***Charles***

“No I couldn’t possibly eat any more, Mirika,” Charles said, waving off the attentions of the Castoff woman who seemed determined to stuff him to the gills with savory meat and mushroom stew.

Their entire underground tribe of Castoffs spoke broken Manitian, a dialect that must’ve developed in the two generations since the world collapsed. Just barely understandable through slow speaking and context.

Strangely enough they didn’t seem to hold a grudge about the backbone of Manitian magicians abandoning the rural farmers and peasants outside the capital to their fates.

Or, more likely…they had no idea who Charles was. And Charles had no intention of correcting them. It seemed as though tossing aside his enchanted gear to try and lose the gorm had unexpected benefits.

Dressed as he was in rough homespun fabric hastily harvested from nearby plants while they ran, he came across more as a desperate traveller of the overworld than a powerful mage.

Even if he could probably handle it, he didn’t want to test their skill with the carapace spears resting by their sides as they ate. Charles appeared to be harmless so they were harmless.

Appearance is a power all it’s own, I suppose.

They expressed curiosity about what Burrow he was from, and Charles was evasive, saying he was from far, FAR away, and he had been travelling many moons to get here.

‘But you’re so fat,’ they had said. ‘Surely you can’t have been travelling for that long?’

Well shit.

As Charles was struggling to come up with a believable lie, a gust of fresh, cool air came from the tunnel leading up to the surface, brushing against his back a moment before an iron grip seized him by the ear.

“I told you we are not bothering the natives with our bullshit,” Paradox’s voice growled as he hauled Charles to his feet by the ear, “Let’s go. We’ve got Gorm to kill.”

“Ow ow ow ow,” Charles couldn’t help but stumble to his feet, guided by the ear as Paradox began marching back to the entryway to the Burrow.

“Wait, how are you still alive?” Mirika asked in her strange Manitian dialect as her tribe rose to their feet at Paradox’s sudden arrival, seemingly uncertain if they should raise their spears or not. “You stayed behind to fight the Gorm, did you not?”

“Yeah,” Paradox said, glancing over his shoulder at them.

“How are you not dead? None can face the Gorm. They are immutable forces of destruction as natural and unstoppable as the sunrise.”

“Because,” Paradox said, releasing Charles’ ear and motioning to himself. “I’m Paradox, and I…got a piece of one of your ‘Immutable forces of destruction,’ Paradox said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a writhing mass of altered reality that sent throbbing pain through Charles eye sockets.

“And I intend to get the rest of it,” Paradox muttered, grabbing Charles’ ear again. Charles tried to ward him off, but the damnedable Zauberer was strong and fast enough to treat him like a child, even with the deep wounds covering the scion’s left side.

“You…have wounded a Gorm?” an older tribesman asked, stepping forward, shaking with age…and something else?

Oh crap, Charles thought. The fool boy had harmed one of their sacred forces of nature, and now the ignorant savages were gonna turn on him. Paradox didn’t’ see it, but Charles was already getting ready to defend himself.

“I didn’t harm it much more than a pinprick,” Paradox said, holding the writhing mass of light-shifting reality-cancer in his hand contemplatively, seemingly unbothered by the way his hand warped and flickered like fire inside its influence. “But it proves it can be done.”

“Chosen one!” the older tribesman schreeched stumbling forward, heedless of the globule of reality-cancer in the boy’s hand.

Paradox held it up above the man’s head, to avoid killing him with it.

“you, you YOU!” The older man said, spitting out a decayed tooth in his fervor as he seized the front of Paradox’s homespun shirt. “Do you have the blood of kings!?”

“Yep,” Paradox said.

“And your name?” the old man said, his eyes wide and bloodshot.

“Paradox.”

“What does this word mean?”

“A situation, person or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities. That which contradicts itself.”

The old man collapsed to his hands and knees, weeping big, fat tears into the dirt under their feet.

“Chosen one.” He mewled.

“Chosen one,” the surrounding tribesmen echoed.

“Chosen one!”

“There, there,” Paradox said, patting the elder’s balding head. “I ain’t no chosen one, I’m an exterminator. You guys just keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll have the situation sorted out inside a couple years.”

“Chosen one, please stay!” Mirika shouted, rising to her feet. “The gorm cannot perceive you behind the Taratuga shell!”

“I got stuff to do, soo…” Paradox said.

“At least until your wounds are healed, please!”

“It’s not that bad-“

“Boy,” the old man said, rising to his knees and peering up at Paradox with wet eyes. “I can literally see your guts.”

“Huh,” Paradox grunted, glancing down at the gashes in his torso exposing his ribs and piercing the stomach wall. “I thought the Gorm feather was making me hallucinate that.”

He wobbled in place, and glanced up at Charles.

“I’mma take a nap. Don’t let that fucker anywhere near me,” Paradox said, adopting the Castoff’s thick accent perfectly after only a moment of interacting with them.

Paradox’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, the nearby warriors diving to soften his fall while the others cast a suspicious eye towards Charles.

This is it. No better chance than this.

Charles knew these people couldn’t stop him. they weren’t mages. He could blow through them with no more resistance than a snow flurry, and gouge out the boy’s throat.

But…

What Paradox had said wasn’t wrong. If the gorm could be wounded, they could be killed. And the only one in history to do such a thing was lying in front of him.

He could make life easier on himself by killing the boy now. Maybe even survive, since Marigold had her precious successors already.

But if Paradox took Manita back…the Frepon family just might go from being somewhat rich Earthlings, to being true royalty again.

Charles’ eye twitched. He didn’t want to admit it, but the boy was on a trajectory to become more powerful than even Marigold. A king of kings. And his family might rise far higher riding his coat-tails than by seizing a decorative throne.

Even with…certain upcoming unpleasantness.

Fine. I always did like a proper gamble.

Charles backed away, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible before sitting down and putting his back up against the cave wall.

If the wounds from the gorm kill him, then we’ll know he didn’t have what it takes.

Charles watched.

***Paradox***

Perry yawned and stretched as he woke up, cut off by a painful twinge in his side.

Perry peered down at his chest, poking it with his fingers.

Across his chest and shoulder were three angry pink scabs, where a gorm must’ve mauled him. they were roughly stitched together with thread that was clearly unsanitary, the cuts were bright pink and quickly sealing up with scar tissue, leaving a thin line of scab, as if they’d been healing for a solid week.

Normally Perry would be worried, but there wasn’t an infection on Earth or Manita that could compete with his Body.

Wish I could remember the fight with the gorm though…sorta. Sometimes there’s a good reason why your brain shuts down and it was possible remembering it would do more harm than good.

He appraised his situation.

Perry was in some kind of feather-bed. The air was somewhat stale, but breathable. The lighting seemed to be specially cultivated mushrooms bathing the room in a pale blue glow. Dirt floors. Old men in the corner. Watching him.

“How long have I been out?” Perry asked, plucking the threads out of his wounds.

“Eight hours, Chosen One,” the old undergrounder said. “You heal…alarmingly fast.”

“My eighth birthday present,” Perry muttered, sitting up with a grunt and continuing the job of removing stitches. “And Charles?” Perry asked, wondering how much of a headstart his uncle had gotten on him.

“Still in the common room. Under observation.”

“Seriously?” Perry asked. There was no way civilians, even hardened survivors, could restrain a suite of weapons-grade magic, which included teleportation. Perry was absolutely sure Charles could’ve bailed.

Probably thinks he can receive lighter treatment by cooperating. He’s probably right.

It implied Charles didn’t think he could get away from Perry, or that it wouldn’t be worth the sacrifice to make the attempt. That was a good line of thought to encourage.

Attunement 76 -> 70

Body 40 -> 46

Perry assessed his wounds.

With my rate of healing, it’ll be 2 more days until it’s safe to move around without popping the wounds open, then another 4 days afterwards to be in top shape. 46 body equals 9.4X my normal.

“I’ll be fine in a couple days,” Perry said. “Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Chosen one, it is our honor to aid your miraculous recovery.” The elder bowed deeply.

“Huh. Never been a chosen one before,” Perry said, frowning. “Look, talk to Charles about me. He’s my uncle and an enemy of mine. He’ll tell you all the bad things about me. Once you’re done you’ll at least be able to view me as a person instead of a savior.”

“Already done, Chosen one. I’m not blindly trusting.” The elder said. “As you said, your uncle spoke…somewhat poorly of you, but his words betrayed deeper truths.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like a woman to warm your bed as you recover?”

Perry considered it. It probably wouldn’t make Nat sad so much as envious, so it wasn’t against his current ethics model…but his common sense told him it was unwise.

“Nah, man, my home life’s already complicated enough.” Perry said, waving him off. “There be dragons”

There did be dragons too, but he was referring to a charged-up Nat eager to prove her coital superiority, not Tyrannus. One of those two he could defeat.

“Do you desire anything else?” the old man asked.

“Just some food, a chamber pot, and my uncle. I need to talk with him.

“Very well.” The elder said, nodding before hoisting himself to his feet, leaning on a shaky cane and hobbling away.

A minute later Charles walked in. Perry wasn’t particularly scared of having the powerful mage face-to-face while he was wounded. Nothing would’ve stopped him from killing Perry while he was unconscious. Why would he do it now?

“I could kill you right now.” His uncle led the conversation with an empty threat.

“Nah that was eight hours ago.” Perry said, waving him off. “Let’s move on to the matter at hand. I got a feather,” he said, nodding to the whorl of shifting light in the corner of the room.

Charles followed his gaze and winced with pain before looking away.

“What do you mean feather?” he asked.

“It’s a feather. You can’t see it because your brain isn’t able to decode the changes it’s making on your consciousness as you look at it…but believe me, it’s a feather.”

“So gorm are birds.” Charles said.

“Yep. Big, flightless birds with a good sense of smell that’ll track their prey indefinitely. Was there anything like that on Manita before we escaped?”

“Still is, actually.” Charles said. “The Capera are a flightless predator bird that thrives in the desert ranges of the southern continent. Territorial, endurance hunters that wear down their prey. Very aggressive, very stupid. They match your description of the Gorm. Superficially.”

“And how do you kill capera?” Perry asked.

“No method that hasn’t already been tried on the gorm, from poisoned bait and pit traps to high-powered divine smiting. The warping of reality renders poisons inert, they always find a way out of containment, and divine smiting flows off of them like water off a duck’s back. Pardon the pun.”

Perry frowned. He was hoping to figure out some kind of clever method to kill them by uncovering the gorm’s parent species weaknesses. He wasn’t too disappointed though, it was a slim chance.

“Uncle, I remember you had some talent for painting.”

“A member of modern royalty must be well-studied.” Charles said with a shrug.

“Do you think you could sketch a capera from memory?” Perry asked.

“…I could try.”

“Good enough.” Perry said.

Multi-tool

Perry summoned a laptop.

“While you do that, I’m going to try and design an algorithm that can sneak a laser past their plumage.” Perry nodded at the feather warping the corner of the room. If the reality-warping effect of the gorm’s plumage scattered light, in theory it could unscatter it too, and he might be able to focus enough light through the scattering effect to burn even the tiniest little patch of their impenetrable plumage away. If he could do that…

Then he could kill them.

Charles’ eyebrow twitched in surprise, then he nodded.

“I’ll get it done.”