The Gold Thread of Destiny

The Past

"Luck always come in two parts, the good and the bad. When faced with a ruinous luck, cry to die or survive to thrive." -from First Principles by Ven Praxus, Founder of the World Bank

Sorrow replaced the hunger Wick had seen on the naiad's face only moments before.

In the beginning of their exchange, she seemed whimsical and alien, like a carefree child with the powers of a roaming god. Now, her demeanor was ancient and wise.

Her sudden change unnerved Wick. A fear rose in him he couldn't quite name. As she plunged a tendril of water toward him, he tried to take back his choice. He wanted more time to think about his answer. Something felt wrong and it was his fault.

"W-wait," he pleaded.

But it was too late. The deal was struck. Water enveloped his entire body. The river flooded into his mouth. He couldn't even scream.

Visions rushed through his mind. They came to him as if they were plays, but instead of watching them from the audience, he was on stage acting out the stories, and the stories were about him.

Beneath the terror of what was happening trembled an odd sensation. These stories were familiar to him. And yet, he had never seen them before. But he knew them the same way he understood every grain on the pluminwood of his spade.

The stories full of gold were glorious as they were terrible. Visions of Wick surrounded by people who adored him as much as they feared his power. A battlefield. Several of them. A friend dying in his arms. A monster of legend, malformed from desperate lives and grievous mistakes. Golems of both ancient and new designs. Rooms that changed every time he entered them. A white mask and a blind man who could see magic like complicated knots. The Labyrinth. Islands in flight from monsters beneath. A strange and terrible weight which tempted to break him. If he endured that weight, the pressure would only make him stronger. He needed to be stronger.

The stories of the red thread were as beautiful as the gold were mighty. Wick was older in these stories but young for what he had accomplished. A hero full of achievement and strength, but alone. Only she could heal that lonely wound with her light.

The woman filled his vision, and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Hair as bright-yellow as summer sun. A needle at her belt that smelled of green life and bounty. Her smile full and real, and it saved Wick. She was a kindness this world did not deserve.

Impossibly, she would love him. Him, the man whose ambitions raised all ships but doomed just as many to the storms barreling toward him. Her love would redeem him.

Wick reached out to the vision of the woman but saw only a glowing red thread floating in the water, just beyond his grasp. With the water in his lungs, he couldn't speak the words, but his lips formed them anyway. "No. Please."

The red string of fate untwisted itself, unraveling before him. Watching it hurt him more than the beating he had taken, pained him even more than his own father's death. He was a tree struck by lightning, forever charred and broken. Wick could do nothing to stop it.

All the visions of the future with her fell away from him like raindrops falling upward back into the sky. Those drops would not be for him. But the dread that ached his body for the woman lifted with each unraveling of the red thread.

Soon, he couldn't feel the dread anymore. What was he afraid of again? What was it he was trying to remember? A name? A face?

It was gone. It didn't matter.

The golden thread in him surged, and he could feel it down to his bones that the thread had first come from the glass amulet. He and the amulet were tied. The golden thread grew thicker, weaving together to fill the vague hole in his soul.

And just like that, he could feel his purpose. It had always been his purpose, but now it was clearer, more defined.

Wick wanted, needed. Money. Power. People. Land. Everything. Enough would never be enough. All would be his hoard.

The water pulled out of him, and Wick choked out the last drops. He fell on his knees at the side of the river bank, coughing and gasping for air.

His first full breath was more solid than any he'd ever breathed. He had never felt so pure. The sensation sharpened him. Before, he had been a dull blade, but now he was razor thin and full of singular aim.

Wick looked up. He gave the naiad a wolfish grin. Why did she look so sad for him? Why the pity?

"I feel good," he said brightly. "How about you?"

His clothes were no longer wet. The nymph must have pulled the moisture out.

She studied Wick. But unlike before when she had looked at him like a strange animal, now she wore an almost-familial concern. He chuckled dryly. "Why the long face? You got more power than you wanted, right? It was a good bargain."

Her face was even. "I gained much power. My river will overflow until I can control its bends. But you, dear boy, I did not expect your golden thread to grow so large. It devoured all your brown threads. Only great things will come of you now. To my eyes, you are brilliant and terrible."

Wick believed it. By the Cursed Crawl, he felt it. He picked up his spade and put on his Sprawler's jacket. The coins were still in the hidden pouch. If the orphans hadn't found his hideout, then his hoard was untouched. All he had to do now was grow it. More was the only thing that mattered.

"Let's check to see what my trait is," Wick said excitedly.

He pulled open his status screen.

Name: Wick

Title: None

Trait: Thymesia

"Thymesia?" Wick wondered. "What does that mean?"

"Memory," the naiad said without hesitation. "You will see exactly what you wish to recall."

Wick was starting to feel as if he were the one who got the butt end of the deal. His father had once noted how Wick had the sharpest memory he'd ever seen. It allowed him to memorize passages only after rereading a few times. How could it possibly get better? He tried to keep his voice from souring. "I already have a good memory. Does this mean I remember everything perfectly?"

She shook her watery head slowly. "Only things you do remember. The things which are completely forgotten are taken by Orol the Dream Eater. You must bargain with him to take those memories back."

"Who is Orol?"

"The reason your kind does not wake from their nightmares and collapse into a puddle of fear. His wisdom collects as many bad dreams as he can. All dark secrets are kept in his safety. It is a thankless task."

Wick didn't know what she was talking about. All he cared about was understanding Thymesia. "How can remembering things I already remember help me?"

The nymph seemed impatient with her inability to explain. After a long pause, she spoke in a tone that suggested she was making a calculated guess. "The things you do recall will be recalled perfectly. Try this. Imagine a dog."

"Which dog?" Wick asked. He wasn't trying to be difficult, but he was getting a little annoyed by his ridiculous trait.

"Any. And no, do not close your eyes. Recall the image of a dog."

As if someone had pulled a lever inside him, Wick did without effort. There was a dog in the Sprawler’s Guild located in Glimmerrest. It was a spotted mix of a hundred different breeds. Most dogs were these days.

Everyone told Wick the dog had lived for over fifty years, which shouldn't have been possible. But they assured him that by feeding it the organs and meat from the monsters of the Sprawl, it had lived stronger and longer than what time normally allowed for it.

"His name was Max," Wick said. "As in, Maximus. If the others weren't pulling my leg, then the old hound is still alive."

Wick took a step back. Floating in the air was the image of Max, but not flat like a painting, but as if the dog was in full view. Max's muscles rippled, and he looked only to be a few years old. Even the hairs on the dog were in the image. Wick's eyes widened, and imagined turning the dog around, rotating it to see all sides.

The image flipped around as he commanded. He shook his head in disbelief. "That's amazing. He looks so real."

The nymph sounded annoyed. "I can't see what you're seeing. I don't know what you mean. I only knew what the trait was by the feel of unlocking it."

Wick said, "Sorry. It's just...amazing."

An idea came to him then. He dismissed the image of Max the guild dog. With a blink, the dog was gone as if it had never been there before.

The hairs on his arms rose as he thought about what he was going to try next. He didn't want to get his hopes up, but he was so sure of what he could do.

Cut was equipped. In the manna-dense Grey Forest, he had absorbed enough manna to use it one final time. The skill was supposed to cost twenty SP. Because of his lack of experience with the skill, Wick tended to leak at least twenty more SP.

So, using Cut usually meant spending between forty to forty-five SP. Unless he was in the dungeons, spending that kind of SP was ridiculous.

Wick's screen floated in front of him.

Name: Wick

Title: None

Trait: Thymesia

Skill Slots: 1 - 0 - 0

Skills Equipped: Cut (1)

Skills Unequipped: 1

Source: Manna

Source Points: 20

He only had twenty. It wasn't enough. At least...

Wick pointed his hand at the moss covering the hexagonal marks identical to his glass amulet. He imagined a perfectly blue arc sweeping horizontally to trim off the moss. All skills required mental focus. The finer the focus, the less manna leak. For most, it took decades of use with the skill until it was simple muscle memory. Where the mind led, the body followed.

Imagining something into existence from nothing but pure energy was difficult for everyone. Even with his own prodigious memory, Wick faced the problem of manna leak like everyone else.

This time though, he didn't just imagine the vague memory of his father's skill. Now, he saw it with a clarity unlike anything he had experienced.

As if in response to the image, Wick's body thrummed with channels of power in a harmony he had never experienced. He felt looser in a way he couldn't quite articulate. His mind commanded his body to pull the perfect amount of power and no more. Wick suddenly felt as if he had been using the skill his entire life.

The only reason people said their skills before activating them was when working with a group so others knew what was happening. Other than that, it was considered useless or showboating.

His father had always said Wick could be a little melodramatic. He felt the edge of his lips pull up in a grin as he whispered, "Cut."

A perfect, wide arc of blue magic as sharp as any dull copper-forged blade swept out from Wick's outstretched hand, growing wider the farther it went. The blade of magic swept up the moss above the hexagonal marking, revealing a stone door with a small hole in the center.

Wick jumped up and down, roaring with pride. "Yes! Yes! By Etheria's might, ten times yes!"

Everything changed in that single moment for Wick. A thousand doors had opened up for him that he didn't even realize were locked. The future felt limitless.

His trait allowed him to stop any manna leak in his skill through perfect visualization. That meant any skill he was able to equip could be used for its standard cost if he was able to figure out its feel and shape. It meant no more flying sparks. Thymesia meant no more manna leak.

This was what a trait could be? This was what it was like to walk around in the days of the Misonians? It was ridiculous. The sorcerers today were like children compared to the ancient days.

A watery hand slapped his side, and Wick fell to the ground. It wasn't hard, more like a push, but Wick groaned when he looked up at a disappointed nymph. He said, "What?"

She shook her head, looking up toward the rising slope of Grey Mountain. "You fool. Are you trying to bring doom on us? It was already a risk to wait here, hoping your thread would pull you. Now you scream around for predators to come? The camazotz gave me mild permission only out of courtesy. Others might not be so kind."

Wick's face blanched, and he remembered where he was. He stood up, holding his spade, and bowed slightly to the nymph. "I'm sorry. It's just that I'm excited about my trait."

She sighed. "Our bargain was struck. Now I must leave, lest the leathery wings of the guardian come my way to act in ways more than chiding."

Wick's eyebrows furrowed. Her speech pattern had changed. It sounded more confident. He asked, "Can you take me out of the forest and drop me off where I was before?"

The nymph tilted her head curiously and looked to the hexagonal stone door set in the earth. "Are you not going to explore the trials set to you by fate, little human? Though it might be wiser to leave them be until your strength has crystallized."

Wick didn't know what she meant. "I've upgraded from monkey to human, now? What do you mean by trial?"

She looked up the mountain nervously, and her waters that stretched out like a long snake's tail shivered. "I waited here because I saw a thin golden thread from the door tying to a place not so far. You came, as I suspected. The trials behind that door are similar to what your people have trekked through. You call them dungeons, rooms of the Sprawl. Yet this is not shaped or connected to those. It is only the most similar thing you might recognize."

Wick's head whipped to the stone door, and he clutched the glass amulet on his chest. His dad had given it to him, calling it his legacy for his son. The amulet had cost the life of the only person Wick had ever cared about. His mother had died giving birth to him.

Was this why they had taken a new wormhole every week since his dad came back from the Labyrinth? Was the glass amulet worth that much?

The fact that it could dispel the forgetting effects of the forest was invaluable. But did it hold more secrets?

Wick licked his teeth and smiled. Secrets meant treasure, and Wick needed to grow his hoard. He asked, "What's in the trials?"

The nymph paused her nervousness and locked eyes with Wick, her voice grave. "Danger, and more of it every time. But like your thread, luck of equal good and bad. It depends on if you survive it. Other than that, I cannot say because I do not know. The Misonians were far cleverer than my people, but their mechanisms were traps as much as they were tools."

The Misonians, or the mouse-people. They were one of the four great powers in the ancient days before the demons came. Not much was in the history books about them except for the fact that they were responsible for technological and magical advances not seen since their disappearance. Some scholars speculated that the Sprawl was both designed and created by the mouse-people. But it was a ridiculous notion.

Wick found himself stepping toward the hexagon and pulling out his amulet. With it in his hand, he could still feel his memories were intact. He was about to place it in the slot but turned to the nymph. She was studying him.

He said, "If no one has ever been in this dungeon before, that means I'll be the first. I might find legendary treasures of the past. I'm a Sprawler, so that makes me excited. Except, I'm only ten years old. Even with my new trait, this is insane. Dad was the best at what he did and he taught me everything, but I only ever stayed in the high dungeons of the Sprawl."

The nymph had no reply for him. Her gaze was as implacable as the unbroken surface of a well.

Wick asked, "Nymph. What's your name?"

The naiad smiled, and it was brilliant. She nodded to him as if he had just passed some kind of test. "Lympha. You may call me Lympha. Do you wish for me to take you to the edge of the forest?"

"Lympha. I won't forget it. And I don't even think I can at this point." Wick placed the amulet in the slot. The stones beneath him shifted backward, revealing a spiral staircase leading downward into the unknown.

"Let me take you to safety, boy," she said, concern and fear marring her watery features. He knew in his heart that concern was for him. Lympha urged, "As you said, you are young. I was wrong to even suggest the attempt. You need to live if you wish to see out your golden fate. Don't die foolish. Come back when you're finally ready."

"I can't go."

"Why not?"

Wick walked down the steps, spade in hand. He looked over his shoulder and cracked her his dragon's grin, all teeth and full of greed. "Because only the bold get the gold."