All that Glitters

Chapter 135: All that Glitters

Jirluc was looking at the mopaaw in front of him confusedly. How had it - he, Jirluc corrected, survived for so long in the wasteland? Finding a way of getting water was enough to kill most people who survived getting through the rifts. Some got lucky and found him, other had their own abilities, but befriending a creature made solely from water was beyond strange.

Additionally, Mercury, as he called himself, did not even appear very strong. Certainly not high enough to have any right to survive either the creatures that roam the plains, nor making it through more than one night in the bog. If he was still alive, then there had to be more there than he thought.

With some pause, Jirluc watched him closer. Their conversation had ebbed some time ago and told him little about the mopaaw, so he defaulted to simply observing instead. Could he kill it?

Physically, he was sure he was superior. He could see that Mercury's stamina washed through his body in waves, synced up with his breath, which meant that the mopaaw understood at least a good bit about manipulating it, but on first glance he was quite sure that his own vessel held much more of the substance. He didn't quite understand mana as closely though, so perhaps that was the key to the creature's survival?

Jirluc focused for a moment, trying to see if there were disturbances in the mana around, and found none. Either the mopaaw was not currently practicing, which would be rare for a mage in a moment of silence, or it was too good for him to detect. Either one seemed equally likely, but he didn't want to force himself to see one perspective.

Perhaps, it was not magic, either, that kept him alive, Jirluc thought. Was there something else? Maybe a strong will, or specific Skillset? There was most likely a way in that, as well. Stacking survival bonuses on top of each other, and most likely a strong will to last through the bog.

Again, Jirluc shifted slightly. thinking of that place still made him uncomfortable. After the time he had spent here, the ashen plains were almost routine, where he had shelter and traps. It had not quite lost its edge, and he was forced to move more than once, but it was not quite the raw terror that the nights brought with them.

Whatever crawled through the ash to get at him, he could prepare, set traps, have weapons at the ready. Nothing like that when he slept. It was just him, no line of sight, nowhere to hide, nothing to build with, in a field full of hostility. All that laid there was dread, and fear. He simply had to continue running every night, and no matter how much he abhorred it, staying alive was much more important.

Jirluc was ripped from his thoughts when the mopaaw spoke again.

He had noticed that the feline's eyes semed to gaze far into the distance before, but now they focused again, and something had subtly shifted. The sipisc could not quite place a cup under it, but he was sure that something about Mercury had shifted.

Focussing, he tried to decipher what this new survivor said, and... he failed. Blinking a few times, he tried again, but the words, which he had heard, seemed to slip through his head, and he was unable to hold onto even the memory of what they sounded like. It was as though he tried to grab hold o a lake and hoist it upwards. The water would simply slip through his fingers.

Just when his confusion grew, he saw the mopaaw's companion react. It looked back, tilted its head, and then it suddenly sprang into the air with what he guessed must be excitement.

Mercury spoke again, and once more, Jirluc felt as though there were words, yet he could not hold onto them. The sound was vanished from his memory as soon as he heard it, leaving an irritating gap. His eyes narrowed. There was more to the mopaaw than he had thought, indeed.

"What language is this?" he asked tentatively, attempting to find a gap in which he did not disrupt the conversation too much. When both heads snapped to him, it seemed he'd failed.

"Hm? What?" the mopaaw simply looked at him with confusion, but replied in common, at least.

"I asked what language you were speaking to your..." he gestured at the blob of water, "companion."

He received a few confused blinks in reply to that, and he could tell that the mopaaw was thinking on what his question meant. "So, you're saying you can't understand anything when I talk to them?"

"Nothing," Jirluc answered, shaking his head.

"Weird shit," Mercury replied. "To me, I'm talking as normal. Well, not really normal, I guess. It's like... I have to get into a certain headspace to understand them, if that makes sense? Maybe that's what's wrecking the translation?"

"Could very well be. You are able to speak with it, then?" Jirluc asked, again nodding at the fluid creature, which had behaved surprisingly quietly. It seemed to be waiting for the two of them to finish, at least.

"I just figured out how to speak to them, yes," Mercury said, putting emphasis on "them". It was fair enough. If the creature could talk, they deserved more than a designation for an object.

Wait, had he said just now? Jirluc suddenly thought that perhaps that shift of presence had been explained. "You simply... figured it out?" he asked again, unsure.

"Yeah, I mean, kind of?" Mercury seemed to tip-toe around the topic. "It's a little more complicated than that, obviously, but to keep it as simple as I can, I learned a special type of meditation technique, that allows me to get insights into things and concept. If I gain enough insight, I can kind of communicate with them. Just had a breakthrough in terms of those insights, and here we are."

Jirluc gave a tentative, slow nod at that. It was not in good grace to pry any further, if he did not reveal things himself, and so he leaned back instead. "Very well," he spoke, "continue then."

"I will, thanks."

And then, only unintelligible sounds followed.

- - - - - -

Ruvah. That was the name of Mercury's watery friend. They had no surname, and no middle name, so when he introduced himself in their language, they had laughed at him for a bit. Such a silly thing, to need so many things to call yourself all at once, when you could just change it anytime anyway.

Apparently, in their culture, things often changed quickly. Stagnation begets disease, and disease begets death. No, there needed to be movement, always. In their homeland, that movement happened on almost all layers of society, if one could even call it that.

People loved to dance, run, swim, whatever they could do to not be the same. Many changed their shape on the daily, some flipped their pronouns and even full names around as often as that. Ruvah had apparently once been called Opyel, as well as Anem and Relo. But right now, they were Ruvah. Perhaps they would not be tomorrow, perhaps they would always be that to him.

That was something else that surprised Mercury. Apparently, they usually had names bonded to people. If you introduced yourself with a name, that person could always call you that, even if you changed it, and that was fine. Because you have been locked into their life. Only if you didn't speak for a long time, or had much to catch up on was it common to tell them of new names.

Did that make it awkward when friends you met at different parts of your life met? Apparently not. Names were treated more like nicknames anyways.

But not only their names were in constant flux, so were their people. Usually, they roamed the lands in nomadic, everchanging tribes. They met others, and people would flock where they desired, then stick together for a while, until they mixed and split up again. Droplets, as they called their tribal structures, also had leaders, to a degree. They changed, sometimes rotating as frequently as days, or even every few hours.

Many poor decisions were made that way, but regardless, even a bad decision was better than none at all, and without the pressure of continually leading, while everyone did their best at the helm, there was much less blame tossed around for mistakes. Everyone occasionally made ones, some more and some less, but as long as a decision was made, that was good. A bad decision was better than none at all, since stagnation begets death.

Apparently, stagnation begets a whole lot of things. Disease, infection, leakage, degradation, and by extension, usually death. It was the fate Mercury had saved them from. Well, her, at this point. She'd decided that "they" wasn't quite fitting anymore, and Mercury was happy to acquiesce.

She'd been stuck, infected by the plague of the worms, and it had left her unable to properly shape her body and move. It seemed to be a rather horrifying experience, and she didn't elaborate in much detail, but apparently, they caused disturbances in the water her body was made from, which made it much harder to move. Honestly, Mercury understood her hesitation. If he'd been the host of a colony of worms, he sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to talk about it.

Because of that, her kind usually employed relatively thick membranes to keep their body sheltered from the outside. It wasn't really so much the danger of bleeding out, but getting things inside the liquid their forms were shaped from seemed to be unhealthy for them. It seemed that stagnation is also begotten by disease, which would often devolve into a vicious cycle.

Luckily, it hadn't come to that. Out of respect for his help, she'd decided to mimic Mercury. Taking the form of someone else was a sign of admiration where she was from, openly demonstrating you wanted to be more like someone, though she was already feeling the light desire of changing once more. Perhaps she'd find something appealing, or simply come up with a design of her own, the future would bring what it brought anyways.

Mercury was happy to listen to her throughout the conversation. It seemed that Ruvah had missed being able to talk to someone, since the words from her mouth seemed to be a neverending stream. He only occasionally interrupted with a question, or an anecdote, but mostly left all the talking to her, nodding along as she went.

Eventually though, his curiosity won him over. "I'm really glad I was able to find you, honestly, I probably wouldn't have made it without you, but I do have a question for you, if that's fine?"

"Shoot!" she replied, with a little laugh at the end. The expression had grown on her very quickly.

"Well, I wanted to ask how you ended up in here?" he asked. A few seconds of silence followed. "You really don't have to say if you don't want to, though," Mercury added.

"It's fine," Ruvah assured him, though she didn't seem to believe it herself. "It's not a very fun story though," she admitted, but when he nodded for her to continue, she gave a small sigh.

"Well, the day itself was nothing special. There was a celebration, I don't really remember what for, but we danced to it. Joined and split up again, jumped through the air, strut over the sand. The sun was beautiful and all of us were lost in the moment. Around us, everything was glistening in gold, the reflection from all the drops of water in the air, the way they refracted the light into tiny rainbows all around us..." she shook her head with a light smile. "It wasn't meant to last."

"First, it was just a single cloud breaking up the sunlight, then many followed. Perhaps it would rain, we thought. That would be fine too, we would welcome our new parts, maybe even new family. Instead, we were greeted by more clouds. Then the reflections on the sand turned red, and instead of family, it rained disease."

She paused, and did what was perhaps the equivalent of swallowing heavily.

"So many of us, of my droplet, were soaked immediately. We had thought to welcome something, yet when the dark clouds parted and revealed a red sun, it was too late. The sky was no longer beautiful, the sand we stood on now red and drenched with filth. Around me, people stopped their dance, paused, watched, and then were stained. And I ran away."

"My family was dying, and I ran. Hid, behind a thick membrane above me, as liquid death fell onto the ground all around. By the time I'd reached the edge of the shore, there were cracks, gaps in the air, and monstrous howls was all that sounded through the falling rain. Before I'd known, I was in the water, dove down deep to hide from the stain on this world, from the creatures, the noise drowned out. I left all of them to die in silence."

"Down there, I hid, thought myself safe in the enveloping darkness. I didn't even hear the crack as something opened in front of me. The water simply began streaming somewhere, and with me being shaken, I could hardly even react before I was dragged through, and spat out onto a field of ash and blood and dirt." She shivered.

"I was lonely, and lost, and sad, but nevertheless I carried on. I hoped to find another droplet, perhaps, someone else to travel alongside, and all I found was death. The creatures here tore each other apart. The brutality was unlike anything I'd ever seen. There was no beauty in any of it. It all wore me down, and eventually, in the bog, I was hunted down. For a day, I was unable to think clearly, unable to even move, and stagnated. The worms appeared, and I was left to simply wait and hope."

Ruvah finished, taking a long breath. She shook her head. "Not a nice story at all."

Slowly, Mercury nodded. "No, definitely not."

"Let me return the question, then, Mercury," she said, and he could see the edge of her mouth twitch at the name. "What brought you here."

A rueful smile found its way on his face. "It's not exactly a nice story either."

All he received in turn was a huff. "I'm listening," Ruvah said, and Mercury began to tell her about himself.

- - - - - -

Zagan paced about in her room. Back and forth and back and forth, over and over again. She had been at it for much longer than hat was reasonable, and did not show any signs of stopping.

It was grating her down so much. None of her researchers or artists were permitted anywhere close to her anymore, because whenever things got even remotely interesting, the filter set in, sending her into even greater fits of anger. Her greatest passion had been taken away from her for a time, her assassins had failed, and her stake in the whole plan had suddenly vanished.

She was sure Berthorn was giggling into that slimy little fist of his, and it all made her even more infuriated.

"AAAHHHH!!" she roared, and slammed her fist into a wall. It was neither the first, nor the last time it would happen. "That little-" she could not speak the last word.

Apparently, even swearing was considered an art. She had tried to think of a nice word to call him, and that had taken it too far. The thought vanished from her mind, sending her fury ever higher.

Her life had so suddenly lost its luster. No music, no pictures, no new discoveries, nothing! Even swearing was taken away from her, no, it went beyond that. The damned contract was even interfering with her dreams.

They had all become so mundane, or stopped existing at all. Anything that would have been perceived as artful vanished from them, and she was left with a bleak canvas rather than-

That thought had been too artful as well! Metaphors went further than the contract allowed as well.

It had her fuming. Zagan was beyond furious. she had endured a few days, weeks even, but any more than that would be plain ridiculous. It had gone from being mildly disconcerting and bothersome to exactly what she had imagined, being borderline torturous.

Those cretins! The damned musicians that had done it to her would receive absolutely no harm in exchange! She would do nothing to get her undeserved revenge. If she could she would tear their- leave them alone.

"FUUUUUUCK!!!"

They had even taken the possibility of planning bloody vengeance from her. Well, at least on them. Did that protection extend to those that surrounded them? Also yes. Those that they cared for? That too. But there were always gaps. She could still take revenge on Berthorn, who had come up with the plan. Or perhaps Zylnareth?

No, that thought was shoved away immediately. Certainly, one of his sparks was taken, but that did not mean she could simply go there and try to take something from him. No, that was a surefire way of getting herself killed. Even trying to get revenge on him would draw the eyes of high priestess Lucia and the monster, Otto. It would be suicide, plain and clear.

But considering taking her vengeance on Berthorn? She sucked in air through her teeth, hissing. She could not imagine a path where that would go very well for her. She was superior to him in perhaps one regard, and that was most likely her fine taste, but it was not available right now.

Growling, Zagan sped up her pacing. There had to be something she could do, something to vent this frustration, to get rid of the boiling fury in her body. She had not experienced anything like this since she had risen herself from lower demonhood, and she had considered herself beyond it for quite some time. Plenty good that had done her, she huffed.

Then, her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she couldn't take revenge on Berthorn directly, but she didn't need to. While the dragon had many allies and sponsors, his task was now done. That meant, until he was allocated a new one, he was disposable, something which dragons pounced on with glee.

Indeed, perhaps she did not have to do anything herself at all. Perhaps...

"You're indulging yourself again, Lady Zagan," she heard from the door. It was pushed open only a hint, by a small figure clad in a golden robe. Luckily, the door remained stone, since the doorknob itself was already crafted from the soft metal.

"So what if I am," she asked the figure, looking him down. His hair was stark black, but with streaks of golden yellow woven into it. It always looked like that, since parts of it would come loose enough to be detected as a foreign entity he was touching, but still stay attached to his kull. The same went for his scraggly beard.

The yellow made the man looked younger than he really was, and the smoothness of his features belied his age as well. There were hardly and folds at all on his face, only marks of smiling around his eyes. His lips were a full red like wine, and his eyes a dark brown that seemed to glint with humor.

"Oh nothing, nothing wrong with that at all," he said, half raising his arms in a mocking shrug as he strutted into the room. "I simply think you're lying to yourself."

"Lying?" Zagan hissed, not at all bemused.

"Indeed," the once king said, jumping on a couch which only absorbed the shock for a moment, then turned to cold metal, "lying." He sat back up, looking into the multiple sets of eyes that rested on her face. "You see, I know you love stories. I do, too! Back in Greece, we had the greatest playwrights of the whole world, I tell you!"

There was a pause in the speech as he dumped half a goblet of wine down his gullet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "But we both know that you would be a..." he left the word hanging in the air for a few seconds, giving Zagan a chance to fill it in herself.

"You tread a thin line, Midas," the demoness hissed, but the human continued unperturbed.

"Ah, so close dear friend. But the word I was looking for is 'side Character'," he said with a grin.

"You absolute fucking-" her rant was interrupted by the filter, her own mouth too artful for her good, leaving the once king loudly laughing in her face. He laughed hard enough to even wipe away a single tear of his.

"Ah, no, but seriously, I came here to give you some good advice. You hate it here, right? Missing all the thrill that art brought you? Then go out there and find it yourself, I doubt the contract can hide the natural world from you. Go see a waterfall or something, you grumpy old hag," he spoke.

Zagan first wanted to yell, but then noticed his words had dumped a glass of water, no, more likely a goblet of wine onto her emotions.

"I hate it when you're right."

"And yet you'll thank me later," he said, taking another lavish sip of wine, straight from the bottle this time.