Book 3, Chapter 1: Gentle, Comforting Warmth

Author's Note: Don't want to spoil anything and Patreon doesn't have spoiler tags, but putting a general TW on this one for traumatic content.

Warmth.

As I ever so slowly awoke, the first and only thing to hit me was the comforting, gentle warmth. It enveloped me, enfolded me, leaving me feeling like a child wrapped up in their favorite blanket.

Unhurriedly, I tried to remember the cause of the sensation. Some sort of new sleep spell? Vaguely I recalled grass, a park… a birthday celebration?

That’s right. I fell asleep in the park.

I tried to follow that line of thought further, but it slipped away, easily eluding my languid mental grasp.

Snooze. I’m hitting snooze. There was no need for thinking right now. Just another five minutes. Or ten. Or twenty.

I tried to settle back into the warm embrace of the mysterious warmth, letting it lull me back to sleep. To my bleary surprise, however, I felt the temperature start to shift. The gentle, cozy snugness evolved into the soothing toastiness of a jacuzzi. Despite the difference, the new temperature was no less comforting than the old, and I could feel the kinks in my muscles melting under its ministrations.

Birthday hot tub? Or some sort of hot springs? Maybe I started relaxing so hard I fell asleep in the water.

That was bad, I was pretty sure. Something about heart health? Or was it a skin thing? I’d probably end up as wrinkled as a prune when I woke up, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Whatever the price of my blissful soak was, my drowsy mind was fully certain it was worth it.

I let my head empty itself, becoming a creature of pure sensation. Had nothing changed, I wasn’t confident I’d have ever bothered moving again.

After some unknowable amount of time, however, the temperature climbed once again, the warmth of the hot tub transforming into the rejuvenating heat of a sauna. I could feel my blood rushing through me, cordially coaxing me into wakefulness.

A spa. Or a hot spring. I must have bought some magical spa package so relaxing that I dozed off.

Somewhere in the small part of my mind that was awake, I knew I’d regret sleeping through the entire thing. I ignored it for a while longer, making good on my promise to hit the snooze button, until at last it won over. I let myself grow more and more alert, returning to the land of the living, at last opening my eyes, and-

I couldn’t open my eyes.

As I tried once more and then again, and again and again, the initial foggy confusion gave way to a dawning anxiety.

Then a mounting dread.

A heart-hammering, breath-stopping, all-consuming panic.

There was nothing I could hear, feel, see, except the endless, encompassing darkness in front of me, around me, everywhere.

The darkness.

And the heat.

As if spurred on by my wakefulness or fear or attention, the heat rose once more, faster this time. Up and up and up until it grew feverous, blistering, scorching, blazing.

I screamed, only belatedly realizing that nothing was coming out, my throat as defunct as my sightless eyes.

Until an eternity later-

Sound.

Light.

Fire.

The blaring of car horns cutting through the smoky, heat-hazed air. The crumpled metal and shattered glass encasing me, surrounding me, and in some cases, impaling me.

Somehow the return of my senses was even worse than their absence as I caught sight of my body broken, burnt, and bent in too many ways to count. The noises were deafening, cacophonous, incessant, and I couldn’t lift my arms to even stopper my ears. The tears came freely and boiled away just as fast.

Kept from crying out, I wailed in my mind. Screamed in my soul as every piece of me was stripped away and charred to ash except the pain. The pain, the pain, the pain, the unending, unrelenting pain.

And a single, dim, half-formed thought.

There’s supposed to be a boy.

That was right. A boy. There was a boy! I knew this one!

Any moment now, he’d come casually striding through the remnants of the car door, taking the pain away. Saving me. Healing me.

I desperately clutched onto that single thought, barely managing to keep myself sane as I waited and waited for him to come.

Waited and waited and waited and waited.

But he never did.

The fire raged until it burnt away even the light around me, and all returned to black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I awoke the second time around, it was not a gradual affair. Instead, I jerked up as if shocked back to life at the hands of a defibrillator. Far from finding myself in a hospital bed, however, I pulled myself up from the hard dirt of a forest floor.

“What- What the hell?”

My limbs were uncontrollably shaky, the memories of the pain shooting through them like malignant phantoms.

“Was that some sort of nightmare? Do I get nightmares now? Do I get nightmares like that now?” And on top of that, where the hell was I? The forest looked familiar, but even so, how had I gotten here?

A loud rustling from behind me announced the presence of a newcomer, and I jerkily turned about, hoping it was one of the shadows. Maybe they’d know why I was here, at the very least.

As it so happened, however, it was very far from a forest shadow. Very, very far.

Staring down at me with octuplicate, beady eyes was a massive purple spider.

Its fangs and pincers and blade-like legs were primed and ready for use, and as if uncertain its multitude of weapons would be enough to faze me, it let out an ear-splitting screech.

As I felt the blood drain from my face, recognition washed over me.

“I know you.”

The spider matriarch. The spider matriarch. Somehow I knew without a doubt that it was no sister or distant relative of the first, but the very same one I’d fought so long ago, here in the flesh.

How-

The matriarch didn’t seem to care about the “how” of it, instead charging towards me, intent on shredding me to pieces.

Maybe it could do that back then, but now-

I summoned up a mana spear, readying myself to meet its charge, only for my mana core to sputter out, sitting in my chest like an inert lump of coal.

My momentary freedom from my earlier panic ended, my already-overstressed system flooding with adrenaline.

I wanted to say that I put up some valiant fight, but the truth was much simpler.

The spider charged.

I failed to escape it.

The pain returned, a new flavor this time around. The burning phantoms which still haunted my nerves were now joined by stabs and slices and tears, and GOD how it hurt, it hurt, again it hurt!

But I remembered this time! I remembered! This wasn’t how things ended!

The spider was supposed to die before it dealt too much damage to me. Rock had shot it. He’d shot it and the pain ended. I knew it had! The pain was supposed to end!

My steadfast grip on that one, incontrovertible fact did nothing to stop the unending torture.

Until once again, I slipped into darkness.

~~~~~~~~~

I awoke on a plain of cracked and dusty earth, the sky above me blotted out by an oppressive density of darkness. I caught my breath for only a split second before claws shot out of the ground, surrounding me in a ring.

Glassy-eyed kexids spilled out from the earth, all of them fixing their vacant attention my way. One in particular stood out from all the others, turning away to display the visible puncture wound in its back. Somehow I knew without a doubt that I’d caused that. It was the kexid I’d stabbed all those months back, in what felt like a lifetime ago.

It turned to face me squarely, putting the wound out of sight, but if anything, its fly-like eyes were even worse. They bore into me, whispering, screaming.

You killed me.

As it turned out, both it and its friends were more than willing to return the favor.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I lay sprawled out across the floor, a bottle of honey-wine to my side and a scepter before me. The door to the storeroom shot open to admit a hoard of thieves, and before I could plead my case, they swarmed me, bound me, gagged me.

I struggled impotently, unable to save myself, stuck waiting for Cal to appear from the shadows to set me free. Instead, it was a different face that met me, eyes hard as they judged my betrayal.

Nadja pulled a dagger out from her side and swung it down.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A roaring, tempestuous mass of water extended from floor to ceiling of the colossal, cylindrical room. I didn’t even have time to get my bearings before the shower elemental summoned up a tsunami, sending it crashing my way. There was no friendly Battle Barber to anchor me through the unremitting wave, and I was sent surging backwards, bashing against the wall, the floor, drowning, drowning, drowning, and-

~~~~~~~~~~

Silence.

Darkness.

It was far preferable to the alternatives, and as if my unwillingness would delay the next round of torture, I kept my eyes shut, moving not a muscle save for in my uncontrollable shaking.

And for a while, it worked.

No blazing fires or piercing pincers. No judging eyes or ceaseless tidal waves.

It was a relief beyond comparison while it lasted, and I greedily sucked in the absence of pain, savoring it over all else.

After a time, however, I could feel my body weakening, the life fleeing from it as I silently sat there. Heavy beads of sticky sweat rolled over and off of me, and even knowing that it wouldn’t help, even knowing it wouldn’t end well, I couldn’t stop myself from opening my eyes.

“Ah! Look at that. She awakens!” A kind, grandfatherly figure in yellow-cream robes stood a short distance off, smiling warmly.

For the shortest, briefest of moments, I thought I was saved.

Until my mind caught up, recognizing his face, the room, the everything.

I spared a horrified glance down at myself, knowing exactly what I would find.

Blood. Not sweat. Blood.

It flowed freely, covering both my skin and the chains of light which bound me.

Spread out in a circle to my sides, four other bodies lay in similar states. Cal. Hartha. Rock. Jason. The five of us formed a pentagon, circumscribed within an infernal, red spell circle.

“This isn’t real,” I whispered. “It’s not. It’s not real.”

I mumbled it over and over again, trying to drown out the hum of the magic, the rapidly overwhelming scent of iron, the face of the last person I ever wanted to see again.

The High Priest, Ephesis, raised his brows in mock surprise. He theatrically patted at his own body, as if to make certain he was still there. “Really? Are you certain? I could have sworn I was quite real, but I suppose I could be mistaken.”

It’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. “You’re like the other visions. It’s going to end. It’s not real.” Some part of me knew that I shouldn’t have bothered responding to the fake Ephesis. He wasn’t really there. I didn’t need to convince him of anything or listen to his poisoned words. But I needed to. Needed to speak it into existence that this was only temporary. Fake.

For his part, the high priest chuckled.

“I suppose I could simply leave you to think that, but out of a sense of pity, I will correct you. The visions were my doing, child. A way of occupying you while the ritual was carried out. Quite the feat breaking out of it! But then again, you do seem to have more mental resistance than the others, yes?”

It was a lie. It had to be.

Of course, it was something he could have done. I knew better than most that he was horrifically skilled at mental manipulations. He’d forced me to have visions before, after all. It wasn’t really even that far-fetched, now that I thought about it…

But no.

“We killed you.”

I knew we had. We’d killed him, and then… And then…

My memories grew hazy as I tried to recall what happened next. Was there something after that?

The high priest seemed to find this infinitely entertaining, and he bent over in the middle of the spell circle, filling the dark cavern with his laughter.

“Did you? You managed to kill me? And pray tell, exactly how did you manage such a thing? Four catatonic friends and a weak, bled-out child killing a Protagonist centuries older than them?”

We’d… We’d what? Ordering my thoughts was growing harder and harder, and it felt like I was missing something, but he was right, wasn’t he? How the hell were the five of us supposed to take on that?

Ephesis reigned in his laughter, instead humming deeply in amusement. “I’ll tell it to you straight, child. I often find the easiest way to deal with the willful types is to implant a few false memories into them. After all, who’s going to wake up to try to kill you if they think they already did?” He delivered the last line with the cadence of a comic, the punchline to the world’s largest possible joke.

Second largest joke. For believing I possibly could have beaten the monster before me, the largest joke was, in fact, me.

I sat there, reeling, taking it all in.

It was a lie. I’ve been here the entire time.

The entire, entire time.

The tears wouldn’t stop as I started to sob, an ugly-cry that I knew I’d be stuck in till the moment I died. I couldn’t do anything.

“Shhhhh, shh, shh. There, there. No need to cry. Think on the bright side, yes? We’re doing the world a favor.” Ephesis left the center of the spell circle, sauntering over to me before bending down. He sent a wizened hand to my head, stroking at my hair as I was too distraught to even eke out a protest.

“I saw what was in those visions,” he cooed. “Your darkest hours. Your most traumatic moments. And in the real version of each and every one of them, someone swooped in to save you, hmm? You were tragically, pitifully weak.”

It’s true. Dex. Rock. The shadows. Cal. Barb. Had I ever done anything on my own? How had I lived such a helpless, worthless life?

“Such a burden you are to the world around you. A burden to your friends and loved ones. This is a favor, is it not? A way in which you and I can leave this world a slightly better place.”

I can’t… I don’t-

There was nothing anymore. Nothing but my own endless tears, my shaky nerves, my jerky, heaving breaths, the feel of his wrinkled hand in my hair, the lilting sound of his voice-

“Still clinging to some impossible hope, though, aren’t you? That this all turns out okay in the end for the noble hero. That someone will swoop in to save you once more.” He took his hand from my hair, using it to lift my chin, forcing me into eye contact. “I am sorry to say, child, that there is no help on the way. There are no tricks this time. No gods to save you. Just me. Only me.”

I croaked out a hoarse whisper: “... it.”

Ephesis leaned forth, cupping a hand to his ear. “Hmm? What was that?”

“Please. Just end it.”

I wasn’t made for this. I wasn’t made for this! I never asked to be swept up into some fantasy bullshit world, to be chosen, to be strung along through dungeons and fighting monsters. I was just some kid trying to figure out how to pay rent!

And for months I’d been trying. I’d been trying! But I was just some random girl cobbled together with a few skills to keep me from losing my shit, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it.

Even if someone did save me now, I couldn’t do it. I’d been keeping myself numb, on autopilot, ignoring all the glaring, blaring issues with my life in hopes that they’d just go away. In hopes that eventually everything would settle down and make sense. Eventually my life wouldn’t be such a flaming shit show. Eventually I wouldn’t be such a burden to everyone I knew. And I just… I was done.

“Just end it.”

The hand left my chin to return to my hair, stroking it one final time as Ephesis faced me with a smile filled with comforting, gentle warmth.

“I am not without my mercy, child.”

A blade of pure, radiant light formed in his hand, and he hefted it up, high above my neck. Not wanting to watch, I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.

Even so, I could feel as the air parted under the force of the blow, as the blade shot down, and at last-

Integration complete!

Congratulations! You have successfully integrated a Legendary skill!