Weaponsmith - Chapter 137 (Patreon)

Thousands of eyes fill every span of lightlessness from here to as far as his eyes can manage to see in this strange, illusionary plane that he is on. Hineni wobbles, rising to his feet as he looks behind him.

— The fake Seltsam is gone.

The illusion, forced into being by so many various violent collisions of godly magic, is beginning to come undone.

The man makes a note to grovel at the librarian’s feet when he gets out here.

Each of the yellow eyes tears open just a little wide, the edges of each ripping apart the fabric of total darkness as if they were hands, tearing holes into black fabric.

“OBSCURA!” calls Hineni up to the thousands of stars that fill the night, already knowing that she sees him.

A raspy, hoarse laughter comes from the distance as the god of death sits on his throne, his white strands of hair blowing in the wind. “Pitiful,” says the entity. The wind howls; the millions of spirits of the dead who fill the endless nothingness around them, wailing in torment as they fly around in the endless maelstrom. The skeletal god lifts a finger and then, an instant later, masses of dead shoot upward, blasting into hundreds of the eyes, covering them in darkness. “Owls, stars,” begins the god of death. “Both are simply things that will die out and return to nothingness. Everything dies and returns to nothingness.”

Hineni rushes forward, but he can’t move past the barrier that holds him away from the god. No matter how often he runs towards the throne, he just feels like he’s always at the exact same spot.

The man hisses, holding his hands up past his face to block the wind, as more and more of stars fall dark.

— A hand grabs his shoulder, strong and firm.

Hineni looks behind himself in surprise, seeing Rhine standing there. “…Rhine?” 

The boy winks. “That’s Rhine - River-wizard,” he starts. “Don’t forget it,” says the young man, stepping forward and holding his hands out in front of himself, his azure strands of hair flowing wildly in the tempest like waves on the ocean’s surface. His boots stand firmly, spread strong and stable without a box of any kind to be seen as he holds a trained, competent posture.

(Rhine) has used: [SUSTAINED CASCADE]

A massive cylindrical stream, an eruption of water, blasts out of Rhine’s hands, tearing through the veil with violent force.

Hineni looks, watching as the barrier of the god of death begins to open. “Rhine? What the hell?”

“It’s magical resonance, remember?” asks the boy, raising his voice and focusing. “We talked about it in the forge. Go!” says Rhine.

Hineni nods, looking at Rhine with pride as he turns, sprinting forward into the gap, running through a hollow spiral of water that rages around him, making a clear way all the way through.

— The ghosts creep in on all sides, moving in through the gaps of the spell, collecting together into a new shape, that of a large creature on two legs with a long, hideous face. The ghost-like horse stands there with a wide and ready stance before charging straight towards him from the other end of the tunnel.

“DUCK!” yells a voice from the back.

Hineni throws himself to the ground and then scrambles forward, continuing to run, listening as a sharp whistling shoots over his head as three knives fly into the ghost’s neck with pinpoint precision, causing it to falter and then fade away into vapors that return to the mist.

The man scrambles, running through the veil, past thousands of reaching hands and wailing faces that drift towards him, trying to grab hold of him, trying to pull him into the endless ocean of souls that they exist in.

The staircase comes up before him, with water surging everywhere all around him.

Ghosts appear before him, blocking the way at the last meter.

— Hineni narrows his eyes, running forward straight towards them without stopping.

The old person that he was — the person who had awoken in that old house by himself all of that time ago – would have faltered and fallen short here long since. He would have given in to the depths of his resolute, deep hopelessness, simply accepting that he would simply die alone, as he lived.

But the new man that he is knows that’s a load of shit.

Some people are perhaps alone in the world, yes, with no living connections of warmth and love of any sort to speak of. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t souls out there waiting to be met — souls waiting to be rediscovered.

The overpowering smell of water-lilies comes to him as he runs. A silhouette shoots through the ghosts, moving with incredible, agile precision as it cuts with a knife in a way that he is sure would make even Sockel envious. A spirit in the shape of an elven woman and a blue orb floating around her cut through the ghosts, the shadows of their existence in some other plane projected here for him to see as these specters.

Hineni looks at the ghost and the vapors drifting around her as he runs and nods. The ghost clenches her hands together over her heart.

His boot hits the first step, and Hineni makes his way up the throne, the stars in the sky having almost been fully extinguished. The wind surges, howling into his ears like the voice of ten-thousand languishing screams as he reaches the precipice — the throne, and reaches the man who sits atop it.

Hineni grabs the king of the dead by his collar.

“Ah,” says the god of death. “A fine burst of life for me to extinguish,” he says. “Yet your efforts are in vain.” The skeleton turns its head as Hineni lifts his fist. “There is nothing you can do to me. You have no magic, and I can’t be hurt by your human ways. This body is only a puppet.” He looks back towards the sky. “The last light will extinguish, your annoyance here I will punish when we return you to the gameboard,” says the god. “— Child of mine.”

“I told you already,” says Hineni. “I’m my own man. I call the shots in my life,” says Hineni. “Regarding what I do, who I do it with, and why I do it.”

“Ah, is that so?” asks the god. “Quaint.”

“Yeah. It is.” — Hineni snaps his fingers, now a fourth time, the sound of it drifts around the darkening void, slowly cascading out in all directions, like a ripple, moving across a pond from its center.

The fog howls as a quake moves through the ground, the ground rupturing and liquefying piece by piece as the spiritual realm tears open further and a froggy, green, brackish swamp-water takes over the entire bottom of the domain.

“NEKYIA!” yells Hineni, looking out to the side as the summoned frog-god manifests in her own way here on this plane.

He looks up towards the sky as the two new, previously warring, presences observe each other for a tentative moment and seem to come to some silent understanding.

— Thousands of new eyes open in the sky as the ground tears itself apart, the realm slowly releasing itself from the void, piece by piece.

“You idiot,” says the god of death as the quivering wall of souls wavers. “I am an old, ancient, primal thing,” it explains. “A frog and an owl can’t suppress me.”

— Hineni snaps his finger again, a fifth time.

The fog erupts as Rhine and a group of people move in from the side, entering through a way that he can’t see. “Funny how that works, right?” asks Hineni, looking at his hand. “Turns out I do have magic after all, old man,” says the man, looking back at the ghostly entity said to be his father. “It’s all in the numbers.”

“Impossible,” says the god of death. “Ash is mine. You are mine. Your magic is ash.”

“No,” says Hineni, shaking his head. He snaps his finger again, a sixth time.

— A loud jingling and jangling can be heard in the distance as a new presence arrives in the void.

“What are you doing?!” yells the god of death. “How?!”

“Promise you wont be mad?” asks Hineni, jokingly. 

“I am already mad,” hisses the god.

“Good,” replies Hineni, leaning in towards the skeleton as the entity summoned by the sixth snap, Avarice, tears through the void in the shape of a large, ruby dragon, covered in sacks of coins and jewels. ‘Wealth’ is a six-letter word.

“How can you have magic in my domain?!” yells the furious god, as colors of all kinds begin to fill the blackness. Eternal night is repelled by the convergence of many souls. Obscura and Nekyia have placed their differences aside, filling the sky and the ground with tones of mysterious yellow and lush green. Avarice fills the air with red, burning away the lashing spirits of death. Rhine surges a constant stream of water forward, painting the lower world blue and azure, and all of the others, the members of various religious factions of the frog-god, of the god of wealth, and of every other god they have drummed up for this little operation, blast away the darkness little by little, the light of their collective presences overpowering the void — as is the intent of life.

“Well, the thing is,” says Hineni, snorting.

“WHAT?!” yells the god of death, the skeleton moving to grab hold of his collar now in furious anger.

Hineni smiles and lowers a finger, pressing it against the skeleton’s chest. “It turns out that the real magic…”

“Do not.”

“— Was friendship,” says Hineni, pleased with his joke.

The world erupts into an array of so many various colors as an annoyed, horrific scream propels itself through the eternal darkness that is erased, piece by piece, by a full and total luminescence.