Chapter 79

No Surprises

Valen paced back and forth, appearing angry, bitter, infuriated even. There was no rhythm of calm and collected man he appeared to be most of the time—his footsteps were frantic and quick and misaligned, and his eyebrows danced like worms, wiggling about, up and down. Sylas had just informed him of the newest ‘vision’—that there’d be another attack. As such, the latter understood the young Prince’s mood. Again and again, their little corner of the world was attacked.

“Why?! Just… why?!! What is so goddamn important about this place?!” Valen cursed out finally, fuming, his voice enamored with primal rage. “Again and again and again… will it ever even end?!!”

“…” Sylas remained silent, uncertain himself. He’d actually forgotten one of the first conversations he had with Derrek during the loop—the warning that Thralls usually ‘announced’ an even worse invasion that was to follow. He’d forgotten many things during that year and a half, he realized. Too many things, it seemed.

“How are they even going to attack?!” Valen, out of frustration, sat down and got up again, twice, actually, before resorting back to pacing about the room. “The entire castle’s buried under fifteen feet of snow! And human general even entertaining the idea of invading this castle midwinter would have been laughed to an early—and very forced—retirement!”

“Sit down,” Sylas said.

“But—”

"Sit down," he repeated once more, and the Prince, though reluctantly, obeyed and sat down, though his leg continued to dance—up and down, up and down, like a tick he couldn't stop. "Does it matter?"

“H-huh?”

“The dead—do they need a rationale to attack us?”

“…”

“Let me ask you—how do you see the dead, Valen?” Sylas asked. “To me, it seems that a whole lot—and not just you—see them as… people. Granted, very moronic people, but… people still.”

“… well, are they not?” Valen argued. “They are people—just dead.”

“Eh,” Sylas shrugged. “They used to be people, you could say. But not anymore. You can’t use ‘ay, any human general would have been laughed at’—of course they would have. But who would be laughing at the dead? And, more importantly, would they care?”

“…”

“Regardless of how they attack the place, it’s on us to defend it,” Sylas said. “Whether it’s buried underneath fifteen feet of snow or showered in perennial rain or submerged in the likes of heat which makes us all prance about naked. Besides, you’ve spent some time with Iun—by now, you should have learned that the dead… have their own world entirely independent of ours. Their own culture. Their own beliefs and ideals and what have you. Perchance, they know that we can’t defend as effectively while buried underneath all that snow, and they calculated that their drawbacks are lesser than ours. Who knows?”

“… ugh,” Valen grunted, rubbing his face for a moment. "I know, I know. It's still frustrating. Why?! Prior to this year, invasions were beyond infrequent. Yet, we're about to have our third in a few months of time. It's unprecedented!"

“Maybe the precedent is being set,” Sylas supposed aloud. “Besides, you’re acting as though you’ve forgotten what we’ve seen.”

“…” Valen quieted and slowly calmed down. Though bitterness was still evident on his face and in his eyes, at least he wasn’t throwing a tantrum still. “What do you propose we do?”

“What we’ve always done,” Sylas said. “But, we’ll have to deliberate—is it worth clearing up the snow up to the wall so we can use some of the artillery weapons, or barricade ourselves within the castle and meet them here? Now, that’s up to your and our dear Captains to decide.”

“I can’t imagine their reactions will be good,” Valen said. “We’ve only just settled down and had some peace and calm.”

Sylas agreed—it was frustrating. But he was certain that the current tale was decades, if not centuries in the making, and this was simply the story playing out. His arrival, the Shadows, the dead, all things coalescing within one, grand-spanning narrative. The issue was… none of them saw the ‘grand span’ of it—just the personal stories. The stories of heroics and the stories of loss, but all of them human.

Effectively blind, all Sylas knew was what he saw—though he could suppose a grand story being unveiled beyond the curtains of reality, he just saw and knew the bits and pieces. The attacks. The whispers. The uncertainties. The pain and horror of expectation.

“I’ll see if I can wring something out of Iun,” Sylas said. “In the meantime, we should start preparing. I don’t know when exactly they will attack. Just… that it will be soon.”

“Very well,” Valen nodded. “I will call for an emergency meeting and inform everyone. We shall talk after the fact.”

“Yeah,” Sylas nodded as the Prince put on the thick coat and departed.

Sylas didn’t wait in the room for too long either; putting on some heavy, leather garbs, he departed as well, oily-like lantern in hand, splitting the corridors and heading toward Ryne’s basement where he suspected Iun was. Though he was frustrated, he wasn’t worried—after all, they’d deflected two invasions thus far, and even if more Thralls showed up… they had Valen.

As he suspected, Iun was with Ryne—the boy was sitting in silence in one corner, closely observing the young girl who was studying talismans. She'd grown slightly, Sylas noticed, since he met her. Not by a lot, perhaps an inch or two, but as she was on the shorter side of things, to begin with, it was more noticeable. She’d also lost some of the color she had when they met, her skin turning slightly paler. It wasn’t strange, though. Nobody at the castle had even an inkling of pigment from what Sylas saw. The closest to ‘tanned’ anyone got was likely Dyn, but that was about it.

“How’s it going?” he interrupted the silence and asked.

“Not bad,” Ryne replied. “Damn, are you wearing your entire wardrobe?” she asked as soon as she saw him.

“Mock all you want,” Sylas said. “But the Prince isn’t nearly as generous with firewood with the rest of us as he’s with you.”

“W-wait, really?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“… ugh. Every time. Why do I still keep falling for it?” she asked herself more so than Sylas, yet the latter still felt compelled to reply quite seriously.

“Because you’re desperate?”

“…”

“Anyway,” seeing that he hit the nail at the head, perhaps a bit too much, Sylas quickly moved on. “I’ve got some bad news.”

“Do you ever bear any other kind of news?” Ryne sighed, putting the tools away, settling in the chair. “What is it now? Another attack?”

“…”

“…”

“… am I even needed anymore?” Sylas quizzed. “Stay in your lane, Ryne! I’m the Prophet here!”

“Ugh,” Ryne groaned audibly and bent forward for a moment, appearing disheartened. "Does it ever end? How are they even going to attack us?! We're buried under fifteen feet of snow!"

“Hey, that’s exactly what Valen said!”

“Because it’s the truth!”

“I don’t know,” Sylas shrugged, turning toward Iun. “I came down here to try and learn.”

“…” Ryne followed his gaze and focused on Iun as well, falling silent.

“I cannot say either,” the boy replied casually. “I was to achieve the victory. What comes after me… I am blind to it.”

“And it seems I shall continue to not know,” Sylas sighed. “I suppose we’ll just have to do what we’ve done every other time.”

“What is that? Prepare?” Ryne quizzed.

“…” Die and die and die… Sylas nodded, keeping the true answer to himself. Rather than leaving immediately, however, he sat down, taking off some of the layers of clothing as Ryne’s basement truly was warm. “So, what are you working on?” he asked.

“Iun looked at my runic characters and suggested some altering,” she replied, her excitement returning—though evidently dampened by the news. “Look here,” she pushed a palm-sized, brown, and stained parchment, characters written in black ink strewn about. "Do you recognize them?"

"… hmm," Sylas inspected the paper for a moment, kind of recognizing some of them. "These three? Maybe? I think that's 'ku’ character, right? Used as a binder?”

“Yes, yes,” Ryne nodded. “According to Iun, ‘ku’ is actually a derivative, a simplified version of an ancient character. This is not it, however,” she quickly added. “This is me just doing some experimentation. The actual character has about eighty lines.”

“… a single character has eighty lines?” Sylas asked, partly certain he misheard.

“It is a bit insane, I know.”

“A bit?”

“But the differences are massive!” she exclaimed. “You know how you have to break lines on the talisman into chunks, basically, since ‘ku’ can’t handle more than a single transition?”

“Yes.”

“The ancient character is different—all those chunks can be turned into a single grouping. As such, I can actually thin out the fat—I don’t need to write in the fade-ins and fade-outs, which themselves take up hours across all the different chunks. Not to mention that the transition of energy will be massively faster—it will be quicker to activate the talismans, and the effects would be, at the minimum, twice as strong. And that’s just changing one character! Iun also taught me alternatives to ‘lyt’, ‘bekt’, and ‘syt’ characters. Though each alternative adds about four hundred extra lines across the board, they’ll likely thin out the rest of the lines in thousands in the long run! This… this could change how talismans are written for everyone! Even my Master uses the current characters—though she doesn’t have to write nearly as many supporting lines as we do. If I can master these new ones and implement them naturally…”

“… you’ll be the wickedest Exorcist of them all?”

“Damn yes!” Ryne exclaimed once more, her voice high-pitched. She looked like an adventurer stumbling upon the treasure trove, her face alight with hope and future prospects.

“Are you ready to use them to create talismans for defense?”

“Gods no,” she quickly dismissed the idea. “Forget that my rate of actually making them is beyond abysmal, even the ones I did make so far have this very unfortunate tendency of… malfunctioning.”

“Oof. Better not, then.”

“Better not, indeed,” she said. “But, given time… I’m confident I’ll make it.”

“I’m sure you will,” Sylas shot her an encouraging smile and patted her. “You’re the most brilliant Exorcist we have, after all.”

“… I’m the only one we have, no?”

“Oi, what about me?”

“Really? Are we back at this again? The only place that would qualify you as an Exorcist is the one that’d be impressed with the existence of talismans themselves! Stop getting ahead of yourself! You are still years away from even being within the vicinity of consideration for an Exorcist.”

“See this?” Sylas turned to Iun. “She has no respect for her elders. Whatsoever.”

“…” Iun remained silent, tilting his head in confusion, clearly not knowing how to react to it.

“Stop dragging him into your little fantasy,” Ryne said. “And help me clean this up. I’m almost out of prepared papers so you should get on with making some. I’ll teach you the ancient ‘ku' character so we can practice together. Come on. Stop looking dumbly about and help me. We'll also need to start fashioning new talismans for the attack, and we'll…"