PreCursive

  “YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A STATUS, YOU ASSHOLE!” I screamed into the air of Elderwyck, trying to yank my glowing spear out of Rhazal’s skull before I stole a ‘Skill’ from him. If that was even what I was stealing.

  But I wasn’t quiough.

  I braced myself as best as I could for what was ing…but nothing could prepare me for it.

  Suddenly, a flood of disgusting, corrupted, almost smoky feeliher shot up the e formed by my on with the Camity’s corpse.

  When it reached me, it was like a dirty bomb went off in my head. The world went dark around me, my sight suddenly cutting out in a panidug mirror of my restored right eye. Without my prompting, it felt like my body was covered with a greasy misting of smoke, swirling all about my form.

  Oh.

  Wait.

  No, that was because I was falling.

  In the moments that I had been blinded both mentally and physically by whatever I was stealing from Rhazal, the dissolution of the Godbound’s physical form had pleted. I was now in free fall, plunging through the foul-smelling, grimy clouds of Miasma geed from his death. Panicked, I tried to throw out several Thrapple’s with both hands even though I still couldn’t see. I was hoping, praying that one of them would ect with one of the crumbling towers of Fort Duality before I hit the ground.

  They didn’t.

  Impact.

  I hit the crumbling, shattered stone, and my head bounced off it.

  I bcked out.

  ……………………………………………….

  I don’t know how long I was out of it, after I had fallen. But slowly, slowly, sciousness started to return to me.

  Only, slightly, though. I was barely aware of my surroundings as my mind swam through what felt like a ke of tar to awareness.

  I gazed bnkly up at the clouded skies above me as it started to rain. I didn’t even flinch as the drizzle slowly began to soak my ravaged form.

  At least as I was able to see still. I had that going on at least.

  I don’t know how long I y there, barely able to form a thought iher my core or outer rings. But, eventually, a noise pierced the fog that had desded on my mind. It was odd. It almost sounded like there was someone pounding on a massive, imperable pane of gss somewhere to my left. Sluggishly, I turned my unfocused gaze that way from where I was lying to see what it was.

  Ah.

  I could see where I had fallen, now. I hadn’t fallen all the way to the foot of the ruined Fort like I had thought. Instead, I had nded not far from the all-important Portal Stone which had beerue focus of everything that had happened.

  The noise was ing from it.

  I don’t know if it was just my head wound, but it looked like something was trying to almost…break out of it. Oher side of the emerald pane of crystal on the front of the Stoched with a seven armed spiral, something lurked. Repeatedly, a scaled, taloned arm was crashing into the other side of it, looking like it inhabited a space that existed wholly oher side of the gss.

  Bang…bang…bang…

  Even through the haze I had desded into, it was terrifying. The surface of the crystal was hazy, but I could still see through it like it was a clouded window. Behind the indistinct figure, a swirl of dark red Aether, so simir to that of Nerexxa’s, spun slowly, illuminating the vaguely feminine figure. They opped their blows against the crystal, sending crashing noises eg out through the rainy city. I…it was loud enough that I think the ey had to be able to hear this.

  Bang…bang…bang…

  And then nothing.

  The crashing stopped, and something else appeared at the crystal that terrified me.

  A face.

  But…not, at the same time.

  It was as if the features of the thing oher side of the crystal existed on a pne of existence higher than my own. I couldn’t see or perceive a thing about it. I khere was a face there…but that was it. Nothing about them was truly perceptible. Not on a level I could fathom.

  The not-eyes in the face that wasn’t there roved around the world beyond the crystal, before settling ohey narrowed my way suspiciously, but after a moment, ent eye ridges raised in surprise. Moments ter, a glower emerged oures that did.

  “I should have known,” A disgusted, feminine voice echoed out from beyond the crystal. “Of course it would be a Precursor that ruihings. It’s all your kind are good for, in the end. Wrad ruin trail in your wake like flies on shit.”

  The voice wasn’t as heavy as Rhazal’s soul speak had been, but it still wasn’t pleasant to hear. What was worse, was that my c wasn’t able to shield me from the effects of it, as it was reeling from what I was starting to suspect was a cussion.

  Something at the core of me pulsed in respoo the voice.

  Something dark.

  Somehow, the non-being noticed. “Oh? Hah. Ha ha ha! At the very least, that failure Rhazal was able to inflie st curse upon you, interloper! I may not be able to return, but at least the thought of his st gift to you will warm me iorm.” The thing in the crystal sighed, before bag away enough that their face wasn’t nearly smashed up against it. Now, I could see the whole of their form other than their face. That remained shrouded in dimensions beyond my uanding.

  They reminded me of Nerexxa in a way. Only…more.

  I didn’t have the words to describe them more than that.

  They defied expnation.

  “I only regret I won’t be able to see the misery you will endure because of it. Still, a det sotion prize, even though this surprise possibility didn’t pan out,” The voice mused, before flig a taloned hand almost dismissively. “Oh well. Goodbye, Precursor. Suffer well for me.”

  The indistinct figure deliberately turs bad slowly started to saunter away into the vortex of bloody Aether behind them. In moments they had passed through the eye of the spiral and disappeared from sight, swallowed whole.

  The Aether oher side of the crystal winked out. In fact, a charge that had bee in the air I had barely noticed vanished as well. The st wisps of Rhazal’s murk that had been swirling around the Portal Stone dissipated with the Miasma, and the world went quiet but for the pitter-patter of raindrops.

  I limply turned unprehending eyes back to the heavens, ung as to individual drops falling into them. I didn’t flin each impaor did I eve as a small puddle began to form underh my prone form.

  Instead, I felt my sciousness began to fade.

  But my c had recovered enough that it could muse things over, even as my outer ring lost awareness pletely. The world started to go fully dark all around me, and I didn’t care at all.

  Somewhere, deep inside me, I khat it was over. The crisis that had threateo e all of Vereden in divine malice had been, somehow, averted through a series of st-minute saves.

  And I didn’t care. Instead, I was just relieved that my personal struggles were, for the moment, over.

  Nerexxa had schemed for years and years to ehe circumstahat would lead to Rhazal’s awakening, and the possible return of her mistress. Only to be sin at the st minute by an apathetic Lich that had been bckmailed into dealing with her, after previously being turned down by him.

  More than she deserved, holy.

  Rhazal had slept for eons, waiting for the day he would be called upon to do his duty once more. I’m not sure if that thing even had real emotions or desires before I killed him, but I couldn’t help but hope he did. It would be a fitting punishment for su a moo feel the hopelessness and misery he had likely inflicted on tless others in both the present, and the a past.

  And Ixiah…

  Well, if that had bee the Stone like I thought it might be…

  It seemed like she didn’t care at all about either of their struggles.

  I couldn’t help but find the ehing incredibly ironic. I would have ughed if I had the strength for it.

  Instead, my c closed my eyes and prepared to drift off into unsciousness. I couldn’t stave it off any longer. Idly, as darkness closed in, I wondered.

  Would I even wake up again? Maybe my injuries from the fall were too much. Maybe the puddle I y in would grow, and I would drown on dry nd in the shallow rain. Here lies the mighty Precursor, bane of Camities. Sin by precipitation.

  Hah…

  At the st moment, before the world fled, a faint light pierced my eyelids. I couldn’t open them, but it was warm and f. It was as if a ray of sunlight had pierced the clouded skies to shine down upon me and me alone.

  It was…nice.

  At that, I embraced the darkness once more.

  ……………………………………..

  I almost didn’t want to wake up. I wao stay in the cool, f nothingness of sleep I had drifted into. No thoughts or worries weighed me down, in this void. No mysterious Spirits intruded upon the vastness of my sleep. No Vampires or Camities were threateniire ps, here in my unsciousness. I didn’t have to wonder if anyone I knew in Elderwyck had survived the chaos of the st few days.

  There was oiness.

  Sadly, I didn’t have a choice.

  As if from a great distance, I became aware of a sensation.

  I was shaking. No…

  I was being shaken. The fai impression of a haed lightly on my shoulder and was trying to draw me from my slumber.

  Ah…

  Go away…

  A voice pierced my fortable void. “Nate…you…get up…”

  That voice was…a bit familiar.

  “Nate…fihe voice tinued, sounding mildly exasperated.

  Wait, wasn’t that…Renauld?

  That fact pierced straight through both my outer and cs, sending a bolt of sleep-erasing adrenaline rag down my spine.

  Renauld!

  My eyes popped open, and I immediately sat up straight from wherever I was. This was a mistake for multiple reasons.

  The first was that the world spun around me from the sudden movement, turning the adrenalihat had filled me into stomach-ing nausea.

  The sed was that my head had instantly collided with the skull of someone else. The only thing I saw in the seds after opening my eyes was bd white fur.

  So…I guess I had headbutted Renauld right after waking up.

  My bad.

  My c thought this was hirious, as my roaned aloud at the uional assault, flopping back down onto what felt like a bed. I heard Renauld stumble back from the blow, cursing, as I y there in mortification. After a moment, I somehow mustered the will to live and opened my eyes once more.

  Looking around, I saw that I appeared to be in a…Healer’s…‘shop’? Healer’s office?

  It looked more like a repurposed butcher’s shop, holy. All around me were people in varying states of wellness lying unscious on cots, lined up ly against the walls. Some looked to be in…very rough states, to be ho, while others just looked to be unscious. Some were awake, some were moaning, and moviween them were what seemed to be either harried nurses or overwhelmed volunteers.

  Still, they seemed to be handling things well enough.

  Speaking of nurses….

  It had been Renauld that I had headbutted, alright. The Gnoll was standio my own cot and rubbing his head from where I had smacked right into it.

  I took in the sight him for just a moment, a bit of relief rolling over me. I…in all of the chaos over the st few days, I had fotten that Renauld had still been iy. With the assault on the warehouse, my capture, and then fug everything with Nerexxa and Rhazal, he just…hadn’t been a priority.

  Which I felt holy terrible about. But thankfully, he seemed to have pulled through the nightmare that had fallen on Elderwyck.

  Renauld was wearing his Healer’s robes once more, and they were coated in bloodstains. The Gnoll himself was frankly exhausted looking, which made seo me. I’m…not sure how long I had been unscious for, or how I had even been rescued from my deadly puddle, but surely disaster relief had started by now. It made sehat a Healer would find themselves in stant demand after the Revenants had ravaged the twin cities.

  I took a deep breath, and with some effort, stood up and approached the Gnoll. He stopped rubbing his head at my approach, looking up just in time to be surprised at what I did .

  I ed the fox-like man in a rough hug, letting out a long, relieved breath. “You made it…” I whispered over his head.

  Tentatively, Renauld returhe grasp, slumping in his fatigue. “Yeah…” He breathed aire solemn story in that one word.

  “Somehow, we both did…”