PreCursive

  The darkhat surrounded me was thiough that I nearly wasn’t able to breath. The very air was tainted with it, and the Aether that around me felt…wrong. It felt like it was suffused with an a maise.

  That was lifting, though. Something had woken from a slumber that had sted feion upon geion, and an alien mind was rousing. With it, that sense of being was rising from it's resting pce, to find triumph on the surface above.

  But the opposite was happening to me. The murk was so all enpassing that I wasn’t able to tell when I switched from the waking world, to that of the dreaming.

  I floated there in the resulting bck, for a time. It felt like my eyes were open, but they saw nothing before me. For ohere were no enemies in my sight for me to throw myself against in vain. There were no is to free from bondage. And…there were no panions to fight side by side with.

  A selfish part of me wao stay here forever, in this vast nothingness. Here I had no responsibilities, nles. There were no st victories or crushis to be found in this murk. Every time my wandering mind tried to focus on the depth of my failure against the beast that was Nerexxa, and what it meant for the whole of Vereden, I shied away from it.

  I didn’t want to remember.

  There was only the numbness of the void.

  I ’t say how long I floated there, in that gloom. It could have been seds or turies, for all I knew.

  But eventually, all things must end.

  Something stirred in the bess.

  I wasn’t aware of it, until I caught the fairaovement somewhere just out of sight. Sluggishly, I tried to focus on it, but I couldn’t.

  All I could see was the slightest of waves, as if a long body had disturbed a stagnant pool of water.

  A voice pierced the pierced the bess. Though it was quiet, in the depths of this dark, it rang out as if it rojected from a loudspeaker.

  “What’s this, what’s this?” A sibint whisper sounded, carried upon echoes. “A mortal, in this pce?” It paused for a moment. I almost physically felt the attention that was being directed at me. “No…not quite. A Precursor, yes yes. I reize that glint upon your soul. That’s what you are…”

  Listlessly, I raised my head to try and see who or what eaking, but it was…so hard. “Who…” That was all I was able to get out, before even that brief surge of energy left me.

  “Who, who, he asks,” The voice breathed in an amused tone. “As if he was an owl, and not the spawn of old Terra.”

  Old…Terra…

  Did this person…or thing…meah?

  Suddenly, I was much more alert. Somehed Mind had faded from me in the depths of this murk, but no longer. I felt my mind fragment ints once more. My outer was still mired in what felt like induced lethargy, but not my middle and core.

  I could focus again.

  I forced myself on my feet, somehow finding my footing in an endless void.

  “Oh? Did that catch your attention, failure?” The voice called. Now that I was able to focus better, I could actually see whatever eaking to me cirg just out of sight. It was as if I was surrounded by the form of a gargantuan ss coils winding about me on the edge of my vision.

  But…it was wrong. It was as if this thing was many serpents all at once, all yered on top of each other. The windihs of scales that formed a solid wall around me were nearly glitg in my vision, on top of each other. It formed an illusion to where it appeared as if there were thousands, or even millions, of shat stretched off into infinity.

  The inky horizon was dominated by an o of scales.

  Strangely…I felt no fear.

  In this pce, it was as if I could sehe iions of the being that had fouhis thing…

  I was nothing more than a gnat to it. It cared little for my existence, a o swat me.

  I found my voice. “What do you mean…failure?”

  I saw a brief fsh of intense yellow eyes in the sea of scales. “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. You…are a failure, like all of your kind,” The voice said, almost kindly. “It is in your nature, I’m sorry to say. But you in particur?” A brief chuckle. “It’s been some time since a remnant has failed so spectacurly.”

  I closed my eyes, no longer able to hide from what had seo this pce. “Nerexxa.”

  “The little tick is irrelevant,” The voice said dismissively, shog me out of my self-pity. “It is what she has awoken that is the source of your failure, Precursor.”

  That’s right…

  Just before the ground had caved in on us, I’d heard Nerexxa screaming about a ‘monstrosity’. Whatever her ritual was, it hadn’t been about directly calling her goddess back to Vereden. She had said something about it being the actual catalyst ting this ‘Ixiah’ back.

  Suddenly, I was feeling much more hopeful about the future.

  The voice must have noticed, because it chuckled at me. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, little Precursor,” They said, dashing those same hopes. “What the tick has awoken is as far above her as she is above you. If you failed against the bloodsucker, then I doubt your ces against it.”

  It…

  “What…is it?” I asked hesitantly. In the brief moments that I had been awake as I fell into the caverns below the now deceased Olsen’s pace, all I had seen was a shadow.

  A massive one. Something big enough to dwarf the pace itself, and blot out the light of Tarus.

  But what I had felt...

  The voice hummed. “A gatekeeper,” It said pensively. “Or perhaps a keymaster? One of the two. Certainly a on, though. A foolish one, and something only the ‘divine’,” I could physically feel the pt that the creature surrounding me infused in that word, eg through the murk. “Could harness. Where the little tick is a knife in the dark, meant to turn knots of resistance against one ahis rreatsword. A bludgeon, to utterly crush armies in its path.”

  “A Camity.”

  Oh.

  I see...

  “Not a full one, admittedly,” The voice tinued. “Not even the ‘gods’ could mao leash a true Camity. Instead, they cultivated them, and at the exaent before a chosen Prime asded, they were stopped. And instead of developing their own spark, they were given a piece of a god’s own stolen divinity. From that moment on, they were loyal little doggies. They called them Godbound, as if they could eveend to that title. This one is old and weak, but still strong enough to squash you like a bug, and fulfill its purpose at the same time.”

  “Purpose?” I called out into the bess.

  “Oh yes,” The voice said, liquid amusement thi its tohat gnat Ixiah left it behind as insurance, g little for her little ticks in the process. Her hound, oher hand, could one day be her ticket bato this verdant nd. All it o do…is properly attuhe Portal Stoo her location, and that upstart return. Hmm,” They hummed. “I believe she was bao Azul. The upstart must be feeling quite waterlogged, after all those millennia spent in that storm. No doubt she longs for these shores.”

  As the voice chuckled to itself, I frowned. “What do you want from me?” I asked bluntly. “Why are you here?”

  I could almost hear the shrug in the voice as it spoke . “Oh, I expeothing from you, Precursor,” It said dismissively. “I felt the stirrings of the beast, and decided to poke my head over this way. I was curious to see who was foolish enough to wake the sleeping giant.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I challenged. “Who are you? What do I call you?”

  “Call me?” The voice said, surprised. “You don’t. I call upon you. But…if you’d like a mohen….you may refer to me as Nehushtan.”

  Something ued happehen. A light began to shihrough the darkness of…wherever I was, ing from overhead. It was cool, f, and most of all, familiar.

  Looking up, my breath caught in my throat as I beheld a perfect full moon.

  And I do mean perfect.

  It was like no moon I had ever seen. It hung in midair with an immacute surface, with none of the craters that were visible oher the surface of Earth’s moon, or Vereden’s. It erfectly spherical, perfectly smooth, and perfectly radiant.

  And its light was shining directly down oire area. The form of the serpent was illuminated briefly, allowio see its massive triangur head, ed by what looked like tree roots. But I lost sight of it almost immediately, as the ehireated in a plume of murk with a hiss.

  An irritated female voice rang out in the darkness, inating from the moon. “Get going, you old mehis one is beyond you.”

  The snake seemed like it hadn’t really vanished just yet, because I heard its voice echo out from beyond the near ptform of light I was now standing on. “Children these days, no respect for their elders,” The being calling itself ‘Nehushtan’ grumbled, before I felt its attention fall on me once again. It dropped its pretense of curiosity then. “If it’s answers you seek, then find me, Precursor. I am not bound in the way of these upstarts and wisps. I tell you all that you want to know, and all that you don’t know you do.” The voice began to fade away, as if its owner was retreating from the harsh gre of the moon. “Seek me out, in the northern mountains…”

  The darkness beyond the radiance lifted somewhat then, and I could tell that whatever that thing had been, it was truly gone now.

  “What…was that?” I asked out loud breathlessly.

  “An old ghost, squirming in the dark,” The female voice said, irritation thi her tone. “From an age so long ago that not even the bones of Vereden pete. Pay its words no mind, as you have other s. You have to wake up, Nathaniel.”

  I reeled, a stab of pain pierg through me at her words. I bent over, clutg my chest in agony, feeling like something was lodged right in the ter of my being.

  The female voice sighed. “What a disaster this is,” She said, sympathy thi her voice. “But it’s going to have to be you that hahis, I'm afraid. I’ve informed my beloved about what’s happened, but her he nor his forces reach you in time to deal with the Godbound. It’s already begun the process of attu.”

  I looked up incredulously at who I suspected was the spirit that Grey loved. “How?!” I said weakly, nearly crippled by my pain. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t shut it off with Ringed Mind, and I wasn’t appreciating this reminder of what real pain was like. “How am I supposed to kill this thing, when I could barely scraterexxa?!”

  “Don’t worry,” The woman said soothingly. “You have all the tools you o sy this beast. The Vampire will be dealt with by another, closer than you think.” She paused for a moment. “If he pins, just tell him I’m calling in his debt. Your task, however, will mark you…but I know you do it. My love wouldn’t pce his faith in those that don’t deserve it.”

  As a more natural darkness began to grow around my vision, and the vision of who I suspected was Elys above me began to fade, she had one more thing to say before I left this pce.

  “Oh, and Fade sends his love….”

  ……………………………………………….

  I awoke to agony.

  Thankfully, this was an agony that I could immediately shut down, allowio desd from my suffering-filled panice I had done so, I opened my eyes…

  To find that I was once more surrounded by darkness.

  This wasn’t the supernatural darkhat I had somehow just been dreaming inside, where I had spoken to what I thought were a pair of Spirits. No, this was the familiar darkness of a deep, dark cave.

  And it was easy to see what was causing my pain.

  There was a long splinter of stone pierg straight through my front. Looking down and muting my panic response, I could see that it luckily looked to have missed my heart, which robably why I wasn’t already dead. I think I had fallen straight onto it, and it had ght through my…right kidney.

  Ah.

  This was…quite the predit. How was I supposed to deal with this? It was hard enough perf impromptu surgery on other people with Aetherial Melding, but on myself was a whole other matter. Especially when I had no help, no supplies, and…

  I looked down at my left arm, already suspeg what I would see.

  Yup, my prosthetic left arm was crushed.

  I only had one funal arm.

  The golden prosthesis had taken the blow that had nearly killed me straight on from Nerexxa, and suffered for it. The olden shell of the limb was pletely crushed, and I think the Mithril bones had bee as well. I was lucky I didn’t have real paiors in the entment for the arm, or I was sure it would be screaming at me. The best I could do was twitch a few of the fingers slightly, but it wasn’t usable anymore. I was going to have to melt it down pletely, refe, and then re-ent the whole thing in order to get my arm back. Luckily, it didn’t look like the damage exteo the y stump, so the port that ected the false limb to my soul was still intact. All I’d o do…was make a whole other limb.

  But that didn’t help me now, when I was in mortal danger.

  And looking around?

  I wasn’t the only one.

  All around me, I could see the still forms of those who I had fought Nerexxa alongside. Crook, Thirty-Two, Dusk, even Baldric.

  I did find…

  Sylvia.

  Even through my enforced calm, my breath caught in my throat at the sight of her, lying spyed out against a nearby boulder in this cave.

  She wasn’t moving.