Page 4008 -- CCCXXI.

Parson looked at Damian, only to the find the other man already staring back at him. The features were more weathered, but that surly expression truly did belong to him. Despite how familiar it was, it still seemed so unnatural on him now, after all this time.

After a brief silence, Germal’s voice continued. ‘But... I suppose another part of me is also excited at the prospect of you hearing this. Because not only can I finally share everything with you both, but it would also mean that... despite having currently lost my battle against Ettol, I have ultimately won the war, somehow. If only through dumb luck, perhaps. The Void knows I’m in need of that, right now.’

Parson was lost for words. All he could do was listen.

‘However, I must first apologize. To both of you, of course, but to Damian, most of all. In my primitive attempts to prevent you from becoming enslaved by Ettol, I may have only turned you into a slave of a different sort. A slave to chaos. To madness. I’m sorry.

‘I don’t know if it can ever be undone. I suspect so, at least partially, but it is unfortunately too late for me to try. Because I am already lost to madness myself, you might say.

‘All I can do now is craft this message for you. I’m seeding it into as many locations around the world as I can. Points of geographic resonance, they’re called. I don’t know if you’ve ever managed to learn about those or if Ettol has kept that information from you, too. But I’m planting the guidance into both Feromas and Overra. Forgive me for tampering with their minds. I never wanted to, but I have no other recourse. This is the only weapon in my arsenal.

‘So now, please listen carefully. Let me tell you everything that I have learned about Ettol. About the so-called “Primordials.” And about the existential threat they pose to all humankind.’


Chapter Three Hundred Twenty-One: ‘The Gentleman and the Liar...’
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...Forty-three years ago...


When he awoke, his body was already moving again. Of course it was. It was happening so often now that he wasn’t surprised, anymore. Not angry. Not even disturbed.

Just tired.

Sleep was never rejuvenating. Never welcome or comfortable. Just the opposite, in fact. It was sapping more and more of his strength.

That was the point, wasn’t it? To weaken him until he no longer had the will to fight back. No longer cared. So that it could take over fully.

Bastard.

Page 4007

Parson was beginning to feel sick to his stomach. Which was particularly strange, considering he’d lost all feeling in his body.

Damian kept trying to get the reapers to talk, but it was to no avail, apparently. They remained totally silent for the remainder of the journey, which took several more hours. The final climb up the hill was particularly miserable. Their barely functional bodies did not need the extra resistance.

But eventually, they did indeed make it.

And before the small fort, they first found a cluster of large boulders scattered all around the entrance. Not blocking the path, curiously enough. Just flanking the road and lining the walls.

Parson didn’t remember them being there the last time. It made him wonder where they’d come from, because otherwise, this place looked identical.

A ghostly, abandoned construct. Absolutely ancient in its design, yet still largely pristine. Hardly any cracks in its stone walls and cobble footpaths. Even the tall, vibrantly green trees looked as though they were still being well cared for.

But that wasn’t the case, of course. Parson had come to learn quite a lot about this tiny castle in the lead up to their last visit.

This entire region was where the Pharaonic City of Arkotesh once stood. The center of the civilized world, at one point in time.

And this building was one of its last remnants. Only a few others dotted the landscape in the distance, nestled between hills or concealed behind rocks.

From what he understood, this modest little structure used to be the inner sanctum of a grand palace, the likes of which had rivaled anything in the modern day.

Strange that such a sanctum should look so unimpressive, he’d always thought. But he supposed the architect never intended for it to be seen this way.

There were only a handful of chambers in the entire thing, but they didn’t have to venture any further than the main one that connected to the entrance. It was just a barren hall with large, empty windows, but as soon as their shuffling footsteps neared the center of the room, a voice rang out.

A very familiar one.

‘Hello, my friends.’

It didn’t touch his ears and had no physical traits that he could recognize. No pitch or cadence or timber.

And yet still, Parson at once knew that it belonged to Germal.

‘I don’t know when or how this message will find you. And part of me is hoping that it never does, because it will most likely mean that I am dead.’

Page 4006

But somehow, Germal always had some placating answer. Or some evading one. Or some means of distracting him. For years and years. And, naturally, since they were already working separately as a trio, it wasn’t terribly abnormal for them to go huge spans of time with zero communication.

Because they had that trust. That hundred-year-old bond. Forged in the fiery death of Trintol. Of their innocence.

When, exactly, had that trust expired? And what was the true cause?

Parson couldn’t stop dwelling on it. Couldn’t stop comparing what he now knew of the creature called Koh with what he’d thought to be the case for so many decades.

If such a powerful secret about the Man-Eater could have been maintained for so long, then Parson could only imagine what terrible truth there must have also been behind Germal himself.

Most of all, his mind kept returning to that fateful incident forty years prior.

The one that had torn the three of them apart.

Especially because this slow march across the landscape had begun to look increasingly familiar. These rolling hills of yellow grass. Waving gently in the wind.

And at length, he saw it there in the distance. That little castle on the tallest hill in the region. Nothing terribly impressive or intimidating by appearance alone.

But he stopped walking, nonetheless, suddenly uncertain if he wanted to take even a single step nearer to that place.

He noticed Damian stop, too.

“You reaper fucks,” said the other man. “This is where you’ve been leading us this whole time? Are you both out of your minds?”

But neither of them defended themselves. They merely kept floating forward silently.

“Hey!” tried Damian again. “Say something, assholes! What were you thinking?”

Still, they said nothing. Nor did they slow their pace.

Damian and Parson exchanged looks.

A terrible sense of dread came over him. A familiar feeling but one that he’d not had in a very long time.

Not since their last visit to this place, actually.

Damian growled and trudged forward. “Guess we’re in for some more fun.”

Parson needed a moment before following. And with each step, more old feelings bubbled up to the surface of his mind--not all of them familiar. And he found himself asking a question without even thinking about it. “How is your memory, Damian?”

“Hmph. Better than I’d like it to be.”

“What?”

“Stay close, Parson.”

Page 4005

So instead, they were hoping to reach civilization and then contact some of their allies to come pick them up. But they had washed up on quite the remote beach, it seemed. Even the reapers had yet to sense a single other soul, despite intermittently venturing off to do a bit of scouting.

They were also somewhat reluctant to leave their servants too far behind. And after that absurdity that they had all endured in the middle of the Luthic Ocean, Parson didn’t necessarily blame them.

There was a prevailing feeling that, even now, it might not yet be over. That Morgunov might be hunting them down, as retribution for going after him.

Unless, somehow, he’d been slain, too. The exact outcome of that madness remained unclear, of course, but Parson felt like that was simply too much to hope for.

When was the last time things had gone this badly?

Never, perhaps. It depended on just how terrible the Vanguard’s losses had been, and they wouldn’t have confirmation on that for a while yet.

But it wasn’t going to be nothing. Not this time. Parson had witnessed several of his fellow generals get killed right in front of his eyes. Reapers included.

Had Lamont made it out, though? And Sanko?

It was hard to parse out everything in his mind, but the days of mostly quiet shambling had been helpful in that task. At this point, he was fairly certain that he had seen both Sanko and Lamont get caught up in an enormous blast while trying to go to Sai-hee’s aid against that massive wolf.

The very same one that they’d met in Bellvine. The one that Parson had met on so many amicable occasions. The one that had always seemed to be Germal’s unswerving companion.

Until he killed him.

What sense did any of this make? Just how much had Germal been hiding from him and Damian?

Doubtless, this had to be at least part of the reason why Germal had begun to change so much after Bellvine. With the benefit of hindsight, yes, he’d never really been the same, had he? It was a slow transformation, but that was the catalyst, wasn’t it?

There’d been a time, of course, when Parson had been much more curious about that strange shift. Noticing the many subtle changes. Asking questions upon questions.

Page 4004

“You’ve been wanting to say that to me for a long time,” said Parson.

“Sure have,” said Damian. “And maybe a part of you has been waiting to hear it, too.”

“Hah. I don’t think so. If there’s one thing about you that I haven’t missed, it’s your complete inability to choose your words tactfully.”

“Had to leave something for you to get good at, didn’t I?”

“Careful, now. That was almost a compliment.”

“Nothin’ ‘almost’ about it. Take it and be grateful.”

“Oh, I’m positively glowing. Can’t you tell?”

“And stop talking shit about Germal while you’re at it. You’ve never understood him half as well as you thought you did.”

“What? Why are you defending him like he was some angel? He was, quite literally, the biggest liar we’ve ever known. And he wronged you, more than anyone.”

“And yet he also gave his life in order to save your stupid neck. Have some respect, asshole.”

“Pah. While I do appreciate the two of you rescuing me, I only ended up in that position because of him. Because, foolishly, I decided to trust him again.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket. Nothin’ foolish about what happened. Don’t you get it? We were finally able to take our shot. After all these years, thinkin’ the plan was dead and buried, we still found an opportunity in the end. And hell, we got close! Closer than anyone else has gotten in centuries. And we lived. So we can still take another crack at it, one day.”

“I think your mind must have gone again. This optimism is too out-of-character for you.”

“Been forty years. I’ve changed some. Just as you have.”

“I liked you better before.”

That made Damian snicker. “Feeling’s mutual, you piece of shit.”

Their slow, shambling trek across the landscape continued for quite a while longer. Having been walking for days already, they’d initially just picked a direction and hoped for the best. The reapers had been too exhausted to even speak, let alone provide actual guidance on where to go.

Unfortunately, even after Feromas and Overra had recovered, they weren’t much help in that regard.

They’d considered destroying their brains, of course, in order to let the reapers move more quickly, but with the regeneration stunted so badly, there was quite a heavy concern that even regenerating their whole bodies from scratch would prove problematic for the reapers.

Apparently, Damian had heard--via Germal, no less--that Jackson was currently suffering from a similar affliction and that a full body regrowth would not fix it.

The Mad Demon was such a menace. This felt much worse than the initial taste that Parson had gotten when he was first captured.

Page 4003

He must’ve been, right? Feromas wouldn’t still be Damian’s reaper if he thought the man was completely gone.

Agh. Or would he? Feromas was something of a special case. He was directly related to his servant by blood. Feromas’ great grandson. And while the reaper may not have demonstrated much genuine affection, as far as Parson could recall, perhaps there was still a deeper level of attachment that was simply never voiced.

An irrational hope.

What else could possibly explain the reaper not releasing Damian’s soul after what happened forty years ago? Parson couldn’t fathom any other justification.

It didn’t help that he’d seen other such cases, as well, even from reapers who had no blood relation.

Reapers were still human, after all. Or used to be, at least. They still retained all the same psychological vulnerabilities.

The same inability to let go, long after they knew they should.

“Stop lookin’ at Feromas like that,” said Damian. “If you’ve got somethin’ to say, then say it. Stop being a coward.”

Hmph. Maybe he had a point. It had been too long. Parson had gotten too comfortable dancing around subjects instead of addressing them directly. If he was being totally honest, that was one of the things he missed most about his friend here. Damian had been one of the very few people whom Parson could be straightforward with.

They’d simply known each other too long and too well to be anything else.

“You’re behaving surprisingly sane,” said Parson. “It’s been days now, and you still haven’t said anything completely psychotic yet.”

Damian snorted. “Maybe I’m just working up to it.”

“I bet you are.” He looked to Feromas again. “Is he normally lucid for this long?”

The reaper noticed Damian look at him, too. ‘...No,’ said Feromas. ‘This is unusual.’

God. Parson was already kicking himself. Stop hoping, idiot. It wasn’t going to end well. It never did.

But he couldn’t help himself.

“...Do you think Germal’s death might have something to do with it?” said Parson.

‘The thought has crossed my mind, yes.’

“You think the little punk was keeping me crazy all these years, huh? Hmph. Of course you’d think that. You always did see the worst in people, didn’t you?”

Parson might’ve made an expression of utter disbelief if the muscles on his withered face still worked. “I don’t see how you, of all people, have any right to tell me that. Of the three of us, you were always the most bitter and jaded.”

“No. I was just the most confrontational. You’re the one who kept quiet when things actually got to you. You let bad ideas change your mind. Your deeply held values. Instead of having a conversation and figuring things out. Which is why you’re both a dumbass AND a coward.”

This fucking prick.

Page 4002

The assault on Morgunov’s workshop had just led into one disaster after another. Looking back on it all now, he still couldn’t believe how bad things had gone. Each time he’d thought that the situation couldn’t get any worse, it somehow did.

Even after weeks of fighting. It still did.

And now, here he was. A barely-held-together pile of flesh.

But at least he wasn’t alone.

His oldest friend was right there behind him, shuffling along at a similarly terrible pace.

Damian Lofar.

Parson couldn’t believe that, either. He was actually alive. After forty years of thinking he and Feromas had died, the wily bastards really had managed to survive.

He’d suspected as much, of course, but he’d never been able to confirm it. And Germal had been no help at all in discerning the truth, of course.

Such a strange mixture of emotions. He was at once elated and mortified. Elated for the man Damian once was. Mortified for the one he’d turned into.

“Stop lookin’ at me like that, already.” Between how much Damian had allowed himself to age and how absolutely thrashed his body currently was, the man was virtually unrecognizable. “It’s pissing me off.”

If not for Feromas’ presence, Parson might not have believed it. “Eh, shut up, you old prick,” said Parson. His half-destroyed throat made his words sound like they’d been put through a grinder. “I’ll look wherever I want.”

“Pah! Finally grow a pair of balls, did ya?” Damian’s voice, by comparison, sounded almost normal. Most of his damage seemed to be in his crushed leg, missing arm, and disemboweled stomach. “Only took a hundred and fifty years.” He was just as deathly pale, too.

“You seem to be forgetting about all the times I kicked your ass.”

“I’m sure I’d remember them if they’d ever happened.”

Hmph. Well, he was certainly behaving like the hard-edged, grumpy asshole that Parson had grown up with.

But how long was that going to last?

How long before the madness returned?

He dared not hope that his old friend might actually be cured. Down that road lay only heartache.

Parson was plenty old enough now. He’d seen this many times before, not just with Damian.

Good men turning into raving lunatics.

And it never got any easier to witness, either. Parson kept eyeing Feromas, too, wondering what the reaper must have been thinking about all this. Was he still harboring hopes of a recovery? After all this time?

Page 4001

He looked harder. Focused further. He wanted to pick out individual faces. That was quite the task at this distance, especially with them all moving, but he felt like he could manage it. Just a bit more. If he could follow the crowd’s flow, then he could predict where a locked-on face would be moving next. It was like trying to lock onto a distant bird through a telescope.

There. A young woman’s face. What was her expression?

Blank. Hollow. Empty-eyed.

And she was just walking. Not on her phone. Not talking to someone. Just walking.

Then she passed out of view, behind one of the buildings. He searched for another target. A middle-aged man. Bald. Business suit. Same empty expression, though. Same mindless look in his eyes.

And again. And again. And still again. Each person he singled out was the same. Just walking and nothing else.

Quite eerie. How to even explain to Darksteel and the others? He needed a moment to find his words. “Um... I don’t see any screaming,” he said, “but I do see a mass of people down there who appear to be... hypnotized? Or something to that effect.”

‘What the fuck?’ said Voreese. ‘Where’s the screaming coming from them?’

Roman, meanwhile, still seemed to be listening intently. “I think I can tell. A general direction, at least.”

Hmm. Loren was uncertain now. And coincidentally, Rezolo gave voice to his concerns.

‘It seems we have a choice, then. Should we investigate the people down there or follow the noise?’

All eyes went to Darksteel.

He didn’t need long to answer. “The screaming. That seems like it could be more urgent. Then we’ll check out the crowd later.”

‘Alrighty,’ said Voreese. ‘Welcome to Intar, I guess.’

-+-+-+-+-

The bleeding had stopped days ago, but not because his wounds had finally healed. Rather, it was simply because he’d run out of blood to lose. His body had already died days earlier than even that, and despite Overra’s best efforts to revive his flesh, it simply didn’t last. It would just die again, seemingly faster each time.

And now, Parson Miles was a withered husk of a man. Still on his feet. Still walking. But not with strength. Not with confidence. Not with anything, anymore.

Even if he still had all his faculties, his body was now little more than a shambling, shattered corpse as he slowly made his way across the windswept countryside.

Page 4000

Darksteel bolted ahead, prompting everyone else to follow. They were all still wearing the full suits of armor that Darksteel had made for them earlier, so the room came urgently alive with the sound of shifting metal plates.

Darksteel himself moved so quickly that Loren thought he might be about to jump through the nearest window, but instead, he came to an abrupt stop and merely looked out. Then, after a brief pause, he turned and looked directly at Loren, who felt suddenly as if the room had closed in around him.

“What do you see out there?” said Darksteel.

Ah. Loren relaxed a little and stepped up to the window alongside him.

He took his time scanning the view, not wanting to miss anything.

The buildings were so massive that much of the view was blocked--but not all. Because they weren’t actually on the ground floor, apparently. Strange. How had they made it so high up here without noticing? Was this whole tower abandoned? Connected so deeply with the ancient undercity?

He focused on the task. Roadways were everywhere, both above and below, with cars speeding along almost all of them. A few were backed up with heavy traffic, he noticed.

And the buildings themselves. He could see in many of the windows from afar. Several of them had people gathered around, gawking at something down below. Hmm? Below? Agh, this vantage point wasn’t great, but he could see a few hints of activity down there, nestled between the buildings and beneath the roads.

He moved left along the windows, searching for a better line of sight. Something was down there alright. What was it?

A crowd. A massive one. What was happening, though?

Crowds were tough to sift through. Just a cluster of visual noise. But with concentration, he could find the abnormalities therein. There was a certain logic to it, as well. Crowds, oftentimes, behaved like schools of fish. They were organized. Moving in unison. Creating a discernible flow. The key was to ignore all the distracting colors and focus on movement patterns. Then find the ones that stuck out. Disturbances in the flow. That was usually where the trouble was found.

But as he searched, he didn’t see anything like that. No disturbances. The flows were pristine. Extremely organized.

In fact... that, in itself, was abnormal. Humans were not literally supposed to move like schools of fish, which were able to maintain their harmony with pinpoint precision. Humans were still supposed to have imperfections here and there. People tripping or walking too slowly or bumping into one another.

But there was none of that.

That enormous crowd down there was moving with an almost mechanical perfection.

Page 3999

A couple of nearby windows were the sources of the light that they’d first noticed, but said windows were so foggy and dirty that Loren still couldn’t make out anything on the other side, even with his eyes.

Darksteel didn’t hesitate, though. He pushed through the double doors as their small party followed.

What awaited them, however, was not the outside. Instead, they found themselves in another building. It looked decidedly less ancient than the one they’d just left behind, but it was still just as empty.

Abandoned? Hmm. Well, at the least the others didn’t need their flashlights, anymore.

The floors were a dusty stone, and thick pillars supported a low ceiling with long cracks running through it. Otherwise, however, the room had no walls, and light poured in from distant windows in all directions.

And there was something else, too. Loren noticed it right away, but he couldn’t actually tell what it was. Something almost invisible to the naked eye. It hung there in the air, covering everything like a thin veil.

What the hell was that? He felt like he’d seen such a thing before--and yet also not. Surely, he’d remember something so strange.

Certainly, his eyes had picked up on a few oddities over the years, but now, after his most recent mutation, which he instigated only a few days ago, he was beginning to worry that he might’ve messed himself up again. He’d hoped that he’d grown out of that early phase, but the fear never really went away, honestly.

The historical horror stories about mutation had been drilled into his mind, after all.

Agh. He tried to stay focused. Getting distracted might well be a death sentence in a place like this, he felt.

The group kept following Darksteel, but now it was truly dead quiet. Even the reapers had ceased their chatter--which was not typically a good sign, in Loren’s experience.

He thought he could hear something peculiar, too. Just the general background noise of a big city, he’d thought at first. But as he continued listening, he felt like there was another layer in there. Muted but not totally.

Perhaps Roman was hearing it, too, because the man was holding a cupped hand up to his ear.

Hmm. Did he have a power that aided his hearing? Loren felt compelled to inquire. “What is that noise?”

Roman took a moment before responding. “Screams.”

Page 3998

‘Oh god,’ said Garovel. ‘Yeah. You might be right about that. Aberrations are always difficult to notice, which would explain why I wasn’t sure what it was. Have you had many encounters with aberrations, Rezolo?’

‘You could say that,’ said the reaper. ‘And if I could help it, I’d sooner never encounter another one.’

Loren knew he wasn’t lying. They’d been a pair for almost four years now, but even in that relatively short time, they’d met several of those humanoid abominations, up close and personal.

It was never an enjoyable experience, especially with the more powerful ones. And if these reapers were already able to discern the presence of an aberration at such a seemingly large distance, then Loren was getting the feeling that this was not going to be some fledgling that they were dealing with.

On top of all that, Loren had the distinct impression that Rezolo had met many more aberrations prior to the two of them teaming up. The reaper’s mood was typically difficult to gauge, but in the presence of aberrations, there was a noticeable shift. He clearly didn’t like them very much.

‘Hold on,’ came Voreese’s voice. ‘This doesn’t make sense. How could there be an aberration--especially one that seems pretty damn powerful--right in the heart of Vanguardian territory? They would’ve hunted it down, for sure.’

‘So one would think,’ said Garovel. ‘But maybe it’s a developing situation, and they’re in the middle of hunting it down right now.’

‘Hmm.’ Voreese floated further ahead, coming up right behind Darksteel. ‘Ooh, y’know, if that’s the case, then maybe we’ll get to meet some of the Vanguard’s famous aberration hunters. Ever since I first heard about them, I thought they sounded pretty cool.’

‘Sure,’ said Garovel, ‘but they also kinda sound like a bunch of hardasses. Somehow, I feel you wouldn’t get along with them very well.’

‘Oh, c’mon. I can appreciate a hardass, every now and again. Hell, I can BE one, every now and again. The context is what matters, Garovel.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But yeah, if they’re a gaggle of assholes, then I’ll probably talk mad shit on them. Can’t help it.’

“You absolutely can,” said Roman.

‘Shut up.’

Soon, the group pushed onward and upward, and the first glimpses of light began to arrive near the top of the staircase. It wasn’t much, though. They still needed their flashlights for a while longer--up until they finally arrived at a large pair of double stone doors.

Page 3997

He’d tried to ignore it, of course, knowing that dwelling on it was pointless. All that would accomplish was making him even more miserable than he already was. Better to concentrate on things that he could actually change. Or on things that could at least provide some sort of escape for him mentally, however fleeting.

But this situation was suddenly bringing it up again. Stronger than ever. Because it was accompanied by an actual sense of hope, for once.

Agh.

Very dangerous thinking, that. He needed get a hold of himself. At the end of the day, Rezolo was right. He shouldn’t put too much stock in that idea.

Really. When had hope ever worked for him?

Another set of winding stairs lay ahead, but Darksteel stopped, which brought the rest of them to a halt, too.

“I think we’ve passed beyond the dark fog that was blanketing everything,” said Hector, his voice tinged in metal. “Can you reapers sense the city above us, now?”

Voreese spoke up first. ‘Yep. That’s a lot of souls up there. Looks like we’re in the right place, after all.’

“Anything else?” the lord pushed. “Any... weirdness? Vito reported some sort of mass hysteria up there.”

‘Hmm, let’s see. Eh. Seems normal enough to me. What about you two chuckleheads? Sense anything strange?’

Rezolo and Garovel remained quiet a moment, perhaps concentrating, before Rezolo spoke up next. ‘Not I.’

But Garovel had a different response. ‘Actually, I do... feel something off. I can’t quite tell what it is, though.’

‘Well, think harder, then,’ said Voreese. ‘Figure it out! Right now, dammit!’

‘Very helpful, thank you.’

‘Okay, fine, where is it? Tell me the direction of this “offness” that you sense.’

‘Agh. Um. Northwest of here, I think.’

‘Great. Cool. Which way is northwest?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ And Garovel pointed with his ethereal gecko’s tail.

‘Oh, don’t give me a hard time! We’ve been wandering around in the dark after teleporting across the continent! My internal compass is busted as hell, so how can yours still be working after all that?!’

‘What can I say? I’m just the greatest.’

‘Greatest bullshitter, maybe.’

‘Ha, well, that’s definitely not true. Anyway, just help me out, will ya? What do you sense over there?’

Voreese grumbled wordlessly but seemed to start concentrating. Rezolo, too, from the look of it.

‘...Okay, yeah, you’re right. There’s definitely something fucked going on over there. Can’t tell how fucked, though. It’s weird.’

‘...I believe that may be the work of an aberration,’ said Rezolo.

Page 3996

That was certainly one thing that he knew about Rezolo. How stubborn he could be.

‘We can enter pan-wzrost any time you like,’ said Loren. ‘Then you can read my memories and emotions directly.’

‘You always try to bring that up when we talk about this. Don’t act like you can’t still hide things from me in there. I know you’ve figured it out already.’

‘I truly have not.’ They’d argued about this enough times by now that he felt neither defensive nor surprised by the reaper’s response. He just held back a sigh as he knew that there was no helping the situation.

It was genuinely baffling to him, the more he’d thought about it. The only explanation he’d been able to concoct for Rezolo’s paranoia on this particular matter was that the reaper must’ve had a bad experience with a previous servant.

That might also be the reason why Loren had never been able to learn much about the reaper via the hyper-state, either. Because Rezolo had figured out how to do it, he assumed that Loren must have also.

The reaper was projecting, in other words.

And for a while, Loren had felt like he was missing out on something quite wondrous. The way other people talked about it, their merged minds were supposed to let them look through each other’s entire lives with little difficulty, but for him, at least, that had never been the case.

In fact, pan-wzrost honestly didn’t feel that different from their normal, separated connection. The telepathic communication was the same. No closer, no deeper, no more intuitive. The world around them just felt a little more intense. Heightened in sensory input.

But oh well. Loren was long past the point of agonizing over it.

He tried to get the conversation back on track. ‘Anyway, I just want you to pay attention to Darksteel,’ he told the reaper. ‘If his power and influence really do rival that of Caster, then...’

‘Then, what?’ said Rezolo.

Still being difficult, of course. ‘Then, it complicates things,’ Loren chose to say.

The reaper made no response.

Loren wanted to keep pushing, but he didn’t know how, so he decided to just let the matter drop. Perhaps it was too soon to be broaching this subject at all.

It was just that...

Agh.

That idea of actually leaving Abolish...

He couldn’t deny fantasizing about it for years now. Feeling utterly trapped.

Page 3995

So what had changed in them? He’d gained a little bit of power? A little bit of fame? And that was all it took to fill his head with nonsense? To lose his survival instinct?

No. More than anything, he needed to remain attentive. Caster had been... fine, true, but he was also an utterly unpredictable question mark.

Which, after all this time traveling with him, was not exactly a good thing.

‘You’re probably right,’ said Loren. ‘But I also think we should be flexible. If things take a turn for the worse, it would be good if we had some sort of escape vector, no?’

‘There is no escaping Abolish, my boy.’

Loren wanted to be very careful with his words here. Ultimately, he still didn’t really know how Rezolo felt about Abolish as a whole. The reaper never talked about it or even his own past.

That was the main thing that Loren had feared ever since first being revived. While Rezolo was quieter than most Abolish reapers, that didn’t actually mean he was any less loyal. Sure, Loren occasionally got that impression from him, but were impressions enough to gamble his life on?

If deep down, Rezolo was a true believer... and if he came to the conclusion that Loren could not be trusted...

‘That is not what I’m saying,’ said Loren. ‘Escaping Caster doesn’t have to mean escaping Abolish.’

Floating alongside him, Rezolo turned and just stared at him.

Loren didn’t balk. He always kept eye contact whenever he found the opportunity. Because he wanted to see. Really see. And maybe it was just silly superstition, but Loren was increasingly coming to believe that the eyes could reveal quite a lot about a person. Yes, even reapers with their ethereal bodies.

It was about the soul. Or something even deeper, maybe.

He felt like he could almost see it. Hints of emotion. Of whole ideas turning over in their minds. If he could just... sharpen his vision a little more... then maybe...

‘Stop looking at me like that,’ said Rezolo.

It wasn’t the first time the reaper had said that to him. ‘Like what?’ It wasn’t the first time responding like that, either.

‘You know exactly what. Stop it.’

‘This is just how my eyes are, Rezo. I can’t change them back, you know.’

‘You’re trying to read my mind.’

‘I’m not psychic.’

‘So you keep claiming. But you’re working on it, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not. I’m still just refining my eyes.’

‘Don’t lie to me, boy.’

He wanted to scoff but restrained himself. ‘That’s the truth. Brain mutations are too dangerous for my liking.’

‘Except all your role models are psychic.’

‘Not all of them. But I wish YOU were psychic. Then maybe you’d be able to tell I’m not lying.’

‘Hmph.’

Page 3994

As everyone made their way up this dark tower, hoping to find a path to the surface, Roman finally deigned to give them some peace and quiet; and Loren decided to seize the opportunity in order to have a private conversation with Rezolo.

‘You okay, Rezo?’

‘Hmph. Why are you asking?’

‘Just checking in. Caster made me disappear from right in front of you. Then he teleported you, too. Now we’re here, involved in Void-knows-what.’

‘I’m fine.’

Agh. The reaper had always had a tendency to go quiet on him--which, in Loren’s experience, was somewhat rare for their kind. In some ways, that was a relief. Loren certainly appreciated not having to deal with a motormouth all the time like many of his contemporaries had to, but it did have its downsides, too.

He decided to keep pushing. ‘What do you make of these people so far?’

‘They’re dangerous.’

No kidding. ‘Darksteel mentioned wanting to poach us from Caster.’

‘I wouldn’t put too much stock in that, if I were you.’

A part of Loren wanted to protest. To ask why. But a stronger part of him was already in agreement with the reaper.

It felt naive in countless ways. A childish hope. And the child in him had died during the Vaelish Civil War. Just think about it. Poach them? Why would Darksteel do that? He didn’t know the first thing about them.

And besides, Caster had been a fine boss, hadn’t he? Supremely strange, but fine. Better than anyone Loren had worked under before.

Pah. ‘Poach.’ That word wasn’t even correct, was it? Darksteel didn’t want him for his skills. Darksteel just pitied him. Viewed him as a slave under Caster’s thumb.

But then... wasn’t he?

Idiot. Why was he trying to feel offended at the thought of being pitied? Some sort of pride? There was no utility in that. There never had been. That was the first and most important lesson he’d ever learned.

Pride hadn’t saved his parents from the so-called “revolutionaries.” For all the “pride” and “dignity” that his father had maintained during that break-in, trying to appear strong, what difference had it made? He’d been gunned down just the same.

And then later, pride hadn’t saved those other kids in the forest, either. It hadn’t filled their bellies when they acted like they were too good to learn how to hunt. They were fine taking the food that Loren caught and prepped for them, but no. They couldn’t learn how to do it themselves.

That was probably why they got sick and died. And why he and the others survived. Mira and Kaul. Trill and Stoker. They didn’t let pride get in the way. They did whatever it took to survive.

Page 3993 -- CCCXX.

Chapter Three Hundred Twenty: ‘Thy piercing gaze...’
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Loren Lighteyes was trying his best to simply follow the group in silence, but this hyper-talkative Roman fellow was making that task quite difficult. The man kept asking questions, doubtless wanting to build a rapport or some such thing. Gather intel, maybe.

Perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances.

But Loren just wanted to observe. That was always what he preferred to do whenever circumstances became too difficult to wrap his head around.

How the hell had he ended up on a mission to Intar? Maybe the worst place in the world for members of Abolish to go.

And with people he barely knew, to boot? What the fuck was even happening, anymore? He’d thought that throwing his lot in with Caster Egmond would make for quite the dramatic shift in his life’s trajectory--hopefully for the better--but this was even more dramatic than he’d anticipated.

Which was to say nothing of the revelation that Caster was actually some sort of... ancient entity. Or possessed by one, maybe. Loren still didn’t quite understand that development, and Caster and Kalikos hadn’t been terribly forthcoming with explanations, either.

Maybe he just needed to be more direct, though. Ask straight up about who “Zirat” really was. Rezolo’s attempts to glean new information had probably been too subtle or indirect. Easily answered with vague nonsense--which seemed to be Kalikos’ specialty.

That was easy to say, though. Just be direct. Sure. Just ask one of the most terrifying people he’d ever met to explain all his deepest, darkest secrets to him. No sweat.

Agh.

This new guy, though. Darksteel. Loren had to acknowledge that there was definitely something crazy going on with him, too. He didn’t seem scared of Caster in the slightest--in fact, sometimes, it almost seemed like the other way around.

Which Loren found truly baffling.

From everything he’d seen so far, this Hector guy seemed surprisingly... nice. Welcoming. Protective, even.

But he also couldn’t quite shake that lingering first impression he’d gotten back in Boland. The feeling of quiet danger.

Such a strange mixture. And growing stranger by the minute, Loren felt.

Madder still, he couldn’t get Darksteel’s words out of his mind. The guy had basically said, right to Caster’s face, that he intended to poach Loren from him.

Was that real? A joke? Loren had no idea. And it was bothering the hell out of him.