"It's hot."
"Oh wow! What an astute observation by our intelligent Vincent! I didn't realize it was so hot and humid until now, what could've caused this? Wait, what is that shiny, giant fireball in the sky? Don't tell me its the sun—"
"Shut uppppppp….." I groaned. Eternity was above me, sitting on the back of Lorelei's wolf echo. Considering Eternity's debilitating injuries, the rest of us decided that it was best that Eternity rode the echo while also stashing our meat slabs and a batch of soul shards next to her, which she could keep safe for now.
"No, Vincent, how about you shut up? You've been whining about the most obvious things for the last hour. The sun, the humidity, the mud--what is this, a game of 'I spy'? We're all feeling the same way, yet why do you get to be the one to cry like some puppy dog?" Her words were laced with venom, her expression twisted into something resembling a demon rather than a 15-year old girl.
What was up with her? I admit I was being annoying but it all felt so unfair. We've been trekking through the Great Plain for what, 5 days now? Couldn't I have some deserved ranting?
When we first started, it was just me and Eternity who were fortunately transported right next to each other. Unfortunately, that did mean I was shamed by the nightmare spell by being unable to equip any clothing memories, leading to an extremely embarrassing interaction where Eternity gave me one of her armor memories. Immediately following that, Ford and Lorelei made their sudden appearance and announced that we were in a death zone known as the Great Plateau.
A lot of things happened from there, they fought an immense number of nightmare creatures, enough for each person in the small cohort to have 10 soul shards each. Though most of that time wasn't exciting, ninety percent of our schedule was filled with non-stop walking in the mud which pulled both our feet and willpower down.
Then, when we found a moment of respite with Itri, guess what? HE TRIED TO KILL US.
After Lorelei's wonderful echo ate him up, we were forced by a Great Devil, Moonlight Surge, to run as far as we could. While we escaped with the same wolf echo, at the cost of me losing both of my arms, we had more losses than victories.
I looked down at what was left of my arms, shriveled stumps that looked like giant fleshy dried raisins. I wasn't exactly too thrilled. They were a little more longer than yesterday though, [Higher healing Factor] definitely was doing its thing.
'A penguin,' was what Eternity nicknamed me.
While Eternity could heal me with her aspect, she was in no state to expend any essence or had the mental strength to. Well, except when she found ways to insult me, she tapped into some second soul core of hers which was reserved to annoying me.
I put a hand around my mouth, scoffing at the idea. Multiple soul cores…as if that existed.
In that moment, my senses became a little numb, prompting me to pull up the runes of my flaw, [Four Humors].
Blood: [ --- --- --- --- ---]
Mind: [ --- --- ]
Energy: [ --- --- --- ---]
Essence: [ --- --- ---]
Currently, I was depleting the Mind Humor and had already used up half of it during our walk. With a mental command, I switched the target of the depleting from [Mind] to [Energy] and I felt my vision get a little clearer. Though, changing it to the Energy Humor did mean that my movements became more sluggish.
I bit the tip of my tongue, a small spark of pain to keep me awake.
I hate my Flaw. I hate it. I also hate these damned humid and stifling plains.
The mud squelched under my feet, making fun of me.
***
"You know, I've been holding off for a while…but I can't hold myself back any longer."
Everyone looked up at Ford who was sitting on the wet grass while munching on some raw nightmare creature meat. We had long given up on eating like civilized people, we were hungry.
We set up camp the moment the sun reached its three-fourths point in the sky and now in one or two hours, it would set. Ford and Lorelei, after having a conversation about dream realm astrology and geography which I couldn't make sense of, were quite insistent that we were closing in on a different region of the dream realm. They argued which part of the dream realm we would find, but all I cared about was that we were going to leave this cursed Death Zone.
Nevertheless, Ford had something to say.
He took a second looking at the floppy piece of frog meat in his hands, then looked at us. "What aspects do you guys have?"
We raised our eyebrows to that, too tired and numb to try and form a more exciting expression. However, Ford had a point, we never actually learned what each of our aspects were. Even though I hadn't told Ford, even when we've been long time friends before we each contracted the spell.
There was a small bit of silence as well stared at a few things in our vicinity. The grass, the sky, the meat, the distant horizon.
The silence ended when Ford sighed, his shoulders falling as he said in a dejected manner, "Look, if you all feel conflicted from a personal standpoint, can you do it from a courteous perspective then? I've already revealed my aspect and have waited so painstakingly long to hear what you guys have."
"Revealing your aspect to us in the beginning of the nightmare was your choice, and your choice alone which was prompted by nothing but your own carelessness." After saying such cold words to Ford without even looking at him, she bit into the meat in her hands.
Ford frowned and started making puppy eyes at me, which was more revolting than any kind of persuasion Ford was attempting to do with it.
"My aspect…" Ford sharply turned his neck to Eternity, who jumped under his gaze. She seemingly mumbled the words mindlessly but she scrunched up her face in thought before speaking. "...I owe a lot to each of you. It's the least I can do." She turned her reddening face away from the rest of us.
Ford's face on the other hand lit up and gave us a wide smile, a white half-moon on his dark face. He clapped his hands together, "NOW, that's the energy we need here!
I laughed for a second before Eternity hit me with a death glare. She sighed, probably regretting her actions.
"Whoever I'm looking at, I can heal. That's it--Vincent, your turn." She spoke at bullet speed, barrely letting me process her words before she completely redirected the conversation to me.
I put up a hand--uh, a fleshy stump--at Eternity. "We can't just glaze past your aspect that quickly, can't we even ask questions about it?"
Eternity grimaced, "No. Now, your aspect, tell us."
The argument died in my throat. It was whatever at this point.
I stretched my neck, groaning as I formulated the best way to describe my aspect. I then looked down at my arm stumps and sighed, "I can make my body parts explode and shoot out my blood at high speeds simultaneously. Oh, the force behind the blood projectiles is even more stronger than a Master by the way. Don't ask me how I figured that out, heh." A sly smile found its way onto my face, and I crossed my stump arms as I looked down at both Ford and Eternity.
"It's way cooler than your little water fountain and 'boring' healing abilities--" I started to say before Eternity cut me off with, "Penguin."
All eyes fell on my stump arms, before Ford and Eternity burst out laughing. Even Lorelei looked away to hide her grin.
Ford slapped his knee while howling. He put a fist out to Eternity who bumped it with her good hand. "GODS, Eternity that was vile. I think poor Vincent needs your 'boring' healing aspect to repair his ego after you crushed it!"
Tears pricking my eyes and my ears burning, I chomped into the meat while cursing both Eternity and Ford.
It didn't go unnoticed to the rest of us that Lorelei never mentioned her aspect, even after we finished packing up.