Chapter Two Hundred Fifty-Eight: 'A walk in the Dark...'

Everything was truly black now. Hector couldn't sense a thing. No Abbas. No Rasalased.

Even his own soul was questionable. Was he still here? Where WAS here, even?

The world rose up all around him, ascended from the seemingly infinite pit below him. All within a few moments.

He was outside. In a field. A thin, ethereal fog covered everything, making him feel like he had to squint.

Ah, he could feel his body again. Or could he? The fog covered his own hands, he noticed. Like the fog was part of him. Or he was part of the fog.

Hmm.

Well, this was a new experience. This place felt somehow familiar, but he couldn't tell why. It was just an empty field. A forest in the distance.

Was the Forge showing him this? And if so, why?

A figured melted into existence in front of him. Once it was fully formed, though, it appeared more real and lively than he did.

He'd never seen clothes like those before. The ornamentation on them was elaborate, lined with silver and bright crimson, and yet there was still something primitive about them, too.

Hector was reminded of the vision that he'd seen with Pauline Gaolanet. This whole thing felt different than that, but not by much. And if this was a memory from the Forge's past, then was that an ancient person standing there in front of them?

It was just a guy. In a field. Looking around.

Hmm.

Not very informative.

Then the figure melted out of existence, but only briefly. He reappeared a few feet away, crouched down this time, seemingly to inspect the ground. Then he disappeared again, only to reappear another few feet away, now with shovel in hand, digging.

The hole expanded quickly as the figure kept flickering in and out of existence around it.

A time lapse, Hector supposed.

The hole grew deeper and more narrow as the man worked. Hector stepped closer to the edge for a better look. The figure's clothes kept changing between flickers, as presumably the days also were. Weeks or more must have passed by the time the man finally set his shovel down.

And the hole was enormous now. Big enough to fit an entire house, certainly. Maybe even two.

The flickering didn't stop there, though. The man kept blinking in and out of existence, only this time he was almost always on all fours with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in the dirt, sometimes elbow-deep. And the dirt itself was gradually changing, too, turning a darker, richer brown color. Where before it had been hard and riddled with rocks, now it was beginning to look quite soft and even.

Hector observed the stranger's work with increasing interest. Could this be the Forge's creator? Agrian?

He tried to get a better look at the guy's face, but the constant teleporting made it surprisingly difficult. The dude seemed to have a receding hairline and a pudgy face, along with a scowl permanently etched into it.

The vision slowed down to a normal speed, and just as Hector began to wonder why, a new figure appeared at the edge of the hole.

This one was more finely dressed, with a chiseled jawline and perfectly coiffed blond hair. He said something in a language that Hector didn't understand, but Agrian, who was still toiling away in the dirt, ignored him. The man said something else and began laughing.

That clearly got under Agrian's skin, as he stopped working, and Hector could see his shoulders trembling. From the back, it might've appeared like he was crying, but looking at his face, no, that was anger.

Rage, actually.

Agrian didn't do anything, though. He went back to work, and the stranger went away.

Hmm.

Hector supposed he didn't need to know exactly what had been said in order to get the gist of what was going on here. The vision sped up again, and Agrian's work leapt forward. Seeds were planted; the hole was filled; and a tiny tree sprouted forth.

Once it was growing, he seemed to be monitoring it constantly, watering it and continually tending to the soil all around it.

Then Hector noticed that all of the grass around it died, leaving only dry, cracked earth. Even in the distance, the forest was brown and dwindling, with dozens of trees fallen over or momentarily on fire.

Hector worried for a second that the growing Forge might've been the cause of all this, but as he watched Agrian trying to shield the sprout from a punishing sun, watering it constantly, even hunching over it with his own body after the tent he erected blew away in the wind, Hector changed his mind.

Even after the apparent drought ended and greenery returned to the rest to the area, Agrian's trouble only seemed to worsen. He started working on some sort of cabin or primitive shelter, presumably to take up permanent residence next to the sprout, but before he could finish it, the thing went up in flames.

Hector spotted a group of unknown figures in the background, all carrying weapons. They were gone before he could discern much else about them, and only Agrian remained, covered in blood as he sat cross-legged, apparently meditating in front of the sprout.

He built another shelter. This one lasted a bit longer before being struck by lightning and going up in flames, too. So he built still one more shelter, this one even more primitive than the first two, probably because he didn't expect it to last very long, either.

And the vision slowed down again, showing Hector a scene of the man holding back a literal flood. He'd raised giant walls of dirt and rock in a big circle around the sprout and wooden hut, but the water was so high that some of it was still splashing over the top.

Hector spotted the blond man again, high in the sky this time, just hovering there and watching the scene unfold. Not lifting a single finger to help. And smiling wide, too.

That particular sight was enough to make Hector wonder if that blond dude was somehow the cause of all this crazy weather.

The vision sped back up again, and the insanity continued. Windstorms. Another drought. Hail the size of baseballs. Lightning crashing down in huge clusters. A dozen tornadoes. More flooding. A fucking earthquake.

Even as he watched it all happening with his own two eyes, Hector still wasn't sure how the sprout was surviving so much shit.

And it was all back-to-back, too, Hector noticed. If they were talking about a span of like two thousand years or whatever, then yeah, sure, all this stuff was bound to happen sooner or later, but the sprout was still barely up to his waist. He may not have been a botanist, but didn't that mean that all these disasters were taking place within like five years of one another or something?

The vision slowed again, this time on a raging wildfire. The forest in the distance was already consumed, lighting up the the entire horizon. The grass was alight, too, and the flames were approaching quickly.

Until they weren't.

The vision slowed too much, perhaps. Everything was reduced to a crawl. Flames mid-flicker. Smoke mid-billow. Countless glowing embers wafted in place, as if stuck in glass. There was one right in front of his face, and Hector couldn't help reaching out to try and touch it.

His fingers phased right through it. No surprise there, he supposed. Super weird and kinda awesome, but no surprise. He wasn't actually here, after all.

How trippy, he thought. The world in slow motion. A raging inferno, too.

Hmm. He didn't know what else he could do here other than admire the spectacle. Why had the vision slowed down so much? This seemed a little excessive. Was the Forge trying to show him something that was particularly fleeting?

He looked carefully, but nothing looked all that strange, really. Agrian was there. The sprout was there. And the flames all around. He couldn't even see the blond dude around, this time.

After a spell, however, he heard a new noise. The vision had sounds of if its own, but they'd all slowed down so much as to become a kind of low, background hum at this point.

This new sound did not belong. While the world remained slow, this sound was much more recognizable to his ears--in terms of speed, at least. He couldn't fully place what it was, though. Maybe like a combination of cloth ripping and glass tearing. Repeatedly.

Then a dark hole appear in front of him. Several of them, in fact. All in midair.

Was the vision breaking down, Hector wondered? He sure hoped not, because he had no idea how to fix it. But hmm--Rasalased had mentioned something about a "retelling" being "strenuous" for the Forge, hadn't he? Was this what he'd meant?

Agh. So confusing.

The holes in the air kept growing. And distorting. Seemingly bending space--or the image of space, perhaps--around them.

Until at length, pitch black hands began reaching out of them.

And at that sight, Hector could only gape.

Inhuman figures emerged from their dark depths, crawling out like spiders with too-few limbs. They flopped onto the ground in mushy heaps, writhing there in apparent silence. Their forms were so strange that Hector's eyes had a hard time holding onto them. They seemed to have arms--kind of --but where were their heads? Or their torsos, even? In one moment, they looked vaguely humanoid, and in the next, they looked more like a pile of black sludge.

Not entirely unlike a worm of the Undercrust, he thought.

But not entirely like them, either. He could sometimes catch sight of horrified faces buried buried beneath their dark, slimy flesh, as if people were trapped inside their bodies, struggling to get out.

What in the fuck was happening here? How were these things involved with the wildfire?

The vision began to speed back up again, but only to real time. The inferno came alive in all its terrifying fury. Hector could feel the searing heat and smell the choking smoke as well as if he were actually there.

Agrian and the sprout were only a few steps away, and the illusion was so complete that he almost felt as if he might actually be able to go over and touch them. Maybe his hand wouldn't simply phase through the image this time--or at least, that was what his impulses were telling him.

He kept a solid grip on his faculties, though, trying to pay attention.

The weird slime monsters were creeping closer, seemingly unbothered by the flames.

Agrian slapped the ground with both hands, and a massive tidal wave of dirt flew up in the distance, blanketing half the fire on the horizon in an instant.

Hector was amazed, but within moments, the flames had somehow returned. And for some reason, Agrian didn't seem to notice the inhuman abominations coming his way, either.

Man, this looked bad. Hector wished he could help. He wondered how the hell Agrian was going to get out of this shit.

And damn, this heat was crazily realistic. He knew from firsthand experience. On many occasions, he'd been this close to a raging fire--typically whenever Garovel had led him to a burning building while out on patrol--and it felt exactly like this.

The Forge really knew how to create convincing illusions, didn't it? Well, fire was apparently its specialty, after all. It made sense.

...Right?

As he continued watching the scene unfold in real time, he couldn't ignore the growing question in the back of his mind.

This was all an illusion, wasn't it?

Obviously, the Forge didn't have the power to send him back in time or some shit. That wouldn't make any sense. It'd cause one of those paradox things that would destroy the fabric of the universe or whatever.

Admittedly, he wasn't exactly an expert on this stuff. His certainty waned by the moment.

Because, even if it made no logical sense to him... what if, somehow, it was real? And he ended up just standing here like a stupid asshole, gawking the whole time?

Agh.

Just as a test, he tried putting his hand out and summoning an iron javelin to skewer the closest slime monster.

No iron materialized.

The monster, however, still recoiled and shriveled away from him as if it had been hit.

Hector looked at his open palm, even more unsure of what had just happened than ever. An iron javelin probably wouldn't have been enough to repel the monster like that. It would've just stuck into it like a pincushion, probably.

So did that mean his iron was working differently in this place? Or was this just some other kind of power entirely? Granted to him by the Forge for this vision, perhaps?

Or maybe this was all him. The effects of Domain. Or Focus. Or the Supreme Will. Or whatever.

He didn't have the luxury of standing around and mulling it over, unfortunately. The monsters were multiplying, he noticed.

Their sludgy bodies quivered grotesquely before splitting apart--but the strangest thing was that they didn't seem to lose mass when doing so. Not like those worms from the Undercrust did. It was more like these things were making up straight up clones of themselves. And some were starting to walk on too legs, raising their arms up toward Agrian.

And toward Hector, too.

Agrian was still busy working on suppressing the flames, throwing dirt around like a dark ocean against a stubborn, burning coastline. Whether he'd noticed the monsters--or could even see them in the first place--Hector couldn't yet tell.

Hector attacked with his "iron" again. This time, he tried to imagine something more effective against sludge than a javelin. A big iron cylinder with, hollow inside to keep the sludge contained, but also with a perfectly-fitted block shooting down through it from the top.

A kind of makeshift hydraulic press, was what he was going for.

Instead, the chosen monster simply splattered apart like it had been hit with a bomb.

Hector blinked as black goo flew everywhere, even making it all the way over to him and hitting him in the face.

One surprise after another. So he could actually feel that, too? He wiped the slime off with his other hand, glad that not much had actually flown this far.

Agrian had been hit by it, too, and had stopped what he was doing to look around. Yeah, okay. He was definitely noticing the sludgy abominations now. And as he was looking around, his eyes suddenly stopped.

On Hector.

Oh.

Okay.

So this was happening now.

The surging flames reacquired both of their attentions. The creeping monsters weren't far behind in that regard, either.

Another tidal wave of dirt doused the entire western horizon, and Hector wondered if he might be able to accomplish anything remotely similar with this weird new power.

He put his hand toward the eastern horizon and imagined a tidal wave of iron blanketing all the fire there.

And... to his own amazement, it actually worked. The flames vanished in seconds, as if the oxygen had been sucked right out of the atmosphere or something.

Then a row of rock pillars sprang out of the ground, surrounding every abomination at once. They began trying to squeeze through, and then the pillars all connected to each other with nets of spikes, shredding the monsters like so much cheese.

And Hector was in awe again. There'd been dozens of them mere moments ago, and now they were little more than piles of trembling goo on the ground. Maybe Agrian didn't need any help, he thought.

Until, that was, he saw the fires that Agrian had just put out flare up again. Hector put it out for him with a simple wave of his hand. Then he turned, expecting to see the eastern horizon alight again also, but... it wasn't.

What the hell, man?

Well, whatever. He suppressed the flames to the north and south, too, feeling a bit like some sort of fire god all of a sudden.

Smoke still filled the area, making it obnoxious to breathe. Hector could see the scattered piles of sludge struggling to regather themselves. They weren't succeeding, though. Agrian's earthen cages were maintaining a solid grip on them.

The danger seemed to have passed.

Wow.

If only all his battles were this easy, Hector thought.

Agrian turned toward him again, sizing him up. The man said something, but there was no way in hell Hector could understand whatever language that was. Nykeirian, maybe? That was the language the books in the tree had been written in, right?

Boy, a reaper sure would've come in handy right about now. Hector wondered how Garovel was faring through all of this.

The vision began to speed up again.

It accelerated much faster this time, judging by how fast the sprout was growing now. And the natural disasters seemed to stop, too.

Hmm. Yeah, they probably hadn't been very natural at all, had they? But why'd they stop? He had a feeling that it wasn't because of his intervention. Maybe the blond dude had died in some distant country or something and therefore left Agrian alone, finally.

Hector could see him doing something to the sprout as it continued to grow. He placed some kind of bulbous orb in the middle of it, which seemed pretty weird until Hector realized what was happening.

The trunk of the sprout gradually expanded outward, around the orb. And Agrian kept replacing the orb with wider and wider ones, until finally he placed a big, wooden slab there.

This must've been how he'd managed to create such a huge room in the middle of the tree without killing it. He hadn't dug all that space out after the fact. It had been hollow from the beginning.

Watching Agrian work was kind of amazing, Hector felt. Seeing the tree take shape, knowing what it would eventually become--he couldn't pull his eyes away.

Well, he was a sucker for construction, too, so maybe that factored into things a bit.

By the time the vision slowed down again, the sprout had grown into a full blown tree--not quite the gargantuan one that Hector had come to know in the modern day, but still pretty damn impressive. And the room that would contain the Forge had finally finished taking shape, too.

Agrian was already working on the Forge, as well. The base was about halfway complete, which was somewhat surprising in its own way, Hector thought.

The base of the Forge was just a big stone slab--or that was what it had looked like, at least. But at this incomplete stage, Hector could see a cluster of living roots inside it, seemingly pulled up from underground. Agrian was pouring a murky, dark green liquid in there, too, and as he did, the roots therein began to flex and glow with an ethereal white light.

That kind of light was familiar, Hector thought--specifically, because it wasn't touching its surroundings. It was like the way that reapers could glow in the dark without actually lighting up anything around them.

After he finished pouring, Agrian started doing something to the stone. Touching it all over. As if giving it a massage or something.

Pretty weird, but at this point, Hector had expended just about all of his bewilderment. Honestly, he felt like nothing else about this vision would be able to surprise him. He was prepared to just accept whatever crazy shit happened next and roll with it.

That notion was soon proven wrong, however, when he watched Agrian take a break from his work and step outside the tree, perhaps for a breath of fresh air. There, he witnessed a new figure approach Agrian.

A hulking, feathery figure.

It was a Sparrow, Hector saw. It looked at once familiar and strange to him. Familiar, because at a glance, he could've absolutely mistaken it for Hanton or Pauline Gaolanet. And strange, because he began to notice many subtle differences.

Its huge body was still quite plump and round, but its plumage was noticeably sharper. Not so soft and fluffy. The overall color was similar as well, aside from a slightly more golden tinge.

And the head. A cluster of feathers protruded from its temples, almost like a crown, fluttering with each movement the bird made.

The real question, though, was if its telepathic abilities were any different. Hector still remembered what Rasalased had told him about Wrobels being "the worst of all possible enemies."

Were these the ones he'd been referring to? And for Ras to have said that, just how powerful had these guys been?

Agrian did not appear surprised by the bird's sudden presence. They faced one another for a long time, with only Agrian saying anything aloud.

Hector couldn't help wondering why he was being shown this scene in the first place. Did the Forge expect him to understand what they were saying? Even when half the conversation wasn't coming through the vision, and the other half was in a language he'd never heard before today?

Hmm.

Maybe he should try talking to the Forge again himself, Hector decided. "Hello?" he said aloud.

His voice carried no weight, however. He felt it in his mind, but it was like the sound didn't reach his ears. Not the like the sounds of the vision were.

Ah, wait, had he not put enough willpower into it or something? He tried again.

"Candle," he said aloud. "Hello? Can you understand me?"

That was better. The sound definitely carried that time.

How weird.

The vision stopped, as if the entire world had been put on pause.

Then arrived those rhythmic pulses that he'd heard before, the ones that Rasalased had been conversing with.

He still had no idea what they were saying, but hey, it was something. It meant that the Forge had heard him, at least--perhaps even that it had understood him.

Maybe he could work with that.

"I'm sorry," said Hector. "I can't understand what you're saying. Can you understand what I'm saying?"

More unintelligible noises.

Hmm.

"Uh... Okay, let's try this. If you can understand me, then beep once for yes, twice for no."

There came a period of silence. Then a single beep.

Holy shit, Hector thought, exhaling an amazed laugh. What the fuck, that actually worked? He felt like he'd just made contact with an alien species or something. "O-okay, well, uh..." Shit, he could start asking it all sorts of questions now. Where to start?

His eyes fell upon the motionless Agrian. Maybe they should start off easy. Confirm a few things. He pointed at the man. "Is that Agrian?"

Two beeps arrived.

Hector blinked. Wait, what?

He needed to ask that again. "That man there," he said, pointing with more fervor this time, "the one who worked so hard to keep you safe, is that Agrian?"

Again, there were two beeps.

Oh shit...

Hector rubbed his forehead, suddenly having to rethink everything he'd just seen--and partially lived through. If this dude wasn't Agrian, then who the hell was he?

Agh. Didn't seem like he'd be able to ask anything other than yes or no questions here.

He wondered if the others were having better luck than him. The Forge was probably showing them similar visions, right? So maybe they were way ahead of him in terms of communicating with it by now.

Oh well. No point in worrying about any of that right now, Hector supposed. He needed to focus on what he could do--just in case this opportunity to learn more about the Forge didn't come around again, for some reason.

"This man here is your creator, isn't he?" asked Hector.

One beep in the affirmative.

"...So is that why you don't like the name Agrian's Candle, then? Because it gives credit to the wrong person?"

Another lone beep.

Aha.

But then there two more beeps arrived.

"What? Did you just say yes and no?"

A single beep.

Hmm. What could that mean? Yes and no...

Needed more information. Coming up with more questions like this was kinda tough, because he kept thinking about all the things that didn't have a simple, one word answer.

But hey. Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. This was an artifact of untold power, apparently capable of creating enormously elaborate visions. It didn't necessarily have to answer his questions with words, now did it?

"...Can you show me who the real Agrian was?" he asked.

Another affirmative beep arrived, and the vision sped forward. The tree grew to even greater heights, and the Forge was nearly complete.

But something had definitely happened in the intervening years. The images had flashed by so quickly, but Hector was sure that he'd caught a glimpse of some crazy shit in there. Lots of fire or something. He'd have to go back and check on that afterwards, if possible.

In front of him, he saw a man standing under the tree. His back was to Hector, but that wasn't the first thing that Hector noticed.

The tombstone was.

Hector stepped closer for a better look, unsure what to expect. The tombstone had an inscription on it that he couldn't read, but as he circled around the guy, he was surprised to see a familiar face.

It was the same blond dude from before, the one who'd seemingly been harassing the Forge's creator.

And Hector looked, but no one else was around. So this asshole was the real Agrian, then? He'd kinda suspected as much. What he hadn't expected, though, was the expression on the guy's face.

He almost looked like a different person. Not quite older, exactly, but definitely more haggard, like most the life had been drained out of him. The smug smile that had seemed a permanent fixture on his face before was nowhere to be found now.

And actually, Hector could see that he was crying.

Damn.

Hector's gaze fell to the tombstone. He couldn't read the inscription on it, but he had a pretty good idea who it must've been for. He just wished he'd gotten the poor guy's name. Maybe Rasalased or Abbas would be able to tell him later.

But the Forge wasn't yet complete, Hector recalled. And the only one here now was Agrian, who seemed to be pretty torn up about the original creator's death. Did that mean...?

As the vision began to speed up again, Hector saw Agrian lingering around the tree for many days. Months, maybe. The man just seemed to be examining everything closely. Hector wasn't sure what he was doing until Agrian finally set to work.

Perhaps he'd just been trying to understand his friend's creation this whole time.

Had they actually been friends, though? Hector had to wonder.

Hmm. Life could be weird like that, he supposed. Old enemies being future allies.

But wait a minute. Didn't this mean that Agrian still tried to name the Forge after himself? Even after all the shit the original guy went through?

It did, didn't it? Wow, so he really was an asshole, then. Hector had been prepared to give him a bit of sympathy, but now that was all dried up again.

But he supposed that did technically mean that the Candle had two creators. Hence the Forge's confusing "yes and no" answer.

The next question on Hector's mind was whether or not this Forge had ever actually seen any use. If Agrian had finished it but also fucked it up by naming it improperly, then had Agrian even been able to make anything with it? Had the thing ever been turned on, for that matter?

As he kept watching, he was a bit surprised to see that Agrian had indeed managed to create something.

Some sort of lantern, it looked like.

Hector lingered on the scene of him pulling it out of the Forge for quite some time. Apparently, the big glass orb could split itself open like an egg in order to let its contents be retrieved.

Even more than that, though, Hector was interested in the actual creation process. It looked like the base of the Forge functioned as a receptacle for materials. He saw Agrian tossing things in there rather haphazardly, chunks of metal and glass, rocks and oil, followed by a final topping of a melted, red hot material before closing it back up again.

And as Agrian worked, tree roots came up through the base, extending through the giant orb like tentacles as a warm glow appeared in the center.

Hector watched closely, asking the Forge to keep rewinding and playing the scene over and over for him.

As far as he could tell, it was the roots that were doing the heavy lifting here. They seemed to operate with fine motor precision, handling objects delicately, while Agrian merely held his hand to the glass and kept his eyes closed. They would sometimes grab two or more separate pieces out of the base and then wrap them in a wooden cocoon. The sphere's glow would then pulse more greatly for a period of time--maybe a few hours, maybe a few days--and then the cocoon would fall away, revealing its work. Either the previous pieces were now fused together as by welding, or they were completely different, as if blended entirely into one, new material.

Other times, the roots didn't bother with a cocoon. They molded things in front of his eyes, shaving away at metal as if it were no more resilient than a bar of soap. Or they would slot shaped pieces together--and not always successfully, either. He could see that it was a slow process, sometimes relying on simple trial and error.

That was probably the result of the user, though, right? Agrian looked like he was just standing there with his eyes closed, but he must've been controlling the roots with his mind.

All in all, it was hard not to be impressed. Being able to see the Forge in action for the first time was pretty amazing. He hoped Abbas was able to see this, too.

Overall, though, Hector figured that creating something would probably take a really long time, especially if the desired item was super complicated. Plus, Agrian had probably been more skilled with the Forge than Abbas currently was.

Yeah. He should keep a handle on his expectations here, Hector felt. Even with all this new information at their disposal, it would probably be a while yet before Abbas was pumping out any crazy artifacts of power.

But hmm.

There was obviously still plenty more to learn here. Not just about Forge, but about history surrounding it, too.

Thousands of years.

Thankfully, the vast majority of it probably involved the tree just sitting here, abandoned in an empty field. That would make going through and observing all the important parts a bit easier. Hopefully.

Regardless, Hector didn't intend to rush. As much as he wanted to get back to reality, he wasn't about to waste this opportunity. Rasalased seemed to have a habit of kicking him out of conversations prematurely, so perhaps Hector was a little more reluctant than he otherwise would be to let go of this treasure trove of historical details in front of him.

Hell, for all he knew, this whole vision trip could be a one-time thing. Perhaps after the Forge was fully functional, he wouldn't be able to communicate with it directly like this anymore.

He wanted to think that was unlikely, but then again, there was at least a good chance that Abbas would be using the Forge around the clock. And certainly, crafting items of potentially limitless value would take priority over future trips down memory lane like this.

So he took his time, wanting to get as much out of this vision as he could. Maybe that wasn't necessary, since the others were probably all learning way more than him, but eh. There was no harm in going the extra mile, he felt. That, and he was honestly just curious.

As thoughtful and careful as he was trying to be, however, he did not realize what he was getting himself into.