Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #33: The Daughters of Maugrimm]

Log Date: [date/timestampcorrupted]

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 112

We no longer travel alone.

As we have gotten closer to the Ocean of Souls, increasingly we have seen Aurescuran souls moving in that same direction, often traveling parallel to us. It is a natural convergence, the expected consequence of the scattered dead nearing a shared and singular destination. Like a drain or a funnel, you can start any point around the edge, but there is only one place you can end up when all is said and done.

There have been times when we have shared the path with the souls of the dead. As we get closer to the Ocean of Souls, hardbeaten paths have cropped up in the rolling plains and the tall grass, marking the routes that are most frequently traveled by the dead. Souls tend to filter onto these paths, since it is easier than wading through the tall grass. For the most part, they are silent; I get the feeling that they were not always so, but who knows how long they have been trudging through the Old City. The monotony of trekking through the endless grey twilight takes its toll on a person, and I have no doubts that many of these souls have been walking for far longer than Rai and I have.

We do not say anything to them as they travel alongside us, and they do not say anything to us either. They give us looks, certainly — we are clearly different from them. The dead are slightly transparent; shades of people that were once living, while Rai and I are opaque and clearly solid. But if they have questions, they do not ask them. Seeing two living souls in the Old City is unusual, certainly, but in the end, all that matters to the dead is reaching the Ocean of Souls, and getting on with the next part of this transition between lives. So long as we don’t impede that, we are of no consequence to them.

Something else that sets us apart from the dead is our need for rest. Where Rai and I must stop every twelve hours to rest and recover my strength, the dead are bound by no such weariness. When Rai and I stray from the path to set up the tesseract and retreat into it for our rest cycle, the dead continue trudging onwards, casting glances at us, but otherwise undeterred from their monotonous trek. And after our rest cycle, we leave the tesseract to return to the path, and find it empty, the dead having moved on long before.

The ocean has grown closer; we can see it now on the horizon, but there is still a ways to go before we get there. I can see buildings and urban areas bordering the waters, but outside of that rim is a stretch of dark land that seems like it’s burnt, churned, and littered with war debris. Raikaron says it is the wastes, the last stretch of danger that souls must cross before reaching the safety of the oceanside. The Old Ones patrol the wastes, looking for guilty souls to torment as they are passing through the scarred lands.

For now, it’s a few days off, but soon we’ll be crossing the wastes along with the rest of the the dead.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 116

Waking in the mornings hard.

I’ve always struggled with getting up in the mornings — I’m not a morning person — but it’s become harder recently. Knowing what awaits us; knowing that it’s going to be another day of trudging through the depressing grey twilight of the Old City makes it hard to get up. I just wish it could be over already, and we could go back to Sjelefengsel, where at least I had a sense of purpose, and things to do. Sjelefengsel might’ve been hell, and the people there tended to be largely unpleasant, but at least they were interesting and you had some stimulation, whether that was in the form of punishing people or being punished. But the Old City isn’t like that. It’s a cloying numbness that slowly breaks you down with the monotony and the muted colors, that stifles you until there’s nothing left but to march silently towards the ever-distant ocean.

And it got the better of me this morning. I just couldn’t do it; I couldn’t push myself to get out of bed. When Raikaron tried to get out of bed, I hooked my arm around and pulled him back down, because I didn’t want him to start preparing for the day. If he left the bed, I would lose my reason to stay in the bed, and I couldn’t bring myself to confront yet another day slogging across the Old City.

“Jayta—” he begins.

“No.” I wrap my arms around him, and bury my face in his chest.

“We need to get up; we have to—”

“No.” I repeat again, my voice cracking a little.

He hesitates at that, hearing how close my voice is to breaking. Perhaps he can also sense my dread and stress and homesickness, because he doesn’t argue with me. Instead, he gently wraps his arms around me as my breathing comes shallow, and my eyes start leaking tears. And I proceed to have a little breakdown, a quiet one, crying myself out in his arms, just letting out all the frustration I feel for how long this is taking, and how miserable it is. I just want it to be done already.

I don’t know how long I go on crying. It feels like a long time, and when I finally cry myself out, I feel exhausted even though we just woke up. As I lay there atop him, slowly catching my breath, I feel acutely ashamed, because if anyone deserves to be throwing a tantrum right now, it’s him. He’s the one that did the hard work of getting us through the mountains, fending off the Hounds, and nearly dying; I just rode on his back for most of it. If anyone has a right to complain, it would be him — but he keeps soldiering on, even after being laid out by poison for days on end.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper.

“You don’t have to apologize, little flower.” he replies gently, still stroking my hair in slow, calming motions.

“I’m just… I’m homesick.” I mumble morosely. “I miss Danya, and Mek, and Trinity, and the harpies. I miss having other people to talk to. Not that talking to you is bad, but—”

“Humans are social creatures. You need social variety; I understand.” he says.

I nod weakly, saying nothing. Of course he knows, and I know he’s doing his best to ease the worst of it for me. “It’d probably be worse if you weren’t here. With the way this place is, I think I would’ve gone insane in the first sixty days.”

“Most living creatures in the Old City do. It’s hard to last long here without some company.” he says, using a thumb to wipe at some of the lingering tears beneath my eyes. “Would you like to remain in the tesseract today? I can do the traveling, and you can have some alone time to yourself, if that would help?”

I shake my head. “It’s tempting, but I know I would just end up sleeping. And I would want to sleep more, and more. It’s like a drug, and I’d be using it to escape from everything outside. Even though I don’t like it, I know I need to keep doing things, need to stay engaged everything we’re doing here. If I back off and let you do all the heavy lifting, I’m going to… I’ll be in a bad spot mentally.”

“You mean you would become depressed.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s good that you know yourself well enough to recognize it. And that you know what you need to do to prevent it.” he says, the hand in my hair gliding down and tracing little calming circles over my bare back. “Is there anything you want me to do in that regard? Anything that would make it easier for you to stay engaged and keep from drifting into a depression?”

I take a deep breath in, and sigh it out. “Be firm with me. If I get listless or reluctant, remind me that this won’t be over until we finish it, so shirking it or avoiding it will just drag it out and make it longer. Give me a little bit of wiggle room to be weak, but only enough for me to get it out of my system before forcing me back on target.”

“I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything.”

“I know. But I’m going to be weak; I’m going to have bad days. I need you to keep me on track when that happens, so we can get out of here as fast as possible.”

“Alright. And what about now?”

I close my eyes, knowing that we have to get back out there and on our way. “Let me have fifteen more minutes. Then we can get up.”

“Fifteen more minutes.” he agrees quietly, kissing the top of my head before relaxing again. “Then we can get up.”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 119

The wastes are unlike anything else we’ve encountered in the Old City so far.

It is littered with trenches and barbed wire, broken tanks and pillboxes and embankments and foxholes and craters. There is no grass; only dirt that has been churned or hardpacked or burnt or blasted. There is a stench here, one that is acrid and metallic; it’s a combination of chemicals, smoke, metal, rust, and the iron in blood, swords, and shields. It is as if the battlefields of every Aurescuran war, from medieval to modern, were stitched together in a quilt of devastation and ruin, and laid down as a final barrier between the rest of the Old City and the Ocean of Souls.

When we first arrived to the edge of the wastes, we found that we had caught up to many of the groups of souls that we had traveled alongside as we made our way through the plains. They lingered at the edge where the grass faded to blasted earth, milling with uncertainty; some of them travelled to one side or the other, as if hoping they could find a shortcut through the wastes if they walked along the border long enough. Now and again, a soul would work up the nerve to step out onto the torn ground, and begin the trek across the burnt hellscape. Sometimes others would follow, but often, they ventured out alone.

Rai and I did not linger on the fringe for very long. After we arrived, he spent some time staring out across the wastes, studying the terrain and observing closely whenever a soul began to venture across the ancient battlefields. After some time spent taking in all the information he needed, he started out onto the blasted grounds, and I followed after him without hesitation, staying close behind him. By this point I had come to trust him implicitly, and knew that whatever course he took, it was measured, calculated, and with our survival and success in mind.

It quickly became clear that our transit into the wastes would not be like the rest of our journey; where before we had traveled through towns and cities, over mountains and fields, a clear path forward had always been laid for us. But here, there was no such thing; the ground was churned and cratered by artillery, and the maze of trenches dug into the ground was haphazard and without apparent rhyme or reason. We were left to wind our way through the broken terrain in the way that made the most apparent sense from where we were standing, frequently jumping over trenches, stepping over barbed wire, or walking around breached pillboxes. Raikaron led the way, and I followed him, trusting that he was picking the most efficient route he could find.

I soon settled on the belief that Raikaron was also seeking out the safest route through the wastes; we were barely halfway through our first day in the wastes when we encountered the first of many Old Ones that we would come across. He was easily able to dissuade it from bothering us, since it was a small one, but such encounters would become commonplace over the following days. Many small Old Ones roved the wastes, which was likely the reason the souls lingered on the edge of the wastes, reluctant to begin the crossing. On the occasion, we would see or hear souls that had been caught by the Old Ones, and were being tormented; I only asked Rai once if we could help them. He had simply shaken his head, stating that the Old Ones were drawn to souls who had a debt to pay for their actions in their most recent lives — if the Old Ones were tormenting them, it was because it had been well-earned.

Raikaron took great pains to keep us out of the trenches, and though I never had the chance to ask his reasoning, it was made evident on the day when we came upon one of the greater Old Ones. He stopped as we had come over a ragged hill, and held a hand out to arrest my momentum; I came to halt, looking at him, then following his gaze towards the land stretched out before us. I saw nothing at first, but he put a finger to his lips, then pointed out to a trench in the middle distance. I quickly saw what had given him such pause — sliding through one of the trenches was what looked like the top of a great, pale scaly thing, stretching for hundreds upon hundreds of feet. To me it looked like a snake, though it was hard to tell, since we couldn’t see the head from where we were. We waited there for a long time, remaining very still, until the last of the great beast had slithered from view, winding away through the maze of trenches scarring the land. Only when it was gone did we start walking again, and from that point on, I viewed the trenches with far more caution, knowing what might be traversing through them, just out of view.

Pillboxes, tanks, and other siege engines followed in the same vein as the trenches; though they appeared like good places to take a respite, there was an instance that proved to us that they could be dens filled with packs of smaller Old Ones. Raikaron and I were able to fend off the ones that flooded out of a pillbox that we were passing by, though it was a close call, as they took us by surprise and in numbers. After that, conscious efforts were made to circumvent such structures where possible, and when we could not circumvent them, we approached them with caution, ready to fight our way through them if needed.

Returning to the tesseract at the end of our travel shifts, I had a new appreciation for the safety that it afforded us. Trudging through the wastes, constantly being on guard and keeping an eye out for Old Ones, was exhausting, more than simply trekking, as we normally did. Being able to let our guard down and relax was a relief, an amenity that I hadn’t truly appreciated until now. For the souls that were trekking the wastes, they had access to no such luxury, and I could only imagine what it must be like for them — marathoning their way through the ancient battlefields, constantly keeping an eye out for Old Ones, hoping that the sins of their most recent lives were not enough to warrant being caught out and tormented.

Like much in the Old City, it was a grim, depressing proposition, one that only made me less inclined to love the afterlife of my people. Not that it was meant to be loved — nothing in the design of the Old City lent itself to being a place where you would want to stay for very long. It was not a place where you could find rest or solace, or where you could find paradise for a life well-lived. The only thing it gave for a virtuous life was an expedited journey between your last life and your next; a barren reward, if there ever was one.

And seeing the journey that would await me after my death, I was starting to believe that my contract with Raikaron, hellish and profane though it may have been, was a far preferable outcome to what awaited me in the afterlife of my people.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 121

We encountered one of the Daughters today.

Our journey across the wastes had largely been a lonely one up to this point. Though we have sometimes seen other souls as we travel, we have maintained our distance, largely on Raikaron’s insistence. His reasons were simple and straightforward; we did not know what sins those souls were carrying with them, and it could be that they would attract the Old Ones to them. And while the Old Ones in the wastes were ostensibly there to punish those who had not received their stripes in life, they were not particularly discerning about what souls should be receiving their ire. It was best, from the perspective of risk management, to stay away from those that might draw the Old Ones to them.

Of course, that alone did not keep us safe. We were still having run-ins of our own with the Old Ones from time to time; Raikaron’s working theory was that they did not discriminate between the dead and the living, and were drawn to anyone that might have sins that were not yet paid for. Both Raikaron and I likely carried sins of our own, which may be why we continued encountering them; and while it was not too difficult to fight them off, you could never quite let your guard down.

It was during one such encounter that we received some unexpected help; with Raikaron dealing with a pair of mantis wolves, I am left to handle the beaksnake. With it being a snake, however, it is difficult to hit, and fast to strike; it weaves around my barbed-wire bat whenever I take a swing at it, and on multiple occasions, it almost nails me in the shins with its beak. I keep having to back up, swinging at it as I go to keep it back — and since all my focus is on the beaksnake, I’m not paying attention to the terrain and trip backwards over a fallen tank barrel. As the beaksnake rushes up on me, it’s suddenly brought to a halt when a spear spikes through it, pinning it to the ground. A second later, the bottom of a shield is brought down just behind its head like a guillotine, slicing it clean off.

I look up to see that behind the shield is a pale, lean woman in black boots, a white jacket and pants, with a red scarf, white hair, and pink eyes. Standing up, she pulls her broad shield with her, grabs her spear and yanks it out of the beaksnake, then flips it around and hurls it towards Raikaron, nailing the remaining mantis wolf he’d been dealing with. That gets his attention, and he twists around to see the woman marching past me like I’m not even there.

“Jayta, are you okay?” he says, immediately moving towards me.

“I’m— I’m fine.” I say, starting to push myself back up, but taking his hand when he reaches me. “That, uh, the lady, she got the beaksnake before it could get me…”

I hear a grisly crunch and squelch, and look to see that the woman with the shield and spear has retrieved her spear from the mantis wolf, and it methodically stabbing it as it lies squirming on the ground. Her movements are almost mechanical, and she shows no sign of fatigue or slowing down as she continues impaling the beast. It’s only when the mantis wolf stops moving that she stops stabbing, yanking her spear out a final time and cleaning its tip on the demon’s pelt.

“She’s not transparent.” I murmur to Raikaron as I brush crumbs of dirt off my backside. “I thought we were the only living people here?”

“She’s not a person as such. That’s one of the Daughters of Maugrimm; they patrol the Old City, but you see most of them around the Ocean of Souls, guarding the waterfront and keeping dead souls in order.” Raikaron replies just as quietly. “A few also wander the wastes, keeping the Old Ones in check and helping escort certain souls to the wall around the waterfront.”

“That’s what they look like? I never knew…” I say as she cleans the blood off the bottom of her shield, which is v-shaped. “They’re so… pale. And she’s got pink eyes, like a newt or salamander that’s lived in sunless caverns for thousands of generations.”

“Those are features that they all share, yes.” Raikaron says, starting to straighten the creases in his clothes now that the Old Ones have been dealt with. “I’m surprised that she elected to help us, though that may just be her doing her job, rather than a display of favor towards us particularly.”

“She’s coming back this way.” I mutter as she finishes cleaning her gear, and starts marching back towards us. I keep a tense grip on my spaceball bat; it seems like she’s on our side, but she’s not said a single word so far, and there’s just something about her that makes me uneasy.

“Indeed.” Raikaron agrees. When she arrives to us, he inclines his head to her in acknowledgement. “I must thank you for protecting my charge. She is very important to me, and I appreciate what you have done. Is there any way I can thank you, or anything that you require of us?”

The woman doesn’t respond, simply staring at us. In that awkward silence, I’m finally able to put a finger on what makes me so uneasy about her: there’s a sort of hollowness in her eyes, and her face, while pretty, is empty. Not once have I seen her express sentiment, or react emotionally to anything around her. Even when she was stabbing the mantis wolf to death, there was nothing there; just a blank look, as if her actions meant nothing to her.

“Do you have a name, so I can thank you properly?” Raikaron asks with his signature patience and mildness.

No answer. Just that unblinking pink stare.

“Well, regardless, I will thank you again.” Raikaron says. “We appreciate your aid. We do not want to keep you from your duties, and we ourselves have a journey to complete, so we will be continuing on our way now. I wish you all the best in your responsibilities, Daughter of Maugrimm.”

With that, Raikaron nods to me, and starts back in the direction we’d originally been heading before we were attacked. I give the woman a last look, quickly following after Raikaron through the warscorched terrain. But it’s not more than thirty seconds before I realize that I’m hearing the crunching of boots over burnt dirt, and I look back to see that the woman has fallen in behind us. “Uh, Raikaron?”

Raikaron looks around, sees the woman following us, and slows to a halt. I do as well, and behind me, the woman comes to a stop, once more staring silently at us with those pink eyes.

“Does she want something…?” I ask him without taking my eyes off our mute tagalong.

“I don’t think so. I imagine she would’ve vocalized it if she required something.” Raikaron says, adjusting his glasses. “Ma’am, do you need anything from us? Are you under orders from the Watchers or the Faceless Ones? If there’s something that you require, please let us know. I don’t make a habit of reading minds unless there’s a good reason to do so.”

But there’s no answer. Nothing but that hollow pink stare.

“Do you think we’re in trouble?” I ask Raikaron. “Do the Daughters of Maugrimm usually follow people around?”

“Not to my knowledge, but I’m no expert on the Daughters; I know only what I’ve read from that book on the Old City that Mek gave you.” Raikaron replies. “If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say she’s escorting us to the wall at the edge of the wastes — I think that’s what the Daughters patrolling the wastes do with some of the souls that are crossing it.”

“So we’ve got… like, our own personal bodyguard now?” I ask, still a little unsettled by that continuous pink stare. It’s not robotic; I can tell that she knows we’re here and can hear everything we’re saying, but she just doesn’t have any emotional reaction to it.

“I wouldn’t call her a bodyguard, but a guard, maybe. An escort.” Raikaron says. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having someone to watch our backs. We’ve had more encounters with the Old Ones here in the wastes than we have in the hundred days prior to it.”

“I suppose so.” I agree reluctantly. I’m still not sure how to feel about this mute follower. If she would just say something, anything, it would put my unease to rest.

“Let’s allow her to follow for the time being. I don’t think there’ll be any harm in it.” Raikaron says, resting a hand on my shoulder as if he could sense my uncertainty. “If it’ll make you more comfortable, you can go in front, and I’ll walk in the middle.”

“No, it’s fine. I can stay in the middle.” I say, turning back around. “You’ll need to be in the front. I don’t know where I’m going, and I think you’ve got a better handle on what to watch for in this place.”

“Very well.” he says, then fixes his attention back on the woman. “Ma’am, if you could keep an eye on the rear and ensure there’s nothing flanking us on the sides, it’d be much appreciated. If you see a threat that we aren’t seeing, feel free to speak up and let us know.”

There’s no response from the woman, but I don’t think he was expecting one, because he turns and starts walking nearly immediately afterwards. I’m quick to fall into his footsteps, and behind me, I can hear her boots settling into a marching rhythm as we get underway. She follows without complaint, counsel, or command, simply plodding along behind us like a stray dog that had found a group to latch onto for reasons unknown. And while I’m still uneasy about it, her mute presence makes her easy to relegate to the background of my mind as I keep my attention focused again, watching for any potential threats as trek through the wastes.

It isn’t until hours later, when we stop for our rest shift, that I bother to actively think about her again. She has stopped along with us, watching as Raikaron sets up the tesseract. As one of its stone puzzle pieces descends so we can step onto it, I realize that she isn’t going anywhere — she’s just standing there, watching us.

“Raikaron, is… she going to move on, or…?” I murmur to him.

He looks around, noticing her staring at us. “Oh. She’s still here? I thought she would keep going once she realized we were stopping for a rest cycle.” He turns properly to face her. “We are going to be taking our rest — since we are still alive, we have need of downtime every twelve hours, so our bodies can rest and recover before continuing on. You are not obliged to remain on our behalf — I promise we will be safe in the tesseract, so you can return to your duties, and we will be none the worse for it.”

She doesn’t move, or otherwise react to the assertion. Raikaron gives a polite nod, then steps up onto the stone block with me. “If you elicit to remain, then we will see you in twelve hours. But again, do not feel obliged to do so on our behalf — we understand that there may be other duties you have to attend to.”

There’s still no response, and I can’t help but feel a little guilty as the stone block starts to rise up to the hole in the bottom of the tesseract. She just stands there, her pale pink eyes tracking us all the way up into the tesseract, until she disappears from view. Raikaron is already headed for the kitchen so he can get dinner ready, and I follow after him, but those pink eyes, watching as we left her alone outside, stay with me.

It’s to the point where I can’t get it off my mind, and I eventually vocalize it to Raikaron as I’m trimming some broccoli. “Hey, Rai? The, uh… Daughter of Maugrimm. Man, I wish we had a name for her… the one outside. She’s gonna be okay, right? I mean, there’s Old Ones roaming around out there…”

Raikaron looks up from the chicken breast he’s cutting into chunks. “I should imagine so. They are the primary martial forces of the Old City, and rather dangerous ones at that. Their combat prowess is exceptional, they are never insubordinate, they take orders from their superiors without question, and yet they are also capable of lateral thinking when required. And in the absence of orders, they will pursue their assigned duties rather than being idle. I figure she should be fine on her own, as she was before she came across us.”

“Okay.” I say quietly, gnawing on my lip a little. “Just… didn’t feel right, leaving her out there.”

He tilts his head a little. “Didn’t she make you feel uneasy?”

“I mean, she does, but still.” I say, using the knife to poke at the chopped-off broccoli stems. “Would it be okay if we invited her in here? Assuming she doesn’t, like… go prying into anything or go poking in places where she shouldn’t be.”

Raikaron pauses, looking up at the floors that form the walls of the tesseract, as if considering any potential risks. “As long as she doesn’t wander and doesn’t break anything, I see no issue with it. You and I won’t have privacy except for our room, but if you don’t mind that, then I have no issue with it.”

“It’s just… I don’t like the thought of her being out there, fighting Old Ones, when she’s less than twenty feet from safety.” I say, setting the knife down. “Doesn’t sit right with me. Can I go ask her if she wants to stay inside with us during the rest shift?”

“Sure. Just be aware that she won’t be eating or sleeping. The Daughters are created without the need for either of those, which allows them to focus entirely on their duties.” Raikaron says, going back to his cutting board.

“Alright.” I say, moving around the counter and heading over to the part of the floor that descends out of the tesseract. The block starts to drift down, and within seconds, I can see the wastes again — and the woman still standing out there, shield and spear in hand.

“Hey.” I say, giving a little wave to her once the block reaches the ground. “I wanted to tell you that you can come in here with us, if you want. We’re going to be in here for twelve hours, and we didn’t want you to stand out here that whole time, since we know that Old Ones are roaming the wastes.”

As expected, there’s no response; she just stares at me. Pursing my lips, I try to figure out how to get through to her, and remember what Raikaron said about the Daughters taking orders. Perhaps being more firm and assertive was the correct way to go. “Come on. We’re going to have you stay in here with us, so you’re safe while we’re resting.” I say, using a hand to motion her over.

That seems to do the trick; she marches over to the block, steps up on it with me, and stands still while I tap my foot twice on the block. It rises back up into the tesseract, and as it slots back into place, she looks around — then spots the firepit, turns her entire body towards it, and makes a beeline in that direction. That catches me off guard, and I follow after her a few steps, lifting a hand. “Wait, what are you…”

“It’s fine, Jayta.” Raikaron says from the kitchen. I glance over to see him giving me a nod, and he seems generally unconcerned; glancing back to the Daughter, I see she’s reached the firepit, and has set her spear and shield down next to it. She soon sits down beside them, staring into the bed of glowing coals.

I make my way back over to the kitchen, picking up where I left off. “I didn’t expect her to go straight for the fire.” I murmur, glancing at her every now and then.

“The Daughters of Maugrimm are drawn to the flame, just the same as the Old Ones are.” Raikaron say, having moved on to scalloping potatoes. “It is warmth and light, a symbol of life in a place populated by the dead. And here in the Old City, where there is no daystar, a fire is the closest they will ever get to feeling the sun on their skin.”

I start scooping the broccoli into a bowl where it can be steamed. “Is there a reason they don’t start fires themselves?” I ask as I add in some salt, pepper, and butter. “I mean, they have hands and thumbs; I’m sure they could figure something out.”

“I’m not sure.” Raikaron admits. “It might be that they don’t know how — or if they do know how, they’re simply not allowed to. My working theory is that they know how to start and maintain a fire, but they never do so because they know it will attract the Old Ones. And when they do come across a fire in a place that is safe from Old Ones, they are instantly drawn to it like bees to a flower.”

“That seems sad to me.” I say, coming over to help him layer the scalloped potatoes in the pan he’s got off to the side of the cutting board. “The part about never seeing the sun, or being able to enjoy the warmth of a fire. It’s not like they — the Daughters — did anything to deserve that, did they?”

“No, of course not.” Raikaron says gently. “The Daughters are sinless, which you probably deduced by their… simple and direct nature. It is tempting to call them hollow creatures; mindless constructs that were made to serve a purpose and nothing more, but that’s not quite the truth. I don’t think they have souls, but the way they have been designed, you can tell that there was love and care put into their creation. And I say this as someone that has designed bodies both for myself and for others.”

I look up at him. “Really? How can you tell?”

“It’s hard to describe, but it’s an accumulation of little things. Biological symmetry, economy of frame, the way the hands are designed, other hints of perfectionism… I can tell, at least from what I’ve seen of this Daughter, that she was made by someone that would much rather see her creation on a theater stage, or maybe as a dancer.” Raikaron says, starting to slice another skinned potato. “The purpose of the Daughters is to maintain order in the Old City, but if they were truly purpose-built, then you wouldn’t need them to be pretty, or to look fair. Take the eyes, for example. They bothered you, didn’t they?”

“Well yeah, but that’s because she was always giving me the thousand-mile, stare-into-your-soul kind of look.” I point out. “I figure anyone would be bothered by that.”

“Yes, but that’s only possible because of the way the eyes are designed.” Raikaron explains. “She has big eyes, and they’re strikingly clear and vivid. They draw people in. You don’t need something like that on a purpose-built construct whose role is to maintain order and keep the antediluvian creations of an ancient goddess in check. The Daughters look like that because they were designed to be statements of beauty, even if it is entirely irrelevant to their apparent purpose.”

“And that’s why you believe they were designed with love and care?” I ask, bringing it back around full circle.

“Well, that’s what it seems like to me.” he says, sliding another stack of potato slices over to me. “I personally can’t imagine giving that kind of detail and effort to a construct that should be strictly utilitarian in nature. That they have this design tells me that the Witchling cares about them; that she is expressing a yearning through her creations. The Daughters are stand-ins for the literal daughters that she will never have, just as the witchlings of the covens are the sons she will never get to raise.”

“The coven witchlings aren’t created by the Witchling though, right? They’re just named after her, in honor of her.” I say, caught a little off guard by this insight.

“Correct. A coven witchling is the sanctification of a single male as a son that the Witchling will never have. It is a living offering, and as you know from the history of the covens, sometimes they were given as sacrifices in the ancient days, in an effort to please the Witchling.” Raikaron says, slowing down his slicing as he reaches the end of the potato. “But it did not occur to the covens to offer her a daughter to honor her, and so that is why we have the Daughters of Maugrimm. They are stand-ins for the daughters she will never get to have or raise.”

I look again to the one that is sitting by the fire. “If they’re supposed to be her daughters, why doesn’t she give them souls? Instead of just making them empty constructs that have no emotions?”

“I believe that if she could’ve forged them a soul, she would’ve.” Raikaron says as he finishes slicing the last potato. “You don’t create a beautiful vessel like that just so you can leave it empty. They are like that because I think that is all that the Witchling is able to do. She can give them minds that are clearly complex and adaptive, but for one reason or another, she is unable to forge a soul to inhabit that vessel.”

Hearing all this, I’m finding it hard to pull my eyes away from that pale figure sitting next to our firepit. Before, I couldn’t stand her hollow stare and her unnerving silence; but now, knowing what I do, I feel pity for her, knowing what she is and what she represents. She’s an unfinished dream, a mere echo of the potential that her creator wanted to give her. And yet it’s not her fault — she can’t help that she was made with less than the parts that she needed to be whole.

“We’re heading towards the Ocean of Souls, right?” I ask, taking the last of the sliced potatoes and layering them in the pan. “Would it be possible to get her a soul from the ocean and give it to her?”

“Technically yes. But is it something that should be done? Not at all.” he answers, starting to drizzle oil over the scalloped potatoes, along with a healthy dosage of seasoning and spices. “Those souls are the souls of Aurescurans and their many past lives. None of those souls would belong to her — you would simply be putting the soul of another person into her body. No, what she needs is a soul of her own, fresh-forged, a blank slate upon which she can write her own story — not merely to serve as a container for someone else’s story.”

I can’t argue with that. Everyone should have their chance to be their own person, to write their own story. “I suppose we wouldn’t be able to forge her a soul, would we?”

“It is something quite beyond us, yes.” Raikaron says, taking the pan and sliding it in the oven. “It is one thing to create a body; it is quite another to forge a soul. Even I, with my experience, am not equipped for such a task. The best you and I can do for her is to treat her kindly, and with the same dignity as we’d afford for anyone else.”

“Out of curiosity… what’s the process for forging a soul?” I ask, still watching the Daughter. “Is it something that only the gods can do?”

“Not necessarily.” Raikaron says, setting the timer on the oven. “Souls come about in many ways; most of them percolate into existence through the event of birth itself, while a few others are deliberately forged by higher powers, and eventually born into the mortal plane. And after death, souls can dissolve again into the background noise of the universe that most of them originally came from — or they can choose to continue on, living in the afterlives, or choosing to be born again into the mortal plane to live another life.”

I’m quiet as I absorb all of that. “People can choose, then? Whether they fade back into the static, or whether they stay in the afterlife, or whether they come back to the mortal plane?”

“Well… somewhat. It is not an unbounded freedom.” Raikaron says, setting a frying pan on the stovetop so he can start to cook the chicken. “Different belief systems prioritize different elements of the afterlife. For some, an eternity in a utopian afterlife is the ideal. For others, reincarnation is the expectation. Woven into all this are the various systems of judgement, of measuring the lives we have lived and what our mortal actions have earned us. The Old City is actually an example of this: it allows you to fade away, or to be reborn, depending on what conditions you’ve met when taking the sum of your mortal lives into account. But it does not allow you to linger in the afterlife — the dead cannot stay in the Old City. Fading and reincarnation are your only options; sooner or later, all souls are brought to the Ocean of Souls, willing or not. By contrast, the Christlings believe in neither fading nor reincarnation — their conception of the afterlife is an eternity of felicity in the presence of their god. To what end is unclear, but that is what their mainline denominations believe.”

“So the options you have are defined by what you believe while you’re alive?” I ask, passing the bowl of chicken chunks over to him. “What if you decide that you want something else after you die?”

“There are mechanisms for that, assuming that you’re not trying to dodge penance for the actions of your life.” Raikaron says, the chicken sizzling as he dumps it into the pan. “That’s part of the structure of the afterlife, and the reason why the many heavens and hells have treaties and formal agreements with each other. Those set forth the rules for handling the movement of souls between various afterlives, how those requests are handled, establishes jurisdiction for souls that have split allegiance, and so on. If, for example, a Christling soul gets bored of basking in the radiance of their god, they can petition to move to a different afterlife that will allow them to fade away, or to reincarnate. Such petitions are usually granted, though they’re often slow-walked.”

“So… hypothetically speaking… if I ever left our contract, then died, and ended up in the Old City, could I petition to go to a different afterlife?” I ask tentatively.

Raikaron slows down in shuffling the chicken around the pan. “…for that, no. The Old City is not party to most of the treaties and agreements that the other afterlives have signed onto. It is one of the few afterlives that claims souls regardless of the belief system the soul has subscribed to during their mortal tenure; specifically, it lays claim to the old souls of Aurescura, the ones that were trapped in the profane Cycle, and may yet have dues to pay for the moral sum of their millions of reincarnations. New Aurescuran souls are not bound to the Old City, and they will only end up there if they specifically request to go there after they die.”

I feel my heart fall at that. “Then if I’m one of those souls that was trapped in the Cycle… I’d have to go to the Old City? I couldn’t ask to go some other afterlife?”

“As much as I wish it were not so, that is correct.” he says quietly. After a moment, he stops stirring the chicken, setting down the spatula and cupping my cheek, while resting his other hand on shoulder. “If we come across the Witchling while we are here, and we find that you are one of the old souls of Aurescura, I will ask her to yield the Old City’s claim on your soul, to give you freedom to go to another afterlife that will take you after you have passed on.”

I press my head against his hand. “But will she let me go?” I whisper. “You saw her at the Congress, saw what she was like…”

“I do not know. But I will ask if we are given the opportunity.” he assures me.

I step forward, wrapping my arms around him and resting my head on his shoulder, and he easily folds his arms around me. “Sometimes I wish I’d never been born as an Aurescuran.” I mumble. “It feels like I would’ve been so much better as… something other than this.”

“In most cases we do not get to choose the lives we are born into. We must simply do the best we can with the hand we have been dealt.” he replies, exhaling gently into my hair. “Besides, the Witchling didn’t try to sever the contract when she confronted the Sovereigns. It’s still in force, and you’re still under my protection. The Old City won’t be claiming you anytime soon, at least not on my watch.”

I hug him a bit tighter. “If there’s a way for me to go to another afterlife when I die…”

“If there is a way, we’ll find it.” he promises. “But I don’t plan on letting you die anytime soon. And you shouldn’t plan on it either.” After a little while spent simply holding each other, he adds, “Now, while I do appreciate these little moments, I really ought to rotate this chicken so it doesn’t start burning…”

“Oh! Right, sorry.” I say, releasing him so he can take up the spatula once more. “Now that we’ve got the potatoes in the oven, is there anything else I can help with?”

“Set the table and the pour the drinks, if you would? I find that a cool glass of milk goes well with creamy chicken noodle soup and scalloped potatoes, but that just may be personal preference…”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 123

The next couple of days go quietly.

With the Daughter following us, it seems almost like the Old Ones are avoiding us; fewer of them try to attack us, and the ones that do are usually neatly dispatched. Just as on the day we met her, the Daughter remains silent, always staring and watching, but rarely reacting to anything directed at her. Whenever we stop for a rest shift and return to the tesseract, she goes straight for the firepit, parking herself in front of it while Raikaron and I settle in for dinner. When we wake in the morning, we usually come back out to see that she’s lain sideways on the couch, basking in the warmth radiating from the coals.

Because she doesn’t eat or talk or do anything else, she’s a rather easy guest to handle; it’s easy to forget that she’s there, with how quiet she is. After we finish dinner, I usually bring her a blanket so she has something to stay warm while we’re sleeping; however, tonight while I’m doing that, I notice a gash on her arm, peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her jacket. We did have a clash with the Old Ones today, but she’d given no indication that she was injured — no complaints, no signs of weakness, nothing.

“Hey Rai? I think she’s injured.” I call over to him while I take her hand and pull the sleeve of the jacket back. The gash is there, sure enough, but it’s odd — there’s no blood welling out of it, and you can actually see into the gash, which looks like it may have been inflicted by one of the mantis wolves. “Can you come take a look at this?”

Raikaron towels off his hands, putting a pause on washing the dishes so he can come over to the firepit. “Injured, you say?” he says, coming around the couch, then seeing the gash and sitting down beside the Daughter. “Well, that certainly counts.”

“Why didn’t she say anything?” I say as he takes her arm and looks it over. “I figure it must hurt, right?”

“Perhaps. I don’t think injuries hurt them as much as they hurt us, though.” Raikaron says, carefully gliding a thumb along the gash. “From what I understand, the Daughters will work until they have accumulated so many wounds that they are physically incapable of doing so. I would not be surprised to find that they have a reduced or nonexistent pain response.”

“Why isn’t it bleeding?”

“Well, I don’t believe they are like us. They are designed very differently, even if they outwardly resemble humans.” Raikaron says, reaching into one of his pockets. “I have not had the opportunity to examine one in detail, so I cannot tell you the finer details of how their biology functions. However, I do know that because they do not eat or sleep, they do not heal over time the way most living creatures do.”

“You mean there’s no way to fix that gash?” I ask, sitting on the Daughter’s other side. It doesn’t look like she’s paying attention to either of us, instead staring into the glow of the firepit.

“There is a way, though you may not like it.” Raikaron says, coming up with a pocketknife and flicking it open. “In the book that Mek gave you, there was a section on the Daughters. It says that they require the blood of the living to heal, or they must sacrifice another Daughter, turning her into blood that can be used to heal the wounds of other Daughters.” He carefully sets the blade to the inside of his forearm, and I wince and look away as he draws it across his arm in a diagonal line, across one of the veins. “Why this is, I cannot say. But it seems to follow the same logic as the Old Ones, who crave a taste of the living, and mortal lives that they will never have for themselves.”

With that, he turns his arm, resting the part of it with the bleeding cut atop the part of her arm that has the gash. I can’t tell if anything’s happening from this angle, but after a second the Daughter’s eyes widen, and she sits up straighter, turning her head to stare at Raikaron.

“Is she okay?” I ask, a little unnerved by the sudden movement.

“She’s fine.” Raikaron says, wiping the blade off on his pants and folding it closed again. “In arcane parlance, blood often carries memories and feelings. Because she is an empty vessel, giving her some of my blood so she can heal her injuries also means that she will absorb some of the memories carried in that blood. Not very important ones, I would imagine, but something, at the least.”

“Is that a good thing?” I ask, not quite sure how to take that.

“Neither good nor bad. It is simply how it works.” he says, lifting his arm and pressing a hand to it. I can see that the gash on the Daughter’s arm is seaming itself back together again, with Raikaron’s blood being drawn into the gash as it gets smaller and smaller until it disappears. “Perhaps for her, it will be a step towards developing a soul of her own — who knows. I imagine she’ll need a lot more blood from other people before she gets to that point, but one has to start somewhere.”

“Seems like it’s worked. The healing, that is.” I say, reaching over to touch the spot on her arm where the gash was. “That was fast.”

“Indeed. The Daughters don’t normally heal, but when they do, it’s quite efficient.” he agrees, his thumb glowing with green light as he pulls it across the cut on his arm, healing it and wiping away the blood in the same motion.

“She’s still staring at you.” I observe. Her head is still turned towards Raikaron, that relentless pink stare locked on him.

“Yes, I noticed.” he remarks wryly, tucking his pocketknife away. “I imagine she’ll stop once I go back to washing the dishes. At the moment she’s probably just processing whatever memories were drifting around in my blood.” With that, he sets the Daughter’s arm back in her lap, and stands up. “Can you keep eye on her for the next five minutes or so? Just to make sure there’s no complications. I’m not sure if the blood of a creature of the Dreaming will have a different effect than that of a Waker.”

“Yeah. I can keep an eye on her.” I say, unfolding the blanket I brought over and draping it around her shoulders. Raikaron heads back to the kitchen with that, and the Daughter watches him until he passes to a point where she can turn her head no further to watch him. She slowly returns to staring into the firepit after that, the shimmering glow painting her pale skin in orange hues.

Watching her, I again feel a surge of pity and sympathy for her — in so many ways, she feels like a child: innocent, simple, silent. Understanding just enough to know what she is supposed to do and what’s going on around her, but incapable of grasping things like emotions and sentiment, things that leave her just short of being a fully realized person. Reaching up, I gently comb some of her hair behind her ear, wondering what she would say if she could talk.

Wondering what kind of person she would be if she could be the daughter that the Witchling would never have.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 125

Another couple of days later, we’ve finally reached the wall that encircles the Ocean of Souls.

It’s a wall that doesn’t mess around. Rising about twenty feet into the air, it’s made of a smooth black stone, with ramparts guarded by the Daughters of Maugrimm. Individual Daughters are posted every tenth of a mile along the wall, while other Daughters patrol its length. All of them with white hair and pink eyes; hollow, silent stares and bloodred scarves. Their equipment varies; many on the walls have a dual armament of bows and some other melee weapon, and about half of them carry shields of some persuasion. None of them seem to be equipped quite the same way, as if each one had a unique function or role to fulfill.

“That’s crazy.” I say, looking to one side, and then the other. The black wall stretches off in either direction as far as the eye can see, fading into the distance. “How long is this wall?”

“Presumably, it encompasses the entirety of the Ocean’s border.” Raikaron answers as he leads the way to the gate in this section of the wall. “I do not have a number to give you, as no one’s bothered to measure the perimeter of the Ocean of Souls before, but I imagine that it’s a rather lengthy wall.”

“And it keeps the Old Ones away from the beaches?” I ask, looking up at the ramparts again.

“So that the dead may prepare for the crossing in peace, yes.” he confirms. “My understanding is that the beaches behind the wall are the safest area in the Old City. We will not have to worry about encountering Old Ones once we are through the gate.”

“It’s a good thing we’re almost there, then.” I say as I spot a thin, straggling line of souls on a beaten path towards the gate. It looks like we’re soon to join them. “Do the Old Ones ever try to breach the wall?”

“All the time. They are always repelled by the Daughters on watch.” Raikaron says, nodding his head to the ramparts over the gate. That section of the wall is more heavily manned by the Daughters, their unblinking stares watching every soul that enters in by the gate. “It does not stop the Old Ones from trying, though. There is a feast of lives lived behind the wall, if only they were able to get through to it.”

“Is that… a track?” I ask, noticing something gleaming on the ground as we get closer to the beaten path, starting to join the scattered souls filtering towards the wall.

“It is. You remember that train we saw before we crossed into the mountains?” Raikaron says. “Those same train lines that run through the rest of the Old City also run through the wastes, for those that have accumulated enough goodwill to expedite their transit through this part of the journey. Many souls that cannot pay are dropped off at the edge of the wastes, though, and must make the journey through the wastes on foot.”

I puff a breath. “Jealous. So nice guys finish first here in the Old City?”

“Nice guys, nice gals… the kind and the meek find far less trouble in the Old City than those which have opted to play dirty during their mortal tenure. But that is not exclusive to the Old City; that is the rule of thumb across all afterlives.” Raikaron says. “That is the purpose of the afterlives, after all: to balance the scales and provide the justice and fairness so sorely lacking in the universe. The Old City may not have much in common with the other afterlives, but it does share that mission.”

“Yeah, well… if only it could be a little less depressing about it.” I mutter, growing quieter as we start to come in proximity of other souls. I doubt that anything we say would be of interest to them, but I still feel impelled to keep the talk to a minimum while around others.

It isn’t long before we reach the gate, and filter through; the eyes of the Daughters remain on us from the ramparts above, but there’s no security check aside from that. Once we’re within the wall, the view opens up into what looks like ruins — ancient stone ruins that are littered with souls, many of them hauling what appear to be buckets, or wood, or carpentry tools. There is a lethargic industriousness there that is a sharp departure from everything we’ve seen up to this point. Til now, everything about our journey across the Old City had been travel and trudging; people were always moving, always going somewhere. But here, the focus suddenly changed from travel to… building?

“Why does everybody look like they’re building something?” I murmur to Raikaron as we make our way down the main street in the dusty ruins.

“Because they are.” he answers, nodding to some of the souls carrying planks and saws. “This is not the end of the journey. They must cross the Ocean of Souls, and reach the Weir of the Witchling, or be swallowed up by the Ocean while attempting to do so. But to cross an ocean, you need boats. So here, on the shores of the Ocean of Souls, is where they build them in preparation for the final leg of their journey.”

“Oh.” That makes a lot of sense, though it comes as a disappointment. I was hoping this would be the end, but apparently there’s still a little further to go. “Will we have to build a boat to cross the Ocean?”

“I’m hoping not. I am ill-disposed to become a shipwright at this stage in our journey, and even if I were to pick up the craft quickly, it would still cost us a month, perhaps more, in the time taken to build even a rudimentary vessel.” he says, looking thoughtful. “If we have to, then we will do so, but I will be searching for alternatives to that recourse. If we can obtain an audience with one of the governing powers of the Old City, such as the Watchers or the Faceless Ones, I might be able to petition for assistance, or an expedited trip across the Ocean. Barring that, we may be able to ask the Daughters for help with constructing a vessel in a reasonable span of time.”

I glance back at the Daughter following us. “Well, if nothing else, we have at least one guaranteed helper.”

“I am somewhat surprised she has not joined the guard on the wall, but I will not protest the additional company.” he says, likewise looking back at her. “Even if she does not say or do much, she has been a refreshing change of pace. I hate to admit it, but things had been getting rather stale before she joined us.”

“Same.” I agree. “How long do you think she’ll keep following us?”

“Honestly, I am not sure why she is still following us.” he admits. “My assumption was that she was following her duty to protect and escort souls in the wastes, but we are behind the wall now. She must be following us for another reason, but I cannot fathom what it might be.”

“And it’s not like she’ll tell us.” I add. “I don’t mind it, though. If she’d like to stay with us until we reach the end, I’d be fine with that.”

“I’m not so sure she’ll be able to accompany us that far.” Raikaron says, straying to the side of the road as a pair of souls carrying lumber on their shoulders walk past. “I believe she will be called eventually to whatever duties are expected of her, but until that happens, we will be able to enjoy her company.”

“So what do we do, now that we’re here? Do you know where to find the Watchers or the Faceless Ones?” I ask, watching the souls wandering the ruins. The ones that have planks and tools, I understand, but there are many of them carefully hauling buckets of what appears to be water. “And what’s the deal with the souls that have the buckets?”

“In truth, I know of no way to call upon the Watchers or the Faceless Ones. I will have to get my bearings first, and figure out if there is a place here at which they may be reposing.” he says, glancing at the souls with the buckets when I mention them. “And the souls with the buckets are the ones that are in the process of rediscovering their past lives. Upon arrival, each soul is assigned a cistern that they must fill with water from the Ocean of Souls. You remember what I told you about the rivers?”

The conversation we had about this months ago comes trickling back to me. “The water in the rivers is actually liquid memories, and the rivers all lead to the Ocean of Souls.” I say, glancing back at the buckets. “So they’re filling buckets with memories, and pouring those into the cisterns they’ve been assigned?”

“Precisely. In particular, the memories they draw from the Ocean of Souls are their own. Every time they draw a bucket up from the Ocean, it is filled to the brim with the memories of their past incarnations.” he explains. “Once the cistern has been filled, they lie down in it, and slowly reabsorb all the memories that are hidden behind the veil that separates your most recent life from your past lives.”

I need a few seconds to digest that. “So you remember all the people you were before? All the lives you lived prior to your most recent life?”

“Indeed.”

My eyes stray to those buckets again. “But isn’t that, like… thousands of lives for any soul that was trapped in the Cycle?”

“It is.”

I shake my head after a moment. “At that point, are you even really yourself after you’ve absorbed all your past lives? Or, well… are you still the person you were in your most recent life?”

“Of course you are. But you are that person, and all the other people you have ever been.” Raikaron says, clasping his hands behind his back. “For most people, it is hard to imagine being anyone other than who they are in their current life, because that is all they have ever known. That is what the veil shields you from: an identity crisis of unrivaled proportion. That is why reincarnated souls never remember their past lives — it would be the ruination of their current lives. Do you know why souls are reincarnated, Jayta?”

“I mean… so they can live again? I don’t think I quite understand your question.”

“That’s partially right; it’s so they can live again.” he says, glancing sideways at me. “But a soul is reincarnated for a specific reason, and that reason is so that they can try again. We are not reincarnated to live the same lives we just lived; when you are reincarnated into a new life, it is supposed to be a different life. A life in which you will have the opportunity to experience different things, in different orders, and develop different perspectives. The point of reincarnation is not to be the same person you have always been, but to be many different people. And in being many people, you become richer and fuller as an individual — you experience a wider swath of the mortal experience, understand more of the possible lives that can be lived. The sum of the soul is greater than any of its single lives could be alone.”

“You say that like it makes it easier to let go of where you were, and accept everyone that you used to be.” I point out. “Does it really?”

“No. It doesn’t.” he concedes. “By the law of averages, if you reincarnate enough times, you will surely live a less-than-admirable life. And for these, the old souls of Aurescura…” He motions to the souls passing around us as we make our way through the ruins. “The many thousands of reincarnations they have been through have all but guaranteed that each of them has had multiple chances to be both villains and heroes, and everything in between. Those lives belong to them, whether they want them or not — and it can be hard to see the terrible lives we have lived, and the terrible things we did in them. But this too has a purpose, for we cannot live in the light alone. We must also walk in the darkness if we are to fully understand everything that mortality has to offer.”

I understand what he’s saying, but there’s still a part of it that bothers me, and I can’t shake it. “I guess. I just… don’t like the idea that who you are might be dwarfed and lost in everything you’ve been prior to that. At the point that you remember all your past lives, you’re not really the person you were in your most recent life. That person just… becomes someone that you used to be, and you’re not really that person anymore.”

Raikaron glances at me. “You don’t like that you would not be who you are now.”

I sigh. “I… like who I am right now. I mean, I have regrets, I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and I’d change them if I could go back in time and do so, but even for all that… I am me, and I don’t want to be anyone other than me. I don’t want to lose this, this version of me. I’ve worked hard and suffered a lot to be who I am now; I feel like I earned this version of me. That probably sounds silly, but…”

I trail off as he puts an arm around me and pulls me close as we walk. “I like this version of you, too.” he says, simple and straightforward.

I smile up at him. “Enough to keep me as I am?”

“I would be very sad if this version went away. I would miss her very much.” he says, leaning down a little to give me a quick kiss between my brows. “And if it’s within my power, I’ll keep her around for a while yet. She’s got a lot going for her.”

I give a pleased little murmur at that. “You can keep me for as long as you want, my Lord.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” he says, loosening his hold on me so it’s easier for us to walk together. “And the sooner we’re done with this journey, the better. Let’s see about getting to the beaches, and then from there, we can figure out our next steps. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a beach, and I’ll admit… I am somewhat looking forward to it.”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 128

Over the next couple of days, we make our way along the beaches bordering the Ocean of Souls.

The ruins we arrived to are but one of many such locations around the Ocean of Souls; there are ruins of many other cities and towns around the Ocean’s edge, each one directly behind a gate in the wall. The one we crossed into was a town; it was one of the smaller locations, something that became clear when we reached the beaches, and saw a much larger set of ruins in the distance. Raikaron thought it more likely that we would find a temple in one of the larger ruins, and by extension, perhaps one of the Faceless Ones, so we started traveling in that direction along the beach.

As we went, we were witness to the piers, which littered the shallows just beyond the town. For the most part, they were simple affairs, rickety planks and poles extending out into the ocean some forty or fifty feet, some of them barely wide enough for two people, while others could comfortably fit three or four. Souls would come onto these piers with empty buckets go far out enough to draw a full bucket of memories, then return again, heading back up towards the dunes, and to the cisterns that awaited them on the other side. The flow of souls to and from the piers was constant, and I realized then that filling a cistern probably took hundreds or thousands of trips. It was yet another reason I hoped I was not one of the old souls of Aurescura, and that I would not have to return to the Old City upon my death.

Further out from the bucket piers were the launch tracks. These tracks stretched from the dunes down to the water, and appeared to be the sites from which constructed boats could be launched into the water. Most of the boats we saw under construction were small — some barely more than a canoe, and others being sparse, ascetic sailboats. Occasionally we would see larger boats, and the size of the boat seemed to correlate with the number of souls working on it — presumably, the ones working on the larger boats planned on traveling together across the Ocean.

As for the Ocean itself, it was unlike any ocean either of us had ever known. There were no waves, no tides — the water was still and motionless, disturbed only when a bucket was dipped into it, or when a boat was launched into it. It was not the rippling, shimmering expanse that you would expect of such a massive body of water, but instead a still, flat pane of glass, stretching out for as far as the eye could see beneath a grey sky. If it weren’t for the clouds that swirled on the far horizon, you wouldn’t be able to tell where the sky ended and the Ocean began.

But that was what set the Ocean of Souls apart — the presence of clouds, of weather. Aside from the snowcapped mountains we had traveled over, there had been no other instances of weather in the Old City. The mere presence of distant clouds over the Ocean was remarkable for that fact alone; even more remarkable is that those clouds would sometimes evolve into thunderheads, with the recognizable shadow of rain beneath them. When I asked Raikaron about it, he said that the storms over the Ocean of Souls were the final hurdle for the souls of the dead. Only those that had fully atoned for the sins of all their past lives, and attained a balance of net positive actions for the sum of their lives, would be able to make it through the storms to the Weir of the Witchling. Those who still had a debt of sin to atone for would capsize, and dissolve into the ocean of memories until it was their turn to be born into yet another life.

That was a little concerning, since I knew we would have to cross eventually, but I didn’t give it too much thought since we still had some ways to walk before we reached the ruins of the larger city on the Ocean’s shore. It only took us a day to leave behind the smaller set of ruins we’d come through, and all the piers and launch tracks that spread across the beaches before it. Over the next couple of days, the travel was calm and uneventful, walking with tranquil water to our left and dunes to our right, the occasional storms over the Ocean providing something to break up the monotony of our trek. The Daughter that had escorted us to the gate followed us still, with no indication of either needing or wanting to leave, and as we prepared to set out for another day of walking, I couldn’t help but find myself oddly fond of her presence.

“Do you think, if we asked nicely, we’d be allowed to keep her?” I ask as we wash our breakfast dishes in the sink. Presently she’s sitting on the couch by the firepit, soaking in its warmth as usual, but now with Cinder curled up on her lap.

“The answer would almost certainly be no.” Raikaron says as he passes me another dish to dry. “The members of the Order are not known for being given to sentiment. For the vast majority of them, the only thing that matters is the Duty, and anything that distracts or removes them from its fulfillment is to be eschewed.”

“I figured.” I sigh, taking the dish and drying it off. “It’s been nice to have her around. I feel safer when she’s with us. Not that you don’t make me feel safe—”

“It’s fine. I understand what you mean; I also feel safer with her around too.” he says, seeming largely unruffled by it. “There is security in numbers, and her martial expertise is indisputable. Having her around to remain on guard for danger has helped take some of that burden off my shoulders.”

“Do you think if we kept her with us long enough, she could develop a soul?” I ask as she pets Cinder. I’d shown her how to do that a couple days ago, and it had been all she’d done ever since. Whenever Cinder was near her, she would bend down and pet her with ginger, mechanical motions, and she was doing the same now, cupping her hand and carefully gliding it over Cinder’s back, over and over again.

“Perhaps. I could not say for sure; while my position and responsibilities revolve around souls, I know passing little about their formation.” he says, passing me a fork to dry. “Ironic, perhaps, but punishing souls, trapping them within contracts, even destroying them — that all has very little to do with their creation. I know only the established theories of the formation of a soul, but theories are not firsthand experience. Being a Lord in one of the hells means that you are on the tail end of a soul’s journey, rather than being present at the beginning, and that distance makes it difficult to acquaint yourself with the particulars of that phase of the process.”

“I think we could.” I say, wiping down the fork while watching the Daughter pet Cinder. It seems like she only knows how to do the open-handed pet; I’ll have to show her how to run her fingers along a cat’s spine to get it to stretch and arch its back, and how to scratch beneath the chin, and all the other different ways to pet a cat. “I think if we keep teaching her how to do things, that’ll help her develop a personality, to become unique from the other Daughters. A soul is mostly memories, right? Memories and knowledge?”

“Memories and knowledge are two components of a soul, yes.” Raikaron says, passing me the last bowl as he shuts off the water and starts to dry his hands. “Those alone will not create a soul. But they are critical elements of a soul’s growth and maturation.”

“So what happens during reincarnation, then?” I ask, taking the bowl and drying it off. “You said a reincarnated soul doesn’t remember its past lives, so it doesn’t remember any of the memories or knowledge it attained during those lives. Are those removed from the soul when it’s born into a new life?”

“Not removed as such, but… partitioned.” Raikaron says, putting away the dried dishes in the cabinets. “Kept separate by the veil. The only thing that passes through the veil is the kernel, or the seed — the core of the soul, the foundation upon which the rest is built. That kernel is the common thread that binds together each of those reincarnations — no matter how different each version of you is, they were all built upon that common foundation. Without that kernel, there is nothing to say that each of those incarnations were, in fact, entirely separate people with no relation to each other.”

I hang the drying towel on the rack as I hand Raikaron the last bowl. “So what’s in a kernel? Is it a personality trait that never changes, or something else?”

“A good question. Nobody really knows what’s in a kernel.” he says, putting his boots on after he finishes putting the dishes away. “We do know each kernel is unique. And current theory is that kernels are composed of inklings, since that’s what’s released when a soul dissolves into the background noise of the universe. But nobody really knows for sure what’s in a kernel, aside from perhaps the Primordials.”

“What’s an inkling?” I ask, following him to go put my boots on.

“An inkling is the foundational unit that makes up thoughts, emotions, feelings, instincts, ideas. In the scientific sense, it is the basic building block of conscious thought.” he explains, latching the magnetic clamps on his boots as I do the same. “You can think of them as the seeds from which emotions and feelings are born. In the same way that protons, electrons, and neutrons create an entire table of elements that can interact with each other in an infinite variety of ways, inklings create the immense spectrum of emotions that all sentient things experience.”

“So the kernel is made up of inklings…”

“A unique arrangement of inklings, and in theory, yes.”

“And a soul is formed around that kernel by memories and knowledge.”

“Correct.”

“And when a person reincarnates into a new life, the kernel sheds that coating for a little while, and forms a new one over the course of their current life. But none of those past shells go away? You come back to them when you die?”

“Think of it like… the rings of a tree. Always pushing outwards, layering atop each other, year after year, or rather, life after life.”

“Each of those lives is like a ring on the tree?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

I take his hand, allowing him to help me up now that I’ve got my boots on. “Well, I guess it makes sense, in a strange sort of way. It’s just a lot to get my head around.”

“Understandable. It’s a level of granularity that most people don’t attain when they’re discussing souls.” Raikaron says, heading over to the firepit. “It’s a very deep field, the study of souls, and it is not studied quite as often as other arcane fields which have easier or more accessible answers and applications.”

“I can see why.” I say as we reach the couch where the Daughter is seated. “Ready to go?”

The Daughter looks up at me, then down at Cinder in her lap. Cinder, of course, has absolutely no inclination to move, since she is comfortable, warm, and receiving attention; the Daughter is therefore trapped on the couch until Cinder decides to move, which will not be anytime soon, since she just ate. Reaching down, I pick Cinder up, ignoring the whining mew she lets out at being evicted from her place of comfort.

“You’ll be fine.” I say, setting her down on the corner of the couch and petting her until she gets comfortable again. The Daughter stands while I’m doing that, gathering up her shield and spear, and we join Raikaron; once we’re all on the section of floor he’s standing on, it begins descending out of the tesseract.

The grey light and muted colors of the Old City greet us as the block lowers to the beach where we stopped for the night; however, as the beach fully comes into view, I can see there’s someone standing on it, a respectful distance from the tesseract. They’re not transparent, so they must not be a dead soul; they look human, but there are these… black protrusions folded up against their back that I can’t quite make sense of. This one looks like a young, completely unblemished man with long, pale hair bound back in a loose ponytail — but what sticks out most to me is the fact that he’s wearing a knit sweater and corduroy pants. You could almost assume he was an angel of some sort, but for the fact that he was wearing a sweater and corduroy.

I’ve got questions, and I’m sure that Raikaron does to, but the Daughter steps off the block the moment it touches to the sand. She looks back at us once, then walks across the beach to the man, who raises an arm after a moment, pointing to the distant wall that encircles the Ocean of Souls. She turns without further ado, marching up the beach and towards the dunes.

“Wait, she was traveling with us as a guard!” I protest, jumping down from the block.

The man lowers his arm, looking to me. Even if he looks young, there is a melancholy, a weariness in his eyes that makes him seem far older than he looks. “You and I both know that you do not need a guard at this stage in your journey.” he says softly.

I press my lips together, but Raikaron steps off the block, placing a hand on my shoulder, and I bite back my complaint. Instead, I watch as the Daughter makes her way into the dunes, wishing I’d had more of a chance to say goodbye. She’d left as suddenly as she had come, and it didn’t feel right to me.

“Were you here for the Daughter alone?” Raikaron asks.

The man looks to Raikaron. “Blackthorn of the Dreaming. No, I am here to speed your journey, at the behest of the Order. I am Anoroche, one of the Exiles of Aurescura.”

That draws my attention back to him. “You’re an Exile?”

“Indeed. Collapse your hammerspace, Lord of Regret, and then we may walk and speak.” Anoroche instructs.

“Certainly. Any expedition of our journey would be much appreciated.” Raikaron says, the block behind us rising back up to the tesseract, which begins the process of folding in on itself as the external blocks slide and rotate over and around each other.

“So you’re one of Aurescura’s angels?” I ask, sizing him up.

“One of the disobedient ones, yes.” he admits. “We are called Exiles for a reason.”

I try to fight it, but it slips out anyway. “I was expecting something… different.”

He glances down, picking at the cabling in his knit sweater. “I do still have my armor from my time as one of Aurescura’s angels, along with the filigreed robes that we used when we were not tasked with martial duties. But they are mementos of a different era. Painful memories of a choice that was not easy to make. I never wear the robes anymore, and I only don the armor when it is required by circumstance. This attire, I feel, is more appropriate to the humility of our duties now.”

I don’t quite know what to make of that; the way I’d seen the Exiles portrayed in our literature, they were always in their armor, or in robes or vestiture befitting an angel. My brain is just struggling to process the idea of an angel in a sweater and corduroy. “What do you do here in the Old City? The Exiles used to walk among our people until the Cycle was broken. After New Aurescura was founded and our people were given a second chance, you all disappeared once society had been established.”

“You did not need us.” Anoroche replies simply. “During the years of the Cycle, we gave you the knowledge and help you needed to defy the condemnation of Aurescura. Once the Cycle was broken, and Aurescuran society had been reestablished on a world she could not touch, we accomplished what we had been exiled for. Many Exiles chose to rest, having found peace in securing a second chance for all Aurescurans. Most of us who remained decided to return to the Old City, and help with the Duty there.”

“When you say rest…”

“The final rest. Having found peace with oneself, enough to let go and fade back into the background noise of the universe.” Anoroche explains. “The final mercy afforded to the weary old souls of Aurescura, once they have paid their dues and balanced their debts.”

“A mercy that we ourselves will not be approaching anytime soon.” Raikaron says, raising a hand as the tesseract finishes collapsing down to the size of a marble. Tucking it in his pocket, he extends a hand to Anoroche, as if inviting him to take the lead. “Since you are here to speed our journey, we will defer to you. Where to?”

“To the harbor.” Anoroche says, starting in the direction of the city we’ve been heading for over the past few days. The black protrusions on his back loosen up, and unfurl into what looks like transparent wings that stretch wide to encompass the area around us. We can still see the surrounding environment, but it’s through a blurry veil, and as we start walking with him, the dunes and the waves seem to be passing by us faster than we’re walking, dozens of yards flying by with every step.

“The Daughter you sent away — what is she going to do now?” I ask.

“Patrol the wall, and any other duties required of her.” Anoroche answers. “She is just one of many that have come before her. The Daughters adhere to their duty unto death, and when one dies, another steps in to take her place. That is the purpose for which they were created; the purpose which the Witchling has ordained for them, until every old soul of Aurescura has attained their final rest.”

“I suppose there’s no ETA on when that’ll happen.” I mutter, tucking my hands in my pockets.

“None of us know how long that will take. All we know is that it must be done.” Anoroche replies. “Only when the Duty is done can the Order rest, and the injustice of the Cycle will finally be expunged.”

“Do you harbor resentment towards her?” Raikaron asks suddenly. “Aurescura.”

Anoroche looks at Raikaron, then away again. “I have felt many things with regards to my creator over the span of my existence. It is a complicated relationship. She is my parent, and I had much in the way of privileges under her, just the same as all of her angels did. I am grateful to her for my existence — but at the same time, I witnessed her clash with her other creations. I was one of the seraphs that forced the mortal Aurescurans from heaven’s gate. I yielded my post when she chose to seal the heavens, and watched from below as she denied the afterlife to those that had defied her. And I stood with Maugrimm at the end of every Cycle, and aided in the resealing of the Divine Beast that would renew the Cycle for another ten thousand years.” He slips his hands into his pockets. “I have seen many things in my time. I do not resent Aurescura, as many of the mortal Aurescurans do, and with good reason. But… I am disappointed that she made the choices she did, and I wish that she had not. No one wants to be disappointed by their parents.”

“Of course not. But part of growing is learning that our parents are not perfect.” Raikaron points out. “Is your service in the Order an effort to atone for her actions?”

“Not as such, but it is a side effect of choosing to do the right thing.” he answers. “For all their flaws, the mortals of Aurescura did not deserve annihilation. I chose not to be complicit in Aurescura’s judgement; I chose to advocate for them and stand by them, because it was the right thing to do. And now that they are finally free of her judgement,  I do my best, along with the rest of the Order, to repair the damage done by those countless Cycles, and balance the scales for the lives that were lived during that time. I am sure that eventually, I will tire of this, and will go to my final rest well before the Duty concludes. But until then, I will do my best to help the old souls of Aurescura atone for their many lives, and find their peace.”

“I admire your dedication to a thankless task.” Raikaron says. “The path you have chosen is not an easy one.”

“Doing it for thanks or appreciation would be shallow motivation indeed.” Anoroche replies. “I do it because this is who I choose to be. Because it is the right thing to do, regardless of whether or not I am being rewarded for it. You are right that it is not an easy choice, but things that are easy and things that are right do not often overlap.”

“Why does it have to be this way?” I ask suddenly. I don’t like the tenor of this conversation; the fatalism, the acceptance of this dreary coda. “Why do we have to have this afterlife? Why did the Witchling make it like this? Why couldn’t we have a more dynamic afterlife, one where good people can be happy and rewarded for living good lives, and bad people can be punished for living bad lives? That’s how the other afterlives work, right?” I look at Raikaron. “Right?”

Anoroche glances back at me. “This is what we were left with. It was not the choice of the Witchling; when she opened the afterlife that Aurescura had originally intended for our people, she found an unfinished expanse, cluttered with all the iterations of our destroyed world. What was probably once the foundations of a possible heaven had become a dumping ground for the shattered communal psyche of our people. The Witchling organized it as best she could, constructed a system that would permit the penance of the old souls of Aurescura, and created the Order to administer it. She did the best she could with the shattered fragments and the half-built foundation that were left for her.”

I’m still not happy with that answer. “Why did the Witchling have to work with what Aurescura left her? Why couldn’t she create something new, something better?”

“For much the same reason that I suspect the Daughters do not have souls.” Raikaron interjects softly. “I do not think she is able to.”

“You must understand that the Witchling is not a hypernatural.” Anoroche says. “She is not a goddess, or a deity. She has power equal to them, and surpassing some of them, but she lacks something they have: a sense of individuality, a certain spark. She is not a person unto herself; she does not have her own wants and needs. She is a gestalt of every soul upon ancient Aurescura; a collective of our experiences and our trauma, made sentient. She is retribution, and judgement, and the cold reconciler of injustice. But she lacks individuality, and that is the difference between a fundamental force and a deity: whether they have a sense of self. A fundamental force is powerful, but it lacks the capacity for change, for creation, that deities have.”

“Wasn’t the Witchling a person, though?” I demand. “She was one us. She was an Aurescuran. Everyone knows that.”

“Maugrimm was the one that made the sacrifice. Witchling is the mask and the mantle which she wears now. A mask and mantle that contains the collective entirety of ancient Aurescura’s souls, and their numberless lives.” Anoroche says. “No mortal could retain their individuality when asked to bear the entirety of so many million souls, each with millions of unique lives. There is only the Witchling; Maugrimm is lost beneath the vast weight of that collective identity, and reaching her through the shroud of the Witchling’s mantle is impossible.” At this point, he glances at Raikaron — or more specifically, the middle of Raikaron’s jacket. “Though that is not stopping you from trying.”

“We try nothing. We only do what we have been tasked.” Raikaron replies mildly. “And that task is perhaps evidence that Maugrimm is still in there somewhere, and not completely lost.”

I give Raikaron a quizzical look, not quite following the turn the conversation has taken. He acknowledges the look, though he does not answer it, so I take it to mean that it’s a conversation for another time. Anoroche does not appear convinced, but he starts to slow down, the blurry veil around us collapsing back into translucent wings, and those in turn resolidify into the black protrusions jutting from his back.

“I could only hope to have the same optimism you do.” he says as our surroundings become clear; we’re now standing on the edge of the metropolitan ruins that we’d been headed to. Miles upon miles seem to have been condensed into a short walk along the beach, expediting what would’ve been at least another couple days of travel. “I say this because I remember who Maugrimm was. I miss the little witch that ran the potion shop in Redleaf. She was kind, and she was good to people. She deserved more than the sacrifice she was asked to make… but then again, we all deserved more than what Aurescura left us with.”

With that, he lifts a hand towards the docks and harbor that border the seaside ruins before us. “Go to the docks. There will be a boat for just the two of you which can be used to cross the Ocean of Souls. I cannot say how long it will take you to reach the Weir, and I cannot promise that the journey will be smooth or easy. You may be wanted at the Weir, but there are many other souls that will be attempting the crossing as well, and are destined to be sunk in the depths to atone for the unresolved sins of lives long past.”

Raikaron raises his eyebrows. “Charming.” Still, he inclines his head to Anoroche. “Thank you for speeding our journey. We appreciate it, along with entertaining our questions and offering your insight.”

“As you said earlier — I only do what I have been tasked.” he replies. “I wish you the best of luck on yours, and I must now return to mine.” He then nods to me. “I am sorry that we could not offer you a better afterlife. We have done the best we can with what we were left with.”

With that, he turns and starts walking back the we came. Only when he’s gotten some distance from us do I speak again. “When he was talking about reaching Maugrimm through the shroud of the Witchling’s mantle… was he talking about the memory we retrieved? The one we’re supposed to return to her throne?”

“He was, yes.” Raikaron says without taking his eyes off Anoroche’s shrinking outline. “I was not expecting him to sense that we had it. I think the sooner we deliver it, the better.”

“Whatever it takes to get us out of here faster.” I say, turning to look back towards the the seaside ruins. “You ready?”

“Yes, let us be on our way.” he says, pivoting around so we can begin our trek into the urban decay. “We’ve got a boat to catch.”