The Way Ahead - Chapter 126: Red the Earth

“So what do we do?”

“I… have no idea,” Tara admitted. “The Blood Hive was a cautionary tale told to me in training, of the dangers that came with allowing Skills to run rampant, the importance of the Registrars and the dangers of Outlaws and Adventurers. It was never something which was actually presented as surmountable, never-” she sliced off the arm of the body on the table and Identified the bit of blood leaking from the wound, an action which Edwin mirrored.

Statutory Alchemist

Niall ?

What the Blight does this guy think he is, no you can’t treat people like… oh shoot, I’m recording.

“Damn. It was never taught as something which could be defeated by us. Previously, it took Emperor Xares scouring a province entirely to be rid of it, and it was a newer infection then. Anyone and everyone with blood, and possibly some of those without, is suspect.”

“What about me? How do you know I’m not taken over?”

“I do not,” Tara turned towards him, and he saw her eyes in the helmet’s slits, afraid, “But this is beyond anything which I am capable of dealing with, and you are the only one who stands any chance at solving this problem. You have additionally shown significant resistance to Skills, said honestly that you were not infected, and your blood does not Identify as that of our target.”

“What? Why me? You- you said Xares. He could do it. Can’t he get involved for this?”

“He could,” Tara agreed, and Edwin felt relief and anxiety spike inside him equally, “But it would involve scouring Rhothos and possibly more to bedrock. You, on the other hand, are an alchemist. An… adventurer alchemist, at that, among other qualifications and thus the only candidate for a less violent solution. Even if the Alchemist’s Guild might somehow be capable of devising something, they are weeks away and susceptible to whatever influence the Outlaw is able to leverage. You are, as much as I hate to admit it, the only one who feasibly could do something about this.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about…”

“Then figure it out.” she snapped, “You wanted to save lives? Do it.” She pointed at where Niall’s torn corpse lay on the floor, “That thing right there? Killing it is how you make an impact on this, that’s how you make yourself useful.”

“I just…” Edwin’s head was full of static, constantly rushing between possibilities and options, he didn’t know the first thing about Niall’s powers let alone how to counteract them. He flailed around hopelessly, brain stuck in a loop of thinking about Niall, and his blood, and Edwin’s missing hand, and then back to Niall.

“Ha-hua-ha,” a wet laugh burbled from Niall’s upper torso, breaking the silence, and Edwin spun around to see hateful eyes glaring at them, “I told you, I told you. You can’t kill me, I’m invincible. You shoulda-shoulda killed me then-then. But you were weak, weak, weak. Just a little drop, little drop didn’t hurt me, didn’t kill me, but it’s harder on you, on you. You’ll drown in blood, next to the flood, oh until you’ve run.”

“You’re insane.”

“Oh, I’m dying-dead-dying! But I’ve never been better. I’ve got my blood everywhere, everywhere. Family, family, friends. Who cares-cares? But I’m here.”

The corpse on the table sat up abruptly, “I’m there!” it sang before collapsing once again.

“I’m… everywhere,” Niall’s body took to its feet, the tattered half of a shirt fluttering to the floor and revealing a churning mass of blood hard at work knitting together the formerly fatal wound. He shot them a grin, only to have Tara ram the Woundblade straight through his skull, shattering it in a spray of blood.

“Well that wasn’t nice,” the cadaver on the table protested, only to have Tara lop off its head.

“Come now, Edwin,” the decapitated skull continued, blood slowly seeping from its stump, “My fellow seeker of knowledge. You’ve bound to have felt limited before, surely? Can you really begrudge me for not wanting to be shoved to the side? I wanted to be connected, wanted to make sure I couldn’t be shoved out. And the System provided! Ah, the lovely System.”

“You’re babbling,” Edwin gritted his teeth as Tara cut the chattering head in half, “And insane.”

“Well, perhaps I am,” Niall’s main body reformed its mouth, only to have Tara destroy it once more, “But in my defense, I did just die. My mind’s a little fritzy, surely you won’t hold that against me?”

Edwin opened his mouth to respond, but Tara preempted it by chopping Niall’s head off once again, tossing this one into the corner of the room.

“Do not allow him to distract you from your mission.”

“He can’t distract me from-” Edwin frowned, looking at Inion as she floated absently into the room.

“…cting weird as well! Oh, I see how it is. You two are just standing around talking even after the guy’s killed. Don’t bother giving me any thought, waiting for you all this time.”

“Inion, it’s only been… oh, ten minutes. Wow, I kind of expected you to not wait even that long.”

She harrumphed, “I can be patient. But apparently you were just being all forgetful of me.”

“Sorry, there was… other stuff that kind of took priority in my mind.”

“Oh? And what’s more important than me.”

“The possible death of everyone in the entire province of Rhothos.”

Inion paused, “Oh. Well then, couldn’t you have warned me?”

Edwin shrugged, “Sorry?”

“Good.”

“Anyway, what were you saying when you came in?”

“Oh yeah. People were acting weird.”

“They were behaving oddly? Oddly in what manner?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. Just… strange. I don’t think I can explain it, honestly. It’s a fey thing.”

Edwin and Tara shared a glance.

“Let me catch you up.”

“Overall, he at least only seems to be able to really get information from one place at a time. He was surprised by us arriving, which means his blood infecting the townsfolk didn’t warn him. But we also know he can take control of people that his blood is inside. Or maybe, that’s just the result of his experiment and he can’t do that to most people? I feel like if it were the case that he could just body-snatch random people there would have been one of his victims that came in here, rather than just some people ‘acting strangely,’” Edwin finished.

“Now we must determine some way to permanently end the man before it gets out of control.”

“How is it not already out of control?”

“Because destroying his head slows him down,” Tara explained as she mangled the latest skull Niall had regrown before the errant alchemist could sneak even a word in edgewise. “However, we must still assume that he is otherwise totally uncontained. Calling in the legions or Emperor Xares himself would do us no good for we do not know all of those who must be slain before the threat is put to rest. We must somehow kill the man himself, and trust that it causes all his vestiges to perish alongside him.”

“Okay. Well… I guess it’s on me, then. I need to figure out how to kill someone who doesn’t even have a body and can regenerate from anything and could be anyone on the continent.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“I’m the only trustworthy person here, anyone else could…” Edwin sighed and tried to bury his head in his hands, but was stymied by his missing right hand. He suspiciously eyed the puddle of blood that was previously his arm, Identifying it.

Alchemist-Errant

This is my arm. Well, forearm technically. And it recognizes that as distinct! Neat.

It wasn’t definite proof, but he’d have to take the chance. Of course, if he focused on different criteria when Identifying it he was informed it was part of Niall, but…

Edwin wrinkled his nose as he knelt down to the floor, touching his stump to the puddle and using his training from Inion to collect the blood into a hand-shaped red, liquid sculpture. It looked nauseating, and he took a deep breath as he dismissed Fey’s Caress.

Immediately, he felt the tug of Niall’s ‘poison’ return, trying to infect and convert his blood to the same Skill-infused substance it was made of. Apparently, transforming his hand entirely into Niall’s blood suspended any infection going on, probably because there was nothing to infect? Whatever, he was getting distracted.

He still wasn’t helpless, though, and now he had even more tools at his disposal. Edwin marshaled his Stamina to the best of his ability and threw it at the tainted blood, running Alchemical Dismantling at full bore.

It collapsed under his assault in mere moments, and he breathed easily as he flexed his newly-reclaimed hand. As Edwin turned back to Tara, he found the Enforcer once again with her sword at his neck.

“blight, Tara. Could you like… aim at my heart or something? I keep worrying that if I swallow too deeply I’ll get my throat cut.”

In response, Tara’s blade flickered to the side of Edwin’s face and opened up another narrow cut. She Identified his blood, then seemingly content turned her gaze to Edwin properly, “You fought it off again?”

“Yeah. It honestly wasn’t as hard as I anticipated, but I don’t know how well the average person might manage it.”

“Not very well, I would hazard,” Tara noted, “While I can only hope that it is not so severe as the first Blood Hive, as it appears that our friend-” she stabbed Niall in the face again as he tried to reform, “Does not possess so many Skills nor the levels to be truly so terrifying. The first Hive could assume complete control over any infected, utilize all of their Skills, manifest in all of them simultaneously and communicate instantly between all, in addition to possessing all of their combined knowledge.”

“Yeah, Niall definitely seems more limited than that, thankfully,” he agreed. “He probably only really has… I’m going in circles again.”

Edwin sighed, “I’m going to get some fresh air. I don’t think being in this room that smells more and more like blood is doing me any favors.”

“We must stay together and in proximity to his body. It is the only way we can be certain that none of us become infected.”

“Tara, I need space. You want me to use my brain? Great. I can’t do it in here, not properly. I just… ugh. Look, you know I can fight off the Skill, and Inion might be able to tell if I’m acting weird and warn you if I do somehow succumb.”

“We cannot afford to have you lose.”

“I’ll be careful. I’ll be really careful. Heck, I’ll head up on the roof. Maybe I can figure out what Inion sees that looks suspicious.”

He could not, in fact, figure out why everyone seemed so suspicious, for all that he felt the exact same way. Nobody was acting that strange on the outside, but there was distinctly something going on internally. People walked normally, talked normally, and carried on their normal days.

But underneath it all, something had changed. Tara claimed she saw no difference, but Inion swore there was, and her confidence made Edwin confident he wasn’t just imagining it as he sat on Niall’s roof, watching the masses and trying to collect his thoughts.

It was eerie, really. Any and possibly all of their lives depended on him, and none of them even realized it. He’d need to do the impossible, and he couldn’t even…

He sighed. No point moping about it. He needed to focus on what was actually important, and freaking out under the crushing weight of hundreds or even thousands of lives on him certainly qualified.

A flash of color among the flying figures entering and leaving the city caught Edwin’s eye, and he looked up to see Rillah flying on her own, wings spread in full springtime manifestation. He waved at the girl, and she corrected her course to more accurately hit him, something Edwin aided with Unbound Tether.

“You made it! Where’s the duo? You leave them with the cart or are they on their way?”

“They’re missing,” Rillah wasn’t panicking per se, but it was obvious from her tone and body language that she was close to it. “I found where the cart was, and even the cart itself, but Yathal and Kyni were both missing! Also your pony, but they’re gone! And it’s all my fault!”

“Woah, woah. Hold on there.” Edwin didn’t know how he might be able to deal with an emotional Rillah, but hopefully he could head it off before it got too far?

A few emotional minutes later, Rillah had calmed down some and was able to explain what she’d found a bit more clearly, and Edwin had been able to provide insight into his own findings in that time as well. Rillah had flown out to where they had left the boy, dog, and cart, but when Rillah had arrived there was no sign of anything alive. The cart looked basically untouched, which ruled out bandits, but even Bill the pony wasn’t present, and had been carefully removed from his enclosure. Rillah’s Skills were saying that they had left willingly, but what counted as ‘willingly’ was always a bit tricky. If they were lucky, he’d just gotten bored and wandered off right as Rillah came to check in on him. Worst-case… well, it was best not to think of that.

Rillah pulled out her Calming Touch on herself again as Edwin finished explaining what was going on with Niall, and the lovely light blue Skill looked so nice in comparison to the almost…

Oh,

Oh!

That was the problem.

Every single person in sight other than himself, Tara, Inion, and Rillah had a faint red tint to all of their Skills. It wasn’t overpowering, or even apparently active, it was just… there.

It’s the Skill, it has to be, he realized. It wasn’t actively doing anything, it just literally colored everything around him.

“I figured it out!” he yelled as he rushed inside.

Tara started,

“You-” Niall’s words were cut off once more as his head began to reform. “You know how to kill him?”

“What? No. Why would you… oh, yeah. Duh. No, I didn’t figure out how to kill him, sorry. I figured out what was suspicious about the people outside. Also, I found Rillah. But it’s a Skill. Everyone outside has a sort of faint red sheen from a Skill coloring everything they do, but the four of us are clean. “

That set off a bit of a conversation about what exactly Edwin was able to determine from his Skills- not much- and how confident he was correct. Thanks to Outsider’s Almanac, Edwin could be very confident that the red sheen was a distinct Skill that simply showed its presence, and most tellingly, they were all the same Skill, used by the same person.

Now, the question was just how to use that.

“I truly am impressed at his resilience. His body has only gotten faster at healing itself these past hours, not even the slightest indication of exhaustion or depletion of Attributes,” Tara noted, breaking Edwin out of his thoughts.

“Would there normally be exhaustion?”

“I would anticipate as much. Most Skills rely on some level of Attribute expenditure, however minute.”

“Well, they…” Inion started, then frowned, “Nope, can’t say that.”

“How convenient that you can’t think of anything helpful to say,” Rillah snapped, “Normally you just can’t shut up. Well, maybe I’m not that surprised you don’t know how to say anything helpful after all, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“How are you progressing?” Tara chopped through Niall’s neck, the decapitated skull bouncing and rolling away to join a growing pile of other heads, “Surely you must be making some progress with your endeavors.”

“I don’t know! This is hard, and I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know what he can do with it, I don’t know if it can be cured, I don’t even know what it does, really, other than contaminating Skills and apparently letting him puppeteer a corpse every once in a while.”

“Oh, no those-”

Slice

Edwin flinched as Tara grabbed the head and tossed it into the pile.

“Could we at least… go somewhere else?”

“We’ve been over this, Edwin.”

“I know, I know, we’d need to bring his body with us and we don’t want to risk doing anything which might awaken the blood plague or whatever, but still. I can only look at so many decapitated heads if I want to retain any amount of focus.”

“Then it would be in your best interest to figure something out soon.”

“I don’t know! I don’t even know where to start with something like this. I’m sorry that Intro to Chemistry 101 didn’t include a lesson on how to kill a maybe-immortal supernatural blood-based entity without even proper lab equipment.”

“What do you mean, proper lab equipment?” Rillah asked, “You can make whatever you want so easily.”

“No, that’s just glassware. I don’t have any… actually, nevermind. I forgot you… nevermind.”

“Edwin, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Look, it’s not important right now. If we get out of this, we can talk then.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Sure, sure, we’ll talk about it alongside my horrible social skills like you said we would after our trip to Vinstead. That’ll be a fantastic conversation that will totally happen someday and won’t just be…

Edwin stood up to clear his head.

“Damn you all, let-”

Chop

There was a shift in the room.

One of Niall’s Skills had changed its form slightly, the omnipresent red Skill haze taking on some kind of texture, and Edwin stood up in alarm. He quickly Identified the puddle of blood in the room…

Surgeon Alchemist

Niall ?

See AlchemistNiall for full entry, an Alchemist Outlaw-turned bandit who turned himself into blood and likes to torture innocent people to death for ‘experiments.’

“Uhh, Tara. I think Niall just evolved a Skill.”

Tara glanced over, flashed an Identify, and swore, “Damnit. Hurry up, Edwin.”

“I don’t know! It’s been a really, really long day and my brain isn’t exactly running at full capacity! Heck, I’m burning Stamina just trying to fully stay awake.”

“Then sleep, and solve this problem.”

“How the heck am I supposed to sleep when I’m under this much stress?”

“Figure out something, you worthless Adventurer!”

That shut Edwin up well enough, and he retracted into his own mind. He probably could and should sleep, and it wouldn’t even be hard- one tug on Sleeping would put him out like a light, that much had never changed- but he needed to know what was happening, he needed to think, to be aware, to…

He did have Watchful Rest for that very thing. At level 45, he was essentially half-awake even while fully unconscious, not enough to really pay attention to what was happening and remember but certainly enough to rouse himself at a moment’s notice.

But he couldn’t be useful then, or try to be useful, and if he wasn’t useful…

Well, I already am a ‘useless adventurer’ he bitterly thought, What’s sleeping on the job next to that?

“Edwin, you should sleep,” Rillah added, “Your wound still isn’t fully healed and you’ve stretched your Perception to its limits already.”

“Oh what, do you also think that I’m useless so I should just go sit in the corner and get out of the way? Shut up, I don’t want or need your help! Unless you can figure out how to kill something that isn’t killable, you’re useless.”

He regretted the words even as he said them, and even said as much but it was still too late, he could tell. The woman’s eyes fell and she looked away, wandering to the other side of the room, finding great interest in Tara stabbing Niall once again.

“I-” I’m sorry, the words died in his throat. He’d been so close to actually making friends with Rillah, he knew, and then he had to go and throw it all away, “I… I think I will get some rest. Anyone else?”

Nobody acknowledged him. Why would they? He… He fought back and crushed the urge to run away- that would be so utterly stupid– but he…

I’m tired and emotional and stressed. Stop judging people’s intentions when I can’t do that at the best of times. No matter how obvious it is, wait for morning.

He didn’t want to leave the room, so instead he simply floated into the air and stayed there. Flight required some amount of effort to keep active, but by tying off the Skill with the visualization of a flight ‘potion’ that was just a massive set of bubbles surrounding him, he found himself able to stay aloft.

The first thing Edwin did when he woke up was check Niall’s latest class- Blood Alchemist- and look at his companions. He was very relieved to see that none of them had left, and none of them had the red sheen he associated with infection from Niall.

Tara was swinging her sword with the same amount of fervor as before, having barely moved all night. Rillah was off in the corner, her wings making a cocoon around her as she gently slept, Inion hovered tiredly above Edwin, and Niall’s pile of heads was growing uncomfortably large, and had apparently collapsed at some point, the alchemist’s skulls having tumbled down the lab’s stairs.

He almost threw up at the sight, the faces in various forms of anger or surprise, though resignation wasn’t entirely absent either. Eyes open, eyes closed, sometimes the heads weren’t even fully regenerated- one had a bit of brain exposed, another had a hideously malformed face.

“Ick. Did I miss anything?”

Tara mutely pointed to the corpse, indicating Niall’s newest Class, and Edwin nodded, idly checking his notifications.

Level Up!

Skill Points 1229→ 1241

(Alchemy: 101; Stamina Manipulation: 32; 16/25 60-point Paths)

Adaptive Defense Level 60→61

Alchemical Analysis Level 52→53

Alchemical Dismantling Level 57→58

Anatomy Level 51→52

Fey’s Caress Level 47→49

Fresh Air Level 47→48

Polyglot Level 74→75

Ritual Intuition Level 57→58

Skillful Assessment Level 57→58

Stamina Manipulation Level 31→32

Watchful Rest Level 45→46

Ugh. Why did the worst days also have to come with the most skill increases? He actually at least sort of knew the answer to that, but grousing about it almost made him feel better.

Well, new day, new Edwin. He had a job to do, and there was research to be done. While Niall’s new Skill was still pulsing uncomfortably, the alchemist also had at least three other new Skills lying dormant from what Edwin could see. The Blood Alchemist must have been continually trying to get new Skills in the hopes that one would let him break out of their current stalemate, and all Edwin could do was hope he found a countermeasure first.

So, how did one analyze a supernatural discontinuous blood entity? Well, first step was a microscope. Months of practice had gotten Edwin fast enough with Sapper’s Apparatus that he could actually assemble one in a reasonable amount of time, which meant he didn’t waste too much time with it. The blood… looked like blood. He saw some red blood cells, some stuff that looked like white blood cells, and what was probably dust that had settled in the pool of uncoagulated blood he’d extracted his sample from.

Using Alchemical Analysis was no more enlightening, as by every test he could think of about its composition revealed it was just… blood. That meant, unsurprisingly, it was a magical effect he’d have to deal with, and that was no fun. Well, not technically magical, as Ritual Intuition liked to tell him, but magical as far as the System was, and how his Refined materials were.

Attempting to Refine the blood had definitely been interesting. Pushing the Skill into the blood had a very violent reaction from Niall. It coiled and withdrew, the fluid actively fighting his Skill the more power he tried to push into it. He wasn’t even trying to Refine anything in particular, but the blood had charred and congealed when he did overpower it in the end, mana flooding in and killing sells.

Not particularly useful, perhaps, given he could also kill the blood by boiling or burning it, but Edwin still filed away the information in his Almanac for the future.

There was another shift, and Edwin eyed up the regenerating body Tara held next to her. What new class was it this time?

Blooded Alchemist

“Oh!” Niall’s head returned in the blink of an eye, “Now that is interest-”

Rip

“Interesting.” it wasn’t Niall’s voice this time, but the voice of an unfamiliar man shouldering his way into the workshop.

Edwin quickly Identified the newcomer, fearing the worst given the veiny red Skill stretching like a parasite across his entire body.

Blooded Alchemist

Tara hesitated, a moment of indecision before she killed the newcomer proving fortunate as the parasitic Skill retracted and the man sagged, “What- What was that?”

Experienced Cobbler

“You were controlled by an illegal Skill for a few moments,” Tara explained, chopping Niall’s latest head in half, “I am an Enforcer and am working on a solution, but I will require that you stay in the next room over, restrained, until this has resolved. Go sit down.”

The man, still in a bit of a daze, complied and collapsed in the corner, holding his head.

Then, the door opened once more, and a new figure walked in both familiar and alien.

“Yathal! You’re… You’re not Yathal,” Rillah sprang to her feet before hesitating and stepping back.

“No,” the voice that came out of the body was still the same as the young boy that Edwin had been traveling with for so long, but the evil grin plastered upon it was totally incongruous with the shy kid he was familiar with, to say nothing of the strange confidence he carried himself with even away from Kynigos, “I most certainly am not. Now, perhaps, will you allow me to heal?”

Blooded Alchemist