13-7. Desperate Times
The potion vial glittered in the faint light, the liquid inside trembling as if it was alive. Elijah could feel the energy trapped within – like a bomb waiting to go off – but he had nowhere to direct it. With the failure of his dolmen, he was well and truly stuck in the mud.
But he strongly believed that the Riftsteed potion was the key. A shortcut to power he shouldn’t have been capable of achieving. A way to expand the tools at his disposal in the hopes that it might give him a chance of survival.
Yet, there was nowhere to put it.
With a groan, he lay back, angry, frustrated, and exhausted. Those last two had become his constant companions, and they were no more helpful than the other man inside the tent. For all that Benedict was a genius, he was also a mostly broken man who fell a little further into a morass of self-pity and hopelessness with every passing hour.
If there was one thing Elijah had discovered, it was that Benedict did not deal well with adversity. Or frustration. Or discomfort. Normally, he’d have lashed out at someone, but aside from Elijah, there was no one else in the abyss. So, the other man just embraced his sullenness a little more each day.
Elijah would have been annoyed if he didn’t feel such similar emotions.
He opened his eyes and stared at the rippling ceiling of the tent. Outside, the wind howled amidst a driving rainstorm. Like the contents of the lakes and puddles Elijah had seen on the excised planet, the rain was mostly water. However, it was suffused with so much corruption that it would have been immediately toxic to just about anyone else. It taxed his Mantle of Authority even further than normal, which only hastened their demise.
Thankfully, the tent offered some protection from the elements, though its defenses were entirely insufficient to do more than the bare minimum. More than once, Elijah had found himself wishing that its power hadn’t reverted to its baseline when he’d taken it from that now-dead gnomish summoner.
Suddenly, he sat up.
“I am so stupid,” he mumbled, resisting the urge to slap himself in the forehead.
“You’re just now figuring that out?” responded Benedict, his tone laced with acidic exhaustion.
“Nope!” Elijah replied with a smile. “But I think I’ve figured out how to help us survive.”
“Is this the same as last time? If so, I’ll just sit it out.”
Elijah ignored the verbal jab at his most recent failure. He didn’t blame Benedict for his frustration. After all, he’d built the dolmen up as the solution to all their problems, so when it failed, it hit them both hard.
But this time would be different.
Elijah just knew it.
The only problem was that he needed to wait until the storm subsided before he implemented his plan. Thankfully, the rain only lasted for a few more hours, and during that time, Elijah convinced himself that the plan would work out perfectly.
So, it was with a significant wave optimism that he ducked out of the tent and beheld the post-storm terrain. Wisps of black steam rose from the sizzling puddles, and a smell like melting tires filled the air. A blanket of corrosive corruption hung over everything, making Elijah itch even after it had been filtered through his Mantle of Authority.
But it was only enough to make him vaguely uncomfortable. Not enough to sunder the armor of optimism he’d donned in the wake of his most recent idea.
“So, how is this supposed to work?” asked Benedict, standing beside him. The man was almost entirely recovered, though he pretended he was even stronger than he was. Probably because he wanted to avoid being carried around like a backpack.
Elijah stood next to the tent, his hands on his hips. “I have no idea. My instructions were just to pour it on the item meant to evolve,” he said.
“Those are bad instructions.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he agreed. “Should we pack it up first?”
“I literally have no clue. Neither do you, by the way. You could just be wasting this thing.”
“No. It’s a growth item. I’m like…ninety-percent sure,” Elijah insisted. “Ninety-nine.”
“So, not sure at all.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“That’s exactly how it works. Sure means that there’s no chance of you being wrong. If there’s a one percent chance that you’re mistaken about this, then you’re not sure. By definition.”
“Don’t be pedantic over idioms. Nobody likes that. Don’t be that guy.”
“If you’re telling me not to be precise with my language –”
“And here we go,” Elijah interrupted, stepping closer to the tent. He unstoppered the Riftseed potion, then unceremoniously poured it onto the tent. For a few moments, nothing happened, save for the slightly viscous liquid dribbling down the slope of the tent’s side.
“Stunning effect,” Benedict remarked. “Very impressive. I’m sure this will save us both.”
“Maybe it needs time to cook,” Elijah suggested, though he couldn’t deny the cloud of disappointment threatening to overtake his mind. A man could only take so much failure before he just gave up.
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And Elijah was close to his limit.
“A detail that should have been included in the instructions,” Benedict pointed out.
Elijah had no counter to that. Instead, he just stared at the gloopy mess dripping down the tent’s surface. The potion had the consistency of old motor oil, and it didn’t smell much better, either. The scent was so strong that it overpowered the post-rain atmosphere.
It was not a pleasant aroma by anyone’s measure.
Finally, after a few more moments, Elijah let out a sigh. “I guess it was more of a long shot than I thought,” he mumbled, his shoulders slumping. “I really thought I remember Atticus saying it was a growth item, though.”
“Maybe it is, and we just used the potion wrong. Or the potion might not have been made properly,” Benedict suggested. “There’s no telling.”
“Yeah. I guess,” Elijah said. Then, he added, “Sorry for getting all worked up over it.”
“It’s –”
Before Benedict could get another word out, ethera surged from the nearby tent. The swirl of energy enveloped it, settling around the temporary dwelling like a cocoon. Then, it turned as solid as crystal.
The whole thing happened in the space of a few moments, but by the time the process completed, Elijah was grinning ear-to-ear. “I think it worked,” he announced.
Benedict just frowned. After a few more moments, he asked, “How long is it going to be like that?”
“Seriously? We just went over this, man. I have no clue.”
“Seems like something that should’ve been –”
“In the instructions! I get it. Jesus. Fuck. I get it. Just give it a rest! I’m doing the best I can here! And your attitude isn’t helping!” Elijah ran his hands through his hair and took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated.”
“No. I’m sorry. I haven’t…I’m not the easiest person to be around, even when things are going well. And now?” he asked, shaking his head. “I haven’t really been putting my best foot forward of late. For what it’s worth, I don’t mean to be like this. If I could change, I would.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” he countered. “For all my life, I’ve thought everyone else was the problem. They teased me. They beat me up. They…they did everything you can think of to push me down. But all this time, I’ve been deluding myself when I insisted that I wasn’t asking for it.”
Elijah responded, “Being the victim of shitty people isn’t your fault.”
“It kind of is,” Benedict said, turning away. “I could have changed. You know, been normal. Dressed like the other kids. Acted like the other kids. I knew how. I did it around my father. But…I don’t know. I just didn’t. I embraced the abnormality until it was too late to change anyone’s perception.
“Eventually, I latched onto it. I thought it made me better than them instead of just different,” he said. “And…and the bullying got worse and worse until I…I don’t know. Resentment built into hatred. So, when everything changed, I just…I lashed out. I righted all the wrongs, thinking it proved the superiority I’d latched onto. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t to blame for how people saw me.”
“That doesn’t excuse the way people treated you,” Elijah said. He only knew a little of Benedict’s backstory, but what he’d gleaned suggested that the man had been through plenty of trauma. And like most cases, it built upon itself into a state that twisted him into something he never should have been.
Elijah was well aware that Benedict had killed a lot of people. He didn’t have Sadie’s Sense of Sin, but he could intuit that much. At least some of his victims had been innocent, too. That much was obvious from his regret.
But Elijah had killed people as well. He justified it in his own mind, and he’d accepted the part of his personality that drove it. However, that didn’t change the fact that he’d killed innocents, too.
In that, he and Benedict were similar.
“I have been trying, though. To get better,” Benedict said. “To be better. I thought Benediction was my opportunity.” He barked a harsh laugh. “Who else could think building a society on a foundation of cannibalism and ritual sacrifice would work?”
Elijah had no idea how to respond to that bit of self-deprecation. The reality was that just about anyone could have predicted Benediction’s fall. Likely, even Benedict had seen it coming, even if he had refused to acknowledge its inevitability.
“I suppose my point is that I don’t mean to be like this,” Benedict went on. “I want to be optimistic. I don’t want to be…a jerk. It just comes out. I’ll try not to let it, though.”
Elijah reached out and gripped his companion’s shoulder. “Trying is all any of us can really do,” he said. “Do you want a piece of advice?”
“Sure.”
“My parents were big believers that happiness was a choice,” he said. “I don’t think that’s always the case, but I also don’t think that’s the point. Just choosing to be happy doesn’t change things like depression or grief. But there does come a point when the act blends with reality. Mostly, though, I think it comes down to something even simpler.”
“What’s that?”
“Does wallowing in negativity help you at all?” Elijah asked. Before Benedict could answer, he went on, “And does forcing happiness – even if it’s just a façade – ever hurt?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“From my experience, it helps,” Elijah said. “Maybe not a lot. And maybe it doesn’t do anything. But it doesn’t hurt. And if something might help and can’t hurt, one should always do that thing.”
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to act happy all the time.”
“Nobody is. Just trying is enough,” Elijah said. “Or maybe it’s all bullshit, and it won’t help at all. I think this is way above my paygrade, so take my psychological advice with a big grain of salt. I mean, I’m not exactly psychologically healthy.”
“Fair assessment.”
“Ouch. You’re supposed to assure me that I’m the picture of mental health.”
“You aren’t. Not even close.”
“Again – ouch.”
“You slaughtered a whole town because they invaded your grove.”
“They were pirates.”
“Not all of them.”
“Pirate adjacent.”
“What does that even –”
Just then, the crystal cocoon surrounding the tent cracked, filling the air with the sound of a calving glacier. It echoed across the damp terrain, kicking up mud along the way. Elijah’s clothes fluttered in the resultant wind, and his senses went wild with the dense pulse of ethera that came with it.
It didn’t stop after a single wave, either. Instead, it kept going, one after another, and to a steady beat that came with more cracking crystal. The pattern went on for almost a full minute until the cocoon completely shattered. The solidified ethera sloughed off, dissipating into motes soon after the chunks hit the ground.
And finally, the new version of the tent was revealed.
It looked much like the version he’d first encountered upon stumbling into the gnomish summoner’s camp. Tall enough that Elijah could walk inside without ducking, though Benedict would need to duck a little. It also looked more like a cabin tent, as opposed to a pup tent.
It gleamed with vitality and ethera, though Elijah didn’t get a chance to truly inspect it before he felt something troubling. He turned around, only to see what he should have already expected.
“They’re coming,” he said. “Pack up the tent. We’re only fighting long enough to ensure escape.”
Benedict nodded. Even from more than half a mile away, he could feel the power of the horde of creatures bearing down on them. And it was obvious that escape was the only option.
The Warlock rushed to obey the order. Meanwhile, Elijah shifted into the Shape of Spores. It was the go-to form for fighting packs of creatures, largely because the shape’s massive vitality served to attract their attention. Or more importantly, to keep the monsters from focusing on Benedict.
Even as the transformation completed, he stepped forward to meet them.