Book 8 – Chapter 23 – Deathless and Warlocks

“You’re no Deathless, are you?” Drakonis asked after a small moment to think.

Fortunately, I had a helmet on so there’s no way Drakonis could guess from my look.

“I’ve never heard of a reason why Deathless cannot cast like a warlock can, and somehow you’re talking like you know for certain that’s a thing.” Drakonis said, now fully turned my direction.

Unfortunately, Drakonis wasn’t a dumb meathead and didn’t need to read my face to detect guilt. I ran a few numbers in my head, and decided if there’s anyone out there that deserves to know about warlocks and fractals, it’d be the only other human in the world that managed to get a Feather to defect.

If I stopped to think about it for a moment, Drakonis would have been one of those that get a few songs written about their exploits. More scrapshit has happened to this guy than most fully fledged Deathless out there. I just happen to be an exception to the rules so far given what I’ve gone through.

“All right, you got me.” I said. “I’m not a Deathless. I’m a warlock. Technically. I think. It’s complicated.”

He narrowed his eyes at that. “And the rest of the surface knights you came with?”

“Yes, and no.” If I taught Bob how to use the occult and it got an occult sight around it, then wouldn’t it quickly catch Father? That’s how Hexis had caught Wrath and him on the surface. Was fairly obvious within the soulsight how both weren’t human at all. “Tenisent Winterscar, my Father, isn’t human. Not anymore. He stole a Feather’s body.”

Drakonis stared at me. “Winterscar, at this point I’m not sure what’s more fucked up. That you could tell me you know just about every important figure in legend somehow, or that I’d believe you.”

“Long story. Well, not really that long, I’m still making it up as I go, but the past few months have been an airspeeder trip through a mountain. Rough would be an understatement.” I pointed down to Wrath and To’Orda, who were already looking up as some of the Odin were reaching them ahead of us. “Let’s keep going and I’ll fill you in on what you’re missing.”

It was a mostly pleasant talk with only mild amounts of swearing and cursing from the only real Deathless here. Especially when Drakonis realized the real scam.

“So you stole all my spells the moment you asked to see my recordings of the pillar hearts I’ve visited.”

“I mean, can you blame me?”

“I fucking can, and I fucking will, dipshit.” Drakonis politely said. “I actually thought I was helping you out. Showing the surface knight all the cities he can’t visit himself. Fucking purple, I should have known you were trying to rob me blind.”

“If it makes you feel better, your kit has come in real good use till now. And speaking of that, I do need some more info from you. Specifically that orb spell that regenerates shields and amplifies the occult around it? I’ve got the fractals for that, but no amount of tweaking with it lets me know how to actually use it.”

“Swiping all my spells wasn’t enough,” He hissed. “you’d turn and ask me directly to my face to teach you how to use what you stole?”

“Hey, in my defense here, I’m about to teach you some spells back. Not you specifically, but Bob there living in your head. Does that count as you now technically? Might have to do some philosophical soul searching here. Heh.”

Some things were universal, even between all the different populations of humanity out here. Good puns causing eye rolls and groans was among the list.

As I learned, Bob was able to see with the soul sight like I’d expected. What I hadn’t expected was that Bob was very well used to doing that already. Turns out, it had been aware of its soul for years now, ever since it coalesced its intelligence at a central point.

And with that data point, I had a working theory on what happened to Bob that really solidified its intelligence even after hosts died.

I remembered Lord Atius calling upon the occult, having it crackle around his skin. That would give the feeling of the occult in the air to anyone around him. The feeling of reality itself twisting and bending in ways that weren’t natural. That’s the most basic variation to occult sensitivity.

Simply holding onto the sword with the true fractal of division splashed the occult outwards but mostly over the palm and hand. Regular people who’d never interacted with the occult could feel the waves and triggerpoint brushing up on their soul from the contact by their palms, but people further away wouldn’t have felt a thing.

And of course, actually cutting something’s soul with the true fractal of division did a mix of both – a radiating occult pulse and an afterimage of true division. The feeling of it. Closer one was physically, the more powerful that feeling was.

In all those cases, there’d be no awareness of one’s soul just from that, only a sensitivity to the occult as another dimension, and a feeling of being able to trigger something with merely a thought when it came to the sword.

Conversely, the soul fractal itself didn’t cause any attunement by itself, however it did the moment one touched an active fractal housing a soul. That kind of direct touch didn’t just do occult sensitivity, it outright exposed the entire soul to oneself.

From then on, one could be aware of their own soul. I don’t know if that was a temporary feeling like the prior occult pulses, mostly because ever since the soul fractal I haven’t stopped touching on that hourly, so to me soul manipulation was as easy as breathing.

Maybe if I stopped interacting for a few weeks I’d lose that sense. Don’t know, and I sure as hells wasn’t going to test it either.

Point was: For Bob to be aware of its soul, it had to have touched a soul fractal. And given it told me a while back that it had a central location that held its intelligence, I was going to take a gamble and say it had found an empty soul fractal, and moved its true soul into it, leaving itself some unifying presence capable of thinking beyond the destruction of its body by loss of hosts.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Still felt like I was missing a few pieces to the puzzle, but it made somewhat sense for now.

Teaching Bob how to use some occult fractals turns out easy enough, though only the basic ones that didn’t require any kind of emotion or thought pattern. Those might be night and day different for the sentient fungus to handle. But it was good enough as a start.

We were mostly interrupted by lack of time as we’d finally reached the end of the tower’s reach, and Drakonis stood face to face with To’Orda. And Wrath.

He looked real nervous.

“Nnn… It is good to see you.” To’Orda said, in a rare display of actual affection. Probably the closest I’ll ever come to seeing any other Feather besides Wrath show a spark of joy for anything besides murder and dramatics.

Drakonis was clearly thinking the same thing. “You came here all the way for me?”

“No you little shit, we came just to see the sights.” The rock said, giving an animated image of rolled eyes. “Of course we came for you, who else?”

“I’m… oddly surprised. I had hoped, but I didn’t think you’d come here yourself.” Drakonis said.

To’Orda grunted, then shrugged his shoulders. “You would not make it far. You lacked the gear.”

“I’ve still got the occult. I could probably make it around. But I get what you’re talking about.” Drakonis said, nodding.

Wrath had been polite up till now, letting the two catch up, but either To’Orda asked her to step in so he didn’t need to be social, or she’d had opinions that needed to be said.

“You are the human who has been terrorizing my subjects.” Wrath started off, wings giving one hard flap behind her.

Drakonis seemed to fix up his nerve, straightened up his new makeshift toga, stared her down, and deflated. “I had reasons. And they seem unfounded. As I’ve learned, you aren’t who you appear to be.”