126 Honesty (1/2)

My goal here is to humanize Daniel and make him more relatable. Let me know if it worked.

Yawm leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He rested his chin onto his hands,

“Really now? Would you mind describing how you’ve been lying, though I may already have a general idea.”

I took a moment, my heart pounding in my chest. Thump, thump, thump, adrenaline flooded my system, my hands growing sweaty in seconds. I took a deep breath, letting me get control of myself. It amazed me that a conversation like this had me much more nervous than a battle to the death did.

That was the reality though as I continued,

“Alright, I guess I’ll start from the beginning. When a quarantine was issued for your visit to earth, no one on earth could leave. Your damn plague destroyed my home town, and it killed my friends. In all likelihood, it killed my father too.”

Honestly, I could give a damn about my dad. I was trying to get some sympathy points however I could though.

Yawm tapped his hands together, “So you intended on killing me for revenge then?”

I shook my hands, “No. Schema put out a mission for killing you. Your plague looked like it was going to destroy the damn world, and I couldn’t leave either. I didn’t have much of a choice but to accept. “

I raised up my hands in exasperation, “Here, I’ll give you asome context. I was level, like, 100 when I accepted this mission. I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into.”

Yawm scoffed, but his expression didn’t change.

I pointed at him,

“You laugh now, but I worked my ass off to get to this level. It’s not easy making that happen in less than a year. I ran around the entirety of Springfield, clearing out your plague. It wasn’t until we met your followers that things got complicated.”

I lowered my hand, “After that, I had a training montage in a dessert rift. I even managed to finish off some of your followers after that. Before I killed any of them, they would deform into these disgusting eldritch. That’s the perspective I had going into meeting you for the first time.”

I leaned back in my chair, raising my hands again in exasperation,

“Ajax betrayed you. I didn’t kill him. He came up with a plan where I would lie until I was strong enough to defeat you. That sure as hell worked. Yeah, I only need to gain about 10,000 more damn levels and learn to create gravitational singularities. Sing-u-fucking-larities.”

I let my arms flop on the chair, my weight cracking them,

“This whole time I’ve been bullshitting about how strong I was. Sure, I’ve got a few things going for me, but I can’t beat someone who’s 10,000 levels over me.”

I pressed a finger onto my chest, “I was a normal guy a year ago. A normal, non monster eating guy. I have no idea why in the hell everyone thinks I’m able to kill a literal god.”

I shook my hands at Yawm, “That’s the thing. You fit the actual definition of a god, did you know that?” I raised a hand, counting on my fingers,

“Immortal? Check. Can destroy the world with ease? Check. Can control the weather? Of course you fucking can. Can evaporate my ass? With ease.”

At this point, I was entering full on tirade mode. A lot of this had built up over the last few months, so letting it out was liberating. Yawm had a way of making himself easy to trust as well. Because of that, I couldn’t help but go on a tangent about everything.

Because of that, I leaned towards Yawm, “I live with a lich and revenant that are over a 1,000 years old. I am only eighteen years old. Why in the hell do they expect me to be able to do a damn thing to you? Our plan was garbage, but I couldn’t think of any other way. I had zero options.”

I shook my head, laying back into my chair, “And now everybody is calling me Harbinger and acting like I’m supposed to be able to do this shit.”

I moved both my hands to one side of me, “Not only am I supposed to be a hardened war hero-” I moved my hands to my other side, “But I have to be a spy, craftsmen, and god-slayer too. I stood up because no one else would, the whole time my back against a wall. I never wanted to sign up for all this.”

I sighed. My throat was on fire, like someone had made me swallow a hot coal. It surprised me how emotional I was being. I guess I was like this because Yawm wasn’t relying on me to make some miracle happen.

Riding on those emotions, I continued, “And I failed...I failed man. I tried so hard for so damn long. I was a machine. Some days I didn’t think I was even human. I sure as hell don’t think I’m human now though. There’s no question about it.”

My voice laced itself with venom, “No, I know I’m not anymore. I bleed silver blood. My skin and bones are metal. Monster’s don’t eat me. I eat monsters.”

I gestured a hand to Yawm, “And look at what good that did me. Now you’re going to wipe me off the face of the earth. Pa-Blow, then I’m gone. Over two years living in hell, disintegrated in an instant. All that hard work just gone. It’s hard pill to swallow.”

I leaned my head down, holding in my tears with my artificially enhanced willpower. It was like I wanted to cry like a baby, but I couldn’t.

“Go ahead man, Do your worst. I’m done with all this lying. Right now, I’m just tired.”

A long silence stretched out. It was the kind of silence that was hollow and biting. It was like learning of some deep hurt that someone hid. I had no idea what Yawm was thinking about as I said it. Besides for that single scoff, he didn’t say a word or change his expression.

It was the weirdest damn thing. I just gushed out stuff I’d been holding in for months. I hoped it was because Yawm’s charisma was high. For some reason, I doubted that. Either way, I settled back into my chair, a sense of relief coming over me. Even though I was probably going to die, at least I got all that off my chest.

Yawm sat back up. He laid his hands onto the armrest of his chair with his back upright. He spoke,

“That was...uh, well, more than I anticipated hearing...Wow.”

I guess the stress got to me or something, but I laughed. Yawm scratched the back of his head,

“I believed you were an agent sent by Schema or perhaps an avatar of an old one.”

I scratched the side of my face, “Well, I am...sort of. Etorhma sent me to kill you. He didn’t give me a damn thing to help with doing that though.”

Yawm’s eyes opened wide,

“Really now...That’s quite the predicament you’ve found yourself in then. It seems as though all these powerful forces around you are relying on you to fulfill some sort of preordained destiny. That sounds like quite the set of burdens for anyone, let alone an adolescent.”

Yawm leaned back in his chair, “How exactly did you strike me with such force when we first met then?”

I sighed, “It was a bullshit perk.”

Yawm tapped his chin with a single finger, “And what about your mana regeneration? It’s far higher than my natural generation. There must be something to it.”

I shrugged, “Let’s just say I’m a regen specialist.”

“And your durability? I couldn’t seem to hurt you with my strikes unless I applied real force.”

I banged one of my shoulders, the clank of metal on metal coursing through the room.

“My armor is hard. That’s it.”

Yawm nodded. He snapped his fingers, calling Keeja into the room. Keeja walked inside, bringing us two more glasses of Yawm’s favorite tea.

“There’s many more questions I’d like to ask, if you have the endurance to answer them.”

I laughed, “If there’s one thing I have plenty of, it’s endurance.”

Once that was done, Yawm asked question after question. It was a mild mannered interrogation, his questions pointed but never probing too deep. I ended up describing how I grew up. I detailed how sinister Baldag-Ruhl was, keeping quiet about his runes. I described the horrors of Yawm’s plague.

By the time I finished, it was morning in Yawm’s personal rift. It was nice to tell him my story. Something about it was liberating, especially when it was someone like Yawm. He had this way of listening that made me open up. Once again, it was probably his charisma squeezing information out of me. At this point, I was finding it hard to care.

At the same time, I kept the most important and private details to myself. I wasn’t about to tell him where Althea and the rest were. I also never told him about my arcane blood. I didn’t want to become some sort of mana battery for him.

Once I finished discussing everything, Yawm stood up from his chair. He opened a palm towards the doorway,

“If you wouldn’t mind waiting, I need some time to decide what to think of all this.”

I nodded, “Yeah, sure. I don’t mind. If anything, take your time.”

I walked out of his room, closing his ice door behind me. I had no idea what was going to happen. I could try and run, but I doubted that would work very well. In the end, Ajax could always warp me out at some point.

In a way, I hadn't failed. I stopped Yawm from spreading his plague across the world. He hadn’t destroyed everything or tore everyone apart just yet. That was the entire point of this venture. Now that I knew Yawm, I understood just how impossible it was to push him into a different dimension.

Ajax was suicidal if he thought I was going to pull off something like that. I mean I tried. I gave it my best effort, but it wasn’t enough. Yawm wasn’t just powerful, he was clever too. It wasn’t all over just yet though, so I walked back towards my room.

Once there, I opened my status screen. I sent out a message to Torix, Althea, Hod, and even Kessiah. It let them know that the situation might devolve soon and that I might need Ajax to take me out of here. After finishing that, I focused on doing what I could at that moment.