Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

I jolt awake and sit up abruptly, waking the small Dakota on my chest. The first thing I hear though is not his crying, but instead the now-familiar whispers of the Bloody Palm. Dakota’s cries are being distorted and changed to sound painful instead of hungry. I put my hand to my eyes and wipe the tiredness from them as I look around.

All my surroundings are being distorted and appear as though they are through a lens. Things that were definitely in the distance now seem to be very close while very close objects now seem to be quite distant. Even Dakota seems to be much smaller and further from me as my whole body begins to elongate in my vision.

The trippiness and weirdness of the sights in my eyes make me expunge a portion of my large breakfast. At this point, the murmurs and delusions are getting to me as well as the vision that makes me sick. I rapidly restart the flow of Ether into the center of my pupils. The focus of my Daydream is on removing the whispers. And it works to remove the noises, but not completely on my eyes. That’s when I feel as though something is really wrong.

The noises completely disappear but the edges of my vision in my peripherals are blurred and distorted. Flowing shadows nip at the very corners of my eyes just where I can’t see completely and make me look around constantly to make sure there isn’t something nearby. Looking down at Dakota, I see that the little fox has grown some more during my nap. Not much, but it’s simple to sense when you have the precision of being a Philosopher at a point in time.

He appears normal before my sight and just like a normal crying baby fox before my ears. I rub his little ears with a smile on my face as I try to ignore the signs of madness that dawn upon me. Something to ground me. That’s all I need. The more anchors the longer I can hold on from this damn artifact. Maybe even long enough to evolve my Sigil far enough to match the palm and keep it in line.

The time I woke up was around sundown, so I fed Dakota and myself some more before leaving and got a move on with a body fully expelled of Ether. We travel through the chilly autumn night. A first since I did so with Edmund out of the Andreis forest. But this time, I go backward, as a guardian of my own in a weird way.

Now that I am beginning to see the signs of being “Artificed” as they put it, I’m starting to understand why I was treated more like a wild beast on a spiked pole than a person. If all it takes is a single few hours of sleep without protection for me to begin to see things, then what would happen if I didn’t have Daydream? If I didn’t have a way to protect my mind, surely Johnny would be right. I’d be more monster than human within a few days, maybe less.

And I’ve always thought I had a powerful will. Ma used to say that quite a lot to me when I was growing up. Now that I think about it, it is an odd thing to say to a child. Maybe not once or twice, but I remember her saying it commonly, even during mundane tasks. Another sign that maybe she wasn’t who I remember her as.

I can’t even imagine how quickly anyone else would have fallen to the dark whispers of the Bloody Palm. I mean, it's even got into my dreams at night. That desire for survival I felt in that dream? That must be what keeps the Bloody Palm going. All artifacts are formed from leftover desires or emotions, right? I guess I at least know the Bloody Palm’s. It’s simply a need to survive. One so deep and powerful that it transformed the previous owner's Sigil into a distorted aspect of survival.

An object capable of keeping its holder alive with even severe injuries just by holding onto it. I can’t imagine how much it will affect me now that it is a part of me. Both physically and mentally. There is only one true positive to this whole situation of being Artificed, for artifacts that are Artificed onto someone grow exponentially in power with a host to directly draw sustenance from. I laugh as I say it into the nightly air to just myself and Dakota.

“Hah ha, I’m gonna be one hell of a bitch to kill now, aren’t I? That bounty poster said I was 'Seemingly impossible to put in the dirt.' Imagine it now Dakota. You think I could have taken those three Hunters now without one running? I feel like I could.”

They would be in for a world of hurt if they try me now. A combination of the Bloody Palm and Strugglers Gasp previously rendered a break in my fucking spinal cord pointless. I could still move my legs with shrapnel shredding my whole body from a bullet in my back. What will put me down now? A bullet to the head is the only thing I can think of. I gotta get myself a helmet or something.

But all things do come with a cost. I've been trying to read a bit more lately, and the manuals speak of laws regarding how Sigils work, the first being the Law Of Equivalence.

“No effect is made without something being consumed, whether the resource is Ether, vitality, souls, or something more abstract, a toll is always taken. To gain something of high value, a high cost is required.”

And just like the law states for a high-value effect, the Bloody Palm’s fee is steep and nonnegotiable unless I take from others.

There are a few other laws that state similarly important things, but they have no hold on this. There is another law called the Law Of Balance, but it has to do with the power of individual Sigil, not artifacts which are distorted things brought forth from an artifact.

My thoughts wander in this way as I walk through the moonlit ever-shifting dunes with Dakota the growing kit on my shoulder. The little guy sleeps an awful lot, seemingly to either keep up with his rapid growth or fuel it. I don’t know which is the answer. But hours we walk, deep into the night before I even begin growing tired. I do grow hungry though.

As I Dakota down so that I could open and eat a midnight meal from my new pack, I see the little guy wake up and stand to immediate attention. At first, I think he's just excited about food as every time we have stopped recently has been to eat, but no, that’s not it. He begins to growl lowly, as low as a baby fox can into the dark.

I rapidly spin and look where he is facing. The Comanche Sigil focuses on reactions and the senses, so I take his instincts as fact there is something despite him being a kit. At first, I don’t see anything in the dark. Nothing but the edges of my conscious gaze that is frayed with twisting darkness. But eventually, I spot a bit of movement west, toward where we were heading originally before I stopped to eat.

My first reaction is to flood Ether into my body in preparation for a serious fight, but as I look closer at the movement, I realize it’s not that big of a deal. Not a threat that requires me to waste my now increasingly precious Ether capacity. It’s a large rattlesnake. While it is something dangerous, it’s not something I cannot handle without Ether.

Before I do anything to the snake though, I bend down and comfort Dakota, petting his still small and fragile head. I also make sure to commend him. I heard that’s what you do when you want to reinforce an animal's behavior. If it works with cats and dogs, surely it works with foxes too.

“Good boy. I’ll take care of this one. You can have the next when you're larger.”

I draw the revolver from my hip, one of the many weapons that I carry, and aim it at the slithering snake as it nears us. It’ll be good target practice for me. Never tried to shoot a snake before. Trying to ignore the static in the edges of my eyes, I focus forwards using the iron sights of the six-shooter. Then, I pull back the hammer to prepare the chamber for firing.

Once the snake is on the other side of the steel sight, I hold my breath for a single short second and squeeze the trigger. A loud bang echoes through the dunes as my first bullet enters the sand next to the snake. Dakota, used to gunfire I guess, doesn’t react much to the gunfire, but the snake does, it begins slithering faster toward me.

“Damnit!”

I quickly pull back the hammer with my thumb and aim once more. Once again, another round echoes through the dark sands. This time, though, the bullet strikes true. It enters the side of the rattlesnake and stops its rattle. I walk over to it and pull out the serpentine dagger that reminds me of it. Then just to be safe, I stab it in the head into the sand with the dagger seemingly made after it or its brethren.

Dakota rushes over once I kill it for sure, quite sharp for a beast, but I suppose that’s what the Comanche Sigil will do. Make an expert tracker, killer, and provider. He’s just not quite at those levels yet. When he gets to the snake, he tries to bite into it. But his teeth and jaws are far too undeveloped to yield much flesh from the newly deceased snake.

I watch him gnaw on it for a few moments in amusement before I get on a knee and start cutting off pieces of snake meat for the little guy to swallow. I am careful not to make them too big, though. Don’t want to make him choke.

While I feed him, I wonder why the snake came at us. We, or at least I, am dozens of times larger than the snake. Surely its instincts would make it stay away from us? Unless it was starving. I know firsthand that starving creatures will do almost anything to feed themselves. Even resorting to things that would be certain death if they failed.

But if that were the case, why would it be starving? I’m only a few dozen miles away from Rustbank at most, so why is it starving? There shouldn’t be any massive monsters with Sigils nearby. Rustbank and its inhabitants would handle that. Maybe it's the break? Affecting the food of the small predators?

If the break is the reason for this snake's abnormal actions, then that’s seriously bad news. That means it’s getting close enough to affect food chains. I don’t know exactly how close that’d have to be, but I imagine it’s not crazy far.

This means my little trip back out into the dunes might be short. Very short. But it also means that I need to be fast. Because if the monsters are that close and I don’t warn someone, then a lot of people will die. My friends will die. I don't want that to happen even if they don't want to even be near me.

From what I’ve heard, a break is normally thousands of monsters led by a few demons and semi-to-full-intelligent monsters with many Outlaws that follow on the fringes to loot. But this one is said to be special. An enormous wave of powerful monsters meant to take back land that was established and guarded by my father.

The Undying’s words apparently held enormous weight. Enough to just stave this whole thing off for decades. I can’t even begin to see how strong he’d be. Certainly tens of times more powerful than someone like Johnny, who has to send me out to scout for him.

I cut these burgeoning thoughts about my father short before they spread over to my Ma. Neither of whom I want to dwell on very much with my sanity under assault. Doing so, I stand and pick up the satiated Dakota who has snake blood on his muzzle. I wipe a bit of it off and let him know what’s gonna be happening, even if he can’t quite understand me yet.

“Looks like I’m gonna have to skip eating. We gotta get moving buddy. The break might be closer than we thought. If I don’t warn Johnny and it’s close enough to attack, our friends will die. You in?”

I end the explanation with a question and I swear I see the small fox nod at me. I nod back.

“Good! Let's go.”

The little guy goes into my mostly empty pack just full of notes and other odd things. His eyes, nose, and ears stick out though so he doesn’t suffocate and so that he can sense the surroundings for me. The first time might have only been a rattlesnake, but who knows what the next one might be like.

Then, I take a bit of advice from Earl. Adrenaline Surge apparently leaves one with a lasting sense of exhaustion after it wears off. And I certainly felt it last night when I went to bed, but it was completely gone when I woke up. That might not always be the case, though, if my injuries are too great for the palm to heal overnight.

So, instead of using Adrenaline Surge, the risky general skill that Edmund taught me while pretending it wasn’t one, I use Physical Enhancement just on my legs. I don’t know why Edmund lied about what it was, but I’m sure he had a reason. Maybe to keep my ego down from learning an advanced technique so quickly? Who knows. Only the dead do.

And everyone knows, Deadmen tell no tales. Well, that’s unless you go to the underworld and ask them. But I know very few people have ever made it back alive. All of them are legends and mythical people, that now that I think about it, might never have existed. Most of what Ma told me about legends were false, just night-time stories about demons, ogres, and other types of monsters. She told me very, very little about humans and their tales. And whenever she did talk about people, it normally ended in gruesome deaths.

I force these thoughts about my mother out of my head and focus on running with my legs enhanced by Ether. And I already feel the difference after a few seconds compared to Adrenaline Surge. The lifesaving skill always gives me a huge shot of energy and adrenaline that can keep me going even during dark times which makes perfect sense why I was taught it, but not why I was lied to about its name. Physical Strengthening just gives me a little bit of extra push for what I need.

This extra push means a great deal of increase in speed, especially now that I don’t have a few hundred pounds to lug behind me through the dunes like a wagon full of packhorses. I zoom amongst the moonlit sands at a rapid pace. I look back here or there to check on Dakota and the whole time he has his head out the side of the pack sniffing the air. He yips and yaps here or there in a low tone as he watches me speed westward.

After a few hours of this brisk pace, I see a bit white of light in the distant west. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a fire or a lantern, so I slow down and crouch. Then, I slowly approach the light source with Dakota in my pack and the dunes as cover low to the ground. The little guy goes completely quiet as if he knows that there is something up ahead.

Slowly and carefully, I approach the light source. I try to mimic Edmund’s movements and use the only other Sigil skill he ever taught me. Sneak. Something I have not even thought of in a long, long time as it never came up. But now, I move with icy muteness over the dunes toward the light, little swirls of Ether clouds in the bottoms of my feet quieting each step. I attempt to take this skill one step further though, as the swirling sands with the breezing wind make noise upon my body.

Instead of just having swirling, cloud-like Ether on my feet, I take a moment to focus and try to replicate the ability on every surface of my body. The task is hard. To make sections of swirling Ether fit on larger parts of my body like my torso or arms is a great challenge and causes me to stop moving to focus.

I fail several times and waste multiple minutes, but the light is far away and I can afford to spend time to get this right. The increased control of Ether from my Sigil’s evolution is strongly felt. The streams and collections of Ether twist and turn much more rapidly and smoothly than they ever did before. After my eighth try, I finally succeed. Long swirling clouds of Ether now exist within the skin of each of my limbs, my torso, and my head.

Now, I’m utterly noiseless. Wind-powered sand hits my body without a single trace of noise, the sand being cushioned by my Ether. My feet touch the ground without even making a single vibration to be felt, the clouds of Ether preventing them. I even kneel down on all fours in case I must move like Edmund and even then, I’m completely quiet. Like a wraith, inaudible and nonexistent, I move without any indications of my presence except for the sand I disturb.

Even Dakota is much quieter. I think the clouds of Ether around my body help him out a bit in being silent, but it might just be the fox’s instinct that does most of the work.

Anyhow, now with the upgraded Sneak, something I surely can only do now because of the increase in Ether from evolving into a Daydreamer, I stalk closer toward the light. After nearly ten minutes of slow and deliberate movement so as not to be seen, I get close enough to spot what the light is.

It’s a man walking in a fully tailored suit with another man’s decapitated head in his hand that he’s carrying by head’s long hair. The part that really throws me for a loop is that the light is coming from the decapitated head’s mouth like a lantern.