Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

No matter what Sigil or power I may gain, I must use my gifts for the good of many. I should be like Wyatt and help others, especially if they are without any strength to defend themselves. Deep within me is a need for risk, I recognize that, but I can’t let that put others at risk. I should use it to minimize the danger for others.

After I swear this to myself and set a basis for how I will use this Sigil of the Gambler, I open my eyes and read deeper into the tome as even more information floods my mind through the indecipherable script.

The Gambler

The scrambler and alterer of luck. Able to bend the cards that are dealt in their favor to suit their desires with their very hands like a gentle breeze, slowly shifting the cards and their positions. Your perception of time, space, and coincidence has now been enhanced to better manipulate luck. Your fingers and hands are now more dexterous, so you can better weave your fortune and others' misfortune. And finally, your oneness with the very world has increased. SHE will bet against you less from now on.

May your journey, while certainly filled with thorns, be glorious, long, and worthy of my aid.

I take a moment to unfold and digest this both cryptic and helpful information. A Gambler can scramble and alter luck. That… Sounds about right. I’m truly curious as to what the Nain Rouge’s 2nd Sigil was called as it was the amalgamation of Gambler and Trapper. Based on both how I saw it use its powers and the legends about it, it probably requires certain conditions to affect someone but can do so with incredible effectiveness. Like a more metaphysical trap.

The Cabin straight up says that I will be able to bend luck in my favor, so I can assume that's my given Sigil skill. And just based on its simple description, it sounds incredibly useful. Not just that, but some of my perceptions have been increased, but not necessarily the ones that most would lump in with luck. Like sure, faster hands and fingers make sense for a Gambler, but an enhanced perception of time and space?

That doesn’t make much sense. I ponder on it for a moment and only conclude that they can somehow enhance other senses that help me manipulate luck. Similar to how the sense of balance is useless if you don’t move, but is mandatory to be able to walk or run. Maybe the sense of time and space can help bend luck.

There is also another question in my mind about luck. How does it even work? Does just a healthy dose of Ether just tip a single variable far enough so that the world acts in my favor? Or can it supplement and create those variables if enough Ether is used? So many questions but not enough answers.

The last two statements from the left page of the book are really confusing and make me perplexed. Increased oneness with the world? What does that even mean? I don’t even know where to begin on that one. And the other? That one just terrifies me. Why is SHE in all capital letters? Not even Gods are given that luxury? What does it mean that SHE won’t bet against me as often?

I know I didn’t come here specifically seeking answers, but oh my, is this just too much. I yearn for the answers to the questions and will certainly be asking Wyatt about his own experiences in The Cabin. I hadn’t done it before because I figured it’d be rude, but now I’m just too curious. Any little tidbit of knowledge is enough.

Toward this aim of learning more, I look over the right page below the intricate, almost moving Sigil, which has another section of unreadable text. The second I put my eyes against it, though, questions enter my mind that are not from me.

A Gambler can subtly bend chance and possibility. But for a Gambler to grow further, they must grow their skills. And to be prepared to do so, they must find an answer to the Gambler’s Metaphor.

Why do so many people, including yourself, thrive on risks?

To begin, my Gambler, place your mind within the Sigil and return to whence you came.

There it is, the Metaphor. A single question, that once given a good answer, can help prevent insanity, violence, and death upon advancing to the next Sigil. They set that foundation for growth that only The Cabin can project for one to answer.

It is called a Metaphor because most answers are a kind of metaphor or another figure of speech. Many of the common Sigils have their answers spread out and wide.

Like the Soldier's Metaphor. It asks why hardships must be withstood to grow. The answer that is commonly written down and passed is “Hardship in of itself is growth”. Many powerful families also hold onto their own solutions for their own Sigils. I don’t know if the quality of the answer matters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did somehow. Maybe the more substantial the meaning in the answer, the more your Sigil resonates with you as you advance? Or maybe you simply need a good enough answer. I know it is against just about every convention to advance without doing so, however, as it leads to madness and corruption of the mind.

I don’t know, but I hope to figure it out. That, and a good answer to the Metaphor because I don’t really have any good idea for why we enjoy risks. I try to not take them, but that’s just because, well, they're risky and also because I don't want to end up like my dad. Just wasting his own life and others' for the thrill. I know for a fact, though, that people like Wyatt thrive on them just as the question says.

I’ll just need to think of why before I can advance. Otherwise, there is a multitude of terrible effects that make even the most hardened Outlaw or Hunter unwilling to advance without finding an answer to their Metaphors. Even if it's a bad one. The best example of why not to advance rapidly is that before The Cabin there were more Gods than there even were humans in the Wonderous Stage, let alone the Angelic. The Cabin both makes it safer and easier.

Another thing I'll have to watch out for is my Ether tolerance. Over time one’s ability to resist Ether, both internal, natural, and foreign, increases. Without slowly increasing this over many months on average, or in a single month like Wyatt’s been forced to do to not die, advancing to the next Sigil will, not just have bad side effects, but instead, simply kill you. Advancing without taking the proper precautions and time will make one turn into a puddle of flesh and blood as their own Ether in their body makes their very body unravel.

After I run through the gauntlet of things to think about and remember, my mind returns to The Cabin. I need to hurry because while I’m pretty sure it’s just my soul in The Cabin, I don’t know how time passes when you're just a soul. Wyatt needs me now, and I’m unsure how long it took for me to enter the cabin or to take the Sigil from the Nain Rouge. And Whether time is faster or slower, that was never said in any manual that I've read, despite the ones that Wyatt has being incredibly detailed as if handmade by a veteran of a hundred battles.

So, without even spending a single second to look around the cabin or to touch anything else besides the book, I place my palm on the Sigil that lies within the tome. The instant that my skin touches the barely glowing text on the page, I see a flash of light as I feel weightless.

Then, as if never leaving, I hear a pounding set of small footsteps. I open my eyes and see Esther mid-run towards me to deliver the bag. Good, it hasn’t been long at all. At most a minute. Wyatt still has some time.

I quickly assess my current situation and body to understand what just happened by fusing with a Sigil. I delve into myself without a single pause or moment of resistance to try and find my core, where my Sigil lay.

My dizziness and nausea are still present but lessened due to my perceived time spent in The Cabin. This makes it so I don’t have any issue creating an image of where my core is in my mind and trying to manipulate it for Ether. The first and only place I have to check is the same where the Nain Rouge’s was. The right index finger.

I imagine a small strand of Ether leaving just as Wyatt once told me to do during our talks and I immediately feel a small headache blossom despite the abysmally small piece of Ether that enters my finger from my core. Shock wracks through me as such a little fragment of Ether caused me pain already.

What kind of monster is Wyatt?! How can he use so much Ether?! I’ve seen the guy literally create a massive siphon of air and Ether straight from his mouth!? Is it his Sigil? Or has he been a Sigiled for longer than he told us? Because the longer you possess a Sigil the greater your resistance to Ether becomes. The older someone is, the more dangerous they are. And Ether slightly increases the lifespans of people. Only by a few years per Sigil on average, but it does add up.

It’s said that every new Hunter recruit is told this phrase because of that.

“There are old Hunters and there are weak Hunters. There are no old weak Hunters. Only the best survive. And the best only grow better over time.”

The most well-known examples of men like this are people like the Bloodhound, the Darkstep, the Unyielding Wall, and the Prime himself. I mean for crying out loud, the Bloodhound is a legend known around these parts because despite only being a 3rd Sigil, he could hunt and tango with 4th Sigiled threats on the regular, and even 5th Sigiled sometimes. I bet he could even handle a 6th Sigil, to be honest.

The Darkstep is another great legend. She’s an old woman who’s a 6th Sigil, but no one has ever even seen her face for over a decade. It’s said she moves so fast that even light can’t follow.

Another is the Unyielding Wall. An old man who’s held the Bent Fortress for over fifty years. Not a single monster, demon, aberration, or otherplanar has ever gotten past that man. He’s one of the few Pillars that are still active on the field as most are fine with being the easy cushion on the sides of the human lands. But Marshall Travis? That 7th Sigil hasn’t ever taken a vacation or left the Bent Fortress during war. His physical strength is said to allow him to throw a cannonball faster than a cannon can shoot it and his impenetrable skin is said to resist any manner of weaponry.

The last one that I know of from legends and Ernest is the current Prime. The world's strongest man. The only 9th Sigil human. Although he’s nearing the end of his life in his old age, none, not even the greatest of the demons, the Binary Lords, Behemoth, and Leviathan are willing to go against him. The last time he actually fought, though, is said to be over sixteen years ago. Now, he just stays as a warning. A warning for any who may seek to end humanity. That the Swarming Wastelander, The Executioner of Dust, still yet lives.

Only old men like those live long enough to withstand huge amounts of Ether and go beyond what they normally should. So, for someone like Wyatt to be able to withstand so much Ether, he must either be much older and more experienced than he appears or has gone through multiple stages of Ether oversaturation so bad that he should have died ten times over.

I’m broken out of my thoughts and Ether testing by Esther who arrives carrying a heavy bag and three baby foxes on top of it. Then, she sets the heavy bag in front of me and puts the kits in a small bundle, which are still sleeping, on the side. Her small and petite frame heaving in exhaustion as she puts her hands on her knees. I nod and say thank you before I dig deep into it searching. I spend a few minutes looking until I find and grab Elizabeth’s sewing kit.

Then, I turn and quickly move back to Wyatt’s side with most of my lightheadedness gone. Esther just stands next to me awkwardly while gasping for air as I move Wyatt’s bloody and light body into a better position. Once I have Wyatt’s stump of an arm on my lap, I open the sewing kit and grab a needle. Then, I take a deep breath before I look at Esther, and she looks at me innocently, confused, and worried.

“Esther, can… can you hold this palm against Wyatt’s arm? It might save him. He’s dying.”

She looks at Wyatt for a moment as anger, hurt, and loss pass over her face all at once. She looks down at the sand as if to get away from this situation. But then as if she forces herself to gather the courage to face the situation, she turns her pupils back to me. She nods and speaks with a voice filled with so much raw emotion that it almost brings a tear to my eye.

“Y-yeah. If it's for Wyatt. I will.”

I nod and hand the bloodless palm to her and tell her how to hold it.

“Hold it firm and unmoving. Use a lot of force if you have to. What I’m about to do might be risky, and no matter what happens, hold on tight, okay?”

Esther looks at me with bright green eyes filled with determination and promises to do her best.

Then, I do probably the most reckless, most insane, and most Wyatt-like thing in my whole life up to this point. As Esther puts the Bloody Palm up against Wyatt’s stump, I begin suturing the hand onto Wyatt with Elizabeth’s sewing kit.

I cringe every time I pierce into the flesh of Wyatt’s arm and no blood comes out. I flinch every time I pierce into the flesh of the Bloody Palm and only black ichor exits. I continue to do this for a full minute. In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out. All around his arm do I go, connecting the wrist of the Bloody Palm to his forearm.

The whole time I sew, nothing changes in Wyatt. He is still unmoving, unbreathing, and without a beating heart. The skin between him and the Bloody Palm is obviously demarcated with the change in skin tone, skin quality, and skin thickness.

The sewing is haphazard and amateurishly done, but it’s the best I can manage as I force myself to ignore all the possible disastrous things that may emerge in the future from my actions. I push away the thought of the Bloody Palm taking over Wyatt’s corpse. I push away the thought of Wyatt waking up but being forever psychologically changed by the Bloody Palm. I push away the horror that Wyatt is likely to feel waking up to someone else's hand attached to him.

As I frantically sew and talk to myself to get rid of these concerns, I feel a new muscle in my index finger at the very tip of the fingerbone. I mentally contract the muscle as I finish up the suture and I feel something shift.

Not visually, auditorily, or in any other normal sensory way. I just FEEL something shifted. Like the inherent knowledge that an answer to a math problem or logical problem is wrong. The subtle sense deep within the soul.

I keep the muscle contracted as I pause my suture and the feeling only grows, but alongside that feeling, is an ever-encroaching headache of massive proportions. After just holding that new muscle for three seconds exactly, I don’t know how I know exactly how long, I feel a slam into the front of my mind, and blood trickle down my nostril.

The pain and liquid running down my nostril as well as the state of Wyatt’s arm make me release the sensation as I release what I just did.

I bent the cards that were dealt.

Wyatt’s arm and the Bloody Palm slowly fuse together where the suture already exists, enhancing the job I had done so far, but having no effect on the yet-to-be-done sutures. And most importantly as I am angled in a way such that I can feel with my body if Wyatt’ should breathe, I feel his chest move. Incredibly slightly, but I could feel it. Like a single wave of energy entered him from his left arm and tried to revive his broken body.

This gives me an unimaginable amount of motivation. A sorely needed morale boost because of what I’m doing to my friend to bring him back from the very embrace of Death. I focus through the fog of my mental agony and continue sewing. Every few sutures, I flex that muscle once more to help bind the two of them together, to help Wyatt survive.

Wyatt’s breathing only moderately improves the whole time. By the time I finish the suture, he only takes a short shallow breath once a minute and his heartbeats are just as often. Depressed and with a head absolutely pounding in pain, I look at Esther who is wide-eyed, sweating, and amazed.

“You can let go now.”

I can see in her eyes that she seeks to know how Wyatt is doing and she follows up on that desire.

“Is Wyatt okay now?”

I look back at my friend and guide throughout these past few weeks amongst the most dangerous times of my life, but I shake my head.

“I don’t know if he’ll make it. He’s barely breathing.”

She looks at Wyatt and I see tears crystalize in her eyes and then drop down onto her face and then eventually the dry sand below, wetting the unforgiving dunes.

“Why won’t he make it? He’s tough. Or is he just not lucky enough? The last time I saw Mama, she said whether Lonnie or I survived was based on luck.”

Esther’s innocent inquiry strikes a chord with me. I can continue to use my new ability to try and help Wyatt, but will it really have much of an effect? I don’t know, but I guess I can try until I drop from Ether saturation. I don’t think I even have the willpower to reach acute Ether saturation like Wyatt did, though.

I turn my head to Esther and give her a promise.

“I’ll do what I can. I’ll make him lucky, don’t you worry Esther. Just go check on Leonard and Elizabeth.”

She stands and looks at me uncertainly, but I nod and wave her off. Then, she walks away and glances back at me repeatedly as she walks over to the unconscious Elizabeth.

I look back to Wyatt and place the tip of my index finger right on the border between his pale flesh and the dry flesh of the Bloody Palm. I contract the muscle and hold it for as long as I can. I hold it even as blood comes streaming down my nose. I hold it as the screw in my mind continues to dig ever deeper making me whimper and cry in pain. I hold it even as my vision narrows and my hands shake from pain.

I hold it until I can not only feel but also hear Wyatt’s breathing. Just as I am certain that Wyatt’s arm is fused with the Bloody Palm and he is beginning to get better, I relent. Then, as my mind shakes and buckles in weight, I come up with a name for this ability from an old memory.

I name it Reshuffle. The name comes from an old book I saw in my father’s small library. One that he never read from, but just kept to show how wealthy he was to others. He had a very expensive book that was mounted on a desk in the hundred or so book-filled library. The opening phrase to Gambler’s Paradise stuck with me.

“The wealthy bend luck, the poor are bent by it, the enslaved are beaten by it, and the mighty? The mighty reshuffle the deck at their whim and none speak in opposition.”

The quote meant a lot to me a long time ago and it still does even now. I aim to Reshuffle the deck for those who cannot.

After finishing the fuse of Wyatt and the Bloody Palm, I sit in exhaustion for several minutes as I try to recover and watch color return to Wyatt’s face. His wound begins shrinking and recovering before my very eyes. A whole month of healing in a single minute.

But much to my dismay, another thing also happens. Everything has a price.

The fat and muscle that Wyatt has upon his body are shrinking as he rapidly slims. The skin on his body is shrinking along with the flesh and he is turning skeletal. Just like when we first saw him, but so much faster. Just in a single minute, it looks like he's spent a whole month in the wilderness without eating. In a mere sixty seconds, I can see every single bone on his body.

Not just that, but he is shaking. He is shaking as if he is freezing cold and fighting against a searing hot iron put to his skin at the same time. The trembles within him are deep. Bone deep like he is possessed or something is attempting to possess him. Or like he’s feeling the pain of being eaten alive. They make me cringe in worry.

His body is eating itself to regenerate. The Bloody Palm's ability to passively heal has greatly increased but for a terrible price. I watch in open-eyed horror as my friend is devoured before my eyes by himself.

Frantically, I look around for food and find some within Elizabeth's bag. A few pieces of raw meat that she must have gotten from the giant spider. Without time to cook it, I just shove it into Wyatt’s mouth and force-feed him.

In less than ten seconds, though, I’m out of food, and there is no more. Wyatt spent most of today while we trekked to look for food because of how little we had.

I look around and only see one thing that is possibly edible. I gag just thinking about it. Just the idea of feeding him that, is… is… evil.

I can’t.

But… I have to. He is turning into a skeleton in front of my eyes. He’s dying right before me. This is so much worse to watch than him slowly bleed out.

Fighting my headache and the guilt in my stomach, I grab Wyatt’s dagger, rise, and walk away from him. To get him something to eat. So stop him from starving. I yell to keep Esther away from what I’m about to do.

“Esther! Stay over there for a while! DO NOT COME OVER HERE!”

The choices we have to make. Every little one decides our path. This choice? This choice that I make for another, and I hate it. But now is not the time for emotions. Actions are needed.

And this action? This action destroys any bridges left behind for Wyatt. The only way for him is forward, and I hope he forgives me.

I guess I’ll start with the closest dead then. Wiley is still breathing somehow despite the venom eating through him, so it’s not him. It's the man with the eyepatch.