Chapter 36 - For the Record

“o wraith mother, queen of hunger,
stripped of flesh and bone

all devour, grow thy power
and make this land thy throne.”

- Ancient children’s rhyme

***

After retraining myself on when to summon  clothing and some light practice with it, I’m ready and able to move the  two of us in the same way, but for some reason she refused it and now  we’re just walking instead.

It will definitely be dark by the time we’re at my lair at this rate.

Nyx tilts her head at me and says, (Sure, but your bond is a whole lot less stormy now, isn’t it?)

And she’s right. While it’s sure not anywhere  near as sunny as it was before the whole angry rabbit and will beatdown  thing, at least that awkward pressure is gone.

Out of nowhere, she takes my hand.

***

After finally arriving at our night’s  destination, my paladin changes into her pajamas (manually, since I  haven’t had a chance to show her the dimensional storage trick Nyx  taught me) and excuses herself to Pearl’s room to quietly chatter. The  others still seem to be avoiding me, which is fine. It’s less time I  have to spend trying to avoid pitfall topics or social foe paws (I have  no idea why they call it that) as Abaris termed them.

Out of nowhere, I feel a pull from…  somewhere. Ah, it’s that thing the angry rabbit forced on me… it feels  like it’s trying to tell me something but – oh. I guess I’m on a rooftop  somewhere now.

(Yeah, pretty sure you just got dimensionally shifted here. I’ll give you one guess who by the way.)

I don’t need one guess, he’s sitting right in front of me.

And sure enough, the headmaster himself is  sitting cross legged. He appears to be floating an inch above the snow,  which continues to fall around us.

The expression on his face is severe, though not nearly as severe as the last time I saw him. And he simply watches.

“Uh… did you want something?” I ask, thoroughly confused.

“Reach with your senses, o foolish child,” his voice booms though his lips don’t move.

I shrug and then reach around me with True  Sense for signs of life around us, and find nothing. Huh. I activate  Will Detection as well, and again find nothing.

“Is this a dead plane?” I ask.

The old headmaster purses his lips, but his  voice booms again. “This was once a land of plenty. Life prospered, and  the humans and those like them gathered here to share in the bounty.  Blessed of the moon goddess, peace flourished. And then, something  came.”

I stay silent, taking in his words.

“Something that should not be, and indeed did  not live by the patterns laid out by the gods of old. Though this land  itself was one born of shadows, a shadow darker still spread its reach.  The living shadows of the land, born of the negative emotions of man,  grew envious of those of warm blood, bone, and sinew. And their envy  gave birth to an extant hunger and desire for destruction.”

The snow continues to fall around us. I feel  it settle on me in places, patches of piercing cold despite the already  cold and moonless night. And yet, it travels around my master, as though  he was surrounded by an air current.

“The gathering darkness drew toward itself  the shadows from which it was birthed, and by immersing them in its  will, bound them to serve. And so, the wave of shadows  broke upon the  shores of humanity, and claimed a full half of their number before it  was driven back. And yet it did not die, for what that does not live can  truly be slain?”

He takes a breath and exhales steam, then  turns his head to the starless sky as though looking for something in  it, something far away.

“Not many have heard this tale. Most of us  are long dead, but it is more relevant than you know. Far more relevant.  For you see, over a thousand years, the wave of shadows battered the  shore, and as all things, the shore did buckle. And with it, the spark  of life consumed. So was the end of The Shadowed Plane, and the birth of  The Husk. As it became, it was only good for foolish adventurers hells  bent on proving their mettle, or as a test of courage for those even  more foolish yet.”

The headmaster’s gaze glides down until it reaches me again, feeling as though it’s burning a hole into my core.

“Incensed by the destruction of her people  and her once home, the goddess of the moon descended in the form of her  beloved vessel and waged war with the full power of the night sky. And  though it was wet with the blood of those who do not bleed, while facing  the will that should not be, she fell. And though a god’s soul is as  eternal as the rest, it was yet taken into that will and subsumed the  same as her once beloved humans were. And so the will became eternal,  and its awareness grew. For the first time, it saw the other planes  surrounding the empty hellscape it had created, the spark of life  scattered throughout the cosmos, and it envied them. Although it  mercifully lacked the ability to travel between them.”

(He’s not kidding about this being unknown,)  Nyx interjects, (I haven’t heard of this one, and I’m… well, I’m not  young. And I’ve heard a lot of legends.)

“Some number of centuries passed, and  eventually the cycle of heroes began anew. And after some deliberation,  my then young master chose to free The Husk of its burden. And so we  traveled, and ourselves laid siege to the shadows manifest. And by a  carefully laid plan, we succeeded where the lady of the moon failed. And  the stillborn queen of envy was thereby bound to the will of a mere  human, and so the wave of shadows was scattered, banished to the corners  of the planes to lick their wounds and prey on the weak of body and  will.”

I blink, and I’m suddenly kneeling on a fine  carpet, with the headmaster towering over me. He is garbed in royal  furs, a heavily jeweled staff in his hand and a matching crown on his  brow. Around us stand pillars of marble, and ahead of us, a throne made  of bone and sinew. He levels the staff toward my face.

“You may have chosen to forget. That is the  right of those reborn, and one I will never deny. But I have not  forgotten you, nor will I. I will keep my vow to my master, the hero  Feldspar. And I will break that will of yours again, upon the same anvil  of destruction from which I drew my name, as many times as it takes for  you to learn your place.”

An identification result flares unbidden into my vision, glowing a flaming crimson.

[Eternal Overlord of Rabbits – Demigod of Destruction – Usurper of the Harvest]

My eyes shoot wide.

“We will start here. I won’t let you hide  what you did, or what you are.” He touches my forehead with his staff,  and I’m immediately wracked with the pressure of a star, crushing my  soul.

***

Some amount of time must have passed, but  I’ve finally regained consciousness. I’m on the rooftop again, along  with my master. I strain to call him my captor, but for some reason, I  can’t seem to… to…

(Compulsion,) my Assistant says.

I see.

The old man is sitting in the same place he’d  been when he first called me here. A lot of snow appears to have piled  up around me, as though this entire time I’ve been here and not in,  whatever weird audience chamber I’d been in.

“That is enough for now. I will call you here  no less than once a week for your retraining. In time, you will see  that we are no different, you and I, especially since you remain so bold  as to continue using the face you stole from her as your own.” He then  waves one hand as though dismissing a servant. “Begone.”

I blink, and then hit the ground at the foot  of my bed in a heap, followed by a pile of snow. My sudden arrival wakes  my paladin, who meets me with sword in hand before stopping and  resheathing it. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, it’s me.” I shake off the layer of cold and rise to my feet.

She looks at me for a moment before asking,  “Where were you? Abaris said he had a message from the headmaster about  night lessons…”

I sigh. “He took me to The Husk and told me a ghost story. And then he hit me on the head with a staff.”

She pauses and looks at me. For a split  second, I can see fear in her eyes as well as through our bond, though  she quickly controls it.

“What?”

“Your identify result. It changed,” she says quietly.

Wonderful.

“What do you see?” I ask.

“It says… ‘queen of hunger’, and ‘usurper of night’? And it’s red. ”

I pause. “Wasn’t it red before? I’m pretty sure I have a Title that made it red…”

She shakes her head. “It wasn’t, but it is now. What is a ‘true wraith’?”

Huh.

(Uh. Nemesis?) Nyx cuts in.

What?

(You should probably look at your Status.)

From what they’re both saying, I probably should, so I pull it up.

[Status]

[Name: Nemesis]

[Race: True Wraith – Queen of Hunger – Usurper of Night (She of Shattered Facets – Stolen Radiance of the Moon)]

[Domain: Control (Class)]

[Domain: Envy]

[Domain: Hunger]

[Domain: Night (Usurped)]

[SYSTEM: TYPE E – Level ??? – XP error/?0]

[Inherent Skills:]

    [Consume 17]

    [Control Spawn]

    [Create Spawn]

    [Mimic Lure 8]

    [Lesser Regeneration 0]

    [Planar Detachment 8]

    [The Ravages of Time 4]

    [Aura of the Unwound 5]

[Class: Adherent of Ananke (Initiate) – Level 0 – XP 300/1000]

[Class Skills:]

    [Blood Pact 1]

    [Dominate 6]

    [Prophet’s Voice 7]

    [True Sense]

    [Verum Corpus 6]

    [Will Detection 1]

    [Will Surge 0]

[General Skills:]

    [Dimensional Storage 4]

    [Identify 8]

    [Stealth 4]

    [Language]

        [Interplanar Common]

[Traits:]

    [Abyssal Hunger]

    [Bound Will]

    [Brand of Darkness]

    [Empty Vessel]

[Titles:]

    [Autophagic Cannibal]

    [Confluence of Envy]

    [Godslayer]

    [Planar Catastrophe]

    [Primordial Manaphage]

    [She Who Stole the Night Sky]

    [Stigma of the End]

    [Tool of the Origin]

    [True Hero’s Familiar]

Haaaa so. It’s going to take some time to process this. I take a breath and try to say some words of comfort for my wife.

“So, uh.  Maybe I’m supposed to be a ‘she’  after all and it's not just a human thing? Or at least I was in a past  incarnation I think.”

Stunned silence is my response. Well, and the sound of Nyx’s hands hitting her face.