5.26

“Strategy? I don’t know, it’s always just been a feeling for me. Trial and error, if one thing doesn’t work, I do another thing, and just keep repeating that. If there is anything I live by, it is this, if you go into a fight without vaguely knowing the outcome, you’ve fucked up somewhere.” - Dustin the Traveller, Guild Leader of (?)

“What was I doing here?” Dustin’s voice resounded through the empty hall, yet there were none who answered it. He glanced around blindly, but he only saw a few metres from himself. His manavision not extending further.

Picking up a broken piece of his bark armour, he looked at it for a second, before crumbling it in his hand.

“Hello?” he asked again as he took a step forward, brows furrowing as he found Noam on the ground. “What the hell happened to you…”

All the while, the many faces of the Accumulation watched as he knelt to check on his injured comrade.

And they watched, drawing closer as Dustin whispered something into Noam’s ear.

Corvian Diluvian Medudian Himotonana Farraday the Middling walked the stairs of the orphanage. A trick of hiding, granted from an old cloak. He originally wasn’t sure if it was necessary, but upon seeing the pale serpents flash briefly into sight, then disappear all the same, he was certain.

There was an enemy here. An enemy that needed to be beaten.

And so he stood here, in front of him was raised a cracked and corrupted silver bell.

From his cloak, he retrieved an Argent Censer, and he lit it, the incense flaring lazily to life as smoke drifted out.

“I am Corvian Diluvian Medudian Himotonana Farraday the Middling, follower of Wundull, the Plays Almighty, the Old Friend, the Prince of 99 Nights,” deep was his voice and strong his faith, nothing seemed to happen at first, yet still the power hung in the air, “I come here to the desecrated shrine of Tilt to restore what was lost and-”

Something booped him in the nose, a small fairy, comprised entirely of incense smoke, giggling as its form broke and faded into smoke.

“Don’t be so serious dummy.”

And Corvian smiled. “Then I’m here simply as a friend.”

The First Face watched Dustin as he drew closer and closer to his fallen ally. They were not ones who perished after death, the whispers had told it. They cannot be bled and slain, they cannot be eaten and taken. If they were killed, they faded, disappearing far away.

Far far away, away from its song.

And so it didn’t kill them, no, it would cripple them. Trap them here until it became strong enough to Fade even them, then it will eat them. Until then, it will trap them in a loop. Every day it will kill another three, every day they will come back to stop it and every day they will fail.

But first, it must ensure that they will always fail.

And so it waited, a den of snakes coiled as the myconid took another step towards its ally, and when he finally kneeled beside them, did the First Face strike. Twice it has won, an eye stolen each time and on the third victory, Dustin will truly be blind.

It closed in behind him, quick and unseen, opening its jaws wide to immense proportions-

Dustin threw out an arm behind him, a single purple mushroom clutched in his hand, just as the First Face bit down, the hand in its mouth.

“Rot Spores.”

And the sporage detonated, the rot ripping through the head of the First Face, the pieces slopping off Dustin’s bare, rotted hand, dropping the long neck that supported it as the song was interrupted.

The many faces of Accumulation of White Lies watched in shock as Dustin smiled, a crooked, horrific thing, for he remembered.

“I did not think that would work,” he laughed, the second time that day. Kicking at the neck as the scraps of the First Face faded like mist and tried to reform. He tried fanning it away, finding it somewhat effective in keeping it from regenerating. “See you’re a damn bastard to fight, can’t see you, can’t look at you, can’t damage you, can’t even remember you half the time, but despite all that, you’re still predictable.”

‘How?’ the Accumulation wondered, but the lesser faces could not speak, and Dustin kept smashing the First Face next to him. “Attacking Noam from behind, forcing us to come close to your stomach, baiting someone into a trap is your main strategy isn’t it? You don’t break that style easily, so when I saw Noam laying there I knew it was a trap.”

But how did Dustin remember? It was by a chance glance towards the floor, that the secret was revealed.

The Bark Skin and Bracken Polypores that once guarded Dustin’s face, shattered on the ground in a dozen pieces. Carved in them were words.

And it glanced at Dustin, how almost his entire body was covered in the woody defence.

“Did you realise?” he asked with glee, “I’m guessing you figured it out, I can’t see far with my manavision, but close to me? I can see everything.”

Dustin had carved all his notes into his very armour, through his manavision, he saw constantly all the tiny and rough grooves that were writ in his very body. Paper would not have worked as well, for tucked away in his cap, the indentations of ink were too minuscule. He needed to instantly see and understand, without having to take it out to look. Something that wouldn’t be immediately obvious to his opponent.

Dustin smashed the remains of the First Face again as it tried to form back up, propelling the other heads to action. Dozens moving in closer to-

And they all froze, for within five metres, Dustin saw everything.

Including faces.

And now they stood once again, within the dominion of souls. “You cannot attack me,” Dustin laughed, voice with glee and madness in equal measure. “Come close and my manavision will see you.”

Dustin had left it off while they came here, it was simple, like closing one eye whilst leaving the other open. He didn’t want it on at the wrong time, for he didn’t know a method to obscure his manavision, left on he would freeze when a face came close.

But now, this weakness was his protection, as the Accumulation could not physically come near him.

‘Possible!’ the Accumulation thought, its mind and soul rippling across the entire world. A great typhoon as it raged. ‘You have both Eyes, I have lost here!’

The Accumulation’s power ripped at Dustin, tearing across imaginary flesh.

Still, Dustin laughed.

“Only that last one is true!” he yelled, “But you thought I really needed some dumb eye to beat you? That I would be crippled and lost without them?”

“Please,” he breathed out. Tapping his head. “An eye is merely a tool for gathering information.”

“It is the mind that uses it,” he said and the world rippled, Dustin’s own words crying as the Accumulation’s power broke against his. It was weak compared to his enemy, but tempered without measure, the Accumulation was forced a step back as Dustin spoke,

“And I have already Predicted your defeat.”

And the world cracked, as the Accumulation was forced back into the physical realm. For Dustin stood no stronger than he was before, for a Traveller could not increase without the system, but he has learned, he has refined,

He has spoken a word entirely his own. Not given by the system, not gifted by gods, something that was his and his alone. He was now what a knife was to a lump of raw iron.

Several heads fell, obliterated by an unseen force, the First Face retreated, having healed while Dustin was frozen.

Yet a single, bleeding crack marred its empty face.

When Dustin opened his palm, he found a black eye, not black because it was purely so, but because it was formed from millions of smaller eyes, each seeing, each Observing. For he won the Clash.

And he popped it back into his socket,

“Finally,” a voice uttered in relief.

“One of two,” Dustin continued.

“Took you long enough,” the voice replied back.

“Some help you were,” he answered.

“There’s still one left.”

And both Declan and Dustin spoke at once, ““So let’s take it back.””

They stood, half-blind, missing an eye and alone, the connections they once had all gone. Crippled they were, yet for the first time in its life, the Accumulation felt afraid.

“NO!” the First Face yelled in defiance, air pushing out of its throat as it began to sing-

A bell tolled, a loud, clear and pure sound.

And a new voice echoed throughout the corrupted orphanage, a voice Dustin recognised,

“... and I will be there to see your final joke. I will save my last laugh for you alone, for now, I pray you accept me as a friend as Wundull once did. To save everyone here, I am willing to renounce even him.”

And the cheerful voice of a mischievous and young girl echoed in all their minds like a summer song,

“Dawww. But there’s no need, you can never have too many friends.”

And the Shrine of Tilt was restored.

The Accumulation of White Lies hissed, from dozens of heads the breath came to sing the song-

But the sound that came out of each face was simply a loud farting sound.

The Prankster laughed, her voice clear as a bell, for no matter what the Accumulation sang, it only came out as a loud farting noise.

“That tiny glowing *BLEEP*!”

“Hey it knows my title…” the voice of Tilt faded as her miracle took place, for now, the song of the Accumulation was sealed.

Dustin’s already massive grin only seemed to widen, as he shared a look with Tai still trapped in the Accumulation’s stomach.

He could not hear her voice, but her pumping fists and lips said enough,

‘*BLEEP* yeah!’

Suddenly tapping his shoulder from behind was a short gnome, wrapped in a greyish cloak, “I’m here, what do you-”

“Grab Noam, get out of here,” Dustin instantly answered.

Corvian did so, hoisting the much taller man over his shoulder, “Then what?”

“Grab every person and bring them here,” he continued.

“Wouldn’t that be-”

“No,” Dustin interrupted, for he understood now how to harm the Accumulation.

When the town was populated, it did not turn off its invisibility, only when it was vacated did it do so. ‘Why?’ Dustin had pondered. Surely it had enough faces to trap everyone here and slowly eat them one by one? There was a reason why it didn’t do so, a reason revealed with every true harming blow Dustin did to it.

The Accumulation of White Lies was harmed by people knowing about it. Understanding how it worked, recognising the rules behind its abilities and behaviour. It was literally more powerful the less one knew about it. Its song allowed it to hide and heal, removing the memories of it, but now that it couldn’t?

So obvious in hindsight, that the concept of lies was harmed by the truth of it being revealed.

“Now is the perfect time to harm it,” he uttered, “and we need as many people as possible to see it. I already used my one hit, I can’t do anything else.”

Corvian nodded, just as the dozens of faces snarled, the First Face glared at Dustin. It abandoned its song, charging them as Dustin raised his staff.

“Go!” he yelled, “I’ll cover you here!”

And Corvian ran, Noam over his shoulder, his cloak hiding them as he left, his mission clear.

To finally kill this damn thing.