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Chapter 152: Unmasked
🕑 Added 2023-08-05 18:42:19 +0000 UTCShaking, Sybil hid behind an oddly angular tree. Not thinking of the tree as an Archon experiment, she found solace from the being kneeling beside Leland and the Huntress. Green malted skin met with yellowed bones and the remains of haunted flesh. Its wicked face housed a blank expression, but the eyes were what remained in Sybil’s mind.
Burning with flames the color of lavender, she watched the being offer Leland a tool. Glowing, the tool lived and breathed, an essence of what made man, man. A soul, she knew somehow. Something far beyond her understanding, but something so ingrained in culture that she knew to be nigh blasphemous.
Leland took it, and the Huntress didn’t seem to notice or care. Sybil guessed the latter, knowing personalities often were the downfall of Inquisitors.
The green being then dissolved away, leaving the woods empty beside the living trio. Sybil eyed Leland before turning her attention to the boar-monster. It was dispatched brutally, bled to death under guise of a murder of crows and soul-ripped behind the flames of punishment.
A flicker of nausea bubbled in her gut. She had never seen something die before. Even back in Ruinsforth when the Harbinger was following closely behind her march into the depths of the Reflection Kingdom, she didn’t see the murders. She could hear the screams, however.
They echoed in her mind, morphing what was real and not. She looked at Leland and the Huntress, finding sinful smiles plastered across their faces. They looked at one another as they talked about how to better kill, laughing at the death and destruction they created.
She couldn’t see, not with the prize of the Boneforged Monarch waiting in the ruins. She heard, scream after scream, deathly woe after guttural cry. Her face suddenly stung, a pain from months ago, from the sadistic Witch who chose to torture.
The Palemarrow Kingdom’s best healers could rid the Youngest Princess of her scars, not that she wanted them to. They were symbols of her pain, symbols that her title of Princess wasn’t just given because of birthright. She had bled for the Kingdom, scratched and fought back against her attackers, all in the name of survival.
She wanted the scars to remain, to tell those who dared to harm the Kingdom that even she would fight them. A lowly girl, one without a Legacy and trapped behind more walls than one.
As Leland’s hand went black, the soul reacting to his tattoo, Sybil too reacted. Hers was far from grandiose, far from a summoning ritual originally obtained from a dungeon reward.
Around Leland a violet so dark, so muted, it came off as black, expunged the air in a jagged circle. Magical fog poured from the tattoo, solidifying into a guiding beacon. He gripped it, finding a cool thin bar sprout. It unleashed at that point, like a swordsman drawing his weapon.
Springing to life, Lodestar hummed, its blade whispering serenading gloom. Curved, like a garden sickle but far more vicious, the summoned weapon took the form of a scythe, a weapon intended for reaping, rather than slicing. Slick and heavy, the weapon was created from magic and metal, an illusion for any wayward caught in its nasty arc.
“Sybil…?” Leland asked, not paying attention to his newest toy. “A-are you okay?”
During this, Sybil had transformed herself, losing the mask that clung to her face hiding her true thoughts. She was shaking, yes, but she also felt excited. How many times had she worn the mask? How many times had she faded away into obscurity, hiding in plain sight from the people sworn to protect and love her?
While Sybil couldn’t ignore the fact that the mask was a divine object, one powerful enough to hold-back the forces of the Boneforged Monarch, she also couldn’t ignore the fact the mask was just another wall. Protecting her identity or hiding her away, either way she hated it and knew she couldn’t wear it any longer.
Not with Leland and the Huntress showing their true colors. Sybil had realized watching the soul kneel before Leland, just why Aunty P. had told her to stay away from him. He was a Harbinger, a classification of being so far beyond the realm of “good,” that just one could create lasting memories. Lasting traumas. The screams, her scars, people dying so that she could walk through a city street. One person had fought against the Crown and the Inquisitors like the battle was nothing more than a light jog.
Except, Leland was different, right? A Harbinger yes, but he protected her. He fought off a boar-monster, killing it with the very magic that labeled him “evil.” He defended against the other Harbinger, despite knowing just how impossible a “good” outcome would have been.
Harbinger was a title with negative connotation, but it wasn’t always accurate. Leland and Sybil’s mother, the Queen, were two examples of such a fact. And it was at that moment, thinking of her mother, that Sybil realized something.
Her mother didn’t wear a mask.
Leland flinched at the sight of Sybil’s face, remembering how he was burned last time in the Void. Yet, when no pain came, he quizzically looked over. The Princess stood tall, and no Lordly image stood over her. No burning heat, no gray light.
Isobel hummed, and asked, “Are you feeling alright?”
“More or less… My feet hurt, but that’s about it.” Sybil fiddled with the mask, awkwardly attaching it to what little remained of her belt.
From the ruins to the Void to arriving in an ocean, what was once ceremonial armor, had devolved to an under tunic and pants. With a cord for a belt, it was only Isobel’s ratty cloak that gave some semblance of being proper, albeit even then it was limited.
“I can help with that. You should have said something earlier,” Leland said, swapping Lodestar to the other hand. He quickly palmed his grimoire, his halo still shining overhead. Hand now glowing with purple and flickers of green, he touched Sybil’s shoulder, sending healing magic through her body.
“Ooooh,” Sybil said between giggles. “That’s nice.”
“I can use that every hour,” Leland said before nearly slapping himself in the forehead. “You know, Isobel, you may be onto something about my fight being inefficient.”
Isobel quirked an eyebrow. “Because you had a weapon this whole time?”
“What?” he realized he was holding a scythe, having completely forgotten about it. “No. I meant, well, I can’t give away all of my secrets.”
She rolled her eyes. “Kid, you are going to die out here without my help. Least you could do is let me teach you to fight.”
“I can fight.”
“Oh! In that case, I’ll take my leave and you can defend the Princess on your own!”
Leland didn’t fall for the false bravado. “Uh huh.” He scratched his head. “I’m sure you’ve noticed I have magic I shouldn’t.”
“Like that healing spell, the water shield, sometimes being more perceptive, and then there was that one time you threw fire. Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
There had been several times where Leland thought over telling people about his contracts, his parents being the priority. But he always chose not to for the simple fact that he was a Harbinger. But now that the cat was out of the bag…
“I can make contracts with other Lords, ultimately gaining something not a part of my Legacy.”
Isobel blinked a few times, began to curse, stomp around, and mutter to herself. Which was not the reaction Leland was expecting. He expected to be called stupid or what have you, maybe a sarcastic comment or two, but not a tantrum.
“Wait!” Isobel suddenly said. “How many contracts can you have? There has to be some limitation.”
“Infinite, I think. I can only have two active at once, though.”
“And how many do you have?”
“Six— no wait, seven. I always forget about the Moonless Lord.”
Isobel went slack jawed. “Let me guess, you only activated one contract while fighting the boar?”
Leland didn’t answer, which seemed to be answer enough. Isobel went back to pacing around, kicking at sticks and cursing.
Sighing, Leland turned his attention to Sybil and Lodestar. “So, I can summon this now apparently.”
“Can you fight with a scythe?”
Leland thought about that, finding the question somewhat off. He first wanted to answer, “yeah of course,” but the longer he stared at the weapon, the more he realized just how unfit he was to wield such a thing. He wasn’t like Jude, he couldn’t muscle through a powerful two-handed swing. How was he ever…
“Huh,” he murmured. “I don’t think this is a normal scythe.”
Sybil asked, “What do you mean?”
“It’s weightless.”
Well not quite. In his hands, Leland felt no heaviness in terms of weight. He did, however, feel something. It was pressure, like blowing your nose too hard, but directly to where his hands met the scythe’s shaft. He explained his thoughts to Sybil.
“So it’s a magical scythe? Like an enchanted item?”
Leland took a few steps back and swung. He swung again, and again. “I don’t feel any of the usual enchantments like a sharpness enhancer or extra force on the swing.”
“Is it sharp at least?”
That was a good point, Leland thought, holding his finger up to the curved blade. He ran his thumb along the edge, softly applying pressure until— He yanked his hand back in surprise, quickly putting it into his mouth. But he tasted no blood. As he stared at where the pain was, he realized the pain was abnormal, just like sneezing way too hard.
“Soul damage,” Leland then realized, having recognized the pain. It was the same pain he experienced when he consumed too many souls in too short of a timespan, just in a different format. Like blunt trauma versus laceration.
“Kid,” Isobel said from the side, having stopped her pacing. “You are a complete idiot.”
“Oh. Thanks, I guess.”
“Do you even know what kind of a weapon you are holding?”
“A scythe?” he asked.
Isobel facepalmed. “No not that. Contracts. Do you even know how versatile of a weapon they could be? And you only have seven? What is that, one contract a month since you became of age?”
Leland gave a shrug. “I’ve been busy.”
“’Busy,’ you say! For a weapon of unfathomable strength!? You are literally—”
“I get it.”
“I don’t think you do! Why haven’t you made more contracts then? Huh? Why—”
Leland whistled, unleashing a murder of crows on the Huntress. He knew the curse wouldn’t hurt the Inquisitor, or rather, former Inquisitor, it was mainly just to annoy her into shutting up.
What he didn’t expect was for Lodestar to react. The magic and lifeforce for the curse went out Leland’s hand and lips, twisting through the air with blistering speeds and into the scythe’s blade. They ran the course of the edge, highlighting a plethora of hidden ruins and mana lines with a deep purple.
The weapon became a beacon, literally, lighting up the section of the woods where they stood before zeroing in on the Huntress. Leland then saw a beam of violet, a guiding light that marked his target for the crows now entering the mortal plane. Fifteen crows attacked, each illuminated by Lodestar’s light.
Leland inspected the bizarreness, rapidly blinking and trying to fight off the light that invaded his eyes. When he closed his eyes, however, Isobel and the crows were visible despite being blinded by his eyelids. It was then Isobel asked a question.
“Are… are these crows inflicting soul damage?” after a beat, she then said, “Stop that, this is starting to hurt.”
And Leland did, dismissing the flock. “So Lodestar isn’t a scythe per say, but rather a casting staff. One that adds soul damage to at least my crows.”
Isobel stared at the boy with enough disdain to make a flower wilt. “Do you know how rare soul-damaging spells or items are? And now you get a parasitic summoning staff?” She threw up her hands. “And Lord contracts!? Kid do you know how lucky—”
“Did you say parasitic?”
Isobel cut off her sentence. “And I called you the smart one.”
Leland regarded Lodestar in a different light. Parasitic items and their hosts were partners, forever bound until one consumed the other. While it may never come to be, Leland couldn’t help but feel slightly fearful knowing that one day the weapon may overpower him and take control.
