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Arc F1.9 | Chapter 1: Knew It Was You From The Moment I Saw You

The man turn back. He should turn back and leave the little Baalphorian girl to her fate.Clearly, based on the fact that she had been able to fool him—something that was generally impossible, as while his Empathy was only Perfect, it interacted with other parts of his genetics to give him more ability to feel emotions through the aether than most— able to slip away, the girl was skilled. Hence, the kid would be fine… maybe… maybe not.

Fuck.

Fuck him and his bleeding heart… for some people, anyways. For probably innocent little Baalphorian girls who had been dragged into stupid situations by his stupid sister and her even stupider kid, the man’s heart bled a bit. The worst thing was that, regardless of whether the girl would be okay, were she left to go down this path of the cave system that stretched far above the Lüshanian capital, realize it was a path, and abort at the speed of a riptide swelling in the Zereth Sea, would never know if she got out of this place or not.

The cave system was a maze of tunnels and dead ends, some of it an impenetrable darkness that seemed to consume the aether itself. The man didn’t like those spots, each odd section of dead aether leaving pinpricks within his awareness of the world, and for someone who let his awareness wander? Who always slept on a razor-thin wire, lest someone come to slit his throat? Needless to say, this was the sort of situation he enjoyed.

with this place was wrong, and he wanted to be free of it. Had no one known where he was—and therefore been unable to lay blame at his feet for anything that went wrong—he have left his dumbass nephew to his fate, chasing that other Baalphorian girl around the cave system—or… no, the idiot wasn’t chasing her around anymore, was he?

It was blurry, through the cascade of power and emptiness of the cave system, but the man thought his nephew now chasing after a blob of aether of some sort—a Baalphorian skill, presumably. It was too far off—at least, it was with so much interference—and the man couldn’t make out the exact shape of whatever the idiot had been distracted by. While the young man had barely enough brain cells to fill a shot glass, the man didn’t think his nephew was so stupid as to run after anything but a full illusion of the girl.

Impressive, he supposed. Baalphorian skills really were something else. The man knew of Free Coloniers who could create similar things, of course, but it was by no means a common skill, nor was so much power and control at such a young age something common outside of low- and non-devs—although, perhaps these two girls were low-devs? Not non-devs, he was sure—he’d met a few of those, over the years, and to him at least, they had an aura about them that was impossible to shake. Some aspect of their personalities given a physical shape within the waves of the aether, rather than an echo of the power they potentially held within themselves, he generally thought.

These girls… well, the one his nephew was chasing had certainly been an interesting thing, in the brief moments when she had been staring him down, unaware he was staring right back into her. Unfortunately, while about the girl was , he had no idea it had been—too much interference or something about her Censor offering her a layer of protection, perhaps? Or maybe she was like the girl he was chasing after, trying to stop her from running into a nest she would struggle to free herself from? Someone whose mind was able to clasp itself closed and breathe truth into whatever false reality its owner wanted to create?

So strange. Also, annoying.

At the very least, he could still feel the girl he was chasing through the burning blur of the cave system. It was almost sad that there were no Lowdouran left—the man would quite like to ask one the emptiness within this place was. It could be intentional—some expulsion of the aether’s will from this place. Instead, it felt like a parasite, wiggling about, trying to make more room for itself within a place that was meant to be holy.

Holy to what, the man didn’t know. The aether, perhaps. There were a few religions, scattered throughout the continent, but for the most part, most of their populations tended to either have no beliefs or beliefs that wrapped themselves after ideas of the aether as a god—the originator of all.

Having travelled the northern edge of the southern continent, the man knew religion was more common there. It was a strange thing, for the crack of borders and tectonic plates to make so much of a difference in their cultures—strange to the point that it felt unnatural, and—

And the man slipped.

One moment, he was moving through the cave system, which had begun to turn downwards. The next, his foot had caught on loose gravel—and how the fuck, in a place where damaging the remnants of the Lowdouran’s power was virtually impossible, did come to exist!?—and he was sliding. The man tried to catch himself. A hand reached out, barely brushing over the wall of the tunnel. He attempted to get his feet back under him.

It didn’t work, and for the barest of breaths, the world froze. Gravel tinkled down the tunnel. The man’s eyes met the ceiling. His ass met the ground—his head as well, unfortunately, and while he didn’t pass out, the man swore he saw stars.

✮ ✮ ✮

“There was a man… he was with the person who kidnapped me, but he wasn’t part of that? He came to get me, after I got away, but it was to help me?”

“He was weird—spoke in a weird mishmash of languages, some of which my Censor didn’t even know,”

“Should have just followed my gut and gone into Falmíer,”

“Still hiding things?”

she

“He seemed… annoyed, when he found me. He didn’t really talk to me, only muttered about feeling like he’d given up something important to save me. I tried asking what he’d given up, but all he said was he didn’t know. It was weird, but I think he was telling the truth—at least, telling his truth. That guy… he really believed that by saving me, he’d given something up—something important and unknown.”

“Fuck…”

“It’s okay,” “We’ll meet one day, and be great friends.”

“What…”

“Go,” “I’ll be fine,”