Chapter 29: Chapter. 29: Terms and Conditions

Glim’s words still echoed in my head. One will land right behind you. And then the notification came, the usual dead tone of the voice had never sounded sweeter in my ears. Somehow the idea of getting a Prophecy after those visions felt so appealing, it felt as if it was my goal for life, though…

I couldn’t help but feel slight despair, Glim had mentioned that the visions were enticing to us from a deep psychological level, simply put. They were like hallucinogenic mushrooms of sorts, addictive and basically made for one to desire more. I took a deep breath knowing that if Glim hadn’t intervened I would have certainly used the Wisp prophecy.

“Em… Blair?” Matt called almost too innocently.

I was snapped back to reality once more, at the same time the notification rang once more.

[A nearby Prophecy calls to you.]

I didn’t want to accept the fact that I was excited for it, but it was certainly an opportunity to gain more power. Based on everything that I had seen so far, a Prophecy was a must; a necessity. Keeping that in mind, I slammed the butt of the spear on the ground as a declaration of action and to myself.

“We must go check it out.”

Both of the women protested but Matt simply raised his hand, and they stopped. His face told me everything, just like me, he was raring to go. Though his self control was much better than mine, if it weren’t for Glim who knows what I would be doing.

[Admit it, I am useful!] I chuckled from hearing it.

Matt gave me a weird look that I chose to ignore, and finally I spoke. “I will take the lead and…” I stared at all three people. “Don’t get killed.”

I was still pretty much a loner, and I didn’t intend to change that. I was met with two half-hearted nods and one resolute nod. It was an odd development, but I walked forward in the direction of the sound. Oddly enough when walking in a certain direction the notification would pulsate at the back of my mind; it was leading me in the direction.

Minutes of walking passed, the only thing that was present was our bated breaths and the rustling from grass and sticks. I led the way with slight skepticism but nothing happened. There were no monsters, just the howling wind that permeated the forest, each wave causing the tree branches to rattle and hiss in the air.

The sky rained with colors, some faster than others and vibrant than others. Finally after what felt like an eternity I saw broken trees, fallen and slayed. Smoke billowed from the surroundings, and the ground was carbonized, at the center there was a crater. A forced clearing had been formed by the explosion.

As soon as I took a step into it I felt a sort of pull towards the center of the crater. It was odd, but it was beckoning me to come closer. One step, two steps, three… five… When I entered the crater the smoke cleared in an instant from a random gust of wind. And along with it came cold. The air glittered, and fog formed, the stars shone and light cascaded down from the sky itself as an almost imperceptible pillar of light formed. The higher one looked the more visible it became. At the center of everything, at the limelight was nothing but a small rectangular-headed hammer. It shone and sparkled with a myriad of colors with its transparent body. Mist emanated constantly from it.

I stared and decided to inquire.

[F ranked Prophecy: Hammer of Solitude:

“The wind whispered, it called to me. In the frost and with my tribe I was a nobody. So I left. I scavenged from nothing and created from nothing, ice were my masterpieces.” ⁠— ??? The Frigid Hammer

Trial grounds: No.

Conditions: Yes (Touch to expand).

I did a double take before bringing out the Undying Wisp Prophecy, a quick inquiry later did not reveal any type of quote or trial things or conditions. Moreover it was F ranked, a whole grade lower than my Prophecy. Granted, I had no clue what a grade represented for a Prophecy, or even what exactly it was. Yes, they were a way to get power, but the real question was; what exactly did they do?

I shook my head and decided to pass on the opportunity, before turning to the other three people that meekly hid behind the trees.

“Matt, are you interested?” He peeked hearing my words.

“Are you sure?” I could see the excitement in his eyes, but I didn’t care for the Prophecy, I had lost all interest when I saw its rank.

“Yeah, you want it?”

He nodded and promptly approached excitedly, in just a few seconds he too stood before the hammer. He reached for it and when he touched it he shivered before taking two steps back. Matt gritted his teeth as his throat convulsed before he let out an enraged bellow.

“Hell fucking no!”

I stared. “What?”

Matt took a deep breath before turning to me. “Grab it yourself and you’ll see.” His expression told me everything, it seemed as if he had just eaten gravel.

I decided to reach towards the hammer, and when my hand grabbed the handle a stream of information came to my mind. As I closed my eyes to digest, a female voice spoke to me.

{Welcome chosen one, it seems you’ve found your way to gold!} it chuckled. {I don’t know who you are, Voting Interference forbids direct contact with new worlds undergoing integration. No matter, it was simply a voting session.}

I saw a vision of two yellow irises opening before me, slitted pupils stared at me in my mind's eye. They blinked almost as if they knew what I was thinking.

{Champion of Champions, our race requests your assistance. In return you may keep this Prophecy as a gift from us the Drakanians. All we request is that, once an Overlord is selected, to come to us. As a Champion of our race you will receive the most lascivious treatments. Or if riches is what you desire.} The eyes narrowed. {We have those too…}

When that statement ended the eyes finally closed, and a system prompt flashed in my mind.

[Do you want to join the forces of (D rank race) Drakanians? Allegiance will be switched once a planetary status has been granted to the New World.]

And soon came the initial information in flashes. They were hard to process but it was basically a lot of terms and conditions, and finally I opened my eyes.

“It wants me to be a goddamn slave?”

Matt huffed behind me. “No, not a slave. Just work with them for a decade and you’ll be free! Totally a good idea.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right. Basically slavery.”

Matt shook his head, obviously disappointed. “So, what happens now?”

I frowned and stared at the Prophecy, I did not want to leave it here. It was nothing but a greedful thought, but it would be problematic to have to deal with basically lesser versions of the Boreal Kame. Either way, it was not going to be pleasant. I looked at the Prophecy.

“Crystallize.”

Matt stared at me weirdly, but a prompt flashed in my mind, though it was an unpleasant one.

[Cannot crystallize F ranked Prophecy: Hammer of Solitude.]

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A frown formed on my face. So there is no choice but to leave it be? I stared at the crystal hammer, I found it unfortunate that I couldn’t take it along with me. Last time I grabbed it it was sturdily fixated on the ground, sadly I did not want to try to see if I could move it, there was lingering aversion to touching the hammer after all.

“So we must leave it be,” I finally concluded with a deep sigh.

Matt reluctantly nodded.

I turned around and decided to retreat from where we came from, given the chance of finding people close by I did not want to risk it. The allure of Prophecies was incredibly enticing, though there was something that worried me. How far were people willing to take it? I was unsure if I would kill someone for a Prophecy, if they were to snatch it in front of my face would I kill them? Cripple, sure. Kill? Perhaps not.

Though if they tried to kill me… things would be different.

I closed my eyes and passed by the tree where the two girls stood. As I passed, one of them spoke.

“Um… Blair,” she called. Her blonde hair shifted as her face revealed uncertainty upon gazing on my eyes. “These Prophecy things… are neither of you interested in it?”

“No, it’s basically a slavery contract,” I answered.

Matt chimed in. “Technically it isn’t, but basically you become a champion of a different race, and once all of this is said and done you will go under their wing. You are entitled to nurturing and the like, but yeah. No chance.”

It was basically slavery with fancier terms in my opinion, either way you were forfeiting your future for short term power. Perhaps if it was an E ranked Prophecy it would’ve been more tempting.

The girl whose name started with A shifted. “Does it bring any type of safety?”

Matt pondered. “I suppose so?”

“Andrea, what are you saying?” The other girl asked with a face full of disbelief.

The blonde shifted. “It’s just, this whole thing is scary… If after this hell comes another hell, then what happens?” She looked at the other girl. “I don’t want to live my life in fear… I want to be protected, and it's clear the el⁠—Blair will not protect us, and we are just a burden to Matt…”

I found it weird they were saying such things in front of us, but I supposed that circumstances did not allow them a private conversation. I felt a slight hurry, though at the same time I didn’t know what to expect from sticking to this place for very long. In the end I had no choice but to let the two girls continue their conversation.

The other girl gave me a quick glance. “But, what about your freedom? Andrea?”

Andrea scoffed. “Death or losing my freedom for a few years? I would rather lose my freedom.” She didn’t wait for a response as she turned to me. “Blair, can I take the Prophecy?”

“Sure.” I did not particularly care, actually. It made me a bit happy to know that an enemy wasn’t getting it. Matt reluctantly nodded as well.

With our permission she marched forward towards the hammer and gave a brief look to her friend. “I am sorry Samantha…”

“It’s okay…” She took a deep breath. “I understand…”

After confirmations she advanced with careful but measured steps towards the crater and the mist. I stared as she approached, taking a look at things. The wind howled and along with it came lines to my vision, blue appeared at our sides and gray was in front of me. In front of Andrea there was red, lines and lines of red.

“Wait,” I called to her.

She paused mid step taking a few breaths. “Did something happen?”

“It’s dangerous, come back.” I said with finality. She hesitated but Matt beckoned her with his hand.

The lines remained and the red did so too, it was all over the hammer as if there was something lurking. The red vanished the further from the hammer it went, the lines came from two directions, east and west, though they were very prominent on the east. How odd.

Samantha reached our side with a small frown, Matt looked at me for answers. Though I simply shook my head, was the Prophecy worth getting in trouble? I was unsure, but curiosity swamped me. I wanted to know what would happen, if there was a contest of power regarding the Prophecies. I did a quick check on my things, the spear on my back, the knife and the quiver which lacked a considerable amount of arrows.

I briefly looked behind me, the three stood awaiting for whatever I was planning on doing, I shook my head. Unfortunately taking mana for more arrows would take too long at this point in time. I gripped my bow and preemptively nocked an arrow before advancing.

Nothing happened as I stepped closer and closer to the hammer. Holding the arrow in place with my left hand’s index finger I reached with my right hand, and at that moment the red aura spiked and focused on me with needle-like accuracy flaring up in an instant. Taking this as a sign of attack I stepped to the side. A silvery streak came from the forest and landed where my foot was less than a second ago.

Soon came sounds of footsteps from the east, the lines from the west remained stagnant. The crunches of sticks resounded as shadows emerged. What came first was a tall burly man with a long beard, an amiable grin present on his face. His hair was disheveled and his attire was plump, a jacket and pants, he had a bow on his back. Another Human?

[Human. Lvl. 9]

The others remained hidden in the shadows. Glim stayed by my side and that’s when I got an idea.

“Glim,” I whispered. “Go stand right behind all of them, okay?”

It bobbed. [Sure thing! It's a weird request but I’ll do my best!]

As Glim flew right behind them without anyone noticing the literal star of light, the burly man spoke with a hollow chuckle.

“Woman, make yourself clear when speaking to me.”

I scoffed seeing the amount of red in my vision. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

I saw six more humans behind the man. One person with staff, two archers and the other three wielded a mix of swords and daggers.

“Oh?” He lifted his brow with contempt written in his face. “Either way, stay away from that Prophecy, this is an order. And my second order is to join us.” He regarded me, his eyes wandered to my cloak. “I never expected to see an exhibitionist here, a welcome surprise though. Someone as attractive as you will make a fine addition. Well, given some cleaning.”

Oh, someone else wanted kids too? Were humans that desperate? Nonetheless I simply frowned.

“Displeased I see,” he mused, raising his hand completely open. “Then we will be forced to use force. What do you say, woman?”

As soon as I heard that, the two archers pulled back their bows. Part of me told me that an F ranked Prophecy was not worth the conflict, but I couldn’t help but chuckle as my right hand wandered back to my bow. They had started the conflict first, no?

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