Sofia didn't mind Crysteffor the same way the others seemed to. Though she guessed that was more due to her powers helping her get a read on people. He was just so angry, but he wasn’t angry at them, he was just angry in general, though he hid it well. He didn't want to hurt them or cause them problems if anything to her, it seemed he'd gone out of his way to try and fix the problems he caused. He had even vented to her once about how bad his father treated him.
Though truly, she didn't really understand that. She barely remembered her own father, but the way he described his confused her. As he took care of Crysteffor but he didn't truly care for him. Or at least that's what Crysteffor Believed. The sad part was in some ways he had less freedoms than she did, in others he was likely more free than she'd ever be. He never had to worry about money or food or if the next harvest would be enough to make it through the winter. Even if they couldn't grow food in the valley, they sold off the excess healing herbs they gathered to nearby villages in exchange for their surplus. Though Austin had said he could do something about that once all this fighting was done.
“So, um Sophia, anything you want to share about our animatic benefactor. I don't expect you to give me anything confidential, of course. Just anything you'd like to mention about um, it would be useful. I've already shot myself in the foot once with it already. So, I really would rather not bumble anything else with him?” Crysteffor Ask Sophia. Pulling her back from her wandering thoughts.
Sophia looked at him for a moment, thinking before saying. “I don't really know a lot about him. Ever since we figured out how to communicate, we really haven't had much time just to talk. Um, he's old, like unimaginably old, older than the fall old. Aaahm, from what little he’s mentioned about his past he's been through a lot of really bad stuff. Like he’s watched worlds burn, worse, he's seen them shatter. He's fought against things that have literally cracked worlds like an egg, and they tore him apart only for him to put himself back together again and fight again and again and again. Until this last time, and not even he knows what happened. He hit something, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up underground.” Crysteffor could hardly believe what he was hearing, but before he could come to terms with it, Sophia had decided to continue
“He's crippled, you know that, right, barely a flicker of a candle to the inferno he used to be, but I can feel it. I don't know if it's the connection or just my powers, but he is regaining strength slowly, he's healing, but I think I think he's stuck.” Sofia said, looking down at the ground, making one of those complicated thinking faces only children could, as such, she hadn't noticed Crysteffors pale, terrified face.
He didn't have a lot of skills, as his father didn't think it was necessary to train him beyond the bare minimum he needed not to make a fool of himself in public. Then the military had trained him, but he only had the basic skills that every soldier had, and the few command skills that had cropped up from the combination of his noble training and his military training. Witch was one of the main reasons he was promoted so quickly, but one of his skills he had hidden even from his father, the one that made it very clear how much his father didn't care for him. Detect lies, the skill was far from perfect. There were dozens of skills that could get around it. It wasn't super powerful, and it definitely wasn't infallible, but he extremely doubted that this small child before him had the ability to fool his Detect lies, skill. Especially since it was his second highest skill after Calculate, at level 35. Followed by Poker face, which was only at level 12, but he was thankful for it right now. As it quickly snapped his face back into an unreadable expression, before something Sofia said finally registered.
“What do you mean he's stuck?” Crysteffor Ask, trying to sound casual.
“Well, the first time I went down there, everything was all torn up rocks were coming out of the walls. Bits and pieces of the floor and roof, I think we're all over the place, and I think the whole place was upside down. As I had to climb through a doorway, it was all just one big mess, but the next time I went down there, everything was the right way up, there was more of it, and it was clean and not slanted like it was before. And I don't think that place down there is just Austin's home….. It's hard to explain.” Sophia said, biting her lip, but she looked down again. Crysteffor only nodded, letting her come to her conclusions on her own time.
“I can feel him sort of when I walk through all the underground passageways, I can feel bits of him in the walls and the floor and the ceiling and the lights, but it's small. Far less than what is even in the creatures he makes, and I haven't been all the way back down since before I got my abilities and the connection….. But the last time I was in there, there was this room with this big orb or maybe an eye thing in the middle, and it had tons of those metal vine like things that Austin’s avatar has coming off of it. connecting it to all the walls, floor, and ceiling. That was the first time I felt his presence, it took up that entire room, and that was before I even knew how my abilities worked, or started training them, or learning anything about them, really. It was even before I knew I had them, so I can't really tell you a lot about it other than he's a lot down there and big like valley sized big.” the small girl said, spreading her arms as wide as she could.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Meanwhile, the ringing in Cristofer’s ears was about to become deafening, he had to take a deep breath, thankful that poker face was hiding his outward expression. He knew the church’s claims of the worlds beyond the skies and about the metal demons that brought the humans here from their own world. Or how their own world had once been forged by the hands of the various races, but he had always assumed they had been just that myths and legends. Spun up by the church and the powerful. However, this girl claimed that the spirit, the one beneath their feet, the one that was so large that it covered the entire valley. Was older than these very myths and legends and was one of those very legends himself. Wounded and weakened but even so…
It was then that something from his lessons as a child played in his head, he swore he could even hear his professor's voice as it droned on and on and on.
“Spirits held immense value as familiars and magic focuses. As even lesser ones would grow stronger with time. Many of the greater spirits that survive today were at one point mid or even lesser grade spirits. However, this process took thousands of years, if not more, to achieve.”
While Sophia hadn't given him an exact time frame to work with, she had implied he was impossibly old, maybe even older than the great spirit of the world tree, a spirit that had been brought from, if the legends were true, another world.
“Well, thank you for all this. You have given me a lot to think about.” He said, offering the girl a piece of his sweet bread.
It had gone stale, but he figured the girl wasn't offered sweets too often, and since the local Baker couldn't get much in the way of supplies except for what … Austin could provide at the moment, there wasn't a lot they could make. Regardless, the girl would likely enjoy the treats, and she had given him quite a good bit of information. So, it was well worth the cost, in his opinion.
The girl then left and returned home. As soon as she left, he laid down his head on his desk, throbbing from keeping his skills active all that time. One thing was for sure, the girl hadn't lied. She didn't know some things, but she hadn't lied. When his lie detecting skill had gotten high enough rank, it had started to develop a rather interesting effect, something he hadn't seen in any of the books about skills. To the point he was starting to wonder if it was about to evolve, but that was 10 levels ago, and it had yet to evolve. It still detected lies, or more precisely, it detected falsehoods. When the person was answering him, the skill could detect whether or not the statement was a lie. Even if the person who was answering him believed what they were saying was true, it had a harder time when the person simply just didn't know, but it still worked to some extent. It at least informed him of such well the girl didn't know as much as he had hoped, what she did know had rang true.
He looked back over at the papers on his desk, the letters he had yet to send, and wondered if he should try and hide A warning before reaching for the flask hidden in his boot. In the end, truth or not, it all boiled down to what he believed. Did he believe the girl had an ability to hide the truth from him? No, he did not. Did he believe that Austin was far more than what he let them know about him already, most definitely. Especially since he already knew he was lying. Or, well, not quite lying there was some truth to the fact that he called himself a spirit, but he wasn't the same as the spirits his people knew of, and that's what threw him off the most. Whenever someone called him a spirit, it rang both truth and false as if it wasn't wrong, but it wasn't what he was. Crysteffor took a quick swig from his flask, whispered a quick prayer for forgiveness under his breath, and then, in the quietest whisper he could manage, spoke aloud.
“Austin is a God.”
His skill recoiled against it not just because it simply didn't like working with anything holy but because it was a bold faced lie. There was some truth in there. He was powerful, yes, and something else he didn't know, but he was not even close to the gods, like a demigod or one of their monstrous offspring. He crumpled to the floor, panting, thankful he had at least managed to confirm that much. He then upturned his flask, downing the entire thing before just rolling over and lying there on the floor. As he stared up at the ceiling, the alcohol running through his system, he tried to decide.
He should warn his father, he should warn the church, he should warn the army, he should warn the Kingdom, he should, and that was the truth of the matter. However, regardless of what he should do, what was true, what was his duty to do. He had, had very little choice in his life, forced to listen to the he should, he had to, he must, everyone else forced on him. If life was a story, then someone else had been writing his script for as long as he could remember, and every time he had tried to go his own way to change his story even the slightest to make a choice, he had been shoved back into his role, into his place. The biggest choice he’d made up to now, the one his father couldn't manipulate, was his choice to join the military. Simply because it was a right held up by the king, thus his father couldn't override it. And now another choice had been laid in front of him, one that could have drastic repercussions. If he was at all honest with himself, part of him was telling him he should just turn the damn spirit in or whatever the hell it was, but its actions gave him pause. It had taken care of the villagers it had rescued his men and not slaughtered them when they had spat in the face of his hospitality, worked with him rather than demand him. Not to mention the sheer opportunity that was laid out in front of him.
On the other hand, he could be backing a new player, one that might one day hold more authority, one way or another, than the king himself or the Royal Councils.
Heck, maybe it was the alcohol driving him to such flights of fantasy, but if he backed this spirit, he might very well find himself sitting on that council one day alongside the rulers of every other nation. Wouldn't that be an incredible way to spit in his father's damned face? Even if it didn't work out well, he'd likely be dead either way. So better dead a traitor than a failure in his mind. It would at least be a large mark on his father's reputation. He rolled up his coat, tucked it under his head, and decided just to nod off right there, the day's events finally catching up with him, not even bothering to drag himself over to the bed not 20 feet away.
He did not sleep well that night. As he had fitful dreams of both the good and the bad that might come. But in the end, no matter what he did now was regardless of whatever happened next. No matter what he did, if even half of what that girl had said was true, this whatever it is was going to be at the center of it all.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL36ylcHhfn5au7PLQau7w2SEFE-8YR6q9
https://www.twitch.tv/wrecker159753
https://discordapp.com/channels/595124254182211594/595124254182211596
