Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Side Chapter: Coincidence

[Cuck]

The last thing it could recall before it was abruptly thrown out of the Galeboat’s bottom compartment was a loud crash, along with the deafening roar of a very angry fish. After that, things were a bit of a blur. Not figuratively, no. Literally. Like all small, inconsequential pieces of rubble, or in its case, resurrected poultry, it was swept away by something bigger. Not the hands of humans that had tried to eat it in its past life, but rather, a gale force wind that was accompanied by horrendous amounts of whirling dust.

It couldn’t do much about it, really. Not that it had the capability to decide whether to do something in the first place. It was about as smart as a rock. An especially dumb rock, at that. A rock that would only move when given orders. One that was made with layers and layers of magic that kept the strands of its soul within tightly wrapped up, connected with a single creator. It was hardly a rock actually, now that the comparison had come up. That would’ve been ridiculous.

Cuck was a skeletal chicken, after all. It wasn’t a rock. There was a very big difference.

It wouldn’t know of that either, though. Its mental processing capabilities were solely devoted to thinking about nothing until it was given something to think about by its master. And so, in that thoughtless state, Cuck let the currents of air carry him wherever it pleased.

Time passed like the slow, irritating ticking of an old clock, and whether it be through luck or misfortune, the Maelstrom in the center of the Sandsea had yet to eject Cuck out of its orbit. It had been swirling about in the storm of sand and dust for over a month, and yet, it had yet to show any signs of boredom. It would’ve been quite the feat, had it been capable of feeling boredom in the first place. It wasn’t. So, the achievement was merely downgraded to an occurrence, another day in the life of a chicken raised from the dead.

Really, the experience would’ve been enough to drive anyone insane, spinning incessantly like that. Not if hunger killed them off first, that is. Fortunately and unfortunately, Cuck was capable of neither of those. It was merely capable of spinning—an act that didn’t even require it to think or move of its own volition.

It really was quite convenient.

Another day passed, and its form was already showing heavy signs of wear, a result of the sand battering against its body from all directions twenty-four hours a day. It was torture, having sand splash all over it like that. If it had breeches, it would already be screaming about all the sand inside of them. Not that Cuck could scream, of course. It could cluck, though. It just had to wait for orders.

They didn’t come. It kept spinning. If it had been another person in the same situation, they would have thought that the spinning would go forever. It didn’t.

Something changed.

A stray current of wind abruptly picked Cuck up, and like an anarchist in a city of uptight suit-wearing rich people, it crashed against the tide, throwing everything into chaos. Suddenly, Cuck wasn’t spinning anymore.

It was going up.

Cuck rose higher and higher, its weathered, sanded form ascending past the incessant loop it had been forced to live in for over a month. As if the pressure was building, it only rose faster, faster, faster until—it stopped. The rogue wind had disappeared. The rebels had fallen. The anarchist had conformed. Cuck began to fall.

The descent was almost slow, in a way. Compared to the speeds it was going at for so long, it seemed almost comical how much slower falling was. Maybe it was due to how light it was. Cuck wouldn’t know, however. It was just a chicken. A dead one. The world had resigned it to a fate it couldn’t choose for itself.

It mattered not however, as no wind picked it up. It fell through the eye of the storm, and the calmly sitting sands beneath greeted it from below as it fell. Perhaps that would’ve been the end of the chicken. Perhaps it would have finally set the inconsequential parts of its soul free to dissipate back into its base form—mana. However, just as it fell down, a low drone swept past the entirety of the Sandsea once. The sands themselves seemed to hum in response, and the entirety of the desert’s monster population momentarily stirred. All eyes locked into one direction, a single thought in mind.

Ortena. The Crawling Canyon—The Matriarch of Insects had just let loose a low roar. Nearly soundless, but seemingly of substance, it had roved through the entirety of the desert as if to tell it of something.

Regardless of this, Cuck continued to fall. It would die today. At least, that was its fate, until through another occurrence of luck and misfortune, an invisible thread of magic in its body hummed. The ground opened up below.

Like a single mouth, a small hole opened up in the center of the Sandsea. Through the hole was a world full of bright fiery lights, and the beautiful glow of a million blue stones engraved upon the walls of a dark, cavernous earth. The undead chicken only glimpsed it for a moment before it fell through the hole—swallowed by the unknown.

Everything went dark.

In another place at the same time, an old elf violently cursed at an altar, and the single, lifeless orb that rested against it. Beside him, a man of crimson scales and claw stood, marveling at the form of a beautiful red blade. It couldn’t matter less to Cuck, really. It was just an unfortunate little chicken. The two events were probably entirely unrelated. Something akin to a terrorist attack occurring at the same day as a family’s reunion dinner. Coincidence. Nothing more, nothing less.

But sometimes, coincidences had a way of changing things in unbelievable ways.

Coincidence brought certain new arrivals to worlds that weren’t their own. Coincidence brought people together—specific people that were hard to meet in a world so massive. Coincidence had created Cuck. Coincidence put them in the face of an undead horde. Coincidence had caused a tiny little chicken to save them. Coincidence had earned them the ire of a reputable wanted criminal, and it had earned them a trip to one of the most dangerous places in the entirety of the Sandsea. And Cuck was there for it all.

And now, coincidence had given it another treat. It had bought it just enough time for something to disrupt the balance of the spatial connections between worlds of the Playground of the Gods. It had given it a connection to the cause, and it had landed it in a place where everything was just right. Where everything was correct. Where the gaps between worlds were thinnest. Perhaps it wasn’t coincidence after all, but fate.

Cuck had fallen through a hole, and the next thing it knew, it was in another goddamn dimension. If it wasn’t fate, then it was just horrible, horrible luck. But then again, the two might not be so different either. Like a limp doll, Cuck descended.

It fell, and just before it shattered onto the glass floor of a room overlooking a cloud of vague lights and misty vapor, a hand caught it, and the magic rippled, dampening the force of its fall. It was turned over, and the hand grasped it firmly on its back. Cuck blankly gazed up at the figure that had caught it. A man with crimson eyes and obsidian skin looked down on it, grinning.

“You were right, Slayh. Something interesting was going to happen in the Eye,” the man said, looking up at the roof, where Cuck fallen down from.

“My magic never lies,” a large figure said. He was hunched, enshrouded in shadows. Even through it all, his head was still as eye-catching. Golden eyes glinted in the dark, and the rows of sharp teeth in his mouth glistened with saliva.

“I know it doesn’t,” the obsidian-skinned man said. “I was expecting to walk into Grizelda trying one of her new toys on another poor Chosen, but I wasn’t expecting this quaint little thing to fall through from a spatial tear.”

“The time is close, Sieth.”

“It is,” the man laughed. “The gap has finally closed again, and it will only come closer from now. We must hurry.”

“Should I order an attack?”

“No. That is a last measure. Our allies won’t be able to cover up or brush it off if we act so rashly. Double the efforts in acquiring the god-touched. I will handle the rest.”

“Understood,” the shadowy figure nodded. “The Dark One awaits.”

“Yes,” Sieth replied, staring down at Cuck. “Thank you for warning us of this early, little abomination. Because of you, we will have adequate preparations. The Dark One is coming, and months from now, when the gap has thinned to a paper-like state, we will poke a hole through with his power.”

“Freedom,” the large figure’s golden eyes glinted.

“Freedom,” Sieth repeated, tasting the word as if it was a delicacy. He looked down at Cuck, and with a final smirk, black and white flames devoured the small skeletal chicken, reducing it to dust. Sieth let it fall, and before the dust even hit the ground, it was gone, erased from existence.

He began to walk. “Call in the others, Slayh. There is much to be discussed.”

Sieth took another step, then suddenly paused, body locked in place. Slowly, a savage grin rose up to twist his handsome face. His shadowed companion paused.

“I hear him,” Slayh said.

“As do I,” said Seith.

“My connection to the lord is not as close as yours,” the shadowed figure said. “It is frustrating, being able to only hear his whispers—unable to tell his words from wind. What did he say?”

Seith opened his mouth to reply, when suddenly, a small, quiet voice echoed through the entire cult. His skin prickled at the sound, each sinister syllable innocent in its own way. The voice was a hum, a gentle chorus, and a cacophony of noise all at the same time. When the sound stopped, however, all his followers knew what had just been said. The Dark One had spoken, and he had spoken only a single word, sweet and enticing:

Freedom.