I tried to.
But it’s hard to tear your eyes away from a train crash barrelling towards you.
Several things happened at once.
Firstly, we did not explode. The rune flared to life on the muddy earth, casting a blinding blue light, and the mana shard glowed along with it beneath my fingers. Light flooded the lines I’d drawn, sapped all my fresh MP in a single gulp, then kept on burning as the power source shifted to the mana shard.
Harriet thundered straight into the rune. The effect was immediate, equally horrifying and hilarious. The furnar queen flipped ass over thorax when her front part got caught into the rune’s field, her back half slamming to a stop in less than a second, small feet leaving the ground. She slammed on her front half, head, torso and arms digging into the mud with a splash, smack down in the centre of the rune. The grub part of her enormous body hung in the air for a few seconds, wobbling dangerously from side to side, then toppled like an avalanche of white flesh, legs still scrabbling madly for impossible purchase.
The crash shook the ground and sent mud splattering everywhere.
I learned that once a rune activates, the original design is no longer as important. It self-protects its functionality. This came as a bolt of inspiration from the system. Unfortunately, it meant I wasn’t going to scratch out the rune, at least not without losing fingers.
The second thing I learned, to my despair, was that you don’t need to touch a rune to activate it.
In fact, it’s a bad fucking idea to be touching a rune when you’re activating it. I’d watched too many cartoons and anime back home where characters drew arcane symbols, then pressed their hand to the lines as if that mattered once the sigils were set.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say. And, with that in mind, I felt pretty fucking stupid at this point.
Because I was now stuck with my hand on the mana shard, completely glued to the ground, with no way to drag myself free.
Harriet was, at most, an arm’s length away from me, splayed on her side, contorted in an awkward position, screaming her bloody head off. Rain had begun pouring in truth now, a cold drizzle that was looking to grow into a storm.
As with many other experiences so far, this was again not one of my better moments.
At least I learned that Harriet’s ability needed line of sight to function. And the angrier she got, the more devastating her invisible attack became. A patch of withered vegetation out in the field, directly in front of where her head faced, burst into flames. They spread out in a sizzling cone as the queen kept screaming with all the fury of a foghorn in full panic mode.
My ears throbbed worse than when I’d fought the bear, and I couldn’t do anything but try and cover them with my free arm. That helped none at all.
She had lungs on her for days. Nothing alive should be able to scream that much and still have enough air not to pass out from it.
Crystal and Tusk approached on cautious feet after a while, keeping well away from the thrashing queen. The rain and Eternity’s white light made them look as miserable as I felt.
“Human,” Crystal hissed. “Why no run?” She shivered and I doubt it was the cold or the rain. Her watery eyes kept darting to Harriet, and her small body jumped each time the queen struggled.
Tusk, even in his huge form, didn’t get any closer than a dozen paces or so. He eyed the massive shape with a kind of reverent fear I hadn’t seen in him before.
“I’m stuck,” I growled, hand grown numb in this position. Water ran down my face and into my hair, cold as ice, unpleasant as fuck.
I couldn’t even shift my palm from where it lay, the earth beneath it solid as rock. I’d twisted myself as far as I could go on the edge of the rune, and as far away from Harriet’s eyes as I could go.
“Let go,” Crystal hissed. “Stop power.”
“I can’t!”
I’d made a critical error with building the rune. The third element on my sword was the one that actually controlled the release, and in the rush I hadn’t set it up. For everything that had gone right with this crazy plan, this was the bit that unmade the whole pie: I was stuck with no way to deactivate the thing.
At least I was alive. Lucky me…
Every solution that flitted through my mind ended on the same issue: anyone trying to alter the rune would get stuck the same way I was. And the effect wasn’t gentle at all. My fingers felt as if I’d dipped my hand in superglue and laid it on a freezing cold piece of metal. My hand actually hurt and I could only imagine how uncomfortable Harriet, especially in her contorted position.
“Ever believes Methol is making the climb out of the node,” Eternity said from above. “She might have a solution when she arrives, that doesn’t involve you waiting for the shard to drain.”
“Woop-dee-fucking-doo!” By how this day had gone, I held no hope in anything ever going my way again.
There was, of course, the option of chopping my hand off. Thankfully, given the hour, I could still respect at least one of my old rules in life: never make important decisions in the dead of night. Wait for the ass crack of dawn and decide in the light if you’re gonna be stupid or not.
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There was still a long fucking time to dawn. The chill of late night grew and settled in my bones as the rain lashed me in ever thicker sheets. Harriet kept screaming, a bottomless well of anger and despair that resisted any attempt on my part or Crystal’s to talk to her.
“Harriet no listen to anyone,” Crystal said towards the small hours of the morning, while she sat with me. “Only Jiek can talk to queen. But Jiek sleeping.”
Who Jiek was, I had no idea. I also couldn’t care less. It was hard to even draw in the enthusiasm to keep on living.
At least, Crystal and Tusk were keeping themselves busy gathering wood and sodden dried vegetation. They built it into a high mound some distance away from us, though I couldn’t see what use it would be.
Crystal ran back into the village and returned after some time, dragging her pack on the muddy ground, digging a trail. She popped out the lantern from before and set it alight. Immediately, the water ceased falling inside a bubble around us. The sound of rain retreated several metres away, rain splashing dully into forming puddles, the constant sizzle of it a reminder that nothing had stopped.
I raised my head and watched mesmerised as Crystal did some fresh magic over the wood. It dried immediately by the fae light of the lantern.
“You can do that?” I asked, too tired and addled to realise what a stupid question it was again.
“Easy magic,” Crystal crooned. “Live in forest. Learn to make fire. Always have fire.”
I stared. In the words of my home village: I stared like a calf stares at the new gate. It makes more sense in Romanian. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion, the sudden come down from all that adrenaline, or just a colder-than-usual night, but my breath misted in the cool night air and I trembled with the chill.
“Is t-this n-normal?” I whimpered at Eternity. “W-why’s it so c-cold?”
“For one thing, you’re wet to the bone,” Eternity said, landing atop Crystal’s magic lamp. “For another, the node purge is in effect. This entire area will experience strange weather over the next few days.”
Moments later, the pile of wood burst into bright, orange flames that roared and hissed in the wet air. Crystal gave a whoop and thrust her fists in the air.
The fire teased some warmth back into my bones and, for an added bonus, finally calmed down the furnar queen. Eternity had been right after all.
Crystal mercifully went and found herself some clothes. Tusk, to my surprise, kept close to me, always on the edge of the rune, patrolling all around my back where I couldn’t watch the forest. The old boy yawned and shivered, but did not leave my side.
I’d have to cook him something really good if I got out of this with all limbs still attached. And I’d give him all those scritches he seemed to like.
At least I was out of the rain and next to the fire. Harriet was quiet, eyes shining with the flames. The mud under my body was still cold, wet, and stank.
As the night wore on and I warmed up, terror of Harriet gradually turned to boredom. I can’t speak for all the various people of Oresstria, but us humans aren’t built for constant heightened emotional states. You can only be afraid for so long before the edge wears dull. You can only mourn so long before something dies inside you.
As the hours wore on and the Brightleaf’s silence stretched beneath that perfectly black, lightning-streaked sky, I needed something to occupy myself with. The rain’s constant hiss drew me to introspection, even invited sleep. I could go through my interface updates, but I was too tired to focus on the text.
“Eternity, what am I a candidate for?” I asked the one question that really roosted on my mind. “The update said “candidature logged”. What’s that mean? Don’t say that you can’t say. Even your protocols can’t be this fucked up to tease something like that and not follow through with information.”
Eternity, to its credit, landed on my shoulder and actually seemed to consider my question.
“Most new arrivals do not leave their arrival area. Has Methol mentioned this when you went back into the node?”
I shook my head. “She hasn’t, no.”
“Well, the exact percentage of newcomers deciding to stay where they arrive is 87.15%. The remaining will generally leave the starting area after an average period of 11 months since arrival, or after gaining enough information to decide upon travel. Only 4.12% of arrivals will seek the nodes to expand their insight farther.”
“What about people that just leave immediately?” I asked, guessing a bit where this was going.
“Klaus, you are part of the 0.81% that not only leave immediately, but also seek out nodes for insight, heedless of possible danger and not driven by possible rewards. I am interested in what you can become. The first insight level was… or should have been given to you—”
I scoffed at that. “Yeah, in the jaws of a mechabear.”
Eternity shook itself and puffed out smoke. “That was unexpected. I apologised for the situation already.”
“You haven’t, though,” I corrected. “You only said it was unexpected. I never got an apology for that trauma.”
“Regardless, the first point is supposed to be easily acquired. The second generally requires an effort. Once that is achieved, I consider that you are actively trying to grow. Which is why the harness is removed and you are now logged as a candidate of interest.”
I stared, unsure what to make of that explanation.
“I’m interesting because I almost got myself killed? Repeatedly?”
“You’re interesting because you seek knowledge with no certain reward and no certain answers. That is a kind of determination that I consider rare enough to watch for.”
“What for?”
“Who can say, Klaus? The only constant I’m aware of is that people like yourself do not lead boring lives. Everything else is absolutely unknown. And it is fascinating.”
Unfortunately, while the words seemed to want to be uplifting, how I actually felt was like a rat in a maze with the smell of cheese wafted about by a fan.
“So… I’m a candidate to… be interesting?” The explanation had not touched on the core question after all.
“I cannot say more on that. Not at this current insight level. But, yes, I am paying attention. And if you will continue down this path, I will be bonded irreversibly to you.”
“And is your sister paying attention too?” I timed the question as best as I could and listened with every fibre of my being for any tell in Eternity’s reaction.
The dragon may as well have been sculpted out of black marble when it answered, “Nemera is not my sister. She is my creation. And she is me. Ever an imperfect copy, she does watch, but only sees what she seeks to see.”
She. Gendered. Imperfect. Qualitative assessment. Definitely no neutrality in Eternity’s feelings towards this Nemera.
“Is she that woman I saw?” Given Eternity’s reaction to the white-haired waif, it was a good possibility.
“No.”
“So who was that?”
“Nobody.”
That was a lie, but I didn’t push further. Mainly because it was such an atypical answer for Eternity to give. I didn’t think for a moment that it was just being rude, no matter what it might’ve picked up off my personality. So, maybe it was very literal, and “nobody” actually meant something specific.
Were I any less tired, I probably would’ve thought deeper on that. As things stood, I was barely able to keep my own name on my tongue in case it were demanded. Who by? No idea. I wasn’t really in my best state of mind at the moment and, at least, I had my confirmation that I was, indeed, wanted for something specific.
Candidate to be interesting…
Well, I was living interesting times and doing interesting shit. Unfortunately, all of it wanted to eat, skewer, or impale me. Better than being boring, I guess.