Chereads / The Once and Forsaken Osz / Chapter 2 - Into the Nothingess

Chapter 2 - Into the Nothingess

"Child of Osz." This new voice was soft as silk. "Poor child to have attained [Ankou] as your [Path Grace]. We are the essence of the last to have died, something lost that a [Network] can never regain." Something cold filled with an emptiness that could never be filled opened up behind him.

He grunted at the madness being spewed into his ears. It was a just punishment. He closed his eyes or perhaps the darkness swallowed him. He continued to cry frozen tears. He stopped trying to escape whatever had enveloped him. He passed beyond fighting.

"Welcome into [The Nothingness] and abide. Here is nowhere. Rest for never."

He agreed without a word and stepped back without stepping. He entered velvet darkness just behind the scene of his father's dispersion and his own ascension. He dwelt in [The Nothingness] beyond time for a time. His heart was broken, and the pieces would never fit. He was alone. No one would invite a killer to their hearth. When he left [The Nothingness], he'd be marked a killer to anyone that [Considered]. That was forever. There was no forgetting what he'd done. No way to hide from it.

"That's not entirely true child." Something caressed him as his mother never had. It was soft and silent, tender and cold, unrelenting and all encompassing.

It took a long time for his response. "I am a killer." He couldn't see himself in the Nothingness, but he felt his shame. "A kin slayer." He heaved.

"Child I am your limiting adjunct, now awoken as your [Grace] that makes another appear to be different from what it actually is, though neither of them really affects each other. Think of the red holly berries kept near a transparent crystal, this crystal appears red, though in reality, it is not. So, the berry is a limiting adjunct for the crystal."

Again, years passed between what was said and his response. "Do you mean when they [Consider] me?"

"Yes."

"That's not possible."

"That's not entirely true child. It's simply exceedingly rare. In fact, such a thing need not be. Many do not consider [The Path] as a [Grace], but it is the mirror and the way. It is easy to follow nothing and enter into [The Nothingness]. There is nothing standing before the limiting adjunct. [Consider] as you think of it, my child, is unaware of neither the fruit nor the crystal. It just thinks it is aware."

"Can you leave me alone?"

"There is nothing to be left alone."

"I'll just unequip you." He tried but could not.

"There is nothing to unequip. This is the [Ankou] of your [Path Grace]."

He let the enormity of that dwell with the murder of his father. Those two titans warred with each other for what could have been decades or never.

"It's feels like so much time has passed."

"There is no time. The wheel has not moved, but that does not mean you can not dwell outside."

"I'm so stupid." He burst out of [The Nothingness]. Inky blackness coiled around his throat and slid down his back. Tendrils of it played along the edges. It was his shadow hanging upon him like a cloak.

"Knowing nothing is not knowing nothing," Ankou whispered.

The sun had been setting when he'd stepped into [The Nothingness], and it was still setting now. Upon the ground where his father's corpse should have been was a small pouch, an iron knife, and a brown glove. Bending down and retrieving all three items made no sound. He couldn't stomach considering he'd sold his father for a few coins and pieces of gear. He bundled the knife and glove into the pouch.

"Child?" Ankou whispered into his ear from behind him. It felt like the wind or perhaps a terrible nightmare was lurking just beyond and behind him.

"What?"

"Would it ease your burden to place these items into [The Nothingness]? While it is nothing, it would please me if that were so. We can hold them there, so you are not required to touch them."

"Oh. Thank you."

Ankou reached out from behind him. Black tendrils wrapped around the items. When the tendrils retreated, there was nothing left.

The only trace of his father was the soft outline of his father's body in the bed of snow, but even that this world was eagerly filling in. He glanced up at the matte gray sky, and the snow bursting from it. He raised his hand up to catch a flake. It didn't melt on his finger tip, and neither did he feel cold.

"Ankou, why am I not cold?"

"You are naturally resistant against [The Nothingness]. In time you will realize complete immunity over nothing. This is part of your [Grace] granted by our union. Do you wish to learn about the others?"

He felt like he'd woken from the middle of a nightmare. His brain was foggy. His emotions were muddled. He was neither tired nor alert. It was better than mead. He shrugged

Again, Ankou's voice was a whisper from behind. "We grant immunity to nothing-based attacks equal to your level of realization, but never take more than half of nothing. You may be familiar with [Shadow Damage] and [Cold Damage], but previously unaware that they themselves are lesser forms of [Nothing Damage]. You will come to realize that much of what you fear is based upon nothing. Not everything but much of what you thought was something is in truth realized as being nothing.

"We are able to treat two attacks per scene as if they were not; you would know this as [Deflect 2]. We ignore damage that is rated as two or lower; you would know this as [Hardness 2].

"We alter the probabilities associated with others perceiving and touching us, which you might know as [Evasion Mastery] and [Stealth Mastery] skills."

"None of this makes sense." He dropped to his knees before the imprint of his father's corpse. His hands plunged into the snow, and he dropped into the cavity. He felt the cold, but it did not bother him as it should have. He couldn't feel any trace of his father's essence.