The creature’s chest was a mess. Flesh blackened, warped. Where it wasn’t obfuscated by the burns, Emma saw yellowish skin turning dark with bruising underneath. Smoke coiled up from the site of the impact, in the same lazy way smoke had of twisting up from a structure which had long since finished burning and was just waiting to collapse.
Except this one wasn’t waiting for the end. She saw the cyclops’ chest rising and falling, heard racking breaths, and as she stared in disbelief, after a few moments, the thing actually sat up. It stared at her, and she stared back. Both wary of the other, both weary from the fight.
Emma spoke first.
“Don’t move.” She croaked.
Silly thing to say. What would she do if it did, blast it again? She supposed so. And what if it lived from that one, too?
But the cyclops didn’t move, just sat there. Still breathing hard.
“I’m. Sorry.” It gasped, wincing in pain at every syllable.
I hurt it. I seriously hurt it. Emma felt a surge of confidence, and a moment later she was grinning again.
“Sorry? That doesn’t un-fuck my ribs, does it?” She growled, raising her hand again and watching, with no small amount of satisfaction, as the thing shied back from it. Aexilica had killed the scytheshell, not her. Now it was time to find out if this hallucination of hers had XP and levelling.
“No.” The cyclops lowered its gaze, a remarkably disconcerting sight. In the heat of combat Emma hadn’t gotten a good look at it, now she did. Big ears, big nose, fucking huge eye…Small mouth. Small head, proportionally, broad shoulders. Its skin was smoother than a human’s, and its every expression seemed somehow exaggerated. Emma hesitated. It looked a lot more human than it had moments ago. “Please.” The cyclops continued, tears now running down its face. “Please, I…I was just so, so hungry.”
Emma swallowed. “I didn’t know you could speak so clearly.”
The cyclops looked up, frowning.
“I didn’t know you could.” It replied.
She was about to ask how it could speak her language and not know she did, then hesitated. How did Aexilica talk to her? Obviously just another quirk of this whole world being in her head. She sighed. Why the hell had her brain given her something so…People-ish.
“Here.” Emma reached for her pack, now somewhat squashed by all the fighting, and tossed it to the cyclops. It- he?- shied away as if fearful. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She sighed. “There’s food in there, enough to keep me fed for a few days. Not sure what it’ll do for you, but…Hopefully it’s more than nothing.”
The cyclops’ eye was wetter than ever now, but she saw gratitude in its features rather than pain or fear.
“Thank you.” He croaked. “Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Emma turned around back to the blockage, sighing. “You won’t eat any humans if I leave you alive right?”
“I won’t try to eat humans ever again.” The cyclops promised. “I didn’t know you could…You know, talk. All the ones I’ve met just attacked me.”
That sounded about right, Emma groaned. She wasn’t sure whether she believed him, she didn’t much care. Killing something that looked like a person, cried and said it felt sorry would make her feel bad. She’d never been able to pick the mean dialogue options.
With a few more seconds of thought, she struck the makeshift dam with an energy lance and watched as it blew apart. As she’d feared, debris was voluminous and fast. Fortunately Emma now had a makeshift shield, having circled around to put the cyclops between herself and the blockage.
She peeked around the cyclops, who was now trembling in a way that left her rather satisfied, and stared at what was left of the blockage. That made her even more so. If the cyclops’ club before had come apart like a grenade was snuck inside it, this looked like someone had dumped a whole bouquet into the centre. Wood was scattered everywhere, stone smashed apart, debris in all directions.
A good deal of the mass remained in the river, but plenty more had been blasted free. Emma turned to the cyclops.
“Mind clearing the rest of that out for me?” She asked, suspecting that additional explosions, for once, was not the solution. Besides, she’d already tested the cyclops wasn’t planning on betraying her by turning her back to it while standing so close. Good thing about reality being fake was you could just put yourself completely at people’s mercy to figure their intentions out with no consequences.
“Of course. I mean, of course not, I’ll do it.” The cyclops was practically tripping over his own tongue to avoid pissing her off. Emma liked that. Felt like the sort of treatment an all-powerful wizard could get to enjoy.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Once she actually was all-powerful, at least. Her face fell as she started back to town. That fight had been close, for several reasons. Understanding the idea of what her powers did was one thing, even having a bit of practical experience in using them, but it seemed this world had an abundance of creatures with the immediate size and strength to threaten her without any delays for fancy spell-casting. Emma didn’t want to lose. She’d always hated it, and hated it more here, where physical pain would accompany the sensation. Even if she couldn’t die, she could still get a game over.
And those sucked.
Emma wasn’t given the chance to do much beyond keep practicing what she’d been practicing, without access to Larry or any books on spellwork. But that was still something at least. Within the first few hours, she’d figured out something very interesting about her Energy.
It fucking sucked.
Or rather, kinetic energy alone sucked. Emma had compensated for her shitty, ineffectual wind-blasts by learning to compress the power into a coherent “lance” which hit its target with more focus, velocity and higher-density energy. Not a bad idea. But the problem was, fundamentally, she was still blasting them with air.
Now gasses moving at high speeds could be plenty deadly, she seemed to recall something about mach twenty vapour-jets cutting through modern tank armour pretty well, but they were also gas. They lost energy fast, dispersed naturally. Emma had tired herself with the two lances she’d fired off in such quick succession- a good hint already, she had limited “mana”- and she suspected that was due to her needing to continuously supply energy and power the beams to avoid them simply breaking up in the air.
And even doing that, their impact would be limited by velocity, which was itself reduced by whatever drag forces countered them. Those drag forces would do much more for faster, lighter materials.
Emma was a clever girl though, or at least Emma had always thought so, and she got to thinking up a new idea.
She started by building more energy in her arm, this time opting for heat. It felt different than raw kinetic energy, though not in a huge way. After a moment, Emma turned her focus to compressing it as she’d learned to do already. Then she blasted it out.
This time, her stream of energy was a great deal quieter, and a great deal brighter. She watched, blinking, as it streaked through the air and smacked into a boulder jutting up from the ground nearby. A quick flash of light, a rush of air, and when Emma looked back the rock was…
Fine, pretty much. Glowing a bit, cherry-red across an area maybe twice the size of a human torso. Well that was fine. She could add more energy by spending longer to build it up, what was important was she’d gotten herself a useful attack that took less than a lunch break to charge up. Emma almost hoped she got jumped by another cyclops, just to test it out in combat.
Soon, she started hoping for food instead.
Emma was, clearly, an idiot. It was the only explanation for her just giving away her damned rations like that because…What, some giant moron had looked sad at her? Ugh. She’d have marched back and snatched them off of him if she hadn’t known it would add more to her journey than it took from her hunger.
Night came without eventfulness, and then day came too. Emma kept walking. Her feet were heavier now, limbs weaker, stomach growling with every step. She really, truly was a fucking moron. She deserved this.
But she wanted food anyway. Wanted it so badly she’d have begged for it, cried for it. Pissed herself for it- and all, even more remarkably, in a non-sexual way. God, she was hungry.
How can this be in my head?
The thought struck her like a sucker-punch, stunning Emma for all of a second before she gathered her bearings and banished it. How could it be a dream? How could it not. She found herself angry suddenly, angry at herself, at her own starvation-induced stupidity. This wasn’t fucking real, this was an imaginary, made-up fantasy land and Emma wasn’t going to even humour anything to the contrary. Couldn’t.
That sentiment kept her company for a while longer, but did nothing to alleviate the discontent.
When at last she caught sight of the town, Emma felt like she was staring at an angel. It was only Aexilica, though out of armour she had all the features Emma had always most admired in angels.
“Look me in the eye.” The woman told her, sighing.
Emma reluctantly obeyed.
“You succeeded then.” Aexilica noted. “Water started flowing again the day before yesterday.” Emma grinned at the acknowledgement.
“Yep, there was basically this-” Aexilica’s hand raised to cut her off.
“Save it. You did your job, you got the water back, and now the Priest wants to see you. Is demanding it actually, you need to be officially acknowledged by him to properly tie this all up.”
Emma glared at her. “I’m really hungry, can I not just-”
“No.”
“But just for a-”
“No.”Emma glared some more, and Aexilica sighed.
“You need to be addressed by the Priest, because until then you’re still an outsider and you’ve already outstayed whatever welcome would’ve been permitted to you on that grounds. Also, leaving the Priest waiting will piss him off, which is a guaranteed way to have your life ruined. You do this now, then I’ll…” She grimaced. “I’ll cook you up something after.”
Instantly Emma felt the grin return to her face.
“Thanks mommy!”
“If you ever call me that again I’ll beat you to death.” Aexilica told her. Emma decided not to call her it again.
They made their way to the pyramid- apparently the town’s temple- and Emma was reminded of just how many steps the thing demanded of everyone wishing to enter it. Her hunger-weakened body groaned in protest at each one, but she managed to bring herself up to the top and was soon stepping into the great stone structure. It was cool inside, so very different from the moist heat that seemed omnipresent everywhere else in Aethiq. Emma wasn’t left to enjoy the difference for long, however. In under a minute they were inside the main chamber.
Within, she found several figures. A short man of bronze, tattooed skin, black hair adorned by countless pieces and several glass beads bound around him in wooden fixtures. Towering, muscle-bound figures lined the far walls, their chests bare and displaying physiques that actually competed with the hunger in weakening Emma’s legs.
Everything was solemn, serious, severe. Without delaying, Aexilica stepped forwards and took a knee. Emma mirrored her gesture.
“Priest Cinta, the foreigner known as Emma has returned successfully from her mission and requests the reward of citizenship under the Honoured Irethani within your great town.”
The Priest, the short man, turned his eyes away from her, and towards Emma.