Orphan at the Edge of the World 29 OEW 28

A melodious woman's voice replied, "Apply silence on all four once more... Beaten and sore, for the lore of last score, I want them to know what death lies in store! Haha, poetry is truly a remarkable restorative to one's soul!"

Head pounding, a faint ringing in his ears, Orison looked around and at himself to see that him and his three companions were wrapped up like mummies in semi-dried seaweed. A clearing of throat drew his attention up and onto Elder Zhu, Dowager Xia's grandniece.

He tried every spell he knew but the magic moved through him like molasses and whatever was causing the sickly sweet taste in his mouth came to mind as the culprit. If his head wasn't a booming drum of eye watering pain, he may have been able to muddle through something simple but whatever was causing the gut wrenching dizzy euphoria was only making it harder and not easier to ignore.

"I can see some lucidity in your eyes, little monster. Isn't that what my grandaunt calls you?... I only wanted a little achievement to call my own, you know. Just a little thing that she couldn't claim was earned for the clan by her hands. It's all I wanted. Now every opponent I have, will be trying to see my sister take the seat I shed blood, sweat and tears for. I can't be having that, so my poor little sister will have to join you, I'm afraid.

"No matter. Your disappearance will earn me a friend and connection in Left and Right factions both. With all those little bread crumbs you were throwing around, I bet it never occurred to you that those who have to play second seat to others would not enjoy their superiors solidifying power and racking up achievements they would get little to no benefit from.

"But look at me monologue like a villain from a second rate play. People will remember your request to tour the deeper bay and any spells or auguries will show that's exactly where you and your pets went. Where you went and where you died... I do hope you enjoy the little touch of a seaweed shroud. In our culture, a person of distinction is symbolically wrapped in their life's glory and achievement before cremation but I heard that Highland people are fond of simple burial. I give you the best of both... Think fondly of me in the Abyss, Legate-in-training Cantrip."

Elder Zhu began issuing orders to the three men with her. A few strands of seaweed were used to bind the group together temporarily as they descended 'to make later place of death auguries a little easier'. Zhu's drugged and unconscious 'little sister' was loosely tied with his group after being force fed the enduring breath potion Orison had gifted Elder Zhu on the first day of lessons as an emergency life saving measure. Orison bitterly recognized the irony of it being used to control the timing of another's death.

With bits and pieces of information slips during their preparations, Orison realized that they planned on martyring Zhu's sister as a way of showing that Clan Fvaris was 'noble' and push the whole ordeal on to the back of an 'irresponsible child'. With detached interest, Orison listened to Zhu commanded a few small cuts be placed on them to attract sea predators and scavengers to their bodies. The devil's advocate of Orison's logical mind, evaluated the plan highly.

The seaweed would begin to work loose after a couple of hours of swaying and re-hydration. The bodies, no longer bound and weighted, would drift apart and what parts were still salvageable after the predators and scavengers were through with them, would not be able to prove anything other than the story she tried to make their deaths into. Forensic science was a laughable joke in this world to begin with.

With a Judas kiss to her sleeping sister's cheek, Zhu ordered them to be pushed overboard. Sinking steadily from the weights resting in the wraps under their feet, the group of four plus one trailing 'sleeping beauty' was being drawn into the inky depths. A few seconds of panicky squirming and Orison forced himself to calm down and think of a solution.

With little to lose in the attempt, Orison focused intently on his space and tried to force summon his circlet equipped. With imaginary fingers crossed that the circlet wouldn't partially materialize inside his head, he carefully visualized the outline of his body and the parameters of the circlet, overlapped. He was mostly successful. Outside of a small spot of pressure split skin and a few strands of yanked out hair, it wasn't as dangerous as he thought it would be.

An errant thought slipped past as he contemplated his next step. "With a little careful practice, assuming familiarity with the item in question, and I'll be switching out equipment sets like a game sprite. Don't know if I'll ever trust myself with skin tight stuff or underwear though."

Out of all of them, Rithus had it the worst. Knowing he could potentially outlast the seaweed shroud, Zhu had him worked over fiercely and the light cut's on everyone else was exchanged for a shank to the Marshlander's lung. Rithus had precious little time until death would claim him first.

Wiggling his head over as far as he could, Orison opened his mouth and summoned the neck of a healing potion between his teeth, trying to snag it before their decent pulled it away. Two of his small collection of heals were lost to the sea before he got the hang of it, and another before he managed to get the stopper facing Rithus in a way the Marshlander could make use of. Determined to not fail receiving it, Rithus simply bit the top of the bottle off, cutting his mouth on sharp glass, as he 'inhaled' the contents. In a move that was much easier, as it had grip, Orison mouth passed his dagger to Rithus. Entrusting his only cutting tool, a problem that Orison planned on rectifying as soon as possible, to the group member with the most flexible neck seemed like the best option to Orison.

Since Morrel was the easiest for him to reach and had already seen what the boy had been doing, Orison summoned one of his two remaining enduring breath potions to mouth pass the wood elf. As if the old man had done such a tricky underwater maneuver hundreds of times before, Morrel took the vial between his pointy teeth and made a small crack on one side then a larger on the other before sucking it down like he was taking a jello shot. A split second look between Rithus, who was hacking away at his own shoulders with reckless abandon, and the calmly evaluating wood elf, Orison wondered if he handed the wrong person his dagger.

After a few more seconds of wrangling his last enduring breath potion over to Gan, Orison watched in fascinated horror as the Northland scout managed to work the cork off using only his lips to hold the vial. Despite the strangely amazing but utterly pointless feat, Orison felt like crying as he saw the guy try to 'drink' the potion underwater and getting only a couple gulps of sea before the vial escaped the scout's control. Gan stared dumbfounded at the dissipating liquid, cork stopper still wedged in his mouth.

Shaking his head in glaring disapproval, Morrel waited until Gan spat out the cork with the last air in the scout's lungs before he lunged in and pushed some of the magically created air in his into Gan's own. Satisfied the scout had air for another minute or so, the wood elf looked like he didn't know if he should laugh or cry as he twisted his way over to Rithus, snatching the knife out of the Marshlander's mouth before Rithus accidentally hacked himself up. Filing away the heckling rights this moment had bought for future use if they survived, Orison turned his comical scene, stressed reduced mind to his surroundings.

The current water pressure was its own form of light torture as they neared the bottom of the drop not far from the bay's sea shelf. The water was practically pitch black this far down and at night. Left with no better option, Orison turned to the malfunctioning special sense Find Objective granted him. The static was powerful but through it, Orison felt a weak ping make it through. What excited him was that it belonged to the miasma he had grown to love and hate in equal measure.

He wasn't that surprised there was a spot of it here. That it was this far down and difficult to reach didn't give him a lot of hopeful feelings that any other spots would be easy to find. Though Obsidian Island wasn't overly familiar in build and terrain, it did generally line up with the main stomping ground of a predecessor in the series of the game he had been playing before coming here. And if that map had lined up with this real-world place, an important city would be above him. Why it was this far down was still a mystery.

Since some time had passed, Orison tried casting again only to succeed in casting the feeble Candle Flame spell but nothing else. Still, the spot of light allowed the freed Rithus and Morrel to find him, Gan and the tethered woman who was still peacefully sleeping, oblivious to her near death experience. Once freed, the mystery of why his head wasn't getting better was solved. Orison realized that he had been robbed on top of everything else.

When Morrel swam in front of Orison and tilted his head, pointing up, the boy shook his head and pointed to where the sense was telling him to go. Morrel shrugged his shoulders and made a sundial figure on the palm of his hand to indicate his query on how much time they had before the potion's effect wore off. An important issue for Gan and himself since they had to occasionally make each other uncomfortable for Gan to not drown.

Orison indicated the potion should last for around half an hour before it started wearing off. Morrel gauged the distance to the surface and gave fifteen, ten more additional minutes than they likely needed but Morrel made judgments more conservatively when risks were higher. Orison nodded before he was off towards his goal.

The boy lead the way as Morrel pulled, the more miserable by the moment, Gan along and Rithus dragged the woman by her seaweed tether. Ignoring the temptation of relishing the imagination altered sight of a 'reptile child' skipping along with an 'elf balloon', complete with a small panicked chase when the 'string' snapped, Orison had found his goal a little after the second pucker session between Morrel and Gan.

Within a dilapidated ruin of a structure, a surprisingly clean 'tasting' pocket of air was trapped in the corner of a tilted blocky room. As Gan greedily sucked in unexpected fresh air with teary-eyed joy, Orison heard what sounded somewhat like an upside-down wooden bowl rotating on a wobbly axis. The sound grew stronger as he reached down to shift sand, finding a mask with a mildly disturbing, bestial image.

Traces of blood red light filtered in from the low wall crack they had swam in through, several feet behind them.

The star-like spark of condensed alien energy exploded in light and color leaving them all standing in what looked like an underground warehouse. With a quick word of caution to not touch anything until he was done looking around, Orison checked the perimeter of the strangely created spacial area. Behind the lower door of the warehouse was an empty corner of a wood cabin, a hand sized corner of frosty window let red light spill into the interior. Backtracking to the upward leading door revealed an enclosed piece of ancient and elegant underground structure lit by a flicking, in and out of illusionary state, floating crystal.

Dismissing both oddly grafted additions as unhelpful, Orison returned to his companions and began digging through the crates and bins. The rules of this place seemed to be the opposite of the last 'fairy gift' place he had been as things became illusionary after he had decided he didn't want them. A fact he discovered when going through a crate filled with books as he picked out the ones that granted skill.

While book sorting, Orison said, "Guys, I need you to go through this warehouse and pile up all the items that look like food, vegetation or otherwise alchemy looking on this side of me. Treat anything else you find as being potentially dangerous, unless there's absolutely no need to think so, and pile those on the other side. Let's do this as quick as possible because I don't want our napping friend here to wake up before I'm done."

As his companions chipped in to help while Orison stuffed his head with the occasional skill find, what and where they were finding things sparked a memory of a shadowy person playing on his console and asking him if it was really alright to stuff all their belonging in this place. Vaguely, Orison felt like the memory should have hurt but it felt so distant and lacking in vividness, the unintentional reminder of his lost lover brought nothing but a touch of melancholy nostalgia. The memory did let him get a good idea of what he would find and what he wouldn't.

His ex-lover was an orderly hoarder of foodstuffs, pretty things and books but disdained carrying anything beyond personal equipment when it came to tools of violence. Somewhat disheartened that the rules that governed how this worked didn't choose his last save but the last save, period, he was never the less ecstatic of the fortune after disaster. That joy hiccuped when Gan shined an apple on his soggy pants, took a bite of it just to see it disappear and started making scared sounds while swatting the air around his ears.

Orison jumped up and ran over to Gan speaking with insistence, "What's wrong, Gan? Tell me what you're experiencing."

Looking somewhat pale from fright, Gan said, "I was a bit hungry so I thought I'd just eat one of these apples but it didn't really go to my gut so much as got soaked into me... Then I started hearing all these whispers that sound like you, now that I think about it, but I couldn't understand what they were saying."

Orison's eyebrows shot up as he said, "How do you feel?"

"Fine, I guess. I might have felt a little tingle but I don't know if it was in my head or not, since I nearly had the sh*t scared out of me," the scout said.

Asking them to gather around for a moment, Orison cleaned off a crate then dumped one of the food bags on top of it. He then grabbed a box he knew had nothing but gems, crystals and a few pieces of nice jewelry in it, then dumped them into the empty sack.

Orison said, "I have to be really careful how I say this so listen closely and try to catch all the subtle meanings within what I'm going to say. If I told you there was a strange fruit that might make you stronger, grant you magic and maybe more but might also turn you partially or even fully into a person of Highland decent, would you want that?

Morrel added, "There would be a price to pay for one who straddled the line between one race and another too evenly. Do you know of this, Orison? It doesn't happen often so it's not common knowledge."

Orison shook his head.

Morrel grunted softly and continued, "The state is derogatorily referred to as a mule. When peoples of two races create life together consistently, some of their offspring show more than signs of the other, not fully expressed lineage. They become essentially stuck between the two and are unable to produce offspring with either. I have been told that at one point in ancient history, there was a community of half elves capable of infrequently bearing offspring with each other but not much, if anything, is recorded about such a community and it's mostly treated as myth."

Although that objection made Orison pause, Rithus said, "One life leads to another, happening many small times, sometimes big. It is strange but also exciting to imagine such a passing as this. I was sm"

While Rithus waxed more eloquently than usual, some simple yet occasionally hard to understand Marshland philosophy, Gan started eating.

When Morrel asked him about his lack of hesitation, during a particularly rough shudder, he said, "Wouldn't have done it maybe if Gran was still around but I don't have anyone except the little boss man over there and his mom. You two, uh, too if you like, if not... I doubt anyone cares if everything shrinks some. Well, it'd be nice if THAT didn't bec-"

Orison paused in the middle of his alternating focused gains session to growl menacingly, "Gan! Finish that sentence and I'll make you spit it all back out."

Putting the potions, enchantments and learning on hold, Orison remembered some partially forgotten desires to further refine possible loopholes in his wishes. Flipping around the mental notebook of ideas, Orison did manage to make some small but useful additions. The biggest but most vain of those was to further define 'Highland people person' as a male Highlander who was as appealing as possible, within the limitations of his already preset genetic variance, to any who generally find Highland males appealing.

While rolling around the changes that were being made to him, Orison discovered that the 'year of age appropriate magical and physical training' were showing more coordinated and positive results. As his own understanding of what he wanted and what could be used to obtain that desired result became clearer, not to mention his glacier increase in maturity, the alien energy diverted to that task had a great many more blanks to fill in. Although he wasn't sure, having the three other men and the sleeping, possibly mage, in the room might also have fine tuned that wish's functionality.

Before returning to the nearly impossible task of time efficient, prioritized by most needed, resource usage, Orison thought, "No wonder Morrel was so disturbed at my physical condition. I basically had 'body by high school gym teacher' and 'more magic is gooder' training. If I hadn't ended up getting his help, by the time I got through here, I'd likely have ended up with failing organs and ruptured magic conduits... Every single one of my wishes had more death traps than a table top adventure module. I'm starting to wonder if I should be terrified of my storage space. It's obviously got some freaky things going on with it."

While Gan and Rithus entered into an eating while they worked contest, Morrel was more deliberate and slow but steady about both. Done with book sorting, Orison turned the three towards the modest pile of skill books to alternate through as they made their back and forth drop offs. By the time that Orison had made and stored away what he considered the most important potions and a handful of 'kind of cheated to make' enchantments, Gan and Rithus were starting to exibit some fairly noticable changes while Morrel only looked noticeably younger, which wasn't saying much.

With nearly the whole warehouse sacked and sorted, Orison illusion misted everything outside of a few feet beyond the piles. During Orison's explanation of which piles were for what, a particular bin that was on the edge of the 'real' space, fell and rolled out into 'real world' space. A recognizable dress and an ominous staff that had no business being in this wish space, came shooting out of the bin like it was a cannon.

The unfortunate Marshlander, blinded by the offending apparel and taking a nasty hit to his shoulder from the stick, hissed in startled pain. Attempting to slap the entangled items away from him, Rithus' unfamiliar fledgling magic gift activated the staff uncontrolled. After spitting out three chaotic discharges of energy, the staff disappeared from the world. Unfortunately, one of those discharges hit Orison.

Chapter end