Bog Standard Isekai

The next night's dream brought Brin in front of Siphani and Effa Peck, in the moment that he'd first earned his [Know What's Wyrd] Skill. Any second now, Siphani would reveal herself by erupting out of the shell of her zombified familiar mother. For now, the dream was frozen in time, and Aberfa looked around the Pecks’ home with disgust. Trash was strewn everywhere, exactly how he remembered it.

"It takes a firm will and healthy mind to swim these waters without sinking below. [Witches] need a coven, and this is why," said Aberfa.

"Really? From what I've seen, this is typical," said Brin.

"No it isn't. This is the result of a sad, scared little girl growing up alone without the proper guidance. She could've been something great if she'd been allowed to be herself. If she hadn't been reviled and exiled, hunted down like an animal."

Brin practically growled, "They gave her every chance, and she–"

Aberfa pinched her fingers together and forced Brin's mouth shut. "I'm not here to debate the past. We're here to test out your Skill. This is where you received [Know What's Wyrd], and it should be telling you some very interesting things. Things you missed the first time around, in your haste. What do you feel?"

Brin glared at her.

"Ah, you're right." She made an opening gesture with her hand, and his mouth started working again.

"The description of the Skill is 'You can sense the Wyrd. Increased resistance to the Wyrd and Wyrd-related abilities.' From how you describe it, the Wyrd is basically everything, but I've only ever been able to feel anything from it when a [Witch] is directly using her magic."

"And the only time that you managed to do even that much was when you noticed the absurdly obvious formation that Siphani left all over the town. To me, that's a clue that you haven't been using your Skill correctly and that you're missing something important." She laughed humorlessly. "Oh, but no, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that you know more about the Wyrd than me. After all, what do I know? Yes, your original assumption is correct, the Wyrd is just the word for magic that [Witches] do and there's nothing else here to learn. This is all just a waste of time."

Brin sighed. She could be such a child sometimes. "That's not what I meant."

"Of course, I misunderstood again. How could I ever understand the subtle words of such a wizened master. You should be teaching me! Come! Teach me the vast knowledge you've accumulated over your fourteen years of life."

Fourteen years? Did she not know he was twenty seven in his past life? He was pretty sure he’d straight out told her that. Come to think of it, she hadn't once used the word "Mark" or sent him nightmares involving his previous world. That could be pride. No, more than pride, it could be Wyrd. Admitting that he'd had a past life would undermine her own claim to being his mother and might sever her connection to him.

It worried him that this sort of thing was starting to make sense.

"I apologize," Brin said.

"Why apologize? You seem to have it all figured out."

"I shouldn't have insinuated that you don't know what you're talking about. If what you're saying is true–"

She glared at him, and he felt the distinct pain of razor blades cutting the space between his toes.

"Since what you're saying is certainly true, it seems like my Skill should do more than it does."

She nodded. "If you can detect the Wyrd, then you should be able to detect nearly everything. All magic. The hunger of monsters, the fear of people, and the urges of animals. You should be able to tangibly sense the bonds between people, the agitation of domination and submission in relationships."

"So why can't I?"

"That's what we're here to find out. Do you think I enjoy standing in this filthy rat warren? Stop wasting my time and tell me what you feel!"

Brin nodded and concentrated on his Skill. Normally, he'd be able to forget it was even there because it rarely told him anything, but now he felt it blaring like an alarm siren. The Skill wasn’t like [Know What’s Real] in that it wasn’t intuited information. It felt like another sense. Seeing, hearing, smelling and now… wyrding. And his Wyrd-ears were ringing.

Wyrd was everywhere. The entire house was infected with it. He'd always thought the home looked like it was aging faster than the rest of the town, and there might have been something to that; Siphani had cast some sort of enchantment on it.

In the distance, he could feel the power of Siphani's formation, but only because he was now looking for it. It was no wonder that he'd missed it the first time around until he'd practically tripped over it. The impression was very blurry from any kind of distance. His Wyrd-vision was near-sighted.

He also felt the bands of Wyrd attaching him to the good [Witches]. Even now, he felt them sluicing away the curse that Siphani was trying to put on him.

Effa was a blazing torch of Wyrd, and now that he was focused on it, he could tell that she was nothing more than a thin wrapping for the [Witch] underneath.

Siphani was a surprisingly blank space.

Brin said, "Strange, but I can't really detect the [Witch] like this. I thought for sure I'd be able to since she obviously modified her own body."

Aberfa tapped her cheek in thought. "Then you can only detect active ongoing effects. For transformations, once they are completed no further power is necessary. Interesting. Are you sure you can't sense her at all?"

Brin strained his Wyrd-sight, but it was still a new sensation for him. "I'm sure. Maybe. Everything else here is so bright, it might be drowning her out. Actually, that's gotten me thinking. Why can't I sense Ademsi and Evita? You know about them, right?"

Aberfa's eyes lit up. "Oh, those two! Oh yes, I do."

The dream changed, and now they were back in Ademir's workshop. Ademsi and Evita hung in the air, still and expressionless, and clad only in their wooden skin. Aberfa reached up and traced a finger down Ademsi's pectoral. "Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I could praise Frenaria's hands-off approach to governing the Boglands if it led to the creation of such a masterpiece in such a nothing little town. Your Ademir was a true genius."

Brin reached out with his Skill, but didn't feel any connection to the two automatons at all. When they were still like this, it was hard to see them as more than puppets. Pretty wooden statues.

“I don’t feel anything. I don’t sense any Wyrd in them at all,” said Brin.

“Strange. Your ability to sense magic through [Know What’s Wyrd] seems to be limited to that which is actively empowered by living [Witches]. How troublesome. And anything else? Can you sense the workings of your relationship to these two?”

“No. Nothing,” said Brin.

"Hm. Are you sure? Touch them. Stroke the female upon the breast."

Brin didn't want to. From what he knew of Evita, she wouldn't be bothered, but Ademsi really wouldn't like that.

The resistance to the idea felt like more than his normal reticence though, it almost felt external. Was this his Wyrd Sense picking up on the claim that Ademsi had, or thought he had, on the only other member of his species? Or was Brin just imagining it? It was hard to tell.

Aberfa laughed at his hesitation. "Such a prude. This is a dream! You're allowed to do as you wish in your dreams."

Brin looked away. "If I was alone in here that would be one thing..."

Aberfa covered her mouth with her hand. "Ah yes, I see. Boys your age are so... Well, nevermind. Are you getting anything?"

"I'm not sure," said Brin.

There were other ways to violate a person's domain. He walked over to the work table where Ademsi rolled out the glass that he used for windows. Brin never needed these tools, since it was much easier for him to shape glass with his Skills now. The tools here had become Ademsi's private space. His territory.

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Brin pushed the entire table over, letting the machinery crack and the tools clatter. He could clearly picture the hurt and betrayal that Ademsi would feel if he saw this, the violation of trust. But was that Wyrd-sense, or just ordinary empathy?

He shrugged and turned back to Aberfa and the pair of automatons. "I still can't tell. But since we're here, is there anything you can tell me about their problem? Ademsi doesn't think he's complete, somehow. Like he's not a real person yet."

"He's not. If he were a person, he would have the System. The only people who don't have the System are simpletons," said Aberfa.

"Really? So they just, what, stay in the [Child] Class forever?"

"Of course not. They progress through the levels unconsciously, the way monsters do, by acting out their role in the world, and by doing those things they are still capable of doing."

"So Ademsi is going to progress like a monster? Can we call it the Monster System?"

Aberfa backed into Ademsi and pulled his arm around her stomach. "As good a name as any. To grow, Ademsi must act out the measure of his creation."

"He was created as a familiar by a [Witch], and he would tell you his purpose was to serve and defend his master."

“Is that right? Is that your purpose?” Aberfa asked a silent Ademsi, stroking his chin with her fingertips. She hummed and closed her eyes, basking in the automatons cold arms. "He will require a new master, or he will require a new creation."

"Tell me about the second one," said Brin.

"He has a core that draws life-energy directly from the Wyrd. This animates him and gives him power, but it is also keeping him static. Replace it with another source of life, a powerful beast core perhaps, and he will be reborn."

"You make it sound so easy," said Brin.

"It's not. He will require a living core, a beast core that remains alive in its own magic even after the flesh body is dead. Not any old living core will do, and this is to say nothing of the enchantments that will be required for its preparation. I could bore you with the list of requirements, or I could skip to the end. Ademsi is better off finding a broken golem of ancient Nhamanshal and taking its core for himself. Such things are incredibly rare, but they do exist."

"Do you have a clue about where I could start looking?" Brin asked.

Aberfa didn't answer. She kept her eyes shut and folded herself tighter in Ademsi's arms.

Evita blinked her eyes open. Suddenly alive again, she stepped down to the ground and walked delicately up to him, then cupped his chin softly with one hand. "No, Brin. This is his journey. When you rob a man of his challenges, you also rob him of his victory. You don't need to walk his path, you only need to show him the first step."

Brin blinked. That was surprisingly insightful coming from Aberfa.

He asked, "Is this you saying that, or is Evita talking to me somehow?"

"This is your dream. She's saying what you think she would say." Aberfa had turned herself around and was now in a princess-carry so that she could continue to stroke Ademsi’s chest.

"Will you stop that!" Brin shouted.

Aberfa smirked at him. "You're no fun." But then she sighed and let herself down. She took one last long, lingering look at Ademsi, made a point of brushing off her dress and plucking at it here and there to put it in order and then waved her hand.

The dream changed. They were back at the Pecks’.

“Better?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’ll have you fight them.”

“I’d really rather not.”

Aberfa looked down at him with disgust in her eyes. “I’d rather not be here at all, but such is life. You seem to have a hard time understanding anything that hasn’t stuck a knife into you, so we’ll do this the stupid way. You will fight them, and afterwards, you better have a new insight into your Skill to tell me. Now go!”

The dream started to move again. Siphani started to stand, pulling at the Effa-suit covering her and the undead covering started to bleed as she was ripped away.

Suddenly, there was a brownish blur and Brin felt an explosion of pain in the left side of his head, then nothing.

The scenario reset, and Siphani was frozen again.

Aberfa said, “I forgot to mention. I’m running this dream as if you’d never given the potion to Micah, and you were personally in the room instead of as an illusion. You’ll need to defeat all of them.”

That brown blur had been Micah? Siphani’s father had been an [Earthmover] in life, and still retained that power as a zombie familiar. That would make this tricky.

“I would’ve brought a spear in that case,” said Brin.

“Fine,” said Aberfa, and he felt the familiar weight of his nice spear with the Bog Standard haft and a glass spearhead. Not his new one, but the one he’d had at the time.

“Don’t lose this time,” said Aberfa.

The instant the dream started moving again, Brin stabbed with his spear, pushing with all his muscle as well as all the power his magic could give him. He felt strong resistance to his magic; Siphani’s claim was strong. He didn’t have time to parse exactly what her argument was or make a counter for it, but he didn’t need to. There was nothing tangible for her to use to leverage her claim with, so he brushed it aside.

The spear ran her through, straight through Effa and Siphani alike, and two voices screamed in pain.

Micah’s projectile broke through the wall, but hit only air behind him. Then there was a crash as a fist of earth demolished the entire back wall of the house.

Outside, Micah had already covered himself with earthen armor. He stepped forward, seeming sturdy enough to carry the entire world on his back.

Brin started summoning a shield of glass. He’d never survive pinned inside here, but the only way out was past Micah.

He ran, and dodged the expected swing when he passed Micah, but then the zombie stomped the ground and a spear of earth erupted under Brin’s feet to stab at him. Brin hopped and got his half-formed shield under him just in time. The spear shattered his shield, and knocked Brin further into the air. He landed on his shoulder, but turned it into a roll. He got to his feet and kept running.

Now that he had some space between them he finally had some time to think. Micah flung projectiles of earth at him, but with the distance Brin had plenty of space to dodge, while calling on magic of his own.

He summoned a barrage of glass javelins. The zombie stopped them all with armored arms crossed in front of him, leaving no scratch. But the attack served his purpose. Now that Brin’s magic clashed against Micah’s, they were open to negotiation in the Wyrd.

Micah was a familiar and an undead. Wyrd was coursing through his veins. It made his condition perfectly visible to the eyes of those to see it, and Brin could see it. His argument was simple: He was a familiar. He existed to defend and protect his mistress. Nothing else existed for him. Except it wasn’t so simple. Familiars were more than mindless killers. They were another mind, a personality. Someone to spin ideas off of, or warn against foolish plans, or just to talk to when everyone had abandoned you. Micah had been a poor choice for a familiar, because every part of him that was still conscious and still remembered who he was hated Siphani. He hated what had been done to him, and he resisted it with every last bit of freedom he had left.

It made him weak.

Brin summoned his next spear with that thought in mind. He pushed into it Micah’s own desire for an end to his suffering and for revenge at what had been done to him.

Brin threw the spear, and it blew straight through Micah’s defenses, straight through his body, to stick into the ground right next to a wounded Siphani as she finally stumbled out of the wreckage of her house.

Siphani clutched her chest, red blood pouring through her long white fingers. Her eyes were clouded with pain, but then seemed to clear as she saw Micah’s body slump to the ground. “You. You killed my father? How could you?”

Her voice was loud, and her form was unnatural and terrifying. Tall and white as marble, she’d distorted herself into an insane vision of beauty. She still had brackish blood on her skin from her zombie mother, and now he could see Effa crawling along after her like a living carpet.

Seeing it the first time, Brin had nearly passed out from terror, but this time the effect was… reduced. Was this really all she was? This night was enough to give him cold sweats just from remembering it, but now he couldn’t help but feel that she seemed small compared to the Siphani of his nightmares. Which was ironic since this literally was the Siphani of his nightmares.

He didn’t even have to think hard for his argument. He’d been running over this in his mind for months now.

She’d come into this town as an orphan and they’d taken her in. They’d loved her, treated her with respect, they’d even come to idolize her. And how did she repay them? His mind flashed back to the sight of the funeral, to the pyre so enormous and hot that no one had been able to approach it. He remembered the sight of dry tear-tracks on the faces of children and parents, dried from a blaze that had been needfully large enough to burn hundreds of bodies at once. He remembered the bodies, too. He remembered them in life, then seeing them die, then the sight of the bodies in the pyre.

His spear flicked from the wreckage of Siphani’s house and into his hand with barely a thought. This time his anger was so hot that it made it hard to breathe, and his argument was so heavy he thought the entire world might tremble at its passing.

Unfair. It was unfair what you did, Siphani.

He ran to close the distance, needing to settle this up close. His spearhead thrummed with power, but undeterred Siphani launched forward to meet him. Despite all of this, she still thought she was in the right.

He cut the clawed hand off that swiped at his face. In the same motion, he circled down to slice clean through a noodly leg, and then back up to take her neck. It didn’t quite get all the way through and her head tilted to the side as burbling blood exploded from her lips. He cocked back, and swung again, this time removing the head completely

He thought it was over, but the dream didn’t stop. He heard Siphani’s head and body hit the ground, and he looked around for the next threat. Was it Effa? Was he going to have to kill that thing?

The living pile of skin that was Effa Peck writhed on the ground, seemingly stunned or confused by the death of her mistress.

“Why? I did nothing to you, and you kill me!” Siphani’s decapitated head was speaking from the ground. “I curse you!”

The formation under the town activated, and all of it landed squarely on Brin.

With no warning, Ademir wasn’t able to do whatever he’d done to deflect the entire weight of the hex to himself, and Brin felt the lives of his protector [Witches] be snuffed out one after another. Then the curse turned on him.

Red lightning tortured every cell in his body as it coursed through him, tearing him to pieces inch by inch.

The pain ended, replaced by emptiness.

“So that’s what would’ve happened. I would’ve died, and saved a lot of people." He felt oddly at peace with this outcome. He couldn't go back, and didn't know what he'd choose if he could. It didn't matter. Now that he knew, he could close this chapter of his life.

But the dream didn’t end. He rose up as a ghost, and viewed the rest of the battle from above. It seemed to happen all in fast forward. Lumina arrived, killed Awnadil, the undead, and then finding Brin dead, turned her fury to the rest of the town.

“...and then your [Archmage] kills everyone. How fitting,” said Aberfa, narrating the ending.

“That’s not what she would’ve done,” said Brin.

Aberfa shrugged. “This is your dream.”

“She wouldn’t kill innocent people.”

“Tell yourself that.”

Brin didn’t say anything, and watched the spreading fire consume the town. Aberfa kept saying this was his dream, but she obviously controlled as much or as little of it as she liked. Despite what she claimed, this wasn’t what Brin thought would happen. He still believed in Lumina.

“That was useless. A failure,” Aberfa said after a while.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you didn’t learn anything. I think we’ll have to change strategies. Tell Hogg something for me, if you would. I have a proposition for him.”