NOVEL FROG 12. Belly of the Beast
Damn bears come to my house and ignore me? It was demoralizing, to say the least. If a beast is gonna eat me, I can kill it with little to no guilt. If a beast would not eat me and was enjoying a midday nap, how was I supposed to kill it? A spear to the heart, of course, but that did a number on the mind. Coward, greedy, and mongrel were just a few of the accusations I heard in the chanting laughter of the beasts.
In a strange turn of events, I was completely ignored. The battle had turned from me skating to slaying to me searching and destroying. So it wasn't much different, but it felt different, and that was important. Since I was ignored, I focused on the more significant threats: the beasts still eating.
I knew my opponent was in trouble when I first saw it. I saw the wolfbear swallowing chunks of meat. It started to gag, and I thought it was choking. So I stepped in for the easy assist. My ax happened to get caught in the act of a back attack. The wolfbear folded its muscles and fur around my blade, and with an impressive act of bipedalism never displayed before by these beasts, it stood up. The power of the sudden stance ripped the ax and my attached hand along with my body toward its waiting paws. The bear swallowed me in the depths of its massive arms. My back was breaking, and my ribs were shredded. I couldn't scream. My face was buried into the belly of the beast, and I was being suffocated.
I didn't know what finally killed me. I knew it was painful and that I hated it. When the foul deed was finished, I woke up in a puddle of water. My hand stretched out, and blue refreshing mana accumulated on my fingers. Tenty laid on the ground next to my impaled body. His arm was stretched out—fallen from when he died. I averted my gaze from Sasha's impaled corpse. Flint's shattered pieces were harder to ignore as I scoured the ground for equipment. I needed weapons and protection. I could only get so far on my ice summons.
I nearly fled when I stumbled upon a pile of ash. I knew that was where Lana died, but I still hovered near to check the source of a glimmer—Light's Edge. Somehow, it survived the intense fire. It was the weapon I needed. I couldn't get myself to pick it up and nearly vomited when I tried. Fire, dirt, and ash were not potent enough to remove her scent.
I backed away from the sword and the remains of my love. "I will save you," I said solemnly. "Just give me time." I gave myself a moment to recover and continued to search the grounds further away from my friends. There was some quality gear here. Which wasn't surprising considering the battle that took place here. The Deliverer, the Emperor Mage of Alderi, was here, as was a host of his guards, the octopi people, and some mercenaries from a band I did not recognize. A rendezvous of big powers that ended in death and destruction.
Most of the gear I found belonged to the mercenaries. It was a sizable group of twenty members. Their clothing and armor were no better than the rags that I was wearing. That was another mystery why my clothing was so tattered. My mirage was far enough from the battle that it shouldn't have been damaged. The fact that it was still around was proof of its safety. I didn't find dead Alderians, and the Octi apparently didn't have more than the cloth robes they wore—cloth robes that mainly were burned.
My haul included a long sword of high steel enhanced with durability and sharpening scripts—basic upgrades that cost nearly ten thousand credits if you wanted the job done right. The scripting on the blade was nearly flawless; my guess is that the user paid double. The sword's sheath was damaged, so I settled for a belt that I tucked the sword into. I also found a quiver in decent condition that was still filled with arrows.
I didn't bother inspecting the bow and equipped the quiver with an attached pauldron covering my shoulder. The pauldron was also made of high steel, and the mercenary band's emblem was etched into it. The symbol was a sword shrouded in fire. I tried to access my wealth of knowledge on the emblem and came up short—Fire Blade… Burning Blades… Crimson Cutters? Fire could be crimson, right? That felt right.
As I turned to leave, I spotted a hand covered in leather. The emblem must've distracted me from thoroughly searching the dead. I grabbed the dismembered hand and placed it against mine. The act was unnecessary; it was clear the gloved hand was smaller. Still, it was a nice glove; it had to be if it survived this disaster. My commitment to loot the dead was renewed as I searched for the body with the missing hand. The completion of the quest promised a great reward, a matching glove.
"Why do you persist in wasting so much time?" I instinctively looked around for the speaker. Tents' speaking was inconsistent. It was only in my mind, or he was talking like he was near me. That right there was evidence he was messing my mind.
"This was your gift, wasn't it?"
"For you to squabble with the dead and play handsies?" The squid said mid-glove slip. The problem was I had no wrist to hold onto and was far too squeamish to reach my finger into the open hand. Even if the blood was dried, I didn't want to change it. There are so many tiny bones in the palm. One of them could easily pierce my skin. That was an instant reset. So I delicately held on to the fingers and shimmied the glove off. I almost had enough flesh to grip before I was rightfully called out.
"Well, he wasn't going to need it anytime soon." I shook my head in disgust. "Dead joke. I know. I developed a nasty habit in my solo years." I extracted the glove and dropped the hand, heel-kicking it behind me to hide my dirty deed. I didn't know if my parasite could see me, but I was feeling extra judged. That didn't stop me from completing my quest.
"Congratulations, you found the missing hand."
"Glove," I said with a corrective tone. I didn't know why Tents brought out all of my arrogance. Maybe it was the tentacles that I imagined fixed in a questioning shrug. "I know. No respectable swordsman wore gloves… gauntlets maybe, but that's different."
"Dueling gloves." Squid's response was quick and unexpected.
"I said respectable." Damn. I couldn't bite my tongue fast enough.
"So why would you want gloves?"
"I'm not a swordsman, and my sword was made of ice," I said, explaining everything and nothing at the same time. If Tents was picking up what I was throwing down, he'd understand. "It's slippery when wet." Surely, he understood now.
"You do not have the gift of time." Cal didn't understand. "You only have a week, and then you will die if you can even make it that long." Harsh but fair. My track record has been astounding as of late. That didn't matter. 'The tides turned to those that turned them,' —or so they said.
It just so happened that in a moment of pure inspiration, I spotted a mercenary I hadn't yet inspected. I held my head high as I casually waded towards him. In my mind, I could hear the sloshing of steps as Tents reluctantly followed.
"And then what?" I was nearly at the body, and I needed a good distraction. I slowed my steps.
"You know exactly what. The same thing that has been happening. You come back to life to die again in another week."
"The gift of time…" Tents forced a chuckle. My distraction landed.
"It was not a gift. It was a curse. You will grow tired of these cycles. Life will lose meaning. You will experience emptiness and despair. Any happiness will be false and fleeting. In time, you will learn that time was not your friend and never was." I paused mid-glove snatching to consider the warning.
"Is that why you gave up?"
"I never had a chance." Our conversation lingered in silence. I wasn't sure if I should prod out more information, act delicately, or complete my quest. My nature ruled out the first option, allowing the second to take place, and my hand was already committed to the task. It was more weird and wrong to be holding the corpse's lone hand at this point.
I snatched my reward from the claws of defeat just as Tents started to speak again. "The Monarch Stone was never meant for me. I was just Balthazar's attendant. He was our champion. It made no sense that your emperor was here, and it made less sense that he was immune to our powers. Balthazar was a god among our people and died to a scourge like them."
It took all my effort to keep my thoughts tamed and retorts silenced. My parasite was feeling things and I could respect it. I had enough sorrow that I tried to keep buried. I'd hate for someone to trudge up the memories and desecrate them with mockery.
"I ingested the Monarch Stone, as Balthazar commanded with his dying thoughts. Your emperor might have anticipated our arrival but was clueless about our power. Still, I was a demon in your world. As I consumed the stone, my body was cut down. I tried to escape my death two hundred times. I lived thousands of years in that time. Each path always led to death."
"So why did you bring me into this mess? I was content with my absolution."
"I do not know." It was subtle, but I noticed a trace of deceit in his denial. Maybe it was how fast he responded or the cadence of his speech. It was drastically different from when he was sharing his story. "You should not have been caught in my recursions. The fact that you were remembering each death was an anomaly. For people whose existence was based on facts, truth, and knowledge, anomalies were either a blessing or a curse. I think in my moment of desperation, I looked to you for hope." There it was again—some more false honesty.
Tents was dangerous. He was playing to my emotions and trying to dig up a desire to be needed… to feel important… to be a hero. He knew I wanted to save my friends, and he was pushing me to have the same feeling for his people. No, he wanted me to relate to his plight and feel the need to help. It was a good move. If he could help me save my friends, did I not owe it to him to try and help him save his?