Blah blah blah, magic is like a program, blah blah, mana is like the electricity needed to run that program, yap yap yap, using magic without a grimoire would be the same as having to remake a program's code from memory every time you wanted to launch it, something, something, allegory for capitalism. Yadda yadda, I need to start writing when I'm not half asleep and comfy….
Now read the story!
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Consciousness was a blur, the mind, covered in fog so thick, not more than a single thought could connect…
There was a terrible smell, but the body was too weak to move. A terrible cold, but no will to escape it.
There was something where it should never be, but the soul was too fragile to fight it.
Everything was too much, everything was pain…
The snake, the bear, the dolls, the hydra, then the Grimoire, now the liquid person…
What had I done, to deserve this?
'You know exactly what you did, you fought that bear, you thought that a weakling like you, winning at anything would ever lead to good results, and here we are,'
I thought I would be, rewarded, for killing it.
All they gave me was a knife and more time to suffer…
It was not the anger at my circumstances, or the hope for a better future, or a want to spread despair, that got body the that felt so far out of my control, to move again.
It was hunger.
A dull, ever present, but slightly more than annoying buzzing in my stomach.
Trying to move at all felt more like trying to operate heavy machinery while black out drunk, which I had only ever done… never? Then why do I know why this is a good analogy?
My body felt uncomfortable, in every terrible way imaginable all too cold, while still somehow feeling too hot, acid reflux and a migraine, with the brain fog, and hunger hunger hunger...
Not too mention the still screaming warning bells in pretty much every part of my body…
And I didn't really remember where I needed to go to get out of the room I was still in, so it was a lot of bumping into boxes and hitting my head on walls before I finally found what was probably the exit…
My body crumpled to the floor when the stimulation of light was added on to the things I was experiencing.
It probably wasn't a pretty sight.
But even then, I smelled the bear meat. And I was hungry, so while crawling, with my eyes closed, to make sure they wouldn't start hurting again, I made my way to the bear.
A lot of thoughts tried to flash in front of my mind, but the- the everything happening all at once- the fog, the pain, the sensation, the cold, the hunger, were all far more effective at demanding every strand of attention I had.
If there were a moment in which I wasn't conscious, it felt most like when I first touched the bear.
My body moved before I could think very much at all, ripping into the thick hide of the damned thing.
It was like a fever dream, or fugue state, like what I imagine eating that person was like, but actually conscious this time, if ever so slightly.
As I ate, piece by piece, I could feel my mind grow and wane, not like a lung's breath, but more so like the waves of the ocean.
Shifting as if on the precipice of drowning and dehydration, a haze of shifting mental capacity that I can't describe with certainty.
I like to imagine my mental state as two pots that got smashed into each other, with most of the pieces flying away as I was left to try and remake something out of the mess, while also being the shattered remains themselves…
So, I don't really know if this lead my mind to a better place, or just worsened an already terrible situation, I don't even know if I had the wherewithal at the time to cook the meat, or even take off the fur.
All I do know is that the hit song 'electric avenue' was pretty much the only thing besides the fog, happening in my mind.
I say happening and not playing, because it wasn't willing.
I really don't know what happened during or after this, I think I went to sleep?
But the whole thing felt so much like a dream that I couldn't tell…
Well, I do remember something after all that, I think it was a dream.
a mass of clay being smushed into one, but refusing to meld, then a stop motion hand came in with a paint trowel, and pasted the clays together until all that was left was a mute navy blue with white and dark grey bits here and there, like a Jack Stauber album cover, but without the eyes or teeth.
Then all of it shifted and fused together into a tunnel of blue lines, and all sort of, moved in a way that might have been impossible, like a möbius strip, they then turned a dark yellowish-mauve, and sort of, twisted into the symbol for infinity but in three dimensions?
That whole thing then morphed into a single line, that then turned out to be an eyelid, which then opened to show a blaring red eye with tinges of yellow. And with nonexistent screams rushing into my brain as the eye began to seep with something that couldn't have been blood, but had it's consistency…
I woke up.
…
And now I'm here, recalling this all for the benefit of my shaken mind. As I cook some bear meat over a rune made fire, in a stone room covered in extremely bright cyan light.
This place really doesn't make sense. And it isn't helping with my mind being in the state it's still recovering from.
I'm still cold, and wet, and annoyed, and over sensitized, and the headache's still there, but I've eaten.
So that's nice.
But I'm also uhh, probably gonna die.
Because like, in the sparse places where I can actually see it -my skin is- very pale, and my face has been especially cold this whole time, which I'm hoping, isn't what I think it is...
I should stop hoping, it's not done much but prove me wrong…
Hmm. Not gonna think about it, I already have enough to do, I don't need another panic attack on top of it…
I just hope I don't get infected or something, it's just my luck that after struggling for so long to stay alive despite all odds, I would get done in by an infected spleen.
Or prion desease, what with all of the raw meat I've been eating…
Now that I'm at the step, how am I actually going to, tan the hide?
I don't have the tank needed, or the vinegar, or the salt needed for the soak.
And I doubt I could really keep my mana forms stable enough in the state I'm in to act as knives, or carving tools to make bone blades.
But before any of that, I'm thirsty, and I might be able to think of something by the time I return.
So that means going back to the door place.
'Why did we do that, With the plaque?'
I glance back at the plaque, only to find it coming gone.
I could have blamed it on my boredom, but to be honest, I thought it would lead to more power…
It was my own fault for thinking anything good would come from exploring unprepared.
My first thought should have been 'hmm, ominous sign that only I can see leading somewhere dark and secluded? Maybe a bad time not gonna lie,' and just, leave it.
But Noo, I had to get curious…
But residing on shoulds and woulds, will only lead to more self destruction.
And for once, I'm not in the mood to break my limits and find new lows to fall to.
Ever walked into an air conditioned room?
I haven't, since I got here, there hasn't been a single been of AC in the entire place.
But as soon as I walked back into the newly illuminated hallway, that's exactly what it felt like I experienced.
Well, not really, in truth, I wasn't blasted with cold air, I was blasted ambient mana.
I had been going through so much that I had pretty much forgotten the rather odd feeling it had on my skin.
I could feel my body absorbing the mana like a sponge that had been wrung out.
Though typically, that's where the feeling would stop.
But now, most likely due to my spiritual reconnection, the process, continued.
The mana flowed onto my skin, connected to it, got absorbed into the pores, and to my surprise, began to change.
The change started in the deeper layers of skin, and made their way outward, and eventually, what once was a layer of azure blue mana had become a pale yellow, just as the book described souls to look like.
Not only that, but the sheer pain I was experiencing, as if my skin was nothing but constant nerve endings with nothing protecting them, had dulled to a shocking degree.
The sudden absence of nearly two thirds of the intensity of the pain I was experiencing had me paralyzed, slumped against a wall, and feeling not much more than pins and needles.
But after what was probably only a few minutes, the sensations faded enough for me to stand on my own, and my thirst made itself apparent once more.
The walk was more of a stumble, as I got used to the sudden lack of pain, but the newly lit interior of the hallway, cast in a darker blue that's easier on the eyes, revealed that the map was pretty accurate, the hall isn't very long far after all.
So I was right, and it was just my mind playing tricks on me, again…
As I hobble down the cold stone hall, I notice plaques on the wall, not made of pitch black darkness, but of a kind of brass? In layed into the stone wall.
Something I had not noticed in my getting here…
But either way, the three of them are all in the same language that the map is written in, the same one I wasn't able to even begin to comprehend.
The letters were blocky, and rigid, it's patterns are of neither English or Clovinian.
English is more squiggly, and Clovinian is more flowy and confusing, like cursive.
Though, there were pictures in the signs as well.
One shows a grand tree over a broken landscape, being worshipped by nondescript people.
The next shows what might be the scene of a battlefield, person against person, with some of them having horns and wings, with the same tree in the background.
The last shows five four sided stars forming within trunk of the tree, and two massive roots ascending to the sky, with two of the same kind of star type things appearing at each tip.
There isn't anything besides that and the torches burning a deep blue, in the hallway.
To say it was eerie would be an understatement…
The journey to the secret room was mostly uninterrupted, exept for me attempting to wrap my head around the meanings on the brass portraits.
The Tree was worshipped by what might be an ancient civilization, the Tree then witnessed a war the civilization went through against what might have been the devils, the Tree did… something? Possibly to try and put an end to it, that's all I could really surmise.
But, that's not the only place I've heard of a Tree, and some kind of war, the pixie stick also had something in it's description about a tree…
As I thought about this, I looked over to my side, where a sulking system was floating near the wall.
It had been like this since I had exited out of that storage room…
"System," I called out to it.
It managed to sulkily turn it's head, even though it was, fully a rectangle.
[Yes, User? What do you need?]
"Can ya stop with tha sulking? I don' even know what yer so sad about,"
[I'm 'sad' that you thought it was a good idea to go into a place we could not follow!] it's words shocked, then confused me.
"Wait but, I could have sworn I saw a boss bar before what ever that thing was left me in tha dark, wouldn't tha' mean that y'all were there with me?…"
[What.] the nonexistent tone was now, very serious.
"It might 'ave been a trick o' tha light, but I saw it fill up with red before the room completely darkened, though I don't think I got tha name o' tha critter tha' nearly did me in."
[…. Please, Hold for a moment…..]
After this, a loading circle appeared, and I got too impatient just waiting here, so I got back on my way to the door room for a drink of water.
- - - -
Part one, next part out maybe tomorrow or the day after the next one, or in like, two weeks, schedules been hectic, but I got a job, which is why my schedule's been worse, (though I doubt y'all noticed with my already abysmal posting rate..)