Chapter 151: Bitter


    Ringing metal echoed through the obsidian abode of the Alchemist. Gmon took slow, heavy steps, eyes ncing around everywhere. He followed a trail of purple lights, though he didn’t seem to trust thempletely. The uniform hallways and sterile atmosphere of the ce seemed to disquiet him.


    He’d still not had the opportunity to repair his armor after the arm had been severed in the battle with the Lord of Silver, so he raised a bare hand to block his nose as though something ahead smelled foul. He stared down the hall, hesitating to move forward. He reached for his side, retrieving a sk and draining it utterly of the blood within. Once it was gone, he inhaled deeply, and proceeded uncertainly.


    Ahead, someone breathed through clenched teeth. The breaths were shaky, but strong. Gmon kept his hand to his nose as though the smell was unbearable. He neared the threshold, steps quiet. He looked into the room first, eyes peeking around the corner, then stopped at the doorway.


    Gmon’s head turned slowly, drinking in all of the sights. The ce was, bluntly put, horrifying. Sheets and nkets were piled up in one corner of the room. Some of them had enough blood on them to be called ‘soaking wet.’ Anneliese had set up a makeshift washbasin in another section of the room, which Gmon judged she was using forundry.


    And though Gmon had been worried he had drawn the ire of the Alchemist by hunting so many of the creatures in the jungle, the food waste remaining evidenced that had not been the case. Bones had been picked clean and piled neatly. Gmon recalled collecting fruits—he saw none, so he presumed they had been eaten fully, seeds and cores included.


    The centerpiece of the room was the centerpiece of the horror. The bed was the stuff of nightmares. Bloody handprints marked the bedposts, the walls nearby. The bed… if the nkets had been bad, the feather mattress was worse. Gmon knew from experience that no man possessed that much blood. It was dark blood, too, looking infected. The obsidian floor was covered, some of it dry, some of it fresher.


    Gmon would have been certain he was approaching a dead man had he not heard the breathing in the hall. He stepped into the room tentatively, Argrave’s form obscured by the tapestries hanging from the four-poster bed. When he came into view, it took a moment for Gmon to notice Argrave was writing in something.


    Argrave spared a nce upwards, then looked back to his book. He double-took, lowering the book.


    “Gmon,” he said, voice surprisingly steady given the state of the room. “Thought you were Anneliese.”


    Gmon surveyed Argrave. His skin was the palest it’d ever been. His lips were blue. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken. He was missing all of his nails. Strange, jagged abscesses lined his body. The list of symptoms went on and on. Despite this, Gmon felt an intense vitality radiating from Argrave—it was like the heat of a forge, the strongest of any living thing he’d ever seen.


    “It’s been, what, seven days?” Argrave continued. “Hard to tell. No windows. Even if there were, we’re in a damned cave…”


    Gmon nodded in confirmation.


    “Seven days…” Argrave repeated. “First time I see you in a week. What, you finally get thirsty?” he questioned with clenched teeth. “Followed the sweet aroma, looking for a drink?”


    Gmon lowered his head.


    “Lying here in blood puddles and you’re provoking the one guy I told you not to engage with!” Argrave shouted and tried to point a finger, but he couldn’t raise his arm up. The movement seemed to dislodge something, because he started coughing. It was a terrible, wet hacking, punctuated by Argrave spitting blood out.


    “There’s your drink,” Argrave pointed, then let out a long wheezingugh. “Christ. I’m losing my mind,” he muttered.


    “I have no defense,” conceded Gmon.


    Argrave stared up at Gmon, breathing a little heavy. He adjusted his position, then endeavored to catch his breath, calming himself. As he wiped the blood off his lips, he seemed to be assaulted by pain, because he winced and put his hand to his chest. Gmon furrowed his brows and stepped forward, concerned.


    “Listen,” Argrave continued. “Listen. No—don’t listen. Don’t listen to a word I have to say. I’m in pain, I’m bitter beyond belief, and I’m saying a bunch of words we’ll both regret,” Argrave outlined. “I know you’ve been helping with the food. That’s… Christ, that’s been very helpful. Even eating makes me hungry. It’s like I’m trying to gain 200 pounds this month. It’s hell. So, forgive the ranting and raving, please.”


    Gmon stepped a little closer to Argrave’s bed. “I make a mistake… and you’re asking my forgiveness?”


    Argrave snorted, but then winced as though the action hurt. Footsteps drew both of their attention, and Anneliese entered the room, hefting a sack behind her back.


    “Argrave, I—oh,” she paused, spotting Gmon. She stared for a bit, then smiled. “You havee. Good.”


    “You make her carry the food in?” Argrave gestured. “Couldn’t have carried it inside on your way in?”


    “…didn’t want to attract attention,” Gmon excused weakly.


    Argrave adjusted his book. “Maybe you are an imbecile. I’m starting to question.” He moved as though to write again, then stopped. “Durran and Garm, they’re…?”


    Gmon looked off to the side, thinking about how to answer this.


    “Oh, I see. They’re still running scared from the big guy.” Argrave hefted the book, thenughed with a shake of his head. “Morons and cowards. I’m bleeding out my…!” he began, then stopped himself, taking deep breaths to calm. “Gotta rx…”


    Gmon looked dissatisfied, like he had something more to say, but he elected to leave it unspoken. He looked around the room.


    “I’ll help clean,” he decided.


    “Scavenge for food, you mean,” Argrave called out.


    Gmon shook his head, a bitter smile seizing his face.


    #####


    “You came at a good time,” said Anneliese as they walked down the halls of the obsidian pce. “Sometimes… he cannot even speak, cannot think. Seizures and worse assail him.”


    “Sometimes?” queried Gmon.


    “Ites and goes in waves,” she exined. “It is… very…” she trailed off. “Let us simply say I am d I am not to be helping him alone.” She paused, then looked to Gmon. “You wille back, yes?”


    Gmon nodded. “I will.”


    “No fear of the Alchemist any longer?” she questioned. “Had I drawn his ire… I understand your position, staying outside. Even still, it was foolish, what you did,” she admonished.


    “Nothing to fear,” Gmon nodded. “Things were settled.”


    “Settled?” she questioned. “You make it sound like you talked with him more.”


    Gmon stopped walking, staring off to the side.


    Anneliese came to stand some distance ahead, staring backwards. She studied Gmon, then crossed her arms.


    “I know you feel guilty, but it does not stem from leaving Argrave alone for so long, does it?” Anneliese questioned. “Something else bothers you.”


    “Yes… and no,” Gmon refuted. “I do feel guilty about being away for so long. It’s just…”


    “What did you do?” she demanded quietly.


    Gmon hesitated to speak. He started walking again, and Anneliese followed, casting nces at him.


    “The person who initially wished to speak to the Alchemist… was Garm,” Gmon began.N?v(el)B\\jnn


    “But he has no legs, so if you intend to cast me—”


    “I’m telling the full story,” Gmon cut her off.


    “It has been a very long week, and I am quite irritable as well,” Anneliese continued. “Say what you wish to say.”


    “Garm and Durran weren’t afraid toe,” Gmon said inly. “They’re doing something with the Alchemist. Don’t know why, but he had a change of heart.”


    “And what are they doing?” Anneliese demanded.


    Gmon stopped. “Finishing up.”


    #####


    Wanting something to end tends to make it end slower. Or at the very least, that’s the human perception of things. That’s definitely Argrave’s perception of things. He certainly hasn’t been bored… merely constantly upied.


    Pain unending. That’s been his life. There was no reprieve from it. It warded away sleep, making each day take longer and longer. And it wasn’t something that could be ‘gotten used to.’ It would fade in one point, surge in another. Sometimes, it felt like his appendix had burst—other moments, a kidney stone passing.


    Argrave had tried many methods to cope with things. He tried to tell himself that some people lived like this daily; they lived with congenital defects, or were burn victims, things like that. It helped for a bit—he found some strength in that. After a while, though, it started depressing and angering him worse.


    Elsewise, he often tried to distract himself—writing the report, for instance, or talking with Anneliese. Days of poor sleep rendered most activities extremely difficult and frustrating, though.


    After a while, things started to get weird. Hepared himself to martyred religious figures, lost in strange delusions that may have been dreams—hepsed in and out of sleep constantly, awoken by new pains or more aggressive symptoms. He started talking to Anneliese or Gmon about things he’d said in dreams, and they’d look at him like a madman.


    After a while, Argrave just stared at the bronze hand mirror, clinging to it desperately and trying to imagine himself ying ‘Heroes of Berendar’ again, a nice, cushioned seat beneath him. It was sad to long to y a video game when that world had be his reality, perhaps. He was beyond caring about how pathetic it was.


    If Anneliese and Gmon had not been with him… he was certain he’d be dead. Though, perhaps that wasn’t true—the Alchemist would keep him alive, he suspected, but his price for doing so would be an arm and a leg. Perhaps literally.


    Amidst all the misery and shame from the entire experience… Argrave clung to something. It was a foolish thing to be proud of, he supposed, and he didn’t think he’d ever tell anyone he’d been thinking about this at all.


    Throughout this whole endeavor… he never screamed. Not once.


    Thus far, it had been one hell of a challenge. Argrave might’ve shouted in anger, but he never screamed. It was a small victory in a battle with himself, but… clinging to that kept him sane, he felt. He had a goal beyond ‘surviving,’ another thing to upy his mind. With Anneliese present, she could conjure a ward and let him scream all he wanted, but this small, pointless victory brought him fulfillment.


    Despite the constancy of his situation, time flowed ever onwards, he knew. This pain would not be eternal. He stopped asking how many days had passed after a while. The Alchemist would visit, examine, read Argrave’s report, and asionally ask bizarre questions. The questions werergely focused on Argrave—personality, ethics, not merely factual things as was typicaling from the monstrous man. It was strange, but then the Alchemist himself was too strange toprehend, and Argrave was a little too busy to contemte deeply.


    Like this, the suns passed by time and time again… and the month continued to pass.