Thank you. I never thought I would feel like this again. I thought it impossible to love more than life itself more than once, but I guess having multiple lives helps.
— Excerpt from Notes For Point
Day 35267 10:45 AM
“What about Maelstrom’s grandfather?” Newstar asked all of a sudden. “What about her protective amulet?”
The sudden change of topic took a bit of mental gymnastics, but my stats made my mind quite nimble.
“It only works through an unbroken line of snow, ice, or water connecting them. I asked her last loop. It’s odd. I still find it odd that the imperials have insisted on you and her by name, as well as some of the others. If not for the obvious proof of conflict between the cults and the imperials throughout the ages, I would’ve thought they were working together. I just can’t believe the imperials are willing to risk so many valuable targets just for bait. Then again, perhaps that’s what they wanted the cultists to think, too.”
“Why didn’t the cults send someone at a higher realm? Why not send exalts after us?”
I laughed, recalling the conflagration of furious dragons which spilled out of the jungle when Gatemaster Greenthorn headed into the weald flaring mana.
“You have a really high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” I said. “Come on, follow me. We’ve dallied here long enough. I have to show you where I’m going to plant the pouch.”
Still, his question was good enough and deserved an answer.
“If you want my opinion, I believe the cultists didn’t deploy stronger experts because that would cause a chain reaction. The same one your master rightfully feared when we were searching for you. The provoked saurians would attack and ruin the cultists’ rituals. That’s why they waited for the first serious skirmishes between us and manabeasts - to get the feel of the saurian threat before they struck.”
We sped through the jungle, mostly me talking about things Maelstrom had already asked, since it was a curated list of questions someone like Newt might be interested in. But as we approached the Swordpeak encampment, I started having trouble breathing. It should’ve been impossible; I was more mana than flesh, and yet I felt dizzy.
Point had died there. She was a dried, impaled husk, sucked of that which had made her human.
I wanted to leave the bag at the camp, but I didn’t have the strength to go there. Instead, I spotted a tall cliff and turned that way. Once there, it was easy enough to find a large but inconspicuous rock.
“This place seems easy enough to spot from a distance. I’ll open this rock and seal my spatial pouch inside it, like so.” I said and touched the rock. Its surface opened like a door, and I took out a glob of rock from within and stored it into my spatial pouch. “The Swordpeak encampment is a dozen miles away. I can sneak away and return, pretending I’m scouting.”
Newstar frowned. “Why would you return if you’re going to save Maelstrom?”
“I’m not going to intervene personally, it would paint a target on her back. But my duty is to evacuate the Swordpeak princes and their guardians, and sending them to another camp to face the danger together and make a powerful force seems like a good way to do it.”
Not to mention that approach would guarantee Point’s survival too. As much as anything can be guaranteed without Redo.
“Doing that might paint them targets instead of you two in the long run,” I continued, “but you will need scapegoats. Still, I hope that the death of their’ god and the imperial forces’ imminent slaughter should shock the cults enough to give up on hounding the Swordpeaks until they can return to their kingdom.”
“Wait.” Newstar needed a moment to process my words. “What are you going to do? Where will you be?”
“Well, I’m going to get captured, let the outer god get me, and then kill her. Now, come on, we can run and talk. We want to be as far away from here as possible when she arrives to make it look like we’re running away together.”
I wasn’t sure about the next part of my plan, but surprise was my best ally against someone as strong as Newstar. “Also, I’m sorry about this, I really am, but it has to look realistic.”
I summoned Batsy III and swung with all the advantage surprise should grant me, but he wasn’t surprised one bit as he jumped back, dodging the blow by a hair.
“What are you doing?”
“Kidnapping you, so as not to paint a target on your back.”
“Are you crazy?” He asked the question a lot of people had been asking since the final series of loops had started.
“Well, yes,” I answered plainly, “you can’t lead a life like mine without going insane, at least I couldn’t, but what I’m doing now is quite rational. I need you battered, bruised, and tied to sell the story. Now stand still, so I can beat you up.”
“No!”
I swung again, but he dodged easily.
Damn, his danger sense skill is better than mine.
Since he was going to outdo me in technique, I used the nonlethal approach, and immediately following the failed blow, tackled him. I squeezed his chest and aimed a fist at his face, but he turned to rock.
No, you don’t.
I added air to my blow, wind of erosion slamming into hard rock and turning it to sand. He got furious and started hitting back, but I didn’t care. The more mess we made, the more believable the whole affair was if the outer god came by the place where we fought.
I let his blows land. My armor, while not quite as good as his, was nothing to sneeze at, and beneath it I healed any wounds I suffered, an ability his elements didn’t grant.
“This is the advantage of having multiple elements,” I said. “You can use each of them as the situation demands.”
I pummeled him, and he finally got serious, unleashing ungodly flames which I could only partially block; the rest burned me without mercy. My flesh sizzled and popped before falling off in chunks, but my healing kept up with the damage.
Then I landed a solid blow on the head, and his defenses fractured. It was the end of the brawl, and I gave him the biggest beating he’d ever received in his life.
“You know, your fire defense borders on cheating.” I spat blood and ash. “Not to mention your fires are already searing beyond anything a sixth realm awakened should be able to dish out.”
Seventh too.
I laughed.
“I’m proud of you. Now, you might be wondering why I have to beat you up and tie you the way I am right now. Well, once the outer god catches us, I’m going to tell her you’re the key figure for her cultists’ future. I’m not sure she would fall for it, but I will be honest. You really are a key figure for them, the person who would decide their fate one day.”
I forced him into a sitting position, his eyes out of focus.
“I’ve prepared long and hard for this day. I knew it would come. While I didn’t expect an outer god with a seventh realm avatar to come chasing after me in person, I guess I should’ve seen it coming. Regular people would chase me as soon as they realized something was off about me, and that would in turn let me not do whatever weird thing hypothetically gave me away.”
I looked him in the eye. The whole situation hurt more than it should have. We could have become hegemons together. Me and Point high up in the Swordpeak hierarchy, Newstar even higher with Tidebreakers at his back. It would have been grand. If only I hadn’t been so foolish.
“I’m sorry I’m abandoning you to this.” I gestured at the world in general. “Leaving all the weight on your shoulders. Dying is easy, you know. Even staying dead isn’t all that hard, but abandoning the people you care about… I don’t seem to know how to do that.”
I grabbed him and carried him in my arms like a child.
“You’re all skin and bones, you know that? Not your fault, I guess. Mana did you in on that one, Maelstrom got the much better end of that bargain. And she really cares about you, you know? Love would be too strong a term, since you haven’t been doing any lovey things together, but you have these nice, wonderful emotions that could one day become love.”
I laughed. “Just so you know, if you have a son one day, Dandelion isn’t a bad name. It’s a tough herb, weed, whatever. Can do well wherever it finds itself. Spreads like crazy too; I had to watch out for that one. And it has lion in it. Right, lion…”
I talked about anything and everything that came to mind until his mind cleared properly, then went for the serious topics.
“The dragon. You and the dragon have identical auras. Is he a part of you, or are you a part of him?”
“What dragon?” He played dumb; very convincingly considering he thought that question would help.
“You know what dragon, but fine. You don’t have to tell me. Did the dragon tell you how to make that shield that protects you from fire? How does it work? Tell the dead man. I won’t get to use it in this world, but it could prove a boon in another.”
“It burns heat before it reaches me—”
“Bullshit! You can’t burn heat, I mean, what do you get from burning it? Where does it go?” I wanted to shout. How was a sane person supposed to come up with that idea? “What am I even doing, trying to find logic with magic? Fine, you can burn heat, do you burn away the cold too?”
“I don’t know. Never thought about it.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I grumbled. “Why would you think about the physics you don’t know exists? Fine, I’ll work on the concept, burning heat away from me, and freezing the cold so it doesn’t reach me. I feel stupid just saying it.”
“Dandelion.” The kid gave me one odd look. “You’re one strange man.”
“Thank you. You’re quite strange yourself, burning away heat to protect yourself from fireballs. I feel my IQ dropping just for saying it.”
We ran away from the hag, deeper into the jungle. I had a feeling he or I would fuck something up and that he would fail to retrieve the bag. Murphey’s Law hit all the alarm bells, so I told him as much as I could. It was abbreviated, but enough to allow him to reconstruct the knowledge should he focus on it one day.