Chapter One-Hundred-and-Forty-Nine |
After returning to his house, Adam walked past the apple tree in his garden and stopped in front of the well.
“You goin’ down?” Fisher asked him, appearing from out of nowhere. Her sleek carapace and wing-casing had shed pond water all over the garden, leading a trail back around the side of the building.
“Were you planning on following me?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” she replied. “I just wanted to check if you wanted to buy a fishing rod.”
“What would be the point of that?” he responded, genuinely wanting to know.
“Well, you could fish and bring back whatever you caught to me. It might be a good way to blow off some steam, perhaps?”
“In the Stages where monsters want to kill me and my team?”
“Yeah.”
Adam laughed. “And how much would it cost me?”
“So, do you just buy fish I catch?”
“Yep!”
“Why?” he asked.
Fisher shrugged. “Beats me. But that’s what I do.”
Adam shook his head with a grin. “Well, I won’t say no to more Points, but I’ve got some things to do and still have to visit the Market, but meet me by the fountain in like two or three hours.”
Fisher pumped her right arm. “Yes! A customer at last!”
Should I be worried about a reaction like that?
No way this vendor is designed to scam me, right…?
The water beetle waddled back to her pond and dove head-first into it, vanishing from sight. Her strange melody disappeared along with her body.
I’ve gotta find out how she does that so I can counteract it. Being able to escape my tracking power by just going for a swim seems a bit too easy, and it may be an issue in the next Stage, since it’s going to be full of water and monsters swimming around in it.
After watching her leave, Adam climbed down into the well, leaving behind his cube which refused to follow him. At the bottom he fumbled around until he found the switch, and after twisting it and opening the secret entrance, he walked into the round chamber with six lit candleholders surrounding the circular slab of dark-grey stone in the middle.
He activated his blood rings to bring out enough material for the spell, and then he drew the linework on top of the slab.
Once it was complete, he knelt outside the slab and placed his hands on the sigil he’d made. As power flowed through it, the pattern lifted up from the stone and took on the shape of an open tome. The air froze alongside its activation, and then the Tome Keeper’s voice rang out from within.
“You have returned sooner than I expected, and bearing much knowledge I would happily barter with you for.”
“I need a way to break free from the Flayed Lady,” Adam said. “In return I will tell you how she always stays one step ahead of you.”
“A bold thing to ask for, and an even bolder thing to claim to possess.”
“I don’t know how, but she says that she can sense the blood of the All-Seeing System, or ‘the Seeing One’ as she calls it. She said that even the All-Seeing is possessed of blood.”
“Nonsense,” the Tome Keeper replied. “The Watcher is sight itself. Insight made manifest. Revelation taken form. The ability to perceive and be perceived. The very foundation of knowledge.”
There was a pause.
“No,” the Keeper then added, going back on his statement. “It may be possible.”
“It is said that all the eyes in the knowable cosmos are linked to the greatness of the Watcher. I have not seen its eyes for myself, but I once invoked its power before my ascension. The direct gaze of the Watcher is enough to warp that which it touches, turning men towards insanity, and fracturing reality to let the Void’s spawn seep through the veil. There is much power in its eyes, enough that when its judgement and insight converged, an eye broke free from the Watcher’s conscience, becoming the Absolute known as Messimer.”
“I always thought that its eyes were not physical things, but only concepts and abstraction. But this may have simply been a delusion on my part. You see, to me the Watcher is the foundation of my being. To believe such greatness could have a physical form. It seems impossible. After all, how can such power be contained in a vessel of flesh and blood?”
“But it must be true. There is no other way to explain how the Betrayer has always managed to avoid the Watcher’s wrath.”
“Thank you Adam, such insight you have given me is a rare thing. It has helped expose a weakness in my theories and strategy.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Although Adam had realised how profound the knowledge might be, he hadn’t thought that the Absolute would directly thank him and acknowledge his own shortcomings.
“I have seen the eye of the All-Seeing System,” Adam said. “Several times in fact.”
“Not its true eye,” the Tome Keeper corrected him. “You would not understand the difference until you have beheld the power of its gaze. What you have seen must have been a facsimile. In its great game, it only gazes upon those that wish to traverse the coil anew.”
Suddenly Emelia’s description of the Self-devouring Eye and how to obtain it made sense to Adam. He hadn’t been able to fully understand why the Cheat Death was necessary, based on her description, but he understood it now, thanks to the Keeper.
Because the challenge awaiting any who wished to obtain the Divine Relic was to survive the gaze of comprehension.
That gaze was the sight of the All-Seeing System, the Watcher of Worlds, the Seeing One, and it was impossible to survive without a gift to cheat death itself.
“Knowledge is a key,” the Tome Keeper remarked, somehow able to understand Adam’s revelation. “Knowing which lock it belongs to is not always such an easy thing, and sometimes it takes a new discovery to realise you already possessed a key you were searching for. Perspective and context change the value of knowledge, reframing that which you already know and giving it new form.”
“Now, with that in mind, tell me precisely what it is that you wish to receive in return for your barter.”
“I want you to tell me the easiest and most effective way to get out of worshipping the Flayed Lady. She is actively steering me towards something worse than death, and she promised to take my memories or twist them into something bad if I failed her.”
Adam had learnt from his past trades with the Keeper that he needed to be extremely specific about exactly what he wanted to know. After all, he’d been taught a very complicated way to defy the Forbidden Altar, when a much simpler way existed.
“It is the Watcher’s rule that active participants in the Trials must worship an Absolute. It is not meant to be possible to avoid this, but there is no restriction on trading your worship for that of another. Keep in mind that you will not find any Absolutes willing to undertake this effort on your behalf, unless they are opposed to your current patron. You are lucky in that regard, however, for the Betrayer has no allies.”
That piqued Adam’s interest.
“I’ve never heard of that being possible. How does it work?”
“It may only occur once, given the requirement,” the Keeper replied.
“The Godstone?” Adam asked, somehow able to guess what he meant.
“Indeed. To Absolutes, it is like a beautiful pearl of condensed influence. The more we receive, the more our powers grow. Individually, each Godstone is a fraction of a fraction, barely a grain of sand in a desert in terms of power, but over time and with the continuous traversal of the coil, each grain becomes a mountain. Few Absolutes would mind sacrificing a single one if it meant they gained an advantage going forward.”
“You mean that I would be that advantage?” Adam asked, surprised.
“Do not think the others have not taken notice of you. Even with the Realm Traveller’s repairs, the ripples you left behind are obvious to anyone paying attention. Only you have the power to leave ripples across more than one universe, and given enough time, a ripple may become a wave. In that power is the potential for a tsunami to wash over the desert, rearranging how its tiny grains of sand are gathered.”
Adam struggled to fully comprehend the meaning, but he was pretty sure that the Keeper was saying that the Absolutes were interested in him because he could go across universes and spread their influence further than any other person could accomplish in one universe using the Self-devouring Eye.
But such attention was not an entirely beneficial thing, especially for Adam who only wanted to find his friends and escape from the Trials.
“So, how does it work? How do I switch to worshipping a different Absolute?”
“Once you have made the Godstone whole, you must invoke the All-Seeing System and state your right to alter your own fate. Then, at the summit, you must restate your chosen fate, and thereby begin to worship another.”
“Does that mean that I can do it after Stage Nine?” Adam asked.
“That I cannot say,” the Tome Keeper replied. “What I am allowed to explain is that this forceful realignment of your fate is not without punishment. To tear oneself away from an Absolute is to earn their scorn. A part of their might resides within you, and once pulled free, the damage to your vessel would be great. It may even be fatal.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Adam said. “But how do we avoid the Flayed Lady finding out? She can smell betrayal from a mile away.”
“Anything spoken or thought or written within this chamber of yours is guarded by the Void, and it keeps its secrets in oblivion. I have a spell I am allowed to use on you that will disappear the memory of what was spoken of within this place. I will cast it upon you before you leave, and then upon myself.”
Adam caught on to what the Keeper was implying and tore a piece of fabric off from his jeans. He was about to use his blood to write on it, but realised the folly in that, opting to instead use the soot from one of the candleholders.
He wrote down exactly what he wanted himself to do after Stage Nine, and then folded the fabric, before writing on top of it, “Do not open! Store this in the Relic Saving Chest and ask the cube to return it to you after the ninth Stage.”
Then he placed the folded up fabric in front of himself.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
The Tome Keeper suddenly laughed. It was a hollow sound, though there was actual mirth in it.
“Apologies, I have not felt this excited about a strategy in a long time. I hope you also appreciate the grandness in this undertaking. Your renown will surely reach every corner of the cosmos. After all, there has been no other who has defied the All-Seeing and betrayed the Betrayer.”
Then a strange ringing sound emerged from the tome. The melody was a physical thing, and it smacked right into Adam’s forehead, making his vision go white.
What was I…?
Adam looked around and noticed the floating tome of blood above the stone slab.
The Erudition Barter?
The tome Immediately slammed shut and the blood turned to ash.
Did I fail to make a trade and lose knowledge as a result!?
Adam tried to recall, even using the Mandate of Blood to pry open his own melody, but it was to no avail.
Then he saw a folded-up piece of fabric in front of him.
He read the text on top and had a good idea of what might have happened.
Adam picked up the fabric and left the chamber without opening it. He quickly climbed back up to the surface and entered his Player House, going over to the Relic Saving Chest and placing the note inside.
I wonder why I picked this chest.
Is it because someone else could discover the message otherwise?
Adam considered the possibility for a moment.
Maybe Sylvia would work on behalf of the Flayed Lady if forced.
I guess it’s important enough that I have to take as many precautions as possible.
After closing the lid of the chest, Adam took a step back and told his cube, “After I return from the ninth Stage, I want you to bring me the fabric that I just placed inside the chest.”
[Understood.]
I’m surprised that command worked. It presents a lot of interesting fallback strategies though. It’s sure to be useful if I’m ever dealing with situations where I may lose my memories.
Adam looked across his room, seeing the driftwood staff hanging on the weapon rack.
I’ll have to play around with that later. First I’ve gotta check on Beck.
He went down the stairs to the basement restaurant and took a seat.