The Fool 44

On his way back, the young mage noticed a soul core spiraling out away from the sling of the world's spiritual gravity. "Yeah, I imagine that sometimes monsters and magic users leave a little eternium behind when they die. It's because the world will lost its grip on the soul core. That doesn't stop it from gobbling the eternium up, after the fact, in its resource juggling."

The young mage was suddenly slammed back into his body with light spiritual damage to his intent. Jarvis had jumped up from their hiding place to deal with an attack. Several soldiers and a few magic types had latched onto their whereabouts and were obviously not friendly.

Trying to push away the dizziness, Orison rallied himself to join in but it was too overwhelmingly against them. The soldiers were falling one by one but magic aid had the adventurer cornered and sustaining deep wounds one after another while a net of magical force had the young mage pinned down, unable to utilize his burning needle trick. They would have already been dead if the intentions weren't obviously to capture them.

There was no logical reason for this to be happening as it was, so suddenly. That meant the will of this world had sensed Orison poking around in its depth and retaliated through its swarm of fading puppets on this dead end branch. The young mage couldn't remember being so enraged and still coldly and logically present as he was in that moment.

While the 'sheriff' from the other town and a sharp and severe looking woman gave complementary villain speeches, Orison drew on the power of his key. Hoping that they were far out enough away from the world will's main focus and enough on the ledge of a fragile spike of dead end events, he slammed his Key's ability into the structure of the branch. Metaphorical spiderweb cracks ran through the branch as the last of the key's protection sizzled away.

A small and young conduit pitted itself in a losing battle with the extreme fingernail's tip of the the world will's might. Fractures continued to run across the 'event branch' as the key let out a whine of protest against its imminent destruction. A desolate gravity of long dead emotions and disintegrated memories stirred inside his soul as Orison poured his own resources into keeping the key from vaporizing. A synchronicity occurred.

The desperate and nearly fatalistic rage of the young mage radiated like a star on collusion with the event horizon of a black hole. It found purchase into the burnt out and dusty echoes of the dim and abysmal ruin within. The struggle changed instantly.

Shoring it's losses, the world will completely abandoned the branch. Far from fighting with the key, it lent its own efforts in severing as if it had sensed something upon that branch capable of threatening it. Pulling with abandon, it tried to claim what it could before the branch was lost to it.

The indiscriminate consumption was stopped in its tracks by a force of much greater spiritual gravity, marking claim to the branch and all its pitiful remaining resources. Though it was only the ghost of a threat, the world will wasn't a risk taker. It quickly withdrew any connections with itself to the severing branch. Thinking quickly, Orison began marking things with his intent to be 'preserved' and not join the rest in being devoured or flung off to be disbursed into the space between places.

Reaching out with the whining key, he latched onto the tether of his 'other' body and pulled the sinking boat of fractured existence he was on towards it. As encroaching darkness swallowed the outer edges of their life raft splinter, those things and people marked by the young mage were drawn towards the 'center' where Orison lay shaking off the residual magic left by a person who no longer existed, at least not there.

Wanting some positive to come out of the horrid tragedy orchestrated by the world will and his epic temper tantrum, Orison latched onto a specific and fairly intact soul core, dragging it into his spiritual seat. Reaching out to the soul, he struck a bargain. With the last settling ebbs of the long dead behemoth's power coming from within, the young mage drew them into another plane with a jarring but less regretful result.

***

"Worry not. It brings no good and only harm to those of us who remain if we give in to the terrors of the unknown. Set aside old grudges and cleave to each other as siblings for that is what we are. Brothers and sisters, we are refugees of a dying land abandoned by the world. To survive the challenges that come, we must work together or even we may perish."

Teshara ended her speech and returned to the task of healing Jarvis. She had always had a talent for healing but with the spiritual mentor she now possessed, her skills were showing improvements that had stagnated for years. Looking fondly at the man, she finished up and allowed him to put his shirt and jerkin back on.

It took nearly a day to save those who could be saved and to give final rest to those who couldn't. She knew that the one who had restored her to life was content with the results. Teshara could only internally mourn all the side casualties of a skirmish between the ambivalent world and a powerful soul pushed beyond its ability to silently endure.

Once everyone had been educated on what had happened up to their ability to comprehend, the survivors still split up into groups. The ample resources laying around were divvied up according to whim, carrying limits and greed of individuals before malcontents and tight knit groups wandered their own directions. In the end, those who would be traveling with Jarvis and Teshara were a rather small potion of the total.

Using line of sight method, Teshara teleported them as far away from the rest as possible. Whatever shaky alliance of mutual fear had been established, it wouldn't last long. It would only be a matter of time before someone got a dumb idea in their head. They had made that abundantly clear when even the grim reality of their situation could barely do more than keep them from fighting immediately.

"I'm surprised you had the nerve to join us, Owen," Jarvis said while all but growling at the 'now' youthful minstrel.

Owen chuckled nervously and said, "It was years ago, one poorly worded song."

"I was pelted with copper coins from three separate villages, like a beggar too pitiful to hate," the adventurer said.

"In my defense, that's better than being ran out with rocks and while being cursed at. Believe me. I know," Owen added.

Jarvis grimaced and said, "I don't doubt it. But unlike you, I can and have stabbed a person throwing rocks at me."

A young elven woman in flexible but full cover leathers said, "Every moment we bicker is one more moment our savior must reside as a homeless urchin within her very own body which she so selflessly gave away for another's happiness. I would very much like to see her to this 'waiting vessel' before some other nameless misfortune visits her or the rest of us."

Teshara cleared her throat. "Him. Orison is a 'him'."

The elven woman froze up for a moment, then said, "Be that as it may, we owe... him too great a debt of gratitude to delay anymore than what is necessary."

Teshara smiled and said, "I have no argument for your words but I require a night's rest to replenish myself and discuss matters of importance with Jarvis. Orison appreciates your words but understands my need."

"Our need," Jarvis added, giving Teshara a smoldering look that made the sorceress blush.

Rolling her eyes but giving the sorceress a secret smirk of understanding, she said, "I'll scout."

Owen said, "If you'd like some company-"

"You don't know how to keep your mouth shut," she fired back before sauntering off.

Both Jarvis and an axe wielding gorilla of a man chuckled.

With one nervous chuckle of his own, Owen said, "Well, the four of us can swap stories or I could sing one of the old ballads until we're ready to turn in."

The minstrel sighed sadly as the back area of the grotto where they were camping for the night was quickly being annexed off with a weave of force that was getting privacy wards added even as he spoke. The last sight of the sorceress before she turned in with Jarvis was of Owen being guided by the large, 'friendly' hand of the axe wielding mercenary to the minstrel's own tent, insuring everyone's peace.

A couple of hours of 'conversation' later, Teshara was resting languidly in Jarvis' arms. Suddenly, she started crying. When the adventurer finally got her soothed again, he asked her what that was about.

"You dense blockhead. I've carried a torch for you nearly half a lifetime but you were always running off on some new life threatening quest and dragging some flashy thing or another along for the ride. I tried to tell myself that your friendship was enough and that I didn't have the right to want more. Power I had but I was never that courageous."

He looked at her with complicated eyes and said, "I knew but I... You were an important person to me. I thought that if I ever laid hands on you then I'd only ruin what we had. You were one of the last true friends, one of the only people I could let the walls down and talk to...

"When the blood started pumping, I made poor choices sometimes. I didn't want that to take you from my life for good... The short of it is, I didn't trust myself to be true to you."

She said, "I want to be mad at you for torturing me with your 'friendship' for so many years... That... that was very cruel of you. Still, getting the older... well, wiser you may have been for the best. It certainly came with some unexpected... pleasant surprises. I don't suppose you have any 'other' surprises left you might want to show me?"

The expectant look she gave him went blank for a moment before she started laughing.

Jarvis looked at her questioningly and she said, "It's nothing."

Moments later, the sorceress and adventurer engaged in deeper conversation once more.

She thought to the silent and sullen partner in the back of her mind, "Instead of wallowing in self pity, how about learning a thing or two so that you can have a woman willing to pine over you for a lifetime. Although, I think you shouldn't lose that soft heart of yours. Hard men may be some women's dream but they're a nightmare too."

When she felt a timid and embarrassed presence amid the throws of her enjoyable 'conversation', Teshara secretly smiled and threw herself into giving the peeper a good show. Being of a relatively timid bent herself, she was surprised at the excitement a shy voyeur added to the occasion.

The next day, under the glow of her own contentment, Teshara observed her companions after two more line of sight teleports. Owen looked miserable. The man would all but jump out of his skin at the slightest rustle in the grass, rushing to the protective shade of the chuckling mountain of a mercenary. He seemed to wither a little more with every rebuff of the elven girl and flinch inducing consoling pat of his 'big friend'.

The mercenary said, "I've heard tell that despite being obsessed with perfection that many elves have been known to have dalliances with humans and sub-races that many of their own kind find 'less than attractive'.

The neutral expression of the girl soured as she said, "We have an appreciation for BEAUTY, not perfection. Perfection is a lie. And as for beauty, it resides in more places than the eye alone can 'see'... Sub-races... how arrogant. I would say ignorant but that inspires the idea that learning might be-"

Seeing the situation was about to head down hill quickly, Teshara cut her off to say, "There is much to be said for inner beauty. It's the sort that can endure when time fades so many others. It's so easy to show the uglier parts of ourselves but it is the sharing of those brighter parts that lets us see that there is beauty in all of us. We need only be brave enough to show it."

The axe wielding brute shrugged and said, "I've opened up a lot of insides. They pretty much look the same."

Jarvis tried very hard to hold in his amusement at the wisecrack.

Teshara looked at the big man with steel in her eyes. "When I look at you and see your 'insides', there's a lonely child hurt by cruel jokes and blunt opinions. Now you use those very same things to hide your best parts for fear that someone will find a way to hurt you again."

The elven girl looked over the brute again and could see the telling sings of a desire to lash back held in check by a 'greater' man by the sorceress' side. "Nature gave you physical greatness. If the greatness of your heart matched it, you wouldn't lack for love and adoration."

As the mercenary lapsed into thoughtful silence, Owen chirped, "Your words inspire me, milady. Perhaps you could spare a kind word to lift my flagging spirits?"

With an arrow of vitriol knocked in her verbal bow, she resisted the urge to fire it as she saw an expectant look on Teshara's face.

Choking it back, she said, "A man who has grown addicted to vice and easy affection will have difficulty finding pleasure in naught else. I pity the hollowness of such a life. That pity is the only thing that keeps me from wishing you ill. Please stop pestering me with your endless litany of shallow and insincere advances."

As Owen pelted her with a diatribe of flowery words that had veins popping up on her forehead, Teshara came to her aid. "Owen. Stop now. I have no doubt that under your ridiculously thick skin is a fragile heart looking for something meaningful to fill all those hungering chasms within you. If you don't start looking for it somewhere other than between a woman's legs, you'll never find it."

The sorceress' eyes grew distant, she nodded with a smile and added, "No one carries more sadness than the clown because humor comes mostly from pain. Don't forget to wipe off the paint every now and then so you can remember how to be a person."

The incorrigible man, who had been revving up for more annoying rhetoric, found the words he was about to say shrivel up on his tongue.

The fragile moment of inner growth the two women were trying to nurture was shattered by the mercenary. "Yeah, don't just dive straight for the sweet spot. A nice pair of... bosoms. You should give those some attention too."

"A juicy peach of a heart shaped hind quarters is worthy of a man's loving caresses as well. The sorceress' words are the very peak of wisdom, Jarvis," Owen nodded sagely.

The adventurer gave them a look that said 'don't drag me into this' before pretending like he hadn't even heard it. The two women looked at each other and Teshara threw her hands up in defeat, letting out a monotone laugh to shake off the urge to cry. The rest of the day's trip was spent with Jarvis and Teshara silently hoping they'd get close enough to help Orison complete his transition to his waiting vessel before the elven maiden put an arrow or dagger through Owen's face.

Two days later, tensions were high and there had been more than one occasion where dangerous fights between the group and roving monsters broke out. For whatever reason, the mercenary guarded the minstrel meticulously. The elven maiden held a good balance of weaving herself between axe, sword and spell to provide admirable support.

Teshara had a moment of conflict within due to the growing danger. On one side was the knowledge that everything she had was because of the other soul within but it was because of those same things, her new life and the life inside her, that she wanted to call it quits. Sensing her wavering resolve, that other soul communicated with her.

The sorceress addressed the ragtag group. "We're going to find a safe place to overnight the three of you while I try to reach our benefactor's vessel with Jarvis. Think on whether you wish to wait here or... Never mind. It seems that he thinks it's best that you wait with us at the nearest safe town."

The young elven woman wasn't happy with the declaration. "How is he to reach us safely? We have begun encountering things that grant the lot of us a challenge."

Jarvis interjected, "We are free peoples. Perhaps your skills are good enough to avoid what we must face when together. What of you two?"

Owen wasted no time expressing his desire for civilization.

The mercenary said, "If the future boss said wait in town, I wait in town. We have plenty of jingle and sparkle to keep us happy for a few years. A few weeks of waiting to see if he can pull through is no skin off the nose... Uh, what's he look like?"

Teshara said, "Do you remember how I appeared when we first arrived? Like that but male. Then again, he may look different entirely... You called him a nickname when you barged into his room after Owen. He'll offer that as proof of identity."

The man blinked slowly and said, "The Briar Ro- she was a man!?"

"Not at the time but that's not my story to-" the sorceress' eyes grew distant and sighed before adding, "Apparently, from the time he was a person named Al onward, HE has ALWAYS identified as a man... heavens preserve me. As if it matters."

After some inward bickering, she laid the law down that if she couldn't concentrate, teleports couldn't happen. Once the rest of the entourage was safely tucked away, she and Jarvis prepared for two more jumps to try to get in range. Both Teshara and her spiritual passenger were concerned how their relationship would change if that wasn't enough.