Chapter Four-Hundred Sixty-Five |
Vernew
Tupul’s a good kid. But even good kids can have problems. He’s been seeming a bit… off the last few days. She’s seen it in some of the hunters she’s trained, the ones that are desperate to prove something. Not all of them lash out. Some just try to keep going. Vernew glances over her shoulder, making sure Tupul’s keeping up as they range ahead. He’s actually falling a little behind, but he’s improving. If it weren’t for the growing tension she can feel from him, she’d leave him be. He’s good at movement and stealth, but she’s been hunting for her entire existence. She recognizes when someone is trying to hide their fear.
Which is why she’s pushing him like this. Well, one of the reasons. She also gets to see him use gravity affinity, which is always going to be interesting to her. Watching him run along branches that shouldn’t support him, without him disturbing a single leaf or needle, will never get old.
She stops on a nice thick branch and waits for him to catch up, taking the time to organize what she wants to say about his progress. He soon lands beside her, panting from the exertion, but not looking exhausted.
“How do you like the woods, kid?”
He shrugs and settles himself down to sit, his legs dangling. “At first, it was pretty. But now… I’m kinda missing the noise of Fourdock.”
Vernew laughs at that. “Not going to run off and join the Rangers once we get back, huh?”
He shakes his head with a smirk. “Not exactly, heh.”
“It’s a shame. You’re pretty good. With your movement and stealth, you’d do well as a hunter or a Ranger.”
She nods. “I do. I’ve trained way worse into proper hunters. Though you’d need to pick up a spear instead of those knives of yours.” She resists laughing as he subconsciously lays a hand on his cleaver, protectively.
“I like my knives.”
“I can see that. You’re protecting that cleaver like it's your cub. Don’t worry, I won’t try to take it from you. You’re sure you don’t want to learn the spear?”
He looks down at his hand, not even realizing he had moved it, and shakes his head. “I think I’d need knowledge affinity to learn anything else. There’s a lot to keep track of.”
Vernew laughs and nods. “I hope Lord Thediem isn’t overwhelming you. He can be difficult to keep up with, I know.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “It’s a challenge, but I think I’m up to it. And… it’s all interesting. He said this would be a good chance for me to learn, but I didn’t know how right he was gonna be.”
Vernew smirks and nods. “He does tend to undersell things. If He ever tells you something is going to be hard or dangerous, He’s not kidding.”
“Yeah. The whole thing with Rezlar’s dad kinda showed that. Sometimes I still can’t believe it all worked out.”
“It did, and you had a big hand in doing it,” Vernew points out, making the kid squirm. “Your class shows it, too. You don’t get that kind of versatility without a lot of effort, even if Lord Thedeim was helping.”
“It’s… kinda weird, hearing you guys call him Lord Thedeim. Rezlar, too,” he admits, looking like he’s hoping he’s not crossing a boundary.
Vernew smiles at him. “It’s how we’ve always known Him. Well, me and the other dwellers, at least. There’s a deep bond with the dungeon we come from, and Him actively trying to help makes it easy to follow Him.”
“I get that. I even get why Rezlar decided to start following him, too. He says he felt like he was stuck, before Thedeim starting meddling. And once things started to change, he said it felt like a natural fit.”
“How about you, Tupul? He’s Changed a lot in your life, too.”
He grimaces. “I mean, he has, and I’m grateful. But… he’s more like a mentor to me, even more than he’s a dungeon. The idea of following him like that… just feels weird. Is that bad?”
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Vernew shakes her head. “Nah. He’s never made a secret that He doesn’t really want followers. For us, it just makes us want to follow Him more, heh. But you’re not the only one He’s done a lot for that doesn’t follow Him. Not only does He try not to pressure her about it, but He doesn’t even bring it up. Like it was just something anyone should do.”
“...Yvonne,” he answers. “What actually happened? I can feel something weird about her, but I’m not sure if I should ask. I hear rumors, but…”
“You really should ask her yourself. She doesn’t mind talking about it, like it’s just another tale about a scar to share with other delvers. You can ask her the details, but the gist is… she died. And Lord Thedeim brought her back.”
“How?”
Vernew shrugs. “Dungeon stuff. It goes over my head, and I’ve asked Lady Aranya a few times. Residents are special, a bond a delver can form with a dungeon, something even deeper than dwellers. His mana keeps her alive. I think it’s like a Conduit, but the mana they take is only for that. Lady Aranya’s a Resident, too. She says she can feel where His core is at all times, also.”
“What’s a Resident actually do?”
Vernew can only shrug again. “I’m not sure. Even Lady Aranya was vague on the details. You might have better luck asking Lord Thedeim yourself.”
Tupul huffs in frustration at her not having all the answers, and she chuckles and tousles his hair. “You must be desperate if you thought I’d have all the answers. I’m just a little spiderkin with a habit of getting in way over her head.”
Tupul grumbles and tries to get his hair back in order. “You’ve gotta have more answers than me. You move with way too much confidence to not. You move around the woods with even more confidence than Yvonne.”
She nods. “Because this kind of place is my home, even if I haven’t been here before. Sure it’s colder than I’m used to, but the wilderness and I just… understand each other.” She smirks at him and continues. “If you had questions about bushcraft, hunting, tracking, and that sort of thing, I’d have the answers for you. Just like if I asked you about butchering, you’d have the answers. Just because I know my place here doesn’t mean I know my place.”
“Do you think he knows?” he quietly asks.
She gives him a gentle smile. “Ah. Feeling torn?”
Tupul gives a heavy sigh. “Yeah. He says it’s possible to balance adventuring and butchering, but can I really? I mean, I’m not doing a lot of butchery out here. Will I really be able to just… go back home and return to helping out mom and dad? Take over the shop once they get too old to manage it themselves? Will I even be around to do that? Adventuring is dangerous…”
“You won’t know if you don’t try. If you want both, you’ll just have to work twice as hard. For what it’s worth, I think you can do it.”
“But why? It feels like I got here with blind luck, and now that I’m here… my luck will turn and everything will fall apart.” He looks down, slumping like the invisible weight he’s been carrying is finally taking its toll on him.
Vernew walks around, using her silk to help anchor her so she can move to meet his eyes. “Hey, it wasn’t only luck. Sure, a bit to get you the opportunity, but you are the one that seized it and have been following it through. Without you, the thieves would still be a threat. Rezlar’s dad would still be a threat, too. Luck might have revealed the path, but actually walking it was all you.”
She smirks and pushes him to be more upright. “Maybe not all you. You had your friends. You had Lord Thedeim. It might be one thread in a web that actually catches the fly, but without the rest of the web, the thread wouldn’t even have the chance. You just need to remember you’re not in this on your own. Your friends help you, you help them. Revel in the successes, pick each other up after the failures. And share the burden. It looks to me like you’re carrying way too much.”
“But I don’t want to burden anyone else…” he says, his voice thick as he tries to keep it together.
She smiles and pats his back. “Well, too late. I’m already carrying some. If you take on too much, you’ll just collapse, and force everyone to carry you and all of that, too. So let it out, kid. You’re not burdening your friends by sharing.”
The dam bursts, words tumbling through the tears as he finally gets a chance to talk about everything. About his parents getting trapped, him volunteering to pay their debt, meeting Freddie and Rhonda, meeting Lord Thedeim, getting training, duping the thieves, taking the risk of the plan to take down the Earl, fighting his way out of the guild, reuniting with his parents, delving and butchering, and more. She can feel one last secret left unsaid, little pauses that aren’t him trying to blow his nose. But she doesn’t press.
Maybe her being a bit of a stranger is why he can finally say everything, but her being a stranger means he can’t share whatever that last secret is. That’s fine. She doesn’t need all his secrets, just what’s weighing him down. By the end, Tupul’s looking more exhausted than he ever did from his training with Yvonne, but he also looks lighter, too.
She pats his back and nods back the way they came. “There, that’s better, yeah? Clean up a bit and we’ll head back. And if you need to talk, we can always do a bit more scouting practice, ok?”
He takes a deep breath and nods. “Yeah… ok. Thanks, Vernew.”
She smiles and hits his back hard enough to endanger his balance. “Good lad! Now, let’s get going. I need to make sure I bring more of my cold gear on the next bit of scouting. It’s getting cold quickly.”
She takes off, and he hurries to keep up, and she watches him as they both go. There’s still tension there, but he doesn’t look like he’ll break anymore. A little tension is fine, it means you’re doing something. The key is to make sure you’re not doing too much.