The Runic Alchemist

“Are you alright?” Sam asked.

Damian just coughed for a while and, finally having some success in breathing, replied,

“Fine..”

“We should hurry up. Maybe this place has a cost for letting us in..” Maelor said, looking at Damian.

He just nodded and, with Sam’s help, sat down on the black and white ground. The scenes kept changing—Maelor and Sam had tried saying something in each scene, cycle after cycle, but nothing seemed to grab her attention. Unlike Maelor or Sam, Lucian seemed to be trapped much more deeply in her psyche—she was not known for sharing her feelings. Everything with her was to the point.

Even when they started sleeping together back on Earth, she never mentioned the past—only their current situation and how they could solve it. Damian had seen hesitation and unsaid things in her eyes even when he told them he would fight the Demon Lord. She still never expressed those things clearly. Not that Damian himself claimed to be an open book—he too had never been good at conveying what he truly felt. Maybe that was one of the reasons why he felt a deeper connection with Lucian compared to others; otherwise, he would have seriously thought twice about the age difference.

“He needs your help.. Wake up!”

Sam said to Lucian in the scene where they were in Dreamlight, Lucian looking at young Damian and Reize.

Lucian’s eyes shook a little, as if she was trying to suppress the sudden voice she had heard. It was just for a moment, though—the massive dragon came, and the scene changed.

There was hope. It was the first time she had shown any signs of listening to their words. Damian just stayed on the ground, seeing Maelor and Sam using his name in one sentence after another—trying to make Lucian worried for his own well-being. It was hard to say if it was working or not. It had been over ten cycles since the eyes, but still no further development.

Damian, seeing his own figure saying things again and again, felt a feeling he couldn’t name. He was sure there was anger in it, though. He still felt weak, but powering through, he got up. She was trapped in a fake memory—but the fears and insecurities were real. There was no cure for that other than..

Damian stood behind his own younger self, lying down on the grass field in front of an equally exhausted Lucian. Their smiles were bloody infectious.

“He loves you..” Damian said, even though he could barely open his mouth.

The young Lucian’s smiling face suddenly changed into one of shock and then disbelief. She looked up from young Damian to a stranger, who was Ben Carter.

“No, he can’t. It’s all my fault—if only I had given him a loving home instead of my worthless pride..”

Lucian looked away from him as the scene changed to the war prisoners. Everything repeated the same as before, only Lucian was acting a bit differently—she was showing even less emotion than before. When the scene of Reize’s death came, she didn’t even react—just closed her eyes to hear the scornful voice of the venomous memory.

She fought.. That she always did. She fought the soldiers of the Empire and even Moondancer until the Emperor came and incinerated everything.

The garden of the baron’s villa appeared once again. Young Lucian locked into a sword fight against little Damian. And then came the rest..

“He loves you and your pride.”

Damian said once again, the face of Ben Carter smiling at young Lucian. Her face was on the verge of crying.

The scene changed, but the expressions on Lucian’s face remained the same. Not a word was said, but the moving figures all around them still stopped, slowly falling apart into tiny particles. On some level, perhaps Lucian was aware of what was going on.. but it felt like she seemed content with it. She was fine with the rest as long as she had the two scenes at the beginning—or maybe it was just him overthinking things.

Suddenly, Damian felt his leg muscles give up completely, and he fell down on his knees. The black and white world of illusions broke all around him. Damian’s eyes were still focused on Lucian. Maelor and Sam rushed to his help, but before they reached him, all four of them blacked out.

He saved her. He saved them all.

Surely he could rest now.

***

[The world of illusions, Inside the dark forest, current time – Sam’s POV.]

They were pushed away from Lucian’s dark blue sphere. Sam had anticipated this and stopped himself seconds after coming out, immediately grabbing Damian’s figure. He was unconscious—that was not a good sign. Maelor, beside them, fell down with no support. It was his first time.

The dark blue energy flew up and formed the figure of a woman, and seconds later, it stopped glowing, leaving only the flesh of Lucian Goldilocks behind. Good thing it was dark—still, Sam turned his face away and threw a dress toward her from a sack they had picked up from the village earlier.

Once she was dressed, Maelor used a spell to light a few pieces of wood they had gathered and placed nearby. The white fire looked weird, but it did its job and made its surroundings brighter. Lucian was quiet till now, but seeing their faces, she finally spoke up,

“Sam? Maelor? Where are we? What’s going on?”

“Do you remember what happened to you?” Maelor asked.

“We entered the dark thing, then everything went dark, and I was back..” She trailed off.

The look in her eyes told Sam she remembered it well enough. After a minute, she asked,

“Who was he? The boy that was with you two..”

“Him?” Sam pointed at the unconscious figure that was the new Damian.

“It’s Damian. We have no idea why he looks like that..” Maelor answered before Lucian could even say yes.

They brought Lucian up to speed. Then a strange silence enveloped all of them—only after a minute did Maelor voice the question that was on everyone’s mind,

“We are all free.. Shouldn’t the illusion end now?”

Sam replied, “Even Shadecaster is dead—what more are we supposed to do here?”

“Why isn’t he waking up?” Lucian asked, her eyes fixed on Damian.

Sam and Maelor exchanged glances—that was a very familiar look. They had seen it hundreds of times and could never forget. That bastard! How could he miss such a simple clue all this time..

“He is mundane, I think..” Sam replied. “This place.. I am not sure, but it seems to have some kind of toll on our bodies. There is no mana here, the villagers don’t even have any food. Every time we go inside the memory trap, it gets worse—even I have felt the difference. For him, it must be a lot to endure. Not to mention, Damian did it three times—saving me, Maelor, and now you.”

“Do we search the village for more clues or go to another place?” Maelor voiced their two choices.

Lucian answered, “We need to look everywhere, and fast, before anyone of us runs out of time. But only after we make sure that village has nothing more for us..”

Sam nodded. Maelor also agreed.

They had searched the village once already—but this time, they were not looking for a glowing sphere but something that would end this illusion. It was about time they roughed up some villagers and demanded some answers. Damian had told Sam about their misguided religious beliefs, but there had to be something more. What purpose did these people even serve in this place? They were not much of a guard for the spheres.. But then again, the spheres were not supposed to break on their own.

Time was something they could not afford to waste—Sam carried Damian, and they immediately headed straight for the single village in the distance.

It was dark, and most of the villagers were sleeping. Another weird thing—why did someone need to sleep if they did not need to eat? But Sam had no time to wonder about these weirdos. They had to find a way out.

The village had only mundanes. It was too easy to get everyone to obey them after Maelor and Lucian lightly roughed up a few people. Sam was still not used to his transcendent body, so he didn’t participate. They tied up each and every one of them—even kids. Nothing in this world of illusions was as it seemed; they could not let their guard down.

They questioned a few of them individually, separating them from the other villagers. The answers were more or less the same, though. The spheres were divine relics. They were supposed to find those from all over this world and present them to their chief. The chief was also half-divine—he could return the relics back to their creator.

It took some time, though, before the chief was able to turn the strange-looking spheres into the eternal divine darkness.

They weren’t the first ones here.

The villagers had turned thousands and thousands of these strange-looking spheres—mostly smaller than a kid’s palm—over the years. None of them knew how long they had been here, but some of them remembered their grandfathers and even their parents doing the same thing as them to continuously receive the blessing of their almighty god.

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