AuthorLeftright
patreon
Chapter 11: Golden Path
🕑 Added 2022-12-15 20:34:54 +0000 UTC“Dan’s magic limited amount. Magic grow. Better magic,” Sully said gesturing and over enunciating each word.
Squinting, Dan tried to follow the old man’s diagram he drew in the dirt. A small depiction of a stick figure Dan practiced magic by way of a single small circle. The next drawing was the same stick figure, but with two small circles. Then three, then they were larger, then there were too many to count.
“But how…” Dan pointed at one circle then the group of two.
“Ah, practice,” Sully said simply.
The old man took the moment to draw another diagram. Similar to the others, he drew Dan as a stick figure. But while last time there were only circles, four other shapes were added. In total, five different shapes surrounded the stick figure.
“Five only,” Sully said, locking eyes with Dan to convey importance. “More later. Five only, now.”
Dan scratched his head, thinking he understood. The shapes were Light: Salvation, Control, Aspect, War, and Brilliance. Any more and bad things were going to happen, or at least be detrimental. He thought for a moment, recalling when he forged Light: Brilliance into his mind and core. It was while he was in the cave, and he only held painful memories around it, but Dan was sure he only felt half full at the time.
“What happens if more,” he asked.
Sully smiled ruefully, taking his drawing stick and quickly marking over all the stick figure and shapes. “Death,” he said.
Dan frowned at the gesture and leaned into a different question. “Five… half?” As the old man shook his head, the human tried again. “Five same magiconly, not five only?”
Sully thought long and hard for a moment, his eyes widening slowly. “Five magictwice, yes… Advanced, rare Dan young.”
Dan looked for the word advanced and rare within the three voices. He had gotten progressively faster at searching through the otherworldly dictionary. The two words came to him, and he thought he understood Sully’s meaning.
Dan felt as though he was half full of magic. He could only handle five spells of a single dominion in his current state. Maybe more later if he improved his core and reinforced his mind. There was also the possibility of learning a different domain other than light. Although he didn’t think he was going to worry about that right now. At least, not until he and Sully could hold a more detailed conversation when he understood the language better.
They continued discussing for a few minutes longer, but a deep chime broke their musing. Dan quickly looked to Sully, but the old man’s eyes were alert and sharp. Together they ran through the camp and up part of the mountain, to the mine entrance.
Dan could smell the blood before he could see the opening. The smell of iron was everywhere due to the endless rains beyond the dome, but he could identify fresh wounds over the general stink of the world. His stomach turned at the smell, a dull pain forming just past his eyes.
They rounded the bend, finding a troop of four guardsmen with drawn weapons. They were in battle against a horde of mutated monstrous rats spilling from the cave entrance. Each guard used sharp weapons that defied reality, lengthening or growing in weight mid swing. They easily chopped through the rats, ending the threat well before anything could happen.
Although Sully still looked shaken.
The old man scanned the crowd, counting heads and looking for wounds. Dan mimicked his mentor, not fully knowing what they were looking for. Sully yelled something quick to a miner, and his frown deepened. A guard turned at the answer, but looked less than interested in doing anything about it.
For the first time since meeting Sully, Dan saw him angry. The old man snapped a string of harsh words at the guardsman, completely ignoring the fact that retaliation was incredibly possible. The guard in question simply laughed, turning his back in the process.
“I don’t understand,” Dan said fast enough to draw his mentor’s attention from the slaver.
“People hurt, cave,” was all the old man said before rushing up the pathway.
Dan hesitated at the rat corpses, but found the confidence to reach out to Sully. “You help?”
Hard eyes locked with an afraid pair as Sully searched Dan’s expression. “We help,” he finally said, pointing to the cave.
The former electrician froze. He felt dozens of eyes look at him, snuffing his confidence like a smoking candle. Dan didn’t want to go into the mine. That was, in fact, the last place he wanted to go. His heart pounded at even the thought, his chest grew pockets of lead at the idea. His back hunched over, each moment pulling breath from his lungs.
Dan shook his head, stepping back. He saw the expression Sully gave him through blurred tears, disappointment and sorrow. The old man didn’t say anything, but just turned and entered the cave.
Dan retreated all the way back to his cell. His knees buckled, his face wet with snot and tears. He cried for a long while after the fearful anxiety lifted. He failed Sully, he failed his only friend. Would Sully hate him for this? Would he refuse to talk to him?
The thought of losing the one thing that grounded Dan to reality, to the daily repetition of being afraid of everything, was heart ripping. He fell asleep, guilty and distressed, clutching his core with the very hands that turned their back on his friend.
Dan sat alone on one of the many cliffs around the camp. His stomach growled as the smell of food reached him from the communal dining area. It had been two days since Sully entered the cave, and while he had returned, he did not seek out Dan. And that was eating the human alive.
Starving himself didn’t help the situation either. The woman with the ethereal arms had all but blocked him from eating, telling him to work to earn food. Dan didn’t know where to work. The cave was an instant no-go, and the camp seemed well stocked in terms of personnel keeping everything in order.
Dan knew that someone would point him in the right direction to earn food, but every time he neared someone, his stomach fell apart. He was afraid of every little thing, hardly spoke the language, and he pushed away the only person he was able to talk to.
Worst of all, were the thoughts of madness, as he decided to call them. Since exiting the caves, Dan found himself pushing the idea to harm others. Someone knocked his food out of his hands, he should kill her. Someone stared at him as he passed, he should rip their eyes out. Someone laughed at him, he had the idea to find where they sleep.
It was the madness from the cave, he knew. It had done something to him, making him act and think with instincts rather than his usual pragmatic approach. It kept him alive in the caves, but out here in the camp? It would only get him killed.
The sound of shifting gravel pulled Dan’s attention from his internal thoughts.
“Hello, Dan,” Sully said, walking up the mountain path.
The old man carried two bowls of steaming stew, his left arm bandaged in void black gauze. Even with a wound, he was able to smile gently in a way that made Dan’s heart bounce with guilt.
“Eat,” Sully said, shoving one of the bowls into his friend’s hands.
“What… what happened?” Dan asked, gesturing to his bandaged arm. “No heal?”
“No heal,” the old man echoed, taking a large bite. “Eat first.”
Together they ate in silence until both were finished. When both of their stomachs were full, Sully slowly unraveled his bandage. The man’s skin was charred green and dripping with yellow pus. Wisps of noxious plague drifted into the air,which Sully quickly smothered with the black wrappings.
“Infected,” he said. “Mother rat.”
Dan looked for the words in his repertoire of voices, but Sully continued.
“We could have used you.”
The sentence hung in the air, Dan understanding every word.
The elder leaned back, speaking again, “Guard doesn’t help much. They don’t need to. Only when camp endangered. Sometimes they flush caves, but most of the time not.” Dan was given a moment to catch up, before Sully continued yet again, “I always help. I know magic. Only one in camp… but now you.”
Dan quickly wiped away a tear. “Sorry,” he choked out.
“No. You are fine. I got ahead of myself.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Sully seeing that Dan wanted to say something. “I-I… the caves scare me.”
The old soul laughed at that. “They scare everyone. They are not natural.”
“H-how do I not be scared?”
“You do not. Only prepare against.”
“Prepare?”
“Confidence.”
Dan found the word within the voices, and nodded. Sully made it sound easy, simple even. But even with magic and his core, Dan still found the answer lacking. He was such a hypocrite. How could he ever hope to escape if he couldn’t even enter a cave or look another slave in the eyes? The simple answer was that he couldn’t. Increasing his magical power was great and all, but that hardly mattered when he cowered at the first sign of anyone else.
How would he escape if he couldn’t defend himself from a woman who blocked him from eating?
The thought was like a bucket of freezing water. The shock fueled his next question, “Why am I afraid?”
Dan didn’t notice that he spoke in English, nor the fact that Sully understood and answered.
“Because you are weak,” the old man said simply. “I’ve seen it before. Many times. Are you strong back home?”
“No. I did not know about magic.” He stumbled a bit over the words, Sully didn’t mind, only nodding.
“But humans stronger than monsters on Earth?”
“There are no monsters on Earth,” Dan answered, the realization overcoming him as he said it.
“Humans strong as humans need. Cave is stronger,” Sully said.
Sully gave Dan a small push, urging him into the dimly lit room. The building was near the mine’s footpath, and was completely covered in white soot. The upper floors were home to a majority of the miners, while the lower were equipment storage.
Although they were outsiders in the building, most of the residents didn’t give them a second glance. It was a stark contrast to the people living in the camp, most of which would stop their tasks to trace Dan’s movement. He understood, though, the miners were desperately tired. They only wanted to eat, sleep, and hammer bone crystals. Anything else took more energy than they had.
And for that reason, Sully brought Dan to the building. The old man had already explained his plan to the younger, and while simple, Dan still shivered at the thought. Their target was a beastly man, slick with fur and muscles that screamed they could rip out a jugular in mere moments.
The man was asleep, which put Dan off. If he messed up and the man woke, then there was going to be a problem. Maybe that was part of it, maybe Sully was more cunning than he let on.
Golden light washed away the thin shadows as Dan formed an orb just above his palm. The sudden appearance of magic caused many of the building’s residents to turn, but the target man remained asleep. Some readied their broken bodies to intervene if something went wrong, but most remained indifferent.
Dan could kill this man and only a few would bat an eye. The realization made him even more sour at the cave. The madness had obviously set in the miner’s bodies, the distant stares he received explained as much. Some looked at him, but most bore into the orb itself, blinding themselves against its powerful luminosity.
Not liking the idea that his presence was harming the miners that were further gone, Dan quickly got to work. Following the steps Sully had laid out earlier in the day, his golden orb flattened then hollowed.
Dan’s chest heaved at the end of the step, the manipulation needed testing his resolve. The magic formation shuddered like its caster, but held firm after a few labored breaths. His core felt raw but was slowly bouncing back. In only a few seconds, enough mana had been replenished for the next step.
The golden halo drifted down to the asleep man’s frame, slipping past his body and encircling him. The halo combined against the floor, acting akin to a rug or carpet. Quickly Sully inspected Dan’s work, nodding to continue.
In a single conscious effort Dan expelled the halo while augmenting the light to be sticky and adopt healing properties. He had come to learn that healing more abstract injuries such as full body fatigue, took a grander image in his mind’s eye.
Dan saw what he wanted. A brutish man with long silky fur, freshly rested muscles, and relaxed joints.
The spell took, and his struggles came to a crashing halt. In that moment, between the spell exploding in a pillar of golden light and Sully nodding in success, Dan did not feel pain. His chest didn’t hitch and deflate, his bones did not feel like wet sand, and his brain did not burn with over exertion.
In that moment, he felt determined. He wanted his spell to succeed. He wanted to be able to enter the miner building and help those who were weak. Their appearances still haunted him, but he also wanted to see them differently. As people, people in the same nightmarish situation he found himself.
Dan needed confidence, and seeing Sully give him a successful nod made his heart flutter. Frankly, he didn’t see himself entering the building without Sully, nor healing anyone without him watching. But there was a start to everything, maybe one day he’d take over Sully’s position of healer and general leader.
The beast man shifted in his sleep, relaxing his shoulders and hunched calves in the process.
Dan and Sully quickly retreated, finding no opposition in their leave. Sully pointed to a particularly smooth area of rock, commanding him to sit and condense his magic.
Light: Salvation 21.45
Light: Control 14.22
Light: Aspect 11.93
When Dan opened his eyes, Sully gestured to the camp and the two got going. As they walked, they discussed anatomy. As it turned out, knowing how to form a proper image depending on the patient was critical in healing. If someone had two heads, the mental mapping of where healing magic needed to go was entirely different than someone with only one.
The anatomy they discussed was distinctly surface level. Things they could see, rather than internals. Arms, legs, what ethereal appendages meant and how to interact with them, and finally unique identifiers such as horns, boils, or living shadows.
Dan had a hard time understanding the more magical aspects of some of the residents of the encampment, but resigned himself to learning. Whether or not he’d use the information was yet to be seen, but simply knowing the rules around some of the more odd aspects of the populace would help him grow more accustomed to life within the camp.
At some point, the golden robed cultist found Dan, breaking apart his and Sully’s conversation. Before they got to the high priest’s room, the cultist handed him the voices bracelet.
Slipping it on early, Dan looked at his captor more than puzzled. “Is something… wrong?”
“Your magic is progressing quickly. Copying my spell is not something many can do,” the golden cultist said.
Dan made the connection to the spell Sully showed him and the spell the cultist used time and time again during previous torture sessions. The thought made him cower in fear, repressed memories quickly drowning his mind. Did he do something wrong? Was he not supposed to learn magic? They never said he couldn’t, and Sully did magic in the open. Was Sully going to get in trouble as well?
“Make sure the circle is fully set before committing to the pillar,” the cultist said before pushing Dan into the room with the high priest.
Dan snuck a glance, finding the man already gone. His anxiety deflated, only for it to be reignited when he saw the sinister smile of the high priest. The man crawled under Dan’s skin, sticking there like a wedged pinecone. A green zap blasted him in the thigh.
“Stop standing there and sit,” the man said. “We have a lot to discuss. First and foremost, you need to eat more. We can’t have you dying of starvation before you are called upon.”
Dan frowned at the statement, his eyes never leaving the varnished table. His hand clutched his gushing wound, trying to slow the bleeding.
The high priest sighed. “Heal it, go on. I don’t want the carpet dyed.”
Something in Dan’s mind shifted at the words, the room transformed. Before he saw hardwood and stone flooring, now a thick woven rug took up most of the real estate. He blinked heavily a few times, forcing his mind to equalize. His core sang words of anger, bolstering to defend against any other mind-alternating attacks.
“Do calm down, Dan,” the high priest commanded, power flaring along his words. “Did you really think you have enough magic to notice all of the enchantments I have set in this camp?”
Dan’s silence was answer enough, the man continued, “In fact, even the cave’s madness breached your measly core.”
Dan did look up at this, his hand now glowing with gold. A moment later his leg was back to normal. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Oh, the sacrifice room. There are no torches in there, there never was. We provide our own light when we are working. So, unless a miner set up the lights, and I assure you they did not, then the madness had gripped you more than you knew.”
