The Fall Of The Tribes

by Philip Read

  She introduces me to some of her friends Victoria and Laurika. We all drink and get to know each other a little, but Abigail eventually leads me out another way that takes me directly to the surface she kisses my cheek, “Come see me again sometime.” She says and walks back into the shadow embrace of the underside.

  I look around d and it seems about time for the nightly raids on the underworlders. I quickly jog to join my battlegroup, I will definitely be sticking with Ragnar for a while, definitely.

  Chapter 55

  Sachihiro

  I wake up and stretch thoroughly, I walk to the latrine area and relieve myself with a sigh. I wash my face and get ready to face the day as I do every day and I have done every day since I was old enough to contemplate my life. I get dressed and armed but today I wear my tribal kilt and a comfortable woollen tunic. If I’ll be undressing every few hours I may as well dress for it. I jog out to go meet Ragnar and he’s already there with Soli. With a grunt he acknowledges me and we go out looking for herbs like we did yesterday.

  *

  Our day is mostly the same but we pick from a different part of the forest before heading out to talk with the weird ladies. Apparently, the store they run is just a supply store for alchemist and apothecaries that need either refined or raw supplies in bulk without cultivating it themselves or hiring a gatherer.

  There are as yet no private owned gardens within the compound so everyone is still letting nature cultivate the ingredients everyone needs for whatever it is they want outside the gardening conclave, Conclave Plante. Plants on Gaia are very strange creatures and all species of them react differently to large influxes of ether like from a dungeon, and there are so many species of them that keeping track can be a challenge. So the Plante conclave and the academics sometimes closely link together, also needing ingredients.

  They talk and I start catching a word here and there as they speak, words like ‘Människor’ that tickle something at the back of my mind like I should know what it means already.

  We go through the whole tent thing and I have another encounter with this deity that has claimed me as hers/his but its different this time. It’s more like learning from myself than actually being sure that I’m getting a response, not very reassuring but also useful.

  From there it’s meditation, then the deep baths, then getting needles stuck in us but this time I’m lying on my back with my feet elevated as I’m poked all over my exposed body, all over. Its some fighting with the Proeliums which I enjoy and today they actually let me use my own o-katana when fighting, confident little fucks. But I still get my ass handed to me anyways, just not as spectacularly as I did yesterday. After nearly 8 hours of sword play, we head to the healers for patching up.

  The healers always use minor injuries to experiment with, its something that most of us have gotten used to. So if you were healed using magic yesterday it doesn’t guarantee the same today, and with that in mind, I meet a new healer for the first time.

  “Right this way, take a seat, I’m going to try something you probably haven’t had done to you before. I will use your blood to write runes on your body and ask you to empower them using your spiritual energy, do you understand?” He/she asks me as she/he directs me where to sit, that I should take my top of and all that.

  I can’t stop stealing glances as I follow directions but I’m also curious about runing because it is very similar to sigils, magic circles and other magic symbols that help direct, gather, repel or interpret spiritual magic. The magic that old man Black the creepy advised me to get familiar with several months back, I’d definitely be part of the conclave proelium if he hadn’t adviced otherwise and probably wouldn’t have learnt as much as I have about my spirit powers and summonings and sigils and runes.

  Runes are all over the Mare I’ve interacted with, even Isis and her creepy grandmother have runes on their skin. The fae or elf healer before me, I have a hard time telling them apart if there are no horns, tail or hoofs, cuts into my wrist gently and collecting my blood before stopping the bleeding with a salve.

  “How did you do that?” I ask bewildered.

  “Do what?” She/he asks while carrying on with her/his tasks and looking at rune references from a small book.

  “How did you make me bleed so long with such a small cut?” I shouldn’t have bled like that, besides the fact that my chakra points are open promoting great physical and emotional health, or that I’m a Barbarian and we just don’t bleed quickly, or that my spiritual energy promotes healing constantly.

  “Oh, the blade is enchanted. It has a bleeding enchantment on it that helps me speed things up, I don’t know how the sorcerers do it of course but I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, just surprised.” I need to learn more about enchanted items and how to identify them, they could be potentially very dangerous.

  I know enchanting is under the sorcerer umbrella but they are completely different branches of sorcerers as far as I can tell. Something most sorcerers can’t do but it sort of makes sense that it would be. I once fought a man with a weapon imbued with a living spirit back when I was still trying to get home to join the war with the south. I’m not sure what happened to the weapon but the power it displayed was worrying, cutting through rocks and pillars seemingly without even using the strength of the wielder.

  The lady/man dips his/her finger into my blood and just starts using it to write on my skin without preamble. Writing over my blue and purple ribs, my fractured femur, my fractured left hand, the bump on my hand, my tweaked back. She didn’t even need to ask me about my ailments, she used some sort of examine skill that focuses on the body. I felt it penetrate into my spiritual shield, something I’ve been working on with Master Hyde on and off.

  She/he finishes her/his work with just a few drops of blood remaining on her tray and she just puts the finger she’s been using into her mouth sucking it clean before noticing me looking and immediately blushing almost as red as her/his eyes got when she tasted my blood.

  “Sorry.” She/he says in a whisper avoiding eye contact.

  I remain silent because I do not understand the reaction I’m having to seeing her doing that but my cock is rock hard and throbbing. It can’t be just because she/he is beautiful, there are plenty of beautiful people in the compound and I wouldn’t let any taste my blood. Even her eating my blood is worrying on a rational level of my mind besides the fact that it’s just weird, witches and other ritualists could do serious damage with just even a drop of blood.

  But the innocent reflexive way she just sucked her finger is very disarming. She/he is either a really good actor, grandmaster class actor, or she really did it without even thinking about it.

  “It’s okey,” I eventually manage to say, trying to hide my erection in the folds of my kilt. “You can have the rest as well,” I say for some reason, my heart rate increasing as she/he looks at me under her white eyebrows. I have absolutely no idea why I said that but I’m eager to see her lick my blood again.

  Unpigmented people are rare as far as I know, very rare even amongst the multi coloured fae. But there is a delicate beauty to her/his white skin, white hair, crimson eyes, and dark lips. She puts the tray down to my disappointment and clears her throat, the moment is broken and its back to business.

  I send spiritual energy eventually along my skin as directed and I almost immediately feel it pulled on certain parts along my skin more than others. I supply the demand and the runes drink in more and more and then just become saturated and stop. I frown and stand testing my body, I definitely feel better.

  She places a cold delicate hand on my chest and uses her examine skill and I can feel the erection building again. She didn’t do that before, I wonder why she’s doing it now. I’ve never bedded a fae before, it actually never even occurred to me as something I could one day do until I met her/him. And she/he’s definitely fae, that blood thing gave it away. No elf would ever lower themselves to drink human blood, or blood in general un
less it was a Blood Mage of course.

  “It seems to have worked on all your tissue and superficial injuries but some of your internal organs are slightly inflamed. Here.” She/he says and sends a cold titillating energy into me as her red eyes flash slightly and I breathe a bid deeper, letting her energy permeate into me.

  I’m so glad I’ll be seeing Abigail after this. “I’m Sachihiro,” I say placing my hand on the hand on my chest.

  “Shea.”

  “May I see you again Shea?”

  “Only if you request me the next time you’re here.”

  “I will definitely do that, and if you don’t finish the rest of that blood I’m taking it with me, Shea.”

  She gives me her first full toothed grin and I notice her lower canines are slightly protruded and sharp, a predictor this. “You notice a lot more than you should Sachiheero.” She says then sighs as she grabs the tray.

  We were taught at the Academy not to leave our blood lying about lightly. Fresh blood is a very dangerous tool against you in the hands of the right person. All except battlefield blood, battlefield blood is protected by Gaia herself as she uses all battlefield blood spilt on her for her own purposes. No one knows what for but that that only time its safe to shed blood.

  She/he licks the blood off the tray while looking at me with her interesting eyes which flash again slightly. My reaction isn’t as strong as it was when I was surprised but my erection doesn’t flag at all, strange reaction to have to someone enjoying my blood.

  My senses are telling me she’s one of the rare hemaphroditic people I’ve heard of. Neither male nor female but I can’t tell what type of hermaphrodite she/he is and I want to ask but slightly peeved by what is says about me that I’m interested in her/his not even knowing her gender. I’ve never considered myself attracted to men nor interested in buggering or being buggered by another man. But the elves confused the entire issue for a lot of the human race. It just isn’t natural for a race to have men that are sometimes more pretty than some of their women, it just doesn’t make any biological sense.

  “I can tell what you’re wondering about, you might just get to find out. Now go, there are hundreds of you idiots that injure themselves daily.”

  *

  We head to the library but I’m mostly distracted so they do their own reading while I try to do my own. We go to an art class after that, apparently, Zaraya told Ragnar to get a hobby. He’s still looking but that just makes me suspect she’s who I think she is even more, though it shouldn’t be possible unless Asriel was wrong about his Master’s Ascension.

  We head to the underside after a few hours and I don’t wait neay as long this time but its Laurika that greets and takes me away. We talk and drink and dance and smoke and flirt for hours before Abigail comes and gets my attention. The three of us talk a while before Abigail and I find ourselves in one of the upstairs bedrooms and in private for the first time.

  We kiss and talk and touch and fool around. I don’t know what it is about this place that promotes so much talking. It’s a place of sex and debauchery but its so much more than that. Every man here is almost constantly slightly erect at all times and in that way no man here is sober, so I guess we all enjoy ourselves.

  The talking I’d just a consequence of the training the women have I suspect. They became your friends, your confidantes in a way and the reputation of the Brothel in implacable. Abigail calls it psychology, and this place is more than just fun, pleasure and the praise of their deity. Its about healing, finding a sort of momentary fulfilment in a safe place that isn’t destructive to the body, spirit or psyche, and its about learning how to please your partner. Abigail teaches me many ways of making her reach climax without penetration, its an interesting time.

  She tells me that they primarily help people with sexual trauma of any sort heal, help rid people of sexual fetishes they don’t want, or help them live out some they do want. Its a very interesting place but sadly at dusk, its time for me to leave and I’m escorted out again.

  I meet Om and Ava and we talk about how our days have been going. I update them on my day and my encounter with Shea, which gets Ava really hyped ‘cause she’s apparently heard of the queer fae.

  We spend a few hours talking and meet up with some of the other tribesmen that live here to all catch up. There are around 300 of us here and by now we all know each other by face if not by name and sometimes find comfort in each other’s company.

  Then we head off to our battle groups for the nights raids on the underworlders.

  Chapter 56

  Zaraya

  It doesn’t take a genius to realise I have a stalker. Not a stalker in a creepy mysterious way but a person who wants to meet me and is willing to go through a lot of pain to do so. No one follows Ragnar’s regiment so diligently without an expectation of eventual reward, and I have designed Ragnar’s daily schedule such that no one would understand it’s creative genius and varsetile purpose in training so it’s unlikely he’s doing it to improve himself.

  I immediately tried to find out all I could about him, his origins and what he would know about me. It initially looked like quite the mystery, what would such a young man who wasn’t even born when I left the world from a continent that has never been visited by the Order want to do with me? A man who traveled straight from home to Igenda by the straightest path between Sandoria and Pangaea under the Undine seas.

  It turned out these tribal people known as the Barbarians are a new ally recruited into the folds of the conclave only recently by a member of the conclave named Asriel. I have fond memories of Asriel as he tried to please me with his hard work and enthusiasm. I think he may have even had a little crush on me in his 20’s and 30’s, always so serious and quick to want to prove himself. I trained him for 20 years and I think he was better for it, didn’t learn to calm down as much as I would have liked but still he took up drawing.

  So a Barbarian young man who had likely met my Asriel is following Ragnar’s regiment in order to meet with me. I start changing Ragnar’s regiment a bit faster than I had initially planned, making it more and more difficult, adding the things the Barbarian is especially bad at. I meet with Ragnar only when the Barbarian isn’t around which isn’t easy because Ragnar keeps saying ‘you just missed her’ whenever he asks about me. Making him paranoid about sticking close to Ragnar as often as possible.

  It’s curious how this Sachihiro will react to a regiment that is designed to help Ragnar Awaken regardless of the curse placed upon him and his people. The massages, the acupuncture, the meditation, the god-dream tent time every day, all of it is designed to help him Awakaken into what he was meant to be.

  The man is 66 years old, which is considered old for his people that struggle because of the cold climate and the cunning powerful beasts that hunt them for power and as an ether rich food source. A people that have an average lifespan of 60 years old because very few amongst them have ever Awakened in their history and all those that have didn’t have the berserker rage the rest do.

  It has been interesting watching how Silo and Sachihiro have been reacting to a regiment that was designed for a person that has their meridians crippled from birth. The scholars have been besides themselves with the initial results I’ve brought them.

  Ragnar is responding as expected and is about ready to go into a meditation circle designed to be a mana condensation circle and Awaken into whatever he will Awaken as. The man has been at the cusp of Awakening for years but never would have had he not been recruited to the conclave, and a lot more of his people are still in his cold homeland many at the cusp of Awakening but bottlenecked by their curse, what a waste. The recruiters apparently say very few of the Mare are willing to leave their lands so it’s the conclave that will have to establish itself in Culla.

  Silo is easy to examine and I’ve been following his progress diligently since he began the regiment with Ragnar. The young man has been steadily getting a greater and greater saturation of ether in
to his system somehow increasing the likelihood of him Awakening and decreasing the time it will be before that happens.

  Erika and Eronica are very excited about the possibility of having a training regiment that increases the likelihood of Awakening and decreasing the time it takes to achieve that benchmark. Kids born on Omega Awaken by the time they are 12 or 13 years old so it isn’t such a big surprise to me that there are programs and diets that can be designed to help accelerate Awakening but here on Gaia its a struggle to Awaken and most human people only achieve it in their 60’s or 70’s if they’ve worked diligently enough, 80’s or 90’s if they’ve lived their lives not obsessively pursuing Awakening.

  So imagine if we had a training program that promoted ether affinity in people from a young age. If Erika’s initial projections are correct most of our people will be Awakening at the tender age of 30 or 40 instead of waiting so much longer. I focused my attention on the Tribesmen though as my curiosity is peaked.

  For instance Om, Cyrus’s disciple has a deep sleeping well of power that is only evident when you examine him while he’s in the berserker rage. And his berserker isn’t even a rage, I’ve seen the young man seem to fill the room with his presence as though he were using a skill. He almost becomes a different person when in the berserker seeming more confident, more sure of himself and less worried about things. He doesn’t get angry like I’ve seen the other berserkers become, he himself hadn’t said he was in the Rage I doubt I’d have known from just looking at him.

  His counterpart Ava is completely different, I challenged her to a private spar where I told her to go into the Rage. It’s cute how she hesitated worried that she could kill me if she let herself go that far. I let her realise how much more skilled and powerful I am in all facets of combat than she is and I eventually got to see her Rage.