Call it curiosity, compulsion or just plain stupidity. Either way, I found myself grabbing hold of the slender gem and carrying it over to the larger gem sitting atop the wagon. Both gems began to glow more as they approached each other, their brightness pushing back the ever-encroaching darkness. So much so the darkness was driven out of the hut entirely, leaving nothing but light to touch everything.
“What are you doing?” Trig asked as he watched me carefully move the long blue rod closer.
“I’m not sure…but I think these go together. Like they’re part of the same thing,” I said.
Trig was quick to get away from the body, stepping in between me and the wagon. “Easy there, we don’t know how any of this is supposed to work. And that gem was giving those Orphines a lot of nasty powers.”
“Including intelligence,” I said, narrowing my eyes in thought. “Trig, I think this is the vessel. But I think it’s been broken apart. Maybe if we put it back together, it’ll be in control of itself.”
“And will it be friendly?” Trig asked. “Because I completely blanked out when I saw the stone for the first time.”
“That remains to be seen…” I said. “But I think it’s worth the risk.”
“What’s going on?” came a shout outside, followed by a series of poundings against the brass door. It was a panicked, human voice, one belonging to that nameless armored man who had escorted us back to the village. He sounded completely human. “Why can’t I hear the Eldest anymore?”
I glanced at Trig. “Go handle the villagers. Explain what happened and then light real fires around the area. I’ll see where this avenue leads.”
Little Hig poked its head out from Trig’s pouch, where he had been presumably resting in for the last few hours. The monkey looked at me with those same judging eyes as before, though it seemed a little happier than before. Trig patted his pet on the head, rubbing it gently.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
“Not in the least, but I’m not afraid. Masara hate sonic attacks, and I’ve got a bow for it. I’ll be fine.”
More pounding on the door. More confused shouts by people who might be free to think and speak for the first time in…well, maybe their entire lives. Trig turned his attention to those doors and made a hasty exit, knowing he had a duty to follow orders first and ask questions after.
“Well…” I said, turning my attention back to the shimmering gemstone atop the wagon. It was glowing so brightly now, it almost seemed excited. Here’s hoping…
Chapter 30
For the second time that week, I was blinded. Touching the long, slender gem to its counterpart caused a massive flash of blue light, right when I was staring right at it. I fell backwards, yelping and clutching my eyes, regretting that I had been looking directly into the gem. My danger senses weren’t flaring at all, nor did I hear any rustling of movement, so this wasn’t an attack.
Rubbing my eyes a few times, I opened them slowly to allow sight to slowly return. Once the sparkles and lights faded from my eyesight, a figure came into view. It was a Masara! The gem had changed shaped wildly, transforming from a large chunk of stone into a much more familiar gembeast. Though…this one was different from Brain and his ilk. This one had longer limbs, that were jagged on the edges, and it was taller too. More shaped like those lightning warriors we had met on the battlefield a few times.
The octagonal head of this Masara titled as it looked at me. It was vibrating, I knew, trying to speak to me. I was quick to swap out my strength charm for the telepathy bracelet, to see if I could make contact.
Can you understand me? I asked.
Yes. You are intelligent. This is most excellent. I can assume that you have been searching for me specifically, for you slew the two creatures who had consumed my fractured body so long ago, it replied. The voice was…far more confident than Brain. It spoke in complete sentences and was focused.
Are you the vessel? I asked, transmitting the mental image that Brain had given me before. Vessel wasn’t the best translation possible, but it was the only word I could come up with.
Yes. Though I suspect you don’t know what that means. I am the Overseer, the central intelligence network that contains all knowledge of our hive. I am at the same time their knowledge, their direction and their voice, the Vessel explained. I found myself shrugging at these words, not knowing what they meant. I transmitted a few images of his comrades to him, with Brain in particular as their leader.
You have made contact with my pod. Excellent. I would ask that you take me to them. Though the task is not particularly an easy one. As you have seen, I am fractured. Though you found my central body and my intelligence core, I am still lacking one of my major components. My memory shard. All collected knowledge that I have attained here is more or less missing from my mind. This renders the entire purpose of my visit to this world useless.
The Vessel motioned towards a small hole in the left side of its torso. Close examination revealed that there was a jagged hole, almost like a puzzle slot missing the right piece. I cannot leave this wood without the memory shard. And I fear that a most wretched creature has devoured it.
I shrugged at that. Lucky for you we’re good at killing wretched creatures.
Perhaps. But how does one kill the darkness? It asked. For my light beats it back. Flames bring it great fear. But what can harm the shadow beast? How can one kill what you call a Titan without form?
I groaned at those words. You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t tell me that the eternal shadow out there is actually a Titan?
I fear that it is true. It is a Nursery Keeper. Monsters, as you call them, must be born in darkness, in the shadow conditions of their own world. This terrible caretaker provides darkness that nourishes. But it is still a beast of its own. It feeds upon those who are foolish not to carry light.
So there it was. There was no shadow beast. At least, not like what we had thought. There was no large, fierce creature scampering around in the shadows, looking to eat us. Rather, the shadow itself was the monster, a Titan, in fact. It loomed over us, watched us, hungered for us and when an opportunity showed itself, it would lunge upon anything in the darkness that was fatally wounded.
You seem distressed.
We thought the shadows were something else, I replied. Just a product of some kind of spell or maybe a natural wonder.
You know little about these things? Or even your own world, to believe that eternal darkness could be akin to landscape? The Vessel said. There was both incredulity and skepticism in his mental voice. As the Overseer, it seemed he actually had a personality, similar to a human mind.
It’s a long, horrible story, I replied. I don’t feel like getting into it right now. Not when we’ve got a Shadow Titan to kill.
So easily you take this task? Do you not wish to know what is in store? Do you not wish to analyze the risks and the dangers involved? Surely you cannot agree to slaying something you scarcely understand. Mere moments ago you had no idea the darkness was a comprehensive being. Now you so readily agree to slay it?
I chuckled a little. I’m guessing this is your first conversation with a human, isn’t it?
Indeed it is.
Well, you’re going to learn a bit about our tenacity, stupidity and above all, willingness to roll the dice, even when all the odds are against us, I replied. I turned my attention to the unattended corpse of the Orphine. It was full of fresh, delicious Bloodpoints to boost my numbers even more. Tell me how you ended up stuck in that monster while I prepare.
My enthusiasm served to both confuse and amuse the Overseer. It had a capacity for understanding humor, but not quite sarcasm, so it struggled to interpret my statement. I began to harvest the Orphine, all the while listening to the tale of the Overseer. Fortunately, he was entirely unlike his brethren. For while Brain had carefully revealed facts to me, as slowly as possible as to avoid divulging anything truly pertinent, the Vessel was eager to tell
everything to me, holding nothing back.
The Vessel’s memory was missing how exactly they came to arrive in our world, but they had been running from Titans. Apparently, whatever had invaded us had also helped itself to other worlds all the same, infesting, killing and devouring everything that they could. The Masara had stumbled across a world being consumed and attempted to escape, landing them here. The invaders broke through to our world, saw how prime and full of life it was, and began their invasion same as anywhere else.
What the Vessel could not tell me was whether there was an intelligence directing these invasions, or if they were simply like locusts, swarming across a vast network of worlds, just looking for the next meal. As far as he knew, there was no clear sign of intelligence, though what his memory stores held remained to be seen.
Once this ‘pod’, as they were referred to, landed in our world, they hid themselves for quite some time. First in the woods, then in the mountains and finally, inside the body of a fallen Titan. When on a reconnaissance mission with a few actual Venators (called Sogorn, the race of tiger-men that Rashar was a part of), the Vessel was surprised by a swarm of red Masara. He attempted to communicate with them, but for some reason they did not understand him. Thinking them peaceful, the Venators had their guards down, leading them to be slain within seconds of making contact with these electricity-wielding soldiers.
Once his escort was killed, these Masara shattered the Vessel’s body into several pieces. The pieces were thrown to three Orphines, who were known to swallow pretty much anything. Masara regenerated over time, so as long as a single shard remained, something the size of a tiny little speck, it could come back to life after a few hundred years. The Orphines were meant to consume the full pieces to prevent that from happening.
As I had guessed, the Vessel’s powers fused with each Orphine, giving them their own unique sets of abilities. The first simply took the body, so it gained mere psychic capacity, but without intelligence. The second consumed the brain, I guess, so that granted the Orphine a limited level of intelligence, strong enough to emulate speech and create its own method of generating food forever. While it was smart, it wasn’t smart enough to think beyond eating, creating all plans for the purpose of simply having meals forever.
The third Orphine was injured by a Venator long ago, leading the Shadow Titan to swallow it up. In the process, it gained access to the Vessel’s ability to grow gems, as well as a greater capacity of awareness and cunning. While it was still animal in nature, this Titan was capable of not just birthing new monsters, but infusing them with gems and directing them to different areas of the world.
When I asked about the timeline of these events, I was met with a blank stare. The Vessel spoke about all of this as if it had just happened, but it had no way of knowing when these events actually took place. Timekeeping was a component of its memory shard, it would seem. It was altogether possible that he had been here for hundreds of years. I was just hoping he wouldn’t end up trapped here for a hundred more. Honestly, if we could get this wrapped up in a week, I’d be grateful.
Chapter 31
I don’t think Trig or I were really expecting any kind of major gratitude from the villagers. Our motivations were more or less pure, simply powered by our duty as Venators to all of mankind. And while we were often met with words of thanks and gifts from those we helped, there was always that suspicious undercurrent in any village we came across. A worried kind of energy that caused villagers to look at us with fear.
But things were quite different with the nameless village of the Shadewood. Once the people realized that they were finally freed, they regarded us as saviors. A few even made declarations that we were gods, something I shot down rather quickly (though Trig tried to get me to weigh the pros and cons first.) Offerings were made to us of every kind, food, jewelry, artifacts from their old civilization, even marriage proposals.
I managed to hold myself with some level of decorum, opting to eschew any offers of rewards and instead focusing on how to get these poor people out of the woods as safely as possible. In reality, the village was composed of levels. The ground level was a crude display, almost like a market, meant to replicate how a normal village should look. The best behaved and the most attractive people were placed on the top level, in order to set visitors at ease, or even to seduce them into joining the village.
The second level was a hellish network of caves deep underground, where humans were placed into different holding rooms based on their purpose. These ‘chattel’ as they were called, had been more or less entirely suppressed from the moment they were born, opposed by the Vessel’s powerful psychic abilities. The Orphine had taken the natural ability of the Vessel to organize its own people and learned to warp them, foisting them upon the minds of the entire colony, long, long ago. Free will was rare. Those who were of the strongest minds were often forced to become the Shamed, locked in metal armor and sent out to hunt or fight at the Eldest’s whim.
The question of leaving such a village wasn’t even up for debate. The thankful village would follow us anywhere. They had no leaders, no hierarchy or structure. Just the few customs their village had long ago, the few traditions they were able to keep alive through storytelling when the Orphine was uninterested in forcing them to work on its behalf. We had 90 souls, men, women and children who needed to be taken to safety. True safety too, for the mountains were no place to put these people. Our only course of action would be to take them back home. Otherwise, they would most certainly perish. Their malnutrition alone meant feeding them would be a deadly ordeal. The Breach would be the best place to take them, for the medical staff there would be able to help, just as they helped the Stonecutters.
While I tried to deal with the logistics of moving so many people at once, Trig fell headfirst into his new status as an idol to these people. Having been usually the object of scorn and derision by most adults, he found that every word he spoke was hung onto by the people whom he had liberated. He took a rather fast liking to being loved and before I knew it, was married to one of the girls who had offered their hands to him.
I had a laundry list of objections to this marriage, but by the time I found out, it was nearly three days after they had been wed. The marriage ritual wasn’t public as much as it was very private and Trig introduced her as his wife almost casually, like it wasn’t a tremendous breach of ethics. I suppose in his mind, he didn’t really consider the ethical ramifications of marrying an impressionable woman who revered him, but I was quick to tear him a new one.
I told him he couldn’t just marry a woman just because he saved her life. That he needed to make sure that she understood she didn’t owe him anything. He countered by explaining that these people were never able to choose their mates before, meaning she was actually breaking tradition by offering her hand to him. I argued he was taking advantage. He countered by saying it didn’t matter much because he’d probably be dead soon. He should find happiness where he could.
There was little I could do at this point. There was no malice in him. Trig was young, after all, impressionable, stupid and probably too lustful to make a good decision. I made it quite clear that if he did anything to hurt this woman, or took advantage of her in any way, I’d exile him in a heartbeat. He promised that this wasn’t some fly-by-night kind of thing. That he would take care of her for the rest of his life.
Talking to his new wife, whose name was 41, I tried to see if she understood what she had done. She understood full well and actually took umbrage at my assumption she didn’t know any better. What I didn’t know was that poor 41’s brother, 40 had been the most recent meal for the Eldest. Trig had quite literally pulled her out of the jaws of death. I guess some things can’t be helped. Though I still told her I’d kick Trig’s ass any time she needed, day or night.
These are your people? The Vessel asked as I readied the Stabwagon for the short journey to the mountains. Once we were inside Brimley’s territory, the p
eople would be safe enough to wait for a relief force to arrive. I had made contact with Higgins and he agreed to send about 20 people my way, to escort the people back home. Much to my surprise, he also pleaded with me to come back, just for a short while. I should share what I learned, recover from my leg injury and then head to the Shadewood once more. A tempting offer.
Not really.
Who are they then?
I found myself shrugging at that. People in need. Strangers who were being held captive by the Orphine who consumed you.
If they are not from your pod, so to speak, why take responsibility for them? Why not leave them to their fate here? The Vessel asked. I was unsure if this was an honest question, or an attempt to get me to consider leaving these folks to die. Hard to tell with an utterly foreign being.
So, everyone in your pod, are they intelligent? Like you?
You mean sapient? Self-aware? Partially. Without their Overseer, they cannot function nor express themselves properly. They are like half a brain.
I figured as much. Humans are all intelligent. Every person is a fully aware pod, a pod of one. You might leave your own behind because you look at them as only extensions of yourself. But every person is a person. If you understand, I explained.
The Vessel vibrated quite a bit at this, pondering over what I said. So you are all independent? Yet you communicate and issue orders?
We have the freedom to ignore orders. Or to improvise as needed.
Like the Sogorn. Though, you do not communicate via pheromone. Your race is interesting, Avery. I would very much so like to dissect you should you die in the field.
Are you hitting on me? I asked. My joke was lost on the creature. It merely bristled at me, vibrating in curiosity. I lost interest in talking to the Masara as a few children ran up to me, all pointing and hooting. At first, I thought they were pointing at me, but it turned out Little Hig was catching their attention. He was standing atop the wagon, doing a handstand with ease. The children found this quite delightful. Seeing their smiles and laughter, despite the filth and mud on their faces and the rags that they wore, made me beam a little. I just hoped that I’d be able to get these people somewhere safe. For good.
Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Page 17