Knives & Levels - Chapter 89

The next couple of days passed with ease to the atmosphere that Colt sorely needed.  No more big monster invasions at the gate—though, it had resulted in the guards withdrawing and simply watching the entrances. Some of their friends who had helped them free this place from Denny have instead retreated into the town and decided to stick it out with the increase of mist and danger in the world.

Given the state of things, Colt couldn’t fault them. Though they fought for their freedom not to have an overlord ruling the location, which resulted in their troubles, they were still people. And given that shadows and danger were ever-present outside of the gates, withdrawing and giving yourself space for safety was of vital importance.

Just one look at the mist confirmed a sense of danger. It lingered with a coldness that bit at the face and made the skin numb.

Rumors about the monsters being spotted outside also reinforced the need for people to stay closed up in the city. Given that they were blowing through the faction points to support their population, they could afford, at least for a time, to keep this up.

But there was a limit to that. A couple of months at most?

Colt relaxed in the sauna as thoughts churned through his mind. A couple of others were sharing the bathhouse, though, for them, it wasn’t as vital as him repairing his soul.

As good as it did for the soul, it nourished the body and advanced your thoughts and wellness. To say the place was getting a reputation with the locals was an understatement.

Colt sunk into the water, half of his head submerged, like some kind of water monster, as he felt his soul's frayed edges smooth. Two days of this, and he felt nearly a new man. His insides were brimming with the wild and complex powers of his Edicts, but it was still unbalanced. It would be until a significant shift occurred when he put Momentum on the same level as Movement; only then could he reach a place where he felt that sense of wholeness.

They were like two halves of a coin, and though they wrestled with control over one another, the end result was that they were a balanced force.

Only in order to advance Momentum did he have to understand it. To do that, he had to wield it and get some practice with it, which led to today.

He had a vague idea of how it might work, both in terms of similarities to Movement and the places where it differed, But he really needed to expand and define the ones where it differed.

As soon as Colt dragged himself out of this bath, he was going to head into the ruins of Nashville with a scout and Julia. The three of them would nominally search for the dungeon… In reality, though, he was searching for an enemy to test himself and his new Edict with.

One of Colt’s hands broke the water, rivulets of it running his wrist like miniature rivers; where it touched his skin, he felt the touch of healing and the promise of vigor and strength it gave. This place was a miracle. Without it, he didn’t think he’d see this kind of recovery until after a month. With it and a focus on breathing and meditation in its warm embrace, he’d gotten stronger than ever. He was ready to test his new strength and do good for the town he was serving.

However, even rest resulted in benefits.

———

Meditate (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Meditate (Intermediate) has gained a level!

———

His mind felt more relaxed than before, and in the confines of the hot water, as he sunk into a deep trance of meditation and wrestled with his soul, he felt a slow understanding of the forces acting within it.

Cut had divided Momentum and Movement, forming a barrier between them by utilizing its superior force and understanding to keep them separated. However, they still wrestled and tried to get at one another, fighting against his Edict so they might have the chance to attack.

Where Movement felt like a wild creature of pure blackness and couldn’t sit still, Momentum was a ball of white energy, relentless and shuffling, its weight shifting and changing as it lounged in his soul, also trying to break through the division set up by Cut to fight with its brother. How or why the two couldn’t get along didn’t make much sense to Colt. The two of them were related by all of his brief glimpses and insights brought about by meditation.

They could cooperate and work together; some of their spheres of influence overlapped.

He thought about his fights and where he’d used a similar effect to what he felt Momentum was capable of—how the movement had been able to steal the arrow’s speed and redirect it. Now that he had Momentum in his soul, he felt like such an act would come even more naturally, that there wouldn’t be any loss in a transference of energy… Mainly if it worked correctly with Movement.

Colt sunk out of his last meditation and pushed himself out of the water, earning some looks from the other loungers in the sauna as he left the warm embrace. None of them talked to him, though they’d kept looking his way.

The words of the old man rang through his mind.

He didn’t need these people to like him, but as long as they gave him distance and respect, he would go about his life, and they could go about theirs.

There was no desire in him to control them, only to make sure they could live free, like he’d dreamt of for so long, given the room and position to make whatever they wanted of their lives.

Enough people had suffered with the end of the world, and if his suspicions were correct, they’d only just begun a path that would see a lot more suffering in the future. If he could use his strength to mitigate that for himself and others, then that was a worthy use of his power and life.

Slowly, Colt left the confines of the sauna, changed back into his clothes, and was off into the daylight streets of New Nashville—directly into a surprisingly cold and wet mist that burned his face and sapped him of his energy.

Julia was outside, bundled up like it was winter—in a full-on coat and hat, with mittens as she carried her staff with her. She gave him a big smile. “Colt! I was just about to go in and get you. Are you still up for today? We can put it off again if you still need a little while to recover.”

“No. I think I’ve rested enough; I feel refreshed,” Colt flexed his hand and felt the thrum of power there. He checked his knife at his belt and felt the safety of the metal. It gave a slight beat as his finger brushed past it, an echo of the steel heart that it had been before his friend Nate crafted it into a weapon for him. All of his preparations were set, it seemed.

Now, it was time to test himself and his newly healed body.

“Alright then. We should get going. We don’t want to stay out once the sun goes down. Rumor is that the mist-monsters run a little more frequently when that happens. Though that one might be ghost stories.”

“Sure, lead the way.” Colt gestured for her and followed. She hummed to herself as she led them through the busy streets, having to be careful with the thick mist concealing and making it difficult to navigate. Not to mention, New Nashville was a cramped place, fitting layers of housing on top of one another to try to keep it contained to the city. More people had wandered in now, too, groups plagued by the uptick in monsters and the ghostly mist.

For now, lives had been lost, and the walls were a bastion that could keep people safe. Devoid of Denny, and with rumors of an honest election in the works… People had been more open to making their life here, whether forced by the threat of danger or tempted by the allure of having their voices represented and listened to in a city.

In a world where power was everything, using that power to set up a democratic system was quite appealing if you were like most people…

Scared to go and fight monsters on a daily basis to live. Y’know, sane and reasonable people.

Colt snorted as they quickly cut through the city, making their way to the gate and then to a man waiting inside it. He had short-cropped hair and a scar on his nose. After a quick introduction to their scout, a man named Leon, they were ready to leave the gates and contribute to New Nashville's most vital mission: locating the Dungeon that was causing this mess to begin with.

He didn’t feel exactly confident that they would have no issues since there’d been no shortage of people looking for the last week. The mist made it hard to track a source, as it was infused with whatever Edict and Mana were at play to make it such a dangerous threat. The nature of concealment and illusion represented a tricky path forward.

Colt hung back as Leon led their way out of the city, following a map in his hand.

“Sooooo, you know where we’re going?” Julia asked.

“An unscouted zone,” Leon answered curtly as his head shifted left and right, looking for any shadows in the darkness and mist. Another hazard of this weather is it was impossible to spot a monster unless it was on top of you… When you got the warning that you had encountered anything, you were probably already about to be in a battle.

That left you either needing to be supremely confident that you could defeat anything you ran across, or you had to be fast enough to outrun anything that spotted you out here.

And that was ignoring the strange mistwalkers that roamed now. That was the common name people had taken to calling the boogymen in the night, though spottings were still rare.

“An unscouted zone… Where?” Julia prompted.

Leon stopped and glared at her. “I’m the scout, aren’t I? You guys are the backup that we need now. Your job is to keep me safe. My job is to scout our location and contribute to the grid.”

“Do you feel a connection to the mist?” Julia asked, tilting her head.

“No. It’s hard for any scout Skills or locating magic to work out here. That’s the problem.”

“Hmm,” Julia responded cryptically and then gestured for him to continue, apparently conceding defeat to their scout. Colt kept quiet, not sure what she was getting at. He didn’t expect them to find anything; none of the scouting expeditions had managed it. However, they had taken to a system to increase their chances, breaking the city into sections and being thorough as they worked outward from New Nashville.

The mist apparently began to subside about twenty to thirty miles out, so somewhere within this area was a dungeon that caused their issues. 

The point of their joining was to help and provide their strength as guards…. For Colt, it was to hone his strength and test out his new Edict now that he felt well enough to give such a thing a try. Julia knew that, opting to be a powerhouse instead of getting involved in the political rework of the city that Sarah and Nate were dealing with.

She, like him, wasn’t cut out of politics, and neither did she have the skill set or desire to get involved in that whole mess.

Just the thought of stepping into that realm gave him a headache.

An hour after reaching their destination, Leon drew them to a halt, frowning as he looked at his map and then looked at the vague shape of houses further in the mist.

“That’s not right.”

“Lost?” Julia asked.

“Those buildings aren’t on my map.” Leon pointed at a trio of houses.

Colt frowned as he looked forward; they looked like houses, but something was off. The roof shapes were at an odd angle, and as he broke down more…

No. There was more there. He stopped moving, his attention and focus narrowing down to a single point as he tried to discern what was wrong with these things; why was there a voice screaming in the back of his mind that something was off.

And then he saw it. Saw the way it flexed outward and then inward. Slowly. Like a man lying on his back and letting out a deep exhale. The roof and the walls went with it, extending and flexing to go with the air.

“They’re breathing,” Colt muttered to himself, eyes widening. They weren’t houses. He saw it now… They were slowly moving in the distance—some monster-shaped house.

What the hell?

“Shit.” Leon muttered, drawing back, “Alright, we retreat and—“

“No.” Colt said, “Is this your zone you’re supposed to scout?”

“It is but—“

“Right, then you’ve done your job. As you said before, if you’re in charge of the map, and we’re here to deal with monsters, then I think it’s about time that we got to do our jobs, too.” Colt gripped his knife, feeling it give a heartbeat as his Edicts and power rushed to the surface. There wasn’t a pain in his core now, meaning his Soul was reformed and good to go.

Wonderful. This fight would be vital to his ongoing growth, just as he needed to reconfirm that life had returned to normal once more. “You ready, Julia?”

“To destroy some monster houses? Sure!” She said cheerfully, her staff taking a light blue glow.