The Runic Alchemist

Inside the wooden walls covering all around the settlement was an average-sized, cozy-looking village—well, as cozy as it could look in a black and white setting.

The villagers, small and big, women, men and children surrounded him after the guards told everyone what he had gone through. Some old ladies took him to a nearby hut, gave him water, food, and a place to sleep after sucking all the information out of him that they could get. He had to make a random story on the spot. The villagers were strangely human and so lifelike. This was one scary ability.

Damian cautiously heard the movement going on outside his hut. After a while, it had calmed down, and mostly everyone had gone back to their chores. The old ladies had told him he was to rest for the afternoon, and in the evening the chief would decide what his fate would be. Damian had no intention of staying for that long.

Once he had a chance, he snuck out of the back of the hut and, slowly hiding in the shadows of the lined huts, he made his way further inside the village. He was not wandering around randomly—when he was a bit of a distance from the village, he had seen something that was the most out of place and a huge thing in this world of illusions—something made of a deep blue color.

Now that he was closer to the thing, he could finally make out what it really was—a giant half-sphere made of glowing, strong blue color. It was smooth, like polished. Spotless. Nothing was growing near where it was buried. The white grass had only grown after a meter's distance from the thing, all around it. Damian assumed the other half of the sphere was buried underground.

It was solid—he couldn't break it. But the glowing blue color.. It looked like some kind of energy waves going from the top of the sphere to deep beneath it. Like flowing water or.. dripping blue liquid inside of a glass. It should have left some feeling on his hand when he touched it—but there was nothing. It was like touching solid air or glass.

"Hey! Who are you? What are you doing near the sacred relic!?" Damian heard a deep female voice behind him.

He quickly turned around and saw a woman holding an axe. Her clothes tried to hide it well, but the traces of hard muscles were clearly noticeable. She was indeed quite buff—not too much, but enough to notice it at first glance.

"Don't you know touching it is forbidden? Who are you? I have never seen your face before.." she continued, taking a step toward Damian.

She was clearly hesitant to come near the blue sphere, but she didn't want him to be near it either. An axe. Would that break this thing? He clearly could not do that with her around.

"Sorry.. I didn't know. I just arrived here and was looking for a place to relieve myself when I saw this and.. What is this thing?" Damian asked.

"You are not from our village? That explains it. Still, you shouldn't touch or go near things that are different. It's the teardrop fallen from the heavens of our lord Shadow. It's proof that he is eternally pained by seeing us do sins all day. Have your parents never told you about the sacred village? Where did you say you were from?" the lady said.

"Ah.. I have never been to any village. My father raised me in the forest, away from others," Damian made an excuse. He had no idea if there even were other villages besides this one here.

"An outcast?" Damian did not miss the change in her eyes becoming sharp from normal. Did he dig his own grave here?

"I don't know. He just said living in the village was too painful for him, with memories of our lost family. We never tried to find another village."

Damian continued his lie with effortless confidence, not hesitating for a second—if he knew one thing expertly in a human interaction, then it was how to lie. Lies came naturally to him. The hard thing was speaking the truth all the time.

She personally escorted him to the hut he was told to stay in—only when the ladies who had put him in there confirmed his story did the axe lady let him go. He heard an earful from the ladies and was told to call them if he wanted something and not to wander around in the village when he had not even met the chief yet.

This time, some children were tasked to stay outside his hut and not let him go outside. Once again, finding a good opportunity, Damian left from behind the hut—the kids were too busy playing around to notice him leave. On the way to the blue sphere thing, Damian peeked in some empty huts and grabbed an axe.

Once again standing near the solid blue sphere, Damian breathed in, checked his surroundings, and lifted the axe high up—hitting the blue sphere with all the force he could muster.

It cracked!

The sound of the sphere breaking was not small at all.

Damian could hear a commotion going on behind him in the village. Before people arrived and captured him, Damian hurriedly hacked away at the blue sphere and made enough space to enter inside. It was filled with that same dark blue liquid—still falling in a fixed round position, even without the glass that he had broken. The glass felt like a layer formed afterwards because of this fixed liquid-falling thing. Like ice on a water surface.

Damian didn't even look back as villagers shouted from the distance—warning him to get away from the giant tear. Some even shot warning arrows—Damian did not care about any of those though and immediately jumped in the blue liquid, holding the axe in hand.

In a second, his vision shifted and he was in a completely different place.