Trash: Chapter 118 Repetition, Repeating Until It Hurts (Patreon)

Chapter 118

Repetition, Repeating Until It Hurts

One could almost think that an odd masochistic bonding experience would be bad for relationships, but instead it often has the exact opposite reaction. Perhaps that is part of the lesson that Madame Bloom is wishing to instill in me. The notion that there is something powerful about having a leader who would not have you do something that they themselves would not sit through with you.

Despite the pain, despite the fact that they are clearly suffering from your actions more than you are, even though you are the only one actually doing something. Knowing that they believe in your task so much, that they are willing to suffer through everything with you, while you are working, is oddly engaging.

There is also the fact that her suffering makes it so that any complaints that could possibly be presented by the sensitive guardsmen around us are cut off. Making this work a bit easier to accomplish on my end.

As for me, it is a grueling process. I focus on the shape of the eye, use the provided paint, fail, then continue on with our tried and true method of eliminating these stones completely.

The Trash, drop, and stomp method, as I am mentally calling the process.

Despite my constant failing at making one simple mark on the stone, which subsequently causes me to have to repeat a process that causes clear and obvious pain to Madame Bloom, she never hesitates, never waivers. Instead, she just smiles at me, gives me a nod of encouragement and waits for the inevitable, for me to fail.

Moving fluidly, I make a slow controlled swish around forming the outline of the eye I am to draw, followed by a quick dap for the actual iris, pause and wait for nothing to happen. Seeing that nothing happens, I immediately exhale in frustration.

“It’s okay, you’ll get it next time,” Madame Bloom offers encouragingly. I don’t even have to look up to see that she has that same calm faint smile on her lips, that her face isn’t filled with pain and anger at the idea that I failed once more. That she will in a moment have to sit through yet another round of psychic screams that cause her increased pain. Pain that is ultimately caused by me, in the fact that I can’t get this stupid sigil correct.

Worse, I am getting tired, it has been a long day, a day that was made far longer thanks to my own inquisitive nature. In the grand scheme of things, I know this is ultimately a good thing to get rid of this, to save Ronaldo’s Confectionery shop from being swallowed into a rift of some kind, but for now I find it all taxing. To add insult to injury, I can’t just remove the stones and mark them, as that clearly can cause a cascading effect if these shadow stones are allowed to merge together.

I hear the clopping of feet, as a large group of disciplined people seem to be marching in the distance, but that is something my addled brain hears, identifies, and then dismisses as unimportant. For now, I have another stone to eliminate.

Though looking at this stone, I am about to dissolve it, when I realize something is off. Taking a moment before I use Trash to remove the protective outer shell of the item, I just stare at it, trying to figure out why my brain is telling me this one is different.

“Something wrong?” Madame Bloom asks.

I nod, and then hand her the stone, trying to see if she can see something different about this one. Then I ask, “does it look different to you?”

Immediately at the word different, Madame Bloom tenses up. Even though she seems hesitant to touch the stone, I can almost see the moment she forces her body to move, despite her clear reservations about getting closer to these stones.

Seeing her reaction, I can only feel my approval for her increasing. She doesn’t have to do this, she could easily just leave this all to Markan, who for his part is still carrying the jar of paint and around to make sure I’m okay.

Taking the stone, Madame Bloom holds the mass at a distance as if just having it in her hands is too close for her. Maybe it is, I honestly don’t know what a sensitive like her would feel from being this close to the item. My mind also notes belatedly that she did jump as if being shocked by just touching the stone. Still, she looks at it and rotates it in her hands only to finally shake her head.

“I’m sorry, it all looks like a stagnant blur to me, like a storm that is stuck in the middle of a violent spin,” she offers, before quickly handing the stone back to me.

I shrug, not expecting much, but grateful for her giving my question a chance, and I am also thankful for the slight reprieve. While I can still cycle and create nearly boundless reserves of energy, it does seem to come with a cost.

With nothing truly different, or alerting found by Madame Bloom, I take a breath and begin the process. Trash, drop, and I am already raising my foot as a massive scream is released. A scream that instantly ignites my inner fire, or at least that is what I have come to consider the process. An inner fire that gets ignited by the screams, something that was proven when one of these stones turned out to be a dud. The more power behind the psychic scream, the more my inner seal responds in kind, generating even more energy.

This time, it turns out my concerns were not unfounded, as Madame Bloom was correct, the psychic scream released was the most powerful individual scream created thus far.

“SHHHRIIIIIEEEEK!”

Yet, by the time the stone landed on the ground, I was already stomping with a Seal infused burst of holy power. Power that was so righteous and intense that I could almost swear that I felt flames erupting down my leg.

Flames that shot out, seemed to engulf my leg for a moment, and burn intensely for a moment. Seeing and feeling the flames I paused, as I almost expected the next obvious reaction. For a moment, it felt like flames that had come from the holding cell earlier. The Cell where Mousey had savagely dealt with Johny, a moment I am still proud of the guy for. Not for resorting to violence, but for the sheer fact that he stood up for himself.

My mind instantly associate the two flames, and then just as quickly the flame wrapping around my shoe, and pants leg died off. For a moment, I waited for burning pains to course through my body, to sear their way into my mind and all but cripple me with agony, but nothing.

I pause, then after a second, I look down and see that even my clothes are fine as there are no fabric fibers in my wounds, nor any signs that the fabric of my clothes were affected by the holy flames at all.

“A Paladin’s heart,” the faint words of Madame Bloom whispered on the wind. Looking up, I saw a look of shock and surprise, as that was the first time that I felt a full burst of energy erupt from my core outward. It was also the first time Madame Bloom looked to be in awe of my actions, as she just stood there, her mouth agape.

Looking at her, I wondered if I was somehow hearing things, for the state of her body showed that she had not moved, yet I could swear that I heard her speaking clearly a moment ago.

“Did you say something?” I ask, confused by what was happening, even as I saw a long thick string of blood flow from her nose. A stream that she still seemed to be unaware of, despite it clearly dripping over her open mouth. That’s when I gesture to my own face and do the universal hand sign for you have something on your face.

Distracted, I can almost see the moment Madame Bloom comes back, as her eyes suddenly regain focus, she shakes her head, spraying blood droplets everywhere and then just shakes. Fortunately, Markan is right there with a handkerchief, and he first raises to wipe off her face for her but then stops himself and just hands over the white cloth fabric. Fabric that quickly turns red from the amount of blood being applied, before turning and staring at our guests.

There flanked by his royal guards is Third Prince Fiammata, just seeing his presence I can’t help but feel even more frustrated as it is clear that this day has gone from bad to worse.

“Let me take care of the prince,” Madame Bloom states, as if she expected this result, which in a way I guess she almost had to. For she was the one who sent the Sergeant with the stone to report to the prince directly.

For a moment I wanted to protest, but before I could say anything, my stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly.

“I’ll also see about getting some food prepared, while we are working towards protecting the city,” Madame Bloom offered. With that she held back the now bloody handkerchief to Markan, which he quickly waved off.

Sadly, it was only after she turned to join Prince Fiammata that I even realized I could remove the blood from that handkerchief, that was just how tired I was at this point. Still, it was a moot point as she was already gone and I still had more stones to mess up.

Though with Madame Bloom gone, I didn’t feel nearly as much pressure to get the symbols correct. I still wanted to, for having to stomp my foot down was getting exhausting, and I think I finally found the one draw back to constantly using so much mana. Namely, I was now getting excessively hungry, despite just having eaten, I could feel my energy wavering.

Still, food was on the way, and I knew that once I stopped to eat, it would be that much harder to get back up to finish, as my body would already begin the process of trying to stop and recover. Thus, I pushed myself. Seeing me move, Markan stopped and asked.

“How many more?”

“On the ground level, about three,” I said. This was far better than I had originally expected as Markan was easily able to lift me up higher to get many of the stones that were just out of normal reach, the ones under gutters or on top of windowsill that generally sat in the shade all day. Those had been some of the first concessions made, now all that remained were the ones on the rooftops.  I saw that there were about seven in plain view that appeared well out of reach of even Markan’s assistance, implying that I would need the aid of a ladder or something tall to step on.

“And those in the air?”

“Seven,” I huffed out exhaustedly.

“Okay, lets work on the three ground level ones and we will stop and eat, while the prince and his faction get a ladder,” Markan stated.

I paused and realized something.

“Wait, you aren’t going to ask ahead for the ladder now?” I asked, trying to wonder why we wouldn’t already put that request in.

“No, if the Prince is too unaware to plan that far ahead, then that just means you will get a longer break to rest and enjoy your meal,” Markan stated. Hearing his words I couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief, as I knew this would mean today would somehow be even longer than it already was. But it also meant that I would get a few extra moments to rest, making these moments almost feel like I was somehow stealing them from the Prince, which caused me to smile a bit.

Realizing that the faster I finished with the ground level stones, the sooner I could rest and hopefully wait for first a meal to be served, then a ladder to be fetched, I found my body moving quickly on its own.

Going to the next stone, I plucked it from the wall and was about to just throw it to the ground, when Markan caught me.

“Wait,” he cried out, while holding a paint brush with just enough glowing red paint on it to be seen. Seeing the brush, I sighed, feeling that I had failed already too much at this point.

“Do I have to?” I asked, feeling that trying and failing again might be too much. Taking a quick look back, I saw that Madame Bloom was far enough way that she would be in what I mentally calculated as the tertiary zone of impact from these zones. There was an immediate zone within five meters of the stone, then a secondary one that seemed to extend another twenty meters from there, and then a tertiary zone for all distances over twenty-five meters away. These were not exact, but I did see the sensitive guard members continually moving back to about that distance, far enough that they could confirm the threat had been awakened and then neutralized, but not close enough to take any real damage from the encounter.

It was good to know, and seeing that Madame Bloom was now safely away, I wanted to do this now to protect her from herself, but Markan seemed insistent.

“You know, if you didn’t fill up your empty Skill slots with dancing and bard related Skills, you might have gotten a pretty cool Rune Writing Skill that could help you right now,” Markan chided.

Hearing that, I paused, “wait there is a Skill for Rune Writing?”

“Yes, though Rune Writing is apparently a baseline, but most have to go the Painting route, to Advanced Painting, and then finally to Rune Writing.”

“So, Painting is the Common, Advanced Painting is the Uncommon, and Rune Writing is what, Rare?” I ask trying to understand the path.

“Yes, though most people only need the Common version to help build up the increased movements provided by a higher Dexterity Attribute to begin properly using Advanced Painting and Rune Writing. Honestly, I figured someone with your natural abilities would be a natural at this, but apparently my faith in you has been shattered,” Markan presses while still holding out the brush to me and wiggling it slightly for me to take it.

“Fine,” I say, taking the brush and the comments for what they were, an attempt to get me to improve myself, that’s when I focus my mind and exhale while painting the sigil. A sigil that is now burned in my mind. Markan is right, that I am more than capable of performing the manual movements needed to make this design correctly, but for whatever reason the symbol is just not clicking into place.

I can feel it. As I make my slow loop around, I can see the way the energy from the paint infuses itself into the stone.

“Also, the General will never tell you this, but this is some expensive paint. People without the General’s discount have to pay a thousand gold coins for a jar half this size,” Markan offers casually, as if we were somehow discussing the GDP of a third world country, which given the amount was roughly equivalent to that, as a thousand gold coins was an astronomical amount. An amount that most people would think would be enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Just thinking about that much money, and seeing how much of the paint I had apparently wasted up until now, I realized it was easily a quarter or more of the jar, meaning I had wasted 500 gold coins worth of paint. Which caused me to seize up, and freeze mid-stroke, clearly messing up the line, I was creating, but I almost felt something fracture in my right hand. Yet, all that remained was an ugly broken eye that had a slight break around the left loop that clearly wouldn’t’ be able to complete a full circuit.

Seeing my mistake, Markan just shook his head in faux exasperation and ticked, “another failure, so shocking.”

Hearing him, I knew he was goading me. If he had a Skill to annoy people I was certain it would be badged and at a hundred percent completion by now, but looking at him, I realized that sadly this was not the case. He was just really good at irritating people and getting under their skin apparently, as he just looked at me and shook his head in a “should’ve seen that coming,” look.

Angrily, I flipped the stone over, and tried again, this time focusing the entire time and I even felt a faint burn of energy through my right hand letting me know that I was close to something. This was the same burning sensation I had on my left while I was able to expertly finger out crisp notes for my playing. While this sensation was similar, I could feel that it was different as well. This was a more precision and flow type energy that flowed from my hand.

I could even see a faint golden light that burned through my right hand, down the brush and melded with the paint. Paint that seemed to blaze to life with full energy.

There was just one problem, the amount of paint on the brush had been minimal to begin with, just enough to cleanly do one side. Then when I proceeded to seemingly activate the paint somehow with holy energy that flowed down my right hand, the remaining paint evaporated quickly, leaving behind a symbol that was half as thick as the messed up first half, but somehow twice as powerful.

Stopping in frustration, I turned to look at Markan as if he purposefully set me up for failure, making it so I could only do one complete sigil. But Looking up at him, I could see the look of shock on his face as he just stared at the stone in my hand.

“What?” I hiss, trying to let out some of my anger.

“You did it!”

“Did what?”

“You made it real, I can fully see it,” Markan stated as he held out his one empty hand to hold the stone.

Shrugging, I held out the stone and let him inspect it, flipping it around like it was a perfect diamond found deep within hidden mountains and finally allowed to see the light day for the first time in centuries.

“It’s oddly pretty,” Markan declared.

“Yeah, well it’s not dormant,” I reply.

“It’s not?” He asks.

“No, see the clouds are still moving.”

“The what?”

“Clouds, miasma, whatever that gassy stuff is, that means it is still alive,” I reply and point to the swirling mists.

“Yeah,” Markan reluctantly admits, but it was clear he had been hoping that I finally succeeded.  Seeing his expression, I realized that this was likely his true mental state, and what he had been putting on before was an act. Something to make me push myself a bit further, or in a different way. The proverbial stick to Madame Bloom’s carrot as the saying goes.

“Well nothing to do but destroy it,” I say, holding out my hand to perform my task, just like every time before I channeled my Trash Skill into the stone, trying to dissolve its outer layer. Channeling the healing infused energy into the outer shell, I saw a flash of light as my energy fused with the energy of the half-formed sigil.

There was a burst of light, then something remarkable happened.