Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 77 - Fear the Reaper - Part Two
Confused, I stared back at the small girl while trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
“How...How do you know my na?” I asked warily, struggling to justify the strangeness of everything that had happened up until this point.
“Because you don’t belong here,” the pale-skinned girl repeated condescendingly. “This is nothing more than a twisted mory.”
“A mory?” I repeated, feeling an undeniable elent of truth in the words as I spoke them aloud.
“A TWISTED mory,” the girl corrected irritably. “Soone is taking advantage of your weakened state to try and do...sothing...” She looked toward the shore and stared at the young woman in the business suit. “Or maybe...Maybe it wasn't twisted at all...”
“I don’t understand...” I admitted sowhat hesitantly.
“I would ask what you rember, but that would be a wasted effort,” the girl comnted dismissively. “Now, be quiet and let concentrate.”
Still confused and uncertain of what I should do, I shifted uncomfortably in the surf. I hadn’t been spoken to so forcefully by a child in over a decade. Even then, it hadn’t amounted to more than proclaiming I was a ‘poop head’.
“Strange...” The small deathly pale girl muttered and hissed irritably between her teeth. “I can’t sense any signs of tampering...”
The familiar siren of an ambulance drew my focus from the small girl and toward the shore. Flashing red and blue lights cascaded down the scraggly face of the dunes and illuminated a pair of well-built EMTs rushing toward the beach and...
I felt an intense sense of vertigo and nearly collapsed into the surf.
The young woman who had followed to the beach was waving her arms at the approaching EMTs, phone in hand and frantically pointing to the form of a second small girl lying in the sand at her feet.
Except it wasn’t another girl.
I glanced to the side and was surprised to find that the girl was still there despite clearly...
I felt another wave of vertigo, only this ti, I collapsed into the water. Soaking my clothes and montarily stunning into inaction as the ice-cold water seized at my nethers.
Gasping in shock I scrambled to draw myself upright again. All the while staring at my doppelganger on the beach.
“She isn’t breathing!” My other self called out in a panic, kneeling at the girl’s side and drawing his hands from her chest, “She was out in the water and...Oh god...”
“I...” I looked down at my hands and felt a wave of nausea begin to build in my gut. My hands had begun to shake violently and I couldn’t stop it. Acidic bile rose in my throat and I vomited into the waves rushing past my thighs.
Pressing my hands under my arms, I watched in stunned silence as the EMTs perford ergency CPR for several minutes, and then stopped.
Police arrived a short while afterwards, detaining my other self and asking questions I was too far away to hear. Even without hearing the words, I could tell by the hard look in their eyes that they assud the worst. Assud that my other self had been directly involved in the girl’s drowning.
To my imnse surprise, the young woman who had followed to the beach appeared to be arguing with the police, and against my expectations, seed to change their minds.
The hard eyes of the officers beca indifferent or sympathetic, and after a second round of questioning, my other self was left alone.
Rising to his feet, my other self retrieved my bag from where I had cast it aside and began retreating up the dunes.
As my other self turned his back, the officers, EMTs, the young woman and even the body of the small girl disappeared. The beach persisted through the disappearances, taking on a serene yet cold ambience.
“This is...” The pale girl cocked her head curiously to one side and slowly took in the beach. “This shouldn’t be possible...To persist despite your absence...” She turned to consider , her eyes still concealed by the wet hair plastered to her face. “Gric has claid this place belonged to your mother. Is this true?”
“It was my mother’s favourite place...” I replied numbly, trying and failing to process everything that had transpired. My eyes were drawn toward a grassy patch on the uppermost dunes. “It was where she died...” I added, almost as an afterthought.
“Oh...” The girl sounded embarrassed, even sowhat sympathetic.
“She made take her here...Wanted to look out at the sea one last ti...” I continued quietly. “After her funeral, I spread her ashes from the top of the dunes...”
A long silence passed between us, broken only by the rushing waves and distant rumble of thunder.
Looking away from the dunes, I realised the small girl was gone.
Feeling irreconcilably tired I closed my eyes and allowed the reassuring crash of the surf to clear my mind, surrendering myself to the ambient noises that had ingrained themselves in my soul since childhood.
***** Ril ~ ????? ~ ????? *****
Ril watched in silence as the manifestation of Tim’s subconscious faded and rged anew with the avatar of his mory.
Having lost the manifestation that allowed her to communicate directly with Tim’s subconscious, Ril had no choice but to follow his avatar in silence.
Tim’s world was more or less as she had expected. Ril had feasted on the souls of several Labyrinth Lords over the centuries. The most recent had been roughly four or maybe five decades earlier.
From what Ril could tell, very little had changed.
Tim walked alone through the empty streets. Any passersby who saw his approach abruptly decided they had taken a wrong turn and hastily moved to rectify their mistake. If Tim noticed, he made no sign of it.
Tim’s ho was spacious but he had a way of making the open spaces appear cramped, barely passing between furniture without knocking them out of the way with his bulk.
Listlessly wandering from room to room, Tim eventually ascended a sturdy set of stairs to the second floor of the house and entered his room.
Just the sa as the rest of the house, his room was sparsely furnished. However, the walls held unfrad portraits of scantily clad muscular human females.
So of the females were flexing their muscles. Others were engaging in what Ril could only assu was intended as exercise or competition.
Given Tim’s choice of mate, Ril decided that the portraits represented targets of unrequited romantic or lustful interest. Which made Tim’s despair all the more telling.
Despite staring at the wall opposite his bed, Tim wasn’t looking at the portraits of scantily clad females. He wasn’t looking at anything.
Hours passed in utter silence.
Tim hadn’t moved an inch or made a single sound.
He hadn’t noticed the two large human males skirting outside his house either. Which Ril found strange.
According to her prior experiences traversing the minds of lesser beings, a subject should not know about events outside of their perceived experiences as they originally experienced them. Yet Ril had seen the two males approach through the window behind him and was now following them outside of the house.
“In an’ out, real clean like,” the first male grunted quietly, withdrawing a hooked iron club from the inside of his coat and giving it a nacing heft.
“Gotcha,” the second male agreed, drawing a large knife from his coat in turn. “We’re just scaring him or?...” He left the remainder unspoken.
“Boss wants to know what he’s about,” the first male replied. “Wasn’t specific in how we go about it.”
The second male grinned excitedly, eager for violence.
“He’s a big fucker...” The first continued quietly as they arrived at the back door of the house. “So, he gets antsy, drop him.”
The second male nodded eagerly.
Testing the door, both they and Ril were surprised to find it wasn’t locked.
Entering through the back door, the two males slowly prowled through the house with their weapons at the ready.
Checking in on Tim, Ril found him still sitting on his bed and staring at the wall.
Ril could see the two males quietly ascending the stairs and ca to a realisation.
This was how he had died. Wallowing in self-pity and despair, Tim had been murdered in his own ho.
Except...
Ril considered Tim for several long monts and would have frowned if she had a body to do so.
Sothing still didn’t fit.
Every other Labyrinth Lord Ril had the displeasure to have known, had been a hardened killer. So of them had been soldiers and had expressed regret over their actions. Others had been dented beyond reason, viewing their own Species as lower forms of life to be preyed upon. Tim was different...
He was...pathetic...
The sudden crash of breaking glass and ceramic drew Ril’s attention back toward the two invaders in the hall.
To Ril’s surprise, the noise caused Tim to stir as well.
Eerily silent for soone so large, Tim rose to his feet and left his room.
The invaders were headed toward a closed door down the opposite end of the hall and didn’t see his approach.
They didn’t see Tim look down at the small broken portrait of a smiling middle-aged female and a broken funerary urn.
They didn’t see the rage burning in his eyes.
Perhaps sensing the danger, the second male turned his head and caught sight of Tim looming over him. “OH FUCK!!!!” He yelped in fear and swung wildly at Ti while trying to run away.
Ignoring the crimson gash across his chest, Tim grabbed the second male by the throat and squeezed.
There was a wet crunch, and like a puppet with severed strings, the second male grew limp and proceeded to void his bowels and bladder. Ril could tell that he wasn’t dead, at least, not yet.
Letting out a low dangerous growl, and still firmly holding the second male by the throat, Tim stalked toward the first.
Terrified, the first male dropped his club and fumbled for sothing at his back while retreating from Tim. “S-STAY BACK!” The terrified male squealed, his voice pleading rather than demanding Tim’s compliance.
The second male gurgled sothing unintelligible, choking on his own spit as Tim maintained his vice-like grip on his oesophagus.
Backing away toward the stairs, the first male drew a small strange weapon from behind his back, and it took Ril a few monts to identify it as one of the bizarre tal-spitting weapons the humans employed in this world. “I SAID STAY BACK!!!” The first male repeated, waving the weapon frantically in what he probably hoped was an intimidating fashion.
Tim stopped and appeared to consider the weapon for a mont. But only for a mont. Renewing his advance, Tim cast the second male over the railing and onto the floor below.
He landed with a second sickening crunch, and from her vantage, Ril could see that the man was dead. The side of his head had struck the corner of a small table, breaking the table and cracking the male’s skull.
The weapon in the first male’s hands barked several tis in rapid succession, spitting tal from its muzzle and into Tim’s body.
Crimson patches began to spread across Tim’s chest and back, not that he paid them any mind.
Advancing on the remaining intruder, Tim grabbed the male by his shoulders and began to pull.
The male howled in pain and his shoulders and chest began making muted wet crunching sounds as Tim slowly but steadily ripped the male’s right arm out of its socket. To Ril’s surprise, Tim didn’t stop there and continued pulling, dislocating the other shoulder.
In his pain, the male dropped his weapon.
Tim didn’t notice, or didn’t care, and continued to draw the male’s arms in opposite directions.
With a wet ripping sound, the male’s right arm tore free from his torso, causing him to swing in Tim’s grasp and pump blood from the ragged stump of his shoulder over Tim’s feet and the landing at the top of the stairs.
Raising the intruder by his arm, Tim glared into the dying man’s eyes with hatred and rage that gave Ril pause. This was not the Labyrinth Lord she knew. He was sothing else, sothing...darker...
As the last of the light left the male’s eyes, Tim cast the dead male and his crudely amputated appendage down the stairs.
As the rage left Tim’s eyes and he slowly staggered back toward the fallen portrait, Ril beca aware of the blood running down his calves and ankles. Each breath was accompanied by a wet rattle that grew more severe with each passing mont, matching pace with his increasingly pale skin.
Ril had seen the signs often enough to realise that he was dying. However, what she did not understand was why.
Ril knew Tim well enough to know that he possessed the knowledge to extend his life through mundane ans. So it didn’t make sense that he would choose to do nothing.
Trembling Tim stiffly lowered himself to the floor and rested his back against the wall. Reaching for the broken portrait, Tim looked down at the face of the female in the portrait with an expression of regret and sha. “I’m sorry...” He rasped wetly, “I...I just can’t...I’m so tired...I just...I want it all to end...I’m sorry...”
Gasping for breath, Tim shakily set the portrait down on the floor.
Spitting up a mouthful of blood, he slowly closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
Several minutes passed, and Tim died.
Bracing herself for the mory’s collapse, Ril was surprised to find herself in the early stages of being ejected from Tim’s mind.
By no ans a specialist, Ril had enough experience to compensate for a lack of raw power and supporting Abilities. So she was unsettled by the fact that she couldn’t reestablish her hold and continue to the next scene of Tim’s subconscious. However, as she returned to her body, Ril was shocked to discover why she had been driven from Tim’s subconscious.
Tim, was awake.
Eyes black as pitch, Tim rose from his bed in complete silence, and before anyone present could react, disappeared.
“Tim!” Toofy cried out in distress, breaking the silence.
Although she was unsure why, Ril felt a pang of guilt. She had intended to wake Tim from the beginning, but she had not expected him to wake of his own accord. Taking Toofy’s hand, Ril gave it a reassuring squeeze, “I will find him Mama, and bring him back.”
On the verge of hysterics, Toofy looked at her with a conflicting expression of relief and profound concern. “Ril is sure? Ril be safe?” She asked hesitantly, evidently unwilling to place her in harm's way, even to rescue her friend.
“I will be safe, Mama,” Ril promised, touched by Toofy’s concern for her wellbeing. Another reminder of why she needed to reestablish the status quo.
For all his faults, Tim had created this fleeting mont of happiness, and Ril intended to make it last as long as she was able.
Gathering her MP, Ril cast out her senses and locked onto Tim’s position. Thankfully, he hadn’t left the realm, so the MP expenditure would be minor.
Teleporting close to Tim’s location, Ril instinctively ducked low to the ground intending to hide herself from sight.
She was just in ti to witness a mature Coleopteran warrior beco impaled by several stone spears projecting from the ground a few feet ahead of her position.
Mind racing, Ril took in her surroundings with supernaturally accelerated speed.
They were in the isolated territory nominally identified as Acheron, which was overrun by hundreds of the Coleopteran warriors.
Scowling darkly, Tim exuded an aura of pure undiluted rage.
Gathering MP at a dangerously reckless scale, he cast dozens of white-hot lances of fire at the closest Coleopteran warriors.
Despite the extre speed of the magical missiles, the Coleopteran warriors were faster and managed to dodge out of the way.
Or so it seed.
Correcting course mid-flight, the projectiles chased the Coleopteran warriors down, gaining in speed with each passing mont.
They didn’t seem to realise, but Tim was baiting them closer deliberately.
Appearing to take the bait, one of the Coleopteran warriors charged Tim directly, a host of magical weapons ready to eviscerate his unprotected flesh.
Indifferent to the danger, Tim made no outward signs of intending to defend himself. However, his reserve of gathered MP remained just as bountiful as before.
And yet, Ril could sense another Spell had been activated.
Stumbling, the Coleopteran warrior was struck in the back and its wings were imdiately incinerated. Before the Coleopteran warrior could attempt to regain its composure, its carapace began to crack and wither.
Within a handful of heartbeats, the Coleopteran warrior was reduced to a mound of crumbling ash.
With the Coleopteran warrior’s death, Tim redoubled his offensive efforts, sending dozens more of the fiery missiles into the scattering ranks of the Coleopteran warriors.
Twice more, larger Coleopteran warriors attempted to charge Tim directly and engage him in a bloody lee. Both Coleopteran warriors fared no better than the first.
Changing tactics, the host of Coleopteran warriors began hurling weapons from a distance.
The instant the weapons left their owners' hands, they disappeared.
The world shifted.
Tim appeared before one of the largest Coleopteran warriors and it imdiately collapsed to its knees. Still assaulting the other Coleopteran warriors with fire, Tim conjured another and drove it straight into the collapsed Coleopteran warrior’s head.
The Coleopteran warrior released a keening cry that made Ril’s ears ache abominably.
Tim appeared unaffected and made a point of twisting the flaming lance.
Ril felt an imnsely powerful, and familiar, presence attempting to gain purchase on her mind. However, before she could deflect the attempt, Tim intercepted it.
There was a desperate unseen scramble for dominance, and then the presence retreated.
Bleeding from his eyes, ears and nose, Tim withdrew the flaming lance from the Coleopteran warrior’s head and sent it after soone else.
Tim spat bloody phlegmonto the fallen Coleopteran warrior and its body disintegrated.
Senses overloaded by the Spell he had just cast, Ril collapsed prone into the dirt. Trying to rise, she collapsed anew as Tim began repeating the Spell in rapid succession. A Spell she couldn’t help but recognise.
Life Drain.
To Ril’s knowledge, the Spell was ant to be ruinously costly, and that was before Empowering the Spell.
Directing her senses toward Tim, Ril only beca more confused. As best she could tell, Tim was not losing MP at all. Searching her mories, Ril decided there was only one possible explanation.
Tim was using Sorcery.
Intended as a last-ditch asure, the Ability allowed the use of HP in place of MP for casting Spells. Using Sorcery to cast Life Drain would, theoretically, allow for indefinite casting of the Spell. Provided Tim had a living target to drain and replenish his HP. However, using HP when he still had MP available was nothing short of reckless. A recklessness that was compounded when paying for the Empowered effect on top of the original Spell.
The Coleopteran warriors began to retreat, Teleporting from the territory. However, their retreat was abruptly terminated as Tim set down an Empowered Anchor and exercised his authority to draw all remaining Coleopteran warriors within his realm to the wartorn fields of Acheron.
“Die,” Tim commanded, triggering a cascade of spontaneous disintegration.
Ril could only watch as Coleopteran warriors died by the score without being allowed so much as a chance to defend themselves.
It was a massacre.
Unnerved by Tim’s unexpected ruthlessness, Ril now understood the purpose of reliving the mory of the final days of his previous life. It was a simple matter of manipulation by stripping away the convenient lies that ford the bedrock of his self-perception.
Tearing down the person he thought he was and leaving sothing far darker in its place.
If Tim had been left to his own devices, he may have arrived at this point in the not-too-distant future, but there had been no certainty of it.
Recognising her failure for what it was, Ril felt a rare churning of sha twist her insides.
If she had made the effort to do so, Ril knew she could have derailed the mory. Allowed things to remain as they were for a while longer.
Tim began slowly pacing down the length of the field.
Following him from a distance, Ril wasn’t sure what to do. In his altered state of mind, there was no guarantee of her safety, and while she had no fear of death, Ril knew that Toofy would be inconsolable.
Was this any different? She wondered.
Every mont that passed made the changes that much more likely to stick.
She was too late to change what Tim had seen, but perhaps not too late to change his perception.
Making her choice, Ril scampered out of her hiding place and took on speed to catch up to-
Ril nearly lost her footing as she suddenly appeared at Tim’s side. He hadn’t stopped walking, but it was obvious that he was sowhat aware of her intentions.
“You saw it all, didn’t you...” Tim observed darkly. Beneath his anger was a profound undercurrent of despair that made it clear he was not referring to the massacre of the Coleopteran warriors.
“I did,” Ril admitted truthfully.
Tim grunted unintelligibly in response.
“It should not change who you are,” Ril asserted, probing Tim to more accurately gauge his ntal state and receptivity.
Tim looked down at her with an incredulous expression on his face. “How could it not? I murdered two people...I tore a man’s arm off...”
“You did,” Ril agreed, trying not to sound dismissive. “They intended you harm, and you defended yourself.”
Staring ahead and at nothing in particular, Tim shook his head.
“Your story has not changed,” Ril insisted determinedly. “Only the details of a chapter long since passed.”
Tim scowled. “I murdered two people...”
Struggling to co to grips with his source of distress, Ril decided to probe deeper. “You have slain thousands before coming into this knowledge,” she accused. “Why must two lives matter more than they?”
Tim tightly pressed his lips together and his fingers twitched dangerously. “They shouldn’t...” He agreed quietly. “But they do...”
“Why?” Rill pressed.
Tim’s hands balled into fists and trembled from the tension.
Ril considered widening the space between them but promptly discarded the idea. “You did not believe yourself capable of such violence. That is why it is different,” she reasoned.
Tim unclenched his fists but said nothing.
“But this is where you were wrong,” Ril insisted. “You have always been capable. What you lacked was motivation.”
Tim frowned and furrowed his brow. He stopped walking shortly after as he beca increasingly lost in thought. After several tense minutes of silence, he closed his eyes, sighed deeply and opened them again.
The blackness that had clouded his eyes was gone, and while Tim still appeared troubled, he was no longer teetering on the brink of homicidal rage.
“Thank you, Ril,” Tim said quietly.
Ril eyed him warily, nodded tersely in acknowledgent, and then Teleported away.
***** Tim ~ Tim’s Realm ~ Sanctuary *****
Staring up at the early night sky, It was difficult not to wish everything to disappear. The thoughts themselves left feeling profoundly guilty, threatening to form a self-perpetuating loop of angst.
Although Ril hadn’t said it in as many words, I was behaving like a child.
Why should two lives matter more than the others?
I had killed thousands and was responsible for the deaths of many more.
I was still disappointed and upset with myself, but it was sothing I would just have to deal with.
If I was truly honest with myself, the brutal death of the two ho invaders hadn’t been the main cause for my distress.
Giving up. Allowing myself to die without making so much as a token effort to prolong my life, that’s what disturbed most of all.
There was a big difference between falling down the stairs and bleeding to death while unconscious and making the conscious decision to bleed out.
It wasn’t suicide, but it wasn’t much better.
Giving up like that...It shook to my core. What made it worse was feeling and agreeing with all the motivating justifications my past self had made. Reconciling those feelings against my current experiences was ssy and thoroughly depressing.
I was confident that I had regained a certain degree of equilibrium but still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being around other people. I didn’t want them to see like this.
Thankfully, I had a ready excuse.
Turning my attention toward the mounds of dust scattered throughout the territory, I felt a fresh stab of guilt over my reckless behaviour.
While effective, relying so heavily on Sorcery had been dangerous. If the enemy had fled en masse, there was a chance that I could have drained myself into a critical state before I was able to use my authority and draw them back. Assuming they didn’t flee my realm entirely.
Unlike other battles against the Humans, I felt no guilt in killing the giant insects.
They had butchered innocent civilians, attempted to murder in cold blood, and invaded my realm. I did not pity them.
Reviewing the notifications gave a na to the Species I was at war with.
Coleoptera.
To my knowledge, Coleoptera was the scientific designation for beetles or sothing along those lines. Which seed to fit the general physical appearance of the monsters themselves.
I regretted not taking a prisoner when I had the chance. Despite my victory and purging the beetlen from my realm, I still had no idea what they wanted and why they had ambushed in the first place.
Continuing to review my notifications, one in particular drew my attention. I had gained another Class Ability.
Eldritch Core.
It provided a second, albeit smaller, source of MP. It was incapable of independent regeneration but could be filled using my existing MP. The primary benefit lay in the Eldritch effect being applied to any Spell cast using MP from the core. Afflicting affected enemies with Panic, Fear or even Terror.
I couldn’t argue with the obvious benefits such effects would have in combat situations and having extra MP available for ergencies would provide peace of mind.
Searching through the piles of ash, I began gathering a collection of exotic but otherwise mundane weapons.
I had hoped that by inspecting the weapons, I would discover how the Coleoptera’ had conjured their weapons out of thin air. However, after carefully examining hundreds of weapons, I was no closer to discovering how the enemy had called them to hand in the heat of battle.
Close to giving up, I stumbled across a large diamond. Unlike the weapons, the diamond contained an imnse amount of mana. Approaching the diamond, I felt the faint touch of a malign presence on the periphery of my mind. Identifying the diamond as a threat, I gathered my MP and tried to decide which Spell would work best at destroying the diamond.
Perhaps sensing my intentions, the malign presence within the diamond lashed out with a telepathic attack.
Weathering the attack, I decided to conjure Shiverfang and deliver a Thundering Strike to the core of the diamond.
More a command than a desperate plea, the telepathically transmitted voice bood through my mind like thunder.
I demanded curtly, making a point of inching the tip of Shiverfang’s blade closer to the diamond.
The voice failed to elaborate further.
Reviews
All reviews (0)