Protect the weak because we are all weak sometimes.
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It had been three days of arduous work with the dead and occasionally feeding the great wolf in the sea (whenever he found half decent animal meat). Jasper decided to clean the streets of their more mundane filth. Mostly emptying flame-fly jars of their contents and gathering scrap wood so the barkeep could cook on something other than the flames of lost spirits.
It was on a return trip that he noticed Crow and the artist had filled the jars with three-leaf pine flowers instead of the bugs.
"What's up with the jars?"
"It attracts the bugs, so they don't have to replace dead ones. They can just feed them and live alongside each other." She pointed down the street where the artist was reaching for one such bug flying just out of reach. It stopped on his hand and kept its fiery bum pointed up to not burn its new friend. The artist hit his knees and sobbed body-shaking tears that could be seen across the street.
"He's a good spirit, just a little troubled."
"More than a little, I can't believe you looked through his paintings and came out fine," Jasper gave a pointed look.
"You did the same with that fire in the bar."
"Speaking of fire, how's Throng?"
"About as well as you'd expect for someone with his story, I'd say better even. He's still building traps to the north like you asked, though. Hasn't taken a single break, not that I've seen anyway."
"He's alone on the battlefield?" but Jasper's answer never came, and Throng would have to wait.
They came out of nowhere, the Myst-bugs. One minute, they were talking, and the next, there was a giant cloud of radiation in the center of the street.
Jasper blasted all three shotgun rounds toward the clouds of chaos. A two foot long mosquito-like bug fell out of the Myst and squirmed its last repugnant gesture.
Determined to not let the bugs close, Jasper stood his halberd upright with the bottom handle touching dusty wood and draped the rifle's barrel over the curve in the axe-head. With his rifle successfully cradled, the halberd became a front handle and a rest. The steadiness of aiming did nothing to diminish the lack of visible enemies, though.
Despite the Myst-bugs occasionally dropping, they advanced on the group. The artist down the street still hadn't noticed, even with the gunshots.
Crow stood frozen by his side.
Frozen in place as if she had no other option.
Frozen in fear like a coward or, worse, like just another damsel in distress.
She froze, with one shaky hand hovering over the bandage on her left arm.
Jasper shouldered the .50 caliber as the bugs drew near. The memory of the queen Myst-Bug force feeding him eggs and radiation filled vomit flashed to mind as the halberd came down. Another was run through easily, but the ease of weapon handling went from difficult to damn near impossible once the radiation cloud engulfed Jasper for the second time in as many days. The world faded into black.
The white knight of the land swung wildly before falling to his knees and accepting the cruel death. The world spun end over end, fever set in, and blood poured from his eyes. Jasper's skin blistered, flaked, and swole red as he dry heaved the lunch that had never been eaten. When he caught a glimpse of Vanessa through the fog, all he saw was shimmering black hair whipping around as she fled.
The air turned into fragments of fire, ice, and rain. All of the oxygen was sucked from his lungs in a tornado of radiation. All reality broke for an eternal moment, and the Artist stood over Jasper with an open book facing him. Sickening slabs of Myst-bug rained down upon the floor, still vibrating from radiation. The whirlwind receded into the Artist's book along with all of the toxic air.
The Artist slams his book shut before an image could be made out from within. Then he left, without a word; without emotion.
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Jasper's weighted stride rounds the corner of the alley Vanessa cowers in. A jar with a single flame-fly circling provided the dimmest of light overhead. Her face was between her legs, and tears wet the ground at her feet.
"It's okay, you don't have to save me every time," but the look of disappointment the wanderer gave her betrayed his words. A look that said she wasn't an equal like he'd thought, but that she was weak. She was not completely wrong at his thoughts, but it was only because he couldn't bear losing her. Not again, not after everyone that had already been lost.
"It's not like that. I just, I don't want to become a monster," she unraveled the thick bandage around her forearm. The floating symbols faded through the white cloth, coloring it with ink and erasing it every time it passed around the illusion. "Each time I use magic, these symbols become darker and grow more. They trace around my shoulder and go into my heart. Into my heart! The same way they do on the worst monsters depicted in the ruins up north. Giants with obelisks for heads and things that you can't see, except only in a certain way."
"Like Myst-bugs?"
"Worse. Like Temnota and the Red-Eyed Man."
"Do you know what they mean?"
"No. Only that it may be eating away at my spirit."
YOU ARE READING
Shadows of Elysium: The Laughing King
HorrorOnce upon a time there was a world, much like our own. This world is gone. The machinations and wars of man saw to every manner of apocalypse. What was left is a world as nightmarish as it is fantastical. Gunslingers and swordsmen ply the same trade...
