Author: Trash (Instagram: smol_trashy_art_child, I have character designs on there)
Editor: Lorraine, partially Rat
Proofreader: Fisa
Word count: 4751 words
t/w: cuts on wrists, but not for the purpose of self harm; lots of mentions of blood
Both Aurum and Kai crouched on the tree limb, with a dreadful numbness spreading in their legs. They felt frozen in place, like helpless prey about to be caught.
Aurum could hear Kai next to him, breathing heavily behind his fingers with muffled panting. Aurum himself was clutching the gem around his own neck with his gloved fingers like it was a precious lifeline.
Along with the fear, Aurum felt an unknown frustration in the back of his head. He felt as if this should be something that he could deal with. He felt weak and helpless, just another face in the hordes of dirty, weak, helpless humans. He tried to grasp that feeling, and maybe use that frustration to awaken some of his old power, but all he got were even worse headaches.
He tried even harder, pushing his thoughts through the pain.
The abyss creature creeped closer, sucking up everything that made contact with it. It was now halfway across the clearing, and it kept on advancing steadily; never rushing faster or slowing down.
Each step felt like eternity, like the forest was stretching out time to help them escape, to run, to do anything but stay there staring into death's eyes.
Kai mustered all of his willpower as he tried to move his legs. At one point, Kai had clung onto Aurum's forearm, and Aurum could feel the cold sweat and clammy fingers touching him. Aurum didn't shake him off, as he was too occupied trying to turn his frustration, fear, and pain into something substantial.
Kai managed to move his right leg, stepping backwards. There was no footholds behind him, causing him to tumble out of the tree and land on his back, dragging Aurum along with him. All of the air was knocked out of Aurum's lungs from the fall, and he lost his thought process. Kai got up first, and started dragging Aurum along as Aurum stumbled after him, trying to catch his breath.
They were both tripping over the trees and branches, slowing down their escape. The suction of the black hole got stronger, and soon they couldn't even move forwards anymore.
"Is this how it ends..?" Kai mumbled softly. Without realizing it, he had started to lose his will and was being pulled in a little faster than Aurum. Aurum had also stopped trying to run away, focusing his thoughts on finding a fragment of memory that could help them.
The creature was only a few dozen steps away, but it still looked the same. A blank spot in the world, like an eraser rubbed out a corner of the scenery. It was close enough to make the suction became unbearable. They started sliding in its direction, and dirt started flying into its suction all the way from where they were standing.
Kai was stumbling, trying to stop his descent into the Abyss by grabbing tree branches, only to have them snap a moment later. Aurum allowed it to pull on him, not helping Kai who was still hugging his forearm.
A nearby tree was uprooted, and the entire thing disappeared into the gaping hole.
The dirt and rocks below the thing was flying into it at high speeds, to the the point that a huge crater was starting to form beneath it.
Just as they lost their footing, the kourite gem that Aurum was clutching flashed a brilliant gold from in between his fingers. A plain black travel case that matched the design of his gloves materialized into his free hand, resting as if it had always been there all along. Wind was whipping all around them, and the painful noise in Aurum's head was unbearable. Right before they were sucked in, the case started to have stars appear out of the black, and images of galaxies started appearing like an artist was waving a brush across an empty canvas. The breathtaking beauty of the galaxies could enthrall anyone who caught sight of them.
Then, it was silent. Everything around them was still. The only movement was a slight breeze in the air and a little bird singing in the distance.
Kai looked around him. They were in a completely different location, on one of the branches of the Tree of Life and Time. It seemed like that travel case thing had teleported them to a new location, the destination that they were walking towards the whole time.
Just as he was about to sit down and sigh in relief, he felt Aurum, who was still interlocking arms with him, slide to the ground slowly.
Aurum couldn't think at all, the pain was unbearable. He curled into a ball, clutching his gem at the neck and the case that transported them. His head hurt so much, it was like someone was slowly tearing it apart with their bare hands. Along with the pain was an airy feeling of light-headedness that did not mix well. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and clenched his teeth. He couldn't feel his body at all, everything was numb except for pain. His consciousness was fuzzy and slowly fading away. Someone was shouting something at him, but he didn't care.
Kai was panicking, rifling through all of Aurum's pockets, looking for medical supplies. He hurriedly glanced at Aurum's face, and tried to go even faster. Aurum's eyes, ears, and mouth were streaming some sort of strange golden fluid. Kai leaned forward and dipped his finger in it, smelling it a little before licking it. He made a face and wiped it away on his shirt. That substance was definitely blood, and that's a bad thing. He assumed that all of Aurum's other orfices were most likely bleeding as well.
Kai did find the color of his blood strange, but he didn't have enough time to dwell that.
After he finished searching through all of Aurum's pockets, he only found a handful of charms and a black handkerchief with kourite embroideries. The charms would be useless since he couldn't tell if they were healing charms or not, and the handkerchief didn't have any magical properties besides cleaning itself and not tearing.
Kai moved up to Aurum's head and lifted his eyelid, checking Aurum's eyes while cleaning the blood off of his face. His eyes weren't focused, and were close to just rolling to the back of his head.
"Hey, stay with me," Kai frantically whispered to Aurum while slapping the side of his face slightly. He felt the pulse on Aurum's neck, and it seemed to get weaker dangerously fast. In a last-ditch effort, Kai looked around for any healing supplies before his eye fell onto the case that Aurum was holding. It had the powers of space, maybe it had a pocket dimension in it, one that had medical supplies!
Just before he touched it, he noticed something weird about it. The case had a galaxy pattern, one that he had seen for a split moment before teleporting away.
But, this time the image was way clearer, almost like he could reach right through the case and touch the star dust. He could tell that the case was dangerous. No matter how beautiful the galaxy was, it only creeped him out. He shivered, and then snatched the case, throwing it far away from Aurum as fast as possible. In that small window of time that he held the suitcase, he felt a little weak.
The case's image of the galaxy didn't fade away to the black it was originally, even though it didn't have a source of energy anymore. Kai didn't know what the case does to whoever it holds it, and he doesn't want to experiment with it any longer than he already did.
-----
Aurum found himself standing in some sort of workshop, with tools neatly lined up. Everything was tidy, except there were random pieces of machinery, ores, and animal parts lying around.
He wasn't controlling his body, and certain parts of the area around him were blurry, like something was stopping them from coming all the way through.
'Is this a memory? Am I dreaming? I wonder what happened outside...'
Aurum tried to move his head to see his surroundings, but he couldn't move it. It seems like he could only see what this body sees. The only thing he could see right now was what he assumed was his old self working on a project of some sort.
So far, the thing didn't look too impressive and was just a leathery substance that functioned like a pocket, but Aurum felt that it was familiar. He just couldn't place his finger on what was so familiar about that thing.
"Aurum," drawled a female voice somewhere in front of him, seemingly on the other side of the workshop. Aurum felt his heart clench when he heard the woman speak. "I see you're finally getting around to completing the spacial transportation device I recommended you to make. I told you it's very important, especially for your pathway that has to make everything in order to succeed."
Aurum wanted to look up to see who his body was listening to, but his body didn't look up from his work and responded with a simple, "ok," before continuing what he was doing.
"Why couldn't you just go on the same pathway as me? It would've been way simpler and I would've had an heir already for my position... Anyways, what are you even doing for that spacial object? Make sure that the side effects are minimal."
Aurum could feel his body's eyes light up when someone asked him about what he was doing, causing him to look up at the woman. When Aurum caught a glimpse of the woman, he was disappointed to find that she was just a blur in his vision. The only things he could discern about her was long, warm, dark brown hair and a relaxed aura. She was swirling red wine in a cup while lying on a resting couch, casually stretching her legs over the whole thing.
After his body looked up and made sure that the woman was paying attention, he started explaining.
"You see this Vesmir pouch?" He held up the leathery pouch thing. "I'm going to shape it into a travel case, so that way I can teleport to places while still having room to store things inside of it! And then after I add the small things, I'll coat it with a mix of specially mined rock with spacial properties and a small portion of spacial power that I collected for the harder outer coating. The final touch for the outer coating would be this Abyss Stone, I found it on the Space pathway practitioner. The person I obtained the spacial fragment from was rather powerful, so I think that he would be enough to make this work. I'll mix a fragment of my own soul in, as usual. If it ever grows strong enough, maybe it'll grow it's own self awareness."
"No adding kourite this time?"
"No kourite."
"That's the most excited I heard you talk in a while," noted the woman as she stood up. She walked over to the side of his counter and pulled out a chair to sit on. "This is rather interesting, you never open up to me anymore, what happened to that little boy I gifted a wish back then in the forest? You were so cute! And you just had to choose technology instead of following in my footsteps... I never understood those interests, I would rather do arts that express more emotion, like writing a book or drawing. At least talking about these things seems to make you more passionate. Whatever makes you happy."
Aurum's body dodged the hand that the woman was reaching out to ruffle his hair, but Aurum could feel that he was secretly pleased with what she said.
"I'm not a child anymore, and you're not my mother. I'm already 226 years old."
"Aww, but you will always be my little baby boy, you're still very young compared to me. And I liked it when you added kourite to your other works, the color is beautiful. The best aesthetic is always the one where you can flaunt your riches while still being classy. How about you line your clothes with kourite in the future? It'll be cool!"
"Wait," gestured Aurum's body as he stared intensely at his creation. "I'm on the final stages. I'll need to name it and then add this final little bit." He closed his eyes for a bit before opening them again. "Kadelure. That's going to be its name."
"A perfect name. Let's hope the negative effects aren't too bad."
He added the last piece to Kadelure. He stared at the travel case that he made, and felt proud of his creation. After all, he literally put a fragment of his soul into this magic treasure.
All of the sudden, Kadelure exploded out, flinging Aurum into the air before he could comprehend what had happened. It felt like the case wanted to devour him. Before he fell onto the ground, he was cushioned by a warm feeling, one that made him pleasantly relaxed before he slid to the floor slowly, without even a bump or scratch.
After he shook off the joyful emotion, he looked over to see what happened with Kadelure. He saw the woman standing there, levitating the case between her hands with a bubble of calming blue around it. She looked at him and made a shushing motion. She conjured a paintbrush out of the air, and multicolored paints of blue and purple appeared on the tip. She waved her brush over the case while sprinkling colorful bits of what looked like stardust on it.
"Here." She tossed the case over, just in time for Aurum to see the galaxy painting on it fade away back into the black case. She looked at Aurum, and pondered for a bit before opening her mouth again. "The negative effect shouldn't have been to devour power like this, it should've only wanted a few Plass flowers every year or so..." She glanced at the case. "I think it might be the Abyss Stone. Recently, We've been noticing something is up with the Abyss. The information is too high level for you right now, you'll find out later.
I've only warped the negative affects of the case, it's still a pretty awful negative one unless you're the one to use it all the time. I used the natural Space properties of that case to allow a spacial crack that exists on the outside of that case. The clearer the picture of that galaxy, the closer it is to coming out and infecting the case. Instead of absorbing power, it now absorbs blood to activate the spacial crack. That shouldn't be a problem for you though, due to the special nature of your blood."
His body nodded. However Aurum himself seemed to recover his old headache, as his body tried to forcefully recover more memories.
'Special nature of my blood?'
-----
He groaned while opening his eyes, meeting the dark night sky. Stars speckled the night sky, and the three moons were a breathtaking sight to see. He still felt a little light-headed, but it wasn't as bad as before. His headache also had gone down a lot, almost to the point where he had gotten used to it.
He sat up slowly, and rubbed his eyes before realizing that they were slightly wet. Must be from dust in his eyes.
He surveyed his surroundings, gathering his bearings. He seemed to be outside on a giant branch of the Tree of Life and Time, near the main water source for the elves. There was a campfire that was put out, and he was laid out to the side of it. He spotted Kai not too far away, sleeping deeply. His hair was a little messier than the last time he had seen him, and he seemed a little haggard. His clothes were a little dirtier and torn near the bottom of the hem. This showed that at least a few days had past since Aurum passed out, but he had no idea for how long he had been sleeping.
He looked past Kai and saw an elven woman sleeping on the opposite of the put-out campfire. She had the usual dark skin of the Light Elves, showing that she must have came from the Light Elf colony that lives in the Tree of Life and Time in Serim.
As for himself, it seemed that he was much more rested, but was missing a lot of blood. The culprit of the blood loss could be pointed at Kadelure, the spacial travel case. It seemed like Kai had also tried to clean him off, due to his shirt and outer vest missing. He inspected the rest of his clothes, but it didn't seem like they were moved at all. Not even his gloves were taken off. He picked up his shirt and outer vest, and carefully tied up Kadelure in a way that it wouldn't touch any of his skin, even through the cloth. The galaxy pattern hadn't faded away at all. He picked up the cloth that was being used to tie the case, and his eyes rested on the kourite lining his clothing. The kourite on it reminded him of his dream, causing a corner of his lips to turn up slightly, before moving back down to its usual spot.
Very slowly, he started walking to the water source of the elves. Even if his clothes had an automatic cleaning function, he didn't and it felt uncomfortable if he wasn't clean. Spots swam in front of his eyes, but he eventually made it to the elf water source. Looking around, it seemed strange that there were no elves guarding the place.
The thing about water produced from the Tree of Life and Time and blessed by Light Elves is that no matter what enters it, it is cleaned and the rest of the water isn't contaminated. That way, it is safe to both bathe and drink in the same water.
He sat down by the edge of the water, and stared at himself in the clear water. He had actually never seen himself before, and it was a weird experience. It felt so strange, yet familiar at the same time. He moved closer to the water and examined himself. He truly was wearing a lot of kourite, and even his eyes were the color of it. Or gold as well, because gold is more common that kourite.
He started stripping himself slowly, taking off all the extra layers and leaving them neatly piled on the side. He was only a little dirty, not too much. Lastly, he started taking off his gloves. He pulled one off, but then paused. On his wrist, covered by the reach of the glove was a deep, clean cut that definitely cut right through his main arteries. It was clean, with no blood or clots or scabs around it, as if someone just cut a few seconds ago and cleaned it.
Scared, he held his breath, worried that all of his blood would suddenly flow through the cut, killing him immediately. Nothing happened, except he suddenly couldn't feel his arm. Wait. What was that line from his dream?
"'That shouldn't be a problem for you though, due to the special nature of your blood.'"
What does that mean?
He cautiously tried to let a drop of blood through the cut, and it listened. He felt his arm again, although it was like the pins and needles of blood flowing where the flow was previously stopped. A single drop of golden blood fell out onto the waiting palm of his other hand that still had its glove on. He willed it to rise in the air, and it did. The little drop of kourite blood floated in the air above his palm. He made it dance a little before it went back into his cut.
He pulled off his other glove, and it was the same. A cut, but no blood. Aurum looked over at Kadelure by his side. No wonder his Master from the dream said that it wouldn't be a problem for him. He held the handle of the case, and felt his blood being sucked through, but he started retrieving it at the same pace. He opened the case and checked the contents.
It was his blood. It seemed to be storing the blood it collected from him on the inside without the inner spacial modifications, leaving it to slosh around on the inside. Aurum tried to control it to move it out of Kadelure and into his bloodstream, but it was easier said than done. He had lost a lot more blood than just a drop this time.
He closed his eyes, and slowly brought it closer to him before trying to sense any impurities. After slowly removing the miniscule particles of dust, he slowly fed the old blood back into his bloodstream. The movement of the blood made him more dehydrated than normal, causing his headache to get a bit worse. The galaxy pattern on the case finally faded away into the usual black.
He should never allow the researchers from the school of Knowledge know about his blood ability, or they'd experiment on him until the day he dies.
He opened his eyes, and then slipped into the water of the pool. He frowned, looking at the water. The familiar golden color was slowly spreading through the water, creating the confusing image of golden water. The water was still as clear as before, just colored differently.
He checked his cuts, but they were behaving and no blood was spilling out. He looked at his hands. What was wrong with him?
He climbed out of the pool of water, but when his hands left the side of the edge, he saw the cause of the kourite water. There were two images of kourite handprints, right where his hands were.
No, how was this possible? He touched his clothes with his bare hands, but they stayed the usual black color. He tried to touch his face, and it didn't suddenly change to a gold color. Then, he tried touching the floor again, and he left behind gold shaped handprint.
He inhaled sharply before standing up abruptly. He quickly pulled on his gloves, relieved when the gloves remained their usual black color. He touched the floor again, with his gloves on, and the floor stayed normal. He looked at all the kourite things around him, before looking at his own reflection with the piercing golden eyes. He sighed. He always felt like he used to love the color of the kourite, but at this rate he was going to start hating it.
He stood up, surveying the scene he made. He needed to make sure to hide these newfound abilities, or someone might use this information to their advantage. He quickly pulled all of his clothes back on before using his boots to kick away the gold water, mixing it with the normal water. As for the pieces of bark that he turned into kourite, he would just scrape them off. Hopefully none of the elves get too mad from that.
He then picked up Kadelure from the floor, and departed from the scene back to where he was sleeping before. He'll try to figure out how to open Kadelure's pocket dimension later, right now he wasn't in the mood.
After calming down and thinking properly for a few seconds, he realized that it wasn't that bad after all. He himself was the only known source of kourite, one of the best building materials for his needs.
He touched the kourite gem near his neck. He made that. It was most likely enchanted with a pocket dimension as well, making it the most expensive jewel in the world. He didn't even have enough power to open the gem properly without repercussions, and the items hidden inside are most likely helpful or expensive. He also had other kourite gems, but he couldn't be sure if they had pocket dimensions attached or not. He wished he had his memories back...
He lay down and tried to fall asleep again.
"Aurum!" There was a shout from nearby, and he saw Kai scrambling closer to him. "You woke up! You've been out for a week, and I think it was pretty bad.. You almost died, and then you started crying in your sleep for some reason, normal tears though- thank the gods. That thing with crying gold blood scared the shit out of me. Especially when your mouth started pouring blood and even your ears and nose joined in. That reminds me, why is your blood gold? Never mind, personal question that you wouldn't even know because of your memory loss... I'm going to take a bath now. Your hair is wet, did you take a bath? And since you bled from every visible opening on your face, were you also bleeding down there? I'd love to know." Kai snickered to himself a little, clearly enjoying his own (not funny) joke.
Aurum looked at Kai quizzically while completely ignoring Kai's questions and dodging the hugs he was trying to give. 'When did I ever cry blood?'
Kai stood up and stretched before turning back to Aurum. "Oh yeah, where did you get those spells for your clothes? I need them... Mine are getting rather dirty and torn. And that one rather cool enchantment that prevents people from taking of your clothes, I could only take off your shirt and upper vest before the others refused to get off. It wasn't for any weird reasons, I just needed to clean you just in case you, you know, pissed yourself or anything. Wait, I don't remember you going in your pants, did you just hold it in for a week? While sleeping? Wow~ That's talent!"
He walked off to the water area, and just as he walked in, he poked his head out and shouted, "Oh yeah! Please be nice to Aricia, I'll explain everything once I get back from cleaning myself!"
Aurum stared at him leaving before looking at the sleeping elf while in a rather good mood compared to before.
'Still as noisy as ever, but at least my head doesn't hurt as much.'
A few seconds later, Aurum heard Kai shouting from the water pool again: "Who peed in the water?! Why is it yellow?!? Aurum, did you-! Wait never mind, I don't want to know!"
Aurum decided to ignore that comment before turning to the elf who was aroused from her slumber by Kai's shouting. She had puffy hair that was in the middle of returning to her natural state and having it straightened. Her eyes were also puffy, like she had been crying a lot recently. She sat up and stretched, before noticing Aurum looking at her. She turned to study him as well.
Both of them didn't say a word, just sitting there.
Kai came back while combing his long hair with his fingers. "You know, I really wish they had better hair products here." He sat down at his previous place before realizing the silence between them. "Oh wow, do I really have to introduce both of you? When I'm with you guys, it's like I'm talking to a wall sometimes, a wall that doesn't have ears or the ability to understand human speech! Well, Aricia does have a good excuse, but not you Aurum.
Aurum, Aricia. Aricia, Aurum. Aricia, You've seen Aurum lying around dying, so you already know everything. Lost memories, blahblahblah, whatever. But Aricia... I think you should explain your situation to Aurum, I don't think I should be the one talking about this..."
Aricia looked up at Aurum, before speaking in a tired voice.
"My full name is Aricia Lexi Chronis, and I am- well... was... the crown heir to our Queendom. My mother is, or was the Queen of Kairos, Elysia Aricia Chronis. My Queendom has fallen, and I am the only one left."