Bold

The Past

"The Limitadus is more art than science, and therefore exact technique with strict form is not propagated. Students of the Limitadus are therefore encouraged to seek the principles hidden beneath the lessons of past masters to advance the self; for advancing the self is to advance the whole. From this we learn tradition, science, magic, sorcery, technique, and art all stand on the same foundation: principles." -excerpt from First Principles by Ven Praxus

Wick burned everything his eyes could witness into memory, feeding Berrma's fight, Rax's words, the forceknights' abilities, and even the small behaviors of the sorcerers into Thymesia. He knew only a small portion of it was visible to him, but if he survived this encounter, he'd make sure to relive every moment until he reconstructed it down to the finest detail.

Everything had happened so quickly and all at once. Berrma had shown her true capabilities, a powerhouse unlike anything Wick had ever witnessed, and Rax had calmly watched it all, clearly confident in her skills.

Then the Autumn Sword had come.

Unlike Berrma and the forceknights she demolished, the Autumn Sword didn't blur. The handsome young man with sharp cheeks wielding the wooden sword simply stepped from one place to another. He didn't even bother summoning the famed kami armor from his tattoos.

A part of Wick calculated the luck involved in what had happened. Berrma had won triumphantly and with great speed in less than a few breaths. Wick had even allowed himself to hope that they could get out. Rax seemed so sure of Berrma's power, her control of the situation. Then, as if fate itself had seen her work, the world had countered her glory and power with something even worse, one of the Three Swords and One.

Why wasn't Rax using that odd power from before, the one where he twisted the enchantments from the burned wadescrolls? Ah, of course. The answer was simple. Rax needed the power from the enchantments. It was the only thing that made sense.

Rax was distraught. He somehow saw Berrma's death without his eyes. It was probably his Trait. Wick felt a pang of envy at the robed man's ability. He wanted it for himself, whatever the power was. That made him think of the fact that Rax wanted to give Wick a power similar to the one from the Misonians, the Hemincross legacy.

Wick had pieced it together well enough. The four great legacies were all out there, and fate had somehow tied his and Rax's together. He wanted to demand Rax to give him the legacy now and make their escape, but restraint told him their best chance of survival was for Rax to hold on to that power.

It really came down to one thing and one thing only: he needed to get the Hells out.

Within a quarter mile, nearly every building was trashed from Berrma's fight. If he hadn't witnessed it himself, he would have assumed a tornado had come.

Wick wanted power -- the kami tattoos that gave ethereal armor, the strength skills of the forceknights, the skills of the sorcerers from the Skillia, and even the wooden artifact of the Autumn Sword himself -- he wanted all it for himself. But first, he needed to live.

The Autumn Sword spoke, his voice authoritative and calm, "I, Nehemiah Zorba, the wielder of the Autumn Sword, have been tasked by the Emperor himself, the Summer Sword, to arrest the criminal Atarax Hemincross for carrying a national artifact."

Rax's shoulders were slumped, but at the mention of his name, they tightened, and his gaze shifted from the lifeless body of Berrma to Nehemiah Zorba. Wick could see the man had been in love with the pilgrim woman, but his own words were clear and unchoked by despair.

He said, "Nehemiah Zorba, by all accounts you are an honorable man, earning the sword of decay from your mother as much as inheriting it. Do you know your orders come from a broken system and a corrupt Emperor? The Mandate of Morgoth are evil, but you, a good man, are serving their whims."

"My honor has nothing to do with those who give me orders," the Autumn Sword replied. Nehemiah's gaze was unperturbed. "The Emperor said you would say something to manipulate me. I'll get to the point. You have a page of the terrible Miserex. Obadiah of House Graves has confirmed it to be so. Do you recognize this as true?"

Rax seemed to age ten years in the past ten breaths. He sighed, "It is."

Nehemiah looked surprised, nodding. "Then please, give it up. Don't you understand what it is you are holding? It belongs under the wise care of the Emperor. It should not be in the wrong hands. Against my Emperor's orders, I have asked for an option that does not involve cutting your heart out."

Rax snorted. "And why would someone like you ask for that?"

"Because," Nehemiah answered, "I do not wish to see the noble lineage of the Hemincross end this day. Give up the page of the Miserex here and now, and you will only be given a lifetime sentence without torture or coercion. Any person beneath you will be given the same reprieve."

The Autumn Sword's attention flicked towards Wick, and Wick gulped under that hard gaze.

Rax flicked his hand casually, "You mean Wick?"

Nehemiah said, "We were informed by the honorable mayor's son that this Wick is under your purview."

Oh no, Wick thought. There was no way in all the levels of the Deepest Crawl he was getting out of there now.

Rax chuckled darkly. "Lanton is a boy and Wick is simply a friendly rival. Wick has nothing to do with me except for the fact that I manipulated him. In fact, he is tied with the Graves family by guild writ. Or did the honorable mayor's son leave that out of his sniveling report?"

Nehemiah's back straightened. "He didn't. But I am prone to believing you. Rivalries among children are something I more than understand. You do not seem a bad man. Please, Atarax, take the offer."

Wick noticed the sorcerers and remaining three lesser forceknights were surrounding Rax. They weren't subtle about it. Why did they act as if Rax was more trouble than Berrma?

Rax said, "A lifetime of prison? I wouldn't mind that kind of peaceful life, to be honest. But giving up the page is not on the table. You have no idea what the Mandate are, Autumn Sword. You are too naive."

Nehemiah's nose wrinkled as if smelling something disgusting. It looked like a familiar gesture to the man. "So be it. When the information is tortured out of you in the days to come, remember the mercy I dispensed."

Deepest Hells. Wick thought he was arrogant. The Autumn Sword may have acted all high and mighty, but his naivete made his personality insufferable. Wick hated those who acted better than others. At least he knew that he was a lowly scum but did everything to fight against that. Only nobles or the extremely arrogant could act the way the Autumn Sword did.

Wick wasn't arrogant because that would have meant he overestimated his value. He knew exactly how much he was worth.

Nehemiah's back turned to Rax and he commanded, "Maim, but do not kill him."

The remaining three forceknights blurred and a rainbow of lights flooded from the dozens of sorcerers' hands. Wick's eyes strained to take it all in.

He held his breath. Death flashed toward Rax and covered him in brilliant lights. When Wick breathed out, he saw two of the forceknights floating in the air. One of them was screaming, being burned alive in a violet cube. The other was frozen solid before he felt to the cobblestone street, shattering into countless bloody pieces.

The third forceknight's head was a few feet away from his body, his grizzled features in wide-eyed shock.

Rax hadn't moved from the same spot, his expression cold and distant. His fingers twisted and danced, the colors from the different skills each of the sorcerers cast at him following his movements. Wick realized then that Rax didn't need the enchantments for his power to work. He needed the skills released from the burned wadescrolls.

Wick's heart rushed with hunger. He needed that power, that control, for himself.

The Autumn Sword turned around, curious at what was happening. The sorcerers bombarded skills and spells the likes of which Wick couldn't have even imagined.

Steaming slime meant for Rax's head was twisted with a firebolt Wick could feel the heat from even there, transformed into a golden light that sparked like fireworks, and finally rushed toward the ever-calm Autumn Sword. Nehemiah raised his wooden sword calmly. Rax's golden light broke apart at the sword's touch.

Countless more spells were summoned in Rax's direction, and the man had stood still in the middle of all of it, taking down one sorcerer at a time while twisting some of the transformed skills at the Autumn Sword. The second-greatest forceknight of the nation bashed away the magical skills, and the skills dispersed as raw manna back into the atmosphere.

The Autumn Sword looked both confident and perplexed at what he was seeing, but he was noticeably backing away. He even jumped a full city block back to observe. To think the scribe could push someone so powerful back with only the flick of his fingers gave Wick excited shivers. They could survive this. They really could.

All the while, Wick found himself inching toward the fight but away from Rax and the dwindling number of sorcerers. He noticed some of the sorcerers held trinkets. One grasped an orb that cascaded a beautiful red light.

It was probably the sorcerer's Source, converting that energy into Source Points the same way most people in the world converted manna. Of course, the sorcerer's light Source would be worth at least several times more SP than manna would. It was what separated sorcerers from people with skills.

Rax looked calm and a little enraged, and it gave Wick confidence that they could win this. But Wick caught himself. He had that same confidence when Berrma was winning, and that turned sour faster than a heartbeat. Plus, the Autumn Sword was taking a back seat.

Finally, they were down to two sorcerers who looked weathered as all Hells, but were still tossing three different skills each at Rax, who casually transformed their skills into twin giant fiery dragons that overtook them both, settling onto Berrma's corpse. Wick noted that the scrolls on her body had been burned instantly, meaning Rax had done so on purpose.

He saw the pain it gave the not-so-blind man at burning his friend's corpse. The Autumn Sword took a step, reappeared twenty yards away from Rax, and collided into a two-story bird cage made of diamond that was whipped into existence by Rax's ability. What did the man call it again, syncing?

The Autumn Sword looked annoyed, but he simply touched the bars of the cage with his wooden sword. He seemed to strain as if under great pressure, and it was then Wick realized that the light inside the bird cage bent differently, as if under water.

"That is the weight of the bottom of the ocean," Rax growled, his fingers dancing as if playing a marionette.

Nehemiah's expression finally grew serious. He was sweating heavily. The Autumn Sword roared, tattoos which were unseen before spreading from what seemed to be his back to every inch of his body. In the next breath, a three-story figure of a sad-looking knight in plate armor enveloped the man and broke through the cage of Rax's making.

The light around the Autumn Sword bent back to normal, and one of Rax's hands stopped moving. The other twisted casually, lights from the last of the wadescrolls floating around him, shifting into different colors and viscosity with every passing second.

Nehemiah breathed heavily, pointing his wooden sword at Rax. His kami armor mimicked the movement. "Never would I have thought to encounter such a terrible villain in the backwater city of Outlast. You have tainted the Hemincross name with slaughter."

Rax said dryly, "You attacked me without proof and on only the order of a man who killed my entire family."

Nehemiah looked shocked. "What?"

Rax shook his head. "All your storybook honor and power and you still think like a child. Berrma is dead and Obadiah betrayed me. What use is there in explaining myself to someone like you?"

The Autumn Sword seemed genuinely confused, but he raised his wooden sword just the same. Rax cracked his neck and raised his hand with the small black dot on it. Nehemiah's eyes widened and he said, "How did you contract with a noble high kami? Their whole nation is an amnestic zone."

Rax's only answer was to lift his hand. The air around him seemed to tilt, and the black dot on the back of his hand spread in webbed lines all over his skin, even covering his face. The tattoo lifted as if evaporating, growing into a solemn bearded old man whose eyes were downcast. He was the same height as the plate-armored kami, but his wrists were chained to a book dangling like an amulet from his neck.

Before seeing Berrma fall, Wick would have whooped confidently at seeing such rare and awesome power. But he now knew better. Something amazing had happened, and Rax had shown a power that probably hadn't been seen since the age of the first Hemincross. Rax had confirmed to Wick how fate worked. With greater power came greater fate, and fate always came in pairs of good and bad.

Rax still looked confident against the legendary forceknight, but Wick noticed the lights from the wadescroll skills were only enough to fill one of his hands. Plus, Rax's focus seemed to waver, as if straining to see clearly ahead of him.

He was running out of time. That meant Wick was running out of time. How could he get out of this?

An answer came to him, and he didn't like it at all.

Wick could cast his own skills. If he did, Rax could use those as fuel for his own powers. Doing so would change the Autumn Sword's opinion of Wick from a random street rat to an accomplice of Rax's. His sphere was still working, and he could push its internal chakras with all of his remaining SP for the most powerful Cut he had ever pulled off. Wick also had his new skills. Maybe that'd be enough to tip the scales in Rax's favor.

Or he could run away and let Rax die. Rax's amulet was no longer on him and was on the ground. Wick could pick it up and inherit the legacy after Rax died. To the eyes of Nehemiah Zorba, Wick was innocent.

Then his eyes fell on the scattered remains of his leather jacket. Clinging to the torn leather was the Sprawler's Guild crest.

Wick thought of his dad, how Scout's inherited intelligence and kindness for the other orphans was so much like him. He knew that if his dad was still alive and saw him walk away now that Wick would no longer be his son. He really would be the pet name his father gave him, Wicked.

Rax seemed to recognize whatever look Wick was giving, and he turned his attention for a brief second in his direction. The Autumn Sword looked confused. Rax mouthed the words, "Don't."

The Autumn Sword said, "What's the boy doing?"

Wick summoned all of his Source Points, poured most of them through his sphere golem and the rest through his chakras, and answered, "Being bold."