I'm fading in and out of consciousness as I push myself onwards. In some less damaged part of my mind, I recognize my current state of confusion and fog is from a gross overuse of my Aero essence. It’s abating, as evidenced by the spreading cloud of light-grey translucent essence motes constantly leaking through my skin as my body desperately tries to return itself to its natural essence levels. The process is going to take time, though.
So, I walk. And I walk. And…I walk
I remember that I’m heading to a town nearby. It’s the reason I’m moving in this direction. It’s a small one, but a town nonetheless. I only need to reach it. They’ll be able to help. We were out here because of a request from that town, after all.
Fading. Fading. Fading. In, out. In, out. In, out.
My head spins in the eternal haze of my warped perception of the world, but one thing has gotten slightly better. My arm has stopped hurting. I look down to it, letting it remain limp instead of raising it, and see a golden haze swirling around and through it, almost obscuring the terrible bruising and clearly unnatural angle it dangles at. My Sanctus can be a painkiller, gratefully. I've never really noticed the damage it does at the time I’m using it, after all.
More walking, fading into the dark as the sun falls.
How far was the town? Am I still going the right direction?
I should have hit it by now, I think. But…I don’t know how much time has actually passed. My perception of everything is so skewed by the essence imbalance wrecking my sense of time. I may have been walking for hours or minutes. Each hazy glimpse of a new section of the forest feels unfamiliar, though, so I know I’m at least moving forward and not going in circles. Or very large ones are possible. But new ground is new ground all the same.
Locking around, I find the figure of the copper-gold Serelune dashing across the sky in her stellar dance with her sister Lunastra, though the latter silver moon is nowhere to be seen. The erratic moon lights my way, even if only in her usual somewhat inconsistent way as her light falls seemingly at random across the world in patches like spilled bronze ink.
In a moment of clarity, I pass through an area that confuses me but feels familiar. It’s a copse of trees, several having fallen over, but there are signs of a fight. Blood spattered against nearby trees, signs of claws raking bark. Large ones, too. Indents where it looks like someone fell hard.
I have arrest my march to look more closely. Curiosity and tactical concern winning out over trudging forward aimlessly for the moment.
There’s a fine white powder everywhere — dusted over every surface. It’s so uniform that I didn’t notice it at first. It seems to be concentrated near what looks like the remains of trees as if they’d just simply dissolved in place, roots and all.
Why does the powder feel familiar? I can’t focus enough to answer the question. But amongst it, I find a knife. Something to replace the ones I lost. A blessing from the Watcher, at last.
It’s well-made —apparently hand made if the quality is anything to go by — but absolutely coated in blood. It looks like it was dunked in a bucket of blood. No space remains unblemished. There is no way that whatever fought here is still alive, looking at the blood on the knife and in the area in general. But…no body.
The white dust keeps bubbling to the surface of my mind, but I just can’t make the connection. Sighing and wincing as I do, I heft the knife in my left hand and take a couple practice swipes with it. Each one brings along fresh agony, but it’s a dull pain that I can probably push through if I really need to. I will need to splint this arm as soon as possible though.
Slipping the knife into a space on my belt, I get ready to push onwards but I notice something as I turn. The white powder. It’s moving in one direction. But it’s… the opposite direction of where I’ve been headed.
I stand there, looking at my two options. Unsure which I should take. On one hand, I still feel fairly confident I’m heading in the right direction. On the other…the Watcher guides the faithful to where they’re most needed. Is it not providence to be granted relief in a trying time? I’m working to save others.
After agonizing for a time, I turn around slowly and start to trudge, following the guiding powder. My essence is tied to faith and will. So I’ll demonstrate my faith here.
More walking, what feels like an hour, maybe more. But as I come into sight of the gentle glow of a town, I feel my perception finally slide back into the frame of “normal”. The effects have lessened over the last while, but there’s always an uncomfortable “snap” of focus when the effects dissipate entirely. I stand there blinking for a few seconds taking in my surroundings unaltered for the first time in a long time.
I see more of the powder leading forward and out of the woods and looking back I see many more spots where trees once stood and seems to have been transmuted into…this…dust….
My mind clearing, I feel my heart rate spike as I connect a dot I’d been utterly failing to until now. I carefully kneel next to a denser area of the dust, running my hand through and calling on a few motes of Ignia essence to push into the powder to heat it up. Nothing happens. The essence motes bounce off like striking a barrier.
Remnants of an aetheric collapse — null-dust. The product of every last mote of essence being taken from something.
Thumping. My heart hammering in my ears. Null-dust has to be manufactured under very specific circumstances by skilled hands. Being here in these quantities means a calamity must be around. It would explain the fight with no bodies, the trees that have been transmuted.
A final piece finally clicks and sets me in motion. This trail is leading me towards a town.
I break into a run, holding my broken arm as steady as I can while I move towards the towns edge. It’s about a five hundred yard run from the treeline through fields of untended crops, and as I break from the treeline, I see that the dull glow of the town’s ambient light is not ambient light. Much of it is aflame. Once thatched roofs collapsing in on themselves and scorched stone walls ringing the entire settlement.
From this distance I can’t make out any figures moving. This town probably supports five hundred people or so, maybe a thousand. Which means if a Calamity has made its way here and has already done its work, it will probably be more than I can handle unless I can actually rely on my Sanctus for once. But…my essence is the personal bane of the monsters, so even in this state the odds aren't atrocious. Merely terrible.
If it’s going to obey me at any point it will have to be now. If the monster is still here, it can’t be allowed to leave. I will need to be beyond careful, though. I still have preciously little capacity for spellcasting right now and I’m badly wounded, but what is the alternative? Run? There could still be people in this town alive. It’s unlikely, but the Watcher wouldn’t have guided me here for no reason.
Relax. Focus. Take stock before engaging anything. You're no good to anyone committing suicide by fighting unprepared.
Garrick's words come readily to mind and I obey by muscle memory.
A badly bloodied knife
Six throwing knives
A phial of Aetherbane
One high-grade health phial
Two phials of distilled Fervora essence
On thinking of the last ones, the Fervora phials, I feel a rush of complex emotions. They came from May Vendala, my...maybe ex. The last time I spoke to her it wasn’t good. She forced them onto me anyways though, despite how I’d acted.
Everything else has been damaged beyond usefulness. A thought that stings me badly. I am so undergeared right now because of my being sent along here as an observer instead of a combatant.
Remembering it gives me a flash of anger. If I'd been in my normal gear that war ogre would have been a non-issue. I wouldn't have a broken arm. I wouldn't have overtaxed my magic. But…if none of those things happened, I also probably wouldn't be here to potentially stop this monster.
I release a breath I had really meant to be holding in a long, slow exhale. The pressure that had been building in my chest and lungs, the stranglehold of stress diffusing with the air. The Watcher guides the capable to where they're needed. I'm here for a reason. It gives me a bit of peace, allowing me to set aside the needling frustration at the circumstances.
I jog the rest of the way, pacing myself. Every part of me wants to dart in there to catch it by surprise, but in my current state I can’t fight the way I would normally. Speed is my main ally typically. Acrobatics, maneuvering, striking and fading. Not to mention that with these monsters, I can't rush in foolhardily. Dying facing one does nothing but make it stronger.
Experimentally, I draw the bloody knife and flip it around a few times to get a better feel for its weight for throwing. After a toss, the pain in my right arm reminds me that it will be a problem. I can’t put off splinting it any longer. Every second matters, but if I die because I flinch at the wrong time, all the seconds in the world won’t make a difference.
When I make it to the towns walled limits, I slip in through a large metal-wrought gate that seems to have been knocked ajar. One of its hinges has sheared off, leaving it resting at an awkward angle with all of its weight on the two remaining hinges. Something hit it, and hard. With luck, that means this one will have absorbed an ogre or something similarly slow and witless and have a similar mindset..
Just inside the gate, there’s a small guardpost nearby that might have what I’m looking for. The small shack isn’t much to look at — a town this size almost certainly had at most one person who acted as a guard when it was needed, and the shack reflects that well. Open air on two sides, with a small desk knocked over inside and a single three legged chair. Perfect.
Before I cross the street to get to it, I scan around. I would rather be using my magic to check the area, but I can't risk any extraneous usage of essence until I know what I'm dealing with. Instead, I just focus, senses on high alert. There's no screams, sounds of fighting, or magic being used — just an omnipresent background crackle of buildings burning as ash falls around me.
I shake my head and quickly cross the street, looking down towards what must be the town square as I do. The nighttime darkness, drinking inky smoke, irregular light from Serelune, and the flickering streetlamps all combine to make the street look like something from a nightmare made manifest. Which, given that the only other things I can see along that roadway are piles of null dust — assuredly what remains of the people of this town — is an altogether too accurate description.
Thinking about how many people must already be dead churns my stomach in a way that I have to actively fight. I try to use the feeling to steel myself. I’m going to see more and I need to be strong. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't handle what needs to be done.
I step into the weak light of the guardhouse and waste no time in kicking over the little stool before bringing a stomp down on the end of one of the raised legs. It snaps off cleanly with a loud crack the makes me cringe and look around sharply. Seeing and hearing nothing but the omnipresent flames, I grab the leg and slide around the back of the shack. In short order, I cut off my left pantleg and sleeve and use them to secure the dowel from the elbow down.
Tying knots with one hand will be a nightmare, so I opt to use a touch of magic. Setting this break will be well worth it in the end.
[Zephyr's Guidance]
[Touch Imbuement | Aero]
As I hold the strips of black fabric, I exhale and send translucent gray-white motes of energy drifting into them which readily sink in. A moment later, they animate as though drifting on little isolated gusts of wind. The motion is jerky but purposeful, and in short order I feel them wrap tightly at a few points around my arm and the chair leg and quickly jerk themselves into knots.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
It hurts when they tighten down, but I grit my teeth and let them finish. It’s the bare minimum, but it'll do to limit motion at least. I can set it properly later if I walk away from this.
Feeling a bit more resolved now that I’m receiving less frequent spikes of pain, I get back onto the smoke-filled main street and stick to one side of it. I stalk from building to building up in the unsteady light, sticking to one side and trying to listen as closely as I can for any signs of movement. The only noise that remains in this forsaken town is the fire eating away at the remains of the buildings like a carrion beast.
As I approach the center of town, I see the first person yet. They’re on their knees with their butt resting on their boots, their shoulders slumped, and head lolled off to one side. They look like a puppet who had their strings cut — or someone who died to a mentally focused attack spell. I sharpen my focus to prepare for any possible intrusions.
I can see well enough in full darkness, but this hazy, smoky, half-light is making it hard to resolve details. They are in the dead center of the square surrounded by piles of dust and a couple actual bodies, The bodies ring as odd, but, then again, so does the kneeling figure.
Maybe they fought off the monster and dropped where they remain? It would explain why not everything suffered collapse. A calamity won’t leave anything untaken if they had any choice in the matter. If so, where is it? Could they have wounded it badly enough that it actually left? Can that even happen?
I wrack my brain, trying to remember the countless stories Garrick has told me over the years while I decide on the best course of action. Monster don't flee except to lure things away. It's a simple fact of how monsters function. Calamities are smarter, but they follow the same "rules" as everything else.
I’m pulled from the reverie when I notice the person move a little bit — breathing!
I eagerly step out from behind the alcove I’d tucked myself into and a few steps into the open before my better judgement kicks in. Calamities are cunning. He could have been left as bait. Garrick has said that he's run into it before. Alongside the other bodies…
But would it pose someone like that? They can’t really move people around without consuming them as far as I know… Not without significant effort or specific abilities I suppose.
I agonize for a moment but decide that since I have been led this far, that this is the one I’ve been led to. A survivor, no different than me or any countless others in the Order. If they’re bait, then it’s not like I can just ignore them and leave them there. Which I guess makes them perfect bait.
I grit my teeth and slink forward, keeping my head swiveling to keep a clear picture of my surroundings. Areas to move to cover, escape routes of various sizes and difficulty, and potential hiding places. The monsters can radically vary in size and shape, so the number of potential spots is boggling. I just accept “it can come from any direction” as the only reasonable expectation and focus on the person in the center of the square.
The spicy taste of Ignia-rich smoke fills my mouth and nose as I pass through the densest portion to get closer and see that it’s a human man, maybe about my age if his face is anything to go by. I raise a hand to shout something to get his attention, maybe rouse him if he’s near consciousness, but I stop, my breath catching and mind beginning to race as I take him in.
Having circled around a little wider to see him from the front, I see his arm. His right arm looks like it’s hewn of amethyst crystal with deep fissures going down to what appears to be black bone. Purple essence mist and ichor leaks from those cracks and down onto the ground, where a spreading pool of the stuff is steadily draining the areas around it of color and sending a weak rainbow leeching up to the arm in wispy strands.
“What are you?” I mouth the words. This is nothing I’ve heard of, read about, or seen in any of the archives. I’ve read most of the tomes there front to back at least twice in my years in the Vigil and live with my head in my codex. The calamity morphosis is total. The scriptures say it’s total. Every Blackthorn in the Vigil has said it’s total.
But here I am, standing before something different. Questions abound.
Can I save him? Maybe if I take the arm off? Is this a new type of Calamity? I’ve read that they’ve changed over the decades. Plenty of other monsters have steadily evolved through recorded history, so why not these as well? Garrick told me of a "prime" variant of them before — the one that led to the death of our home…
What is the right course of action here?
But the question that hangs in the forefront of my mind is simpler.
Can I let him leave here? He’s assuredly responsible for what’s happened here, even if it’s not his fault. It’s nobody fault when this happens. The transformation is random as far as the Blackthorns have been able to glean. Targeting outcasts of society: people living on the fringes. Anywhere. Large cities, small towns, even the capitol has the odd instance of them cropping up.
As I wrestle with the implications of the question and what it says about me, he rouses. His eyes flutter open as he looks up and shakes his messy brown hair out of his eyes like someone waking from a deep slumber. I crouch back, tucking behind an overturned cart to watch more closely, gripping the blade of the knife to be ready to throw it.
I look as close as I can without revealing myself, considering using a bit of essence to sharpen my senses, but decide against it. I need to remain sharp and with enough of my resources remaining to react to whatever the monster presents as abilities.
His eyes are visibly glowing with purple motes of essence behind them, racing around at dizzying speeds. Looking at his face, he looks incredibly confused. Like a drunk waking up in an unfamiliar location. His clothes are decent hunters garb with plenty of pouches on straps around his waist and a bow strung across his torso — confirming he’s from around here and just an unfortunate. The clothes do look frayed over the arm, like it’s been eating away at them from contact.
For that reason, it reveals the exact spot where his body returns to normal. It doesn’t fade or mix, there’s a hard line between his torso and his shoulder where the crystalline transformation seems to have been stopped entirely and not gone one fraction of an inch farther. Every detail is burned into my mind. Both to report this anomaly after the fact and…for remembrance’s sake.
He looks down at his right hand with widening eyes and I see a small sphere roll out of his hand and fall to the ground, shattering into countless pieces and it calls to mind a specific part of the scriptures.
Beware the amethyst mist, born of the Seed of Calamity that corrupts all it touches, No longer a mortal, now a monstrous harbinger spreading only darkness and despair, The Calamity comes.
I steel myself.
I've killed countless monsters. I’ve had to kill kyn before in self defense. This is no different. I’m helping him. I’m helping everyone. It’s what needs to be done. The transformation can’t be undone. That Blackthorns are certain of that.
It’s no longer a man. It’s a monster. Hundred of people are dead. This isn’t vengeance, it’s righting a wrong and preventing more deaths at the expense of one.
I feel my essence, Sanctus essence, coming to me as my resolve hardens. It suffuses me with power borrowed from my entire people, seemingly to jump at the chance to right a now-decades-old wrong, even if only in a small way.
I reach to my belt and slip two phials free from it. One Fervora distillation and the Aetherbane toxin. I leave a healing phial in its spot. While I could certainly use it right now, I want to keep it just in case things manage to get worse.
My resolve deepens as necessity of this task and how I was guided here to see it done settles in. The Watcher leads the faithful where they're most needed to protect those who can't protect themselves. It's a thought I've believed my entire life and it's never led me astray.
With those thoughts steeling me, I crack the Fervora phial. The crystal container breaks down instantly into Hydrus essence and both it and the Fervora is absorbed into my body quickly and diffused.
Hydrus, the essence of water and life, acts in the role of a light healing agent — enough to soothe pains, but little else. But the Fervora, the essence of passion, serves a different purpose — it amplifies emotions. It can’t impart them, but it’ll help you commit to a course of action, strengthen your resolve among… other things. Those memories get shoved aside, though, in my focus.
The other phial I crack over the first of my throwing knives. It suffuses into the runed surface as its drawn into a reservoir by essence channels.. The toxin is effective against calamities because it is designed to destroy their food and power source — raw essence — destructively. Dosed into a person, it’s a debilitatingly painful poison, but nonlethal in most circumstances. Dosed into a Calamity, with their bodies made entirely of solidified essence, it’s substantially more lethal.
I step from behind the cart as he rises and starts to step around aimlessly, looking confused, drawing my knife aloft as I feel the essence pulse through my heart and mind. All the colors in the area grow more vibrant from the essence's secondary effects on my body. My heart pumps quicker, and a general feeling of surety settles over me as I see golden motes circling my knife hand and diving into the weapon, burning off the blood into a fractal golden haze as they do.
His eyes lock onto me, and then the knife I have extended. I step directly in front of him. Some part of me, maybe driven by the passion essence in my system, wants to issue a warning and explanation. Garrick always says that people who talk during fights are fools, but I don’t intend this to be a fight.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know if there’s anything left of a person in there, but you cannot be allowed to leave here.” My voice is razor sharp, my own forked tongue flicking between syllables and sharpened teeth.
He…responds, and it stuns me for a second. “What have I done?” The voice is cold, dispassionate, and neutral. Utterly inhuman sounding for its lack of tone. “Why must I die for it? I don’t understand.”
I stare at him, faltering, just for a moment. It’s a monster. Calamities take the guise of loved ones. It’s a calamity. It’s words are false.
“Y-you’ve killed all of these people. This entire village is in ruin because of you.” I pause fractionally, gathering my resolve in the face of this unexpected turn. “Under the Watcher’s gaze, I shall lay the Calamity low.” Beneath my breath, I incant, feeling power swell in my body and soul as I do. A reward for faith. “Watcher, imbue thy killing might unto this tool. Watch my action, and hear my word, I pledge the death of the calamity.” With each passing word more essence gathers in the knife, wreathing it in a golden sheathe.
"You’re very badly essence imbalanced. I would rather not fight, and you’re just risking your safety." It speaks at me like it’s giving me a diagnosis, but I shove the false concern aside.
I step into motion after a moment of hesitation, cutting off further words, “I’ll hear nothing more out of you.”
As I close the fifteen foot gap between the two of us, it moves languidly into a defensive posture I’m unfamiliar with. Some unarmed stance with all of its weight on its rear leg behind it. The eyes, blue with purple motes darting through them, narrow in apparent concentration — it dispels the air of confusion, suddenly looking more confident, which leads me to believe the prior behavior was just an act.
I slip sideways, making a wider sweep with the dagger, but it moves with an unnatural speed that catches me off guard. It smoothly grabs my extended wrist with its “normal” arm, tugging me forward while it strikes my elbow from the reverse side. The strike forces my elbow into a harsh overextension and shocks the weapon from my grasp as it tosses me along my trajectory and sending me stumbling while the knife tumbles in the air.
When I wheel around, I see it snag the imbued knife in its crystal hand. There’s a mighty and blinding flash at the moment of contact that forces me to shy away as I watch the golden essence in the knife seemingly leap out of the knife and into the arm, drawn like a magnet to the arms center of mass. The Sanctus essence is burning the crystalline limb — causing it to break down into a dense fractal cloud of fragments of essence that dissipate rapidly into nothingness — like the two were antithetical and mutually destroyed each-other.
It’s eyes go wide and glassy for a couple moments as more and more purple essence motes collect in them. At their apex it makes it impossible to even see its eyes, looking instead like two purple lanterns casting fell light across the area as the thing shudders and convulses.
It’s all I can do to stare, backing up a few steps and drawing a single throwing knife, the last one from the brace on my arms and the one that got the full dose of the Aetherbane. I hold the smaller knife up like a ward between me and the creature as it recovers, shifting the knife to its offhand and smoothly slipping it into a seemingly fitting sheathe on its hip in a practiced motion.
“I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to kill you.” Its voice comes across with not a single bit of emotion. It’s neutral, flat, and uncomfortable in an eerie way. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what this is. Can’t you help?” It looks at me, almost pleading in its voice, but I shake my head.
Sanctus is the bane of the calamity, and it attacked the creature. Overtly and obviously. I have my answer.
“This is a test of faith, and I will succeed.” I say softly to myself, ripping my knife free and fading back a few steps to create more space while it still seems docile. An incantation comes readily to my lips, “Sight of the Watcher, guide my hand!” I flick my wrist as more golden energy sticks to the toxin-dripping knife, launching it at the creature.
[Zephyr Strike]
[Weapon Imbuement | Sanctus]
Its hand snaps out with that same nearly impossible speed and almost snags it, but the knife reacts, moving suddenly to the side like it had been struck. It soundly evades the grasp and buries itself in the creatures left shoulder, the wreathe of Sanctus shredding away layers of skin as it pierces.
Almost as quickly as the toxin is delivered, though, I see a fluid the same color as the original liquid leaking from the fissures in the arm. It looks like it’s pained, but it recovers far faster than I could have ever anticipated, leaving me a bit stunned. Alongside the toxin, I see more purple essence fluid pour out with the dredges, and its eyes become a bit less glossy and focused, looking at me directly and focusing for the first time.
It rips the knife out and throws it to the ground, looking at me with pleading eyes. More…misdirection. Tricks. Traps. “Why? I’ve avoided hurting you. I don’t want to fight.” It grabs its head, in apparent pain, maybe having not managed to fully get rid of the toxin, “I didn’t do this! At least…not on purpose, if I did do it…” The voice is coming out with more emotion, no longer atonal, sounding scared.
It tugs at my heart. It….he…sounds no different from any other people affected by these terrible monsters and forced to live in the aftermath. I feel a bit of my resolve, the power swelling in my chest, falter as he collapses to a knee, clutching at his chest as he does, hanging his head. Maybe an indication that the toxin was able to do more than it seemed at first?
I step forward cautiously, drawing another thin throwing knife. “Just…stop resisting.” I push aside a hitch in my voice, fighting to keep focused. ”Please, if there’s still something in there that’s listening, just lay down and let me end your suffering. You’ll be taken into the embrace of the Watcher and saved from this terrible fate.” His head hangs lower. Something inside him understanding, I hope. Accepting that this isn’t a malicious act but one borne out of compassion. “I’m truly sorry this happened to you. I will find out what I can about this place and ensure they aren’t forgotten. You didn’t deserve this, nobody does.”
I spin the knife around in hand, switching it into an icepick grip, and bring it down into its — his — neck with every bit of might I can muster. The final mercy I can grant.