Cut (Reprise)

The Past

"The ancient Simmerestian Limitadus is not a book of instruction, but a secret compendium of memorized orations contributed only by masters who have advanced the philosophy of the way. Several decades or even centuries may pass until a note is worthy enough to enter the Limitadus for future students to memorize." -excerpt from The Twin Peak Path: A Martial and Spiritual Guide to Self-Advancement by General Greenlast

Dawn broke through the bedroom window, and Wick's tunic reeked of sweat. The night of tinkering exhausted his mind, but he was nearly as excited as the first time he entered a dungeon, spade in hand, with his dad.

A dozen modest cuts wore themselves on his hands. They were well earned. On the floor next to the bed were the remains of two shattered iron balls, both of which had been expanded to their second stage. When the first exploded, Berrma had burst into the room, checking to see what the commotion was about, only to find Wick perfectly fine, if only tired.

When she discovered that Wick wasn't, in fact, accessing the chakras in his body, she ignored the second explosion. Scout and Vein were asleep, but Wick figured they had heard the explosions, having been light sleepers growing up in the streets of Outlast. They had probably stayed in the rooms at the sound of trouble, a lifetime's habit of standing still the way deer froze when they heard the crunch of a boot on a fallen branch.

Of the three remaining iron balls he had remaining after his sparring sessions with Berrma, only one had survived the night. Had Scout seen the final sphere himself, the greenhair would have noted the ball was just like all the other iron balls in their second stage. Scout would have been wrong.

Wick's eyes scanned the two blue screens floating in his vision. He frowned at the first.

SP (Source Points): 1182

The experiment had taken nearly all of his remaining Source Points. When his first two attempts failed, Wick began to believe that his idea was a dud. The cool iron sphere in his hand was testament that it wasn't.

He twisted the sphere, and unlike with other spheres that had reached the second stage, Wick could feel its pulse not through his hands, but his will. Unlike when binding skills with Automate, binding the golem to his will was actually possible. It was an odd feeling, as if finding a simple-minded dog had found a home in the room of his mind.

Luckily, the dog could do tricks.

But the cost. Always the damn cost. Most of all the manna he had steadily absorbed on the outskirts of Grey Mountain was gone. Six months of manna converted into SP was spent for a single iron sphere.

Wick was tempted to hop on the first wormhole out to Outlast and run into Grey Forest. The manna density there was even greater than the deepest levels his dad had allowed him to enter in the Sprawl. The Misonians’ dungeon was even greater in density.

Spending a few days there wouldn't replenish all of his lost manna, but the stacked SP would make him feel much safer in case trouble found Wick.

The image of an old man's face attached to the long neck of a monstrous bat forced shivers up Wick's spine. Zata, the self-proclaimed camazotz, had vowed to kill Wick if he entered Grey Forest again without the explicit purpose of heading straight to the second trial of the Misonians’ dungeon. On top of that, he owed the bat creature a debt for dropping him off into Outlast with the chest full of food.

Wick wasn't sure he was even ready for the second trial. When he had conquered the puzzle dungeon, he was presented with two doors. One was an exit. The other was the second trial, labelled 'Guardian'.

That meant a fight.

So far, the only skill he could use as an attack was Cut. Even the new trick he developed over the past night was limited to how much SP he had, which wasn't much. Cut wasn't going to be enough. He needed other skills. If he was going to face this guardian in the dungeon, he had to make sure the odds were stacked in his favor.

Wick's unoccupied hand traced beneath the Sprawler badge on his leather jacket to the hidden pocket beneath that held all of his pennies. In the pocket sat a neat eighteen bronze, five iron, and ten copper pennies. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought he'd hold that much wealth by the time he turned eleven.

If his dad had had that kind of money before venturing into the Labyrinth, then he would have been able to afford better equipment. Maybe spending those coins could have saved his life.

Wick's grip tightened around the sphere at the thought, and he frowned at the slight bulge from the hidden pocket. This was the most money he'd ever had, but it wasn't enough. He needed more. In a few hours, the coin would serve its purpose, and Wick would need to build his hoard once more.

For now, it was time to test his experiment.

The pleasant smell of meat cooked in grease leaked through his bedroom door from below. One of Graves' servants had probably come to make them breakfast. The aroma was familiar to him.

The second screen caught his attention before he willed it away.

The Crafter: You have created your first stage-one golem.

Its words should have made him elated for advancing the Misonians’ legacy. But he couldn't shake the feeling he had barely scratched the surface of what the Crafter was capable of.

It took all of his new abilities and the severe focus he'd been born with to make the night a success. Thymesia, his Title as Crafter, Automate, the first golem, and the puzzle dungeon's inscriptions -- he had used all of them to make such a simple thing happen.

This new technique was something he created with wits alone.

The fact that he had used all of his inherited and bargained abilities to make the impossible possible with only a night's work rushed his blood with wonder and madness. Wick thought of the unfairness of how his own brilliant mind was stuck in a small boy's body. If his powers were as sharp as he was, the world's purses would pour open for him with the snap of his fingers.

It was an annoying thought, but only an obstacle to be overcome with in time. Of course, shortening that time with tricks like the iron ball he held was perfectly reasonable. He was the Crafter, after all.

The Title came with no instructions except for the vague hints he had been able to pick up from the walls of the first trial.

At first, he had been annoyed that the Misonians had given him a seed with no hint to how to grow it or even what kind of tree it would grow into. But he was now beginning to suspect it was on purpose, that the reason for their lack of guidance was to challenge him to come up with his own path as the Crafter.

Wick's stomach rumbled at the smell of fried lizard eggs. The orb pulsed in his hand. He grabbed his spade and stood up. Now wasn't the time for food. It was one of the lessons his dad had given him, the kind of teaching only the poor could teach to their children. Hunger sharpened the mind and let the eyes see things a full belly wouldn't.

He needed his wits about him if this was going to work. It was time to spar.

--

Berrma wanted nothing more than to bash in Wick's head with all the might her weapon of a body could afford her. Sure, she could crush him with only a finger, but it would have felt so satisfying to drain every ounce of her energy to wipe him from existence.

The boy had the audacity to demand a spar with her before breakfast? What kind of lowlife scum wanted to fight while there was a personalized chef cooking a damn fine meal only one wall away? The answer was simple, children.

The pilgrim had faced monsters, both human and otherwise. She never hated her enemies. In fact, she respected their strength, their ability to hold their own against a limitadi.

But this little charcoal-haired brat? This was the real definition of a monster, someone who put the hunger of their heart over the hunger of the body. That was why Berrma hated those who relied on their brain too much, with the exception of Rax. The body was always smarter; it knew what it needed better than the mind.

She could have turned Wick down for the sparring match, but the look on his face was something she had only ever seen in two other people, her master and Rax during the one time the Hemincross descendant took off his mask for her. It was the expression of someone who could see something she never would, something beyond anyone else's capabilities. The look made her feel small.

Berrma's stomach twisted, and she knew it wasn't from hunger. The boy was unsettling in more ways than Rax and Obadiah combined.

She feigned a bored sigh while her heels lifted from the ground warily. "You sure you wanna do this, boy? If my breakfast is cold by the time it touches my tongue, the only thing you'll be eating is your teeth."

Wick didn't look impressed. Instead, he gave that creepy little grin he had used before attacking Rax only a few days earlier. He held only one of the single spheres he liked to carry with him at all times. The remains of the others were still on the ground from yesterday.

Was it his last one?

She still didn't know how he managed to purchase so many minor artifacts from the leatherbacks. It was obvious Wick didn't have the money. He had probably used his slippery words to somehow get in with them. That in itself was a disturbing thought since the turtle-people were a secretive bunch when it came to their enchanting. Plus, the leatherbacks didn't speak with their tongues. They were the only people since the Misonians and the dragons who could enchant objects, including wadescrolls.

"Is this your last toy?" Berrma teased.

Wick held his grin. "No. It's the first of many."

"By the Crawl, you make less and less sense the more you talk," Berrma complained. "Let's be on with it. Make your move, and I'll shatter whatever you throw at me."

She paused before adding. "You're not channeling the chakras in your body, right? Because even a little sleaze-lizard like you should have understood what would happen if you overstimulated your already-burnt chakras. They need time to heal."

Wick did not open his mouth to speak the command that would activate the sphere's enchantment, but his hand did twitch in anticipation. A thick blue blade arced toward her. To humans other than a pilgrim or a forceknight, it would have been impossible to dodge. But to Berrma, time seemed to slow whenever danger presented itself.

The enchantment, which looked similar to the one Wick summoned with the spoken command 'Cut', was thicker than the annoying little blades she had first seen him summon. It was just exactly as thick as the final one he threw at her before he collapsed the day before. This time, the blade didn't come from Wick's body, but from the sphere itself.

Berrma felt her eyebrows knit together in confusion and curiosity. Every blade he had summoned through the iron balls before were weak little things. Cut was a fairly common skill, with variations of it here and there. The Cuts Wick summoned before today were no different.

Then the day before, Wick had somehow summoned fifty Cuts to cascade from his body. Doing that had nearly destroyed one of Wick's chakra channels. But Berrma had known better. Each of the blades were summoned so quickly one after another, it seemed like one blade. Overusing a skill was one of the first lessons sorcerers at the Skillia warned against for new students.

According to Rax, it was a trick only those who in their second or third year were able to pull off. Those who mastered the trick in a safe way usually entered their time in the military as low-ranking officers. At least, that's what Rax and Obadiah had told her. She was from Simmerest, and therefore not obligated to serve in Vandia's military.

All in all, it was just a simple trick of frequency and control. It was impressive as all Hells that the boy had learned to do it on his own without guidance from a real sorcerer. It was also stupid, but still impressive.

This blade coming from the ball wasn't a trick at all. Instead of multiple blades packed together, it was a single, unified blade, amplified to the same power as the one before. She waited for the blade to come to her, wondering again how Wick had manipulated the leatherbacks into giving him such an artifact, if albeit a minor one.

Berrma had been able to smash yesterday's blade with ease. It had given her a little pressure, but not enough to bruise.

So, when this new unified Cut smashed into her leather bracers and she felt her muscles actually strain against the blade, her heart skipped a beat. She still knocked the blade off to the side, and the blue skill scattered back into manna in the atmosphere harmlessly.

Berrma suddenly felt something rise in her which she hadn't felt in years. Surprise.

"Morgoth's unholy balls!" Wick cursed. "It should have been more powerful!"

The boy seemed too preoccupied glaring at his sphere to notice the slight bruise growing beneath Berrma's right leather bracer. She hid them behind her back reflexively. She hated looking weak.

Instantly, her mind truly understood what had happened. Wick somehow had a leatherback artifact with a minor enchantment strong enough to bruise a mid-level limitadi? She had never heard of such a thing. Now that she thought about it, shouldn't enchanted objects break when used? The only enchanted objects she knew of that didn't break were artifacts found in the Labyrinth.

By the Crawl, two of the Three Swords and One belonged to the two highest forceknights in Vandia, one of whom was the Emperor himself. Her master, who had broken hundreds of weapons with his bare hands, had even tussled with the Autumn Sword, and the forceknight's wooden sword hadn't broken.

Wick seemed busy staring at his own screens, visible to him alone. Despite his previous curse, he looked smug from his accomplishment. That answered her question. Whatever that blade he summoned was, it was completely his doing.

Enchantments broke. That's why wadescrolls needed to be burned to use their stored skill.

How could she have missed something so simple? Was her mind getting as dull as her daily life? More importantly, how did Rax miss it? He was the real sorcerer between him and Obadiah.

Then the realization struck her like lightning to the lone tree in an open field. Rax hadn't missed it. He never missed anything unless he chose to overlook it. Rax knew something was different about Wick beside the boy's penchant for manipulation. At least that answered why Rax had acted so unusually during their meeting. Wick had sparked something in Rax, and had even seen through Obadiah. And now, the boy was stirring something stale and old in her.

Was it fear? Wonder? Maybe both.

He's only a boy, Berrma reminded herself. By the Crawl she felt old. The thought only stoked the flames inside of her. And I was just a girl his age when I followed my master to become a pilgrim.

She wondered how long it had been since she had that smug look on her face. It had been ten years since she and Rax and Obadiah decided to run this underground smuggling business. Besides only a few heart-thrilling fights, Berrma had only felt her bones grow stiffer.

The petite woman looked past Wick and saw Scout and Vein. They weren't monsters like the boy. She knew she hated children only because they reminded her of the only time she wasn't strong, when she was a child herself.

What would happen if Scout and Vein followed the path of the Limitadus? Even treading the path half-halfheartedly, they would gain more power than they ever imagined. Vein was a small version of herself. Scout's sharp gaze reminded Berrma of her own master. If their future was to be as stale as hers, it would be a mercy to snuff their brief candles out now.

But Wick. This boy was more than a spark. He stoked his own flames. In the future, Wick's flame would either keep the world warm when it froze over or he'd burn it all down. Even now, Berrma could practically feel the gears in his mind spinning with calculation. He was like Rax, someone who was constantly looking toward the future.

Obadiah looked to the past. And what about her? She was stuck in the present, her own growth within the Limitadus stifled by her lack of ambition.

Berrma felt her mouth tug down into a frown. She tasted something bitter on her tongue. Within a single night, Wick had somehow overcome the limitation of his burned chakras, summoning an even more powerful effect without hurting himself. He forged a path where there weren't any. Without any kind of training in Simmerest, Wick was living the life of a real limitadi.

That thought alone shamed Berrma.

"Ten years," Berrma muttered to herself. The words were poison on her lips.

Home came to mind, Simmerest, the training ground of the pilgrims. She was no better than a beginner, not because of her power. Berrma was still a mid-level limitadi, but she could take on multiple forceknights on her own.

The shame she felt was born from the fact that she had stopped seeking new answers.

An answer came to her then, and it grew more humiliating the more she thought of it, but it had to be done. Wick had sparked the fire, and there was no way Berrma was going to let the flame burn out, not after all these years. She spoke with force, commanding all of the children's attention, "We're leaving Glimmerrest come noon bell."

"What? We just got here!" Vein blurted, clearly upset at having her training halted so quickly. She really was a younger copy of Berrma.

Scout wore a pensive expression, but his eyes flicked to Wick, who simply said, "Explain."

Berrma couldn't believe she was saying this, but her fire was rekindled. "Rax asked me to train you to defend yourselves, and more importantly, break the defenses of others. Our business may be dealt mostly in ink and coin, but there are times when a heavy hand needs to be laid down. I was hesitant at first, but now I see all of you mean to follow my path."

Wick's expression made it clear he disagreed with her about that. The boy seemed to want to find his own way in the world. Fine. She was more saying the words for herself and the two other children.

Berrma continued. "I won't force you. It'll be your choice. For those who wish, I'll be sending you to Simmerest with a message to head straight to the Pilgrims of the Limitadus. There, you will train in our temples just as I have."

Scout spoke up. "Your tone makes it sound like you're not joining us."

Berrma shook her head. "I will. I'll be there to oversee your training as well as figure out how to break my own bottleneck. First, I need to spend a few days in Outlast to get my things in order. I need to find a suitable replacement for Rax's bodyguard, someone who both has the skill and my trust. Plus, I need that time for Obadiah to arrange a few things for me. After that, I'll join you in Simmerest."

Without a pause, Wick said sarcastically, "As much as I find the idea of being surrounded by a group of bald-headed psycho killers appealing, I think I'll have to make the hard choice and go back to Simmerest with you. Rax and Graves have to honor our deal, and I have greater things ahead of me than endless days of physical training."

"Arrogant little sleaze," Berrma replied, looking for a button to push. "You just can't handle climbing the mountain. The view on top is only for those with real courage."

"I'm smart enough to know you don't have to climb the mountain to admire the view," Wick snapped back quickly. "Climbing's too slow. Flight is more my speed."

Scout's shocked expression shifted back and forth between Berrma and Wick. But Berrma knew the greenhair boy had already made his decision. Wick had bought his loyalty.

Berrma began to walk inside, crossing her arms so they couldn't see the bruise on her forearm. She flooded some manna into the appropriate chakras. The manna converted into Source Points that spread to her bruise, healing it nearly instantly.

She said, "Color me impressed, Wick. Your trick still needs work. Noonbell is the worm for all of us. Those who take the ass-end to Simmerest will receive a letter to hand to the pilgrims. And those weak little birds who think flying over mountains will make you strong will come with me to Outlast. For now, I'm getting breakfast, little bird."

For once, Wick wasn't quick with a reply. He fumed at her insult, and the sight of his anger gave her comfort.

Before she entered the house, she heard him mutter one last jab, "Dragons fly, too."