The Newt and Demon

7.76 - What Are You?

Theo didn't allow the panic to settle in his heart; it did that on its own. He ran forward over the open landscape, doing his best to avoid the monsters while delivering daggers infused with dragon dance when they noticed him. These creatures were far weaker than those he had encountered in the dungeon, and they all fell easily enough. Still, the alchemists scrambled forward, panicking as he looked around. It wasn't until exhaustion overtook him that he came back to his senses, finding a slow rise in the landscape good enough for him to settle down.

"This changes nothing," Theo told himself, taking steadying breaths to calm down. “The potion failed, but that doesn't change the plan. You can master the veil here. It can't run from you forever, can it?”

Set within the small hill was the entrance to a cave. Theo had entered, barring the entrance with powerful wards and settling in. The light crept through the entrance, casting a vague shape on the ground before him. The surrounding gray seemed set off by his purple skin, as though he were the only thing out of place here. Everything else was normal. It was the alchemist who was the strange thing.

Sleep didn't come easily. It didn't matter that Theo had a bedroll in his inventory or enough herbs to calm a raging karatan. It came in 30-minute breaks that only ceased when he woke to face the horror of the pale world. However, thanks to his attributes, he needed little sleep. Just enough to get him back on track to level his head. But there was no night in this world, just the endless gray. After he had enough rest to think straight again, the alchemist left the cave and surveyed the landscape once more.

To ease his mind, Theo withdrew an immortal mortar and pestle from his inventory. He added spiny swamp thistle root and ground it to a fine powder. The system confirmed his creation of a poultice, and he rubbed it on the bottoms of his sore feet. He couldn't tell how long he had been running. That moment in his life was a blur, but the cuts and scrapes he had gained from the effort were proof of how frantic that scramble was.

Although he could have downed a potion to cure it all, he wanted to remind himself that he was still an alchemist. No matter where he was, he could create what he needed to escape. With his mind finally settled, he began walking. His frantic escape had put the small town far out of view, and he proceeded in a direction notable for the mountains in the distance. Along the way, he thought about reaching out to the veil and manipulating both his aura and willpower to touch it. A few times, he came close to brushing it, but it still eluded him.

Time was incredibly difficult to track in here. Theo thought he could have been walking for a few hours, but it was hard to tell. That's when he thought to use the duration of his potions to track time. He downed an attribute enhancement potion and began walking, finding that what he thought was merely an hour was actually closer to three or four. At first, he thought it was some kind of magic that infused this land, but he eventually concluded it was simply the endless gray landscape. He could tell the time a little better if he focused on an object as he walked or counted his steps, but losing focus for only a moment would cause minutes to slip away. Yet he had experience with this in his own realm and sought to master it further.

There's no system notification when a person increases their willpower. But Theo could feel his rising, as though simply being here was enough to push it to its limits. He lost track of time a few more times before spotting something in the distance. At first, he thought it was simply another of the many monsters, but as it drew closer, he recognized the familiarity of the figure. It looked humanoid. Still, he withdrew one of his powerful daggers from his inventory and prepared to hurl it until the figure raised a hand and waved.

"What the hell is going on?" Theo muttered, dagger still in his hand as he approached the figure. It was clad in a gray coat, its face obscured by the darkness of the thing. It was roughly the size of a human or elf. But as it reached out a hand to shake, Theo spotted the gray skin, as though it had been born of the paper-like material all around them.

The figure grasped something the alchemist couldn't understand. It coughed into its hand and shook off its shoulders, the stiff cloak rustling. It tried a few more times until it eventually produced a sound. The voice of a man came from under the darkened hood. "Leon," it said.

Theo might have been learning more about this place, but he hadn't expected to encounter a sapient creature here. His mind whirled as he considered the possibilities, and he determined that this being couldn't have originated from here. Instead, he concluded that it had been trapped, just like him. Deep within the creature's chest were cores. They were all inactive, but they were nothing like the proto-cores that existed in the paper monsters. They were fully formed entities.

"You can call me Theo," the alchemist said, releasing the dry grasp from the man. It sounded like a man, anyway. "How did you get trapped here?"

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“That… story… long.”

“Not much for words, are you?” Theo asked, spreading his aura to assault the figure. He pushed deeper than before, judging the contents of his soul and finding it lacking. Like the paper landscape around them, it was thin.

Leon jerked his head to one side and gestured for Theo to follow him. The alchemist shrugged. He didn't have anywhere to be, and having someone to speak to was nice, even if that someone had little to say. They roamed over that landscape for a while, eventually finding their way through a mountain pass that led to another small village. This one looked slightly different from the previous one, although Theo couldn't quite put his finger on it. The buildings were all made of the same paper, which made it difficult to distinguish whether it was meant to be wood, stone, metal, or some other material.

Leon entered a house, returning with a ceramic jug of something and quaffing it as the man tilted his head back. Theo couldn't see his features, which was slightly concerning. After clearing his throat a few times, the paper man spoke. "How did you get here?" he asked.

"He speaks," Theo said, his brows peaking. "I thought you were just mute or something. Hmm, why am I here? An alchemical experiment gone wrong, I suppose."

"You are the first," Leon said, hobbling to a stone seat not far away. Theo thought it was supposed to be made of stone, anyway. The man sighed as he sat and shook his head. "I can't remember how long I've been here."

"Neither can I," Theo said. "Feels like... time has a way of slipping away here. How have you survived so long with the monsters? You're not particularly strong."

"I was strong when I got here," Leon said. "But that has slowly faded as I've become more like this place. Then the monsters didn't pay attention to me. They passed me over. Now I live alone."

Theo felt a shiver of recognition pass through him, as though he shared some kinship with this creature. They were alike, ‌and he couldn't figure out what it was. However, the paper man's aura resonated with his own. When he passed his shadowy bubble over him, that shiver occurred again, giving the alchemist pause. Despite how strange things were, this brief conversation had brought more of Theo's mind back to the forefront. He remembered his plan to reach out to the veil and touch it to control it if he needed to.

"Do you remember how you got here?" Theo asked, allowing his eyes to glance around, spotting the signs of the man's life in the paper world. He had managed to find food and water, although he couldn't figure out how. This place was so barren.

"Those memories left my mind long ago," Leon said. "All I remember is betrayal and the destruction of something. My memories are a haze, mere fragments spanning untold millennia. That is all I know."

Theo grunted a response as he found a seat on his own stone-like chair. "Well, if you don't mind some light conversation, I could use it to help focus my mind," he said. "I can get out of here, and you're welcome to come along."

“Don't give me such hope,” Leon said. “I've tried everything to get out of here.”

"Ah yes, but surely not the Dreamwalker," Theo said with a smile on his face. "It shouldn't take long. I'll be able to reach out and touch the veil between the worlds and bring us home."

"What is it you'd like to discuss?" Leon asked.

"Tell me about this place," Theo said, closing his eyes and reaching out yet again. He flexed his willpower to its maximum, pushing it into a single point in front of him and driving it with all his might. This time, he didn't feel the veil move to the side. Instead, it put up a front, like a bulwark his power crashed against. Perhaps this would present a unique challenge for him to overcome.

"What is there to say? Leon said, “this place is an endless void. The monsters that are here are neither creatures nor true monsters. They are shadows rendered in fragments of reality. They don't exist. Yet, you can touch them. They don't think or feel; they simply move and kill."

"From what I can tell, they're proto-monsters," Theo said, battering his willpower against the veil once again. He probed at the edges, feeling the structure and getting a decent sense of what it truly was. "If I were creating monsters, this might be where I started. I would create these souls to eventually incarnate into true monsters. They look vaguely like things I've seen on the mortal plane."

"You haven't been here nearly as long as I have," Leon said, shaking his head. The paper cloak rustled with the action. "How can you be so sure?"

“Experience,” Theo said, pushing hard enough against the veil that beads of sweat formed on his forehead. “I haven't seen humanoid-type monsters here yet, but I have a theory about that. The system categorizes them in a different camp than the other types of monsters, so that would make sense. What we see here are representations of mostly insect-style monsters. I'm not sure if there's a reason for that, but I'm confident that if we search far enough, we'll find something analogous to beast-type monsters.”

“Or this is a sub-dimension dedicated to those insect-type monsters,” Leon said, nodding. “Then again, perhaps I haven’t ranged far enough to see the others… Or this is hell.”

“Leon coming with the controversial theories,” Theo said with a laugh. He reflexively dodged to one side as the veil battered back against him, displaying another sign of sapience. The more he talked with Leon, the more he felt his confidence return. “These theories could be wrong, of course. But it hardly matters. I’m not interested in why the monsters here are the way they are. I’m interested in the magical structure of this dimension. It reflects something I’m used to. Realms. The veil that holds this place together is familiar to me.”

“And where have you experienced something like this?” Leon asked. Theo could hear the doubt in his voice.

A wide smile cracked across the alchemist’s face. “The high planes. The godly heavens.”