Ch 225 – Karmic Bonds
Deacon's widened eyes and slackened jaw slowly narrowed as he scrutinized the description of the riser in his hands, rereading it again and again until his teeth ground against each other and his pupils kept alternating between being round or narrow slits.
"How do you know?" he asked frostily, barely holding back his tongue from lashing out when he couldn't see any mention in the description of this archer being a jötunn.
"How do you know that this person is a..." he trailed off while glancing toward Bonehead, who was roughly a hundred meters across from him on a different dune and had turned to look at him after noticing him leaping all of a sudden, now watching him with cautious eyes and slowly getting up from his crouch as he saw Deacon looking directly at him.
Pressing his pointer finger and thumb together to create a circle while holding his middle finger up and bending his two remaining fingers on his right hand at a ninety-degree angle, Deacon watched as Bonehead's shadowflame eyes widened.
"The Floor Guardian," Bonehead mouthed silently at Deacon from across the distance, immediately remembering the signal they'd created during their talk in the woods about how Deacon had agreed to fulfill a favor for her to save both his life and Esmerelda's.
Giving a barely visible nod, Deacon turned his gaze downward toward Leon and saw through Blood Sense that he'd moved to the other side of the dune and remained kneeling while sifting through relics entirely unaware of his change in behavior.
Turning to look below him at the base of his own dune, he saw that Valorie hadn't noticed anything was wrong as she'd been focused on reading the description of one of the relics she'd just picked up.
"A jötunn?" he continued his question to the invisible Djinn in a harsh whisper. "How do you know this archer was a jötunn?"
"Karma," the Djinn Floor Guardian answered simply, as though that single word was enough to fully answer his question.
"I don't know what that means," Deacon scowled while still keeping his voice low.
The Djinn hummed thoughtfully in his ear, presumably thinking of how best to explain her cryptic answer in a way he would understand.
"That truly is the question of all questions, isn't it?" she mused, getting Deacon to scowl even deeper at her non-answer.
"The simplest explanation I can give you is that karma is the universal law of cause and effect, where an individual's intent or actions determine future consequences that ripple outward. When someone gives another person a gift, whether with malicious or kind intent, a karmic bond is created between them. It could even be an unknowing bond, such as a scholarship program at your Academy on Floor Zero, where those feeling benevolent or wanting to establish goodwill provide stipends to select cadets who are both poor and talented in order to wedge a foot in the door and potentially hire them into their houses or guilds later when they’ve begun to make a name for themselves."
"What does any of that have to do with me and this relic?" Deacon pressed while holding up the Cracked Riser.
"The only other jötnar I've ever met in my entire life were my dad and uncle," he continued before deciding to add, "and my mother too," though he didn't even remember what she looked like since she’d be captured days after giving birth to him and eventually smuggled out of the Tower a few years later when it was discovered Floor 50 was the final Floor of the Tower.
At least that’s what his uncle told him when he asked what had happened to her and why his father had decided to leave him behind in the Tower.
But could only assume based on the Djinn's cryptic wording that there were somehow karmic ties connecting all four of them together, which he could guess made sense; having some idea of just how potent and powerful blood was in rituals from his time researching the Grimoire of Huitzilopochtli.
But from the description written on the relic itself, the soul of the person trapped inside was a young guy who died enslaved in a mine, and last time he checked, both his uncle and father were still very much alive, and from the words of his uncle, they'd both successfully avenged the deaths of their own parents centuries ago.
"Familial bonds are one type of karmic bond, yes," she answered patiently, causing him to frown in confusion.
"However, the jötunn whose soul resides in the relic you're holding is not your cousin or any kind of close blood relative," she quickly amended after sensing Deacon's growing confusion at her explanation. “Though I’m referring to one slightly more abstract and broad.”
Waiting silently for her to continue so he wouldn't stumble over himself trying to understand, she did.
"While extremely thin and almost non-existent to the point of being imperceptible to most, there exists a very faint type of karmic bond between people of the same race called racial karmic bonds, which tie individuals belonging to the same race as those who've ascended to become gods and goddesses."
Gods? Deacon repeated internally in complete confusion. "Jötunn Gods?" he asked tentatively aloud. "There are jötunn deities?"
I mean, I’ve heard of… I guess deities retain their race when they ascend, Deacon blinked, having just come to that conclusion.
…I don’t know why I thought otherwise.
"Gods and goddesses both, yes," the Djinn confirmed with what sounded like a nod in her voice. "While there aren't nearly as many jötunn deities as some of the other major races throughout the Multiverse have accumulated over the eons, they still exist despite their drastically reduced numbers."
"The Great War, approximately thirty-eight cycles ago, really decimated their pantheon quite badly," she added with an audible grimace. "Though considering the jötnar waged war against everyone in the Multiverse, their losses were entirely to be expected in hindsight."
Seeing Deacon go completely quiet as he became lost in his racing thoughts, trying to process this revelation, the Djinn gently reminded him of the present situation.
"The relic?" she prompted.
Shaking his head lightly to clear his thoughts before refocusing his eyes back onto the Cracked Riser still resting in his palm, Deacon asked, "So because of this karmic bond created through these… jötunn gods and goddesses that still exist, you're saying that me and this dead archer have some sort of connection and that's how you know he was a jötunn?"
He could just as easily have been a witch with jötunn blood, though, right? Deacon thought to himself while remembering what Uncle Bjorn had told him about how, before he and Dad became jötnar, they were originally from a bloodline of witches, which was why his grandparents from his dad’s side were killed and why his aunt was…
"Did you actually read the full description of the relic currently resting in your palms?" the Djinn asked, interrupting his thoughts that spiraled into what his uncle had said had happened to his sister and how they had killed her to put her out of her misery.
"I did read it, yes," Deacon nodded while frowning.
"And did you not find it strange how you were able to glean much more detailed information about it compared to all the other relics you've Identified in their descriptions?" she asked, causing his frown to deepen.
Feeling the weight on his hip grow heavier at the thought, he reached into the belt pouch he’d closed earlier to retrieve the Hilt of Joyeuse he'd pocketed.
Holding both relics up side by side, Deacon used Identify on each of them and carefully compared their panels.
His frown deepened as he realized she was right — the description for the Cracked Riser was substantially more detailed compared to the relatively vague description given for the Hilt of Joyeuse, despite both being the same rarity.
"You're welcome," were the final words he heard whispered in his ear, leaving him standing atop the dune made of broken relics by his lonesome.
An hour and a half later, after thoroughly searching the neighboring dunes, the four of them reconvened together, each holding the relics they'd chosen to commune with.
"So who's going to go first and—?" Valorie started to ask, only to be immediately interrupted by Deacon.
"I will," he said firmly while raising up the Cracked Riser for all of them to see clearly.
As he did so he distinctly felt Bonehead's gaze boring into him from across their small circle.
"You chose a bow relic?" Valorie said in surprise as she quickly cast Identify on the item he was holding. "I honestly would have thought you'd choose that sword one I threw at your head earlier?"
"Eh," Deacon shrugged casually while keeping his expression neutral. "I don't really have any proper skills with Archery other than Basic Archery Mastery that I picked up somewhat recently, so I figured I'd take what opportunity I can get to try and bring it up to par with my other martial combat abilities."
"And you’re absolutely sure about the choice you made?" Bonehead asked him carefully, his eyes flickering between the Cracked Riser and Deacon's face while giving him a knowing look that clearly indicated he suspected something was off.
Afterall, they still hadn’t talked about what the Djinn had spoken to him about.
"It feels right," Deacon smirked in response, though Bonehead could tell there was definitely something more going on beneath the surface despite neither Leon nor Valorie seeming to notice anything amiss.
Clutching the relic firmly in his right hand, Deacon took in a deep, steadying breath as he stared down at the Cracked Riser before tentatively reaching out to touch it with his mana.
The instant his mana made contact with the relic, the sound of a gun hammer snapping forward resounded in his mind as everything around him vanished into complete darkness.
Glancing down at his now-empty hand, Deacon saw that he no longer held the riser in his grasp, however he was still wearing all of his combat gear and equipment.
"So you're the one who's supposed to fulfill my dying wish?" a young voice asked from behind him.
Immediately spinning around to face the source of the voice, Deacon found himself looking at a blonde-haired boy who appeared to be roughly the same age as himself, wearing a loose light green tunic and light brown trousers, both pieces of clothing looking to be heavily worn and patched in multiple places.
After taking in the appearance of the person in front of him, he noticed that the fair-skinned person had vertical slit pupils just like both himself and his uncle, though these were a warm brown color, unlike his own crimson red.
Most glaringly, Deacon noticed there was a faint whitish aura surrounding his form. Is this the archer the relic was referring to? The jötunn?
"I am," Deacon confirmed while studying the boy carefully. "My name is D—"
"Deacon Hayes," the boy finished for him with a knowing smirk, clearly enjoying Deacon's surprised reaction at him somehow knowing his name.
“How did you-?” Deacon asked, only to then get interrupted once more.
“Know?” the boy finished for him with a smirk.
"I’m the son of a mermaid and jötunn," he said proudly as he jabbed a thumb towards his own chest. "Just like how the jötunn blood running through my veins gave me the body of a complete badass, the mermaid blood I inherited from my mother gave me a minor natural talent in reading minds."
Seeing Deacon's stunned look and him taking a slight step back as he became more guarded, the boy amended his words. "Well, just surface thoughts."
That didn't help.
"Nah, I'm fucking with you," the boy laughed boisterously. "Jötunn blood is far more dominant than the blood of other races – there’s no way I could have retained my mother’s Mind’s Eye Racial Trait."