Chapter 313: Deeper and Deeper Yet (Patreon)

Chapter 313: Deeper and Deeper Yet

The different properties of mana, Mercury found, were nothing short of magical. Which, he supposed, was rather adequate. Pure mana could meld with stamina to form qi, a substance both more wispy and more potent. It more easily converted to kinetic energy, or enhanced motions.

Qi, however, was not very good at existing by itself as something solid. It was great at flowing through things, through channels especially, and creating bizarre effects - something that would perhaps be called a formation - but it was hard to solidify his qi. Doable, but difficult.

In that specific way, mana was perhaps more malleable. Less specialized. He could draw out strings if he turned it soft and malleable, then solidify those into hair-thin crystals. He could even keep them somewhat pliable and weave with them… sort of. It would take him a lot more practice to get good at that.

But once he figured out that he could change the properties of mana even more than he’d thought, it did open up a few rather bizarre ways for it to interact. It took significant mental effort to get it to change more, but he could create extremely thin, hollow structures of mana, kinda like aerogel, which were greatly heat resistant, but also rather brittle. He could even create thick gases that were almost like invisible quicksand, dispersing kinetic energy.

And the oddest thing was that he didn’t get a new Skill for it. Instead, it seemed to be funnelling mastery to three things already marked on his status.

[<Material Transmutation> has levelled up! <Material Transmutation lv. 1 -> 2>]

[<Internal Energy> has levelled up! <Internal Energy lv. 5 -> 6>]

[<Crystallization> has levelled up! <Crystallization lv. 3 -> 4>]

He did suppose that made sense, though - the Skills were all related to manipulating and changing things. Mana was something of a material, and he was most certainly changing it, even if not quite in the way the Skill intended.

It did make him think to use material transmutation on mana. The Skill was based on resonating with the world in order to fundamentally shift what a thing was. He could turn lead into gold with it… somewhat. It was difficult and energy consuming, so he wouldn’t do it all the time, but it was useful.

Using it explicitly on mana was a prospect he hadn’t considered until then. Breathing in deeply, he slipped into ihn’ar, and then further into rezil. He let his thoughts resonate with the world, hearing its ethereal symphony. It wasn’t about dominating something, it was joining in an orchestra in order to change the overall tone of the music.

The wind sang, the leaves whispered, and the earth provided a drumbeat underneath it all. Mercury’s voice had to weave in between them all, join the chorus of the mana’s melody, and then shift it slightly.

For a long moment he waited until he found his stride. Rezil was still somewhat new to him, so he searched through the thin threads that constituted this song, until he found the correct one. Mana was there. It sounded charged, crackling with energy, like crystallized change. All he had to do was…

Reaching out with his mind, Mercury plucked the string. He hummed a single, long note that joined the symphony of mana, and something shifted. The crystal he had held in his hand vibrated for a moment, its nature changing as Mercury willed it to and then -

A flash of white so bright that Mercury was momentarily blinded. It was brighter than a firework, than a signal flare, like supercharged magnesium had suddenly caught alight in his hand. Within a single instant, the mana flashed, glowed, and then, when Mercury scanned over its spot with his senses, it was gone.

He blinked. “What the fuck?”

Evidently, he still had a little bit to learn about mana. Things had, however, changed. Mercury smelled burnt hair, and a bit of ozone. And when his eyes regenerated, and he looked at the world again, he saw that Zyl’s scales had turned a shade paler, turning from bright red to rose. 

The dragon had a somewhat grumpy expression. “What was that?” he asked.

Mercury looked around at the altered clearing, suddenly washed in pastel colours. It was as if the world, before, had been a coloured shirt, and was now sun-bleached. Everything was a little less vibrant, a little washed out, like a watercolour painting with too much water. Mercury, for his part, didn’t reply.

Rather than the pale trees, the pale grass, or even his now-paler boyfriend, Mercury frowned. Because, to him, the shadows were what stood out.

The entire world had been cast in stark shading. Every spot of shadow was darker, deeper, albeit already fading back to normal. It was, by all means, a temporary change that he had made by doing something strange with his mana.

No, what bothered him was his own shadow. It hung behind his back, slowly lightening back from a stark black to its normal shade of dull discoloration, but it didn’t swirl with its usual lightness. He frowned, deeply.

It had been some time since he had last interacted with the martial world. He had recovered, mostly, from his overuse of Skills. He hadn’t even visited his dreamscape, not wanting to touch the absolute mess that was surely there after having introduced Illuhm to old Uunrahzil.

And yet, now, there was something missing. In his <Tapestry>, Mercury felt a thread having come loose. Someone who should be close to him but simply wasn’t. Someone who usually hid in his shadow. 

“Juno?” he asked. 

There was no response.

Mercury narrowed his eyes, spreading out his senses and letting them pour outwards like a wave. They crawled over grass and trees, covering dozens, then hundreds of meters. His <Worldsense> had covered a mountain, kilometers out, at its inception. He was even stronger now, and it was bolstered by the passive effects of his crown. 

Miles were devoured in moments. Mercury saw birds and people, felt the way spirits beasts startled when his presence laid itself over their backs like a smothering blanket. His sphere of perception pierced the ground, finding caves and riches, tearing through the world unabashedly.

He found men and monsters, he found places where the fabric of the world ran thin, two hidden spatial realms with old masters’ inheritances, and one set of bandits preparing an ambush. What he didn’t find, however, in all his perception, was his companion wolf, Juno. He pulled up his status, nervosity worming into his bones.

=

Beast familiars: 2/2

=

A slow breath left his nose. Okay. She was alive, at least. Mercury was, generally, really rather good at tracking things. So it was really rather odd for someone to vanish so completely.

“Mercury?” Zyl asked again, his tone more worried this time, as he felt the way his boyfriend’s senses spilled outwards. Usually the mopaaw kept them to a lower level - there was no need to be aware of everything all the time. Now, though, all of a sudden, every bit of experimental joy was wiped from his boyfriend’s face, so the dragon was worried.

“She’s gone, Zyl,” Mercury said through furrowed brows and gritted teeth. “Juno’s no longer in my shadow.”

The dragon felt a small shiver at the declaration. He was stronger than Mercury when it came to brute force, but his sensory abilities were generally worse. Still, when he tried, he couldn’t find the wolf’s scent in the air, either.

It was a cold and dim day. Zyl rubbed his hands a little as he thought. “How did she disappear?” he asked.

“During the flash,” Mercury replied. He knew as much - he could feel her through his <Tapestry> before that, and even though he couldn’t pinpoint the moment that connection disappeared, he knew that it must have been during that time.

“Do you think it was because of the mana?” Zyl asked carefully.

Mercury’s eyes narrowed even more. If it was, then this could be considered his fault. But could it really? Could a small amount of mana mess with one of his stronger Skills so easily? “I doubt it. I think someone must’ve taken her.”

Zyl hummed at that. “Why? We’re in the middle of nowhere, and she is no one important… except, perhaps, by association?”

“Do you think,” Mercury asked, his voice low and dangerous, “that someone might’ve abducted her to get at me?”

“I’d consider it likely,” the dragon said carefully. His scales had turned back to their regular crimson colour, and he tapped them thoughtfully. “But why, then, leave no trace?”

Mercury spread his senses into his own shadow, testing it with his <Magic>, and finding a deep pool of abyssal black - without anywhere to go. “Perhaps they’re testing us,” he hedged.

“Very possible,” the dragon nodded along.

Sighing softly, Mercury let his anger slowly flow away. He took a solid ten minutes to calm down his immediate reaction of burning things to the ground, and thought a little more logically about things. 

Someone had abducted his friend. Juno wasn’t weak, though. She was a perfectly capable assassin and scout, able to take care of herself well. She had survived in the ashen wastes of Gluttony, she had learnt shadow-aspected cultivation techniques, and she wasn’t some fragile damsel.

However, she was also his friend, and if she was trapped somewhere, then he wanted to at least find her. Not because she needed his help, necessarily, but just to make sure. Her strength wasn’t a guarantee for her survival, either, but she was crafty and sneaky, so he hoped she could at least endure until he got there.

As for how to get “there” - wherever that was - it was an entirely different question. He didn’t even know where the wolf was or who had taken her. His sensory abilities were incredible, but something was interfering with his tracking capabilities specifically. Her thread on his <Tapestry> had simply disappeared without a trace.

Perhaps, if he donned his crown, he could find her. But that was dangerous, too. After all, the Skill was an absolute menace, and didn’t guarantee anything. 

[<Silver Crown of Understanding>: A crown is a weight to bear, and a terrible boon to be bestowed. That is a kind word, though, because they are always earned. The individual in possession of this crown has shown outstanding capabilities of understanding and comprehension. In lieu of these feats, this Skill will vastly increase the comprehension and mastery gain rates of other Skills, massively enhance resistance to mental effects, compulsions and illusions, and provides a great bonus to insight and understanding of other individuals.]

The summary was long, and even that felt insufficient. It was more of a formal declaration, as if the system was reading out his reasons for a coronation. The way that the Skill felt wasn’t included in that, and Mercury had already experienced it firsthand. 

He also had a better solution for finding Juno prepared. After all, inside his inventory, there were a few things that had mostly gathered dust. Some he had simply outgrown, but there was one that he’d had no need of - until now.

The Hunter’s Token. 

Back in the fae realm, the Gardener had given it to him when he’d revitalized the shadowgrass of the Hunter’s estate during the treasure hunt. The Guardian had taken his legs, first, as a greeting, and Mercury had to use prosthetics for a long while, since he couldn’t heal as fast back then. 

Despite the evident brutality of it all, the memory was almost fond, now. His stay in the fae realm had been intense, the constant danger, the political maneuvering… It was similar to the martial world, in that way. People here, too, were violent, petty and greedy. 

Still, he didn’t dwell on that now. Zyl’s eyes landed on the token - a perfectly black disc of metal with a spider embossed on both sides. The dragon tilted his head. “What’s that?”

“Hunter’s Token.”

[<Hunter’s Token>: Borrow the Hunter for a moment. Toss the token, call upon them, and be granted one wish. You may ask them to find something, or to hunt it. The job will be done.]

Zyl’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Got it from the fae realm,” Mercury said, levitating it a lil over his paw. His face was placid, now, a bizarre calm spread over his features. The black token began to spin. 

“Are you sure?” the dragon asked. He clenched his fist, his posture stiff. 

“Sure,” Mercury confirmed. Tokens like this one were rare - they should guarantee that no harm should come to him. But then again, the Hunter would be as unpredictable as Bael and Breeze, both of whom had hurt Mercury at least once. So, there was always a danger of getting fucked up.

But he was fine with that. His eyes narrowed, and the token began to spin. Then, with a single flick of his paw, it sailed into the air, tumbled end over end once, then twice, then vanished with a soft pop.

Nothing happened. The moment lasted for just long enough that Mercury began doubting the token had worked. Then, he listened, and noticed how quiet the world had gotten.

The wind had shushed to a whisper, the grass no longer swayed. And then, in his kilometre-wide detection domain, there was a tiny stir. A swirl as faint as a hummingbeard beating its wings just once. A needle dropped into a haystack.

Air touched his fur, and Mercury saw someone between him and Zyl.

The figure was neither tall nor short, simply of average height. They wore a long, dark cloak, its edges frayed, its colour a dark mossy green. It covered their face in shadow, but Mercury could still see six piercing eyes stare him down with the curiosity of a predator, of a serial killer.

Four arms stretched from the side of the coat. Spindly things, with not-quite human hands and bristly fur. One of them held a compass - a small, simple thing, built from solid metals, and made to withstand wear and weather.

Behind their back, more appendages pierced the coat. Spider-limbs with unusually mobile joints, ones that Mercury imagined could move in almost any way. Their entire body was coated with a waxy sheen that made them blend with the environment. They smelled like nothing. They sounded like nothing.

And then, that profound absence quickly filled in with sensations that were entirely normal for the forest. The wind passed through them, carrying entirely expected scents. Moss and pine needles, grasses and faint flowers. Their cloak slowly changed colour, blending in with the environment, and Mercury almost lost track of them. 

A hiss left the hunter’s mouth, as their six eyes turned from Mercury, to the compass, then back to Mercury. “You call upon me. I had a hunt lined up. Make it worth my time.” 

Despite their wicked appearance, Mercury would describe their voice as soft and breathy, with a faint hissing undertone. As if their mouth wasn’t quite suited for human sounds. It was something that the <Language> Skill could smooth out, but that the Hunter evidently allowed to remain.

It made sense. They were, Mercury knew, more of a feral animal than a person. How amusing. A beast like a human, and then a humanoid like a beast. The hunter smiled.

“I’m Mercury,” the mopaaw said. “I-”

“You’re a mopaaw, evolved four times, total level…”, their eyes narrowed, “one-hundred twenty-two. Specialization in mind and dream magic, as well as matter manipulation and scouting. Strong capabilities of escape, and brilliant awareness. Crown-wielder.”

Before Mercury replied, their eyes darted to Zyl, and the gleeful, cruel smile on their lips deepened. “Dragon,” they started. “Total level of one-hundred eighty-three. Specialization in destruction, crown-wielder, extreme fire-affinity. Incredible physical strength, durability and regeneration. Strong.

“Both of you are strong,” they hissed, tongue flicking out to clean their chelicerae. “You would make for fun prey. A challenge I might break against.”

“Are you done?” Mercury asked with a roll of his eyes.

The hunter glanced at their compass, then at Mercury again. Their six eyes blinked, then turned from murderous to placid. The tension faded from their sinewy body. A long breath in, then out, and they nodded. “I hate manners, so they rot. I will not hunt you today. One wish you shall be granted.”

With the tension dropping, Mercury nodded. “There was a wolf in my shadow,” he explained. “A wolf named Juno. Grey-blue fur, shadow affinity, good at sneaking. She disappeared roughly twelve minutes ago-”

“Thirteen minutes and twenty-five seconds,” the hunter corrected. Their pupils thinned. Their stare redoubled, eyes scanning the ground. They breathed in deep. 

With a gust of wind, they moved, picking something up. Fingers trailed along grass like a brush, and when the hunter rose again, one of their hands held a bushel of fur. “Stray hairs. Still holding scent.” The hunter sniffed them, then licked them, then frowned. “No trail, though.”

Another gust of wind as they moved. It was bizarre watching them work, Mercury thought. Their movements were so swift, yet so elegant. Where they walked, they bent no blade of grass, disturbed no ant. Even with the wind, not a single insect spooked in their wake. It was as though seeing a ghost drift through the world.

They kneeled next to Mercury, Zyl tensing at the motion. A claw dug into the earth near him. The Hunter stared into the mopaaw’s shadow with single-minded, mad focus. There was nothing to do but pursue the trail. Find it, follow it, hunt it.

For a moment, they became the world’s most brilliant tracker, and stuck their head to the ground. Soft earth gave way, the darkness itself rippling as the hunter breathed it in. Sniffing at the shadows themselves, the creature rose with spindly elegance, straightening out their upper body. 

“Found a trail,” they proclaimed simply, then grinned. They looked at Mercury, then at Zyl. “Follow,” they said.

And then they were gone.

The dragon and the cat were left standing there for a moment. Then, the latter sighed. “Force of personality, eh?”

Zyl snickered. “Yeah. So we’re following?”

“Yeah,” Mercury said. “We’re following.”

- - -

Usually, that would have been an impossible task, but fast as the hunter may be, they left a trail on purpose, marking trees with faint slashes, clearing underbrush. Within seconds, they carved a simple game-trail into the forest, making it easy for Mercury and Zyl to follow. The former made it even easier though - <Itinerant> had fused into his crown, but it still opened the path.

A single step, and the two of them caught up, the world warping. 

The Hunter stood in front of a cave. It was a tiny opening in the side of a mountain, with its entrance cloaked in the shade of a great grove. It was a dark, dreary place that stank of old plots and secrecy. The hunter’s lips were parted in a sneer.

“Well hidden. Not well enough.”

With a wave of their hand, the hunter dispelled the darkness. They had already found it, and so, it was easy to break the spell that hid it. The tiny opening turned into a great yawning maw of darkness, filled with living shadow. Light entered it, only to be eaten and die. It went from sneaky to downright sinister within moments.

From the unveiled place of horror, a creeping dread spilled out. It was as though the bowels of the earth had split open to reveal only the jaws of death. Mercury looked at the darkness, and for a moment, he thought it glanced back at him.

The Hunter stepped forward, smiling brightly, and the shadows parted.

The Hunter stopped. Their smile disappeared. Their head tilted to the side. “I did not make the shadows retreat,” they announced. “Did one of you?” 

Both of their temporary companions shook their heads. The hunter’s lips twisted into a frown. They looked at the cave. “Are you… giving up?” they asked, disappointed. 

As one may imagine, the cave did not reply. The shadows remained parted, unhostile, and the feeling of dread was minimal. Simply the background fear of death that came with such a place, the sort of radiating emotion that there was nothing to be done about. 

With disappointment in their eyes, the hunter sighed gently. “How pathetic.”

They stepped into the darkness, and the other two followed.

Despite the Hunter’s nonchalance, the place was still scary. Mercury felt claustrophobic, the walls seeming to press in on him. It was as though at any moment he was a breath away from being buried and forgotten. The deep-rooted fear of being crushed and dying a slow death with no one to help.

He shook his head and dispelled that fear. What was there to worry about? He was superhuman now. If he were to be crushed, he could slip into the void, destroy his body and reform somewhere else, travel along the <Tapestry>, or any other variety of ways to get out. Zyl could melt this whole mountain to slag, if he wanted.

The two of them had nothing to fear from a bit of darkness and earth.

And yet, there was a fear to this place. The kind of fear that clung to it from years and years of death. The stink of rot on the air, the smell of wet earth and the knowledge that people who went down there usually didn’t come back up. It smelled of sweat and anxiety and dread. 

Mercury walked deeper. Deeper and deeper into the earth, where the shadows pooled and clung to his fur even after having split. His Raiment kept them at bay a little, but the darkness only grew thicker, more cloying. Wretched fingers digging into his fur as though he was a lifeline, as though he was a way out, only to release when he ventured even deeper.

Like quicksand, the darkness dragged him in. It spilled open and welcomed him with every step. The cave turned steeper, bit by bit, the light that had once graced the dirty floor disappearing. Soft earth turned harsh, unforgiving stone. 

Deeper yet. Deeper, until the air becomes suffocatingly stale and thick. Deeper, until the darkness was so all consuming it muffled sounds. Deeper still until the rocks above seemed to crush him to dust.

There was something to be said about the sheer insignificance that trips like this conveyed. Caves and the earth cared naught for invention or process. They would always be there, always ready to grind a body into dust, the darkness there such a horribly welcoming thing.

Always easy to enter, always hard to leave.

Mercury walked into an open chamber. He could only tell that it was open because the feeling of suffocation disappeared. There still was no draft, not a breath of fresh air gracing his face, but the grasping hands dragging at him disappeared. “Whew,” he said. “I was about to complain about my personal space.”

Zyl soon appeared at his side, a beacon warmth, though the dragon looked a little bedraggled. In front of them, the Hunter stood with languid relaxation, perfectly composed. 

“Come out, come out,” they hissed. “I know you’re down here, skittering, crawling things.”

But there was no skittering and crawling. Instead, the shadows drew thicker on the floor. They crawled down the slope behind them, they crawled from deeper in the cave, the darkness moving and shifting like a living thing. 

A tide of dark limbs, flowing smoothly across and over each other, passed them by. Like a swarm of insects so thick it was like a single wave. The abyssal tide poured and pooled and poured and pooled.

Darkness stacked on darkness, shadow on shadow, and the weight in the room became crushing. It became antithesis to life, the kind of cold death that leeched Mercury’s warmth from his bones. A cruel, sinister hand laying on their heads with the threat to rip them clean off.

Mercury breathed in, then out.

The shadows coalesced, and Juno stood by the creature’s side. Mercury looked past the hunter to see the thing that was made from the dark. 

Woven from a thousand living shadows stood an amorphous creature whose cloak was the hands of the damned, reaching over each other. It was funerary rites incarnate, it was thievery and crime, it was the gap between words where politeness went to breathe its last breath.

Flickering shadows, almost like a flame, formed a head. Writ on it were features of stark white, simply two glowing semicircles for eyes, and a glowing sickle for a mouth. The thing was towering, spread out vast, its limbs ethereal and evershifting. Mercury had trouble seeing where it began and ended, more natural force than person.

The lord of shadows spread his arms wide, his mantle draping over Juno who simply gave a cold shiver and an apologetic smile.

“Welcome, travellers,” the thing said with a voice so deep it rattled Mercury’s bones, “to the halls of shade.”

What a pain, Mercury thought. Did he really have to meet his second god within two pages of his first?