Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

I’ve never seen anyone ever advance their Sigil in front of me before. I mean Earl technically did, but I was literally dying and couldn’t see it at all. I expected something grand, something interesting to happen, but no. It’s nothing of the sort.

What occurs is so boring and mundane it overrides much of the excitement I had about Virgil’s advancement. Virgil simply closes their eyes and reaches for where the Sigil is located, then less than a second later, without any fanfare, he opens his eyes and turns to us.

Only after the advancement does anything cool happen. I notice that his back stands a bit straight and that shadows lick at his heels, like flickering flames. The man covered in clothes and wearing goggles now has completely black eyes that show only through the thin lenses of the goggles, making it almost impossible to even tell if it is a human beneath the thick wardrobe.

He looks at us for a moment before lunging straight for Vernon, wrapping him in a hug while laughing.

“We did it! One of us now Wonderous! This calls for a party! But not now. We’ll have to get back to town first.”

Vernon pushes his excited older brother off of him annoyingly, one of the rare times I’ve ever been able to notice Virgil be truly joyful, but it makes sense. He just advanced to the 4th Sigil after all. He’s not the only one excited, though. Both Vernon and I are curious about his new Sigil.

“What did you get? What’s the new name and powers?”

Virgil turns and answers my question with a smile I can hear through his tone.

“I’m a Flickering Darkstalker. It increases my speed and all other parts of me while in the dark even further which I can currently feel to be quite the boost. My sleep per day has also been reduced, possibly down to just an hour or so a day. The main one, though, is that now I can easily blend into shadows and mask my presence, effectively becoming invisible. I’m gonna call it Mask. The tome also said something about stalking prey and being hard to track.”

Virgil finishes his explanation of his new powers by crouching next to a shadow rock and before our very eyes, darkness wraps around him. Then, after being completely covered in shadows, he seems to disappear from our view. Not like he’s invisible but more so like I’m inclined to ignore him.

The effect is more mental than physical, but it’s very effective. Even Vernon and I, who saw him use Mask have incredible difficulty realizing where he is at. I can immediately see how effective the skill would be for an assassin or solo Hunter.

I see Virgil do some more testing with his new 4th Sigil, but instead of staying to watch, I decide to rest a bit as he recommended. Calling over Dakota, who hid in the corner as I asked the whole time, I lay down and fall asleep, keeping the Daydream on the Bloody Palm active.

Several hours later I wake up, feeling mostly rested, but with a headache of Ether lingering over me, the aftereffects of sleeping with Daydream active. What I wake up to, however, only makes the headache much worse.

Vernon shakes me until I wake up and immediately starts rushing me to move. Still waking up, I ask why we are in such a hurry.

“Virgil let you sleep for almost a full twelve hours, since then, he has gone out to both test his new Sigil and use the new stealth to see how far away the break is. And he just got back. It’s close. Way too close. We need to go, now. At this very moment. So get up and let's fucking go!”

The news of the break already upon us shakes and sobers my drowsy mind. Adrenaline flows straight into my mind and gets the cogs inside turning. We need to go, yes, but I haven’t seen the break myself. Something tells me Johnny will know if I don’t see it. But would he even care if I don’t see its main body?

As long as I get the information back to him on the break, it’s fine, right? That’s all that really matters. He just needs information and time to prepare. Again, I still cannot understand why he sent me, a man he thought would die soon on such a mission.

It just feels like something idiotic or bound to fail. Or is my family’s reputation so resounding that he actually believes I can pull this off? I’m unsure which I prefer. If he just sent me to die, then that means me returning successfully would impress him. On the other hand, if he sent me with confidence, if I returned it would all just be according to plan.

Both things I hate. Being sent to die and being a puppet. Maybe that’s why I resonate so heavily with the Philosopher Sigil. I spent my whole life cooped up in a small ranch just wishing to leave, wanting to adventure. Ending that prematurely or being forced to do something against my will makes me furious. A kind of rage and burning will that would blaze until I turn to ashes comes whenever I am backed against the wall.

Doesn’t matter the kind of wall I’m put against either. Whether it’s my death or another's. Being left with no freedom to choose, do what I want, or go where I please is against my nature.

The Philosopher is one who merely acknowledges this lack of freedom, this suffering, and is able to spot it easily. The Daydreamer dreams of a better world, one where this freedom exists, but no action yet, though to make it happen.

I assume that the Struggler is next. I think I truly understand now why I resonated with it when I completed my Absolution. I’m all about action. Thinking and dreaming are not things I’m particularly good at, but struggling? Fighting with all I got? I think I’m quite good at that.

And if Johhny thinks he can keep me chained on a leash forever, he’s got another thing coming. For by the time I reach him, I just may be a Struggler, willing to rage against the chains.

This post-sleep inner reflection took quite some time and by the end of it, I exit the Amikuk burrow with Vernon. Outside the cave where we just recently fought, I see Virgil standing looking westward at the clouds that have grown increasingly dark and closer to our eyes.

The man turns and looks at both me and his brother before addressing us.

“Good, you’re up. We need to leave now. I did a bit of reconnaissance with my new Sigil, Flickering Darkstalker is quite the fitting name. It allows me to easily follow traces while at the same time covering mine. Using this ability without getting caught, I found a massive group of monsters sleeping in a clearing about five miles north of us.”

Unsure how this indicates the break, I raise a question to the newly advanced Darkstalker.

“How do you know it’s the break? Could it not just be a group of wild monsters like the Amikuk or the Short Horned Serpents?”

Virgil nods at my question and answers it promptly as he shoulders his backpack and starts walking eastward.

“The monsters were of many different species altogether. I saw dozens of Nightmares, monstrous horses that are twice the size of even the largest horse, a few dozen Jenu, a smaller cannibalistic creature similar to Urayuli, and a single Uktena guarding the group. Uktena are like the Short Horned Serpents we fought previously, but they are normally 4th Sigil, much larger, and have small wings, possibly hinting at a future evolution into a Xiuhcoattl, a catastrophic type of monster that only Pillars can deal with.

Because of this, I’m fairly certain it’s the break that is keeping them tame. The demon or demons in lead must be taking their time to arrive, allowing the monsters time to rest. Many demons are known for their pride and looking down on other humans.”

Nodding to this, I follow him and ask a few more questions.

“So how far do you think this demon is? And do you think we can get a glance at it?”

Virgil looks at me like I’m insane and shakes his head with a chuckle.

“You’re crazy lad. No, we do not want to see it at all. Even from miles away. I highly doubt my new Mask and hiding in darkness would prevent it from seeing me, and you two would be surely dead. To answer your first question, though, I think it’s at least a day or two westward, for we have only seen the first group of tamed monsters.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Then how do get back without dying if this demon is so dangerous? Do we just run?”

“The situation isn’t that bad. At most, we will have to fight some monsters here or there. It is unlikely for us to come across the demon if we are actively moving in the opposite direction, but for you to actually deliver useful intel to the Gunfighter, we will need to move fast. As fast as possible.”

As Virgil says this, he breaks off into a sprint, leaving both me and Vernon to catch up to him. We both do so, but it is obviously much easier for the now Wonderous Virgil to move at incredible speeds even without actively using Ether to augment himself. The powers of a 4th Sigiled are quite a leap from a 2nd or 3rd, and I haven’t even seen him do all that much yet.

Once I catch up to him, I ask what the plan is to move faster. We can’t run the whole way back after all. It took us days to reach this far. None of us can keep going for that long.

“So, what are we going to do to move so fast? We have days worth of ground to cover. Running doesn’t sound like a good idea, no matter how faster we are. If we get caught, we’ll be exhausted and weak.”

Virgil, while running, nods to my suggestions and informs me of the plans he came up with. He has two possible ways for us to get out of this.

“I've thought up two different courses of action. Both are pretty risky, one much more so than the other, but it is much faster. The other is less risky but slower and more likely for us to either get caught up to by monsters or to not arrive in Rustbank fast enough to give any useful reconnaissance.

The first is the not-so-risky one. We make it back to Harmony Town as fast as we can on our feet. I remember seeing a wagon left in one of the stables. We can take turns pulling it at our max speeds with Ether-infused bodies. This should get us to Rustbank in two or three days tops.

The second is far riskier but also involves the wagon. We go to where I saw the group of monsters and steal a few Nightmares. The horses are powerful and unruly, but if we use the artifact from the Bakwa, I think we can control them, forcing them to carry the wagon back to Rustbank at full speed in a day.”

I stop Virgil in his explanation and ask him about the artifact. I never learned what it does, all I did was give it to them before falling asleep.

“Wait, wait, wait. What does the artifact do?”

An “Oh right.” comes from the younger brother, Vernon, as he excitedly explains what the artifact does.

“I named it–”

“We named it”

“---Right, we named it, Ghosteye. I was fiddling with it and learned that the spirits within can be released and controlled. Then, the spirits that are sent out from the glassy eye can enter other things and control them. At first, I just used one of them to make a rock jump up and down, but then I used more and more, eventually making the rock move at bullet-like speeds.

After a few hours of testing, Virgil returned and stepped in the way of me sending a large number of spirits into the wall, just to see what it’d do, and they all entered him. Then, for about ten minutes until he broke out of it, I could control him just like a puppet. It was probably the most fun I've had in months.

In hindsight, though, I think this might have been how the Bakwa controlled and transformed people. By putting a small spirit or piece of themselves into another, allowing them to manipulate and change them.”

I take a few moments to let this new information sink in and settle. This means the spirits inside of it are likely just part of the progenitor Bawka, not the souls of those it transformed. Relief flows through me that this discovery. I was so worried that I had only freed Lonnie to put his soul into another container.

After I spend a minute or so thinking about this, Virgil chimes in once more, wanting input on which plan to do.

“So, which do you two think is the best move here?”

Vernon goes quiet, thinking at this prompt while I once more ask another question.

“How far do you think that the break is from the town? If we make it there in three days, how far behind would the break be? And how much time do you think would be sufficient to help Rustbank survive? I don’t want the people in there to die.”

Virgil answers quickly, his experience letting him estimate things like this fairly easily.

“Hmm. I’d say the break is four to five days away. Could be three if the demon decides to hurry up out of nowhere, but at the same time, it could be more if they don’t. Monsters are likely to be much faster than us on foot, so they’ll probably catch up to us if we don’t have some mode of transportation.”

His answer to my questions decides mine to his. I need to give Earl and them as much time as possible to prepare for the break. So, we need to go and control those Nightmares to use as horses for the wagon.

“Then that settles it. We need to get those Nightmares, otherwise, we won’t get to the town in time for our arrival to be of any help.”

Virgil nods at my choice and looks to Vernon.

“We only made a deal to go with you to the break. Vernon, do you want to go with him to Rustbank and help the town survive or just go south and escape the break?”

Vernon takes only a single second to think before refusing to cut and run.

“What would our sisters think if they knew we left a friend to die, Virgil?”

Virgil nods at his brother's decision.

“Good. I’m happy to see my baby brother’s got some balls on him in the end. We’re with you, Wyatt. Just follow me, and I’ll lead us to the encampment of monsters.”

Having the two decide to stick with me despite not having to warms my heart. Most people so far on my journey have been murderous, rude, or flaky, but these two? I can already tell, they’re the type to die for their friends as well.

We turn left from where we are currently heading and go north, toward where Virgil saw the group of Nightmares. He gives us a short plan while we follow him.

“Wyatt, you know Sneak right?”

I nod, and I give him even more than he’s looking for.

“Yea and I learned how to do it do my whole body when I first met you guys in the dunes trying to hide.”

Surprise comes from him as he congratulates me.

“Wonderful! You know Stealth, this will make this much easier. You’re on Nightmare converting duty. You’re going to Stealth up close, just close enough to control two Nightmares, the amount we need to move the wagon at full speed. Then, you’re going to slowly control them and have them walk away from the group.

I will hide in wait nearby with Mask and if the Uktena attacks you or the Nightmares, I will jump in and attack it from the dark. My new Sigil combined with Flicker should let me end it incredibly quickly. Now, the shadows elongate simply as I walk. While I was testing my new Sigil, I came up with a new application for Ether.

It’s a combination of Whetting and increasing the quality of my shadowy Ether with Steel Strand. It creates a blade of darkness running over whatever I put it on that leaves behind corrosion and cuts through stone easily. Vernon named it Necrosis which is probably the coolest name he ever came up with, so it stuck.

But that’s enough about me. Vernon will be waiting away in case either of us needs backup. He doesn’t know any skills that relate to stealth, so he will just have to be our backup. After we get the Nightmares, we will hop on them and head to Harmony Town, taking turns controlling them with our Ether.”

The plan sounds solid and we all agree on it. Virgil is good at commanding. I wonder if he’s ever been a commander before. I’ll have to ask him later.

He gives me the Ghosteye while we run and after ten more minutes, Virgil makes us all crouch and slowly fades into shadows in the middle of the day.

“Use your Stealth, we are very close. Vernon, stay here with Dakota unless we holler for you.”

Hearing this, I create a meandering but focused stream of Ether throughout my whole body, pushing more Ether than usual for Sneak throughout it, manifesting Stealth. The Ether within feels cloudy and nullifies all the sounds I make.

Then, together with the almost imperceptible Darkstalker beside me, I approach the resting spot of the monsters.

To steal ourselves a ride to town.