Ymiden 3rd. The Untold.
Continues from here.
There had been something distinctly off about his dreamscape. Even looking back at it with bleary eyes through the kaleidoscope of chaos that Emea represented, there had been something unnerving and unnatural about it, even in the last moments of relative normality. It was even more unnerving that the sense of unease faded when he returned, to all places, to the chaos of broken Emea again. Here, there wasn't even anything remotely 'normal' for his mind to grasp. Just an endless sea of floating colourful orbs, bunched together in clusters like some sort of fungus and spread out in all directions. Most of them looked broken and dull. Like the sphere he'd woken up beneath. It seemed everything in Emea was in some state of decay. The vibrant colours seemed more 'normal', more pale and washed in odd patches and cracks, the forms that they took, houses, castles, forests, whole cities, seemed to peel away at the edges, with entire buildings crumbling into flakes like dry, old paint.
"This place wasn't made for us, was it." In truth, they'd known this from the beginning. The lands of dreams, the Cathedral, the field of corpses... the Miasma and all its murky, damp secrets. Now this. A broken, chaotic mess of a dimension, so unstable that it was falling apart.
"None of it was made for us," Greyhide replied. "You saw the Orbs. Bigger than any sun, so big when you stood on the surface and stared in one direction, it went on forever. How many of those are there, here? More than we can count... and that's just here." When space didn't work as it was meant to, entire worlds could be crammed into a space the size of a single doorway. In a place where reality was whatever you made of it, someone with the power to will it so could create anything. Fields. Forests. An entire world. Their world. "Think of how... infinitely big this place is. Could be. How many things could fit inside, if you really wanted to." Another Idalos. Several new ones. The people within it would have so much to explore, more than they ever could do in a lifetime, hell in several; they'd never even stop and think what was beyond, because what else could there be?
Archailist settled on Greyhide's head, a somber look on his face and the mystic lights of Emea in his cloudy eyes. "This isn't a place built for any of us. It simply is. It was likely here long before any of us were born, it'll be around long after we die... and our existence, to an infinite plane of infinite imagination, is a brief speck of fleeting light among untold others." For the first time, his fleeting existence and its true impact on the world was put into perspective. His part in the grand scheme. Even his newfound place as a child of the Immortals seemed childishly inconsequential. How many other worlds could potentially be out there. How many other worlds could inhabit them? How many other beings. How many other lives, rising and falling at that exact same moment?
It was truly terrifying to even comprehend.
"We've been followed, you realise." He did. It wasn't something one could miss; the hairs rising on the back of his neck, the feeling of eyes watching from a distance, even in this place. Not to mention, this thing wasn't intent on ambushing them, since it made no attempt to hide itself. "Then... why are we waiting here?" What use was there in doing anything else? This was their world, not his. Take a wolf and sit in the middle of a city, he thought ruefully, and they didn't tend to do so well when the humans got aggressive. He'd learned that the hard way, the first day he tried to bring Greyhide into Andaris with him. Attack at the first provocation and they'd end before they began. They'd have to wait for it to come to them. Thankfully, it wasn't long. Perhaps it realised that they'd noticed it. Doubtful. He'd done nothing to mask his acknowledgement.
In some rare few places, debris littered Emea. The remains of broken Orbs; perhaps the manifestation of strong memories and dreams, broken and corrupted after countless arcs decaying in chaotic ether. Here it resembled large, black rocks, stained by ash and jagged in shape, with pieces of dust and soil orbiting around them slowly. The smallest were no bigger than one paw. The largest was only slightly bigger than Vabina. It was from one of those pieces that the creature bled slowly into view, for a moment passing seamlessly into the stone, in part thanks to the fact that the creature was a deep obsidian black - somehow even darker than the black rocks. Instead of reflecting the vibrant lights and flares of chaotic Emea, it absorbed them into its flesh, making it appear even more alien and imposing as it slowly rose and exposed its full form.
Even casting aside the light-draining skin, the thing looked... wrong. Vaguely humanoid, with a head, two arms and two legs, the thing looked horribly misshapen; its nose and mouth stretched far too long in front of the rest of its face, both legs bending the wrong way and ending in what almost looked like hooves; thick, blunt, round feet lacking toes or really any feature at all. Suddenly its head practically split in two, steam hissing from the corners of its open mouth as a low, deep gravely noise spilled out... and he made out a pair of ears, a mane... it was a horse. Or at least, it tried to imitate one. Its body parts smashed together awkwardly, but the further it stepped into the light, the more refined its details became, the more seamless the transition, until he could no longer truly tell where one ended and the other began. Its eyes were both human in expression and utterly feral. Both nostrils flared in a proud snort as it regarded him and his pack, one foot forward and the other back. Studying him, like he truly was a beast. Could it sense the difference between him and any other wolf? Did it know what wolves even were?
After a long silence and a complete lack of movement, it made up its mind, and from a waistcloth he'd never even realised it was wearing, the horse-creature pulled two silverish twisted pieces of metal and held them in a confusing stance. "What do we do?" Squeak asked, swallowing as the other three wolves automatically arranged themselves between him and the beast.
He didn't know. The pounding in his chest practically drowned out the words. Vri had said nothing about other creatures in this place, or what he was supposed to do about them. What would he have done alone, without Karem's help? Hell, what was he supposed to do now? The thing stared at him with black, beady and inhuman eyes, black smoke creeping from the corners of its mouth with every raspy exhale, and for the first time he noticed jewelry. Chains piercing its nose, eyebrow, jaw. Decorations taken from its victims? No. No, he wasn't ready for this. He couldn't die again. This isn't how it's meant to be. "What, like you weren't supposed to die on the boat?" Archailist asked in his ear. "There is no way things are meant to be, only the way they are. Our last-minute rescuing won't come. The heroes don't always win. Nothing is guaranteed."
The shaking in his limbs wouldn't stop and wetness prickled in his eyes. He'd never been a fighter; it was why he'd taken up the bow and arrow, to let other people get up close and personal. He'd only taken it up on occasion, when his life or others had been in danger. With the arrival of Greyhide, Cold and Myrth... Karem's blessing and Faith's support, he'd joined the Lightning Knights in the fullproof belief that he could finally handle himself on the battlefield. When something went wrong, he'd be able to fix it himself... or Faith would be able to step in. Even in death, she'd be able to help him, like Qit. No matter how bad things got, he could always count on Xithyria, or her, or... someone. But nothing, not her, not a single one of his animals could prevent what happened on that boat, and when that bolt struck his chest, he'd felt nothing. No release. No future. No resistance. Nothing at all. Now there was nothing to stop him slipping back, and when he did, he'd be gone forever. Not even Vri, his last hope, could save him from that end.
In this massive, unending universe, impossible to understand or even comprehend... there was nothing left to save him, except himself.
But he was more than just one man, now. He could feel each and every one of the four wolves before him. The Zephyrus at his back. The squirrel, nodding silently at his shoulder, and the water-spirit that puffed its chest defiantly. His mind was a network shared between them. There was doubt. There was worry. None of them were perfect, but none of them were alone to face it. They never would be. Even Nir'wei could draw from that. "I am more than the sum of my parts," he whispered, chest swelling. "And I have many more parts than you."
The creature, the Black Horse, didn't listen. Even now, after fully exposing itself, it moved at a languid pace, content to take its time. Until they struck first. Cold ran forward with a snap of his jaws and the being moved impossibly fast, spinning its blades in a flurry of motion and slashing through Cold's neck. In an ordinary creature with organs, it would have been fatal. Cold shuddered, his image shuddering as ephemera leaked from the heavy gash, but before the thing could strike again, Greyhide leaped over him, Myrth underneath; as it shot both swords towards them instead, Squeak rushed around its side. It had to abandon its first attacks to escape, putting it on the defensive as Cold resurfaced and attacked from behind. Trying to confront even one wolf at a time left openings for the other three to exploit... but this thing was inhumanly, unnaturally fast. Its twisted twin blades were blurs of motion as it nimbly spun them between its fingers, snapping the tip straight through Greyhide's left leg, ripping outwards in a spill of ephemera into Myrth's flank and sending her spinning mid-strike in cartwheels. It could sense whenever they came at it from multiple angles, spinning on the spot to deliver bone-crunching kicks with steel-like hooves into Squeak's head and even Nir'weis side, even when they should have been dancing in its blind spot.
It wasn't just naturally, physically powerful and keen; it was skilled. The way it spun those twisted Emean blades was more than just frantic swinging. Though they moved extremely fast and in entirely unpredictable directions, there was an unmistakable discipline to them. It struck at places he wasn't to cut off the places he could go; attacking from wild and unpredictable angles to make it impossible to anticipate exit strategies. Could it predict where he was going to be? It certainly acted outside the natural order in more ways than one. It misunderstood their abilities too, though. Each strike it landed intended to kill, but the spirits, wounded, pushed back and redoubled their efforts instead, catching it off-balance. Likewise, the blows they struck, sinking fangs and raking claws over the being's form scraped as if pushing against a brittle yet firm layer of stone before meeting flesh. They bled for only a moment before sealing back over and repairing itself, refusing to let them push the advantage. Against just a selection of wolves, its armour could shrug them off together and regenerate whatever meagre progress they made. He doubted that even if he'd had his bow, he'd have made no difference at all against a creature this strong.
Nir'wei joined the fray regardless, Vabina tearing through its flashes of metal with a sharp bolt of lightning from her horn and giving him the opening to strike home straight for the throat... and when he pulled away, just as the beast raised both blades to try and strike for him instead, Cold snapped up from the side and closed his fangs around its neck, spilling chunks of black blood and sinew as he ripped it out. Greyhide, Myrth, Squeak and Nir'wei together all pressed the advantage, leaving no room to recover, and while its focus spread across four different opponents all attacking simultaneously, Vabina struck again, a bolt of lightning straight into its back, cracking its blackened reinforced skin stunning it for just long enough for her to slice its back with a double-rake of her huge claws, tearing huge strips of alien flesh from its hide, exposing discoloured and mismatched organs poking from between bulging black muscles. Squeak and Myrth grabbed a wrist each and tore strips of tendons between their teeth, forcing the creature to spit a bloody cry and drop its swords... but even then, they weren't done. Not even close.
This was more than shooting with a bow, or dueling with a sword. This was more even than a frantic scramble for his life with everything he had. This was the way an animal fought. Sinking his teeth into its flesh and tasting it on his tongue. Every rush came so close to its body that he could make out its body odour. Every time it swung one of its swords, it could have sunk straight through his neck and killed him there and then. No matter how much they were beaten, struck, stabbed, this thing would not hear their cries for mercy, would not surrender for pity or code or law. The Heart of the Pack thrummed deep within them all. They. Would. not. Fail.
Its regenerative speed was simply too fast, already they could see its muscles beginning to stitch back together again, but with the concentrated effort of six creatures tearing through its body, its regenerative speeds began to slow as it lost more mass. They piled over its body, tearing into its stomach and dragging out entrails; its head bloodied to a messy pulp until even its inhuman screams turned to gargles. Its alien physiology pulled bare, one strip at a time. Nir'wei tore at its throat again and again, long after it had died, black, viscous, warm blood drying on his muzzle. His chest heaved, but whether it was from exertion or fear or anger or something else entirely, he couldn't possibly tell. It didn't matter. The corpse that floated before them was a wreck. Nothing even remotely human or animal remained; just bloody strips and pulp. In the moment, he'd never even thought about it. He hadn't thought about anything at all. All that mattered was fighting, killing, winning. All he'd seen was his life and how he needed to do absolutely anything to make sure he kept it. Because of that, they'd won.
"The strong survive," he panted softly, watching Cyshe picking through the bloody wreck for something that had been lodged deep inside its chest. A stone, where its heart should have been. Come to think of it, a lot of its bones looked black and almost iridescent. What a strange and horrid creature.
On instinct, he dipped his muzzle and began to tear strips of its raw flesh again, swallowing the bitter meat and rolling the taste on his tongue. Grey, Cold, Myrth, Squeak and Vabina dipped their muzzles to do the same. Though none of them required food to survive anymore, they had earned this. A trophy of their victory... and a warning to any other being that found the remains. ;Our enemies shall become our prey... and our prey shall become our food.'
Continues from here.
There had been something distinctly off about his dreamscape. Even looking back at it with bleary eyes through the kaleidoscope of chaos that Emea represented, there had been something unnerving and unnatural about it, even in the last moments of relative normality. It was even more unnerving that the sense of unease faded when he returned, to all places, to the chaos of broken Emea again. Here, there wasn't even anything remotely 'normal' for his mind to grasp. Just an endless sea of floating colourful orbs, bunched together in clusters like some sort of fungus and spread out in all directions. Most of them looked broken and dull. Like the sphere he'd woken up beneath. It seemed everything in Emea was in some state of decay. The vibrant colours seemed more 'normal', more pale and washed in odd patches and cracks, the forms that they took, houses, castles, forests, whole cities, seemed to peel away at the edges, with entire buildings crumbling into flakes like dry, old paint.
"This place wasn't made for us, was it." In truth, they'd known this from the beginning. The lands of dreams, the Cathedral, the field of corpses... the Miasma and all its murky, damp secrets. Now this. A broken, chaotic mess of a dimension, so unstable that it was falling apart.
"None of it was made for us," Greyhide replied. "You saw the Orbs. Bigger than any sun, so big when you stood on the surface and stared in one direction, it went on forever. How many of those are there, here? More than we can count... and that's just here." When space didn't work as it was meant to, entire worlds could be crammed into a space the size of a single doorway. In a place where reality was whatever you made of it, someone with the power to will it so could create anything. Fields. Forests. An entire world. Their world. "Think of how... infinitely big this place is. Could be. How many things could fit inside, if you really wanted to." Another Idalos. Several new ones. The people within it would have so much to explore, more than they ever could do in a lifetime, hell in several; they'd never even stop and think what was beyond, because what else could there be?
Archailist settled on Greyhide's head, a somber look on his face and the mystic lights of Emea in his cloudy eyes. "This isn't a place built for any of us. It simply is. It was likely here long before any of us were born, it'll be around long after we die... and our existence, to an infinite plane of infinite imagination, is a brief speck of fleeting light among untold others." For the first time, his fleeting existence and its true impact on the world was put into perspective. His part in the grand scheme. Even his newfound place as a child of the Immortals seemed childishly inconsequential. How many other worlds could potentially be out there. How many other worlds could inhabit them? How many other beings. How many other lives, rising and falling at that exact same moment?
It was truly terrifying to even comprehend.
"We've been followed, you realise." He did. It wasn't something one could miss; the hairs rising on the back of his neck, the feeling of eyes watching from a distance, even in this place. Not to mention, this thing wasn't intent on ambushing them, since it made no attempt to hide itself. "Then... why are we waiting here?" What use was there in doing anything else? This was their world, not his. Take a wolf and sit in the middle of a city, he thought ruefully, and they didn't tend to do so well when the humans got aggressive. He'd learned that the hard way, the first day he tried to bring Greyhide into Andaris with him. Attack at the first provocation and they'd end before they began. They'd have to wait for it to come to them. Thankfully, it wasn't long. Perhaps it realised that they'd noticed it. Doubtful. He'd done nothing to mask his acknowledgement.
In some rare few places, debris littered Emea. The remains of broken Orbs; perhaps the manifestation of strong memories and dreams, broken and corrupted after countless arcs decaying in chaotic ether. Here it resembled large, black rocks, stained by ash and jagged in shape, with pieces of dust and soil orbiting around them slowly. The smallest were no bigger than one paw. The largest was only slightly bigger than Vabina. It was from one of those pieces that the creature bled slowly into view, for a moment passing seamlessly into the stone, in part thanks to the fact that the creature was a deep obsidian black - somehow even darker than the black rocks. Instead of reflecting the vibrant lights and flares of chaotic Emea, it absorbed them into its flesh, making it appear even more alien and imposing as it slowly rose and exposed its full form.
Even casting aside the light-draining skin, the thing looked... wrong. Vaguely humanoid, with a head, two arms and two legs, the thing looked horribly misshapen; its nose and mouth stretched far too long in front of the rest of its face, both legs bending the wrong way and ending in what almost looked like hooves; thick, blunt, round feet lacking toes or really any feature at all. Suddenly its head practically split in two, steam hissing from the corners of its open mouth as a low, deep gravely noise spilled out... and he made out a pair of ears, a mane... it was a horse. Or at least, it tried to imitate one. Its body parts smashed together awkwardly, but the further it stepped into the light, the more refined its details became, the more seamless the transition, until he could no longer truly tell where one ended and the other began. Its eyes were both human in expression and utterly feral. Both nostrils flared in a proud snort as it regarded him and his pack, one foot forward and the other back. Studying him, like he truly was a beast. Could it sense the difference between him and any other wolf? Did it know what wolves even were?
After a long silence and a complete lack of movement, it made up its mind, and from a waistcloth he'd never even realised it was wearing, the horse-creature pulled two silverish twisted pieces of metal and held them in a confusing stance. "What do we do?" Squeak asked, swallowing as the other three wolves automatically arranged themselves between him and the beast.
He didn't know. The pounding in his chest practically drowned out the words. Vri had said nothing about other creatures in this place, or what he was supposed to do about them. What would he have done alone, without Karem's help? Hell, what was he supposed to do now? The thing stared at him with black, beady and inhuman eyes, black smoke creeping from the corners of its mouth with every raspy exhale, and for the first time he noticed jewelry. Chains piercing its nose, eyebrow, jaw. Decorations taken from its victims? No. No, he wasn't ready for this. He couldn't die again. This isn't how it's meant to be. "What, like you weren't supposed to die on the boat?" Archailist asked in his ear. "There is no way things are meant to be, only the way they are. Our last-minute rescuing won't come. The heroes don't always win. Nothing is guaranteed."
The shaking in his limbs wouldn't stop and wetness prickled in his eyes. He'd never been a fighter; it was why he'd taken up the bow and arrow, to let other people get up close and personal. He'd only taken it up on occasion, when his life or others had been in danger. With the arrival of Greyhide, Cold and Myrth... Karem's blessing and Faith's support, he'd joined the Lightning Knights in the fullproof belief that he could finally handle himself on the battlefield. When something went wrong, he'd be able to fix it himself... or Faith would be able to step in. Even in death, she'd be able to help him, like Qit. No matter how bad things got, he could always count on Xithyria, or her, or... someone. But nothing, not her, not a single one of his animals could prevent what happened on that boat, and when that bolt struck his chest, he'd felt nothing. No release. No future. No resistance. Nothing at all. Now there was nothing to stop him slipping back, and when he did, he'd be gone forever. Not even Vri, his last hope, could save him from that end.
In this massive, unending universe, impossible to understand or even comprehend... there was nothing left to save him, except himself.
But he was more than just one man, now. He could feel each and every one of the four wolves before him. The Zephyrus at his back. The squirrel, nodding silently at his shoulder, and the water-spirit that puffed its chest defiantly. His mind was a network shared between them. There was doubt. There was worry. None of them were perfect, but none of them were alone to face it. They never would be. Even Nir'wei could draw from that. "I am more than the sum of my parts," he whispered, chest swelling. "And I have many more parts than you."
The creature, the Black Horse, didn't listen. Even now, after fully exposing itself, it moved at a languid pace, content to take its time. Until they struck first. Cold ran forward with a snap of his jaws and the being moved impossibly fast, spinning its blades in a flurry of motion and slashing through Cold's neck. In an ordinary creature with organs, it would have been fatal. Cold shuddered, his image shuddering as ephemera leaked from the heavy gash, but before the thing could strike again, Greyhide leaped over him, Myrth underneath; as it shot both swords towards them instead, Squeak rushed around its side. It had to abandon its first attacks to escape, putting it on the defensive as Cold resurfaced and attacked from behind. Trying to confront even one wolf at a time left openings for the other three to exploit... but this thing was inhumanly, unnaturally fast. Its twisted twin blades were blurs of motion as it nimbly spun them between its fingers, snapping the tip straight through Greyhide's left leg, ripping outwards in a spill of ephemera into Myrth's flank and sending her spinning mid-strike in cartwheels. It could sense whenever they came at it from multiple angles, spinning on the spot to deliver bone-crunching kicks with steel-like hooves into Squeak's head and even Nir'weis side, even when they should have been dancing in its blind spot.
It wasn't just naturally, physically powerful and keen; it was skilled. The way it spun those twisted Emean blades was more than just frantic swinging. Though they moved extremely fast and in entirely unpredictable directions, there was an unmistakable discipline to them. It struck at places he wasn't to cut off the places he could go; attacking from wild and unpredictable angles to make it impossible to anticipate exit strategies. Could it predict where he was going to be? It certainly acted outside the natural order in more ways than one. It misunderstood their abilities too, though. Each strike it landed intended to kill, but the spirits, wounded, pushed back and redoubled their efforts instead, catching it off-balance. Likewise, the blows they struck, sinking fangs and raking claws over the being's form scraped as if pushing against a brittle yet firm layer of stone before meeting flesh. They bled for only a moment before sealing back over and repairing itself, refusing to let them push the advantage. Against just a selection of wolves, its armour could shrug them off together and regenerate whatever meagre progress they made. He doubted that even if he'd had his bow, he'd have made no difference at all against a creature this strong.
Nir'wei joined the fray regardless, Vabina tearing through its flashes of metal with a sharp bolt of lightning from her horn and giving him the opening to strike home straight for the throat... and when he pulled away, just as the beast raised both blades to try and strike for him instead, Cold snapped up from the side and closed his fangs around its neck, spilling chunks of black blood and sinew as he ripped it out. Greyhide, Myrth, Squeak and Nir'wei together all pressed the advantage, leaving no room to recover, and while its focus spread across four different opponents all attacking simultaneously, Vabina struck again, a bolt of lightning straight into its back, cracking its blackened reinforced skin stunning it for just long enough for her to slice its back with a double-rake of her huge claws, tearing huge strips of alien flesh from its hide, exposing discoloured and mismatched organs poking from between bulging black muscles. Squeak and Myrth grabbed a wrist each and tore strips of tendons between their teeth, forcing the creature to spit a bloody cry and drop its swords... but even then, they weren't done. Not even close.
This was more than shooting with a bow, or dueling with a sword. This was more even than a frantic scramble for his life with everything he had. This was the way an animal fought. Sinking his teeth into its flesh and tasting it on his tongue. Every rush came so close to its body that he could make out its body odour. Every time it swung one of its swords, it could have sunk straight through his neck and killed him there and then. No matter how much they were beaten, struck, stabbed, this thing would not hear their cries for mercy, would not surrender for pity or code or law. The Heart of the Pack thrummed deep within them all. They. Would. not. Fail.
Its regenerative speed was simply too fast, already they could see its muscles beginning to stitch back together again, but with the concentrated effort of six creatures tearing through its body, its regenerative speeds began to slow as it lost more mass. They piled over its body, tearing into its stomach and dragging out entrails; its head bloodied to a messy pulp until even its inhuman screams turned to gargles. Its alien physiology pulled bare, one strip at a time. Nir'wei tore at its throat again and again, long after it had died, black, viscous, warm blood drying on his muzzle. His chest heaved, but whether it was from exertion or fear or anger or something else entirely, he couldn't possibly tell. It didn't matter. The corpse that floated before them was a wreck. Nothing even remotely human or animal remained; just bloody strips and pulp. In the moment, he'd never even thought about it. He hadn't thought about anything at all. All that mattered was fighting, killing, winning. All he'd seen was his life and how he needed to do absolutely anything to make sure he kept it. Because of that, they'd won.
"The strong survive," he panted softly, watching Cyshe picking through the bloody wreck for something that had been lodged deep inside its chest. A stone, where its heart should have been. Come to think of it, a lot of its bones looked black and almost iridescent. What a strange and horrid creature.
On instinct, he dipped his muzzle and began to tear strips of its raw flesh again, swallowing the bitter meat and rolling the taste on his tongue. Grey, Cold, Myrth, Squeak and Vabina dipped their muzzles to do the same. Though none of them required food to survive anymore, they had earned this. A trophy of their victory... and a warning to any other being that found the remains. ;Our enemies shall become our prey... and our prey shall become our food.'
