Chapter 2-58: Stories Around a Fire

“This thing is tainted by dark powers. It needs to be disposed of.”

“I’m glad you agree with me on that,” she nodded with a smile, and he blinked.

“This... you seem to be pulling the power within the Spinechain into your Weapon.”

“That is a very basic way of describing what is going on, yes,” she agreed again.

“It will be corrupted by the tainted magic as well, little Sama!” he emphasized, almost reaching out for the Forge.

“Really? And how exactly is it going to do that?” she asked, arching an eyebrow, and his arm stopped. “You must be seeing something in the process that I’m not.” She made a show of looking over the whole thing: the slowly writhing, crumbling chain, the fires of unwhite and blue and disintegrating black; the glowing of the intricate Runes, some geometric, some leaflike and alive. “Nope, looks like everything is working exactly as it should be. Tainted object being destroyed, magic invested being siphoned off, removed of bias, and applied elsewhere to a ready object. Could you perhaps point out where in this process the Taint is getting through? Because Sama not seeing it.”

He bent forward to stare at everything more closely, and jerked back instinctively when the Spinechain actually seemed to rise up against him. It did look like the writhing spirit bound into the Chain was being eaten away and slowly devoured, like a log slowly burning in a fire, patient and painful and inevitable.

“This process purifies the Taint in the Fetish Weapon?” he asked suddenly, realizing what this might portend.

“Bias positive or negative is still bias, magic pure or corrupt is still magic. Remove the bias, you are left with just magic. The Runes don’t care what the bias is, they just burn it all and make neutral magic once again.”

Now he was looking over the Floating Forge in great interest. A floating object was a nice toy, but probably not unheard of among his ancient Pack; but such a thing as being able to purify the Taint of the Worm had to be pretty valuable. “How is this done? I would learn of it!” he demanded urgently.

Sama sat back slightly. “Yeah, no, that won’t work. You’re a magical being. You’ve got innate bias. Something like you trying to set up something that would remove bias is impossible. It’s like you trying to teach me how to shapeshift into a wolf.” He bridled somewhat. “Think of it as you being too powerful, and you’re marking the magic that goes into it when you make something. I don’t have any magic, so I’m not biasing the magic at all, and the Runes work in their purest intent.”

His jaws opened, closed, looking at her and wrestling with that concept. Being too powerful to do something... It was a strange and foreign concept.

He seized upon another point. “No magic?” he glowered. He probably had another term for it, but it was all the same.

“That’s right, and I carry my No Magic around with me.”

His green eyes narrowed, thinking about that point, and how he could make out nothing about her. She could feel him trying to use a spiritual sense of some sort on her, and it was running into her Null and dying away like raindrops into a lake, with fewer ripples. Not a high Caster Level among the natives, it seemed...

Not being able to see into the nature of an enemy was a dangerous thing, if you were used to being able to do so. And when that enemy can kill werewolves, and... hmm.

“So, what were those things working with the werewolves?” she asked calmly.

Strikes At Shadows’ eyes flickered. “You can see them? Most mortal beings cannot.” Her face stayed completely unmoved at his words. “We call them the Scurve. They are humans, infected by spirits of the Worm, which devour their souls and turn them into... other things. They have Auras about them that hide their nature from the notice of mortals... even the Wizards and Priests that have come from the humans do not see them easily.”

“An illusionary phantasmic effect, then. Mmm, no wonder.” Scurve, eh? Well, whatever. They might be pretty dangerous... if she allowed them to fight. Alas for them, she had not. Whirlwind Attack, one crit turning into a chain of Cleaves and two attacks on all of them, had certainly done for the lot. Whether they were innocent victims or not beforehand didn’t mean she couldn’t kill them now, as she had no knowledge of any way to reverse the effect, and it might not even be possible.

Be nice to have a Vivic Weapon and Feed them to the Land, but that was for the future.

The humans. She had definitely noticed that. Unsurprisingly, the werefolk didn’t consider themselves human. Since they Baned as Shapechangers, that was understandable... although they also qualified as Human when in human form, and Animals when in wolf form.

They probably didn’t think their Curse was a Curse, which was another one of its subtle manipulations. Buying into it and increasing the power of it was all a part of the Racial Levels that they took. Managing the feral nature of the Curse was part of the power of those Levels, so moving away from humanity would all be a part of it.

She didn’t know what their Alignment ticked, but it definitely wasn’t Good. Best to just deal with them as an animal or demon, with strength being everything.

Not being afraid of them helped tons, too.

It didn’t matter what their delusions were. She could feel the power of their Curse against the vestiges of her own, even if they couldn’t because she was a Null. It was definitely old and powerful, and it was known that Greater Werefolk didn’t have a maximum age, similar to Hags, so they could just get older and stronger by living on.

“Color me impressed that you’re still sitting there across from something that can kill you so easily,” she went on, tilting her head sideways, and grinning inside at the confusion in his eyes as she vocally reversed the situation they should be in. He was supposed to be intimidating her, instead of the other way around. “But I’m fresh and new and totally unaware of much about the society of werewolves, save for those who chose to live by the Pack Council. The Manitou are one of the Ancient Bloodlines, that is all I know of you. If you’re going to sit there, why don’t you be sociable and tell me some stories about your people.”

She could see he was grappling with the idea that he was the one in the inferior position here... and yet, he wasn’t sure how to refute it. She was clearly incredibly dangerous... and he had no idea how, or how much.

Thus, he was cautious, and reserved. “The secrets of my people are not for outsiders to learn!” he replied harshly.

“Then it’s good that I’m not asking for secrets,” she replied easily, leaving him at a loss again. “Hey, you came to my fire. If you’ve got no reason to stay, nice to meet you, take a hike and be about whatever werewolves are about.”

He started to bridle again. “Are you giving me orders, little Sama?!” he demanded, emphasizing the size difference.

“If you’re not going to be hospitable, neither am I, since you are abusing guest-rite. Go sit off in the trees or something if you want to watch.”

“And if I do not?” he challenged back.

“Rude people without heads sit there much less annoyingly than rude people with them.”

He stared at her. She stared back. His muscles rippled, debating between combat and peace. Sama was unconcerned. Part of the Combat Focus state was in being in a state of fluid relaxation, ready to move without being overly tense. In reality, she was balanced on the head of a pin, ready to go off on this werewolf at the slightest real threat, and she had no doubts she could beat him, just based on how much punishment she could take... and he was probably not prepared for Anathema and what it would do to him.

Did he even have any experience fighting human Powered? Did he know just how badly he could get could shrecked by a ready human not afraid of a werewolf? She wasn’t some poor schmuck off the street or working a farm. She was a Hagchild with all the memories and foundation to be really kick-ass when it was her time to be so.

Of course, he didn’t know she had a boosted Soulsword, either...

“What manner of story would you hear?” he finally offered.

“You were watching the factory there for some reason, or you would not have seen me. If it is not secret, I will hear the story behind that.”

His green eyes glittered. “That tale is not short,” he told her.

She glanced at the Spinechain. “Four hours and twenty minutes until it is done. Is it longer than that?”

He glanced at it, too. “What is time, to the Manitou?” he replied rhetorically.

“Not being a Manitou, I have not the slightest idea,” she answered him, which seemed to satisfy his curiosity.

He seemed to ruminate for a few more minutes, and Sama waited patiently while he did so.

“This group of men who call themselves Hexar are just tools of a far greater, more sinister force... the corrupt hand of Petron, Limited.”

“The oil company?” Sama asked calmly.

The werewolf nodded slowly. “It is not merely oil they deal in. They deal in corruption, pollution, the weakening and dissolution of the World-Mother...”

Sama frowned slightly. “Has this gotten better or worse since the Haze?” she asked, not refuting his words.

“The Coming of the Alien Dead.” His eyes rose towards the Haze far above, which had taken away the stars, locking away the sun and the sky. “Without the sun, men seek heat and solace in fire. Their machines thirst for the black blood of the earth and spew poison into the air and toxin into the waters. Their thirst for such things has not stopped, and even though there are those among men who fight to turn such things back to a balance, it does not stop the uncaring thirst of the rest, who seek what light and warmth they can gain amid the darkness.

“This Hexar is the most uncaring of them, and they flaunt the wishes and health of the Land. There is a darkness guiding them, and it has only grown more rampant and brazen since the rise of the Haze.”

“Really.” And if those Scurve creatures were able to hide so easily from the Powered, it would be no small wonder if those controlling them were totally inhuman, Sama mused. “There were two different breeds of werewolves working with them. One seemed fairly normal, and were the first ones I encountered, as well as the local sheriff.” His head came up alertly at that news. “I believe his daughter was the first one I killed, and she was going through a late Awakening of her, hrm, change... with human flesh being part of the process.

“Those inside the company were mutated, with malformed limbs, horns, spikes, deformed muzzles, serrated ears, and the like. Definitely not the same... or, perhaps the same, who drank a little too much Abyssal juju and got them some hardcore demonic Taint.” She gestured casually at the Spinechain. “That’s not an unusual Weapon among the lower demons of the Abyss.”

His expression wrinkled, surprised again at the knowledge coming from her. “They call themselves the Uncaged,” he finally admitted slowly. “They have gone on spirit walks to very dark places, and lost themselves within the Maze of the Dream, going to realms that have driven them mad. They claim that the Great Mother is lost, is dead, and that the Coming of the Dead is a sign of it, and all that we are doing is delaying the final death of the world.”

There was both a bleak bitterness about him, and yet a burning will to keep fighting. Sama found herself impressed at the admission, and slowly began to laugh.

“Dead? This world?” She laughed even more, her eyes lighting up with a hot lack of mercy for that viewpoint. “Humanity hasn’t even begun to fight! I haven’t even grown up! They think sweet Mother Terra is dead, aye?

“Renewal still comes every morning when Aru rises in the east!

“The Moon is veiled, but She still shines at night!

“Magic burns with The Light, even beneath the Shroud!

“They think this world is done? They think this world is doomed?” Her laughter began to rise into an eerie, hair-raising cackle as the mad thirst for battle rose in the blue eyes of this masked girl.