Chapter 75: The Children

Chapter 75: The Children

Chapter 75

The Children

Sylas sighed, staring emptily into the darkness. Another thinganother thing was added to the ever-growing list of things that caused his head to hurt. And, like most things that made it onto that list, it wasn't the sort of thing that he could just ignore. It was a monumental, life-altering thing. After all, the young girl, unconsciously, blew up the entire castle into smithereens. Why?

"The fuck if I know" he grunted, though was a bit dishonest in his words. He had the suspicions, naturallyself-defensive mechanism in the face of imminent death, perhaps? But he wasn't convinced. After all, Ryne was similarly threatened back when they crossed into the north and faced the rain of the dead. She didn't blow up then. "It was those shadow thingies, probably. The question is what the fuck was that?"

Sylas was truly lost. As far as he knew, it could have been anythingit could have been because of the disease, maybe someone was smoking some meat in the floor down below and the smoke went up through the cracks(though, admittedly, this one was unlikely), it could have been magic, it could have been a myriad of fantastical and unimaginable things or it could have been nothing. He could have fathomed up that whole scenario.

No, no, lets not go there. Not opening that can of worms, he quickly dismissed the last theory and went back to the likeliest onemagic. Hed come to realize that the magic had become a good scapegoat for him, as whatever was even mildly outside his scope of understanding, he just attributed to some or another form of big voodoo unexplained magic. And even if he was right in most cases, he was right for all the wrong reasons. Just make sure Ryne doesnt fall ill, I suppose. Yep, just put it back in the corner. Until it eventually blows up in my face. Like most things

Sighing, Sylas decided to truly ignore itnot completely, but for the time being. He decided it was time he went about asking things and figuring out the answers to questions he had fashioned before he first encountered the castle on fire. Namely, he wanted to squeeze answers in regards to the 'Children' from Derrek. After all, the man supposed Sylas was one of the 'Children' despite suspecting they had gone extinct.

As such, he spent the next few loopsnever going past leaving the bandits camp, actuallytrying to figure that answer and that answer alone. Until he did. Well, it wasnt much of an answer, not really. Like most things, it was a heap of vague notions wrapped in what was clearly the legendary example of a myth getting overblown in the course of decades and centuries.

In part, it was because he didn't know what to do with the Shard, but in part, it was because he'd completely forgotten about it at a certain point. The only reason he even remembered it was that, during one of the loops, Valen caught up to him midway through the night and showed him the rock, once more.

Currently, Sylas was holding it between his fingersit wasnt all that different than the Shard in the castle, one he was yet to pick up, save for the slightly different tint and weighing slightly less. Unlike with the Shard of Ascindium, nothing happened when Sylas tried pushing magic into the rock. For all intents and purposes, it reacted the same way an actual rock would doas in, it didnt.

And yet, Sylas had a quest in regards to ithe was supposed to fill a charge in order to gain some information about the shard. The irony was that the information he wanted was, well, how to charge the damn thing.

Lifes often a cruelhmm, Everfrost, Thrall of Frost it, its not that simple, right? he mumbled. Things in this place rarely are. And yet it seems appropriately ridiculous and anger-inducing for this world. Haah, Ill have to test it once we return. He wasnt in a hurry to, though. He spent about a week in total writing and memorizing not just what he learned about the Children, but the remainder of knowledge he had.

Hed gotten into a habit of doing so during the excruciating year and a half of being stuck. Knowledge, after all, was remarkably fleeting he learned. Even some of the things that seemed entirely basic to rememberlike namestended to get away from him if he didnt think about them for too long. For instance, hed completely forgotten the name of the castles Commander. He knew that the castle had one and hed seen the man quite a few times, but hed simply forgotten the name.

In fact, there was a brief stretch during the year-and-a-half where he even managed to forget Tebeks name. It was brief, lasting only a week, but it was a good wake-up call for him that he shouldn't take things for granted.

Ever since then, virtually once a week or, at worst, two weeks, he would take a moment to write down everything, and repeat it several times over, as though he was studying for a test. If only I could carry a piece of paper with me through the loops he didnt say it out loud, however, from fear of the system picking up on it and offering it to him as a reward. Though it would be nice, hed much rather get rewards that would make him stronger and offer new information. For now, writing down things wasnt a big issue.

Eventually, though, it would be. As his wealth of knowledge continued to increase, there would come a point where it becomes simply too much. Too much to simply write down and study. The amount that needed to stay permanently written.

Ah well, he sighed. Ill cross that bridge once I get to it. Now, I need to see if the Shard has anything to do with Iun. Ah, I swear to God