Anima: A Divine Dungeon Series (Artorian's Archives Book 6)

by Dennis Vanderkerken

  As usual, Artorian was not afforded a chance to respond. Unlike the last few times, he knew it was coming. Scilla had inherited his love for dramatic flair.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  *Scratch*.

  Merli lazily looked at the wooden desk he sat at in the Skyspear library. He was practicing calligraphy. Rather, that’s what he should have been practicing. Instead, he was carving an ‘M’ into the table. He drew a breath, and the misty wetness of the waterfall graced his nose. The refreshing intake came accompanied with the fresh sting of mountain air, crisp and sharp.

  That had been why he liked this desk. It had the best breeze, and something about that made it the most important place to be. He didn’t know why, just that it was. Artorian watched Merli, leaning next to the window in a body that was mostly see-through. He could play passenger if he wanted to, but he too wanted to take in the view right now. How nice this place had been. Things would have been so different, had he remained.

  Actually. Why hadn’t he remained? He slapped his forehead. Now he knew what the regret was. This was the day he’d been kicked out. This was the day he flunked. Based on Merli’s build and appearance, he was around… What? Twenty-two? He’d filled out nicely, and was no longer some emaciated youth. The Academy had taken good care of him, and he had… squandered it. Yes. He’d squandered it.

  Cataphron appeared in the doorway, and Artorian thought his eyebrows would crack the ceiling. So young! Yet already so sour. Cata had been his superior as a student, but he’d never paid the head student a copper’s worth of attention. Abyss, he barely paid attention in classes.

  That flighty nature, at least, was no longer a mystery. Merli’s weak air affinity was flowing strong. “Slacking again, I see. You were supposed to have those scrolls complete before the sun set. You haven’t gotten through… what? Five sets of repetition. Your vowels are sloppy.”

  Artorian played passenger, and Merli turned to shoot Cata the widest smile. “I have it down. No need to get antsy. They’re all acceptable, and they will pass. As usual. Why do the extra work?”

  Cata squinted, sucking air between his teeth. “Because Skyspear is a place for those who excel. Not for those who do the minimum and then laze around with their head in the clouds. I’m going to take you to the lecture, since it was expected you would forget to show up on your own. Get moving. I’m not going to get snapped at by an instructor for your tardiness. Unlike you, I put effort into what I do.”

  Merli moved his palms to the air, and Cataphron sneered at the lack of ink stains. He turned on his sandals and beat it to the door, where he awaited with crossed arms. Not much changed between his young and old states, it seemed.

  Masters Sho-lin, Fen-que, and Diomedes were waiting for him. Odd, wasn’t this supposed to be a lecture? Artorian just gritted his teeth, forced to watch this again. He didn’t like being in this test the first time. He didn’t like it any more the second time either, even if he knew what was about to happen.

  This was the moment. This was when he’d gotten the worst headache of his early life. The masters were about to grill him. Merli asked a question. “Is this a private lecture?”

  A response was calmly provided by Sho-lin. “Of a sorts, student. Please, take a seat.”

  Sho-lin was a pleasant and portly master. He enjoyed drinking fine wines while reading his many books. He enjoyed drinking twice as much when reading them aloud to a class. Given he gave daily lectures, that ended up being quite a bit.

  Fen-que was less amused. A tall and lanky fellow in stark comparison, Master Fen-que merely huffed out a *Fuu*! then flourished his robe in order to sit. He remained rigid in his pose, arms making sweeping motions to make himself look wise and important. Unfortunately, Merli already knew it was all hubris. Fen-que was a man who valued appearance over knowledge.

  Master Diomedes, on the other hand, was a warrior of muscle who looked like he’d just crawled out of a mud pit and hadn’t given a single thought to cleaning off. His robes were stained and matted with thick layers of brown earth. The mud caked his robes, and he didn’t care. Instead, he smiled from ear to ear, clearly glad to be here. For him, this was just going to be fun.

  Artorian groaned internally. This was going to be a long evening. When Merli sat, Sho-lin began. Sitting directly in front of him, he warmly mused. “I have a question.”

  Merli was confident, but Artorian just buried his face deeper into his hands. This was such a trap, and Merli didn’t have the life experience to know better. In hindsight, it was this exact event that had helped turn him into the sharp-nosed miser he was today. Without this long talk that would last until the sun came up, he would never have had his perspective so thoroughly broken.

  For hours, they asked Merli the simplest of questions that ended in contradictions. Then they asked him to explain the contradictions, which only made him dig himself into a deeper hole. By midnight, Artorian just wanted to go home. Merli had his head in his hands, holding his temples as he struggled with questions. Wrestling with the lack of answers while he fought for ways to get out of the mire he’d dug himself in.

  When the sun crested over the horizon in the morning, Merli was in tears. “Look, I don’t know. I just don’t know!”

  The three masters were undisturbed by the amount of time that had passed. They merely nodded, but Diomedes giggled. “Finally, you say something that is true!”

  Merli was glad for the affirmation, but did Diomedes have to be so abyss-darned jovial about it? The man was nearly laughing!

  Sho-lin took over again. “Well, if you have found that you don’t know, what is there that you do know? Can anything you see be trusted? Anything you hear, or smell, or taste? Can you be certain that what you experience is the same experience everyone else has? Or is it merely the experience you are able to have? Do you see more colors than a butterfly? Do you pick up scent sharper than a crag wolf? Is your sight that of a thunderhawk?”

  Merli wiped his face off with his sleeve. “Well. No. But I don’t have any of those things. I am not any of those things. How could I possibly know what they know? I know I exist. That I’m sitting here and talking. That I’m sitting on a rock. I have no idea what you’re asking me. I don’t know what you want me to answer. We have been doing this all night and I still don’t grasp any of this. This is nothing like the classes, even when I did pay attention.”

  Fen-que huffed. “Fuu… finally! A good question. It pains me that you don’t understand the purpose of this conversation. Why you are asked a thousand questions, nor why you have failed to correctly answer a single one. You have written verses from the wall of virtue for years, and yet none of it has stuck! Fellow masters, I waste my time here. I rescind my welcome of this student. Decide yourselves. I am finished.”

  Fen-que got up, and unceremoniously left, walking in sharp, yet sweeping motions.

  Sho-lin looked up at a standing Diomedes. “I thought that last question showed progress. What do you think?”

  Diomedes smiled broad, crossing his arms as the stretch on his face widened. He was clearly having a good time. “I think that another question or two and he’ll stand at the edge, if not over the edge. Though, given the answers of the evening, what he can learn at the Skyspear is clearly at its limit. Ask him the question, and we will see.”

  Sho-lin nodded. “Young Merli. We accepted you due to the sizable influence your family had, including the welcomed addition to our coffers. We were warned you were a rambunctious one, and that has proven to be true. Yet over the entire duration you have been here, you have shown but a feather of enthusiasm for what we do here, when the others could be said to be whole birds. Sure, you study and pass the tests. Yet we see the longing in your eyes anytime you look off the mountainside.”

  Merli said nothing, and listened. “You are cursed with a gift, young student. That curse is that you can learn information like the rest of us breathe. You organize it in your head at the speed I drink wine, and you dismiss the finer details of t
he rest just as swiftly. Completely, once you have decided you are done with a topic. This ego has no place on the mountain, and most relinquish it in their third or fourth year. You have been here much longer, yet you are aloof. Acting as a leaf on the wind, rather than a rock on the ground. So tell me. What will you do when you are faced with a problem that you cannot easily grasp or answer?”

  Merli frowned. That seemed obvious. “Seek the solution?”

  Diomedes closed his eyes, and shook his head. “What must one do if there is no solution?”

  Merli just scratched the back of his head. “That can’t be right. There’s always a solution.”

  Both remaining masters shared a solemn shake of the head. It didn’t look good. Sho-lin spoke. “It seems he does not grasp it. Let me try one last time.”

  Diomedes nodded, and Sho-lin returned to Merli. “There are problems for which there are simply no solutions. One day, you will recognize this. In those events, what is it one should seek?”

  Merli didn’t get it. That much was clear. He pressed his cheek to his fist, and racked his brain for an answer. Nothing he had said before had gotten him anywhere, so he crossed another answer from the list. There was no right answer to the question. There didn’t seem to be a right answer to any of these questions. “What is the point of these questions if they have. No. Answers?”

  The frustration showed on the youth’s face. No longer choosing to play passenger, Artorian sighed, and lowered himself to a knee next to Merli. He was resigned to watching carefully. “Alright. Here we go. Say it.”

  The masters said nothing, patiently waiting for the last answer they would accept from the youth. There was no right answer. So what was he supposed to look for to get anywhere? Trapped in the moment of thought, Merli reached so deep and clawed so far that, for a moment, his mind was the only place that existed. Nothing about the real world mattered. His body was irrelevant. Conditions were irrelevant. He was wholly outside of himself, by diving deeper than he’d had before. Just to dig, and dig, and dig for some kind of answer that would satisfy them.

  Yet he found none, and the light started to drop from his eyes. “If there was no answer to the question… then, was it even… the right question?”

  Artorian went slack jawed. “You must be joking. It happened here?”

  Rather than watch Merli have the epiphany, he watched the boy’s center. The youth had aligned himself with an idea, and that idea found both solace and a foothold in his soul. Merli’s gaze was empty as he looked at the two masters, uncertain of his answer. Sho-lin appeared to have given up, but what Diomedes saw was clearly to his liking.

  It was then that Artorian saw the light in his mud-caked master’s eyes. That was refined Essence. Diomedes was—much like him at this very moment—inspecting Merli’s center. They were both watching the moment of the formation of a minor Essence channel. The youth gave his answer, and as he did, the affinity channel blossomed with celestial.

  Diomedes’s smile fell immediately. That was not what he’d hoped for at all. The muscled man turned on his foot, and nonchalantly waved a hand over the shoulder. “That’s a failure in my eyes. I stand with Fen-que. I rescind my welcome of this student. I am finished.”

  Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wa~a~ait. Artorian snapped his vision between the dismissive master and Merli. The latter now gaped wide-eyed at the sky as the epiphanies hit him one after the other.

  Merli’s head spun while Artorian fumed. It… it had never been about the answers? This awful, awful test. This toying with him, grinding him into a puddle of anxiety, and peeling him apart to get at an answer, was in the hopes he would develop an infernal Essence channel?

  A bewildered Artorian returned his eyes to the scene at hand, where Sho-lin spoke. “Well, that is unfortunate. That makes for a majority vote. Still, before we are forced to evict you as a failed student… Could you please tell me again? Even if the other masters rebuke you, I find myself intrigued with your response.”

  Merli blinked, and repeated himself. “It’s not about… finding the right answer. What you have been teaching is about finding the right question. The answer can’t come if the problem faced is approached incorrectly, or in a manner that won’t help. If the answer cannot be attained to the question as made in its current form, then what is wrong is not the unattainable answer, but the question itself.”

  Sho-lin sighed, so celestially proud. “How I wish you would have said these words moments sooner. That is one of the best answers I can hope for. Can you answer the earlier one as well, now that you understand? What exactly is it that you know?”

  Artorian copied Merli’s words as they were said. In the exact pitch and tone. “Nothing, Master. I know nothing.”

  Sho-lin beamed, still awfully proud. “Congratulations, young Merli. You may be relieved of your student position after today, but with that answer, I find that you are a graduate of this Academy. Even if it can never be publicly stated. Such a discovery is made by all who find the path. With such a discovery, I will see fit that you are well equipped before you are sent on your way. Stay strong, young student. You have a bright future ahead.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Artorian opened his eyes in his bonfire space. Scilla was there of course, deeply inspecting him for the slightest detail. The now twenty-two-year-old academy student sat in the location the twelve-year-old previously occupied. He remained quiet. Mulling over recent discoveries. When he spoke, Scilla just nodded. “It was never my fault. It was a setup.”

  Scilla smirked, stretching with ease. “Mmmm! Look at me, being right. Wasn’t that just such a doozy? All these years you’ve beaten yourself up that you could never please those walking contradictions. *Tsk, tsk*. Do you still feel like they abandoned you, exiled you, or threw you away? Was it really your actions that made you get kicked out of that tall rock you liked lounging around on so much?”

  Artorian’s response was older. The voice of a resolute twenty-something youth speaking. “No. No, it was not. That series of events was premeditated, and my involvement was never something that mattered. Only the result. A result that Diomedes did not get. I remember Cataphron speaking of him. That something was odd. That things changed. Now that I know he was a cultivator even in those days, I believe it with firmness. The Skyspear didn’t rebuke me. It was tainted; and I was in the way.”

  He heard the snap of fingers, and felt his power increase to A-rank three. He blinked, observing his own hands. “I don’t understand. Just like that? But… that was so minor? I didn’t do anything.”

  Scilla shook her head, even though it was her shadow that moved, rather than her. The girl herself didn’t move a muscle, and that felt eerie. “The regret went away. One less thing that tethers you to the old world. One less thing that can hold you back. One less worry lingering that could poke you at an inopportune time. One less full plate on the table for a blight to eat.”

  Artorian said nothing. She was right. His mind instead wandered to what had been going on before the memory trip. “How long has it been since I sank into the regret? Not another hundred years, I hope?”

  He was half-joking about the time, but Scilla answered him deadpan. “Seventeen seconds.”

  She… she was also joking. Right? He’d been gone for hours in the memory. His frown made her smirk. “Seventeen seconds, and not a blip longer. Remember, I am the one that controls how long it takes. I change those times according to my needs, and currently my needs are for you to move your butt. Unless you’d rather jump into number four right now.”

  Artorian knew he shouldn’t ask, but if it had merely been seventeen seconds… a little foreknowledge would do no harm. “When and where is it?”

  Scilla observed her nails, and turned them bright pink. “Phoenix Kingdom. You know when.”

  The young adult winced hard. “No. Hard no. That is definitely not something I can live through right now.”

  The pink monster shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s next. It’s ready. Just
waiting on you. The rest of them are as well. Maybe some motivation will help? Or fear? It will likely serve the same purpose, as you’re going to ask regardless. Perhaps it will give you courage to know a few in advance. Ready?”

  That was a clever trap, but he saw right through it. “If you mean ready for the memory, that’s still a no. Ready for the primer? Yes.”

  Scilla clicked her tongue. *Tsk.* “I’ll tell you the next four locations, since you’re being a sour lemon. You’re smart enough to figure out the rest. Phoenix Kingdom. The Wilds. Socorro. The Fringe. Don’t those sound like a great time?”

  Artorian went pale. “You’re horrible. I despise this. Yet I already have the feeling that I’ll be thanking you when they’re done.”

  Scilla agreed with him there. “Not even for the rank, either. Now. I believe I have a promise to fulfill. You know how we feel about promises, don’t we, Merli?”

  The young adult scowled back, but said nothing. The pink horror instead fulfilled her part of the bargain. “You do actually have another body in the Soul Space. Though, it’s not a convenient one.”

  Artorian rolled his wrist for her to get on with it. She fell back into her telltale smirk, and giggled. “The Long, mark three! They may have fished the remains of that second attempt out of that tree. Though our dearest Great Spirit made a third one, and shoved it into storage when distracted by something else. It’s keyed to you, so I can feel it even if you do not. It’s still there, lying in storage. Doing absolutely nothing after Cal finished the Incarnate version of your favorite flag.”

  He squinted his eyes at her. “Are you going to give me fecal matter if I try to move to it?”

  Scilla pressed a finger to her lips, but winked and vanished into the ceiling. “No. I’m done. Good luck in version three! From what I overheard, it’s even more complicated than the first two. Though lucky you! You are going to have such a long time to figure it out.”