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Chapter 4: Oh, how wrong he had been. Vesis wasn’t ready to die yet, not even if it was for the master. He wasn’t utterly loyal, and for that reason he deserved to die. He needed to give up, but wanted to resist. He needed to stay, but he wanted to run. Quite a vicious cycle, wasn’t it? To further his indecision, he immediately thought of a plan to get him out of the tunnel safely. All he had to do was have the will, and he could be safe, yet he stood still for precious seconds while his fiery doom rushed forward to meet him.
In the end, his animal instinct won out. A tidal wave swept Vesis off his feet just as the wall gave way to a flood of magma. As he was washed into the open air, a wall of water formed at the cave entrance, directly in the path of the magma flood. He did not rejoice as the lava met the water and formed an impenetrable stone wall, sealing the monsters inside. He had completed his mission, but he had failed the rather unexpected test of his loyalty.
For the first time since his rebirth, Vesis was filled with fear as the presence of the master entered his head.
You are not truly loyal.
No... am not.
Twitch.
A long silence followed, in which the only sound Vesis could hear was the whistling of the wind through the bare canyons. Suddenly, he became frantic. What if the master were to kill him? Or worse, what if he were to be stripped of his power, left naked to the world’s evils as a human? No, that couldn’t happen. He couldn’t let it.
Please forgive. Not mean it, no no. Please please, will make it up. Do anything, yes! So… so… please no harm, yes? Know what did was wrong, yes yes. Not fear again, no. Always always do what master want, yes! Never fear like human, never, never.
The silence dragged on. Vesis began to get even more uneasy.
Twitch.
His foot began tapping the ground incessantly.
Twitch.
He began to scratch places that didn’t itch.
Twitch.
His eyes flicked around the area, looking for anything that could lessen the torture of waiting.
Twitch.
You shall not be pardoned again…
And just as soon as it had come, the presence left. Vesis stood still for several minutes after. Was that it? No punishment? No scolding, simply a warning? No, that couldn’t be; there had to be something else. He stood completely still for what seemed like hours, and still he remained unpunished. Perhaps he really had gotten off lightly. No matter, he couldn’t afford to stand around any longer; he needed to treat his leg.
The walk—or limp, rather—back to town was difficult to say the least. He could barely get more than a few hundred feet before having to stop and wretch from the pain. Regardless, he continued. He limped onward, his determination burning fiercely when any normal mortal would have simply given up. His eyes were glazed over and fixed permanently ahead as he limped his way over the mountains and through the valleys. He had to continue. He had to be able to function again. If he couldn’t then he would disappoint the master again. And he didn’t want that, no no.
How long had it been? Hours? Days? Weeks? How much time had passed by the time he set foot in the village? There was no way to be sure; the only fact he knew now was that his torment was at an end.
Darkness.
Consciousness.
Voices.
Confusion.
Light.
Vesis opened his eyes. White. All he could see was white. He was lying on something soft. A bed, perhaps? He turned his head to find the whiteness shifting. He was in line with a row of beds. The beds had people in them. Curiously, he couldn’t feel the pain in his leg, and his movements were oddly sluggish.
“Ah, you’re awake!”
Vesis turned to the voice to find a woman in a white coat standing by him. “Mmm… Eh?”
A look of disappointment came over the woman’s face. “Oh, you can’t speak yet? Everybody thought you’d at least be able to tell us what happened after so much time… Oh well, I guess I can at least explain a few things. You’re in the infirmary of our village. We found you just outside the village with a badly burned leg, so we took you in. It’s been… I think three days since we found you. We managed to take care of the worst of your leg, but you still need to rest.” The doctor hung around for a few more seconds, perhaps clinging to the hope that Vesis could speak. With a sigh, she gave up and began to walk away.
“Wait,” Vesis croaked.
The doctor paused and turned around, an excited expression on her face.
“Can speak.”
The woman walked to stand by his side once more. “So, can you tell me what happened?”
Vesis shrugged as best he could; shrugging while lying down was incredibly awkward, he found. “Nuh really. Kicked lava slime. Thaz all.” Whatever drug they had given Vesis, it was impairing his speech as well.
The woman seemed rather disappointed with the explanation. “Is that all? Why did you even kick the slime in the first place?”
“Dunnuh. Wus angry then. Din’t really tink troo. Ey… y’know where can find sum monz… monzt… monzterz? Need find sum, now.”
The woman shook her head, slightly confused. “Wait, what? Are you looking for a fight already? No, you need to stay here and rest. You’re no good with all those painkillers in you now.”
This made Vesis angry. Or rather, it made him as angry as he could be through the haze of the drugs clouding his thoughts. Nobody could tell him what he could or couldn’t do. He did as the master ordered, and no mortal or painkiller could make him do otherwise. He struggled to sit up in his bed, intent on carrying out his mission.
The woman put a hand on Vesis’s shoulder, gently forcing him back into bed. “There, there, just rest for now. It’ll be-“ She didn’t get to finish her sentence before her body was torn to shreds by a red tide.
The path clear, Vesis swung his feet over the bed and placed his feet on the cold floor. He had just begun to stand when the other people in the room finally processed what he had done. He hadn’t even taken his first step before the screaming started.
He shuffled rather awkwardly out of the infirmary, paying no mind to the screams and shouts of alarm surrounding him. He needed to do… what? What did he need to do again? Something about… the master? What did the master need him to do? Fire monsters… he had to kill them. The why didn’t matter. He would do it through this haze if he had to.
Step, step, step. That was all Vesis could think of. Put one foot in front of the other. Carry himself to his goal. Step, step, step. Continue onward. No drugs could stop his advance; no mortal could bar his path. Step, step, step. The flames were flickering on the edge of his vision. Yes, they had come for him. Step, step, step. Towards the fire monsters now surrounding the village. With open arms he advanced, welcoming his goal.
Step, step, step. Put one foot in front of the other. With a madman’s grin he prepared his blade. Step, step, step. Yes, they saw him now. They recognized him. Step, step, step. The fire monsters had come to revenge their doomed kin. The fire monsters began to converge toward him. Step, step, step. Closer, closer, closer they came. The drugs could not turn him from his goal.
Step, step, step. Yes, then the water came. Then the water came and washed away all the flame. Splash, splash, splash. There were still a few left. Red tides corrected that. Splash, splash, splash. And then there were none.
Darkness.
Vesis awoke to find himself simply lying on the ground in the village. His head was spinning nauseatingly and his leg was throbbing, but other than that, he appeared to be okay. He looked around to find the ground oddly dry. Was it possible that the fire monsters had simply been a hallucination? It wasn’t unheard of for painkillers to cause that sort of thing. He shook his head to clear it; he couldn’t afford to think about these things any longer.
He needed to continue his mission. Obviously, killing a population of monsters hadn’t worked as well as he had hoped. He would need a better plan to draw out Fiamme. He smiled as he thought of just the way to come up with such a plan.
Vesis found the man seated at the exact same bar stool that he had been at the first time Vesis had met him. As he watched, a look of dread came over the man’s face as he noticed that Vesis was staring and grinning at him. He sighed as Vesis took the seat next to him.
“Told you, be back, hm?”
The man closed his eyes and pressed his hands against his temples, obviously not liking the situation. “Yes, I suppose you did.”
“Now now, another question. Populations of monsters not working, yes. Another way to draw out her?”
The man seemed hesitant. “Well, I think I know of one way.”
Vesis started bouncing in his seat from excitement. “Yes yes! Tell, tell! Come, out with it.”
“Each element has its own great dragon, which holds sway over a large portion of the element. The balance might be thrown off if the dragon were destroyed.”
“Yes? And what is name of fire great, hm? Tell, tell.”
“The name… It’s…”
“Come come! Hesitate much much. Tell straight, now!”
“A-Akriloth! The great dragon of fire is named Akriloth.”
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