An Unwavering Craftsman

"T̶̨̉̏h̷̼͙̗̹͋̋̋͠è̶̦͂́́y̴̪̆ ̵̱̦̾̓̃͜ḱ̷̪̪̈́̀ņ̴̹̠͓̌̒͌̎o̶͈͔̾̽w̷̨̮̣̅͒͛̔ ̶̢̻̜̐͠y̷̗̏͛̐ͅö̷̢͓̖̿͌ǘ̷͈͍̾͒̑r̴̼̹̪̓̌̒͜ ̵̳̞͙͔̈́̀͐͌t̵̼͍̏̍́̅h̷͓̝̜̥́̾ỏ̶̡͉̃̅ů̵͖́͋̕g̴̺̋͂͝h̸̯̓́̅t̶͈̀͆̋͜ş̶̂́.̷̥͗́̉͜ ̸̣̹̯͔̕͠Ȳ̸͈̬ô̸̻ù̸̦̃̾ŗ̶̰͍̆̾̿͛ ̶͍̊̇̏̈́i̵̡͍̬̤͋̇̃̌d̵̬͍̒̐ẽ̴͎̲͈̾̋͝à̷ͅͅs̷̢͚͊̀.̴̦̭̟̀͒͛͆ ̶̟͉͓̈́Y̸̡̟͙͆̈́̉́o̶̻̘̗̙͋͝u̸͎̳͖͕̅r̸͖̭̜͓̅́ ̶̥̞̌͆̌̋ͅm̷͙̪͔̽͂̚͠ḯ̵̟͙͕ṉ̷̨̝̘̔̿̓̏d̵͓͔̿̀.̵̺̝̮̆͆ ̸͇̞͋̐̋͝T̸̪̓ḩ̴̳̞̓e̶̢̞͚͂͑͠͝y̶̳̦͋͗̒̂ ̴̛̠̪̒̄͒w̸̫͇̫̑̔i̶̜͉͚̖͂̾̓̓l̷̺̰̎͂́͗ļ̶̲̟͖͗̏̏̚ ̴̨̛̮͎͋͒͝n̵̠͙͝o̷͓̻̜̿̾ṭ̴̘̟̬̈̇ ̷̢͈̼̯̅̓̎̾ẇ̴͉͓́͗̏a̵̜̭͑͆̏̋͜i̵̖͊̎̽̀͜t̷̘͐͜.̴̡̫̊̊ ̴̢͍̭̲͝D̶̞͉̑͆̂͑e̵̪͉̐̈̕l̸̪̦̫͌̿̓̄ä̷̩̘͇͕́y̴̘̻͉͎͒.̶̪͕̦̍́̕ ̶̗̣͌T̸̓̀̽ͅä̸͙̻̬r̵̼̫͚̦̈́r̷͉̀̾̈́y̷̼͉͇̱̑.̶̧͚̖̥͊͘ ̸͇̲̽̅̓Ȧ̸̤͝ ̴͙̽̈́̅m̴͔̮̿͑̒͝u̵̙̦͗̊̔͝ͅr̸̜̩̬̓̉d̸̲̈e̴͙̥̟̖̓r̴̳̀͌.̸͔̬͇̅̊̚ ̶̺͕̦̱̇̋̓̾A̸̝͌̍͘ ̴̙͇̥́͑͝l̷̢͚̖̫͛̋͂̑i̷̱͌͌͗͠f̷̠̺͓͒̀́e̵̹͈̞̳͝.̴̤͖͚͇͂͆̇ ̴̡͕̺͐̎͝A̴̢̦͎͍͊n̴̢̳͕̑͘̕ ̷̦̖̾͌ê̵̼x̵͎͚̽̾͒c̷͕͉̓ṳ̵̰̇s̴͕̭̀͂̉ë̷͉̖̙́̕.̷͓̊͝ ̴̪̝̫̓̋̄̀A̷̠̔̉̚ ̶̦̫̀ḽ̵̳͑̽i̴̛̞̾͂̈́e̴̡̐̏́ ̷̹͕̃́͐f̴̎̀̈͊͜͜r̴͎͉̦̓̅o̵̗̯̓m̸̨̝̻͘͝ ̷̤͔͕͆̃ť̵͍̊͝h̸̗̟̿̉̂ȅ̸͍̜̘͕ ̷̜̾l̷̻͖̍̔̄̈́i̵̺͋a̸͇͖̔̓̌r̶̗̈́͑̀ṣ̷̺̙̅̅̕.̸̼̮̻̤̿̕ ̸̛̖͍̳͕̀̈́T̶̤̝̥͚͌h̸̟̼̊̃ͅͅe̵͇͐̋̈́͠ ̶̣͈̽̚u̶̡̡͓͛̓n̸̳̈́̚͜d̵̩̂̆̀e̷̘̺̿̓f̵̺̖̱̾̓̚ȩ̵̨͖̠̊͛n̵͕̰͍̝̍d̴̹̫͙̈́̑̊͠e̵̢̼̓͐̊d̴̛͎̀ ̶̘̰͋́f̴̡̛̼̗̈́̉ö̷̙̻͚́̇̚͘r̴̬̖̲̮͛͑ ̴̡̗͔̭͆̍͒͠t̵̺̊̂̈́h̶͎̳̔͊̓e̶͈̻͚͆͜ ̴̢̝̺̜̈ṗ̵̫̜̇͂̏r̷̫̫̔͗̈́́ͅo̵͕͛̃t̷̅̆̎͜͝ë̸̬͐c̸̥͈̻̉͋͊͜t̶̬̎̾̄ͅĕ̵̯̟̈́̋͝ḓ̴̡͓͕̿͝.̵̢̞̩͕͋̈͝͠ ̵̘̒͆̂W̵̤̞̺̓̒̓̎h̶̫̮̘̥̆͊͠͝ę̸̫͐͂̆n̸̛̟̦̾́͜ͅ ̴̦̋͋̏t̶̛͙̪̥͔̊h̷̬̀́̾͘e̴͔̯̼̾̔͘ ̸̈͜ẗ̶̻̙̲́r̷̗̅̍̓͜͠ä̶̰͙̭́̈́̀̕ḯ̴̥͉̳t̸̝̭̙͆o̵̤͉̯̍̇͝r̵̗̣̫͒̌́͆s̵̯̹͉͕͋ ̵̬̥̼̓̇c̶̫̪̝͎̾̌ŏ̸̪̊͊m̷͖̐̔ȩ̷̩̠̀͗̇͝ ̶̟͕͗͝͝f̷̨͆o̷͉͔͓̓̄̅͠ṛ̵̞̏͒̋ ̵̨̨̩̙̀ÿ̵͕̰͌̓̅o̴̗̘̤̔̋̍̀ǔ̶͔͐,̴̬̖̬͋̆̅ ̸̧͔̖̥̆̀̑͌y̵̢̖̳͎̆̏̀ő̶̹͈̘͌͋ů̸̪̮̀͝ ̷̮͋́̇ẇ̸̲͈̣̫i̶̛̤̍̈́͝l̴̘̂l̸̛͍̺̩̰͊̐̑ ̵̨̛͎̬̩̂̾̏c̴̫̦̞̖͗́̈́a̷̜͍̭͍͂̚͝l̶̜̬̻̓͜l̸͉̇̍͂ ̵͔͖̎f̶̛̘̠̮͂͝ō̵͓̖̿͒r̸̬͚̜͚̊̈́̃͝ ̴̦̄m̷̘̠̱̈̓̋e̷̪̣͒̉,̵͚͉͉̩̊̃̕ ̵̛̫̗̝̄͒͜͝ă̵͙͕͊n̸̖̓d̷̡̢̾̏̒͒ ̵̭̬̙̓͑Ḯ̷̭͙̲͆̍̕ ̷̪̗͎̀͗͑̽s̵͉̹͘͜ͅḧ̷̬͓͙́̊ͅȧ̶͓͖̭̱̇̚l̴̠̋̓̚͝l̵̥̺̜̇̀ ̸͓̅̽̏ȁ̵̝͈̰̲̂n̷̯͆̔̇̑ś̴͍w̷̰̻̍̉e̶͕͐̿̈̈́r̷̮̣͖̈.̸̬̮̩̬̏ ̸̨̩͒̒̏̓͜C̴̻̭̦͒͐̋̕a̴͍̬͓͑̋̒̔l̴̢̽l̴͉̃̇ ̵̡̖͛͝m̷̫̊y̶͈͂͐ ̶͕̺̤̆̈̃n̴̠͓̐̽͐ǻ̶̺m̷̞̱̚͠ë̵̳̯̘̰́͐̃̕.̸̛̥͓͉͉ ̶͉͍̜̈́͑̓̔I̵͚͠ ̸͙̯̯̉̑à̴͔̝̈̚m̵̡̜̉ ̴̪͖̱̊͋A̵̟͋̓ŗ̷͉̮͎͇̜̙̹͈͙̎͛̿͒͂̆̈̏͑̔̔̀̿͘̕̚͠ȃ̸̢͇̜̙̫̮̞͍͉̪̰͛̉̀͗̄ç̸̝̯̤̣͚̩̙̑͋͊̀̄͋̌̔͂͝h̷̢̼̖̟̗̗͔̤̠̼̹̗̳̬̀̀̎̿-̷̜̙̱͚̙̭̯͇͌̊̍͂̒̐̈́̏̀͌̈́͆̀̊̕͜͝͠a̷͙͕̳̮͎̲͈̙̭̘͒ͅc̵̡̛̖͓̹̳͖͇̺̗̝̭̘͉͔͓̓̄̀̔͊̓́́͒͘ͅͅĥ̸͚̮̥̼̗͖̋̉͆̎͂a̷̢̔̍̈́̓̒̈́̾͆́͆̃͠n̶̨̧͍̠̘̝̦̫̩͇̤̱͇̩͈̭̐̃̊̌͑͝ơ̴̡̺̥̥͈̯͑̒͊̇l̵͖̤͂̂̈́̎͐̓̆̀̄̍͋̕͘͝͠"

"Damien! DAMIEN!"

Damien tried to blink, but found his eyes not reacting correctly. They felt sticky, and everything was dark. Quiet, too. Someone was shouting his name, but from miles away. It felt almost like he was underwater.

"Shit! What happened? FLETA! We need a healing potion! NOW! I swear, if those bastards poisoned him with something as insurance against getting caught, I'm going to tear Langhyme to pieces."

Damien lay still, completely unresponsive, insufficiently conscious to parse his situation. Blood was dribbling from his eyes, nose and ears, leaving him blind and nearly deaf. He couldn't feel his own body, only able to make tiny movements. Even were his eyes functional, the drying blood had glued them shut.

"Here! One healing and one antidote. Hold him upright!"

Strong hands lifted Damien into a sitting position and held his mouth open, pouring sweet-tasting liquids down his throat.

"Urggg," he groaned, still limp.

"Let me clean him up," said a third voice, now more clearly audible to him, and another pair of hands wiped the blood from his face, freeing up his eyes. They fluttered open, focused on nothing.

"Damien? Can you hear me?" came a gentle, female voice.

"M... Mum?"

"Damien!" yelled a panicked male voice. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Dad?" he answered, still not fully aware.

"Yes, it's me, your dad. You're safe. Who did this to you?"

Damien blinked, this time having far more success with the complex manoeuvre, and managed to focus his sight on the distraught face of Shigeo. And then he answered the question. "Â̷͇r̵̻̊ȁ̷̝c̵͔̃ḧ̸̼́-̸̯̎ă̵̫c̷̹͒h̴̥̓ǎ̸̧n̸̳̾o̶͚͂l̸̰̂."

Shigeo reeled back as if slapped. Fleta winced, but the weaker, lower level Grace had a far worse experience, clawing at her bleeding ears as she backed away into a wall, screaming.

"Shit! What was that?" exclaimed Shigeo. "Get Grace out of here, and keep the others away!"

Fleta lifted Grace and fled the room, in search of another healing potion, leaving Shigeo alone with his child.

"Talk to me, Damien. What happened?"

"A voice in my dreams," he answered in a singsong voice. "It wants me to call it, so it can protect me. Nice voice. It told me about a murder."

Shigeo sighed, well aware his child was still not thinking clearly, and sat down next to him, waiting for him to wake up fully. His question had been answered; it wasn't a lingering poison, or an intruder or assassin. It had been that damn mystery voice again. And this time, they had a name for it.

A name whose simple utterance had injured Grace... How much worse would it have been for Damien, who was even weaker, and had heard it first-hand? The only thing Shigeo had seen that was even remotely similar was a dragon's aura. Simply getting close to an adult dragon was a death sentence to an unclassed human, but the effect usually caused their hearts to rupture. Robbing someone of their senses, leaving them bleeding from their face, wasn't an effect he'd heard of from anything.

At least now he knew the voice belonged to a real entity, and it wasn't Damien's imagination.

"Dad? I... I..." started Damien, before breaking down into tears. "It hurts. Remembering it hurts! I want to forget! How do I forget?!"

Shigeo, having no idea what to say, simply embraced Damien, who continued sobbing into his nightgown, shuddering, and occasionally looking around with wet eyes and an expression that left him looking closer to seven than seventeen.

"How is he?" asked Fleta from outside the room, having treated Grace with another potion and put her back in her bed.

"Broken. As soon as first light comes around tomorrow, we need to look into what that was. We have a name now. You check anywhere you can think of in the capital, and I'll try Gaia's and Illumis' temples here."

"I'll get dressed and leave right now. By the time I get there, a few of our acquaintances will be up. I'll be back the moment I find anything."

Shigeo hesitated, not wanting Fleta out running at full speed while the source-lights were off, but eventually nodded, his desire to find answers even a single second faster winning out. Damien had cried himself back to sleep, so Shigeo laid him back in his bed, hoping that this time nothing would invade his dreams. Then he sat on the floor, back against a wall, unwilling to leave the room for a second.

A couple of hours passed, the source-lights waxing with their morning glow, before Damien awoke again. The extra sleep had pushed the events of the night from the forefront of his memory, and with the potion to heal his body and Grace to wipe away the physical evidence, he spent the first few seconds thinking he'd had a strange dream.

Then he spotted Shigeo, still seated against a wall, staring at him intently.

"Dad? Why are you..." started Damien, before it all came flooding back. He winced and grasped at his head at the memories, but luckily time and sleep had done much to blunt it. "I hurt Grace..."

"She's fine. She poked her head in half an hour ago."

"Thank goodness..."

"Now that you're awake, get up and dressed. I'm going to get you to the temple of Gaia for an examination, and then we'll try Illumis' to see if the priests know anything."

Damien frowned, remembering the words of the voice. It had implied the Five were acting against him already. "Is that... a good idea?"

"You want to risk another visit?"

"No, I just... I feel like I'm trapped. I get the impression that there's something at war with the Five, and I'm being treated as a pawn by both sides. Going to a temple for help could be every bit as dangerous as... as... that."

Damien shuddered involuntarily. Arach-achanol. The voice had a name now, and he knew it was not one he should ever utter. Speaking it once, while semi-conscious, with no real meaning behind it, had done enough damage. Even should the Five really make an attempt on his life, speaking that name again deliberately—inviting its owner into the waking world—would be a mistake. Death would be preferable.

"Are you sure?"

"No. Let's go to the temple. That is the only thing that has spoken directly against the Five, and it obviously doesn't have my best interests at heart. Everything else is circumstantial, at best. The incidents at Illuganasis could just as easily have been a foreign kingdom, preventing ours from getting an insurmountable advantage."

Half an hour later, Damien was dressed, satiated with a quick breakfast, and escorted out of the door, leaving a concerned-looking Lana, Grace and Greenhair behind. An overprotective Shigeo escorted him to the temple of Gaia the Mother, where they met the same priestess Damien had seen arguing the previous time he'd passed.

"Greetings, Shigeo. And Damien, too. What can Gaia do for you today?"

Damien hung back, letting Shigeo speak. "Good morning, Letta. I'm afraid it's serious; a monster is invading Damien's dreams. Up until now, we weren't certain if it was real, but last night, it caused him physical harm. He woke up bleeding from his eyes, ears and nose."

The priestess looked at Damien with honest concern. "How frightening! But you're the monster expert here. Can't you identify it?"

"It's nothing I've ever heard of, and much of what it says is... blasphemous, so we figured a temple was a good place to look for information. We do know its name, if that helps. It's..."

"No! Don't say it!" interrupted Damien, his sudden outburst causing Letta to switch from concern to alarm. "It'll hear you..." he finished, shuddering.

"Hmm... It told Damien it will come when called, so yes, perhaps we shouldn't speak it. Do you have paper?"

The temple did have a supply of paper, so Damien wrote out the name, rendering the sounds into the local alphabet as closely as he could manage.

"Yeah, that was it," said Shigeo, reading the result and handing it to Letta. "Does it look familiar?"

The priestess stared at the paper for some time, mouthing various sounds, before shaking her head. "I'm afraid not, but if you wait there, I'll check with the high priestess."

Unfortunately, neither the high priestess nor any other priestesses on duty in the temple recognised it either, nor did prayers of diagnosis find anything wrong with Damien. They could do nothing more than perform prayers of healing and protection for him, for which Shigeo once again gave a generous donation.

With Gaia's temple a failure, they tried again at the temple of Illumis the Learned, whose priests valued education and the gathering of knowledge. "It's rare to see you within these halls. Perhaps you were looking for Kakkerxat's temple next door?" queried a smiling priest.

"Good to see you again, too, Xarn," laughed Shigeo. "And surprisingly, it's knowledge I'm after today. Is this name familiar to you? The spelling is very likely off, because we've only heard it spoken."

"Huh? Then why not tell it to me, instead of writing," he said, staring at the sheet. "Doesn't look familiar, though."

"Because it belongs to some sort of monster that can hear it being spoken, and has been invading Damien's dreams."

That caught his attention. "I've never heard of that sort of monster, and I assume you haven't either, or you wouldn't be here."

Once again, the question was escalated to the high priest, but this time, the response wasn't a complete blank. The high priest didn't recognise the name, but he did recognise the style, and was sufficiently alarmed by it to pause his duties and accompany Xarn to the atrium.

"I do not believe you're dealing with a monster," he informed them.

"You know what it is?" exclaimed Damien.

"Possibly. I'll admit to some uncertainty, but the name sounds distinctly demonic. I believe you're dealing with a demon."

"A demon?"

"How is that possible?" asked Shigeo. "Demons can't exist in the bowl. The divine power of the Five protects us."

"From what you have told Brother Xarn, it doesn't exist in the bowl. It's invading dreams, and isn't physically here."

"How do I stop it?" asked Damien, caring little for semantics, and more about eldritch horrors killing him in his sleep. Even if any harm had been accidental, that didn't change the fact that without his parents' help, he'd have been left in a horrible, and potentially fatal, situation.

"Sorry, but I have no idea. We haven't had any trouble with demons for a long time. To the best of my knowledge, the Five haven't granted a demon summoning class since the war of the rifts, and there should be no way for them to interfere in this world without being deliberately summoned."

"I don't even know what a demon is!" complained Damien. "I've never heard them mentioned before."

"They're the subordinates of the Other," spat Xarn, pronouncing the name with utter vitriol. "Think of them as its priests and priestesses, except that they're races of its own twisted creation, rather than natural beings. By some theories, demons are monsters. Sapient monsters that have chosen to worship the Other and were granted power by it in turn."

A subordinate of the Other? That would certainly explain its hostility to the Five, but didn't explain it painting them as betrayers. Were they once six, prior to the war of the rifts? So few records survived the divine war that took the sun and decimated the bowl's population. Given the long-lived nature of elves, perhaps there were those that lived through it? Damien made a mental note to ask Greenhair what he knew.

"Well, that's better than nothing," said a resigned Shigeo. "If Fleta doesn't have any luck today, we can send her back tomorrow with more hints to look for."

"Yeah. Let's get back home, and I can spend some more time stabbing myself with needles while failing to sew."

The pair left the temple, while the high priest waited, staring intently at their backs. "Your opinion?" he asked of Xarn.

"Shigeo would never be involved."

"The kid? It's him that's possessed, after all."

"I don't know him well enough to say. If you're asking if it's possible that he has a demon summoning class and faked his appraisal results, I struggle to see how it would be possible without the cooperation of his parents."

"But you can't completely discount the possibility."

"Given the unprecedented situation, I can't completely discount anything, but why would the Five do such a thing?"

"What mortal can claim to understand the mind of a god?" The high priest tapped his foot against the ground while he thought. "Send a message to the capital and suggest they pass it around to the other islands. We need to know if this is a one off or the prelude to something more serious."

"The return of the Other?"

The high priest didn't answer, returning to his duties in silence.