121 What Lies Around Us (1/2)

I put a foot on the squirming creature, “Well, uh...It’s called Baldowah’s Wrath.”

Yawm turned towards me, finding my foot on the squirming thing. It latched onto me as Yawm lifted a hand,

“Let’s kill it...kill it with fire.”

I raised my hands, “Wait a second, let’s see if we can’t figure out what this thing is first.”

Yawm clasped a hand into a fist, “I don’t need to learn anything about this abomination to know its evil.”

I shrugged, “If I followed that same logic, I would have attacked you when we first met.”

Yawm took a step back, “Ah...I suppose all of that is true...Excuse my curtness. I’m feeling rather strange as of late.”

I pressed my foot into the disgusting mess of a creature, “If anything, taking this off should help with that.”

The disgusting monster latched onto my foot, pinning itself against me. It latched onto me, but I stayed clam. My armor would eat it alive the moment it stuck its teeth in.

Yawm pointed at it, “Are you not concerned that its-” Yawm waved his hand, “We don’t really know what it’s doing to you in all honesty.”

I shrugged, “It can’t harm me.”

I analyzed the creature again, rereading the description. After that, I saved the bio of it in my archives. I took out my obelisk before screenshotting it and picking it up the creature with a hand. It wrapped around my arm. I gripped my fist, clasping onto it like a vice grip. Spines of my armor shot through the creature, tearing it open.

The gunk inside it gushed outwards, the blood of the creature silver like my own. I frowned at it as the shrill screaming ebbed out again. Blood dripped down my ears as I pulled it close, inspecting it. Nothing inside the monster looked even remotely familiar. Still, I took another screenshot of the thing before looking at it from other angles.

The oddest aspect of the creature was that it sent ripples through gravity. It was like this monster was here and wasn’t here at the same time. It was a ghost I could touch or a memory made flesh. If that sounds cryptic, that’s because the creature could only be described in such vague terms. It just wasn’t solid enough for a concrete description.

Yawm squinted at me, “Does that armor of yours give you an immunity to disgust?”

I shook my head, “”Naw, being a real man does.”

He rolled his eyes before I lifted the thing over me. It was suffering, so I laced it with needles of my armor and drained its energy. After a few minutes, it disintegrated into my armor skin, giving me a massive boon of exp. I sighed,

“Man...so that thing was what made you angry.”

Yawm tapped his chin, “It was? So that’s where my sudden outbursts of rage came from then...what an outlandish reason for moodiness.”

I frowned, “Yeah, but for how long exactly?”

Yawm glanced up at the crystal trees above us, “That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I’ve been studying the cipher for about 400 years. The outburst of anger started about 330 years ago. If you’re correct about it being the source of my instability of mood, then that’s how long its been there...over three hundred years.”

I grimaced, “Over three hundred years?”

Yawm glanced at me, “It does boggle the mind, doesn’t it? What impresses me more is that you found it so quickly since our meeting. How?”

I shrugged, “Eh, I can’t give away all my secrets.”

Yawm laughed, “Then I’ll be more partial with my own then.”

I raised my hands, “Alright, you’re twisting my arm. I’ll tell yah. I sense fluctuations in gravity. There was a slight pull on your back that was greater than the air around you but less than your own body. Since there was nothing there, I needed to figure out what it was. After that, I guessed that it affected our world with gravity, therefore we could affect it.”

I opened a palm towards Yawm, “And so I got that thing off you.”

Yawm nodded at me, “Thank you, Harbinger. You discovered a curse I carried for over 300 years without knowing it. That’s quite a feat.”

I raised a hand, “The main take away is that...Oh shit.”

I sensed along my own back, finding another tiny pull of gravity. It was the same kind that Yawm had. I sighed before raising a hand.

Yawm tilted his head in confusion, “What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

I clenched tight, letting my mana flow in abundance. The gravity well pulled along my back. A minute later, and a wet, squishy something slapped against my back. After a few more minutes of pulling, a cold, slimy creature had latched onto my back. After feeling it for myself, I couldn’t blame Yawm for losing his composure.

It felt like I’d submerged my back into a vat of cold, squirming worms. It was gross as hell before I turned towards Yawm. He took a step back. I turned my head towards him but left my back facing him,

“Oh hell no.”

Yawm glanced away, scratching the side of his head, “What is it?”

I pointed a hand behind me, “You’re not leaving whatever the fuck this is on me.”

Yawm turned towards me, “Oh that? It doesn’t even look detrimental to you. If anything it accentuates your armor in a, uh, good way.”

I spread out my arms, “When I pry this son of a bitch off my back, I’m putting it on you while you sleep.”

Yawm stepped towards me, “If taking it off is that important, you should have just made that clear. There’s no need for threats of such a caliber.”

Yawm raised a hand before swiping it down. The monster was torn off like wet tissue paper. I turned towards it, seeing an azure, moving blob. It bled the same silver blood that I and the other creature bled as well. It wasn’t as squirmy, instead it was more like a snail with ten heads. Honestly, it was even more gross than the other one. At least in my opinion.

After getting over the fact that it was on me, I analyzed it as well.

Etorhma’s Abyss(lvl 5,000) - This is a creation of Etorhma’s. It latches itself onto unsuspecting victims and disrupts their train of thoughts. By exposing the victim to knowledge and concepts beyond their understanding, they corrupt the mind of the being over time.

In your case, your mind was strong, so it fought off these revelations while it was on you. It would have taken a few more years before serious symptoms took place. These symptoms include, losing memory, blanking out for days at a time, and eventual comatose.

What makes these creatures so malevolent when compared with other Old One’s creations is the difficulty in spotting the symptoms. The reason they are considered an equal danger level is because Baldowah’s Wrath can cause its victims to harm others and even worlds.

Etorhma’s Abyss works much more along the lines of disintegrating an individual’s potential rather than harming others. Regardless of these factors, it is recommended that you kill this abomination immediately. They can warp away at any second, returning towards a different time or dimension.

I took a quick screenshot and lifted my heel. I wouldn’t let it escape. A second later, I splattered the thing against the ground. A bit of the silver blood splattered onto Yawm before he raised a hand onto it. When he pulled his hand back and saw the silver, his hands jittered. He jerked his hand, shaking the liquid off before rubbing his face with great concern.

My armor reached out, the thousands of wires soaking up every ounce of the creature’s old body. Whatever this was, it was edible for my armor at least. I glanced back up at Yawm. He rubbed his back, looking for other alien parasites. A second later, he sighed,

“I’ll have to give you something for getting that off of me. I can’t quantify the harm it’s caused.”

I shrugged, “Well, if you’ve had a lot of anger issues in the past, this was why.”

Yawm shook his head, “That and it tells us something vital. The Old Ones are trying to sabotage us.”

Maybe for Yawm, but for me, these creatures were just easy experience.

“That’s cool and all, but what are we able to do about it? I mean, aren’t the Old Ones basically gods?”

Yawm snapped his fingers, ice chairs appearing beneath us. He sat down and gestured me to do the same. After getting comfortable, Yawm raised a hand to me,

“I’ve heard of that interpretation before. I believe it is inaccurate. The reason is that Old Ones are unpredictable. I’ve discovered many of the secrets behind Schema and his ilk. The Old Ones on the other hand are beyond my fathoming. Gods are easily understood on the other hand.”

Yawm lowered his hand onto the arm rest, “So I classify them as natural laws. Not only do they independently from time, they operate without any real reasoning or causes. They cannot be stopped. They can only be avoided or worked around. Gods accept sacrifices and tribute. They can give you strength, power, whatever it is that you want.”

Yawm leaned towards me,

“The Old Ones will reward your tribute with a third limb and an insatiable urge to devour dirt. Their reaction is incomprehensible, just like they are. I think of them as the unknowable, and therefore we must accept their existence and move on. In all honesty, this could be entirely coincidental.”

I raised a palm to Yawm, “There’s no damn way they did this on accident. To them, we’re both threats.”

These guesses came out of my own meeting with Etorhma. He mentioned something about Yawm destroying everything in pursuit of his goals. That’s why he sent me on a mission to kill him. If Etorhma was trying to kill Yawm, there’s no reason to assume the other old ones weren’t trying to either.

Besides for that, Etorhma turned on me during this little event. Having something attached to me like that was a slow, drawn out murder. I was going to handle it like that at least.

Yawm interrupted my thoughts,

“It seems as though every powerful entity despises the learning of that dimensional code.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I can’t really figure out why exactly.”

Yawm walked over, going back towards his dungeon core, “I think it’s a rather simple thing. Those that hold power and authority grasp it with all their strength. They’d rather have us sprint in circles, putting our heads down in the dirt and getting nowhere. All the while, they laugh from above, enjoying the spectacle.”

I followed Yawm, “Yeah, that’s an easy answer for now. I’m assuming it might be a bit more complicated than that though.”

Yawm shrugged, “I believe that even the most complicated plans have a simple motivation. Look at my plan for instance. It’s evolved from my curiosity and wanting for peace. Those aren’t the most convoluted reasons for starting such a complex ordeal.”

Yawm pointed towards the direction of the dungeon core, “Speaking of ordeals, we should return towards the core here and leave. Normally when I create these warps, the strongest nearby eldritch is drawn to the core. They feast on the ambient energy stored in it, mutating into a stronger creature.”