"Well, now I'm going to go get my equipment, while the staff prepares a tank for you." Old Yu answered Kendrick's question.
"Then what do I do until then?"
"Old Val teach your pupil, for a few minutes or so. Keep him occupied. We don't need another James Deacon incident." Old Yu was speaking as he was walking out the door. The door swished back into place with its usual sci-fi sound, followed by the two nurses that had been silently standing by after the appearance of Yu Kong.
"What's the James Deacon Incident?"
"Man... You're like asking some heavy shit. I think it best to not dwell on it." Val responded as he walked to the only chair in the room, and sat down.
[Had that chair always been there?] Kendrick thought.
"Dude... My imagination is far worse than not knowing."
Old Val laughed until he coughed, turning his old tan skin a dark red, with a final cough he drew in fresh air, "You're trying to kill me, dude."
"How?" Kendrick wasn't sure why Val was laughing or about his last comment.
"Dude, you haven't seen shit to think you have a worse imagination. In fact, Horrormancers do a lot of traveling and fighting to increase their fears." Val saw the dull expression on Kendrick's face and decided to make this simple.
"Okay, to make a super easy example. Let's say that you have lived in a white room your whole life. You have only seen yourself and no one else. Food, water, and waste just take care of themselves in this example. So if the only food you had to eat your whole life were nutrient packs, how can you imagine fried chicken or rare roast faux beast? You can't imagine worse, better, or different if you have no point of reference."
Kendrick raise a finger to say, "So I-"
Val interrupted Kendrick again, "In a nutshell, you don't know shit."
Kendrick dropped his hand and shut his mouth. He was pissed that he was being treated like a dumbass, and called a dumbass, spoiled, stupid, and drug through the mud. He wanted to say he didn't sign up for this shit... But he had clearly signed up for this shit.
"Before we continue, I need to preface the drawback to your integration." Old Val spoke up with a serious tone, unusual from his usual way.
"I thought the nightmares eating you was the drawback?"
"No. That's the drawback of being a Horrormancer, and yes, before you ask, you have to complete integration to be a better Horrormancer, else the Nightmare or Nightmares will eat you in about a year, as you will not be able to keep up with its or there growth."
"Okay, so the drawback to Horrormancers is being eaten by them, then becoming part nightmare does what?"
"Well, have you heard of the sin deadly sins?" Old Val asked seriously.
"Val, do you come from Earth?"
"An earth, but yes I do. A lot of things stay consistent."
"Oh, like how we are speaking the same language?" Kendrick spoke up, thinking it had been odd he could understand everyone and even the nightmares if they came from different worlds or whatever.
"Huh... Oh, Nah. That's the Yogg-Tech doing its job. One of the minor functions of the Yogg-Tech is like a babel fish. It translates what you hear to languages you can speak. It's like knowing how to read, write, and speak all languages that have ever been or ever will be. Really nifty if you find yourself stranded on a backwater dimensional line."
"Oh..." Kendrick felt the back of his head in the same style a certain movie about living in computers would. He felt nothing by his hair.
"So I take it you know the sins?"
"Yeah, like pride, lust, wrath... Uhhh... Gluttony?" Kendrick listed what he could remember, while Val shook his head.
"Your right so far, but including them, there is also envy, greed, and sloth."
".....Okay?" Kendrick was scratching his head on this one, where was this going.
"Upon completing integration it will bring you more in line with your primal mind, where your fears reside. The thing that you lack the most in life is the desire that will be expressed. Granting you a vice."
"I have no idea what you're saying." Kendrick was at a complete loss.
Val became irritated. He was by no means a teacher and was never meant to be a teacher. He had zero patience with anyone that didn't catch on quickly, hence his ability to insult his would-be student Kendrick.
"Bottom line, becoming a nightmare makes a vice that will control you. Do you get it?"
"Uhhh... Sooooooo, if I get Gluttony I'll eat food all the time?"
"Basically."
"Well, that's not so bad." Kendrick sighed.
"What if you wanted to save someone important during a mission, but you had to stop and eat a Twinkie?"
Kendrick blinked a few times.
"Yeah... You think this is a joke. These desires can consume you in a metaphysical manner, just as your nightmare can consume you in a physical manner."
"What's yours?"
"You're a noisy dude; you should have been a chick. You know that?"
"Answer the damn question, Val..." Kendrick was getting equally frustrated by Val being how Val acted.
"Oh ho! Someone has bite... Maybe your vice is Wrath? Mine is what's called sloth, but I'm not lazy. It's just what they call drug addicts."
"Val you take drugs?"
"Haha, What don't I take, honestly though more than half are used to keep me alive. No, I partake a bit ever once in a while. If you don't scratch your itch, it will become, again... All consuming. Sometimes you have to just break down and do it, but the point is you choose when to break down and do it... Not the other way around where it chooses for you?"
"How does envy work?"
"There isn't a vice for envy; the moniker for seven deadly sins is just a point of reference. The real vices are Wrath, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Greed, and Gluttony. It's more accurate to call them compulsions, but I'm not writing the textbooks at the moment."
"So, if I get Wrath as a Vice, I'll go around killing people?"
"Pretty much."
"Why do we do this crap again?"
"Ahem" in a mocking voice of Kendrick, Val said, "Everything." and then began to laugh.
"Alright, I get it. So now, I need to worry about a beast I summon to eat my ass, but I also got to worry I might eat someone else?"
"Only if you get Gluttony as a Vice, and you develop a taste for people... But I don't recommend that."
"Don't... Don't tell me that eating people is acceptable here???"
"Hmmm... Not openly. If people find out you do that, they are going to kill you. The Nightmare gods pretty much allow anything, as long as it doesn't get in the way of their games. When they said anything... They meant anything. A few sickos have won the games... Nightmare gods only know what they are doing. I just hope their nightmares eat them."
"You're kidding... Where is the law in this?"
"Do you think mortal laws can stop a Nightmare god...? So here's the thing. There is mortal law and Nightmare law. Mortal law does not interact or interfere with Horrormancers, as Nightmare law governs Horrormancers."
"So it's like the fraternity?"
"Not sure what that is, but if that's a gang... Kinda." Val said unsure of what the fraternity was exactly.
Val continued, "So again here's the thing. Most of the time, Mortals and Horrormancers walk different paths and seldom interact here on Nexus. BUT! If you go to another plane of existence... You can do whatever you want there. You could use your power as a Horrormancer to conquer a version of Earth for your own, or kill everyone there. No one would stop you unless that world was already owned by another Horrormancer. Nightmare law dictates that we don't touch each other's stuff unless it's by battle. Personal Duels are held all the time, not to mention the games. You can wager whatever you want in a duel."
"So mortals have no rights?"
"Mortals have no rights facing a Horrormancer."
"What if a Mortal kills a Horrormancer?"
"Good for them."
"Wait... There isn't a law that protects Horrormancers?"
"What kinda goofy question is that? If a Horrormancer gets himself killed that's his fault."
"Oh... So there are two sets of laws. One for mortals and one for Horrormancers, but each group can do whatever they want to the other. The laws are only for governing their own kind."
"By George, I believe he has it."
"You guys had a King George?"
"Yup," Val said with some smugness.
"What? Are you English?"
"Well, yeah?"
"I thought you were an American?"
"What dimension are you talking about? The self per-claimed Americans lost the war for independence."
"So what is North America called then?"
"Well, it's part of the British Empire, obviously."
"That's crazy... Who won world war two?"
"We never had a world war two... What happened in your world... Gezzz..."
"Hitler?"
"Oh, that's when it was? The, newly created, MI6 assassinated the radical leader Hitler for inciting terrorism. I take it that he was the one that started World War two?"
"Kind of... What about Japan?"
"Well in my world China took over Japan and the surrounding islands. The world is held by three powers, The British power, the Chinese Power, and the Russian power... Blah... You're never coming to my world... Stop asking me questions."
"Sorry, I just found it interesting."
"We've done enough talking." Val stood up to leave but was called by Kendrick.
"Hey, HEY! What's the least worse Vice, and what's the worse one?"
Val turned to look at Kendrick, "...That's like asking is it better to drown or be burnt to a crisp. What difference does it make?"
"How people treat you."
"Well, unless you have a really bad version of a vice, it doesn't matter. Here on Nexus, We are almost all Horrormancers, and We understand if you have a vice and mortals don't matter."
"Oh... Any advise then?"
"Get strong, win the games, retire early." With that, Val walked out the door.
Kendrick continued to lay on his bed while thinking over what had happened. He had not realized that he had not been given another shot, and wasn't paralyzed with fear.
After a while, the pair of gemini nurses came and drew blood. At that time, they had brought him a plate of thick and creamy looking soup. It was red in color and looked slightly like tomato soup, but didn't have a taste. Bland wasn't the word for the taste, it literally had no taste. He ate it with a small spoon, and he tasted the metal on the spoon, instead of the soup he was eating. The nurses took the dishes and blood away. They split, as one took the dishes to the mess hall, and the other took the blood to the lab for Dr. Yu. Yes. Old Yu was a doctor, but he didn't like his friends to call him doctor. Val could guess why he asked Kendrick to call him Old Yu, instead.
Kendrick decided to take another nap, as fatigue washed over him.