Chapter 171: Singer

Chapter 171: Singer

Ameliah sat beside a small fire at the edge of the camp, fiddling with a spoon as she considered where to begin. Across the fire sat Tallheart and Rain, the latter with a tiny Crystal Slime passed out in the wooden bowl resting in his lap. There was no one else nearby, but they were still close enough to the camp to hear the occasional groan through the trees. The march had been long and hard, and Mereck and Tahir would be winding their way from campfire to campfire for hours yet, treating blistered feet and sore muscles.

Tomorrow, they would have to slow down—there was no denying that. There just weren’t enough riding animals to be shared among those who couldn’t walk for long periods. For now, however, despite the complaints and the lingering terror of pursuit, the mood in the camp could only be described as relieved. True dusk had fallen hours ago, and the assault on their perimeter had been laughable compared to what everyone had grown used to. They were well into the wood, having left the outlying farms behind, and soon, it looked like they’d escape the ranked zone entirely. The trees were close around them and the canopy overhead was low, but with the guards posted, campfires lit, and the generator reassembled and running, it felt...

It felt safe.

It wasn’t, of course. No one was fooled into thinking that the Empire couldn’t swoop down on them at any instant. But for now, things were calm. Peaceful.

Ameliah tightened her grip on the spoon she’d been playing with, then set it aside, resisting the urge to reach for her helmet. It was time.

She looked up, seeing Rain and Tallheart watching her expectantly, though they both remained silent, not pushing. Never pushing. Silently, she thanked them for that, then began to speak.

My father was in the Guild.

While he could do no wrong in the eyes of a child, I know now that he embodied many of the faults that come along with that profession. We moved around a lot, but to me, it never really mattered, not having a home. Or a mother. I didn’t even have friends, but the adventurers I’d find myself left with filled that hole, just as they filled me with wonder, what with their stories of monsters, exploration, and magic.

You see, when I was little, my dad would just leave me at the local Guild branch, going off with whatever group he’d managed to find, only to return weeks later with another story. And then we’d move on. As I grew older, he even started taking me along with him on some of the easier missions. I loved those times. Loved him.

Elric, the adventurer. My dad.

It was on one of those trips that I achieved my awakening. It was something I’d dreamed of since I’d first understood what made my dad different from everyone else. My awakening, though, wasn’t anything that he’d planned. We were on Karmark at the time, not in the great city, but that’s where we started. My dad took us to the Ter so he could fight in the tournament. He was only level thirteen, but he was sure he’d be able to make the thousand. Sure he could...beat the odds and win us a place there. He was so sure that he bet on it. When he lost in the first round, well...

Forget the thousand. Forget the ten-thousand. If you aren’t even ranked, there’s not a lot you can do. You can’t enter the high-city. You can’t go below into the fiery mountain to get out of the cold. Hells, you can’t even improve your rank until the next tournament. Technically, you could challenge, but why would a Numbered agree to fight an Unnumbered without a hefty pile of Tel to balance the scales? They’d have everything to lose and nothing to gain, not even pride.

Anyway, we were stuck there, in the frozen low-city, unable to afford teleportation or Goldship thanks to my father’s debts. My dad, my hero, a powerful awakened, got trapped in the foreign ring with the destitute, the beggars and the whores. With no one willing to hire him and my father too proud for common labor, he decided to make his own work.

Barred from the mountain and its riches, we left Ter’Karmark completely. We made our way out into the foothills. Even there, the competition was fierce. The Guild in Karmark has no jobs for Unnumbered, no matter their level. We had to go far, far out into the wilds. Into the deepest ranked valleys, shrouded by freezing mist and filled with monsters no human has ever seen.

The hunting was good, at least. There were Tel to be made.

It wasn’t exactly safe, though. Humans aren’t the most dangerous predators on Karmark. Far from it. Far from the great mountain, far from the protection of the Ten, we were just asking to get ourselves killed. Dragon pride is a myth; let no one tell you different. Dragons are just about the only things on Karmark that don’t care what your number is. To them, a meal is a meal.

I, the child, had no fear. Not even when my father had us huddled in a hole in the ground while the shadow of wings soared overhead. I thought it was fun. I knew my dad would protect me. Somehow, I was never proven wrong, and when we stumbled across an essence monster, that just cemented my beliefs.

My dad was a genius, and this had been his plan all along.

Never mind the hundred times we should have died. Never mind the pain, the struggle, the suffering, and the hunger. I was awakened. Awakened at six years old with a cap of seventeen, and it was my dad who had earned it for me, all on his own.

If that’s not a story deserving of a place in the thousand, I don’t know what is.

Anyway.

With me being awakened, things became more manageable. My dad could leave me on my own, away from the deadly monsters and secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t die from an errant breeze. I didn’t invest in any skills yet, for reasons I’ll get into, but I did boost my stats, bringing myself up to the level of an adult. It didn’t help much, but it helped.

Before long, my dad managed to finally pay off his debt. We bought passage on a Goldship bound for Bellost. Dad kept saving for a little while, but then he went right back to burning the spoils of his adventures on women and wine. That’d been what he’d always done before we went to the Ter, and no, I didn’t know it at the time. He was good at hiding it from me. I was six, remember?

Anyway, for all his faults, he always made time for me. He started to teach me, determined to get me the class that he wished he had. He was a Jack. Just a normal, uncommon Jack. I would be a True Jack, he swore, if only I followed his instructions. He knew the way, though it had been too late for him by the time he’d discovered it.

I, the dutiful child, did exactly as he told me. I spread my points evenly. That’s the easy part. The other requirements were harder. One by one, we met them, some of them even before we left Karmark.

There was one, though, that could not be rushed. To become a True Jack, you need to wait. Two years to be precise. Two years without picking a skill to prove to the system that your indecision is the stuff of legends. Ha. When I finally unlocked my silver class and saw the name the system picked for me, well... I’m getting ahead of myself. There was bronze to deal with first.

It was toward the end of the second year of waiting that things changed. My father grew...frustrated.

Like I said, he wasn’t a True Jack. He couldn’t change skills as I can now. He found himself stuck, even with his cap boosted just like mine, so he started bringing us to more dangerous places. Eventually, after no luck and many failures, he took us to Xiugaaraa, the City of Lights. The wonder of that place almost shattered my young mind, but the novelty wore off quickly. Within a day, my dad left me at the Guild as he’d done when I was younger, this time surrounded by people whose language I didn’t speak. He was gone for over a month.

When he came back, though, I forgave him instantly. When he came back, he was silver.

As a child, it took me a long time to realize that that isn’t the kind of thing that happens by chance. I still don’t know who in the Bank he made a deal with to finance his trip to the Great Delving. I do know that getting to silver didn’t help my father in the slightest.

As he grew in level, we fell in means. We went from using the teleporter network, to using carriages, and then to walking. The debt he’d taken on was too much this time. Bank agents started appearing after each job, taking whatever he’d earned and leaving us with coppers. He was silver, but he couldn’t deny them. They’d just have sent Enforcers if he did.

My dad...got angry, outraged at our situation. Then he got stupid. He heard a rumor of a lair, unclaimed by any power. That’s what brought us to Brightside, just a few months before I was due to unlock my class. He was convinced that he could find that lair. He went out into the chasm, again and again. Alone. I already told you how he died for it.

The piece I haven’t told is what came after, not in detail. I might have...omitted a few things. I don’t think you’ll blame me for that once you hear it. I’ve never shared this with anyone. Partly because of how much it hurts. Partly because of how much of a monster it makes me seem. And partly... Partly because I’ve never had anyone to tell.

...

No, sit down. I’m fine. Just give me a minute. This next part is...hard. Please, just... Please.

...The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

I was left alone. Eight years old and alone, trapped in the depths with no way out. The first few months were the worst in some ways, but they were also the easiest. I was orphaned, classless, stricken by grief over the loss of my father. It was easy to take pity on me, even for the bitter, hopeless souls that live in that forsaken place. Light is one of the most precious commodities in Brightside, on par with clean food and water. Finding a lit place to rest, finding food, finding people to make sure nothing kills you while you sleep... All of that was easier when I wasn’t seen as competition.

Once I unlocked my class, the goodwill blew away like smoke, never mind that I was just a kid. I told you how I took Purify and how I made that my focus. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to fight, so I made myself useful in other ways. Purify to fight off the poison, Healing Word to mend wounds, Attract to gather resources—even Message. Unlocking that one was only possible thanks to True Jack. Anyway, eventually, I had all the utility a party could need. You would think people would have loved me for that, but no.

Nobody living in Brightside stayed there by choice, except Arden, the asshole bloodplate who ran the teleportation platform. The rest were the survivors of parties that had come to challenge the crack and failed. They were those left behind, like me. Awakened, but with caps even lower than mine for the most part. Those that could hunt, hunted, but Brightsiders don’t go far out into the mists. The outpost survived off the fresh spawns that prowled outside the defenses each night. If people had just worked together, we could have taken over that valley, pushed back the darkness. That wasn’t how it worked. Those that did band together would begin to earn more, and then they would escape, leaving behind the most selfish...the most wretched...misanthropic examples of adventurers that this world has to offer.

I was one of them. I became a guide to the parties that came down from the surface. With Purify, I was good at it, which just made the others hate me even more. The cute kid with the perfect spell for holding off the toxic mist. Not good enough to convince a party to take me with them when they left. Assholes.

I...barely survived. My path to level seventeen was slow and agonizing. I was often on the brink of starvation, most days eating nothing but tasteless moss, taking whatever jobs I could snatch away from the others and trying to live off whatever I could scavenge in between. Even had I been an adult, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to go out into the chasm alone to hunt. Not alone. Not unarmed. I had to trade for proper food and water. Had to pay Arden rent just to sleep in the light. Things are expensive down there, even more expensive with everyone else trying to pull you down.

Now, I had been there for years longer than him, so a few more months of saving made no difference to me, but Lerith had become convinced that the Heroes of Wix were going to return to take our plates from us. At least, that was the most common excuse he gave for his impatience. He tried to make me afraid that people would take what I’d earned. In other words, he was trying to teach me to fear everyone but him.

As I said, I finally began to see it.

I didn’t wake up completely, but I did come to my senses enough to ask him to return my accolade. I could make just as much use of it as he could, I argued, and we didn’t really need the power. We just needed time.

He disagreed, and when I pressed him, he got angry. Screamed at me. Said that by even asking, I had betrayed his trust. Said that he would leave me, even if it meant he had to stay trapped there for a thousand years.

Terrified at the thought of being alone again, I...

It shames me to say it, but I apologized. I fell back into line. I told myself that I was the one who was wrong, that I was just being a selfish little girl, for all that I looked like the embodiment of power, sex, and violence.

Things...continued, falling back into routine.

Despite all of it, I still loved him, and both of us acted like nothing had happened. The illusion hadn’t been shattered. For that, it took waking up one day to find him gone, along with not just the accolades, but also all the money we’d worked together to save.

I didn’t need to check with Arden to know that Lerith had returned to the surface. I knew exactly how much money we’d had. As of the day before, it had been enough...for one.

I screamed. I screamed, and I screamed, and I screamed. I tore apart the scraps of pathetic furniture with which we’d filled our cave, then started carving furrows into the bare stone walls. I was so angry. Not just with him. With myself.

He’d fooled me, just like he’d fooled the Heroes of Wix. He needed my help, and he’d manipulated me to get it.

Once my rage burned out, I was devastated. I just lay there, crying and crying in my twisted body over the betrayal. I swore vengeance. Swore to never be fooled, never to let anyone in ever again.

I told you I was a fool. I like to think I’m less of one now.

I dragged myself back together.

Over the following weeks, my body slowly began to shift back to how I had been. Without Lerith there to block the pain, the changes were an agony, but even that hurt less than learning of the things that he’d done. I found the bodies out in the chasm, some of them half-eaten by monsters. The man whose legs he’d twisted to bend the wrong way. The woman whose skull had grown into her brain like the bristles of a hedgehog...

Others...

Eventually, my scales fell out, revealing pink and tender skin. I didn’t wait for the horns to do the same. I sawed those off myself. The other changes faded too, thank the gods. The frivolous ones. My height, the shape of my eyes, of my nose, my jaw. If those had stayed, I think it would have broken me. I know it doesn’t make sense, but losing my freckles would have hurt me more than keeping the claws.

Time passed. No one spoke to me, though I think they might have eventually. I had no interest in speaking to anyone. I went out into the chasm, alone. I hunted. I took risks. I raged. I despaired. For a year.

Finally, I scrounged up enough to pay off Arden, and then I left. Just like Lerith. Just like all the others before me.

I could have stayed. I wasn’t silver yet, but I would have been eventually. I could have been the hero the others needed, freeing them from the life in which they’d been trapped and atoning for some of the hurt that Lerith and I had caused. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. So I ran.

Like my father, I wandered, never staying long enough to be tied down. I unlocked my class at last and joined the Guild, taking jobs to make my way through the world, just as he’d done. I made money, spent it, lost it, gave it away. I never tried to build a life. Never let myself move on. I was just existing. Helping people, but only if it wouldn’t leave me feeling responsible. Not if it would leave me tied down.

It took me a while to even realize what I was doing, and even longer to...

There’s...one last piece of this to tell, before I finish. Remember how I swore vengeance? Well, I never found Lerith, but that didn’t mean I didn’t try.

A few years ago, I got a clue. In a small village outside of Mellofield, I found a man with the same ram’s horns that I’d worn. Only, his wouldn’t go away. They wouldn’t stop growing. He had to file them just to be able to lift his head, and his body was wasting away to fuel their relentless growth. I tried healing him, but that only made the horns grow back even faster.

Lerith had gotten his wish. He’d finally learned to make the changes permanent, though there were clearly a few issues he needed to solve with the process...

Two days later, while I was still trying to help the villager, one of El’s Chosen showed up and snapped the wretched man’s neck. Then he left, taking the corpse of the so-called demon with him. The Chosen wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell him about Lerith, and when I persisted, he threatened to execute me as a demon worshiper.

Yes, I know. I’ve got no problem with El—or any of the gods, really, if they even exist—but some of the Chosen can be a bit...yeah.

I moved on, continuing my search. I heard dozens of rumors, though it was hard to sort what was real from all the nonsense. Everyone has a cousin who swears he knows a man with hair like porcupine quills, or claims to have seen blue-skinned women swimming naked in the sea. Awakened complicate everything. I almost gave up hope, started to doubt the trail I was following was even Lerith’s, but then I started hearing his name.

I doubt Lerith decided to call himself the Fleshsinger, but the coincidence was just too big to ignore.

His family name, his class, what he did, the way he did it...

I never found another victim alive, or even a body. Not thanks to El and his Chosen. They were on Lerith’s trail even harder than I was, though they thought he was an agent of the hells, not a man. In his case, with the way the rumors grew, I’m not sure there’s a distinction.

One day, though, the rumors stopped. I don’t know if El’s Chosen caught up to Lerith, or if he got snapped up by a Citizen and squirreled away somewhere, financed and equipped to conduct his experiments in secret. I had been denied my vengeance.

I was angry, and hurt, and guilty, and...

Vengeance is worthless. It took me a long time to realize that. I gave it up. I returned to my wandering. And then, one day, on the road to Fel Sadanis, adrift and in the company of a band of murderers, I bumped into this awkward, bizarre, adorable little puppy...

Sorry. I shouldn’t joke. I need to thank you, Rain.

I was almost ready, I think. I just needed a push, and you were just so helpless that you were the breaking point. When I left you there at the Guild that first time... Remember my fight with Halgrave when I came back for you? I was furious with him for his carelessness, but I was even more furious with myself.

I’d done it again. Repeated the cycle.

You were helpless, trapped in a place that was going to eat you alive. I know it’s not a fair comparison, but I left you there. Abandoned you. Because I wasn’t strong enough. I haven’t forgiven myself. I’m not sure I ever will. I’m not sure I can.

But you did...

So...

So, thank you.