Sueño: Aftermath with no answers ~ Present

When night came, the level of the water rose, although it was impossible to predict how much it would rise each time. Ases had estimated that the village had at least a month left, but by the time he arrived he had to wad his way through with the water at waist high.

He had left Herm and Raz back in the now abandoned town, but they clearly were not there anymore. It made sense, when he thought about it. When he went to reunite with the Gods the place seemed safe, but the rate the waters had risen up accelerated a lot after he separated from them. They probably knew what was gonna happen and abandoned the place along with the villagers, if he had to guess, they had to be on Medio.

Or at least, that’s what he wanted to believe.

The water didn’t allow him to inspect the village in detail, but he noticed blood splatters in the walls. Even more worrying, it looked as if a storm had passed, most houses were full of holes and the roof of most of them had collapsed, giving the impression that the place had been abandoned for years instead of days. He entered some of the houses and found out that there actually were people left in the city, but all of them were profoundly asleep. He tried to wake them up, but not a single person in the village abandoned their wistful dreams.

Nothing he found gave him much hope, but the worst part came when he noticed that below the water, at floor level, there was black mud. The same black mud that always remained when the beasts attacked.

Herm and Raz were not among the sleeping people he found, so he reasoned that whatever had happened in there, they had managed to escape. It would have been a certainty in his mind, he trusted his brother full heartedly, but the bad omens were too dark to ignore.

Trying to avoid panic, he finally noticed that deep in the forest, up from the village, there was a pillar of smoke coming out from between the trees. There was still someone left in here?

Running there, but trying to keep his hopes low, Ases reached what he now noticed was a log cabin and knocked on the door. After not receiving any response, he decided that it was not time for niceties and kicked the door open. Unsurprisingly, the response he now got was getting threatened with a spear to his neck for the second time in a week.

The one pointing at him with the spear was a disheveled old man, clearly someone who had been kicked from civilization far before the calamity struck. His suspicions were about to be confirmed as the old man was about to scream an inspired string of insults, capable of making the Gods tremble.

Fortunately for Ases, when the man recognized who he was pointing his weapon to, he contained himself.

“Did you come to kill me? can’t wait for those things to do the job?”

The man threw the spear to the side and went back to serve himself a drink. Ases simply stood there, unsure of what to do next.

“Why are you still here?”

“Why do you think I am? I live here you shit for brains.”

Ases looked around. The cabin had been built with wood, but its age was starting to become quite notorious. The humidity in the air was starting to take its toll on the whole construction.

“If you are going to kill me, do it at once, I have no last words to give to someone like you.”

“I didn’t come here to kill you.”

“Then why did you kick my door in? Asshole”

Truly, he didn’t have a response for that. Apologizing was meaningless, and to be honest, Ases couldn’t find it in himself to care for it. Instead, he thought he should do the most out of the situation.

“There is a village a couple of kilometers down the mountain. Do you know what happened down there?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I got nothing to do with them. Why do you care?”

“I’m looking for someone. Did you see someone abandoning the village these past few days?”

“Looking for your next victim, that’s quite callous of you”

The man served himself another glass of liquor and gulped it down as quickly as he had served it. He seemed to have quite a big stash of it.

“I don’t have time to waste, tell me where did they go.”

“Whatever you are looking for down there is surely now dead. Those beasts never leave anything behind.”

Ases went to him, took the bottle out of his hands and smashed it in the wall.

“Did the beasts attack? Answer me!” He asked, grabbing the man from the scruff of the neck and raising him in the air.

“Finally you show your true colors, you monster. Where were you when those things arrived? Or did you send them to do your bidding?”

Ases left the man down, it was useless to try to get anything out of him. He stopped to analyze the situation, but looking back, it was starting to look grim. He hoped the blood had come from a fight between the villagers, but if the beasts were involved, the situation had been far more dangerous than he had anticipated.

Without any answers, Ases abandoned the log cabin and looked for a place in the forest. Any place that had ample space would do. In it, he punched a tree down and sat on it. The ritual had never come easy to him and he was going to need to sit.

He started the ritual words, and soon enough, the keres part in himself started filling out the blanks on his knowledge. His voice started becoming more akin to the one of a monster. His mouth started feeling off, as if his teeth had started to grow bigger and sharper. In his back, something was moving, as if deep below his skin there were a couple of wings trapped and now wanting to be free.

The pain subsided when the chant ended, and finally, the incarnation of Mors appeared in front of him.

“These are the most busy times I have seen ever since I was dragged into this world, but even then you chose now of all times to annoy me with your calling. Now where the hell are we?”

She appeared in the form of her avatar, a grown woman in a black dress with a crown in the shape of a half-moon. Ases suspected that she used to be a princess of some far off kingdom before getting possessed by the spirit of death, but could never confirm it.

“We are near Sueño, farther down from Medio.”

“Ah, then I guess there might be some worth to your calling after all. I was on my way here before you called, I guess the Goddess of fate must not be dead yet.”

“I have a question for you, one I fear that I don’t dare say out loud.”

“You want to know if your little family is dead. I know. I can see your heart jumping out from distress right now. Luckily for you, those two still have not crossed the styx, so they still remain in this existence.”

Ases could only breathe a sigh of relief at the news, even when Mors lacked any kind of tact when delivering the news. If they were still alive, then they surely had managed to escape to Medio.

“Although I do fear to say that you are not quite out of the woods yet. The beasts are quite advanced in the magicks, and death may no longer be the only ending humanity can face” Said Mors, getting deeper in thought, watching the village from afar.

“Wait, no, what do you mean?” said Ases, with fear starting to mount back even worse than before.

“Come with me. Let’s see what those beasts are capable of doing now that they are starting to expel me from this world.”