Vae victis an apocalypse.., p.26
Vae Victis: An Apocalypse LitRPG, page 26
After a while I returned to the campfire. Shadow still seemed deep in thought, and his expression didn’t look like he was getting anywhere. I figured that perhaps a distraction was in order. I walked over to where my sleeping area was and retrieved my glaive, then walked back over and sat next to him.
He turned to look in my direction, and I placed the glaive and the knife I got from the chest next to his feet, then I pulled out the two pouches from belt.
He raised an eyebrow, one of his ears twitching inquisitively.
“What is it?” he asked.
I pointed at the objects. “I got this from that rift, in the chest at the end.”
I reached over for one of the pouches, then offered it to him. He opened it up, then spilled its contents on the ground.
All three of us peered at the seven gemstones on the ground. Gleaming in four colors, two of each, giving off a faint light, at the start at least, minus one now since Saia had assimilated one. Shadow, just like me, could feel something from the gemstones, so he let them lay on the ground without touching.
“They definitely have Source,” he said, leaning down to look at them from up close.
“Statement: This Unit concurs with that statement,” Saia chirped from my shoulder. “Though, this Unit has no records of anything similar on Erzi.”
Shimi glanced at the tiny dragon, but then turned his attention back to the gemstones on the ground.
“Any idea what they are?” I asked.
“If it is not native to that world, and …” Shadow frowned. “It came with these other items? Inside of a chest?”
I nodded. I had wanted to see if he knew what the gems were before letting him see the other items. I reached over and nudged the three items in front of Shadow. First, I offered him the other pouch, the one filled with silver.
“This is currency,” Shimi said slowly as he let the coins drop onto his bare palm. I tried to suppress a wince and failed.
“What is it?” Shimi asked.
“They are made out of silver,” I answered after a moment of hesitation.
Shadow glanced down at the coins. “And that is … bad?”
“Yes.”
He paused to see if I would say anything else, but even with trust, there were things that I had trouble revealing. “Well, they are no currency that I am familiar with,” he said, “though that means little. There are countless kingdoms and nations in the world that have their own.” He glanced up at Saia. “They are not from your world, are they?”
“Feedback: Negative.”
He nodded. “As I thought.”
Next, I offered him the dagger. He took up the sheath gently, his brow furrowing. “This is familiar.”
I tilted my head, that wasn’t the response I had expected. “Familiar how?”
Shadow raised his head, and his orange eyes met my own. “This is definitely a dagger of YoKai-ni make. More precisely, this is a Tengu-gi style dagger.” He gestured in the direction of my other dagger, tucked at my waist, the one I had taken from his rack. “If you will?”
I pulled out the dagger and passed it over. He unsheathed the other one, then put them next to one another, looking them over for a few seconds. “This one.” He raised the one that I had taken from him. “This is an old blade, crafted by a master of his craft. Perhaps one of the best in the world.”
I blinked; I hadn’t realized that his weapons were so valuable.
“This one that you found, is inferior in every way. It is not expertly crafted nor put together. And it is made in an old style,” he said, then his eyes narrowed. “And yet, that is strange, because the blade was made in the crafting style that is no longer practiced. A style that has been irrelevant since our world was joined with Kirios.”
I tilted my head. “Isn’t it possible that someone just experimented with that old style?” I asked.
Shadow nodded. “On its own, it is not that strange, you are correct. But this …” He tapped the handle. “This is what makes the blade strange. This thread here is called liksan, and it can only be made by harvesting the excrement of a particular animal. An animal that no longer exists. The transition is not kind. The Source mutates life in many different ways. The consequence of my world arriving here was that this animal was hunted to extinction by its natural predator, whose mutation made them far more aggressive. Liksan is beyond precious, it cannot be replicated, it is used in only the greatest of works. For someone to place it on a dagger such as this one, it is unthinkable.”
I grimaced. I had my suspicions, and it seems like I was somehow right. I grabbed the last item that I found, the glaive, and then offered it to him.
He put the daggers aside and accepted the glaive. He took a long look then nodded. “Likewise, this too is of a poor quality. Though I am not familiar with this style.” He leaned down to look at one of the screws that were holding the haft and the blade in place.
Yes,” I said. “Take a look there, behind the blade, the text.”
He did as I asked. He found the text easily enough on the decorative part of the haft. “Made in …” He frowned as he tried to read what had to be an unfamiliar word to him. It seemed that the translation of the Grand Spell wasn’t exactly perfect.
“It says, Made in China,” I told him.
He raised his eyes to meet mine. “I assume that you know what that means?”
I nodded. “China is a country from my world. That means that the weapon was made there.”
He tilted his head, then glanced back at the glaive. “From your world?” His eyes slid to the two daggers next to him. “Oh.”
“I think that these … rewards, were put there by the Grand Spell. That it took them from the other worlds. Yours and mine. Or perhaps they are just copies. I don’t think that it matters.”
His eyes narrowed. “The Grand Spell possesses godlike power—no, it is as a god. Its reach extends beyond this world, touching many others. This … it is not beyond it, not by any stretch of imagination.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “But why introduce something like that? A rift in space that leads you to a what? A piece of another world, where you need to fight a monster to get rewards and leave?” It was all so familiar to me. Which made me wonder if perhaps the Grand Spell got the idea from us, from Earth.
“There is no point in attempting to understand the Grand Spell. Its designs are far beyond comprehension. One thing is for certain, this will cause a lot of … chaos.”
He shook his head, then put the weapons aside and returned his attention to the gemstones. Seven of them were on the ground in a pile, four colors, orange, light blue, brown, and light green. “Then, are these from another world as well? Or are they something else entirely.”
“Statement: The gemstones appear to be elemental in nature, and they contain a minuscule amount of Source Weave along with an engram that is beyond this Unit’s ability to comprehend.”
Shadow’s eyes narrowed and he picked up one of them. As he was picking it up, I noticed that the light of the gemstone in his fingers and one of the ones on the ground dimmed as it was raised away from the other gems. Just like when I had done it before. Shadow noticed it too. He brought it close to one of the other gemstones and nothing happened. He frowned then pressed it closer to the one that was of the same color, and both started to glow faintly.
I told him about what I found out before, that they glowed next to the ones of the same color and next to two other colors as well. Saia repeated what she discovered or at least what she believed about the colors corresponding to fire, air, earth, and water elements.
He glanced at the gemstone in the palm of his hand. “I see that why they say the wisdom of dragons holds true even for hatchlings.”
Or alien intelligent computers made out of metallic sludge that can take the shape of a dragon, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.
“Do you have any idea what they are?” I asked instead.
“I can feel it tugging at my Mask, as if it wants to touch my power.”
“Do you think that there is danger?”
“There is always danger, Marianna. You should learn that lesson before life forces you to,” Shadow said, then opened his eyes and looked at the gemstone. “Well, I do like to be on the forefront of new discoveries.”
With that he raised the gemstone and pressed it against his chest.
Nothing happened.
Both of us frowned. “This is strange,” Shimi said. “It almost feels like … Ah.” He made a pulling motion over his chest and manifested his Mask. The blue and white Mask appeared in his hand, and Saia immediately perked up.
“Query: This Unit requests that item for assimilation.”
I turned and glared at the dragon on my shoulder. “Saia!”
Shadow’s ear twitched and his eyes glanced at me. “Assimilation?”
“That means that she wants to eat it,” I clarified.
“Respectfully, no,” Shadow said to the dragon.
“Statement: Regretful.”
“May I?” He gestured to the gemstone. I waved him to go ahead. He placed the gemstone against the Mask, and it flowed into it then disappeared.
“Oh,” Shadow blinked. “So that is what this does.”
His Mask winked away, and he grabbed one of the daggers and unsheathed it. Then, he swung it, his hand blurring in a slash to his side. The air wavered, and I heard a hiss, saw sparks flash through the air where the blade went through.
“Well,” he said, studying the edge of the dagger as it went from bright and heated back to normal color.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The gemstone altered, or maybe upgraded my skill,” Shadow answered. “When I pushed it against the Mask, I felt like I could push it in the direction of one of my skills. Not all of them, I don’t think that all of them were compatible, I assume. I chose one of my oldest and weakest skills, [Slash]. It now seems to have some elements of fire, a very weak effect, but still it is there.”
He manifested his Mask then placed a palm over it. He closed his eyes and then I heard a crack of breaking glass. Fragments of orange crystal fell from his Mask. “Hm … it looks like you can remove them from the skill, but that destroys them.” He grimaced and then looked at me. “Apologies, I did not intend to destroy that which is yours.”
I waved my hand. “It’s okay, at least now we know. You never saw anything like this before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, it is something new. And I doubt that this is all there is to it. New additions by the Grand Spell are never so simple. Once everyone finds out about this, if those rifts start appearing everywhere … Blights.”
“Should I try one?” I asked.
Shimi glanced at the gemstones. “I wonder how they would affect your skills. Would it impact your base skill, the [Empty Skill], or the skill that you slotted in, or both?”
I was eager to find out as well. I reached for the brown gem, then manifested my Mask and brought the gem near. I felt the pull and then … nothing. The pull was there, but somehow I instinctively knew that the brown gem didn’t fit.
“I don’t think that this one is compatible with anything that I have,” I said.
Shimi tilted his head, and one of his ears twitched. “Hm, if we are correct in our assumptions, then that one is Earth attuned. You have [Debilitating Wave] and [Lesser Strength], I don’t see how that could impact either of those skills. Try another.”
“I’ve switched out [Debilitating Wave] for [Mist Step],” I said as I reached over for a green one.
“Smart choice,” he said.
I repeated the process and felt the pull again, then as I touched my Mask, again the same instinctual sensation appeared. This time I knew that it would work. I felt like it could make a connection with only one of my skills, the [Mist Step], so I pushed it in that direction. The gemstone melted into my Mask, and the pressure inside of my chest pulsed.
[Mist Step] skill upgraded.
“It worked,” I said then stood up wanting to try it out. Then I stopped as I realized that the skill was not yet active. I returned to my seat with a grimace on my face. “It attached to [Mist Step], but the skill isn’t active yet. I have a cooldown when I replace skills.”
He nodded, but his attention was on the gemstones.
“This is amazing,” Shadow said. “I can only imagine what more there is to discover about this.”
I nodded, though to me it was just another new and strange thing among an entire array. For him this was something truly new, in that at least we were equal. With nothing much to do, we both turned to our own thoughts, the night came to an end, and with it came sleep. I was exhausted. I closed my eyes, and dreamed.
Bond
Something is missing here,” I heard Khalil say and raised my eyes to look at him.
“Missing where?” I asked.
“Everywhere.” Khalil grimaced. “According to my research, the vampires are … hiding something.”
I chuckled. “Oh really? What was your first clue? That they hid in the shadows for a few thousands of years?”
Khalil glanced in my direction and gave me a smile. “That was not what I meant. I am referring to their origins.”
I tilted my head. “It is just a story, like the ones in your holy book.”
Khalil glanced down at his cross, his thumb gently rolling one of the beads on the chain. “It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I invited the talk about the vampire origins, not my own faith,” Khalil said.
“Sorry, Ali.” I raised a hand. “What did you mean?”
“Their origin speaks of a great calamity, a fleeing people that believed that their gods had abandoned them,” Khalil said. “This is not that strange. Many holy texts have similar stories. Some believe that the reason many religions stories have similar themes like the flood or an exodus is because of something, an event, that is shared in all of our history. Though that might also—”
I cleared my throat, and he paused, then coughed uncomfortably and blushed. “Right, back on track. Their origin speaks of a hundred people venturing into a forbidden valley, seeking aid from a dark god that had predated their own. They drank from an ancient pool that they believed would let them contact this ancient being, and almost all of them died. Only three of them survived. The original vampires. On the surface, there is nothing strange in that story. Until you take into account the actual science.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“The vampire biology is based on the symbiotic relationship between the sanguinium bacterium and a host. The change is complete and permanent, and their origin myth plays into it too closely. The pool is obviously the place where they found the bacterium, the people that died were the ones who didn’t survive the infection, the three that survived were the first vampires. Subsequent infections, the turnings, were then done by the bacterium already acclimated to their new hosts, and therefore easier. The myth checks all the boxes.”
“And it shouldn’t?”
“Where is the allegory?” Khalil asked. “Where is the grandeur, the acts of God?”
I tilted my head at him. “What do you mean?”
“First, the story was written down during the times of ancient Greece. We know that the oldest vampire remains are at least ten thousand years old. Why nothing before then? There is … so much missing. Everything is missing!”
“We have accounts of vampires from as far back as we have of the human race.”
“That’s my point exactly,” Khalil said. “We have human accounts; the vampire records are barely existent. And no records reliably confirmed to have been written by a vampire exist beyond three thousand years ago, the start of the Bronze Age at the earliest. What about before? There is nothing, it is as if vampires just came into being right then and there. Or rather they just decided to start recording then. And yet, we have stories about monsters in the night stretching far beyond that, cave paintings, tablets with written warnings. They existed before, but we have no evidence from the source itself.”
“That’s easy,” I said. “Vampires are long lived. They would see little need in recording their history. Why bother when your sire had lived through it all, and they seldom died. And they always lived among the humans, so they left no remains of their own settlements.”
“Nothing? Not even one instance? The myth too is … it is as if it was invented based on what the genesis stories of other more popular religions at the time were.”
“You are reading too much into it, Ali,” I told him.
“They are hiding things. They told us that they have four stages in their life. The young or Fledgling vampire, those that were just turned. Adult, which they become once they mature—most often it requires at least a hundred years to reach that stage. The Elder stage, once they get older than two hundred years, and the Ancient, those older than a thousand. Can you imagine living for that long, Mari? How much time would you have to alter history? It would be easy with their influence.”
“You are not going down the conspiracy theory route, are you?” I asked.
Khalil grimaced. “It isn’t a conspiracy if it’s true.”
I laughed. “Next you are going to tell me that vampires sank Japan.”
Khalil grew quiet, and continued reading, doing his research.
This was the second dream I’d had since coming here. The state of stasis that the day brought put a vampire into a dreamless sleep. Now that had changed, and I wondered what else would change for the vampires as well as other races on Earth.
I was aware that I was dreaming, even though I could not change anything. It was as if I was experiencing the past. I sat in the college library, a passenger in my younger body. Across from me at the table sat Khalil, my friend. He held a cross which was attached to a chain of praying beads wrapped around his hand as he read from a book on the table. The scene had played out exactly as it was in my memories.
I remembered thinking that I shouldn’t have said that last part. It had hurt him. He had always taken his research into the vampire history seriously, as well as his skepticism toward them.
