One Day: Hope Stirs.

Chapter 116: One Day: Hope Stirs.

/The Thing's first hunt was most likely what truly ended up defining its character. Well, perhaps not the very first, but rather the first few. For you see, it failed in those hunts. It chased after its prey, running as fast as its legs would take it, its maw dripping and hungry, and yet the prey escaped. It ran too fast.

Truly, on the first day, the Thing did not mind so much. It was frustrated, of course, and hungry as well, but the hunger wasn't bad enough quite yet. In fact, young as it was, the Thing could hardly place what the strange feeling in its stomach area meant.

But the second day was a rather rude awakening, when the strange and curious feeling became gnawing and painful. The Thing woke up sweating and shivering because of the clear demand for food. It had picked its parent clean, and there was no stockpile, so all it could do was go out and attempt another hunt once more, only to come up short. Empty handed.

To tell the truth, that day, the thing felt angry. It was disappointed and hungry, almost madly so. Yet it had not seen the worst of it then.

Because on the third day, when the Thing woke up in the morning, it felt much worse than even before. It was still small, still young, and as such needed plenty of food to grow. It had received very little, and in exchange, its body was quite unhappy. The Thing spent the hunt of that day more in battle with itself than the prey it was chasing after, beating down the pangs of hunger as best it could. But once more, it failed.

Back then, the beast had become desperate, and not knowing what to do, it looked to other things around for guidance. It saw other things more like itself, walking around on their legs, snapping at each other occasionally, but many of them didn't do so at all. In fact, they instead dug through the white stuff on the floor to find patches of green stuff there. Some of those green things stood tall, like towers, while other ones laid low to the floor like a patch of fur. Again others were more white and looked as though they wore hats.

Naturally, not knowing what else to do, and half mad with hunger, the thing decided that perhaps, the green stuff was suited to go into its stomach as well. And for a while, it did feel sated, although it tasted rather bad.

But vengeance came on the fourth day. Because the Thing's stomach could clearly not digest the green stuff, and thus, the pangs of hunger were now mixed with more pain. The Thing felt sick, terrible, and threw up in the morning. There was no way around it, today it would feast, or it would starve.

And naturally, the Thing starved for a long time that day, unable to catch anything at all.

It wasn't stealthy, it wasn't too fast either, nor was it smart enough to set a trap, or bulky enough to challenge the bigger, slower things. Instead, it was small and fragile, and frankly, it was a miracle it hadn't been eaten yet.

Having been defeated, the Thing tried to lay itself to bed, but this day, sleep just wouldn't come. It was too hungry, too ravenous for its consciousness to even consider shutting off. No, the hunger forced the little Thing's tired, ashen body with wrinkled skin to drag itself up and out of its home, to roam the land in search of something that would suit its appetite.

And nothing was found.

By the dawn of the fifth day, the thing found itself simply collapsing in misery. It was hungry, so very, very hungry, and after roaming day and night, nothing had found itself in its maw. It had no stamina left in it to spend, no more energy to give, and so it had to lay down on the soft, ashen snow, as the cold drained into its body, and simply waited for its death.

That death though decided never to come. Why? Well, naturally, because someone took pity on the Thing. It knows not who, and it matters little at all, yet eventually, the Thing woke up right where it had fallen asleep, many tiny glimmers of light in the dark sky above. Back then, the Thing was too preoccupied with the pain being gone, but thinking back, that was the moment that changed it.

Now, it was bigger, stronger, faster, and had an extra pair of legs that seemed somewhat mismatched, yet still functional. And while the pain of hunger was gone and dozens of boxes floated in front of it, all the Thing could feel was greedy voracity, and a strange drive to hunt and rend.

Because, in truth, no one had pitied it. Rather than that, the Thing had changed itself in despair./

(Legends: The Thing - 2; Metamorphosis)

- - - - - -

Old Dreamweaver stared at Mercury for a long while. They seemed confused at first, then bewildered, and finally simply surprised. The emotions cycled as they read part of Mercury's own feelings. The sincerity of the young one's statement confused them.

Eventually though, they regained their composure, and laid their gaze onto a complacently smiling student.

'So thee already knoweth to visualize?' they asked again, to truly confirm it.

'I do,' Mercury replied.

Uunrahzil could tell their student was serious. The feeling was strange though, so remarkably secure, yet still somewhat unsettled. Perhaps the daydreaming was slightly different from the true essence of what the old one wanted, yet they knew that young Mercury would master it all the same. Whether they already knew it right now or in a few dreams, it was all simply a single strand of silk in the weave.

'Then, young Mercury, perhaps thee could... "Daydream" for a moment? Pick something that is familiar to you, some object you can recall very well, the simpler the better,' they thought, and their student gave a nod at that.

'I'll do my best,' Mercury replied to the old one, closing his eyes. He didn't have any, yet shutting down his senses was still possible, and it helped him focus. Perhaps that was more because of the familiarity of the darkness though? No, now wasn't the time to ponder that, he needed to think.

Slowly, he sifted through his memories. He took his time, considering what mundane objects he had seen so many times he could remake them. The first thing that came to mind was his phone, but obviously that was way too complex. For a while he considered other things. A shirt, a pencil, cutlery, and so on, but at the end, he settled on a sheet of paper.

The reasons were very simple. He had handled countless such sheets in the time in his office, and he was very familiar with the texture, size, and to a slight degree, the process of how it was made. At the end, it was dried plant pulp, pressed tightly together and cut to size. He knew what it looked like, how it sounded, how it smelled, how it felt, and even how it tasted because of a very stupid bet he'd made.

And so, he started to imagine it, daydream about it to some degree, holding a sheet of it in his hand, no, maybe a stack, sifting through the pages one by one before putting them aside. He squared the stack up, and then simply held the image in his mind.

'I've got it,' he told old Uunrahzil, metaphorical eyes still closed.

Before the old teacher answered, there was a short moment of silence, and Mercury felt as though someone else was looking at his stack of paper, too. Then the second pair of eyes vanished, and he could read that old Dreamweaver would have shaken their head if they could.

'Unbelievable,' they thought. 'Thee haveth truly almost grasped it. The only thing you are lacking is substance, though I suppose for the next part, a demonstration is in order. Open thine senses, please. You may drop your image.'

Mercury did as was asked of him, remaining silent, and now watching his master.

Soon, he could feel old Dreamweaver's mind stir. 'Forgive us if I am a little out of practice. My last ywe, last "work", no, "creation", has happened quite some time ago. Allow me to borrow your image,' they thought.

Then, right in front of Mercury's eyes, something moved. It wasn't old Uunrahzil, either, their mana veins remaining perfectly still. Rather than that, he could feel the air quiver as it seemed to part and give space to something that clearly wasn't there. The feeling Mercury got was strange, almost incongruent to a degree. His sense of what reality should be, what he could tell was real, was very different from what he saw and felt.

Because from nowhere, in the middle of the air, he saw threads appear. No, saying they came from the air was an injustice. The threads appeared from <Nothingness>, clearly, filling a space that just wasn't there.

The whole process was strange, hard for Mercury to understand, but very clearly, old Uunrahzil had done something to prepare the space that the threads were now beginning to be woven into. Perhaps that was the visualisation they meant.

Before Mercury had time to truly figure it out, those very threads entangled themselves, one laying down, another going over, the next one underneath, then pulled taut to the point they seemed to fuse. Each and every last one of them was dragged there by old Dreamweaver's mental prowess, knitting themselves together to create something from nowhere. A space that wasn't there eventually wound up being filled with threads of dreams, drawn from nothingness itself.

And when the last thread laid itself down, Mercury was looking at a normal sheet of paper. The type you'd typically find in an office printer, A4 and stark white.

'How...' the cat thought, and old Dreamweaver only smiled in return.

'Find the threads of the dreamweave, visualize what you wish, and then make it appear,' the old one spoke. Mercury wanted to ask something, any of his myriad questions, but before he could, old Uunrahzil finished their thoughts for the night. 'I grow wa'hc. You make me proud, student. This one believes you will manage.'

And with a smile, old Dreamweaver vanished like so many times before, the paper they had conjured up softly drifting to the floor.

- - - - - -

The morning of Cradan eventually came, as the last of the Rain drizzled down. Ragnarok had been travelling relentlessly for the last few days, and finally, they were approaching their goal. They didn't know where Mercury currently was, and even if they were there, they wouldn't be of much help. Rather than that, they made their way over to the village they knew he had stayed at.

Zyl had told them, after all, and he knew it from Berthorn himself, who in his gloating said that Mercury was with Alexander the Great. Thus, their destination was set, and now, they were on the perimeter on the village.

For the guards there, it had been a slow start to the day. It was early, and they had just had breakfast, still feeling tired from the night before. Of course, their peace and quiet was not meant to last long, seeing as a gaggle of strange figures came closer in the distance.

The one that saw the phenomenon first rubbed his eyes, then looked again, only to see that nothing had changed. "What the hell..." he whispered slowly, looking even closer. "Gwen, do you see that?" he asked his colleague.

Not long after, the woman next to him also spotted the strange figures her coworker was pointing at, one of them seemingly on fire, while another one looked like a walking tree and the third like a block of ice. "What the hell are those?" she muttered.

"Should we go alert someone?" Gwen asked Ren.

"Yeah, I... I think we really should," Ren replied, grabbing his spear tightly.

""I'll go!"" both of them offered selflessly.

They shared a glance for a moment, and then immediately ran off together, telling each other to stay back.

Luckily, there were three guards currently on shift together who saw the morons running towards the town center.

"We should probably cover for them," the tallest of the three, Kre, suggested.

"Sure, brilliant, I am all for it," Ryki answered sarcastically, his red hair blowing in the wind.

"Come on, don't be like that," Nora jumped in, tapping his side with her elbow. "Those newbies have barely seen the world, we should cut them some slack at least." Her words were reasonable, and a slight smirk of excitement placed on her lips.

"Fine then," Ryki agreed, finding no reason to dig his heels in. "We go cover their gate, just for today."

"Until they come back," Kre said.

"Until something exciting happens," Nora grinned.

And with that, the three made their way towards whatever the other ones had run away from.

- - - - - -

"You wanted to see me?" Alexander asked the party of newcomers, crossing his arms. They were a strange group, almost like someone cobbled them together by having randomness decide their personalities and races, but while they were strange, that was the least of his worries right now. His <Intuition> told him there'd be bad news from these people.

"Yes, we did," Wilhelmia nodded. "A friend of the mopaaw you've housed recently sent us here. He's in danger."

"Mercury? In danger?" Alexander raised his eyebrow, watching as all of them nodded again. "What kind?"

"It's a long story, kind of," Oliva muttered.

"Then keep it as short as you can," Alex answered, his eyes narrowing. If Mercury really was facing some serious trouble, then time was most likely of the essence.

"Of course. The mopaaw's friend has a few enemies, and they have taken Mercury as a hostage in order to force a deal. The friend is willing to take the deal, since a life is on the line, but if things go sideways, he'll be severely hurt, as far as we know. Right now, he's dragging things out to gain as much time as possible for us to save Mercury. We've made a contract to "remove any threats to Mercury's life", so he'll be alarmed if we actually succeed, and will otherwise go through with things," Wilhelmia explained.

"Who is this friend?" Alex asked.

"Guardian Friaminth," the singer answered.

Again, Alex' eyes narrowed. "Shit," he said simply. "That does sound quite urgent. I can't have a friend of my grandkid getting hurt, can I..."

There was a pause in the conversation, as Wilhelmia waited for Alex to speak again. Eventually, the old man gave a sigh.

"Fine, yes, I'll be off right now, then. Can any of you fight?" he asked.

"Somewhat," Magma replied.

"Good. Try to get there as fast as you can. Any of you who can't, go find Marsh and tell them that I'm taking care of urgent business and will be back in a couple days' time. Don't worry, you'll find them if you ask around," Alex said. "<Companion>," he called out a second later, and a Warhorse appeared in front of him. "Any of you got a map type Skill?"

"Yeah, I do," Eric said. "It's called <Terrain Visualisation>"

"Good. <Set Marker: Yasashiku's house. Target: Terrain Visualisation>," Alex said, tapping the dryad on the shoulder. "There. You should be able to find your way. Try to be quick."

Without another word, Alex set his foot into the stirrup and hoisted himself up onto the tall horse. "Giddyup," he said, tapping his legs together and riding towards the forest, going right for a tree. "<Pathing>," he called, using a final Skill, and in front of the eyes of Ragnarok, the wood shifted apart to reveal a road in front of him, which he instantly set foot upon, and then, the path closed up behind him again, leaving them dazzled.

"What the hell kind of travelling combo is that?" Magma asked, shocked.

"I... I don't know," Pul answered quietly.

Travelling type Skills were usually in huge demand, so being able to summon a steed was already a good one to have, but everything else was just plain stupid. Being able to create a road on the fly was incredible, and the sheer amount of stamina that would take was probably hard to even imagine, but the true gem was setting markers.

Being able to just set a target on a map was good enough. The ability to do so with map type Skills was even harder to get usually, even with one's own Skills, but to be able to tap someone else and interact with their Skills was rare enough to be almost unheard off. The fact that Alex was able to do it so casually even meant that he felt no need to hide it, or the situation was much more urgent to him than they'd thought.

For a few moments, the five of them just stood there, all staring after the old man who'd just rode off.

"Haah, he's at it again," someone said from behind them, leading all their heads to slowly turn. "Hey, I'm Marsh. You guys look a little shaken up, anything I can help you with?" they asked, wearing a friendly smile.

- - - - - -

After Cradan, Modan came again. Stormbraver had settled, and rebuilding was going fine, but things were not so simple on the northern front.

Scarlet Inagra was there, after all. She had fought in this war from the beginning with a smile, enjoying the fire she was allowed to spread freely, and when she heard the news that it was supposed to stop now, her lips formed an expression of despair and anger.

She was suffering at the moment, and then this? It was as though king Fulthur was trying to mock her fate. After losing an arm, and barely escaping the battle after that, she was now supposed to just lay down, like a beaten dog? To spit the treats she had eaten back out and just... sit back?

No. That was not the kind of person Scarlet was. She couldn't bear the very thought of that all, to now stop would mean seeing that damned priestess' face every time she closed her eyes, watching her sneer and taunt her. There was simply no way she could take her mind off of this, before burning that twisted bitch's face to ashes.

Her mind was being made up. Yes, this war would not end yet. No matter what her king said,he was just that: a ruler. He had authority, certainly, and a good chunk of power too, but it wasn't enough to chain her down. She was free, because there was nothing he could do about her.

But that wasn't enough. On her own, she knew she could not take down Stormbraver. That priestess was there, and so was the mage who guarded the peasants with barriers. Then, there was that bastards godseekers, now labeled 'Herokiller' in the north and those damn slimy bastards that had snuck behind their lines. She didn't even know how many they are.

It was impossible for her to even imagine resting until she had their heads in urns, reduced to grey powder. Until she was the one above them, sneering at their demise. But she needed support. She couldn't do it on her own.

Yes, she would need to gather support. Thinking about that, though, would it really be very hard? Northerners were known to never take a defeat lying down, after all, and this, to her, was a clear defeat.

Slowly, a grin found itself on Scarlet's face. Right, of course, their king was the wisest among them, and that was his terminal flaw she would exploit. The generals were all brilliant in their own right, but they were also northerners. Barbarians to the south. Their blood boiled at the thought of defeat, and with a little prodding, perhaps...

A plan was slowly starting to form in Scarlet's mind on Modan morning. A plan that would not yet allow the bloodshed to end, a plan to topple the wise king and have all those who would still fight rush down south. A plan that would take death over defeat.

Someone would have to fall. Let's see if they could brave this storm too, then.