Seven days after the start of the Era of Realism

A procession marched into the sea. Line after line of cognizant denizens walked into the waves. Rather than the water pushing against the sea of people, it was a sea of people pushing into the ocean. A new line approached the shore. They stood still for a moment. As if an invisible drum signaled them all, they strode into the depths.

Hendrick walked up to the water. His boots were luckily waterproof, not that it would matter much with the spells cast on him. He counted the beats in his mind. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He stepped forward, the rest of his line moving with him. Every person moved with their right foot forward. Each individual copied the rest. This was a well trained army.

Beneath the water, the ocean floor opened up to them. The line walked as if it was merely going down a steadily declining slope, unimpeded by water resistance or buoyancy. A few paces in front of Hendrick’s line was yet another one. A few more paces, and yet another line in front of that. To his sides were soldiers stretching beyond his sight.

Soon his line was no longer the last, and another one joined. They were behind them, but only by a few paces. Hendrick matched his steps to the beat. The drum was a constant noise to all soldiers. The Warmaster, a man named after his class, was ensuring they would move with haste. Any misstep could cause a pause in the whole operation.

Their one advantage was speed. The leadership of the SPM did not know how powerful the Faction of the Mind was. They could only hope they would hit with enough force, and enough momentum, to sweep them aside before they could bring their heavy hitters to bear.

This mission was one of necessity. Not but a week ago, a whole race went missing without a trace. Normally, when dozens of people would simultaneously disappear, it would not raise too many eyebrows. A dozen was not a significant number when compared with the billions on Start. When these people were all high ranking officials in the various organizations that ran the world, people became aware.

Each of the remaining thirteen races reached out to one another discreetly to inquire if similar situations occurred across all of Start. They did. Divinations, autobiographies, observing the Tapestry, each race used methods unique to themselves to discover the reason for the sudden absence. Eventually, it was the Lustre alongside the Tarnished who had an answer. Discovering the Lustre and Tarnished had signed a peace treaty before the fact was also world shattering.

The Lustre and Tarnished shared much, but there was one crucial similarity: before Start, neither existed on the material plane. The Lustre and Tarnished decided to mix with the physical plane at Start. They gained some ability to interact with the other beings on Start, but still retained a connection to their roots. The Lustre more often than not spent their time living in the Spectrum. A world, a dimension you could say, in parallel to Start. They could not interact with Start unless they left, but inside, they could view the world like a piece of art. Objectively, noticing the large strokes, but usually failing to notice the small.

The Tarnished were the opposite. They lived in a world of writhing shadow. A world shared with the Lustre. Day and night. Dawn and Dusk. These races were one of the few that shared an existence with one another before Start. Locked in an eternal war, one light was born simultaneously with its shadow. Should one candle be blown out, at the same time its shadow would be removed, seemingly by coincidence.

These two races put aside their differences. The Tarnished observed if shadows were removed from the world. The Lustre observed the Tapestry. A fourteenth race that none knew existed, was erased from the world. A race that had infiltrated every other, without raising suspicion. The Figments.

After a week of non-stop searching, the culprit was found: the Orthodox Faction of the Mind. Some races wanted to reach out to them peacefully, but the Reforms decided they needed a show of force. Hence, the SPM was founded, delegations from eleven of the other races included. The Reforms mustered almost half their population. Today was the start of the largest cooperative operation since Start: March on the Mind.

“‘Go get the fragment’ she said, ‘you're the only one who can rip memories’ she argued. ‘I can’t go, otherwise who will sort through all these memories?’ So obviously lets send the person who is incapable of combat aside from making his enemies forget he’s there. That makes perfect sense!” Yuclaus mumbled to himself as he walked up the small incline.

For the past week, rather than stay in one place, the two had been travelling seemingly randomly. Isencia had been guiding them, so Yuclaus assumed there were very good reasons for each location. As he had gotten Sen to open up over the past week, he learned that was not as accurate as he imagined. In simple terms, Isencia was shooting in the dark. As she was unable to use her Soul Spore while they were rolling in their jury-rigged tumbleweed hammock, they had to make periodic stops for her to search for vibrations. When there was a particularly strong one, the two would then go investigate. By two, I mean Yuclaus. Isencia would spend the time recovering from her motion sickness, and investigating her mindscape.

According to Sen, since Cause “was unable to use the wisps, he should be the one to acquire them while Isencia studies them”. Of course, the first one shooting fire must’ve had nothing to do with it. Isencia definitely did not push a difficult problem on her only friend. That would make no sense. Just because Yuclaus could not feel heat, had high pain tolerance, and was durable, did not mean that he didn’t get hurt. Perhaps not always physically, but pain was there nonetheless. He also noticed that injuries that had previously not left a mark, were now leaving more and more of those pink bruises. Strange. He brought it up to Sen, but she responded that “Everything was fine” with a straight face. She used her healing flower on him, and sent him on his way.

Then there was the issue of their prey mysteriously disappearing. Isencia would send Yuclaus out, like a middle-aged housewife chasing her husband out of the house, only for him to arrive at an empty den, nest, or just a spot a tree used to be. He was glad he did not have to fight the Start equivalent of a treant. Well, not that Yuclaus could really fight to begin with.

So, in order to ensure that Yuclaus got this extremely important animal that will significantly increase Isencia’s abilities —quoting her in my narration gets annoying— Isencia was not only categorizing the wisps, but also surrounding the beast with an invisible net of vines. Invisible, as they were meant to intercept anything that came from the earth to steal their kill. Filthy MMORPG trash. Hence, Yuclaus had named the mysterious kill stealer: the neck-beard.

The net under the earth, alongside the assumption that there was a kill stealer on the loose, was not some invented explanation to help the two handle the plethora of unexplainable disappearances. No, at every scene where the neck-beard struck, there was a tunnel. The tunnel was seemingly always the same size, but they were worried that the neck-beard was getting bigger with every kill. At one point, Cause was unable to fit into the neck-beard hole. Now, his body could fit inside the neck-beard’s tunnel.

Isencia’s thought was that the neck-beard —henceforth NB— was a worm that was following them for easy food. The idea was because there was never a struggle at the scene. Well, besides the plethora of upturned earth at the site of the tree. It seemed NB would only strike creatures that were unaware, or asleep. Fitting for a neck-beard, the disgusting predator. Yuclaus would be lying if he said the reason he had yet to attempt another nap was because he knew it wouldn’t work. NB inspired fear in him.

That's why this time when Isencia asked him to go, he acquiesced easily. Having his less-competent-than-he-intially-imagined friend watching with her extremely competent fighting prowess, put him at ease. He hoped the net idea would work. He was unsure if he could die, but being eaten would probably cause him to find out. Cause will find the cause —sorry I’ve already done that joke.

One downside to further understanding Isencia, was that he realized Sen never truly knew what she sensed. She could use vibrations, and any sense that the plants she controlled had, but plants with optical senses were a rare commodity. Isencia had told Yuclaus that her next goal was to find one such plant for her Soul Spore. It made sense to Yuclaus, as Isencia was going for an area control and information gathering Spore. Yuclaus was motivated to assist Sen in her quest. The inability to gather further information on the creatures they targeted, was distinctly felt by the very person sent to gather their memories: Yuclaus.

Had they needed to investigate an underwater creature, Sen could have used Gourami’s two root senses to easily discover the ins and outs of their prey. Alas, Gourami would need to get nerfed if it could operate freely on land.

Cause paused as he looked ahead. In front of our hero, was a miniature mountain. As if a giant had taken a toothpick…. No…. as if a dragon had…. A wyrm….. It looked like a big rock with sheer edges. An invisible breeze swayed the nearby trees as he paused, the creature is up the cliff, Isencia said to him.

“How can you sense vibrations through rock? Do you have a plant that can tunnel through stone? Sen, are you the neck-beard?”

I sensed the creature walking to the cliff before I lost it...milady. A warm aroma, which Yuclaus had been deciphering as amusement, washed over the area. For Sen to make such a cringy joke, it seemed Cause had been successfully breaking down her barriers.

Yuclaus moved forwards without response. As Sen was getting more energetic, it allowed Cause to not force himself as much. He felt like in the coming days they would have a similar relationship as him and his friend had. As if she could replace me!

Cause walked to the cliff, there seemed to be handholds scattered about. The height until the top seemed to be about two Gouramis. It was much larger now that he was this close. He could painstakingly climb up the cliff, while worrying about losing his grip, only to fall to the earth. That is not what transpired. Instead, a few vines sprouted around Yuclaus, and without looking he grabbed the one to his right.

Sen lifted the Figment with her Spore. A few of the vines would find ledges and places to grip, before moving to support the one carrying Cause. Soon a green waterfall defied physics, rising up into the air, a single figure at the front. Yulcaus was used to moving fast in meta-Gourami, so he was not phased by the rock passing by his face. In fact, he found it amusing that if he was tied to the bottom of a car, this would be his view.

After he rose about half way, the cliff face was broken with a crag down the middle, as if a lumberjack wedged his axe into the stone log —analogy redemption. The axe was no more, instead, there was a small copse in the rocky valley. Immediately, a few vines split from the rest, connecting with the trees. The vines would wrap around the trunks, before fading. Whether the vines simply disguised themselves like chameleons, or sunk into the bark, was a question to pose later.

Yuclaus grabbed a nearby vine with his left hand. This vine, after lack of communication caused them to consistently miss creatures, was the designated steering vine. He grabbed it with his left hand, pushing it towards the crag. If there was a creature here, it was bound to be in the sparse valley. Right arm feeling strained, Cause guided the vine escalator to the valley. He let go of the vine at a decent height, falling the rest of the way. He landed without a grimace, and looked around the area.

No cave mouth opened up to him like the maw of a beast. In front of him, the crag split straight through to the other side of the mountain. There was a possibility the creature was at the top. Yuclaus turned to return to his lift, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head to one side of the axe-split. He scanned the white rock looking for what it was. He believed he saw a smudge of black. That would make no sense. Ever since he observed the rock, it was a startling white color. This was nothing to write home about, as plenty of the stones they had found in their travels seemed to be made of the same material. Yet, not a single black stone, rock, pebble, or speck could be found.

He was about to give up, when about halfway from the valley to the peak, the wall moved. A black smudge was soon covered by a white that perfectly blended into the stone. He jogged over to the vines awaiting him, and tugged them upwards. In the middle of his ascent, he decided to slow down. There was no telling what the movement was. Watching from afar, nothing seemed amiss. He needed to get closer.

Steering close to the wall, if Cause reached out, his fingers could skim the textured white. Luckily he didn't. As he was staring intently at where he believed the black spot once was, a head turned to stare at him. Rectangular pupils stared at circular ones. Now that the head was further from the stone, a faint shadow was cast. Using it, Yuclaus could see the horse sized goat before him.

Rather than horns which curled, or flowed from the front of the head towards the back, two unicorn horns stood proud. Perhaps, I should just say narwhal horns. Wouldn’t two unicorn horns make the goat a bicorn? The bicorn had straight hair that was not overly long, but seemed to grow to match the texture of the wall behind it. The observance of the bicorn ended with little preamble. Rather than attacking Yuclaus, as was the current trend, the creature deemed he was not worth much of its time.

The bicorn turned its head back to the wall, revealing the black splotch Cause had seen. The substance had a sheen to it. Had Yuclaus not watched the bicorn lick the substance for thirty minutes, he wouldn’t have noticed that the substance was slowly flowing out of the stone. Yes, he wasted thirty minutes watching a goat lick a wall.

Yuclaus looked at the innocent bicorn, licking what must be this species equivalent of a salt deposit, minding its own business. He reached his hand towards the bicorn. Other than its albino ears swiveling, the beast did not move. His hand touched down between the bi-horns. The bicorn froze for a moment, before Yuclaus started petting it. The two stayed there for a few more minutes. Yuclaus was unsure if the creature liked being pet, but he assumed if it didn’t, their interaction would have gone differently.

Before the two could bond two deeply, the vines that had gathered under Yuclaus’ feet once he had remained stationary for a time, started to descend. As he returned to the valley of trees, wondering as to why their leaves weren’t also white, he heard a noise.

What happened? The green leaves rustled to him, I thought something was wrong before you started moving again. Is the creature asleep? Dangerous? I’m sure you can handle it in any case.

“Sen,” Yuclaus let out a sigh, “it didn't attack me.”

Thats nice, she responded, did you get its memories then?

“I couldn’t. I know what you’re going to say Sen, ‘why not?’ It's complicated. Normally, these animals attack me on sight, and I can validate it as self defense. However, if I’m trying to live like this is a real world, it would feel wrong to just rob it of its life. This goat is just living its best life. Just a bicorn licking some oil. If it attacked, you would already have the gems, but it feels wrong to just kill it after harvesting it for every scrap of knowledge.”

We don't need all the memories. You just have to take a couple months of time to get the maximum size gem for the slots. Take the memories. I’m sure it will just go back to licking the… oil… once you’re done. While I’m sure the animal would make a contribution to my Spore, I would prefer not using dead creatures.

“Then what would you even need them for? I know you made it seem as if it was important that we get the memories of this beast, but why?”

It was able to detect that I was tracking it. Normally, the creatures are ignorant of the controlled trees and plants, but the moment I started following this one, it noticed. It ran towards this mountain as fast as possible, and hadn’t left since.

“It would be nice if your Spore had that, but we can’t give them memories.”

Yes, but it would be a good ability for me to have. If I can somehow sense like that goat did, I could have layers of intelligence. My Spore could watch for vibrations and changes in nature, while if something got close enough to us, hopefully, I could sense it. Yuclaus sighed. He knew he had to do it. The ability to sense if they were being followed was essential.

“Ok,” Yuclaus responded, resigned. An upset Figment left that mountain. Left it behind with the goat who was happy it finally found a tasty treat after months of searching up and down the sheer slopes. Yuclaus carried the dozens of wisps in his mindscape, lost in melancholy as he trudged back to Sen.

“I’m assuming the Neck Beard never made a move?”

No, I don't believe the worm can move through stone. I originally thought the area was a lake. Had I known it was stone, I would have just focused on deciphering these wisps.

“Glad to hear it. I’ll talk to you soon Sen, I want to walk in silence.”

Okay Yu. I’ll see you soon. Yuclaus walked the rest of the way back. He felt bad, but at the end of the day it was a goat. It was alive, nothing had probably changed in its life, and they hopefully got a key to their survival. Steadily, the vines left him until he was walking by himself, back to camp. He looked up to find fish grilling over the fire. Isencia carefully watching over the food. Perhaps, some sacrifices were worth the gain. It was just a goat afterall.