Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Difficult Conversations

The great wolf ran across the endless dark, a white shape keeping pace on his side. The stars flickered around them, tiny spots in the distance. They were hurrying, though they could not be late. A True Death was never late.

Their target was a being whose death was near, someone who was old and powerful. Who might decide not to accept his time. The wolf wondered if he was going to get a chase, it had been a long time since he had gotten a chase worthy of all his power.

As one of the first and most important Aspects in existence, True Death was a foundation upon which all of reality stood. Their power was without equal among the Aspects, with only a couple ever being able to act on their level.

With another step, they knew that it was time, in the next moment they were pulled through space itself by their purpose. They arrived at their target, a massive mountain the size of some worlds. In the center of it was a wide and a round hole, a cavity that had been carved out over generations beyond counting. By the first inhabitants of this world and all those that had come after.

The mountain was filled with people, but none of them could see them. The wolf and the scythe stood in the center, watching the person they were there for. The Great Dragon of Time was old, older than his entire race several times over. His great power and mastery had allowed him to travel through time, to live lifetimes for every moment since the beginning of the universe. To slow down his aging to a crawl. But all things must come to an end, even time must run out eventually.

His body could no longer handle his great power. The Twin Aspects of True Death watched as the Dragon civilization wept for their god, as they wailed for his death.

The Great Dragon breathed his last breath, and then a moment later it happened. The last effort of a mortal being, attempting to cheat True Death. The world fell away as they were transported to a place beyond time and space, a realm crafter by a dragon who believed himself to be a god.

“I did it,” the dragon whispered.

“You did nothing but prolong the inevitable,” Scythe said.

The dragon whirled around, his eyes locking with the wolf and scythe. “You… you are them, aren’t you? Death?”

“We are those who give the gift. We are those who are hated, and who are whispered about in fear. We are those whose name is used to scare children. We are those who all mortal beings must meet.”

“I am not a mortal!” The dragon bellowed. “I am the master of Time!”

“Then you above all others must know, that all things have their time and place. And this is the moment of your death,” Scythe said.

The dragon’s power roared up, and the wolf gnashed his teeth. “At last, a worthy hunt.”

Ryun woke up and immediately sat up. He rarely slept these days, but from time to time, he did get the urge. He didn’t think that he needed it really, but… sometimes when he did, he remembered something of the Aspect of True Death’s life. He focused inward, to the place where he had placed the remnants of the being that used to be the wolf—the Reaper. It was entwined with his technique, a remnant of a remnant. It shouldn’t be anything, and yet… there were memories.

Sometimes, he wondered just what was left of it. A fraction of a fraction shouldn’t be anything, and yet… it was a fraction of a being that was one half of the Aspect of True Death. A fraction of a remnant might still be something. He shook his head, aside from the memories he didn’t have any other issues.

He shook his head, banishing the dream and stood up. He needed to get ready for the trip.

The void pushed inside of his body as he willed it. He was in the tier 9 area of the Void plane; his body had almost fully adjusted to it. It still hurt him, but with his regeneration he could survive for a lot longer. He pushed the Void Essence into his core, overdrawing into his already full core and deepening it. He didn’t have much time, so push all of his will on the Void surrounding him. It was a strange process, he wasn’t even sure if he was doing anything, or rather he wouldn’t be if he couldn’t tell the rush of Void through his conduits. Regardless, he could increase his intake by a lot, though he tired himself out the more he tried. And that could be dangerous. Overtaxing his willpower could lead to falling unconscious, which would be bad if it happened in the Void Plane.

When he felt himself reach a limit, he stopped and pushed himself out of the Void plane. Once in the air, he pulled out a set of robes from his forge and made his way down to the forest beneath him. It was the middle of the night, and the camp that they had made was in a small cave off the road.

Erdania and Selia were inside, talking quietly. Ryun of course heard everything that they were talking about on his way down, but he tried not to react. Keeping his emotions in check. He didn’t want Selia to think that he was spying on them. He made his way down as fast as he could so that he didn’t hear too much.

He made noise as he landed on purpose, then walked into the camp.

“Welcome back,” Selia said.

“Thanks for your understanding,” Ryun said. “I don’t know if I will have more chances to do this in the future.”

Tomorrow they were supposed to take a teleporter that would take them directly to the port city where they were supposed to meet the rest of the team. He doubted that he would be able to visit the Void plane everyday while they were on a ship.

“No problem, I understand how hard it is to cycle when you have responsibilities,” Selia said.

Ryun took a seat across from them and pulled out pulled out a void crystal out of his storage. He had filled his sustenance core with the Void Essence from the plane, but he drained a bit of it when he healed himself afterward. He plopped the small crystal in his mouth and chewed for a moment before swallowing.

Selia and Erdania grew quiet, as they often did in his presence. Finally, Ryun felt that he should give them a little push.

“You want to speak with me about something,” Ryun said, looking at them both over the small fire.

“What do you mean?” Selia asked.

Ryun sighed. “You are good at masking your emotions from me, but you have little experience doing it when we are this close. Small things pass through from time to time. But even if I didn’t feel your emotions, I would’ve noticed that something was bothering you both. And then there is the fact that you’ve been talking about it when you think that I can’t hear,” he said with a small apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but… my skill’s range is very large. I think that you’ve underestimated it by a significant margin. I can’t hear you, but I know what you’ve been talking about. I am not one about beating around, I will always respect directness and openness more than anything else. Tell me what you want clearly.”

The two of them exchanged glances, then Erdania rolled her eyes. “Might as well just say it, he already knows what we want. We should just see if there is anything there for us to consider.”

Selia turned to meet Ryun’s eyes and then spoke.

“There are many different types of people. Some enjoy a solitary life, without needing anyone else. Some are content with living a life with passing and shallow encounters. Others can’t imagine a life without a partner. Different people with different ideas of what a relationship should be. The Infinite Realm is… open to many different and sometimes even strange arrangements. There are issues, as always, but for the most part, everyone is free to find their own… happiness.”

Ryun waited patiently as she paused.

“Erdania and I had been together for a long time. We are different, very different than one another. We want different things out of a relationship, and we’ve come to an agreement long ago. This doesn’t diminish our love for each other at all, we accept all that we are. But, if we look at our past, at our history, the times we were the happiest, was when we were in a partnership of three. Over the years we tried with many different people… but no one ever came close to what we had before, what we lost.”

Ryun nodded; he did understand loss.

“Over the last couple of years things had gotten… more difficult. The last three years in particular had been hard. Especially with this… perk and our connection.”

“What exactly are you asking me?” Ryun asked, despite already knowing.

Erdania leaned forward to look at him. “We want to see if there can be something between the three of us.”

“Why me?” Ryun asked.

Erdania shrugged. “You are strong, near our equal,” she paused, looking away for a moment and then sighed. “You want the truth? We are terrified of loss, both of us. It is why I am never with anyone for more than one night. It is perhaps at the core reason why we’ve never really committed to anyone that we tried to bring in before. You are…”

As she trailed off, Ryun raised an eyebrow. “The Undying Void?”

“That is a part of it, of course. Being hard to kill matters to us, we don’t want to ever again feel as we felt before. But beyond that, we… we like you. Is that not enough?”

Ryun closed his eyes. “This kind of thing was never my strength. I knew nothing of romance and even love before the Framework arrived on my world. And after… well. I knew love once, and I lost it, just as you two did. So, I understand the pain, that feeling inside of an emptiness where that other person used to be. It is… it is hard for me now,” Ryun turned to look at Selia. “Because she used to carry the other part of the perk that you now hold. But that perk isn’t… it has nothing to do with love. It binds us, yes, and I know how much that makes things between you two awkward. You don’t need to do this just because you feel like this connection changes things.”

“It isn’t just because of that,” Selia said. “Both Erdania and I are agreed. We need another in our relationship. It had been too long, and things between us are… fraying.”

Ryun shook his head, trying to find the words. The way to express himself without hurting them.

“Selia, we’ve gotten to know each other at the Tournament, we’ve spoken as friends and fought together, I do like you. But there is too much in between us that we don’t know about each other that prevents true openness. Things that you kept for yourself, which I do understand. But, I will not be with someone who I don’t know fully,” then he turned to the other side. “Erdania, you’ve helped me more than I can express in words. I was filled with sorrow and unable to move on. You’ve been a key piece in helping me discover things about myself. But one night does not love make. I don’t think that just doing this as a way to fix what is happening between you two is a good idea.”

The two of them exchanged glances and then Erdania turned to look at him. “Wow, I did not think that we would be turned down.”

Ryun chuckled. “It is not that I am turning you down. It is that I want you to understand what I want and need. You want us to try and see if there could be something between us? Then you need to know what I expect. Truth, directness, openness and trust. We would need to know all that there is about each other, the easy things and the hard.”

“I… that is a difficult thing to ask,” Selia said.

“Love is difficult, it is ugly, and it is pain and hate, and rage. But it is also… beautiful, and it is trust, and security, comfort,” Ryun said. Those were all the things that he used to have, that he had lost. It was the loss of love that had turned him into who he was today. It was the root cause of the things that he had done on Earth.

“I thank you for the sentiment,” Ryun told them. “But things like this need time. Which we might have on this trip. If you want to pursue this seriously, then you now know what I expect. If something can happen, it will happen naturally, and if not… well.”

The two of them looked at each other, and then nodded.

The silence returned again, and no one spoke until it was time to leave.

They didn’t touch on the topic of their conversation in the cave again. They arrived in the port a day later through the teleporter.

The city was made mostly out of wood, with a large fort on top of a hill. People walked about hurriedly, carrying crates or pushing them on elaborate carts and a few floating contraptions. The three of them made their way through the people to the docks.

Once they’ve gotten close enough Ryun saw a ship from the Infinite Realm for the first time. There were many of them in the harbor, but one drew the eye more than any other.

It looked… it looked like a modern ship, sleek on the sides with a flat top on the front and the back, while the middle had something that resembled a pyramid with open decks. The flat parts had massive turrets, that from afar looked like they were modern but on closer look were something entirely different. The turrets weren’t turrets at all, but just prongs that resembled tuning forks, with no opening for anything to fire. The ship had six total turrets, with two of them being around double the size of the others.

The sides of the ship near the center where the pyramid was had additional armor, looking like wings that were folded over the side. The entire ship looked like it was made out of a single type of Essence. With his sense he could feel the people walking about even from this distance. The ship was… massive, at least a kilometer long, if not more. And it was surrounded by hundreds of other ships of all kinds of make. Some were made out of wood, resembling ships that he had learned about in Earth’s history. Others were unique and unlike anything that he had ever seen before.

“That’s our ride,” Erdania said, startling him.

“It is impressive,” Ryun told her.

Erdania nodded. “The deadliest ship on the ocean, it could lay waste to half the Golden Coast in an instant. If it was pushed to its limits.”

Ryun knew that the Golden Coast stretched for a few thousand kilometers, but he didn’t doubt it. The ship just looked dangerous.

They made their way down and caught a ride on a small boat to the ship. There they were met with a couple of people. The one in front was a large drake woman. Both Selia and Erdania bowed their heads to her and greeted her.

“Dracael,” they said.

“Finally,” the drake woman—Dracael—said. “We’ve been waiting for months.”

“Apologies,” Erdania said. “We had to make sure that our people were safe.”

“Well, at least you are here now,” then her eyes turned to look at Ryun. “And this is the last member of our team I assume?”

Ryun stepped forward and inclined his head. “I am Ryun Nacht.”

“Ah, the Undying Void,” Dracael nodded. “I guess that we might test that name by the time we are done.”

She turned around and gestured at the people that stood behind her.

“These are the rest of the team,” Dracael gestured at the closest one. “This is Vryull.”

A tall cthull met Ryun’s eyes and then nodded. Ryun could tell that there was something familiar about him, not the person itself, but the sense around him, though he couldn’t quite place it. The drake woman moved on, pointing at a ravzor with bright white fur and slim build.

“And that is Maleatus,” she said as the man grinned at Erdania and Selia.

“Heya girls! You miss me?”

Erdania and Selia ignored him and looked at Dracael. “I thought that Eratemus was coming as well?”

“He is,” Dracael said. “We got one of his bodies in a coffin in the storage. There is no need for him to be here for the trip itself. He has enough stuff to work on here.”

“Ah,” Selia said.

“You wound me,” Maleatus said as he put a clawed hand over his heart.

“And the last two members of our small team,” Dracael turned to look at the side, ignoring the ravzor as well. Near the passage that led into the ship the last two stood apart, glaring in their direction. Ryun had already sensed them there but didn’t look in their direction. As she pointed, he turned around.

“Zacharia and Nahamassa of the Wardens,” Dracael said.

Ryun and Zach looked at each other, for a moment everything else fell apart and there was only the two of them in the entire world. It seemed like this trip was going to be even more… interesting than he had assumed after his talk with Erdania and Selia. He hoped that it wasn’t that long of a trip.