Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

The second after my hand reaches the mysterious glowing Sigil of an eye bound in chains, I see blinding light. Light that burns my retina as I sit up and look away from the light that I recognize as the sun. I smell dust, dirt, and dried blood all over me as I sit. I do feel a warm weight on my chest, though, as I look down and see the baby fox I took in, but it’s much larger than the last time I saw it. Where the hell am I? Just as I begin to look around to learn where I am from, I hear a voice.

“You woke up already, Wyatt? How do you feel? Anything, uh, feel off?”

I turn toward the voice and put a face to it. It’s Earl. He looks different though. Just looking at him something feels off. And it's not the newly added derringer on his ribs or the revolver on his waist. He feels both more confident and more careful than he was before. It’s odd.

He appears to be unwounded, though, much unlike me. I guess he made it out of the fight unscathed, huh. I go to respond after staring at him awkwardly for several moments as he just stares in turn, but I am beset with murmurs. Whispers that return to assault my mind.

The Bloody Palm seeks its meal, I suppose. The noise is quieter and less devouring than before, though. It’s not quite to the point that I can ignore or zone it out, however, as I still feel it slowly eating away at me. I raise my right hand to my head to try and rub away some of the mental fatigue that it causes.

Earl notices this and speaks up again, obviously worried for me and he lets something slip that I don’t think he meant to.

“You doing okay Wyatt? Your body and mind are probably quite weak right now. You should take a break and acclimate.”

How would Earl know that my mind is weak? I got into a physical fight before him, not a mental one. Did he? Yeah. Only Earl could come up with something out of the box and unthinkable like that. But why? I try to speak to him through the haze. And unintentionally, my voice comes out much rougher than I meant.

“Did you do this to me? Why did you attach another man’s hand to me?”

Earl pauses and looks at me full of guilt and he stutters all the way through his explanation.

“Well.. y-you were dying. N-no, that's not right. You did die. Your heart had stopped beating for over two minutes before it pulsated once more. The p-passive regeneration wasn’t enough from the Bloody Palm. You needed either more direct contact with it or more Ether to fuel it. I-I could only do one of the two. Are you okay, though? Artifacts have a very high chance of permanently changing someone's ps-psyche.”

So it was him. I can’t blame him, though. Even I thought I died. For him to pull through and bring me back from the dead? That’s nothing short of a miracle. Although, that’s one hell of a gamble. What would he do if I was taken over by the Bloody Palm? It did get close several times there. But I was saved.

I was saved by a few lapses in the assault by the palm which I’m fighting off now a little bit easier, and I was saved by the Sigil appearing wherever I was. Without both of those things, who knows what would have happened?

I am seriously curious though as to what happened and how I was helped in my defense against the Bloody Palm. So, I ask Earl, and he looks extremely uncomfortable and shows an even deeper level of guilt on his face after my questions reach his ears. His brows creased and sweat ran down him despite the cool autumn-almost-winter air.

“I did have to fight the Bloody Palm. Or at least the emotions within it. I would have died without the help I had during it. I assume it was you who saved me? How did you? How did a Sigil appear within me? I advanced you know?”

Earl takes a short moment to think before answering as if he’s being careful not to say the wrong thing.

“I did what I could to help. I killed the Nain Rouge before it could skewer your heart, and I took its Sigil that I resonated with. The Gambler. The Sigil skill that I was bestowed allowed me to help the Bloody Palm fuse with you. I also believed it helped even the playing field in the fight between you two. Or at least a little bit. You getting another Sigil… uh…”

Earl stammers and trails off at the end. The bit I was most curious about. Like seriously, how did I get a Sigil while I was unconscious? I press him for answers despite him not wanting to divulge them.

“Earl. What happened? C’mon just tell me.”

He looks at me with high brows and wide eyes. He asks me to promise him something.

“You promise you won’t be mad?”

Sure, I’ll promise so he'll tell me. What could possibly make me mad? He saved my life after all.

“Okay… I uh... I uhm. You.. err.”

“Get on with it man.”

“You were, uh, starving. The Bloody Palm was eating you from the inside out once you two were connected at the wrist. You were thinning and losing weight every second. You were about to die.”

“Uh-huh. And then? How did I not starve to death? I look pretty healthy right now. I actually feel pretty good, in fact.”

“I fed you… I fed you all the food we had. But you still needed more. And there was nothing around to feed you. Except…”

He cuts off again, but my brain fills in the blanks. There was nothing around to hunt. And even if there was, Earl is not the one to do it. So, instead, he chose the only option. He fed me the only meat in the area to keep me alive. Human meat.

The second this thought reaches my brain, I instinctively bend over to the side and puke as I push the kit to the other side so as not to dirty them, nausea inundating my whole system. I can’t believe what happened while I was unconscious. A quiet “Sorry.” reaches me from Earl. But more than just nausea from my disgust at what kept me alive hits me. The Bloody Palm takes this moment to rear its ugly fingers.

A cascade of sounds rams into my mind, originating from the slightly off-colored and wrinkled hand attached to my left side. Some sounds I can comprehend, some I cannot, but I know for a fact they all mean the same thing.

ᎤᏖᏗ

Delicious.

The Bloody Palm enjoyed the meal. That thought hits me even harder than just knowing I ate other humans to survive. The fact that some part of me, even if it's not truly me, enjoyed it, makes me sick to my stomach. I spend the next several minutes emptying my already empty stomach out into the sand. Only acid, bile, and spit exit from me despite my wish to make all the food leave me.

The noises only continue to rise as I kneel in an attempt to expel the human meat from me. I am immediately overwhelmed by the cacophony and tears run out of my eyes and off of my face into the sand beneath me. Despite the attack on my mind, I can’t muster the defenses to defend myself as even more revelations hit me as I think through what happened.

Harold, the man with the eyepatch, whom I stabbed in the back of the neck. He had the Philosopher Sigil as well. He must have been the first one I ate. So how come I didn’t fuse with any of the other Sigils? Maybe I just reached The Cabin before anyone else was fed to me, so the rest of the Sigils never touched my mind for fusion.

I’m only a 2nd Sigil because I ate another human. I’m a terrible monster. Alexos was right. How could a person eat someone else? My thoughts continue to descend rapidly and darken in breadth as the whispers eat away at me.

But, someone tries to pull me out of the abyss before I truly jump in. An arm touches my shoulder as I kneel there in self-made and self-originating torment. I swing around threateningly in righteous anger expecting it to be Earl, but no. It’s Esther. With her petite body, she hugs me.

The act of care dispels the voices for a moment as I stop feeding them my own thoughts. The cheerful nature of Esther helps lighten my mood just enough for me to actually think about the problem before me. I need to stop these whispers somehow.

And I might as well use this new Sigil, Forward Daydreamer if I can. Maybe its new ability will help. To see the world and dream of a better one. I could certainly dream of one without this damn hand attached to me. Similarly to how I first activated Chain Eyes, I take a moment to feel around and I sense a new muscle. One somehow located in my actual eyes.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like as I activate it and Ether flows without me even needing to order it to. The hallmark of a Sigil skill. They work instinctively. A huge amount of Ether flows through me as I realize both how little of a headache it gives me, almost none at all, and how amazing my body feels. All the clogged-up parts of my body are gone. It seems as though the increase in Ether limit from Forward Daydreamer fixed my Ether saturation issue and prevented another one from occurring.

The large stream of Ether flows from my beautiful double-sided Sigil and stops within the center of my pupils. But unlike the double-sided Sigil of the Bloody Palm, mine is just the single Sigil enlarged and enhanced with greater detail to fit on two sides. Completely different from the weird and mismatched Sigil of the Bloody Palm.

For a moment while I hug Esther, I stay still confused. The Ether is just sitting in the center of my pupil unmoving. Why isn’t it doing anything? Does it need something? Oh, of course. It needs a daydream. Or at least something to focus on, The Cabin mentioned something along those lines.

And so, I daydream of the voices from the Bloody Palm disappearing and leaving me alone. To never harm my mind ever again. To stay within the confines of the hand. Only there to help me, not hurt me.

Something incredible happens before and through my very eyes the second I dream of this outcome. I see the chains that surround my entire body appears for a split-second. Then, I see them all tighten as I feel weakened and restrained, not too badly though. Like I’m wearing a set of heavily weighted clothes. My breathing becomes just a bit harder. I push Esther away from me as I’m unsure what’s happening and she looks at me curiously with Earl. Just as I begin to panic and try to stop the Sigil skill, something else happens.

While the chain surrounding my whole body tightens, a single link weakens its hold upon me. A firmly wrapped piece of newly-orange tinted manacle loosens. I see it not completely fall off of my forehead and skull but certainly hangs loosely with little actual effect. And once the confining tether relaxes, the voices disappear.

The cacophony that has grown to be ever-present for the last, I don’t even know how long for me, fades away. I welcome this beautiful silence and peace even though the rest of my body now feels sluggish and weighed down like I’m chained to a massive rock. One that I can still move under, but with difficulty.

This Sigil skill is amazing. It can loosen the chains that bind me while tightening others. It can enhance portions of me to weaken others, or at least that’s my first thought. To see the world and dream of a better one. Hmm. It must mean that my very dreams and ambitions can now subtly affect the world around me. I wonder what the metaphorical caveat is to that since the physical one is other parts growing weaker. Very interesting.

I can likely use it for my actual limbs to help me fight as well. A well-timed daydream, that’s definitely what I’m calling it, could end a fight. Make them think I’m weaker than I actually am, then, deliver a devilish haymaker into someone. There are so many possibilities with this. I just wonder how much it enhances the part that is loosened. Should be a large amount right? Otherwise, the whispers wouldn't have faded like that.

Suddenly, now that the noise is gone I hear Earl and Esther speaking to me, asking if I’m okay.

“Yeah, I’m fine now. I was just thinking of something.”

Earl looks at me weirdly and tries to pry while apologizing.

“Hey, man I’m really sorry, but if I didn’t do that, you would’ve died. So please, don’t be like that. It hurting me too, man. I might not have y'know... eaten them, but I'm the one who made it happen. Hey, what’s wrong? Stop looking into space. It’s freaking both Esther and me out.”

For a second I almost replied and pushed him away. But something stops me. A cool trickle from my forehead of Ether sobers my mind a bit and makes me realize that Earl just cares for me. He only did what he could to help. I think the Bloody Palm might have already started to affect me if I was that quick to push the man away who saved my life just because he did it in a way I hate. Or at least, I hope it was the Bloody Palm that egged me on to act like that.

Instead of being angry at him, though, this Daydream dreaming about protecting me from the Bloody Palm and its effects, made me instead happy. Well, at least as happy as I can be after I just ate at least one person, and likely more. I try to make up for the misunderstanding.

“You’re right Earl. I’m sorry too. You were just trying to save me. The Bloody Palm was just attacking my mind. I had to use a new---”

I feel the chains on my mind tighten once more and the manacles on the rest of my body loosen back to normal as the murmurs return and stop me mid-sentence. My mind is once again under assault from the inner machinations of the Bloody Palm.

Quickly, before I let it eat away at me anymore, I Daydream once more to loosen the restraints placed upon my mind by myself and the world. Another large stream of Ether enters my pupils and I repeat the previous use. This time though, a very small headache emerges as the intensity of the voices ceases and fades.

This is not going to be good if I have to keep using this Sigil skill over and over again this often. It’s been at most one or two minutes since the first use. I don’t know how many times I can use this skill before I reach the limit of my Ether saturation, but I highly doubt it’s all day. Or all night. Especially not both. Maybe if I slowly funnel Ether into it over time it take less. I attempt this as I look back at Earl and Esther after I get the skill going again.

This pause in my speech alarmed Earl as he reactively put his hand on the revolver on his hip and put his arm in front of Esther. Then he extends an olive branch.

“You better now, Wyatt? What’s happening with you?”

“Yeah, sorry, lapse in a new Sigil skill I gained. I believe it can enhance aspects of myself while making others weaker. I was using it to strengthen my mind against the Bloody Palm’s onslaught on my psyche, but it ran out for a moment. So, I had to restart it. I think I’m good now though.”

I see him and Esther both sigh in relief. Then, he speaks up.

“Oh, that’s good. I was terrified I’d have to fight a crazed Wyatt. I need at least another few weeks of preparation time before I can do that. And again, I’m really sorry Wyatt. I’ll never forgive myself for what I had to do. It’s damn near demonic.”

I shake my head at him and raise an arm weighed down by invisible chains.

“It’s fine. I’ll get over it. But I don't want to discuss it. Just put it behind us and bury it in the dirt. I might need your help now and then to fight this damn hand you put on me, though. My new Sigil is called the Forward Daydreamer, so I doubt it’d have the capability to use that enhancement skill while I sleep.”

When I mention the name of my Sigil, I see Earl’s eyebrows raise in confusion.

“Why does your Sigil have two words? I thought they all only had one word.”

Wait, I thought that too at first, but my absolution was what added the prefix to the word. It is quite odd. The manual never mentions having a multi-named Sigil. Only that Absolutions exist. I reveal a bit about mine to Earl.

“It used to only have one when I first got my Philosopher. Apparently, I performed something called an Absolution. It gave me a new skill and a prefix to my Sigil. And The Cabin said it gave me another boon with my advancement, something about always moving forward.”

Earl goes so wide-eyed I think he’s about to burst into two different heads. He asks for confirmation incredulously.

“You performed an Absolution? I thought those were incredibly rare? I didn’t even know they did that either, only that they give another skill. Extra utility and skills are always useful because of how few are given from Sigils, and I’m sure the boon of forwardness or something of the like will be helpful. We can test it out together to try and find what it is, but I’ll have to find a way to do an Absolution of my own. Most people by the time they reach 3rd or 4th Sigil only have a handful of skills, even counting general ones. Every little extra piece is huge.”

I look at Earl and think of when I performed my Absolution. The literal executioner's blade that was falling for my head at the time. I agree with him sarcastically on him doing one himself. I’ve seen him buckle under pressure. An Absolution, or at least in my experience, is the opposite. It’s to stand against the very world when everything tells you to die.

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You should definitely find a way to do one.”