Laurence was confronted with a pine forest when he and Yun left the testing area. The forest was a lot thinner than the one he had been through a few days before, and a lot more frigid. Snow was peppered across the tops of the trees and caked the grey earth floor, staining the frozen mud with patches of white. It was comparatively tame, and after about an hour of travel the two companions even found a trail that seemed to lead towards a settlement. The road they were travelling was a well worn one, but still very rough and by the second hour of the meandering walk that Laurence preferred, they reached the village.
It was a simple village, with a low population count, but it still seemed to be bustling with life. The butcher and baker were arguing over who had better produce, the smith was busy hammering away at some project or another and the inn was bursting with the sounds of merriment. Laurence had no idea why, but the inn seemed to be the main draw for the village. He walked up to the entrance of the town itself and was met by two men in armoured uniform.
“Good day young lad! If I may be so bold, may I ask why you and your canine friend are in the fine village of Cie’Awll?” The man on the left took charge. He was the taller of the two, and seemed to have some sort of seniority that had been decided between the both of them.
“I’m Laurence, this is Yun. We’re climbing Babel, who are you?” Laurence was interested by this pair. One tall, one fat, they reminded him of the stories his mother used to tell him before going to bed with pairs or groups of people who all looked disproportionately different.
“Climbing Bay-bell? What’s that?” The fat man had never heard the phrase, but it was obvious the tall man had. The moment Laurence mentioned Babel his eyes bulged. He knew about the tower, and knew far more than his friend did.
“Shut up Trevor. I’m Jake, my friend here is Trevor, Trev for short. We’ve been posted on guard detail for this town, so I’m going to have to take you to the inn and set you down, then I can go and sort out a pass card for you. Once you have that you can be on your way”. The guard, Jake, seemed rather nervous about Laurence. He acted like the child was some sort of explosive, so tried to take a careful and measured approach to deal with him.
“Jake, what’s a pass card?” Interjected Trev.
“Shut up Trevor. A pass card is the card that the captain gives people who are allowed access to the waste. You should know that by now”. Jake was starting to sweat slightly now. Trev was making his job far harder than it could be.
“Can I not use this as a pass? Every challenger has something like this”. He revealed the slowly swirling nebula on his right arm, with the number two in the center. Jake gulped. Laurence could tell he was getting more and more nervous about something, but had no idea what. It was beginning to annoy the boy, but he wanted to know why he was being so careful. Was he like this with all people who arrived here or was he just like this with challengers?
“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to wait. Don’t worry though, the pass will only take twenty minutes to make. Just follow me to the inn and we can sort it out for you”.
“Alright then”.
They quickly walked to the inn and Laurence got himself and Yun some food. They had not stocked up on food before they left, so they were quite hungry. When the two guards walked off into the inn Laurence was still feeling uncomfortable about how they left so he decided to follow them. He ducked under the table he was sitting at and dashed to the back door, then followed the pair until they entered a large building near the back of the town with the words ‘Frontier Guard’ emblazoned above the entrance. Laurence thought it was a bad idea to go inside, and instead followed the two men outside as they entered the office of someone they both considered their superior. He made an incision into the window near their boss with a mana blade and heard them talking.
“Sir.. He is just a child!” Said Jake, he knew what was coming but did not like it.
“I don’t care Sergeant! The General has ordered that all challengers are collected and taken to the depths of the wall. You can disagree with it, but they are dangerous, and we want to learn how to harness their power for the greater good of Odnw’Aldn. This benefits us all”. Their Captain was a dominant personality, and he would brook nothing from his subordinates. He had his orders and they would follow theirs. “Go back to that boy and make sure he reaches the wall. He has to go through there to get to the Ohyl Aget anyway, so just make sure you do not lose him”.
“Yes sir!” Both men exclaimed, grabbing a cloth band on the way out. When Laurence saw this he immediately sprinted back towards the inn. When he returned he noticed that Yun had finished both plates of food and was looking very satisfied with himself. The inn was still quite busy but only now did Laurence realise how many men in the inn were soldiers wearing a similar uniform to Jake and Trev. Two men were arm wrestling on one side of the room while a third was taking bets on who would be the winner. It had garnered a massive amount of attention from the rest of the customers and effectively left Laurence’s re-entry unknown to the patrons of the inn.
Laurence saw this competition and wanted to take part, so he walked over to the gaggle of men and said in a loud voice, “Could I have a go?”
The entire crowd paused and began laughing. A child who could have been no older than ten asking to compete in a strongman competition was laughable, adorable but laughable. In the end the current champion wiped away the tears from his eyes and said “I don’t see why not. Same rules as everyone else and if you win three of five rounds then I’ll buy the entire inn a drink. If I win then I’ll just buy all the people who have challenged me a drink”.
The crowd cheered at that. Either way people would be getting free alcohol, but it was unthinkable that the champion would lose. At just under two metres tall and a metre and a half wide, the champion, Bill, was a man made of almost pure slabs of muscle. He could lift over four hundred pounds with his back and his arms were nothing to be sniffed at either. He looked like a man made of logs and then wrapped in meat. The two wrapped their hands together and people began enjoying themselves. It was a silly spectacle, but the crowd was having fun with it.
Bill thought to himself that the easiest way to win and give the child some face would be lose the first match, win the second and third then lose the fourth, going for a victory in the fifth round. The crowd would enjoy it and it would leave with everyone feeling good, which meant people would come back to wrestle with him the next week. If he just crushed the child it would make him look bad more than anything.
The referee struck his glass at the side of the table to signify the start and the two fighters began arm wrestling. Laurence leant forward and then put about twenty percent of his power into the push. Bill was going easy but noticed that this child actually had a large amount of strength in his arms. His hand smashed against the table and the referee clanged the glass against the table again. “Round one to the kid! Come on Bill, are you trying to lose your profits for today?”
Bill laughed, but then frowned. This child was different. He had heard of the ancient gods coming down in various forms to play pranks on the unwary. They often rewarded the ones who beat them well, so Bill decided to go all out over the next three rounds with greed shining in his eyes.
Laurence smiled and looked up at the big man. He wondered how little strength he would need to beat this man, if a mere twenty percent had that reaction. He had not yet realised that Bill had gone easy on him, but it did not matter. The boy had no intention to lose either.
The crowd cheered as the referee clanged his glass ushering the beginning of the next round. This time Bill’s muscles immediately began straining and to the crowd around the table seemed to be putting on a real show for them. They laughed and joked as his arm was smoothly pushed down against the table. The referee clanged his glass again and quickly grabbed himself another drink while they prepared for round three.
Laurence frowned, he knew that he could beat the large man at ten percent now, but the man seemed like he was really trying, perhaps it would be harder if he used about five percent of his power. He was enjoying himself now, and the crowd seemed to be too. Once the referee came back he clanged his newly filled glass against the table and ushered in the third round. The two challengers once again strained their muscles and this time the boy was pushed back. It was slow and arduous, with Bill sweating and going slightly red in the face, but no one there really believed that he was having difficulty. They thought his acting was excellent. Finally the young boy’s arm hit the table and they called the round to a close. The crowd thought that now Bill was behind in the race he would simply swoop to victory three times in a row, making sure the crowd got their kicks even if they did not get the drink they could have.
The referee clanged his glass to signify round four and they once again began straining. Laurence used six percent of his power while Bill was really going all out. HIs muscles bunched and veins popped out prominently. Blood was flowing freely round his body trying to nourish his straining muscles, but the child in front of him was like a rock surface. He was immovable and impenetrable, and it was actually beginning to scare Bill. He already knew that whatever the outcome he would not be doing this with a child again. The hands went too and fro for several minutes, the crowd getting into the fight as much as possible. People cried and cheered when it went one way or the other until finally Jake and Trev walked back into the inn. Laurence saw them and to not arouse suspicion that he knew about their odd task he smiled at them as if he was oblivious. He lost concentration and his power dropped a little, allowing Bill to clinch the victory. People who were rooting for Bill cheered and the people who rooted for Laurence booed. To all eyes outside the challengers it was a close one.
“Bill, I have to leave now, I had fun with this and I will be back to finish it at some point in the future!” Laurence smiled at the thought of leaving the crowd with baited breath wondering who could have won. He did not know that they all thought that Bill would have won, but they had no idea how strong the boy actually was. Bill on the other hand wiped his brow and smiled at the thought that this ending was actually the best way to keep his reputation intact. He was the only one who knew how strong the boy really was, and vowed under his breath to never accept the challenge from a child again.
“Have fun lad, I’ll wait for you to become big and strong before I accept your challenge again”. This way at least he would have a reason to lose to the boy.
With that Laurence left the inn behind and got on the cart set up by the two guardsmen. They told Laurence that they were going to show him to the wall, which was the direction he wanted to go towards anyway. He and Yun hopped up on the back of the cart and once more left into the unknown.
An entire day went by on the cart, as the party travelled from Cie’Awll to the wall separating Odnw’Aldn from the wasteland beyond. By the evening of the second day Laurence and the guards had arrived at the unloading area under the wall. Laurence was taken aback by the distance from which he could see the wall itself. The wall was massive, it stretched in either direction for what seemed like an eternity and dominated the landscape. The wall was breathtaking in every respect, the top seeming to reach the heavens itself. It truly cut the land in two.
Laurence asked Jake how the wall was built, because it was one of the most incredible feats of human creation he had ever seen. Even things in the book did not match the ingenuity of this wall, which was an odd idea when he thought about it. His book told him how to make anything, but there was nothing truly big or difficult in it. Jake said it was something that had been there since ages past, that the ascended ones built it so the wildlings would stay out of Odnw’Aldn.
The boy found Jake and Trev to actually be quite good company once they had worked past the awkwardness of the plot they had formed. For almost all the questions Laurence had one of the two would have an answer. Most of the talking was done by Trev on the way back, because Jake would often stare into the middle distance and shake his head like he was contemplating something that he had a problem with. Often nothing would set him off, he would just finish what he was asked or what he was doing and then stare. Yun tried to cheer the young man up by placing his head on Jake’s lap. It did not help, but Jake scratched between Yun’s ears, so he was distracted from the effects of his attempt. The thousand yard stare of Jake’s only seemed to get worse as they got closer to the wall. Finally they arrived at the monolith and he seemed to snap out of it.
Jake rushed off to talk to the commander while Laurence and Trev unloaded the cart they had rode in on. Laurence knew that their transport was only partly an excuse to get him within the wall. He did not know whether they would try and capture him or whether they would just ask him what they wanted to know but he could not wait to find out. The situation was exciting to him, but then any unknown was. After about five minutes Jake came back looking very torn about his choice with a guard detail of twenty men. The commanding officer pointed at Laurence and men immediately surrounded him.
“Young boy, we are arresting you in the name of the Frontier Guard”. The officer paused as Laurence looked at him expectantly. He thought the child would look many things; like worried or afraid, but definitely not expectant, if not excited. “By the power vested in me by Garrison Lord Adrigal I will now escort you to the prison below the wall where you will be interrogated until you tell us what we want to know”.
The guardsmen pointed their spears and ushered the young boy and his dog inside the wall. They were escorted down into the depths of the earth, on an almost direct route downwards. After an hour or so of walking the guards reached a doorway and forced the pair through into the room beyond. It was a small room, with no light source and a small, inhabited cot on the right side of the room. In the far corner of the left side of the room there was a small hole that was used as a toilet. This room was the bare minimum of what was needed to live, however it was still more than Laurence was expecting. His view of things was often skewed by the expectations set from the epic tales and poems his parents had read to him before he went to bed. His view that prisons should be unimaginable places of punishment came from the story of David The Betrayer, who was imprisoned and tortured for five years. His only resting spot was a coffin that was too small for him to lie in or ever stretch out straight in. Compared to that this room was positively luxurious.
The commanding officer closed the door and said, “We will leave you here for the night. You had best hope that you are willing to talk tomorrow or we will leave you in for longer without food or water”. Laurence could see Jake visibly blanch at the idea of leaving a small boy in a room with no food, water, fresh air or light source. It was obviously against his morals, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would be court-martialed and thrown in prison with the boy if he tried anything. To the higher ups this was absolutely for the greater good.
As the light faded from the room and the men left the boy and dog to their own devices, Laurence ignited his mana reservoir to create a light. He moved over to the bed to see who their companion would be while Yun walked over to the hole and immediately regretted sniffing it. The body of the creature was small, thin and covered completely by the blanket. It was definitely not a human. He peeled off the blanket and was confronted by an imp-like creature with four wings, huge eyes and extremely long ears. It blinked at the boy as Laurence said “Who are you?”
The imp split its face in half with a smile and replied, “My name is Damascus, and I know who you are, hammer boy”.
“How do you know what I am? I’m a boy aren’t I?”
Laurence was shocked, was there something other than his red Book that he should have been hiding? Did this odd creature, Damascus, know about his red Book? If it did how? He grimaced and swung the burning weapon towards the creature saying “What do you know about me”.
“Calm down kiddo!” The imp grinned even wider. “I’m a sprite, a muse if you will. I know about you being a creator because I can feel it coming off you”. He got up and began flitting round the room, looking at everything with a new light. “Before you got here I was a directionless sprite, one with ten thousand years of life, but with no purpose. Now I have one!” The creature, the sprite, hopped on top of Yun’s back and lay there. He looked very comfortable on the wolf’s back. “Look, I am here to make you improve. I know things that you would take years working out. Give me a chance”.
“What are you talking about? I have finished the red book, I know all there is to know about the Art of Making and the Godly Machinations. What else is there for me to know about creation?”
Damascus laughed. It was a very knowing, sarcastic laugh that got on Laurence’s nerves. “Look, kid. What’s your name?”
“Laurence”.
“Look, Laurence. I was made by someone… I have no idea who, but I was made to help the people who talk to me attain full mastery of their book, thereby attaining the Heaven realm or the Ascendant Immortal realm. You’re just a measly Saint. Does that not seem odd to you? That you are a Saint when if you master your first book you become an individual of the Heaven realm”.
“I guess it does seem a bit strange..”. Laurence had to concede this point. He had known for a while that he had learnt everything that the book had to show him, but that his knowledge was also incomplete. He knew there were ways to make his weapons stronger, or greater but had no idea how. The great wall splitting Odnw’Aldn from the wasteland beyond was a perfect example of this. It was made by someone who must have studied the same book as him, but it was so much greater in power, scope and pure theoretical knowledge that Laurence could not hope to compare without help. “I guess you are right mister Damascus. Will you help me learn?”
“That’s better”. Damascus grinned again, this time more sincerely than the last. “I will help you. First thing’s first. What you have in your bag is known as The Book of Creation It is one of the six books that teaches people the fundamentals of reality. It also shows you how to manipulate them when you have enough control over your mana reservoir. It is split into four sections, two of which you have read and mastered. The other two parts are known as Infernal Enchantments and Myriad Manifestations. The Infernal Enchantments I can teach you about, because it is part of my nature, but the Myriad Manifestations is the final step towards completion. The Manifestations are the ninety-nine true masterpieces that have been created by the creation clans since the dawn of time. Each piece is a true masterwork that takes reality bending manipulation and a heightened sense of the way of the world to make. It is the hardest part of completing the book and also something that most people never do in their life times”.
“What makes you think I can’t? What makes you think I can’t complete the one hundredth manifestation?”
“Simple. You seem like a gifted kid, and have the will of the Hephaistia clan on your back, even if you probably don’t have their blood. However, in the entire lifetime of the universe so far, the trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion years since Babel first opened her great eye, there have been ninety-nine new manifestations. You would have to be the most gifted child of the Hephaistia clan to even have a chance to understand”.
Laurence was getting angry at this point. He knew that he had some skill, and that it probably did not compare to others, but the way that Damascus was saying it made him think there was no hope whatsoever. Damascus was slowly crushing the child’s dream of being the best and most knowledgeable when it came to the red book, the Book of Creation. “Well who is to say I am not? Who is to say I’m not the son of the head of this Hephaistia clan after all?”
“Me. Your soul is the wrong shape. The symbol of the Hephaistia clan was the forge, not the hammer”. Damascus realised he was being a little bit too harsh for the child when Yun kicked him off his back. “Look, kid..”. He said, trying to make amends. “You may not be able to make the hundredth Manifestation, but you are more than likely able to ascertain one of the ninety-nine. Especially with my help”.
“Alright”. Laurence was not one to hold grudges, especially when the person talking meant no real harm. In the end the two of them chatted through the night and discussed the nature of enchantment, until Laurence eventually fell asleep.
The next morning, the officer who had put Laurence and Yun in the room went down and confronted the boy. He pulled Laurence out of his dank cell and into a room with grey walls and no windows. Sitting the boy at a chair he placed the child’s hands in a vice, then put the vice in the pressure that was just enough to keep them there without them moving. Laurence looked around the room unperturbed. It was a gloomy room, and he could feel the suffering that had gone on within the walls. It was not a place that he wanted to stay in, and yet the commander seemed to be in his element here.
“Child, you will tell me what I want to know, or I will press down this vice. Every time I don’t believe you I will turn the handle until you tell me what I want to know”. A fire lit behind the commander’s eyes. He enjoyed this, torture. He wanted the child to lie so he could hear the screams of pain coming from the boy. Everyone broke in the end, he just had to find the right button to push. “So tell me. How does one become as powerful as one of these ‘Challengers?’”
Jake was watching in the back, and knew the commander’s nature. He could feel that this was going to be his last straw. He could deal with watching over grown men being tortured, because they made their choices, but this boy could not have been more than ten years old. He clutched the hilt of his sword until his knuckles went white, holding back his rage. There was very little he could do until later, until the commander had got his fix of injury inflicted on Laurence. He knew that it would not go too far today, the commander always liked to extend these sessions for a long as possible, making sure that there were breaks in between to keep the victim of all this
very much alive.
“That’s simple” Said Laurence. “You just go to the door to Babel on this floor and enter it. You will be tested and if you succeed in creating a mana reservoir you will be able to begin climbing”.
“Tighten the vice”. The commander said in a cold voice. “I have heard that lie a thousand times before. Tell me what I want to know”. The vice began to turn but all it did was confuse the boy. He had not lied but was being punished anyway, and that simply did not make sense. That is unless the man intended to harm him no matter what he said. Because of that Laurence decided to go about this a different way.
“I don’t think you know what you are looking for”. The boy said. “I told you how to become a Challenger, but if you don’t believe me that’s your loss”.
“We won’t stop child, unless you tell me how you gained that tattoo and how you achieved your strength”. The commander pushed the soldier holding the clamps and twisted them, grinning viciously. He twisted the clamps tight and looked Laurence in the eye, watching for the point he would break. Adults might be able to hold back their secret but a child surely had to break. After tightening the clamps to their maximum and watching for thirty seconds the officer sighed and said, “Take him back to the cell. Tomorrow we torture his dog instead. He might be strong, but he’s still a child”.
This irked Laurence. He had done nothing to these people, but they insisted on trying to hurt him and make him tell them something they already knew just did not believe. The fact that they were going to hurt Yun next angered him more than anything else so far. Yun was his dog, not theirs.
They lead the boy back to his cell and when he got inside he gathered up the paltry amount of items he had taken out of his bag, cleared up everything and then said to both Damascus and Yun, “Tonight we get out of here. They plan on hurting Yun to get me to tell them how to be Challengers, but they already know how. The leader of these people is awful and was probably never going to let us leave in the first place”.
“Well Laurence, I have something I should probably mention then,” Said Damascus, “I am a sprite, and we are bound to objects. There’s a ring under the bed and it has my spirit bound to it. If you take that then I can come with you”. Laurence looked under the bed, it was dusty and pretty much empty, but sticking out of the area between two stones was a ring. It was stuck fast, and after about thirty seconds of pulling Laurence decided to move the bed. He summoned Jormugand, raised it into the air and smashed down on the tile with all his power. The hammerhead smashed into the ground and cracked the tile below, as well as all twenty-four surrounding tiles. He then levered the pieces apart with the blade and pulled the ring out. As he lifted the ring out of the cracks a light went off in Laurence’s head because he realised that he could swing his hammer as well as thrust the spear to fight. It was a simple thought, but one that had completely passed him by due to the nature of Orion’s Hunt.
Before they could implement any sort of escape plan there was the sound of a large kerfuffle outside the cell. Two people were arguing, there was a shout and then silence. After about thirty seconds something was dragged to the door and they heard it unlock. Laurence opened the door out and saw Jake lying on the floor with his guts coming out of his stomach and a stupid grin on his face.
“Hi Kiddo. I seem to have made a little mistake”. His face paled as he talked, he was obviously losing a lot of blood. “I couldn’t stand for the captain to…” He paused for breath, “To torture people anymore. You’re not the first person he did it to, but you were my breaking point”. He pointed to the corpse near the doorway limply, “Simon did not agree with me”.
Laurence looked at the man who had got him in the situation and was paying a far greater price than necessary to amend that. With the way his body was looking there were two options, one to seal the wound by sewing it, or to seal it with fire. The former was safer, but the latter was quicker, and time was of the essence for Jake. “Sorry Jake, this is going to hurt you, but don’t worry. You are coming out of here with me”. He paused as he pulled out his hammer and shrank it to ten centimetres in length. “Alive”.
“Wha..?” Was all Jake got out before Laurence stuffed some spare leather into his mouth and sealed the wound shut with the now burning hammer. Jake screamed into the leather and tears freely leaked out of his eyes from the pain. Mercifully it was quick. Once he had done this he slapped Jake in the face. “Come on Jake, I need you to guide me out of here”. Jake groggily responded, but the pain was becoming too much for him. It was then that Laurence remembered he still had some of the Silkweed from his and Yun’s operations, so he pasted it over the wound, hung the injured man on the back of his dog and bound it with Damascus’ ring, simply locking the cloth in place with pressure.
Looking up the stairs the group could see a light source bobbing their way. Laurence reformed his hammer and pointed it into the darkness, waiting to pounce on the enemy approaching.
