The Way Ahead

Edwin struggled against the command, attempting to push through it. He had managed to beat the dwarven compulsion, what made this different?

The Skill pushed, and Edwin pushed back.

I will not tell everyone what my story is. That is nothing but asking for trouble and will swiftly torpedo any remaining hopes I have of remaining free and at least marginally anonymous. I will not. Give. Way. I can do this.

Edwin grit his teeth, opening his eyes and staring down the governor, “I don’t owe you answers,” he ground out.

The avior laughed, “Petty boy. You owe me everything. This is my land, you are a guest here, and you will answer my question.”

The intensity of the Skill was increasing, and there seemed to be an additional effect being mixed in there, but Edwin just stared it down. He felt the overwhelming urge to speak, tell his past, but he resisted it. It was just like social pressure, or like his emotions. As he stood his ground, it slowly became slightly easier and easier to resist, and he clamped his mouth closed before he could say anything he would regret. It didn’t matter, and so it could be ignored.

His rational mind refused. His emotional mind refused, albeit under protest. His conscious mind cooperated, and refused as well.

No.

No.

He would not give up, he would not give way. His past was his business alone. He had spent the last year growing stronger, so he’d never be in this position again. He would not be pushed around by the petty tyrants of the System. A bit of anger snuck out of its box and into his glare, and he stood in silent defiance of the mental force crashing into him.

He didn’t need to beat it, no more than a pebble needed to ‘beat’ the ocean. He just needed to withstand the force, to not get lost in it or let it overwhelm him, and withstanding it became easier with every passing moment. His emotions ran free, helping him beat back the foreign invaders into his mind.

He was the only one to wreck his mind with unwarranted social pressure, darn it!

It must have looked rather amusing to the bystanders. The two of them just stood (or sat, in the governor’s case) in silence, staring at each other.

Neither would give up.

Neither would give in.

Anger burned back the pressure to comply. His emotional control shoved the desire to be nice in a box. The box was tossed out the back. He wasn’t winning. He was withstanding. And he could keep withstanding for as…

“Speak.”

Then it tripled down. A new compulsion started. It joined the previous ones. forcing him to say something. Anything.

Anything? He could work with that. A defiant, malicious grin crept across his face, “No.”

The pressure was gone. The governor wasn’t amused. She glared imperiously. “I command you, adventurer, to speak. Answer my question. Why is Enforcer Lisana so enamored with you, why does the Emperor find you so interesting? Speak now, and answer my question.”

A pebble might not break under the endless waves of the ocean, but it could be swept away by the current, and as the governor unleashed a stronger compulsion, Edwin felt his concentration broken in an instant, snapped in half as a headache budded and flowered, flooding his mind with pain and scattering what meager defenses he had marshaled and restraining all of his emotions. He was, in a sense, a prisoner in his own head.

…Wow, was it bad at imprisoning Edwin in his own head. Seriously, he did way worse than this to himself every time he had a depressive episode. The SKill did nothing to keep Edwin from feeling his emotions, just acting on them.

Huh.

Actually, this was actually kind of interesting. He mildly wondered if he could benefit from this sort of thing in his daily life. He didn’t actually care about the emotions themselves after all, just how they made him act. But emotional suppression in this way had its own suite of problems, many of which were health-related...

In any case, if it was a Skill meant to keep Edwin calm and not, oh, plotting rebellion or whatever, it might work superficially, but there was no way this could function as a long-term solution. Now that was a thought. Was there a version of this Skill that would work long-term?

Oh hey, getting distracted on tangents let him procrastinate speaking. Not for very long, perhaps, but it had been, oh, thirty seconds or so? Long enough to annoy the governor, at least.

Okay, he still had a moment… What would he actually say? The question was why Tara and her superiors were so interested in him, and while he obviously couldn’t tell the full story behind the latter, he could twist things so he wouldn’t have to out himself. In that case, he had a perfect plan formulated…

He wanted to spit the words out to show his displeasure, but instead he found himself calmly nodding and speaking, “Certainly. I come from a far-off land, which Tara has informed me I ought to refer to as Fierisal. While there, I-”

“You come from Fierisal?” a new voice cut in, and Edwin spotted a scribe of some sort scribbling on a parchment off to the side, which he somehow hadn’t noticed before. He blinked and briefly turned on Skillful Assessment, noticing some kind of Skill cocoon around the scribe that kept trying to divert his attention away. Curious. As he looked past it, he was able to get the vague impression of black-tipped fingers, as though stained with ink.

“That is what Tara told me when I informed her of my past. I have not returned so I cannot confirm that it is indeed my homeland, though I know not where else on Joriah I would have come from if not there.” All technically true. Tara’s cover story may not have been perfect, but he could use it in this situation just fine. “I was something akin to an alchemist-in-training, but found myself inexplicably teleported to the depths of the Verdant, waking up in the middle of the wilderness without so much as a single Skill on my Status.”

That declaration brought around a round of murmurs and surprise from the watchers, particularly from the governor, “You lost your Skills?” she asked, incredulously.

“I don’t know what happened. Err… Governor Shash’falara.” Edwin may have been literally forced to be polite, but it didn’t compel him to use perfect address. He needed to remember that sort of thing on his own.

“Hmmm. So be it. Continue.”

Edwin bit back another snappy response- he figured one would slip out eventually, Skill complusion notwithstanding, but now was not the time- and nodded, “From there, I found my way to civilization, and Tara eventually came across me while she was on a mission. She heard my story, and warned me against sharing it widely. She also agreed to keep some specifics of my skills and past private, and advised I do the same. While I have been unable to fully accomplish that task,” though his voice was calm and level, Edwin’s mind seethed with rage, “thanks to the actions of some individuals in this room, I will still endeavor to fulfill it to the rest of my ability. Tara, from my understanding, has kept those facts secret, and her report on me garnered the attention of her superiors, who decided it was worthwhile keeping a closer eye on me in the future.”

There. The question was answered, and as the compulsion ended, it was like a bucket of cold water was poured over him, leaving him gasping and struggling to control his emotions before this became even more of a disaster.

He wasn’t completely successful, but his hiss of “Is that what you wanted, governor,” wasn’t quite as aggressive as it might have been. He’d take the small victory.

“It was,” she sneered, “Was that truly so difficult?”

I could have you killed slowly if I asked Inion to.

“I said, was that truly so difficult?” a hint of the pressure returned, and Edwin looked up with malice in his gaze as he wrestled his anger back into its box.

“Yes,” he snapped back, “I’m certain that was rather difficult.”

Edwin made a note that he really should try to learn avior body language… then again, he had enough problems with human body language, trying to figure it out in a wholly unfamiliar body morphology was probably futile.

I wonder what you look like on the inside. Edwin mused, I reckon I could get a ton of levels in Anatomy for cutting you open.

He caught himself before those thoughts could go anywhere, shoving them into the box alongside his anger. He was not going there… yet. He would need to dissect an avior at some point, that was certain. He hoped he could stomach it. There was a distinct disconnect between his learning-brain and his squeamish-brain.

“How are you useful to the Empire and to Rhothos?”

“I was under the impression that that was Tara’s decision, not yours.”

“Tara Lisana is not the governor of this province. She may be under the impression it is her duty to determine if someone is worthy of support from Rhothos, but her desire to spread unrest and Outlaws across this land is ultimately not her decision.”

Edwin vaguely noticed the murmurs of their surroundings had quieted somewhat, and a glance at the court hangers-on revealed a thin Skill barrier between them. She didn’t want people to hear her badmouthing Tara, then? It was a struggle to speak, but he had this….

In any case, with his anger… more or less under control, Edwin was swiftly losing interest in the conversation. For whatever reason, the governor had decided to try and antagonize him, and he wasn’t interested in rising to the bait. That seemed like a good way to be thrown in the dungeons, and as much as he didn’t particularly care about that- he figured it would last until either Tara returned or he just straight-up broke out- it would be marginally annoying and something he would generally prefer to avoid.

“So what then?”

“That is the pressing question. For now, I am deciding whether or not you are worthy of living.”

Edwin cocked his head, “Is that your decision? I thought being an adventurer, and especially an Ally, meant I had the same sorts of protections as citizens.”

“This is my province! My word is law. You are nobody! A foreigner from halfway across the world. You are here and you are alive at my discretion!”

Something Edwin had done seemed to make her really mad. He idly wondered what. He hadn’t been getting that distracted, had he?

She realized it as well, it seemed, and started to regain her composure, loosening up somewhat and calming her tone, though it retained a sharp edge to it, “You are a foreigner and outlaw, yet also treated as a citizen of mine. I am fully within my rights as governor to imprison or execute any of those who fall within those groups at my leisure. Do not think you are some Outsider, whose mere presence causes all who see you to fall over in worship. You’re a mere human, no better than the rest of us. You come here, you show such utter disregard to the my and my government’s standards, you had best be on your knees begging for your life and praying I show leniency.”

Edwin ached to speak up and correct her, but simple common sense combined with his inherent tendency to keep secrets close helped keep his mouth closed. Well, mostly.

“When did this become a trial for my life? Last I heard, I was simply here to satisfy your curiosity.”

“This became such with your flagrant disrespect! I ought to strike you down where you stand!” She began to rose from her seat slightly, then everything shifted.

The first thing Edwin saw was the Skill. It filled up the entire room, illuminating everything in the same flat, monochrome light he was used to, but with an intensity he’d never seen before. If the governor’s Skills were as bright as a flashlight, this was like the sun itself descended into the room, blinding Edwin for a brief moment before he disabled his Skill in panic.

Even unable to see it, though, he could still feel it. The overwhelming feeling of being a very, very small creature in front of a hungry predator, worming its way into his mind and triggering a primal fear response. His heart beat faster, his senses sharpened, and blood rushed to his extremities.

Hmm. I wonder if it’s directly affecting the amygdala, or if it has some other trigger. Is it bypassing my brain altogether and directly increasing adrenaline production? Edwin mused, I suppose it can’t be bypassing my brain if I can get distracted from it, though. Some kind of forced attention, maybe? What kind of Skill would that be?

Edwin’s personal ability to get distracted from mind-control notwithstanding, the governor seemed to be entirely paralyzed in fear, frozen to her seat from where she had fallen back onto it.

Around them, the air began to thin and Edwin felt his Ritual Intuition go wild as he felt the distinct impression of a hot summer’s breeze envelop the room. Then the breeze strengthened, picking up speed more and more… it spilled over into the real world, a breeze from everywhere and nowhere, pushing him and blowing from halfway across the planet.

Then the wind stopped. The presence remained, though, and doubled down. Even Edwin’s ability to distract himself failed under the direct attention of a very, very powerful being, and his mind scattered into incoherent mutterings despite his best efforts.

“Be mindful of your place, Soraia.” The voice wasn’t loud, but it filled the space as though spoken from right next to Edwin’s ear and the end of the infinitely long chamber alike. Then, in the space between where Edwin stood and the governor sat frozen in fear, an avior appeared.

The newcomer had ashen gray plumage with a sheen that made it almost look silver and piercing eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day. Clad in a simple yet golden outfit, of the sleeveless loose-shirt, pants closed around the top of the talons variety that most avior seemed to prefer, he almost looked like a living statue of silver and gold.

“When one such as this comes to my attention, do not threaten them for spurious claims.”

The governor stayed frozen in terror, though the overwhelming weight of fear began to subside in Edwin’s mind, letting him focus on something other than the living god who stood in front of him. He took the opportunity to sneak an Identify in on the newcomer, trying to confirm to his mind that what he saw was real.

The High Sovereign of the Guiding Winds Which Span the World

…Yep, that was real alright. Though... was it? He suddenly realized how drastically their surroundings had shifted in the past thirty seconds. No more was he in the garrison’s throne room, but instead he was in a sort of featureless, gray expanse that reminded Edwin, and felt to his Ritual Intuition, vaguely like a raincloud. How did he get here? He didn’t feel a thing!

“Wha-what are you doing here?” the governor stuttered, “Why have you brought me? You can’t do this to me, even you have laws to follow!`` She sounded as though she was trying to convince herself as much as the newcomer, but her voice fell flat in the endless expanse, reaching no ears save the three of them, alone in this strange half-world.

Edwin got a distinct sense of disappointment or disapproval from the avior, the slightest shift in body posture conveying his meaning perfectly.

“Th-the boy disrespected me and your Enforcer alike! He must be punished! Those are the laws! We-we have laws!”

“Those are the laws of your citizens, of which the boy is not one. You know this, yet you decide to ignore it. Why?”

“He-he’s a nobody! If every random adventurer was exempt from the laws used to govern my people, we would fall into complete anarchy!”

“Indeed. You are aware of my policy for those who would interrupt the proper order.”

“Look at him! He’s- he’s an outlaw! A thug and a rejector of your majesty! Is he not out of order? I was merely doing your will!”

He shook his head sadly, “And what, pray tell, are the young man’s crimes? He was not born to the Empire, was missing our guidance. That he now seeks it is laudable, is it not?”

“He disrespected me! And your enforcer!”

“Oh, did he now? How did he insult her? Did he accuse her of attempting to spread unrest across the land? Frame her as an ally of outlaws?”

Even Edwin could see her shift nervously under that line of questioning, “Well… well, no. He disrespects her station and her nobility! Enforcer Tseyar would have thrown him by his ear for such actions!”

“Enforcer Tseyar was welcome to uphold his own code of address. As are you.”

“So you agree! The boy glides in, outright ignores me, fails to address me properly, and refuses multiple commands of mine! By my capacity as governor, it is well within my rights to punish him as I see fit!”

Edwin frowned at the audacity of that claim. Sure, he’d not really known the proper methods of speaking to a ruler, but he’d also been yanked from the middle of his dinner and-

“Let us see what he has to say for himself, shall we?”

Edwin blanched at the suggestion, his thoughts scattered to the far winds at the interruption. He tried to marshal up the proper train of thought, tripping over his own tongue under the weight of presence still permeating every inch of space, “M-my apologies, G- Governor Shash’falara.” Speaking felt like trying to do cartwheels underwater under 5 Gs. Slow, clunky, and he was barely able to manage to lift his tongue enough to say anything, let alone pronounce the tongue-twister of a name the governor had. “I was n-never informed of the proper forms.”

As he spoke, it became easier for him to speak, though it also felt like some of the pressure was lifted in time.

“You see? Even now, he refuses to pronounce my ruling name correctly!”

“This does not seem unto me as though he is being disrespectful, does it truly to you?”

“He- he still refused to answer my questions!”

“Did he, now?”

“Yes! I had to Command him!”

“And what was this matter of grave import? Whether he was a spy? Whether he had committed a murder, or engaged in banditry? His allegiance to the Empire? Or was it a personal matter, in which privacy could be reasonably expected?”

“Well… well. It was…”

“Enough. I’ve heard enough from you for the time being. Begone now, you have taken up far too much of my time already.”

With a wave of his wing, he dismissed the protesting governor, and she vanished into a whisp of cloud, dissipating from this realm. With her gone, the pressure subsided until it was only just barely present. Edwin could still feel it, though it no longer restricted his ability to think, speak, or move- the latter of which he hadn’t even realized was missing until it was suddenly restored, and he dropped into a bow. It wasn’t entirely voluntary, even, so much as his legs refusing to cooperate any longer as the avior turned to face him.

“There’s no need for that,” he informed, and Edwin found himself on his feet once again, staring into the sky-blue eyes of a predator.

“Hello, Edwin,” Emperor Xares greeted him, the emperor’s voice calm and measured despite the sheer weight behind every syllable. As he spoke, though, it began to subside from the voice of a god into one of mortals. “It is good to meet you in person at long last. Let’s talk, shall we?”