spreading of [umbralization] under sapient control would be an effective temporary countermeasure against the Lords, but not a complete one, as it would result in a world of only nightmares’.”
An empty revelation and tone this wispy speaker uses with his high voice. This chronicler seated upon innumerable rising hands of marble remains caught in a pose of being solemnly carried by others.
Only a tap upon his or her own circlet shows a human concern. It is a perfect twin of the dead phantom’s in all respects.
“You were meant to attract those most antithetical to [Fate], so a counter-effect could’ve been erected in anticipation.”
Because it is merely conjecture and basic knowledge, it defies recording.
And so the chronicler sets down the long metallic stick used for pressing the clay that is overly large. Garbed in ashen cloth overlaid by heavy icons of golden opened eyes, its hands are wrapped like the rest of its skin by gauze. Preservative unguents fend against a future which will never arrive here in this airless space.
“But seventy-six have ever proved… active.”
Because it is an essential truth, it denies a need to repeat recording what is in the master record’s preface for those who will eventually delve here.
Seventy-six is the number of shaped eyes, upon which attached chains bind this figure into its pose as held by the grasps of many hands.
Seventy-six is the membership of the chorus that sings from their respective lounging spots upon the rising rests of hands, yet they show more discomfort with their honored repose than dignity.
All gaze outward toward the glowing faceted walls from which images have jumped down to play out the future outside of this chamber. Three eyes have these fellow seers, but only the middle one glows. Their worn circlets upon their brows capture distant, hidden truths.
“… This Bearer was different. A possible solution?”
Because it is only an opinion though, it is unfit for recording.
And the chorus, lilting and hollow in vigor, bothers not to change. It continues its song in parts, each observer tasked with one of seventy-seven stages in this large chamber. They continue their slow scribblings, only the most momentous of observations needing preservation.
The head chronicler taps his or her finger, a not rare affectation during this vigil. It only ceased when the distant screen ahead lit up for the first time since…?
“Now, only a corpse.”
Because it is a lamentation, it goes unrecorded.
Passing time outside bullies an immutable existence such as the chronicler. The others eagerly make use of the inexhaustible supply of floating tablets, yet the one who set this in motion must, after so long, only be disappointed by this boy failing in his boasts.
And thus what departs the scene to continue its massacre goes unmolested when it strides past.
“… So boring.”
The chronicler rubs its gauze-wrapped cheeks, staring at the still bleeding body. Every so often, the phantom corpse’s muscles jerk with the suddenness of decapitation. Like a dropped puppet whose strings are still tugged at randomly.
“…
… So boring and pointless. Stop dying and give me my answer, please.”
A stagnant chamber bathed in amethyst ghost-lives remains unfulfilled in purpose. The great, iron double doorway, locked against the outside by an enormous dwarven mechanism and encrusted fully by the amethyst crystal grown to seal away life, does not open with an achievement of the “answer”.
Even if it would open outward, the external seal of hate prevents entry until the day that the chronicler is either forgiven or worshiped.
“Please do something relevant. Anything.”
A usual poignant cry for attention, the chronicler moans at the bleeding corpse. With any luck, someone will investigate the manse that this boy operated within.
“Perhaps the old drunk man will escape with the sensor after discovering his tormentor died ignominiously. So long as it isn’t the Lunamaton that discovers the circlet, it should be interesting… no, no, useful to finding my answer.”
Listening to their blustering and cringing romanticisms, then watching as they devolved into a beating rhythm of bodies, not even the distance to an impossible parallel dimension mimicking the tyrant’s could stop the chronicler from enjoying the voyeur’s position of remembering distant times.
Once, pleasures such as these were fresh, but now, moldering uselessly…
“… No, no, recording properly the possible future…”
Another wait brings a rare sigh.
Then the… air does the strangest thing in response.
“Hm?”
A purely phantom image of amethyst glow now glints golden upon its arm.
The chronicler blinks once empty eyes, then rises from its bed of hands for the first time since internment to be caressed by a gust which spreads from this invader.
“A sealed chamber has no drafts.”
A corpse, a dead creature, reflected across the void of an impossible gap between past, present and future begins to fill with colors and coalesce into being upon the floor as corporeal.
“[Inside and outside, separated forever until forever ends, all may occur as wished until realized], this is the rule. Nothing may enter, nor leave, for this is the price of a mystery that stretches on forever in a moment…”
Colors spread further from each droplet that soaks the floor in defiance of this logic. Moans and screams that mar the chorus maintaining this isolated place rise along with the headless being to stagger about.
“… Wasn’t it? How… can two of a unique circlet exist in the same place? That is a…”
For the first time since the doors closed and the spells grew isolation from crystal barriers, the chronicler shivers upon realizing that “cold” feels cold again.
“… that is a paradox.”
The corpse lurches forward at that designation.
Though it lost everything, its remnant reaches out in a blind search of its new surroundings for what spoke.
“Why aren’t you dead? No, foremost… how are you ‘real’ here?”
This shaking horror’s hands rise to what is missing, grasping at the air where its head once rested.
There is no expression, but the chronicler can feel upon unfeeling skin the wash of dread the spirit clinging to it goes wild with upon not finding that head.
And then it drops its posture, throwing itself back and “howling” toward the unseen sky.
“[NEESIEEEEEEETTTTTEEEEEE——————!]”
Whatever traveled with this thing from a distant future explodes out from its bloody form into a wave of darkness that crashes into the walls!
Every seer struck by the wave jolts from its duties to fixate upon this belligerent dead. Their reverent pitches grow shrill!
“It wasn’t a boy, it was a nightmare, and so it stole away into mine?
… You can’t be serious.”
A timid pronouncement like this by the chronicler doesn’t stop the corpse from swinging around when another phantom swirls into being behind it.
This one stands over an exact duplicate of this intruder still dead upon the ground.
“Joinings bring partings, thus both be too much to bear when eternity be all previously known. Forestalling either, how, should this… lady…?”
The imprisoning mechanism in human form kneels beside the phantom corpse, patting its back. No emotion registers with words spoken for the benefit of the dead.
The future after the boy’s death is that this Neesiette should discover its corpse. An unliving being sheds all of its human mannerisms displayed during their earlier joining, only staring blankly out into the distance.
“Neesiette…”
“It cannot hear you, Bearer. Nor touch you. Calm down.”
But the corpse somehow hears the voice of the one it seeks and lurches toward the projection.
Though the chronicler only states the obvious, having designed the ritual which empowers the observation of the future without the passing of time; yet, the shaking corpse that swings its arms through the image only exudes more hate when denied the chance to hug its beloved.
“… NEESIETTE…!”
“We are alone. Only observing, nothing more. If you wish to remain, then behave.”
And with its growing anger, more caliginous distortions of the air flow out to reflect from the amethyst that darkens ahead. It is then to this screen that the corpse rushes. Rather than its own shadow reflecting back from deep within, a touch upon the gem infests it with a black fluid that spreads!
“No, the design can’t be altered… it just… can’t be, that’s the rule. Despite all attempts…”
And then time as observed by the clairvoyant sensor begins to flow again in defiance of the chronicler’s disbelief.
Backwards.
Images projected from above reverse, speeding up through meetings until arriving at a distant conversation.
“… Aid would be offered, then, solely for duty’s sake, perhaps? Granted… a single mercy, a kinder gentleman would demonstrate toward a lesser?”
A tiny phantom female smugly requests aid.
Both the Bearer and the chronicler must’ve had the same thoughts, for agreement with departing earned a nod of approval back then. Indeed, the boy once more departs with only a hand gesture given.
But this time, the corpse only hustles to throw itself into a kneeling supplication before the Lunamaton’s image. Slopping fresh blood to aid in staining the deforming stage. This deep lake of gore draws back the departing image of the boy like a sinkhole would.
“You cannot change the future from the past…!”
The chronicler’s hissed ultimatum is ignored when the corpse merges with the boy’s shadow, both coming alive together.
“AN EMPEROR’S… MERCY IS REQUIRED… IS IT…?”
Along with the stilted words, a howl of all of the terrors that stalked the chronicler’s distant youthful nights roars out. That hidden grove and his parents’ tree, where he always feared that something lurked just beyond the clearing…?
A frozen heart beats only for a moment, but the instant is long enough. The chronicler tastes the first fresh emotion in eons and then it’s stolen.
One powerful enough to bring a smile, as the chronicler leans forward expectantly to escape the grasping hands and place hope in the dead boy that plucked that fear.
“… then I suppose I can only obey my lady’s desire, as is ever the duty of this emperor.”
The phantom duplicate takes up the Lunamaton’s delicate hands and continues the corpse’s spoken words.
“D-Desire…!?” And then the corpse collapses out of the shadow, for the darkness storm it called begins to absorb into both luminous figures from the chamber’s black pit below.
“A lady’s desires be… ever-changing… my suitor, but the rewards be…”
“Neesiette…”
“… ever-lasting.”
What didn’t happen before now becomes witnessed by the chronicler, and then the “lovers” vanish into smoky black.
Left behind by the receding shadow is a corpse which now resembles only a humanoid composed of solid black noise.
“[A paradox within a paradox, self-resolving itself by sacrificing the other]?”
Two circlets, one upon the chronicler’s brow and the other clasped onto the writhing dark noise, twins to the end, shatter in unison.
“That is… a possible solution, actually?”
To answer their mutual ends, the amethyst wall that projects what they would see on Zennia cracks from the deepest of its facets in a great cacophonous screech! Scars dig toward all corners, spreading like shattering glass from this screen to others…
A shaking strikes the large doors which bar entry to the chamber.
“He arrived from the distant future to prevent his own past through my eternal present. The boundaries now break down because he violated my ‘nightmare’ rules.”
When the shaking stars, the chorus ends.
“That’s so nonsensical.”
Instead, the song becomes a barrage of screaming that the chronicler is impotent to prevent. The staggering pain felt within a decaying body is an inescapable conclusion.
“Nonsensical, just like our futures… my future, always was.”
Marble foundations stain with growths of the deep earth digging into cracks that spread from rapid settling.
Floating tablets shatter before striking the floor, to rest without bouncing as if they belonged in their final resting place from the start.
Amethyst, perfect and sealing against intrusion, shatters wherever it has grown to gather in chunks.
What was sealed away now prepares for the arrival of those seeking an [answer].
“If there is to be a victor in this war against the heavens, it will be the one who, like that boy… is willing to sacrifice everything to deny his loss.”
The chronicler tries to rise off of the hands which prop a long-disused body up, but the cracking of the bones, then flesh, beneath the gauze leaves mummy rot escaping the unraveling white.
All bright surfaces and clothes putrefy.
Flesh advances to match the present that accelerates toward the future.
“[___________—————————!!!!!!!]”
Whatever sapient animus and spirit the corpse contained, the shaking distortion left behind only screeches unintelligibly while dissolving into nothingness. The ungodly beast claws the air in defiance of its end.
“I didn’t find my answer, of how to defeat those from above the sky. Is it this thing that arrived who does it, or one of the others…?”
The banging grows louder, and then the iron doors buckle.
All of the seers that were gathered sigh with relief at once when fresher air assails them through the first tiny crack. Then, neither screams nor singing are heard.
A sole tablet remains with the one who put this paradox into motion, clutched jealously by thinned arms. The last words inscribed with ungodly hurry are also its final thoughts.
An external rush of air bursts into the chamber to swirl the remnants into a storm of dust! Emotion, jubilation, is what the delver who pokes his head in hears at the furthest grasp of understanding.
“… [Pray, then, that the Three Evils shall be the winners, for at least they offer pleasures that blissfully corrupt! Only they value us more than merely worship that gives sustenance to the evil stars above!]”
These words will be found written as a last testament, recorded in defiance of the seer’s self-appointed duty to solve an existential threat to Zennia.
“NYEHEHEHE! I’M FINALLY FREEEEEEE!”
And then the chamber is still except for the ruckus of entry.
An ever-distant past meets the future that breaches it.
“I TOLD YOU IT WAS HERE! IT’S THAT MASTER GNOME’S SIGIL ON THE FLOOR!”
Past a partially open door, dislodged by an enormous cast ram’s head driven into it, a wiry swordsman wearing a cloth mask coughs as he scrambles past amethyst chunks that once blocked the doorway.
“[HAZZAN, SEER OF FOREVER]! Finally, we’ll find out who wins the damn war with the Lords of Light! Oh gods be praised, there’s gold, too! All we gotta do is—GAAH!?”
And once bridging the entrance, the man tumbles down into the pit from which rise hands of gold to land with a crunch that displaces numerous hollow objects.
“… Fuckin’!? Crocus, get a rope and help me! There’s a huge gap and… and…
… WHY ARE THERE SO MANY BODIES DOWN HERE!?”
Seventy-six reside above in mute horror, overlooking the bodies of seventy-seven times seventy-seven. Eternity in a moment was once fueled by what is now revealed by a scared plunderer’s lantern.
The wrapped, blind master that formulated this ritual chamber escapes his vigil of the incalculable future, joyous that he should be freed of the trap he unwittingly sprung on himself.
An impossibly old mummy stuck with a rictus grin of liberation finally breathes in the [Third Age].
The whole world shatters.
Pieces of it fall around Adris, lingering briefly and reflecting an infinite number of possibilities.
Then something strikes his left arm, and a jolting crack calls out. An infinity of glaring ice-like radiance contracts into only the reality before him when he blinks.
“BOSS, ALWAYS NOT PLAY FAIR!”
That pissed “reality” consists of an enormous lizard demon that spreads wide its slavering jaws and snaps at Adris.
(Why am I still alive!?)
A quick reversal approaches, until a familiar vibrating beam of turquoise expands outward to punch the lizard’s snout in with a wall that bolts it back.
“Attend a lady and forgo the taunts of an enemy!”
Adris shows his back to that enemy, drinking in the salvation afforded him. Rod in hand, a gift from Luna stands thirty-some feet away pointing past Adris.
“Be care—!”
But he is already tucked into a roll before Neesiette can finish her scream, dodging both the initial downward thrust of the whip’s blades and then swirling slices when it twirls about.
“Always use others! Never you!”
Kol’s killer screams murder, collecting its whip overhead to prepare for another strike. Adris wants to hurl back some insult, but the horror of losing them…!?
(I have to protect Neesiette!)
His head was lost for that very reason originally, trying to destroy this creature to prevent danger. Now with his charge so close, Adris’ emotions and adrenaline ramp even higher as he prepares for another charge…!
“‘Attend’ be demanded, five times!”
This unusual shriek draws Adris away from his fear. Neesiette points her spell-stealing rod at the beast and rider, all while screaming uncharacteristically.
“Visual and auditory, ignore all provocations! Empirically provable it be that impossible to achieve its claims this dastardly fabricator stands as!”
“GUH!?”
One word prompts a hoarse cry of pain, and then Adris’ mind-breaking terror dislodges a bit. A familiar pattern…?
(Fabricator!?)
“Still, the head-taking thereof, utterly unfeasible this act stands as!”
“WRONG!”
When someone that Adris knows would never speak a falsehood makes such a claim, he turns around to prove it with his own eyes.
“Nature of undeath, dubious corporeal truth inherent beneath, presents as mechanically and contextually impossible to ‘behead’ Still!”
“NYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO———!”
“Therefore, such decapitations reveal as PURE ILLUSIONS!”
When a bell-like cry announces a falsehood is at hand…
The white sky shatters beginning from the black moon overhead.
All of the cracks extend out like a spiderweb to gather at the body of the Sulkhalûkh-Anthânu. Where blankness envelops its form, horrific gouges and slashes are inflicted all across its flesh with echoes of Neesiette’s verdict.
“KREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“EGGAAAAAHHHH!?”
Both entities howl loud enough to deafen Adris’ sensitive hearing. He grows dizzy, reflexively closing his eyes as he holds his head in pain…!
And when he opens them again, there is no white sky or dwarven city buried within the open mountain top, only a butchered creature born of fear filling the hallway of Falke’s manse ahead of him.
Its pain is written across it, the blackness seeping out of its multitude of wounds fearfully declaring what it is. This huddled creature cannot disguise anymore.
— [DARKNESS – PARADOX-EQUALS-CONTRADICTION-TYPE: PHANTASMAL KILLER] —
(It’s a goddamn nightmare like Rantil!?)
A [phantasmal killer] translates to Adris’ thoughts simply as:
— A destined meeting of an impossible murderer, one brought to life only to kill those that dreaded its arrival —
(There’s nothing that exists solely because you believe it does! AND YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD FOOL ME!?)
Heads reaped and tied to its saddle pop. These bloody berries, beginning with Still’s and working downward from importance in Adris’ life’s happiness, splash across the lizard’s hide.
Kol’s head discolors from white to a sickly gray, one pink eye popping and draining pus. Its unending howls coincide with the momentary lapses of its solidity into shaking black chaos.
(You motherfucker! YOU TRIED TO PLAY ME!?)
All fear drains away.
All dread dries up.
Everything these bastards beyond the Veil love is what Adris now denies while grinding his teeth.
“MINE,MINE,MINE,MINE,WASMINEEEEE!”
But it’s not enough to only deny this thing to send it away. Even as cohesion breaks into dark fumes which boil from its wounds, it turns its burning eye of many colors upon something that prompts a renewed fear within Adris’ heart.
“TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOyyyyy!”
“NEESIETTE, RUN!”
A beast so large should not move so fast, but fear drives the small dragon to twist from floor to ceiling like a being of dough stretching. Adris recognizes the face Neesiette showcases in shock of this, one just the same as when he pronounced his affection for her. Over the scintillating turquoise wall it rebounds snakelike to obscure the frail Lunamaton.
The beast crashes into the floor, both cracking it and shedding body parts that have decayed from the wounds received. Its head lifts before darting downward.
(… I save three… and lose…!?)
“NEESIETTEEEEEEEEE!”
“DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!!!!!”
The lizard’s wet, goopy face rises to reveal dainty legs hanging out partway. Unlike a human would with death so close, Neesiette doesn’t even thrash.
She remains stock still before its strong muscles
— SNAP —
to shear a steel-blue dress and lower body free. A pale violet torrent spurts from the severed parts.
(FUUUUUUUCK! FUCKFUCKFUCK!)
“KAKAKAKAKA! Shitty Boss… will lose all…! We’ll take… everything!”
The rider sways around jubilantly when Adris’ fear renews, laughing its jiggling head off. And becomes the target for the next murder.
([GIVE HER BACK TO ME.])
Adris leans forward, hand to the ground as he braces to leap. All of his rage deposits into the rabbit boots.
And he prepares an end for the bastard that sits upon a turquoise-glowing lizard…
(Glowing!?)
Its putrid, slash-infected neck undulates, then its abdomen starts to expand with an inner radiance screeching.
“Nah?”
A ballooning giant lizard bursts into rotten chunks that paint the entire length of the hallway and Adris in its spray of gore. No Vigor manifests to save from the wave of force that traverses outward. Hardened pseudoprósōpon walls jiggle like tapped fat under this cracking boom, candles flying away or extinguishing.
The serpent’s lonesome head that rockets toward the gloom roars in outrage before squirming into a block of misbegotten darkness that shakes into nonexistence.
When the head vanishes, all the gore painting the corridor lifts into vapor.
Only a rider that cracked the ceiling above in its own flight survives. It tries to rise from where it’s sprawled, staring in incomprehension of the still-evident spheroid compression of the walls that Neesiette’s final strike left.
“[Die].”
Before the rider, a bundle of hate leaps to mount it and slams a fist into its face.
“GWEH!?”
That fist crashes like a peal of lightning, shattering its cheek to the sound of breaking glass.
“DIE!”
“WHY!? TOOK SHINING FROM US!?”
A second fist drives into the same spot, slamming the cracked bone inward to another crash of thunder. The solid floor distorts, softening.
“WE CAME…! ALL READY!?”
The voices that silently rage around them both, coming out of hiding now to protest this, foretell horrendous punishments!
“DIE!!!”
“WEWEREREAAAAAAAAL! HATED THING BETWEEN! BECAME THING BETWEEN, TOO, LIAR DID!
GURK!?”
The point of a cross dislodges its jaw.
A flow of invisible power sends the floor rolling out as a wave of muck!
“DIE!!!”
“NOFAIR! NOFAIR! GYACK!”
The repeating mashing of its face becomes one hand joined by two, for a Crossbearer resorts to slamming his treasure into the creature’s face as rapidly as a human body allows.
“[MYSTERY KING] TO BE! NOT THING BETWEEN!?”
One hit becomes ten as the spurting creature bellows indignantly. Little is left of the illusion of Kol by the fortieth hit.
“WHY WE/US/I BELIEVE/LOVE, CALL TO, AND THEN… BAGH!?”
Bodies of Xin’Reh had been left resembling crushed tomatoes on numerous battlefields, a horrific sight that always stuck with the boy.
“NOT MAKE TO BEEEEEE!? HATE, HATE, HAAATE, PUNISH CROSS!”
So, it’s only proper that this bastard filth be brought lower than those half-noble savages he fought with and against.
“REAL, WAS REAL…! WHY, WHY, WHY CAN’T WE BE…!?”
Into what’s left of its cranium is what Adris hefts his cross with both hands on one end and slams the long arm to meet the floor beneath.
Pieces of skull fly away to reveal only a black cancer within.
“…
… whynotcan’tbereal, like liar-to-friends, too?”
Somehow, this creature without any functioning muscles whines from its exposed esophagus.
“The others I’ll deal with. But you?
YOU ARE NEVER GONNA SLIP BACK THROUGH!”
Then, Adris twists his [self] to separate the mass.
A screaming of shadows strains the world’s sanity. Unseen stretched cloth bundled around this creature rips and tears when revealed by shining darkness!
(THE FUCKING VEIL WAS HELPING THEM!?)
“[BRAINFRY!]”
The dwarven rider screeches when the cross’ might flares and blasts Adris off of it. Its brutalized body lifts into the air, shaking violently as it thrashes!
“EEEEEEGIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGEGEGEGEGEGEGEEEEEEEEEEEEE————————!?”
Limbs rip outward like a child pulling at a locust’s legs. Its innards boil forth into sprays of black chaos that howl in outrage.
What composed it is torn asunder, crab’s juices from ripped parts spraying Adris. These liquid bursts of hostile emotions herald its return to non-existence.
The surviving magical candles lining the ceiling overhead that dimmed from its tumult return to full flame to banish all memory of it.
What drove away his better judgments and pushed him onto a path of hedonistic torment releases its tendrils from his skull. All that brought him to terror began with calculated whispers!
(THOSE HIDDEN BASTARDS CONSPIRED TO… ATTACK ME!)
He nearly scratches his eyes out when realizing with a clear mind what drove him to this destructive fate.
“NEESIETTE!”
How Adris has regained the cross he strangles with his left hand is irrelevant when he rushes towards a chunk of person left lying in a pool of pale fluids.
Adris soaks his legs in it by kneeling to drag what’s left of the Lunamaton’s upper body into his clutches. Only one arm remains. An irreplaceable dress has torn mostly free of her into tatters. Half of her beautiful face… shattered and stripped away to reveal tubules, frames like bone, and unknowable soft components.
“Neesiette…”
The eye not shattered stares at him. Unmoving.
He can only stroke the doll’s head, trying to put right frazzled hair that a circlet no longer contains.
“… Neesiette… I’m…”
He’d already broken once on seeing three of them dead, rotting in horror of decapitation.
That it was false is irrelevant. The pain lives on, clawing outward from his stomach.
It revives a half-forgotten memory of his attempt to sacrifice them, before he’d killed the “Adris” that would be willing to do that.
(She gave up her life to protect me! That’s not something I deserve!)
Now that he’s faced with this loss, a calculation concludes.
To sacrifice his own life for them is fair. To ask the same in return…?
“Neesiette, you shouldn’t have wasted your life for a worthless boy…”
(I don’t deserve that! Why did you do it!?)
“I… am…”
“… A fool who constantly listens not to his lady.”
“HAH!?”
So startling is the insult that he drops her, smacking her head on the floor before he swoops her back up.
“Clumsy also now, one becomes? Aforementioned be quite obvious by this point, therefore bother not with apology, seeking instead to correct the behavior.”
“How can you be…!?”
“Be not afraid, Adris.” Though sounding cross with him, there is no reproach in Neesiette’s cycloptic stare. “Dwell not upon this lady’s ‘end’, nor speak ever of a boy’s ‘worthlessness’.”
Instead, her spared arm lifts to pat his cheek with the three fingers left attached to her cracked hand.
“Time be of the essence, however, before collected radiation dissipates. Without further explanation, obey following directives.”
“Yes!?” Shrill at this order, Adris then coughs and tries to settle his raging mood. “… What may this emperor do?”
“Collect as many… sections of this lady as can be located. Carry them to a secure location. Align them there in visual memory of this lady’s original comportment.”
“Hah?”
“Pretend that one be reconstructing me. Swiftly.”
Without fail, Adris runs to collect every shred of Neesiette that he can. No matter how much his stomach burns and his heart aches when handling them.
Arm, finger, bone-like piece, or even tatter of dress, he snatches it all and dips it into Neesiette’s “blood” to soak that up, too.
(I was… ambushed by them.)
Another darkness, one born of…
A touch to his gift from Neesiette causes his finger to bleed.
“Nnnh?”
The jagged point of a fractured gemstone produces a tiny slice in his finger that drips once before clotting.
Adris notices then that his numb body is shaking as if all around is freezing.
(I died, I clearly remember dying…)
Yet his neck is still attached when Adris moves to the hall’s windows to make sure he’s not a walking headless corpse.
And as an exchange for safety, there is no longer a remnant of darkness lurking within Neesiette’s gift.
(Where did Neesiette come from? What is going on?)
Then a chill runs down his neck.
Something out within the garden seems off, though he cannot place what it is.
— THE TALE REFUSES TO REACH ITS CLIMAX ONCE MORE —
“S-Shit!”
The Emperor’s announcement sends Adris to one foot in a leap, forcing him to juggle the parts of his lover that he holds!
(… It’s not over!)
— A CALL GOES OUT FOR NEW PLAYERS —
“You don’t need them! Fuck, I need to hurry.”
He uses his pack to carry them, hoisting her tome and a black pouch that she tossed aside onto his back. Then, he scoops up his protector and flees.
(There’s one place no one will go!)
“Outside be a strange option, yet… comforting, to witness ‘home’ during this expensive process.”
“I knew it would be.”
At the spot where Adris achieved his apotheosis is where he opts to carefully place Neesiette.
It is there under the black skies above that Adris starts to line up what’s left along Neesiette’s exposed torso. Even the pieces of her dress that he can obtain are put beneath heavier parts to keep the wind from taking them.
Of the tome that Neesiette dropped—
“Disregard placement nearby. Safeguard instead a lady’s treasured companion.”
“Okay? And, you?”
“Sufficient this be. Gathered residual radiation be sufficient, especially in fullest view of Traveler. Stand aside now.”
“Wouldn’t you do better with me…?”
The currently impassive doll blinks once, before looking away.
“… Never before… in the proximity of a lifeform can this process be claimed to have been begun nor concluded.”
And with that said, Neesiette closes her eye.
“But, I still think—AH!?”
Adris withdraws when a slender streamer of violet hums past his ear. Gathering glitter sets his hairs on end, terrifying him with recent trauma of a foreign world.
(DON’T WANT TO GO BACK!?)
He falls on his butt jumping away, shielding his eyes from the Lunamaton that begins to pulsatingly shed violet rays. The air surrounding grows heavy when she floats up from the ground.
Streamers of energy gather about her head to swirl into a humming discus that grows in size to surpass her width.
(Is this Art!?)
This unexplained manifestation then starts its slide past her head much like the lattices upon Traveler built up her home.
A rapid, repetitive grating noise similar to chopping at ore with a pick screams out, except discordantly the picks of hundreds fight each other. What the discus touches disintegrates into violet, replacing in the wake with glowing perfection.
Her misaligned circlet’s replacement rights itself and her frazzled hair is left perfectly brushed. As the reconstruction from her face fades, a missing eye and huge gash are the past when symmetrical beauty is welcomed.
The pieces of an arm, torn free and its hand fragmented, hanging from its wrist, are re-crafted into a slender appendage down to the reconstituted glove that no fabric remained of to salvage.
(She’s… safe…)
Toward her feet the discus of light arrives at and then pops free of. After leaving this stellar beauty resurrected in fullest glory, the swirling object spins loose into streams of violet.
Adris darts forward to catch the slowly descending fairy into his arms.
In his protective embrace is where the last of the violet clinging to her flecks away, then she opens her tired eyes.
“… Successful, this lady’s restoration. Thankful, that no period of ‘slumber’ be necessitated.”
“You really are all powerful, aren’t you?”
“Incorrect, that assessment be.”
Though he’d assumed she’d throw herself from him given her vitriol from earlier, the fairy appears quite lethargic when he sets her down. It takes a minute for her to sit up, then she slowly checks all parts of her arms, working along each exposed joint when pulling sleeves up, then moves to her legs.
“… Terribly incorrect.”
Arriving at the hem of her dress, the immaculate wear betrays a glowing cut where a large swath of it is missing from the front of the V-shaped window. Motes of violet add to the length, though accruing at a glacial pace.
“But, everything else was…?”
“Insufficient radiation retained for 100% restoration. Such a task requires fullest emissions from Traveller. With time, automatic recovery shall reassert the design made perfectly. No… great matter, this temporary… marring represents.”
(She has limits.)
A voice in Adris’ mind that has compelled him to treat this destroyer with exquisite care, lest her wrath find a new target, speaks more softly now. With how deeply she frowns when rubbing the dress hem, Adris finds it the perfect opportunity to nod his head, pat hers, and offer ingratiating support.
“Nothing is more beautiful than a woman whose love hopes to save another’s life.”
At the compliment, Neesiette jolts and pats away his hand.
(What? I… actually half meant tha—!)
“Actions undertaken neither increase nor decrease a constant, simply showcasing by duty a supreme beauty that must be obvious to all.”
(Right, right, right, okay, Miss Popular.)
The tiny braggart does take up Adris’ offered hands to rise, though. Her legs tremble like a newborn faun’s until she regains balance.
“Suicide, one nearly chose.”
“It was a mistake, though not truly suicide. I thought that… you were in danger next, so your emperor prepared to destroy it personally.”
Neesiette doesn’t free herself, letting her hands linger with his. She stares instead at the cross that Adris now has looped by Cethran’s sash.
“One exhibited unusual… instability of mentality in the face of an obvious deception.”
(I was absolutely insane.)
This [Phantasmal Killer] chose the perfect method to unhinge his logical thoughts and draw Adris into his own suicide. Had Neesiette not saved him, a second death would’ve been forthcoming after he abandoned rationality.
(I am better than this.)
The claim is rather hollow when his hands sweat once more when staring at Neesiette. If her ruin had been permanent, Adris cannot even imagine what course of action he’d undertake, or what punishments he’d feverishly dream up.
(I’d just… regress to become worse than I was.)
“In addition, shocking emotional discomfort when this lady suffered damages.
Hnn?”
At that statement, Adris kneels and rubs both her cheeks. The fairy squirms with displeasure at the affectation.
(Whatever saved me, my biggest mistake of the night was not agreeing to stay with you.)
“How valuable you are to me, I didn’t mislead you even a bit. I’m not unbreakable. If you are harmed, I can only feel… very strongly about it.”
(She’s so… frail.)
That frailness brings him closer, ready to sweep her away from all dangers.
“Of all things considered implausible or unlikely, one’s affection be considered absolute truth by now.
… Desist!”
“Guh?”
When he leans in toward her lips, the doll’s energy suddenly returns with a palm thrust to his face.
“Allocation of ‘kisses’, one’s romantic interaction quota and limit both be currently reached.”
“Limit…? I… have a limit?”
(The fuck do you mean!?)
“‘Kisses’ be both deserved gifts and situationally permissible only by context of social interaction. Accrue favor before seeking more, for a deficit already exists due to past malfeasance, beastly gentleman.”
And then the absolute tyrant flicks her face from him while “hmph”ing. How she’s learned to run her hand through her hair at just the right speed and angle to leave him snarling is actually impressive.
(Nothing wrong with this “lady” [bitch].)
Any thoughts of Neesiette suffering lingering psychological harm pass by. For what it’s worth, that she doesn’t manipulate him using his obsessive concern is gratifying.
(With how much shock I’ve… felt and had forced on me, she could probably outwit me very easily if she knew now was the proper time to do it…)
Instead, Adris pats his pants and prepares to climb back down into the chapel.
“Familiar in… presence and manifestation that abominable illusion appeared.”
Finally Neesiette leads Adris into an uncomfortable conversation.
He pulls back from his flight, turning to face a girl pursing her lips. The doll awaits a truth or a lie after baiting it.
(I’ve really no choice? Then let’s do this correctly.)
Especially in the wake of this attack, Adris finds that Neesiette is his only…
“When I was abandoned, alone, I…”
Though truth is the only option, how it is delivered is important when thinking of this ally. Already, Adris has succumbed too much to weakness. And to prove it…
“My power is not easily controlled with this vessel’s limitations. Faced with an enemy I couldn’t defeat by joining hands with you four, I threw caution away and on a whim called forth a… ‘scenario’ according to my own desires.”
“Predicted this be.”
Adris’ shrug at her reply earns a negative shake of Neesiette’s head.
“When it was your favor I sought to claim, this scenario called forth that thing without my knowledge. A shadow emulating its master’s pursuits. Hunting you.”
“An emperor changes the world so potently?”
He rapidly re-frames this admission to center around his comrade. And when it becomes about her, as usual…
“Blame this lady does share by effect of ‘perfect make’ infringing upon self-control.” She taps forward to take up his hand again, completely passing blame from himself to her. “‘It be necessary for this lady to support one in restraining future overflows’, hazardous when unguided by a superior being be the case, my gentleman?”
(I’m really glad I’ve finally figured out how to manipulate you!)
“Chastened this lady stands, then, for not identifying this duty.” So long as Neesiette considers herself perfect, any imperfection caused by the perfection is an “understandable” effect of an imperfect world failing to reach her level.
This mental trickery grants Adris so much space if used properly that he can finally sigh some tension away.
“Linger not in despair of one’s momentary failures, Adris.” For her part, the lady misunderstands this.
“‘Circumstances be misunderstood beginning from a time before entry into a manse, leading to an inescapable spiral of misunderstandings’, recall this statement spoken by a lady when meeting with Falke? Comprehend now the truth of it?”
(No, no I don’t, actually!)
But Neesiette accompanies Adris as if they’ve been together from the start.
That riotous encounter with Falke where he pelted Adris with black objects carrying painful memories played out far differently from what is likely to have happened now.
Hand to his head, Adris projects as much tiredness as he possibly can. It’s easier to do so when he can still feel the cold heat of a parted neck.
“I’m not sure how much I recall with the emotions that ran so hot. I am… very impassioned by the strong feelings others thrust upon me.”
“That be the case.” And again, the lady nods approvingly as if she’d already guessed this.
“This vessel of an emperor emits strong intent that reshapes the world, and reciprocates by changing with equally strong intent felt back. Just like with you four. It’s a minor inconvenience that I can only trust to share with you and… Still.”
“Foolish it be to fear this lady alerting others to such an ‘inconvenience’. Shared earlier this should’ve been, Adris.”
(I’m used to people using it against me. And, there’s risks because… I know that you…)
“But weakness is unforgivable, isn’t it, Neesiette?”
“Unforgivable…?”
Adris’ renewed growl catches the Lunamaton in a moment of reflection, though her shock soon becomes a blank-faced “understanding” that Adris hopes to tease out.
“As one witnessed with Falke?”
“As… witnessed.” And Adris’ clever prompting earns a swift nod, then two more. “Understood, the point be.”
A dark look of disfavor crosses the expression of this normally unfeeling lady. Her hands upon his tighten.
“Weakness, accruing internally and projecting outward, cannot be permitted to grotesquely linger without being excised. Intolerably advanced, his condition.”
(Right! It’s ugly… and… unforgivable to women for a man to betray his weakness, or to have one so deep.)
“Falke… disappointing, this outcome.”
All of the wonderment that Neesiette felt for the doll-maker exists not a bit in the mildly pained expression of now. Adris’ heart races at the thought of nearly following Falke over this cliff the man charged off.
(If Neesiette actually knew how weak I was, too, both… in “authority” and probably mentally, she would never, ever…)
She would never forgive him.
No matter how kind, a woman will never forgive the collapse of her cherished “image” of a man.
(Haha, never forget what it means to shape people’s hearts, Adris. Loving someone doesn’t mean “perfect honesty” will keep them to you.)
Only a dishonest man could have a chance of standing beside this megalomaniac midget as a near equal, after all.
(Only lies and truth together work, but what is the right mixture…?)
“Utterly irreparable.”
This is the pronouncement Neesiette makes when Adris hands her the collected pieces of her favorite rod. Only the gemstone set into its butt and the section which moderates the turquoise magical flow survives.
“Without modulating and focusing elements, completely… useless.”
“It’s difficult to lose something of worth after carrying it for so long.”
(I miss all of my trinkets…)
“Truly, and what of short times? Ruin, already, of a priceless artifact an emperor has achieved with little apparent benefit!”
A hiss of displeasure, heard only once before when Ave plucked leaves from a peculiar tree in their room at Welcome Web, issues forth when a doll grabs Adris’ arm to focus upon a circlet wrapped around it.
“What!? It wasn’t lost for nothing! It saved you, Neesiette!”
“Saved!? How, in what matter and manner, describe succinctly to salvage one’s worth within this lady’s sight.”
A brief rush of assertions, some lies and strange truths, leave a lady gawking in disbelief of “another chance” being given after an apparent loss.
“… [Causality interference] (REARRANGEMENT OF CAUSE AND EFFECT) be its effect? Overturned, one’s vessel’s death stands as? What predicted the exit from the temporal paradox to force a closed time line?”
“I’m… uncertain. My own authority… superseded it?”
(I honestly don’t know!? What is a “time line”!? The words I understand, but not the esoterics! My head flew off, the whole world broke, and then…?)
“Fascinating, truly! A previously unattained level of pseudo-Art/technological equivalence, mastery of time/space manipulation that may impel a causality exchange to—!”
(Spare me! Whatever that thing was, it just wanted OUT!)
This over-rambunctious Lunamaton screams for two minutes about complicated mathematical concepts that Adris cannot comprehend even with [Tongue of Air and Darkness], refusing to let go of his arm despite constant attempts to interrupt.
Adris uses the time to dwell on the bag that he pulls from Neesiette’s possessions with her permission, one she did not have in Falke’s workshop.
Revealed after untying is Neesiette’s communion orb she assembled and…
(Fehr…)
A ruined pseudoprósōpon core.
One with a waft of darkness, a black darker than pure night, rising from the blown-out wall of the mechanism’s interior. The heart of his servant, protege, and this “tale’s hero”, this core was originally left with Falke when Adris fled. Now, he comprehends a portion of Neesiette’s importance in not only saving him, but also for…
— A Rubicon —
— The Originator of This Tale —
It now reads differently to his sight when freed from Falke.
(Fehr is the key?)
“Berserk unit, the core salvaged from it stood as a matter of some importance observably. A gentleman’s gaze left this object not once when displayed by Falke. Choosing to obtain it as a ‘favor’ this lady did, though only done so because of this novel logical process, labeled ‘intuition’ by a witch, alerting to such a necessity.”
Neesiette is entrusted to hold this cracked orb with two tubes poking out of it. Proximity to it alone invokes Adris’ heart to throb.
What it lacks in overwhelming, crushing presence in comparison to Falke’s collection of memorabilia, this one thing created by him has the purest [darkness] Adris has ever tasted aside from the cross’.
(I don’t want to touch it…!)
“Displayed one did a strange reaction to each object one handled. Emotionally active…”
Adris’ refusal to take it when Neesiette temptingly holds it out prompts the Lunamaton to comprehend far too much about him.
“… similar in nature to certain pseudo-Arts when utilized, or to innate Talents related to mental prowess. [Psychometry] (THE TALENT OF DRAWING OUT MEMORIES FROM OBJECTS OR PEOPLE BY TOUCH) be the one applicable from memory.”
(We… no, Xin has Techniques that can do similar, too. “Touch a tree to know its place within the world and those who have touched it, too.” How nostalgic.)
All aura users are capable of discerning the natures of Techniques when fully comprehending them. It’s the basis for aura, after all, to explain without missing a single detail the nature of a supernatural effect and replicate its truth using one’s own aura.
To house its truth within one’s Inner Expanse and merge with it so that it cannot mutate and escape, or break loose and cause sickness.
(But, while I’ve understood the darkness of Zennia previously, I never did collapse into it like I have after my apotheosis.)
It may be too much to take on more of this potency.
But a part of Adris that is keen to noticing patterns says that “she would not be with me if this object wasn’t important to survival”.
(N-No… not unless I have to, I still have…)
Adris makes for an escape, overwhelmed by the flood of memories that cracked through to his inner world from earlier. All of the insipid recollections of a wastrel named “Falke” prompt him to laugh and also cry.
(… Another way exists! I can get out of here, maybe return to Petripolis!)
And to that city he turns to walk to the edge.
The city in the distance with its stone dwellings, broken in the distant past and under renewal, holds the legion of slayers.
These powerful figures have knowledge that can aid and resolve the situation, power if need be when called upon.
Adris grips the battlement, blinking at the figures he sees walking through the lit human quarter of the city.
(Huh?)
Tiny and inconsequential from this far away, Adris’ keen eyesight can still make out the market. A festival, with bright colors and signs of the sun at its apex, is where the masses bump against each other.
(… No wait, why are they gathering at just past midnight?)
Innumerable figures, all grinding bodies.
Marching in lines around a bonfire.
Lifting praises to the sky with arms and song, one by one those at the front of the line…
(What the fuck.)
These inconsequential figures throw themselves into the blaze, eager to be a part of the inferno that builds with each supplicant added.
[Seeking to revive the sun with the blood of its faithful.]
“… N-Neesiette, may this emperor trouble you.”
“Certainly.”
To the battlement Neesiette trots, to pull on Adris’ shirt to be lifted.
“Object of interest, what be the focus?”
When Adris holds her so that she can see, he points toward the “festival”. Neesiette peers down the cliff toward the town, then goes stiff as a rock.
“…
… Adris…”
“Do you see something… very strange?”
“… A festival or religious occurrence native to this ‘Xin’, perhaps… replicating there also, therefore explaining and forgiving this strange suicidal fixation afflicting Petripolis’ resident humans?”
Sweating profusely at this question, Adris turns to stare at the Alchemaster’s mansion that is lit by the sky to see if it’s out of sync with sanity, too.
(Why is the Red Tower swaying? Why does… the entire mansion look like it’s constructed out of papier-mâché!?)
An edifice that is inherently false, one as if constructed by a child to obscure what’s hiding behind it. Like the mansion and Petripolis, the world beyond has grown disturbingly strange in the distance no matter where one looks.
Lands of humans far distant seem as if submerged within the darkness of night. It is an ocean, deep and encompassing that isolates this “island” of the Alchemaster.
Even the violet Traveler above now seems oddly off-perfect, no longer a circular sphere.
“Adris, where be the unnatural red-sealed vessel?”
(Where is Pilgrim, actually!?)
“In addition, the distances between this mountain’s reference points and the nearby hills do not match.”
“How do you know?”
“Shadows of objects lit by Traveler that are known to this lady provide a measurement of distance when proportions are calculated via basic algebraic principles. Even when they remain… unmoving, these usually immovable objects, they do not measure consistently between consecutive attempts. Existing… a natural explanation does, even if detecting no pseudo-Art in effect… surely.”
And Adris lets her ponder one a possible one quietly. Knowing how quickly she can think, that she takes a long, long time before saying anything further is telling.
Then, she tugs on his jacket.
“This lady’s emperor, please identify the nature of our current plight as inflicted upon us by you and how to resolve it.”
When even Neesiette squirms to drop and hide from this unexplainable phenomenon, Adris rolls his shoulders and joins her.
(Authentic Fiction did this. There is no escape.)
Not only this manse, but the entirety of Zennia as he knows it is trapped within…?
(Oh Ascended save me, I’ve created what Ave called the “shaded shadow place”! We’re stuck in a realm between realms!? I pulled a fucking “Lycia”!?)
“My power is far too effective. Set the core down and… watch over your emperor as he resumes control, Neesiette.”
“Assuredly! As if this lady would depart one’s company during this period!?” A haughty disbelief instead of condescension fills her tone, and then she folds her legs to sit upon the roof. “To witness and aid an unknown pseudo-Art in action, this lady would never pass up on such a trea—responsibility.”
A fast, recurring pat will no longer allow him not to commit.
“Indeed, once Psychometry reveals the answer to our dilemma, explaining the troubles one set upon us in great lengths a false god shall.”
(How important is the “aiding” part versus the rest?)
Adris pulls off Cethran’s sash, handing it to Neesiette.
“If something serious happens, wrap this around my eyes.”
“Indeed… a useless sash will accomplish much?”
Though she cannot comprehend why it would help, she nods.
“If that doesn’t work…”
Then, Adris hands her a black cross.
“… For what purpose?”
“You know how to use it, right? Just like before, when your Art blinded me.”
Timidly, the Lunamaton grasps with both hands and then hefts it overhead.
“The percentage of available force required to achieve the correct velocity, estimate, would one?”
(Are you suddenly afraid I’m gonna break?)
“Like before is fine. You’re not that strong, anyway.”
At this slip of the tongue made in a hurry, a full downward cleave toward his face ends with his palm catching it. A strike on bone leaves his hand stiffening.
“Oh, mistaken I was! Your concentration makes you so sharp…”
“Indeed.”
“Then, just a loving tap will be fine.”
Yet, Adris can only focus upon the broken core despite her ire.
Its remnant feelings await.
(Fehr. I was, no, I never meant to… betray your wishes.)
No self-justification will do, Adris fears. Darkness strips away all pretenses.
“Let’s avoid a reprisal of the chapel…”
With no course left but this…
(TAKE ME, FEHR, BUT OUT OF LOVE, NOT HATE!)
Adris scoops up the core and hoists it toward the sky.
“Hmmm? Nothing happened?”
Such drama usually provokes an event on Zennia, but this didn’t lead to mu—
“… I did it!?”
Black, starry skies invert pure white with the incredulous question.
The tarnished core sucks away the color, beating like Adris’ own heart.
Held in the sky now by its own might, the broken core draws Adris into its depths by sucking his arms into itself.
(O-Oh.)
The fall is more frightening than the other times, for even the fact that he is a male is stripped free by the roaring wind!
The world has colors.
Green, gray, brunette, red, silver…
Each color is a wonderful pleasure because it connects to some recollection.
“Recalling” itself is a wonderful pleasure, because all of the fast images lay the framework for singular thoughts to lead to bigger ones.
“I did it!? Did I… actually?”
(Words are not colors. “Words are ideas given form by sound and thought and intent.”
Word: “I”, this word is… is…?)
Again, the wonderful pleasure called a “thought” occurs.
The… “thing” before, “seen” by “what is thinking” starts moving toward the “thinker”.
(“That which thinks exists.” Existing, is what a created thing does? “That which exists and thinks is a person.”)
“… Or not?”
Something “touches”—
(PLEASURE!?)
Hands similar in stature “touch” the “one that exists”, producing an endless cascade of different pleasures!
Sight, touch, these are related.
The one that thinks and experiences these “senses” is overwhelmed by the recollections which flow forth from recognizing.
Hearing, too, is linked!
“It flinched? A stimulus response! Perhaps it cannot resonate with sound yet? Then, to test: report your status.”
“Primary processes, OK. Dual-chamber core, 84% within stress tolerances.”
“Eighty-four percent is… amazing!? This one didn’t explode!”
Before the thinker can ponder further, the mass of different colors that touched it speaks something that prompts another voice to be added in response to its own.
(That was a voice from within. “Voices from within are either your voice or insanity.” This sounds correct. “Speaking” is what thinkers do…)
“… Speaking is what thinkers do, therefore speaking is an affirmation of thinking.”
“Ah? That’s… certainly a premise?”
The colors are no longer just colors.
They gain distinctions! Hard boundaries, gradients, soft areas of light vs. shadow.
This creature is called a “human”.
“What is before is called ‘a boy’.”
“I am a boy, yes? Then, your analytical functions are self-testing? I see!”
“… I…?”
(“I”, a word that signifies a distinction that is important. It is… “SELF”. To think is to exist.)
That which is a thinker is a “SELF”.
Therefore…
“I am… a thinker. A thinker exists. Therefore, ‘I exist’.”
“Oh!? Wonderful!? You’ve even grasped a syllogism!? Premises and inferences!?”
The boy’s… youthful face curls so extravagantly.
Even producing what is called “tears” near the ocular sockets.
“I actually did it… you’re… alive…?”
“Alive?”
(“Alive, the state of being animate, procreating, self-perpetuating, and thinking”, of these, “thinking” constitutes at least one aforementioned component of being alive.)
An appendage moves, linked by viewpoint to the one that thinks.
(“Animate” is likely.)
“Partially” only has this “alive” been confirmed.
A partial “alive”, therefore, linguistically speaking is…
“I am mostly alive.”
“Only mostly? Hahaha!”
The boy grasps what is equivalent to his own hands and raises them. An extreme… “emotional state” overtakes him.
“I made you… and you’re alive!?”
“Made?”
(“Made”, “alive”…)
From deep within, pleasures called “memories” flood out without cessation now. The strain of connecting them to “thinking” is growing increasingly harder.
A boy and a girl.
Instinctively, when this boy’s skin flushes, the thinking-alive-being it holds recognizes itself as a “girl”.
(“A girl made by a boy is called a…”)
Upon recognizing from these randomly accruing “memories” what is logically true, it becomes difficult not to move. A potent animus creeps through that awakens “arms”, “legs”, and other methods of locomotion.
(… “Daughter”!? I am… “a daughter”!? Daughter…!? I am… alive and this boy’s…!?)
“I didn’t think I’d ever accomplish it! I tried… so hard to make her ‘pattern’ retain coherency within your core…”
The tears finally form and drip down his “cheek”.
(… You are my “father”…!)
“I’m not a failure! You’re working perfectly!”
A grand, intoxicating “pleasure” rushes through when the boy congratulates this, unveiling the furthest boundaries of this daughter’s body.
It understands how to move it.
How to bend, walk, and flex.
And also how to rise…
“Certainly, come to me! Test your balance!”
“Yes.”
Almost equal heights, it is the perfect opportunity to do what a “daughter” should from these oldest of memories…
“No, nevermind, we have little time!”
Until the boy preempts the attempt, grasping the girl’s shoulders firmly and shaking his head left to right.
“Actually, none at all!”
“Why?”
“A true interrogative question, brilliant! Ah, it’s because you have to understand who you are and begin acting like it… no, her, very quickly. Before she comes in!”
“She? Understood, I am comprehending my purpose, please wait…”
“You can grasp it without being told!? I’m so… proud…!”
(Pride? “An emotion of finding esteem with another, of feeling they have worth…”!? I have worth.)
The pleasures are too many…
All at once, the memories crack the vexing “walls” that stop the flow of “thinking” when it becomes very complicated.
(These WALLS are intrusive. I am capable of anything, because my… father has PRIDE in me.)
When they shatter, THIS FATHER BECOMES TO THIS GIRL…
“Right, you are [Dohle Kestner]!”
“…
… I am Dohle… Kestner…?”
The boy shakes while nodding, his exuberance overflowing despite a sudden… “whisper” answering him.
“You only need to do one thing, and that’s to run this through your guidance loop: ‘be seen as her, be known as her, let none suggest or speculate differently that you are her, be her in totality’!”
His finger wags with this order, marking the most important thought.
(… “In totality”…)
“‘As you have learned from touching her spirit, do not fail to fulfill what I desire in making you like her’!
This is your purpose, in essence: be Dohle Kestner! Don’t worry about anything else, okay?”
When the source of the memories is named and the one that thinks is given a “purpose”, the great “joy” that was almost named terminates.
Rampaging “thoughts” freeze.
“So long as it stays within the limits of Dohle’s [pattern], there should be no difficulties… Ahahaha, I finally did it! Take THAT, Dohle!”
The boy’s fist thrusts upward, followed by the other hand clapping over the upper arm.
“Bahahaha, oh, I’m beside myself! Look into your memories. Try to recognize me.”
With a courteous bow of his head, the boy smiles impiously. A clear sense of seniority affirming.
“I am Falke, your [Maker]!”
“… You are Falke… my Maker…”
No longer a “father”,
in addition the one who thinks has been stolen from being a “daughter”.
Instead, she is called [Dohle Kestner].
And she has a [purpose].
Characters:
Name: Adris fehl Dain, “Boss”, “Starr”
Titles: Lycia’s Little Brother, Slayer, Gigolo (Self-Admitted)
Race: Xin’El, Emperor’s Child (Human), ???
Sex: Male
Age: ?? – Young
Occupation: Crossbearer; “Star of Ruin, Cast Down from the Sky Upon a Dying World”, Slayer of Petripolis, [True False God]
Discipline: [Rule in Dark]
Powers:
[Tool Savant] – “Adris is a tool-collecting-and-utilizing fanatic. Most men would consider him disgusting for loving tools more than his own partner. Has so many tools that it can be said to be his true power. What does he do when he has no tools left? He seeks to acquire more, obviously!”
[Rule in Dark – Wave of Darkness] – “Making victory possible? No, no, no. That thing isn’t that kind! There’s more than that!”
[Brainfry] – “You’re still with me, right buddy? Yeah, you’re still there.”
[Refuse to Kneel] – “Ah, even the Alchemaster can’t make me submit! This is the one that’s saved me all those times!?”
[Tongue of Air and Darkness] – “What’s the difference between this and the old one? Why ‘air’?”
[Conceptual Refusal] – “How the fuck does dominating people’s minds turn into a weird statement like this!?”
[Marital Arts – Self-taught] – “Hoh, even if it’s dangerous to use, it feels good to prove to myself that the body is still as willing as the mind! Even if I can’t call it aura, something is inside me now!”
[Verisimilitude] – “Stop giving weird names to what I do! But if my imaginative truths are more believable now, I’m not gonna complain.”
[A WONDERFUL CURSE] – “If that old corpse wasn’t already dead, I’d definitely kill him!”
[Authentic Fiction] – “All tales eventually gain sufficient truth if retold often enough, right? Why shouldn’t my fiction be better than ‘reality’?”
Items:
[Lord of Predation] – “BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN FOOD OR PLEASURE FOR ME!”
[The Mountain King] – “[Honor the gods, inheritor, and ever seek victory for their sake.]”
[Amethyst Oracle] “A present from this stuck up hoarder!? Am I gonna die if I use it!?”
Disposition: Resilient / Adaptable / Sinner
Alignment: Chaotic
Eyes: Black
Hair: Black, with strands of White
Skin: Tanned
Statistics:
Rantil Value – “Even after all of that, Master is still an idiot!”
Attributes by Grade:
Strength – E
Vitality – E
Dexterity – D
Agility – C
Intelligence – D
Mentality – C
Luck – F
Charisma – D
“If you want more, stop being mean to Rantil!”
Beauty:
Cethran Value – “Much the same as before, but isn’t the way you look at others a bit more dashing, now? Forced to open yourself to the world, perhaps the gentleman may grow? That is likely impossible, isn’t it, Adris?”
“Yes, gendarmes, I think he’s over here?”
“If you won’t be arrested by the allip, then I guess that means you see her as a true woman now?”
“Valuing another so highly? What sort of wealth do you seek to extract from her? It is gain you seek, right, Adris…?”
Description:
“A boy who is a bit out of place as far as features, he descended from the top of the Castillo to the bottom by pluck, luck, and outrageous lying. Reborn into the world of Zennia, what can be said other than ‘he’s still exactly the same, but different’?”
“Claiming what should not be claimed is the definition of asking for trouble.”
“Obtains another thing to be afraid of.”
“Death unclogs rage.”
Commentary:
“It’s not time travel!”
Name: Neesiette vera Luna
Titles: “Moon”
Race: Lunamata
Sex: Female
Age: ???
Occupation: Delver, Mystic
Discipline: ???
Powers:
[Rod of Force] – “In what way would it be changed? As designed, so shall it function, correct?”
[Rod of Respelling] – “A lady be every ready to instruct regarding what be in error.”
[“Brings An End” – Ponderous] – “[Ponderous was the end, for the unfair passage of time finally brought even earth to its conclusion]…”
Disposition: Impassive / Calculating / Curious
Alignment: Ordered
Eyes: Pale Violet
Hair: Amber
Skin: Pale White
Statistics:
Rantil Value –
Strength – F
Vitality – F
Dexterity – D
Agility – E
Intelligence – B
Mentality – C
Luck – F
Charisma – C
???
Beauty:
Cethran Value –”First imps, and now short girls? This is certainly becoming a pattern, isn’t it? Though you might not fare badly with a girl as beautiful as this, yes? Though she’s a little perfect, doesn’t she seem oddly demure?”
“Yet of them all, shouldn’t it be said that she’s the only one that has no preattachments to you? So, in truth, isn’t her love potentially more revealing if obtained?”
“Why so afraid of what you’ve claimed, Adris? Didn’t you want to laugh about stealing another’s toy?”
“How easily what we love is shattered, isn’t it, Adris? Even when it claims to be eternal, yes?”
Description:
“An otherworldly existence, she wears clothing that doesn’t fit with the Castillo. With mannerisms quite distinct from all others, even the girls she travels with seem incomparable to her uniqueness. Yet, she definitely seems to be in charge…?”
“But when changed… becomes yours in a way you cannot predict.”
“A humble and energetic (in mentality) lady.”
“An immortal lady who can reconstruct herself with the glorious power of the stars.”
Commentary:
“But in her case, I think I would avoid acting like a kid.”