CHAPTER MTB4 Ω 1

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SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [ERROR: REDACTED]

ADDENDUM NOTE: 1 week before the battle of Krimsim.

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A cool wind blew down the road, the susurrus of shifting leaves rising until it swallowed the soft steps of its wandering travelers. Although the nearby villagers all referred to the thoroughfare as a “road”, that was a generous term for a dirt path through deep woods. Still, it made for firm and easy footing, and the choice to travel its winding length was more for Jakom and Sabek’s benefit than Brae’ach’s, who could have just as easily walked through a mountain.

As the wind ebbed and nature’s whispers receded from their ears, their Hiwardian companion continued to ask the next of her many questions.

“You’re not a Delver, are you?” asked Sabek. Brae’ach had to move much slower to not inconvenience her stride, but walks of truth were not to be rushed. Nor were scouting missions.

“No,” said the titan. Jakom could tell he was speaking very softly, in a sense. Sabek was not an Avatar or United or any of the terribly powerful players Brae’ach spoke with most often. It was limiting to communicate by sound waves alone, but Brae’ach knew it was necessary for him as much as her. Jakom was somehow protected from the power of his normal presence, but no others were ever so favored.

“Are you a spirit?” asked Sabek.

“That is a big word,” said Brae’ach, pausing for another momentary breeze that hustled through the leaves. “I am not one of your ancestors. Nor, in fact, am I dead at all.”

Sabek turned to stare down the path ahead, and everyone continued walking. After a while, she asked, “What are you really looking for?”

“An Avatar,” said Brae’ach. Sabek’s expression hung for a moment, then fell with the hopes of a forthcoming explanation.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A part of the world that is out of place,” replied the volcanic man, “where the laws of nature move about their own.”

“That sounds pretty dangerous,” said Sabek. Her wrinkled brow and stern gaze bore that concern so clearly.

It was warming to see, Jakom thought, so very earnest a response. Perhaps in some sense due to their natural limitations, but nevertheless praiseworthy, was the simple and unadorned countenance of the common peoples. Without lifetimes of planning and scheming, reality-defining powers, or the direct guidance of Deific truth, the concerns of the common ego were writ plainly for all to see. In that, the common people had the advantage; you could always take them at their word.

“It is dangerous, you are correct,” said Brae’ach. “You cannot coerce a law of nature. It will do what it will do. But you can persuade it to act in your best interests.”

Sabek’s wrinkles deepened further as she considered Brae’ach’s words. “How do you do that?” she asked.

“Depends on the law, depends on your interests. In this case, this law is something of an old friend. Our history goes back a long, long way. While laws of nature are never truly your allies–they will work for anyone just as much as you–you could say this particular law of nature and I know each other and work well together.”

“You can converse with laws of nature?” asked Sabek. Brae’ach lowered his chin and paused for a moment.

“We are not supposed to,” said Brae’ach. “We are supposed to converse with the gods, who then direct the laws of nature. The laws themselves are not supposed to have agency.” Brae’ach sighed before continuing. “Thus are Avatars so dangerous.”

“Ah, it is a demon!” said Sabek.

“No,” said Brae’ach. “That is something else entirely, and often much worse. Avatars were and are not intentional.”

Sabek walked with furrowed brow for a distance, the ridgelines of her skin growing to yet new depths. Occasionally, Brae’ach would lift his head to look at the treetops, which were so vibrant in the waxing season with colors from across the painter’s palette. Several leaves fell with every gust that flowed through the trees, creating a soft rain of purples, reds, greens, yellows, blues, and browns.

“Why are you looking for this avatar?” asked Sabek.

“Astute,” said Brae’ach. “You did not assume it was merely friendly concern. Remember that Avatars are never your friends. Not yet, anyway.”

Sabek raised a corner of her eyebrow, but didn’t press for details.

“This particular Avatar,” Brae’ach continued, “is a concept that will allow us to stop the Delvers before it is too late.”

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“What?” said Sabek. “Stop the Delvers? Which ones?”

“All of them,” said Brae’ach.

Sabek searched for further interrogatives as she tumbled that concept around in her head. “What are they doing?” she asked.

“When was the last time you spoke to one?” Brae’ach asked in return.

“Oh, I, uh–” started Sabek. “One congratulated me on my garden when she came to talk to the foreman last week. Only the foreman really speaks with nobility.”

Brae’ach pointed through a patch in the trees at a distant mountain, black against so much nearby green. Even from this great and obscured distance, the sight was of clear devastation. Charred husks of once-mighty trees bent as though choking for air against a person’s-depth of ash.

Jakom had heard tales spoken in the nearby taverns as he and Brae’ach made the rare but occasional journey through a town, and it was said on windy days–which were common this far into the highlands–you could still see the smoke rising in plumes as the air brushed off thin layers of dust from the heaps.

“And what happened there?” asked Brae’ach.

“Oh, that was the inferno of ‘21,” Sabek answered, following his gesture, squinting against the sun. “A crazy fire erupted overnight and consumed the entire forest.”

“Do you know why it erupted?”

“For a while, they said it was a forest fire, but no one knew for sure.” Sabek studied the distant, mountainous scar. “I don’t believe any of that. I think it was a Delver fight.”

“Why would you think that?”

Sabek’s eyes returned to the road at her feet as she stepped across a small trough in the dirt path. “Because forest fires don’t take out entire mountains overnight, especially during the rain season,” she said with a shrug. “Those woods were soaked like everywhere else. There were a lot of folks from the capital here afterwards, too, and they were all hush-hush about everything. Doesn’t make sense for a regular forest fire.”

“Well,” said Brae’ach, “you are not wrong.”

Sabek frowned. “About which part?” she asked.

“And wise,” he said. “To answer your question, yes, it was a Delver fight.”

“I knew it,” she said, shaking her head at the ground. “They never said it wasn’t, but they went a long way not to say it was, either.”

“Surely someone from your community explored the area?” said Brae’ach.

“No,” said Sabek. “How could they? Delvers work for Central. They put up some kind of barrier, ain’t no one getting through that. Dervin and his bozo friends tried anyway, said it was like swinging a pickaxe at solid air. It made no sense.”

“That sounds frustrating.”

“I guess. It’s all just smoke and ash, anyway,” said Sabek as the dark mountain faded behind the trees, grown thick again as the travellers neared a large stream. “But they were fighting a monster, right?”

Sabek’s expression had grown skeptical, and Jakom appreciated the woman’s inquisitive nature. Delvers fighting other Delvers was very strictly regulated within the kingdom, and besides, it was nearly unheard of outside what amounted to little more than a glorified bar fight. It was natural to assume the Delvers wrought such devastation in an effort to protect, yet Sabek still questioned that assumption.

“I’m sure the Delvers thought they fought a monster,” said Brae’ach. “But they were greatly outmatched, much to their ignorance, and their destruction grew beyond what they could control in their increasingly escalating but equally futile attempts to subdue their foe.”

Sabek’s eyes widened. “You mean they lost?”

“Badly,” said Brae’ach. “They were spared destruction by something that drew the foe’s attention elsewhere.”

Sabek glanced back toward the direction of the mountain. “All of that, and they couldn’t beat it?” She turned back to focus on the massive man walking down the old dirt road. “What in the hells were they fighting?”

“Like I said earlier, Avatars cannot be coerced.”

Sabek opened her mouth to ask another question, but stopped. After a moment, she looked back at the mountain again and closed it.

“But coercion is what they are planning now,” continued Brae’ach. “Ever greater shows of force, ever greater bombs, ever greater destruction. This will continue until there is nothing left, because they will never give up trying to force the universe to bend to their will.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“It has happened before. Many times,” said Brae’ach.

Jakom expected the woman to probe deeper, as most others did, but she seemed to be satisfied with the answer. Rather than asking about the past, Sabek focused on the present with a different question.

“Why don’t they just try something else, then?”

“The source of their power is more sinister than they realize,” said Brae’ach. “It pushes them to become stronger and stronger, bolder and braver, for its own purposes. It is not in the nature of Delvers to relent.”

Sabek closed her eyes and shook her head. “That’s scary.”

“It most certainly is.”

The three continued walking as the sun slid ever closer to the horizon. The pale blue air turned to a faded yellow, then a crimson belt. Crickets started a short chirp, a slow response, then more and faster until a choir of insects was singing some elegant song Jakom didn’t have the ear for.

“I wonder how much the Delvers truly know,” said Jakom.

“The Delvers know enough to stop,” said Brae’ach. “And yet they don’t.”

Sabek drew her lost stare back to the igneous man striding so vast upon the soft forest road. The rushing sound of water, soft at first, trickled through the trees until the torrent of the river towered over the other sounds of the forest. The road curved and came to a stone bridge for ferrying travelers to either side.

Far down river, in the lush valley between their path and the mountain next door, Jakom could see a town that had been built around the water, full of various mills. A river of this strength would be a good source of power indeed.

“You plan to stop them?” Sabek asked.

“Yes,” said Brae’ach. “It will be a long and difficult journey, but they must be. They cannot be allowed to destroy everything again. There will not be any way back this time.”

“Wait,” said Sabek. “If the Delvers are stopped, what about those Avatars you said were so dangerous?”

“What they lack,” said Brae’ach, “they can never obtain. As long as they are here, they are miserable creatures. Instead of fighting them, I will give them what they want.”

“How?” asked Sabek. As they reached the center of the bridge, Brae’ach turned and looked at the mighty rushing waters that cascaded from the peaks above.

“They will build a dam to hold the river, but the rains will come and the dams will fail.” Brae’ach turned and pointed in an arc that traced down the outside of the foothills. “I will build a channel to persuade the river away so that it does not flood the town.”