Sun Tzu had a phrase that goes: 'Know your enemy and yourself and you will win a thousand battles, know only yourself and you are going to lose', or something along these lines. I think I've mangled the quote somewhat, I never read The Art of War after all. But the point still stands; I don't have a single clue what I am doing right now. So here I am stuck in the ground looking at the roof, tired as hell and sweating bullets, while the tome on my side is open. To be honest, I don't remember exactly how I got to my situation. So I thought it would be a good idea to recapitulate the events leading up to this point, and as a way to clarify a bit of my mind.
In the beginning, I had woken up like any other day of the week, with my mind with sleepiness, and that was it. My mind told me this day was Tuesday, and I had a long one ahead. I wasn't shocked and I didn't care, even if It was long ago where I remembered what the days of the week were, there were other matters way more important than remembering if I was on a Saturday or Wednesday. They barely influenced my life up to this point, and for me, there were only two types of days: Tharja's days and resting days
Anyways, this day would be like any other one: sessions of reading literature books and trying to understand a little bit more of dark magic. I am so downright impressed by my laziness, mostly by how much I could have done if I wasn't so afraid of getting out and hearing some other voice beside Tharja's. As they say in my land: Sloth is the mother of all sins.
Before I could begin my daily duty as a reader and inexperienced "user" of the dark arts, I craved breakfast, a most unusual craving as my appetite since I arrived some three months ago. Or it was seven? I don't know anymore. But anyway I didn't crave anything besides my survival, but hunger has struck again and brought me to a state of wanting to get out of my room for the first time in a while. I had routine breakfast beforehand, but Robin's arrival here didn't bring many wishes of getting out, and becoming a dark mage exacerbated the whole problem a lot. Imagine yourself becoming the center of attention for a whole day while being somewhat hated. And why most decisions are to be stuck in the room doing nothing. But despite all my ramblings, my sole reason was that I just wanted breakfast and nothing more.
As typical for the morning, it was as loud as an afternoon in the markets of the city. I got my food and got my foot to drag me where Tharja was. I wasn't the news of the times, but they still discussed themselves about the next ritual, why there are more troops than the usual, and their whole politicking. I would sit beside Tharja doing our silent ritual of quenching our hunger. Upon my humble arrival at the table, there was a white-headed devil on the other side of the freaking table. Why does my life hate me so much? A question nobody cares nor will answer since my relationship with this place is less than ideal, and besides not being the news, this time they still didn't get over the whole ordeal with the dead men.
I kept my face as emotionless as possible, hiding my utter irritation in realizing that my chair was occupied by none other than him, and I didn't want to start my morning with the voice of a hyena muttering about violence. So I turned around and went to the exit, to eat in my room, even if I was to be looked at with bad eyes this early in the morning, they would no doubt forget about my little transgression of not obeying my master.
Sadly, before I could get out…
"Mister Bilac, Mister Bilac!" He screamed my surname to the entire room to hear. I turned my head, ignoring the annoyed reactions of the onlookers. I saw the devil's spawn waving at me happily like a little puppy. As if that wasn't enough, he thought it was a good idea to have the subtlety of an unsilenced gunshot with the volume of his voice.
"Here! Here! Sit here! It is empty, look, look!"
He pointed one of his grubby cleaned fingers upon a singular chair at his side. I never thought I would find someone with the energy of someone who only drank coffee with copious amounts of sugar. Suffice to say I was wrong until meeting him.
I sighed upon my utter lack of choice. I had been discovered and had no way to escape right there, so the only solution was very simple: sit with the crow man and try to ignore his voice. Following my own advice, I did what I do best, and I sat on the wooden chair and ignored the man, a nagging thought in my mind: I didn't receive the peaceful breakfast I wanted.
I gave a quick nod to Tharja and Henry, the former giving another nod in reply, and the latter barely containing his dog-like energy waving at me, despite the distance between us being like a few meters. Ignoring him, I went back to my original plan of eating, but the moment I put my eyes on the food, the white devil spoke.
"Hiya, you got here! My intuition was right all along!" he said with a stupid grin on his face, despite his eyes being as cold as the eye of a crow eating his prey. I sweated a little upon seeing those. I didn't know what his plan for me was.
"Hmm," I replied while trying to ignore him and continue focusing on the now impossible task of eating under a quiet morning and not sweat bullets.
"I didn't expect less of ya! When I heard the rumors of a new dark mage, I had my doubts, but Tharja here told me you have become a dark mage!"
He spoke with infectious happiness that betrayed his eyes, his emotions unreadable to everyone but him.
I can only mutter one answer to such a phrase: "Hmmm."
"Keeping the stoneface forever, huh? Being a dark mage doesn't seem to have changed you that much, if at all. But it pains me a little, I thought you would be happier than the last time we talked."
What do you want me to answer? I became a "dark mage" and that was it, nothing more and nothing less.
"Anyways, Tharja how was your exper..."
After that, his whole conversation with Tharja became a string of unconnected words and expressions, a massive wall of sound in front of me. I ignored the annoying sound that came from his mouth. As afraid of him as I am, as if it wasn't enough horror-entailing his every action and his relationship with guts and death, he decided to take an annoying trait: he didn't know when to shut his mouth. In all honesty, I am not being that fair to him, but I hate when people talk in the morning period. After all, it is the period in which I tend to organize my mind, and I like my mind already organized for the day.
So I endured to the best of my ability, as I remembered the class of my philosophy teacher speaking about the stoics. The whole 'you cannot control the events happening around you, only yourself' and that was it. The name of the term was ataraxia, I think. I don't remember exactly. I kept my ears closed and my mind even more closed, as I kept distracting myself with the taste of the food and some adventure I made in my mind.
But if it was a normal morning, I wouldn't be telling about my blabberings, rambles, and rants about this specific morning. I wouldn't be wasting my time on such a useless period. By this point, you must have a clear clue of the person who started today's mess.
While I was eating my food with the speed of light, as usual, gobbing like a barbarian some might add, I noticed Henry uttering my name under his breath, a little contemplation in his words and a sense of curiosity in his tone.
"Fufufu, I wonder if our fellow Gabriel is capable of doing some dark magic."
I stopped eating my food the moment he spoke my name and looked at him confused.
"Uhhh..."
"Ummm, how about this? When the sun starts setting in, I will test his abilities with mine," He suggested to Tharja. I kept staring in disbelief. Why did he think I was prepared? And knowing the madness it would probably ensue, I would find my guts on the floor.
"You can't simply borrow my retainer." She retorts, her face a little bit strained, probably worried about the fate about to befall me and annoyed at someone suggesting such a stupid idea to a very simple situation.
"I know, but is there an easier way of knowing if he's capable of holding his intestine in place that isn't this one?" He inquires, perplexed as to why I and Tharja aren't so fond of this idea.
"He can't even cast Flux. Why do you want to throw him to the dogs this early?" She answered glaring at his eye, questioning his motives. Nobody removes Tharja's test subject, especially when he is this willing. But this is Henry we are talking about, the gaze never fazed the guy, he remained unaffected with his shoulders raised, confused for why Tharja and I weren't allowing him to do stuff with me.
"I never meant that. Why put words out of my mouth that I never said? This is not what I'm saying at all. I would rather know if he is capable or not, just this. C'mon it isn't like I want his guts down on the floor. It's best to work like that with someone that is already dead." He defended himself, not withholding his slasher-like smile.
"I can see that, but this is too early to even begin to fathom the idea of combat. He has been a dark mage for only two days," Tharja explained to him.
"Well, if he doesn't know, why not show it to him? It's not like someone wants to kill him."
Bold words to throw around, Henry.
Tharja enters her pensive state, one of her fingers up her mouth, chewing into it while thinking and weighing the pros and cons of allowing me to be "tested" against the crow psycho.
"See ya in the sunset, have to do some experimentation with the corpses," He jumped from the chair and gave us a goodbye wave and promptly walked towards the exit without any single hint of care in his face, a few onlookers glaring at the one who made wood clang with the stone floor. And when he arrived at the exit, he gave another of the hand waves and disappeared into the light.
He didn't give us any time to put any input or answer. That cheeky bastard! And now my plans for the day would have to be a curb stomp battle where I am the victim. Wonderful! Also, he forgot to finish his food. People are starving you know?
Tharja and I stare at each other, gobsmacked at first, and then reckoning from what comes next. Tharja's expression was an irritated sigh with a scowl adorning it, her usual composed posture changed. She barely contained her fist, while her eyes gave a death stare into the direction where Henry walked, thinking about the 1000 ways she would curse him and his progeny.
"Droga!" I whisper under my breath, another day of rest taken. Little by little I don't think I will have a week-long rest anymore. My mind boils with thoughts about the thousand ways I would kill and curse Henry out of existence. But after this loud display of mind that was silent to everyone around me, quiet despair ruminated through my body, any movement with my body stopped, while I gazed at nothing in particular. A splitting headache irradiated my head. I had long accepted my death as the final result of this confrontation. I didn't think it was this earlier, but that is what you pay for nothing paying attention.
"We don't have any time, you must prepare for this confrontation, or else…" Tharja said to me while preparing the tomes for my training. She only stated the obvious, but sometimes the obvious is the right answer.
"Ok, so what are you bringing with you?" With the Tomes already prepared, I asked her, as we got out of the room. After all, it is good to know what we are working with, and my knowledge of using dark magic…isn't great.
"Flux, Ruin, Goetia, Mire, and some flask of vulnerary," she answered me. There was only one thought crossing my mind when she gave the names: I am so screwed. All four of those were already way above what I could do. There was simply no way I could do this stuff. But Tharja and I abstained from taking this thinking forward, we already had way too much at hand, and bringing up another thing to the pile wouldn't help at all.
With time only passing, and the anxiety of the ever coming sunset impregnated into our minds, we did the only fast way towards my training: we sprinted to the corridor, people looking at us as if we were some kind of animal for running in the "sacred" corridor, as some might put it. The anxiety of being seen assaulted my mind, but my wish of getting alive was stronger and kept me somewhat intact for what would come next.
After some time of very loud steps, the sound equal to when a horse trots in, and the annoying glares of some folk, we finally arrived at one of the courtyards made especially for people who practiced dark magic.
The sun was still blooming in the sky, proudly waving his rays into the earth. To my utter dismay, the sun was blooming in the sky. The sweat from our running combined with the one caused by the irradiated heat is gluing to my body, unpleasant saltiness spreading through my tongue and eyes, while Tharja holds it just fine, indifferent to just another hot day in the desert.
The place doesn't have any roof standing direct to the sun and a pitfall leading to the dunes. Part of the floor is made of cracked stones and another part made of gravel dusting the rocks. It belonged to a series of open spaces rather than an enclosed system of rooms. By its design, all the free space is for the usage of magic, fractured, and burned ground showing their usage. The courtyard is surrounded by pillars holding an area blocking the sun serving as its entrances. The wall inside is as white as milk, notwithstanding single damage serving as a restroom also.
,
There were no onlookers, besides Tharja, so my nerves didn't get as frustrated as they could have been if someone was watching. Because of the lack of people, my patience was better than earlier this morning: I could breathe on my own and nobody would notice. Despite the scorching heat rivaling the hottest day from back home, one part of me thought that with enough patience and concentration it would be possible to cast magic today, and the other said it wasn't possible in a month, why would it be any different today? I shut up the latter of the two. I didn't need another enemy.
"Tharja, what tome should I be using?" I inquired, the doubt creeping at my face, as the sweat from the tension mixed with the hot brimming sun marinated my head with the doubts of the next events and what was possible.
"The best one would be Flux, but I don't think we have enough time for any in reality" Tharja stated, her face marred by an uneasy emptiness, the little cracks of caring different from the usual indifference she often walked within this world.
This didn't help at all. Even If I could cast this, the time was passing ever fast in my imaginary clock, the seconds and minutes lost on the way towards here being discounted into the practice time we had. Any more words than necessary and movements and my death would be certain.
"Just… bring it to me," I told Tharja while I tried to maintain my indifferent composure, a little hesitation in my voice as anxiety racked up inside little by little like a drop feeding a river. My hands fidgeted on my body, while my feet tapped on the ground trying to dispel the dread of what would come next
Tharja nodded and gave me the famous Flux, the basics of all dark magic of this world. With its characteristic cover that everyone who studied dark arts even for just one day in their life knows from the back of their mind: purple with a white font saying flux. Her steady pale hands contrasted with my burned twitchy one. Her tense glare told me what her order was: Don't screw this up, okay?
I nodded and gulped the dry saliva stuck in my mouth while receiving the book in my hands. It weighed with the events leading up to this point, heavier than a tonne of metal. One small mistake and I could call my quest to go back home over. With this in mind, I opened the book, exposing myself to the stressful air surrounding me. The words printed on its yellow pages indicated its usage. The mist of the aura spreading through the air is a mystified one, every single type of magician knows that. The difference for us is we control the flow of its existence. One can change it and turn into a mighty weapon at its own right - the author of this tome...
Upon reading the words, I spread my body and tried to mutter the words in my mind in vain, still adhering to my faint hope it would work. Reality isn't a very kind mistress to its inhabitants. Nothing came, not even a single spark or sensation in my body, only the hot air passing through my body like the gut feeling on my stomach and head devours any other emotion or subtle sensations.
I took a long breath. If you don't remain calm, don't even try thinking of succeeding, because you will never get there with all this tension passing through our body. Also, the ray of the bright orange sun was irritating my face and eyes, puncturing hot needles cooking the skin with drops of sweat as the spice. The pitch darkness of light blinded with the paradoxical brightness of photons. This was another day in the oven called Plegia.
One, two, three. I counted with rhythms. I kept the little beats in my hands. Maybe if I thought like it was some kind of music, it would be a little easier for the magic to go through my fingers. One, two, three Snapping fingers I tried, but nothing emerged from it, so I did the little mistake of looking at the book and nothing more, stopping what I was doing beforehand.
The little mistake stabbed as hard as getting the wrong notes of an already known composition on a piano. The neck strained as harsh as the frequency of two semitones being hit without context. I twisted with the unavoidable pressure, the mad dance of failure contorting with its practice. The saliva mixed with bile insulting my mouth as the critics of 20cth classical music, I tasted the bitterness of my inwards as the unresolved tension of a non resolved chord progression. At any moment I could explode as hard as the loudest parts of The Rites of Spring.
Before any of the metaphors conclude to their logical chaotic conclusion. I stopped, refraining from continuing any of the incomplete sonata being played with the unstable musician. I couldn't afford right there, I didn't need splitting headaches and the shame coming back to me like this, I never wanted this. I fall to my knees, little tears of anger escaping from my eyes, grinding my teeth through the inner turmoil storming my distorted peace
Tharja looked at the chaos unfolding at her side. Me, her only retainer collapsing under the uncontrollable nerves born with him. I could only read her ominous expression, little shadows hiding her eyes. The small silent period was the calm before the storm. Without any input from me, She grabbed me by my robes' collar and dragged me into the shadowed parts of the courtyard.
I gasped at her, trying to recover air from the choking caused by the pressure against my neck in the robe. I could only see the dark roof in my eyes, the cold ground alleviating from the intolerable heat from the outside. I could only stare at Tharja as I tried to get my bearings. After a minute, I got up from the grounds and refreshed myself with some twitchy movements. You could call that calibration if you want, I use the verb to relax. Under the presenting to ourselves. I thought to myself maybe with a little more effort it could be possible, right? Right!?
"You are never going to get it right as you are right now. You are too unfocused. It shows. You almost collapsed even before getting any of the spells right. I should have told you to be in the shadows. Didn't the instructor tell you this one basic rule before?"
She complains about my inefficiency as a dark mage, so poisonous she doesn't even try to hide it. As I thought, I was an only failure and nothing more. I didn't answer her, the shame kept me from talking, confirming to Tharja her hypothesis, while I avoided stating the truth. But by the end, I think she realized the truth all along.
"Since we are already stuck on this problem, I will fix it. So follow with my next steps." She orders. Since I care very much about my life, I do what she tells me to do.
"So first of all, focus on something. Don't even try to focus on eyes, it doesn't work. Focus in another sense, let the sensations of the unknown enter into your being. Don't avoid it, it isn't your enemy. It's your sole friend in here" She instructed me, saying her words in a calm tone as if nothing happened.
I try to focus on the other sensation that exists in my body that takes charge instead of my vision in an attempt to succeed. To go with the flow as some might say. Trying to change the focus from what is happening to my eyes, an immeasurable task. To make it succeed I try to close my eyes and let my body and mind tell me what to do next
The unstable beating of my heart resonated through my body, the blood helping it with a little melody of its own, playing with the small violin with a rage stronger than a thousand cannons. Creating a disparate orchestra. Brusque and barbaric. Dissonant in its playing. Chaos was its principal actor, and it would bow to no one. So the only possible way to connect with him was to play along with his game, like a miraculous mandarin.
I can feel the rapid air pass by the burned skin. Refreshing and alleviating a little bit of the pain. Its flow is unpredictable, often going left and right, up and down. Circulating and encompassing my being. Like a little invisible cape. Maintaining such a cape strains my body, feeding off the energy. I keep breathing in an attempt to keep my focus.
"Good, keep the focus. Now try to cast Flux," Tharja commended, with a cold and very precise tone to her voice. Any small mistake of my part would nullify all the effort made by both of us. I had to get I right or else.
So I prepared the tome in my hands, one eye focusing on the texts and the other one closed. Reading the text was a challenge in and of itself. The letters became smaller until it wasn't readable anymore, a bunch of squiggly lines and dots. The amount of pressure made on my body was no joke, it crackled and cracked by the flows in the air, resonating within my bones. I readied myself up trying to destroy the constraints on imagination in my mind and liberate it…
I was not capable.
The exact moment I began reading the text, my whole formation broke down. The amount of energy was way too much to be sustainably held in my body. In other words, I wasn't conductable enough to let the magic energy pass through my body. As it was before, I collapsed onto the ground and tasted the bitter taste of cold rock in my tongue. I punched the ground hard, making little red spots all over my hands and distributing the sharp dull pain all over it.
Anger flooded me like a broken dam, the waves consuming my brain. I wanted to curse everything in this world from bringing me here to this hell. The Fatimids from bringing me here, the court for being this snake's pit of living, and me, for being too lazy, and allow the situation to slip off my hands and spiral out of my control. I breathed for rest and allowed me time to think. Since I was already deep in this mess, to begin with, why not try again? if Henry is not kidding, I am going to die anyway. So I will try my hardest. After all, why not take one last choice?
I lifted myself, sat down, and slowly took my time to analyze what I got so wrong and to rest from all the strain caused to my body. Even on the hard cold floor, it was enough for my exhausted state. It was a cushion of rocks, but a cushion nonetheless.
For the duration of my resting period, Tharja didn't say a single word. Sadly, I cannot tell for sure if it was her understanding of my situation with my magical ineptitude and my need for a break to do proper full recovery and then succeed, or quiet despair accepting my fate as a dead lab rat for Henry and not her live subject.
Realizing what I got so wrong, I arose from my state of peace to try again, accepting the chaos I was putting myself under. My body was still strained from the attempt, my legs and arms' muscles sore from trying to exert a power I didn't know how to control. I go with the flow again. With only one key difference: I would let myself focus on what mattered and not on the sole part like during the previous failure.
The exhale and inhale were my metronome in the little prelude called "Flux". 1, 2, 3, the waltz of flows re-emerges dancing upon my skin, playing upon my ruined body, making their steps known to me. Chords of the ebbs of the unknown pass through my veins, connecting with the dances of the energy. And with a melody of the vein harmonize with the melody of the artery. The brain coordinating the piece as if it was their little conductor, I felt so free and so in control in this single little moment, all the pieces fit in the place, as every single little mistake I've made had meaning.
I saw a purple mist surrounding me, painting the atmosphere into a relaxing dreadful tone of unknown to the piece. Under my feet, three circles burned bright with the ripe orange while the other orbited around me with little seals, runes, and geometry threw around in disjointed forms. I felt as if I could smash the world in my thumb and nobody could stop me. I basked in the sweetness of the rays and mist. And I wanted more of it.
The addiction to such power contradicted what I wanted in my mind. The power which corrupts. The stabbing mist sucked all of the air from my body and the atmosphere. An orb almost formed from the conversion of the uneasy air surrounding it, radioactive in its nature. The once primordial dive into what seems to be a paradise revealing itself to me its true nature: the unknown. I stopped once the orb had taken the energy from me, the mist ceased to exist. I could only taste the air and bitter ground where my face had plated. I had overestimated myself.
And that leads to my present situation right now. Thinking about it, so much has happened in these few hours and, worst of all, I don't know what time it is. I forgot to even count what was happening outside. Losing the sense of time, what a classic. I just want to go to bed and nothing more.
Tharja comes to my field of vision, staring down on me. Her face didn't change at all during all these months, while mine has deteriorated. Don't get me wrong, she is still as creepy as ever with pale death-colored skin who didn't ever change despite living in a blistering hot furnace called Plegia and belonged more to the reaper than a real person, with lack of any blemishes or marks.
And the eyebrows who looked down at everyone by its very essence, ignoring most of the people and arrogant even, and had any plans in case something had gone wrong, but maybe this is mere paranoia. Compared to me, with two purple circles surrounding my eyes, sunken eyebrows, and the skin grimed with dust and sand. This face had seen better days. Sadly, this will not change soon enough, but one thing I promised to myself, is that when I get home, I will sleep 12 hours a day, and nobody will tell me otherwise.
I don't know if I can sense any pride in her stare, darkened by the lack of light and volume of hair, two unreadable orbs gazing at me. This time It doesn't even bother or creep me out as before, I already saw the situation we were in. She saw the "successful" conjuring that I wasn't even capable of holding for much longer. Disappointment and shame walk around my mind. Despite the initial sweetness of conquest and possible horror dwelling inside it, it was so pitiful compared to my old two friends here standing beside me for a long time.
Nothing has changed, nothing at all.
After a moment I can see what is behind their eyes. The once arrogant or annoyed look disappeared, the woman who seemed to have a contingency plan for every single situation realized that nothing could be salvaged. It is just like the old time.
The sunset seated on the horizon, the once-powerful flames of the afternoon only left with embers serving as the painting into the bittersweet orangeness befalling into the beginning of a new one. The taste of the ashes and sweat scattered by the sunset waving his little rays at us. The nostalgia tastes more bitter than coffee, the silence has sunken to a melancholic haze. The world has become static as we didn't move, any single detail didn't change into the canvas of the landscape. After a while, it will be night and that will be it.
With nothing left to salvage but only my tired frame, I decided to ask Tharja "Do... yu kn no w wh whe where Henri' at?" Hesitations mark my speech, words stumble on each other, some mix, others not so much, while stuttering in my mouth, my accent returns thicker than oatmeal speaking, my hands tremble a little, and my eyes twitch. My mouth dries by trying to spill out the question.
"I don't know. He never told us." She states as matter of fact, the point of no return coming to my mind. I was so close, and yet so far. She isn't facing me, only staring at the skyline., I guess it was a rather peaceful end to it. Little steps on the furthest side of the crack in the rocks
"Heya, sorry for stopping the moment, but we agreed to something," Henry says, interrupting my thoughts, so suddenly I don't know how to react when his voice reaches my ears. We turn our heads to the psycho who had a good idea to stop this bitter moment. He keeps smiling at us as if nothing happened. I am not ready for this, not at all.
"So where did you "plan" this whole massacre to be?" Tharja spats, glaring at the man who in a few minutes will probably kill me. As for me, I don't know what to do. I keep looking at the scene unfolding in front of my eyes.
"Y'all misunderstood me. I wasn't trying to butcher him into a corpse. If I want to do it I would get someone deader than him," He tries to explain to us with the same good creepy smile on his face. He doesn't even flinch at any of the words pressed against him. This is nothing worse than what has happened in his life.
"So why do you decide to fight him, and without giving us even a chance to refute otherwise?"
If looks could kill, Henry would be already dead, and I wouldn't have to go through this stress. With her tome ready, she targets in his head. Before the whole situation could degenerate into a bloodbath for all sides, I intervene.
"I will do it," I reply.
Tharja stops looking at him and stares dumbfounded at me, "Do not jest, why would you want yourself to mee death?"
"Give the man what he wants to. I don't want to be stressed anymore," I don't care, let's go with it, and it will be rather quick.
"Do you have any idea of what you are doing!?" Tharja shouts at me as loud as the quietest night where only the sound of the wind could be heard
"Yes. Delaying the inevitable is not going to happen anyway, sorry," I try not to bow my eyes, and somewhat succeed on this endeavor, only a little bit of tears escaping from my eyes.
Tharja doesn't take it well, she doesn't cry or tries to expose any emotion, only a big frown on her face is enough, a little despair in her eyes, as she tries to process what is going to happen next and becomes like a statue, unmoving.
"So where do you plan to do this duel?" I return to my stoic expression, removing the tears from the trail on my face. At this point I only want to end this soon, I don't like my time to be wasted, especially when the situation got a little bit emotional and I would rather not think about it.
"Finally! Well, I had a place in my mind, but I think this is also a very fine place to do it and…Nah, let's do it where it was originally planned," He says and goes again towards his destination without any warning, ignoring me and Tharja again
"So where is this place? Give me an answer!"
"I never said where it would be?" He asks me confused, his smile still on the face but with the difference that he is putting his finger like an anna.
"No," I almost ask how the hell the man could plan the duel and forget to tell me where it would be, but I remember this is Henry we're talking about. Sanity isn't his strongest suit.
"If that is the case, just follow me. I know where it is, hihihii" he laughs at the whole situation.
I think he is thinking about the massacre he is going to do with my body. Why are you laughing? There isn't anything to laugh about this, you obtuse guts-loving maniac! And I shut up for the rest of the trip.
"We finally arrived, here is the prettiest courtyard ever made."
The new "courtyard" is a little bit different. First of all, it seems to be an internal place retrofitted to become a new courtyard. Cracks are meandering on the roof, wall, and floor. The illumination is provided by a few torches and the light shining from the aforementioned cracks, with a few parts that remain still shrouded in the darkness. The place is scribbled with runes and circles necessary everywhere, where the lines begin and end isn't so clear, with some going on top of each other, symbols mixed. there is no cohesion and in the end, what this amounts to is a bunch of scrawled chalk.
The ground is made of broken unequal rock putten with a few holes here and there, the sand filling the parts where it didn't have any, but not enough making for covering all the height of the cavity; making for the uneasy stepping ground where depending on what your footing is: either our foot is on the floor or lower than it. Many parts are littered with corpses, some fresh and some not so fresh, blood painting the ground red, while some organs are left without care, while his dearest of crows, with plumage as dark as the night, feasts on the cadavers of the dead people. The putrid smell of larvae eating makes me want to vomit and ask why someone would possibly want to work with this.
Then, to my surprise, I saw in the farthest part of the room a broken bed with a gnashed blanket and pillows, with some clothes thrown around for good measure. The tomes stacked at the side of the bed were as disorganized as mine.
So I found out where this psycho lives. It would be depressing, but I don't have any sympathy to share with this man.
When he arrives and steps on the ground, all the crows stop eating and come to greet their master, surrounding, and playing with the white-haired man. They peck his foot and arms and beat the wings on his face to make him pay attention to them.
"Calm down everyone! Pippin, Guzin, Loquz, Kuzni, Solvi, you are all getting hugs and pats from uncle Henry."
So he picks up one of the birds and slowly pets them, a genuine smile coming across his face. He is their family and his family is them. It would be cute if it wasn't for all the corpses thrown around and the fact the man in question would love to kill me.
Upon patting one of the creatures, Henry remembers what he is supposed to be doing right now, "Now go little dark ones. Uncle here has something to do with the stonefaced man."
The crows, understanding Henry, stop playing around him and go back to feast on one of the corpses again.
"So did you bring with you the items for our little test?" I show him the Flux tome in my hands and some of the vulneraries in my robe, "Good, let's begin then."
Without any warning, the bodies awake from their slumber and begin moving in an instant, as the man in question mutters the words from the book in his hands. The feeling that he was waiting for this moment to come is not lost on me.
The corpses move with rigidness, incapable of moving the arms, with angular and robotic turns, the cracking of bones audible everywhere in the room. They stumble with any simple movement, slamming with each other, and almost falling at every moment from their inconstant way of walking, broken marches of threes and fives but not twos.
Leaving me with ample space to maneuver and prepare my time accordingly.
My frame is still tensed by the events beforehand and by the incoming things. Making it a little harder to concentrate and focus on the spell Flux.
But before I can I ready the book and prepare for an attack, Henry realizes what he's dealing with and groups the reanimated corpse into a horde, ignoring me and leaving more space. But when he finalizes the agroupment, he forces their bodies into a rapid succession of movements, ignoring the rotten aspect of them. Some crumble to the floor, some maintain their posture, but now they walk as fast as me.
I run in circles as I try to avoid the incoming attacks and failed grabs from the mangled things. Wait, how many of them are there?
It's five. No, six. No, seven. Yes, it is seven.
They abandoned their original formation trying to surround me from all sides, while the dark mage doesn't even try to take this seriously, only watching one of his crows resting on his physique, while I dodge their incoming attacks.
A sudden force seizes one of my feet. Looking down at it, rotten blood-soaked hands snatch them on the heel. The thing has a skull instead of a proper head, with only a few patches of flesh remaining, the eyes gouged out with an unknown liquid coming out of it, and only the mandibles and his tongue in there, the nose has long gone from its socket.
The others are coming to grab me while he stays in the same spot. I keep trying to kick the freaking thing, parts of it falling off, but not enough to make him stop. The pressure in my foot worsened by the second, the sound of rupture coming to me as I grind my teeth to resist the pain. I lift the other foot and smash with all my force the bastard's skull out, a gooey crunch coming out, tainting a little bit my shoes with a red-brown color with a few spots of black.
Calm down, calm down, this was way too close. Keep looking, there are more of them and they would love to kill as this destroy-
Another force grabs me, this time by my arm. The perpetrator is another figure just as disfigured as the previous one, the sole difference being it had hair and was filled with fungi covering his cheeks and what used to be eyes.
With my fist clenched, I punch the bastard. The hard skull endures against the crack and sudden snap of my palm, the burning soreness takes hold in the little spaces between my bones, the finger could cut off at any moment with the pressure applied.
I flail my fingers and arms in the cold air of the room, the stinginess of needles being dulled out. Then it starts munching on my arm, the little teeth making incisions and marks on the covered part of my arm, sticky rotten saliva coming and soaking a part of my robes. My biles almost come to my throat.
I realize I don't have any time left to keep on this game of cat and mouse, bites and punches. With all my force, I must ignore all the pain surrounding the palm and clenched until the mark made by the nail can be seen and strike the skull with a final blow.
Crack
The skull explodes into a thousand parts hitting my face, the floors, and the walls, revealing the rotten mush inside, the slime touching a part of the front of my fingers, and falling out of the skull-grail. It is like a snot, gooey, and holding against me. I could even feel the teeth eating my arm.
Holding back my wish to vomit, I grab the remainder of the brain and I push it with my palms, the smell of cockroaches and rats invading my nose and the bile threatening to come out again.
The zombies fall to the ground, a thump while leaving me with the tainted liquid in both my hand and foot to deal with.
Wonderful, just wonderful!
Then I sense there is nothing in my hands, the thing has fallen to the ground, the soundwaves are being blasted to the whole room. Before I can pick up and go back, the other things slash my back and I fall on the ground and grab the darn thing while dodging the incoming attack and go to a safe place by rolling my body.
Lifting myself from the mess, I keep reading the damn book, trying to see any indication of how to use it in a freaking battle, while I try to run away from the monster wanting to make me their next meal. Concentrating, I find a way to conjure Flux and save my life from the psycho who wants me to become a corpse.
The same method yet again. Yes! One two three, like a waltz, yes like a waltz, imagine the music.
My surroundings become thick, purple mist, blocking my view from the zombies or Henry. The freaking thing I was trying to pull out all this afternoon and morning, now being able to form.
YES! Finally, we can do it!
The mist is sharp as a knife and spreads like a gas. I must contain, do not disperse, then I condense it into an orb just like said on the damn book. It's all coming together!
Then a sound emerges, buzzing like a helicopter. A giant X forms in front of henry, the marks of the spell under his feet as sources of electrical power shocking the ground and the air, connecting and disconnecting with the electrons while the imperative X creeps out in the room illuminating the room in a shiny dark blue. Henry is aiming at me… oh no.
He launches it from his hand and it goes in the general direction towards me. I fall under the hole, hitting my skull yet again, now with a taste of sand for a bit of variety. The ground had become dark with no traces of any dust, while the smell of cinders came and blazed my nose. Within a moment, a foul scent could be smelled in the general area. Upon inspection, a fire could be seen feeding on the organic fuel of the dissolved ash of the creatures.
What the hell Henry? Do you want to kill me or not!?
My breath collapses, a scarring agony coming to my body, the veins popping out as the blood boils and evaporates in them.
It was one of the electric stands, Filho da puta! A small burn adorns my torso and clothing, not enough to spread but still there. To even stand is a challenge and a half, with the screams of organs objecting to doing such action.
The dark mage coming to finish his work, still smiling as if nothing has happened before, the playfulness of jester making a little dance while coming to it.
Merda!
Since I am going to die, I prepare my last spell to bring him with me. I don't care, whether this bastard is going to kill me, I'm bringing him down with me. I drink one of the bitter vulneraries, to keep myself conscious while I activate the spell.
One, two, three. Like a waltz.
The mist returns with all the addictions it comes with, orbs assembling from the mist surrounding it, the electrical markings forming under me in pale orange as weak as the seller.
My muscles strain, rupturing along with the cuts forming as the blood starts falling into the ground. In an attempt to coordinate the attack, my mind gets more confused as left and right become a sole direction and Henry stands on the farthest side and too close to me. Every single second, a sensation is lost. There are no more feet or arms. There is only the torso.
With nothing more to resist, I aim at his face. This will destroy him for sure. From the palm of my hands, I release my last attempt.
My body collapses. It was so tiring, so tiring.
I'm drained. There was no sensation of touch, my mind was flying around between a state of consciousness and unconsciousness. Every movement I thought with my head, my body didn't respond.
Henry came from the attack, the guy had dodged and entered my vision, looking down on me just like Tharja. He says something.
"Heya, know you are dead, and your guts are on the floor. If you knew some more you wouldn't be lying on the ground, kikiki."
I don't try to lift my head around, it is a futile attempt, let me rest some more.
Then I heard a noise, and before long Henry was hit by a dark projectile into his chest, flying him out of my vision.
"What did you do to my assistant, Henry!? You lunatic, don't even think of escaping without getting hexed alive!"
Tharja why so furious? I'm just tired, it's not like you care much about me, right?
I hear solemn steps, not very loud, a certain instability to them. Coming to my vision, her typical scowl is there with teeth only collaborating. But wait, why are you crying? Is this the case? Whatever, let me sleep, please.
She takes a concoction into her hands and brings it to my mouth. The bitterness invades my mouth, the energy pierces my body, in one second I blink a thousand times and I feel more alive than ever.
I lift my head, I am still alive! What? Where is the white-haired bastard?
"Where is him?"
She points at the men still standing, despite having a small hole in the body, blood spurting out of the fissure
"At least, you brought some vulnerary in case anything had gone out of hand."
I take this as a compliment.
"Why did you stop me?" Henry asks with confusion on his face, the first reaction beyond a smile to adorn his face.
"By this point, this isn't important, you clown. You are going to pay" Tharja states, preparing to finish the job and snap the life out of him.
"Hey Tharja, I didn't plan to kill him at all. Just a test. If he couldn't survive on a battlefield, his blood would paint the ground," He tries to defend himself.
"So why bring him to a fight to the death? You even hit him with a spell. You were planning to kill him!" Tharja readies her tome, a small orb of energy coming out.
"No, no you are overthinking this. All I wanted was to test him."
"Don't answer with the same answer," Glaring down at him she lifts me and allows me to stand beside her, my head on her shoulder.
"Tharja, just lead me to my room. I don't want to see anymore nor do I want any more bloodshed today."
Understanding this, she stops casting and goes to the exit, but before we could set on foot outside and try to rest...
" Hey, hey," The hyena intervenes "I know I didn't make any of us happy right now, but how about this? I help our friend Gabriel here get to be a good dark mage user, and I don't lay a single finger on him and you keep watching me."
"We accept it," Tharja says.
Hey!
"Tharja what the hell you are thinking?" I mutter in her ears.
"Don't worry, he will have a taste of hell. Curses and hexes are the best way to deal with this clown."
I like your way of thinking right now.
"At least, I can now use Flux, I guess," the only positive out of this whole day
"Wait, you used Flux?" Tharja glares gobsmacked at me
"Yeah, I could use the darn orb," I betrayed my 'stone face', as Henry put it, one more day survived, a cheeky smile in which I couldn't contain. Glorious
"Good to know" she doesn't try to hide the little smile of proudness on her face.
Still, I have a long way to go but I ain't annoyed at such things as much as before. After all, Rome wasn't built in one day.
And that was chapter 6 of detachment. I realized I can't write fight scenes or anything really. I want to thank Cavik and Stormtided_leviathan for beta reading this chapter. Also, thank everyone for the continued support of this mess. I don't know what the hell I am doing for the most part but I hope you are all liking how is this is coming I also participate in a discord server, here is the link: discord .gg/9XG3U7a
Dandaman5: I'm glad you like it. I don't know where this weirdness comes from. One day I hope I will find what it is.
Stormetide_leviathan: It's weird because you beta read a small part of this chapter. All of your criticisms are valid, you opened my eyes to a lot of structural problems of this fic, and I hope I can get better.
See ya in the next chapter