Gaius Antonius Omake #16: Much Ado About Dirt, Part 2
It ended up being a week before the stone creature returned to a form in which Gaius could interact with them, which gave him plenty of time to think, as well as time to muse on his own mortality.
Here he was, entombed miled beneath the earth alongside a powerful spirit. One which, by his reckoning, was far above him in cultivation, so far above that he couldn't be entirely sure which great realm they were in, as they hadn't exerted any real effort in the time he had been here. No one would ever find his body, should The Seeker lose his life here. Search parties might be sent considering his talent, but no serious undertaking could truly be spared for anyone in Qi Condensation.
It didn't bother Gaius, to not be given a funeral; honestly, he expected to die alone in some strange land, chasing his father. Still, to fall prey to his own foolishness and be swallowed up by the ground itself was particularly ignoble, and he did have some pride.
Gaius did his best to put such thoughts out of his mind when he cultivated. Yes, even under these conditions he continued the boring, frustrating work of chipping away at his own limitations. The Tenth Heavenstage was said to take as much effort as the first nine combined, after all, so a little thing like imprisonment couldn't be allowed to cut into that.
Still, he needed to approach the situation as delicately as possible when the spirit awoke, and the rest of his time was devoted to pondering that.
Effigy apparently was the cave itself, having achieved sentience after millenia of bathing in this rich pocket of subterranian qi. The process of resurrection drained the cave of some of its power each time, slowly killing it. Gaius had no idea how to help with that problem, and to be honest, he still wanted the treasure. But he had genuinely come to value his friendship with the spirit, so rather than just escaping, he wanted to genuinely help them in some way.
It was also clear that they didn't simply want to kill him; they could have done that already if they wanted to. Furthermore, they had been morose, not angry, when his deception was discovered. This meant Gaius still had a chance of getting through to them, one way or another. And so, he prepared tea, memorized some talking points and waited for his chance.
On the seventh day, the stones stirred once more, assembling into a blocky, stocky humanoid shape. Taking a few deep breaths to expel a small cloud of cloying, red-brown dust from their body, the spirit reluctantly turned to Gaius, their expression showing clearly that they were still hurting but not as raw.
"So. You wanted to talk? Let us talk."
"I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't think at all about how you might be connected to the cave; I merely thought you dwelled here." Gaius explained, bowing deeply.
"If you were so innocent, then why not just be honest with me?" The spirit pressed him. "Clearly you could tell that the power of resurrection is not so petty a thing."
Gaius stopped for a moment and thought hard on his answer. "I... you're right, honored spirit. I just wanted the treasure. I saw you as nothing more than an obstacle at first, it wasn't until later on that you became a valued companion."
Effigy scoffed. "I'm shocked you'd be so honest with me now of all times. Have you no honeyed words left?"
"No, it's because I respect you."
The spirit sighed; a rumbling, exhausted sound that conveyed the weight of their true age. "How dare you play with my emotions like this..." They muttered, holding their head in their hands. "I think, I hope, that your feelings are genuine; it would hurt too much if they were not."
It struck Gaius just how kind Effigy was. The Turtle World was one where ruthlessness usually paid off, and genuine benevolence was something to be restrained, leashed, given out in small portions. How many times had they been betrayed? How many people had hurt them?
How lonely were they?
"Is there anything I can do for you, Effigy? I want to help you, to prove that I care for you as a friend." Gaius said it on a whim. It was naive and foolish to do, a capitulation to his earthly desires, but it felt good to say.
"In Qi Condensation? No, there is not much that you could do to help me. Come back when you've made a core, then you can help me... or perhaps you'll harvest me." They said bitterly, though there was no venom left in their voice, just melancholy.
"I will. I'll come back for you one day, friend, so please let me leave." Gaius asserted, putting a hand on their shoulder.
"Alright. I have an idea." declared the rock creature, stomping one foot and raising a table and two chairs between them. "I will let you go either way, but I won't let you just take a piece of myself without resistance. Let's gamble on it; you want a second life, so you'll bet the one you have now."
With that, they trudged off to pick out a gameboard from their surprisingly extensive collection.
----
The rules were simple. The two would play various games together, and each time he lost, Gaius would lose a large amount of qi. The spirit posited that since they had ten times more experience at playing these games, Gaius would bet one tenth of his qi each time. Upon being completely drained, Gaius would die, but if he won a single time, he would get his prize. Gaius was also free to give up whenever he wished.
"If you defeat me and win this vial back, you're free to go. You may also leave at any point if you give up." Effigy concluded, setting it down next to their chair.
And so it went, devil and spirit, sipping tea and playing games as they made their deadly gamble, and Gaius quickly realized the wall he was up against. His opponent was masterful at ever single one of these games, having studied countless possible avenues of attack. Yes, it was as if they could Gaius his moves before he even thought of them.
Card games. Dice games. Kingslayer. It didn't matter what it wass, The Seeker lost them all handily, and with each defeat, felt himself grow more weary. By the time the fourth game began, a curious foreign oddity involving black and white stones placed on a grid in formations, Gaius was already in far from ideal condition.
"You said this was called
go, correct? How in the world did you even learn about it?" Gaius inquired as he turned a stone end over end in his hand, planning his next move.
"A Seven Colored Seabird I know likes to leave the fish she catches in caves to pickle, and sometimes uses mine. She learned it from a foregin beast with a bowl in his head."
"I see. You seemed like a hermit at first, but you're quite a well-connected person."
"No, I've just lived long enough that some people have decided to put up with me."
And so the games continued without pause, and things were going very bad. Gaius lost another three, and it wasn't even close. He was getting woozy and his vision was beginning to blur, impacting his performance even more. He fished out a cigarette and lit it, hoping to regain some mental focus.
"So, for what reason did you do so much adventuring anyway?" Effigy pondered, turning the game piece end over end in their deceptively agile fingers. "The protection you seek is potent, but you no doubt risked losing the life you already have more than once to find it."
"I've been drafted into a war, you see." The Legionnaire responded, taking a long drag. "I've got to protect myself, even if the commander I'll be working under is one I respect greatly."
"Must be quite a momentous war, if one of your cultivation can't refuse."
"It's not like that, I'm doing it because I want to; we of the Golden Devil Clan prize loyalty above all else. Traitors are harshly punished."
"You say it's because you value loyalty, but then say a lack of it brings punishment. Which is it?" The spirit asked, tilting its head. "I don't understand the appeal of building such a large society."
Gaius stroked his chin in thought for a moment. "Think of it as using the rules to mold people into the right kind of citizen. We teach people to prize loyalty, and if they're loyal they'll listen, so that the loyal become even more loyal. If they're not gien to loyalty n the first place, then the pressure from their peers and the threat of punishment keeps them in line."
"But if it must be taught by those who control bulk of society's capacity for violence, then how is it loyalty?"
"Because it is earned. We provide for our citizens and in turn they learn to be loyal, it's a transaction."
This conversation continued, jumping between several topics, the two going back and forth both in conversation and in the game. Gaius lost two more times, and went through several more cigarettes.
"But is that not a paradox, to Seek the thing you already believe yourself to be?"
"No, it is by Seeking that I become The Seeker. The Seeker is my ideal self, my god, and me. I am not my ideal self or a god. My god is not my ideal self or me. My ideal self isn't me or a god. Yet all are The Seeker."
"So you seek to embody a tri-part entity of your own design? Fascinating. When you die, you will almost certainly reincarnate as a spirit, I think. The metaphysical limitations of humanity do not suit you."
"I'll consider that a compliment coming from you, friend." Gaius nodded, extinguishing yet another cigarette in a glass tray.
Effigy turned their head away, and Gaius got the sense they would have wrinkled their nose if they could.
"Could you plese stop smoking those? They're such low quality. They stink."
"I'm trying to focus! I'm under a lot of stress here, risking my life on these games. Come on, at least let me smoke." Gaius protested with a smirk.
"It's not that you're smoking, it's that you're smoking absolute garbage. Fine, I'll give you some of mine." Effigy conceded, conjuring up a long pipe and getting up to retrieve a bag of some custom blend. "You're a cultivator, have some self respect."
"My, that's extremely generous of you." Gaius remarked, holding out the pipe for the spirit to fill up, then light with a flash of qi.
"Yes, because I'm hoping to butter you up so you'll concede." The spirit explained with pleading eyes. "You look terrible. Please give up now and don't throw your life away."
Gaius went silent, propping an elbow up on the table and leaning over to look at the board from another angle, wondering if he'd missed anything. After another moment of thought, he moved a piece, mounting a cautious advance. Now silence fell over the table, as The Seeker struggled to keep his eyes open. He'd greatly underestimated the exhaustion. This wasn't like using too much qi in fight; Effigy was sucking out portions of his
total qi, including that which was keeping him alive. Forget ten losses, he might die from his ninth.
And losing he was. He'd done his best, but his pieces were surrounded - Gaius had perhaps three turns until he was defeated. It was now or never. He pointed at a piece on his side of the board. "I'm going to move this piece one square. That's not my turn, I just moved it illegally last turn." He explained, taking a drag on the pipe.
"I don't think that's correct." Effigy mused, leaning forward to examine the piece. "No, that move was not illegal, you can't-."
He never got a chance to finish, as Gaius exhaled as hard as possible, exerting the full force of his superhuman lungs. The pipe shattered and the still-burning ashes were blasted into the spirit's face. Specifically, the two holes in their head that acted as eyes. The fire, created from Effigy's own qi, burned hot enough to hurt them, causing them to rear back and scream, clawing at their eyes.
Obscuring the spirit's senses would do nothing, as they could observe him through the whole cave. Only pain would work; that's what Gaius had decided. But against such a powerful being, he lacked the ability to even cause them pain. Hence, the plan to burn them with their own qi. If this hadn't worked he would have conceded before the final game. In a flash of explosive movement, Gaius leapt forward and took back the vial of dirt. The stone closed around where it was a scant few milliseconds too late.
"Looks like I win." Gaius said nervously, holding up the siezed vial. "Since we played more than one game, you just said I had to get it back." Spirits tended to operate on exact truths; that was a very common trend with the sapient ones, at least. If Effigy didn't accept then he would have to beg for his life.
The earth rumbled ominously, and a few chunks of rubble rained down from the roof of the cavern. Sweat poured down the man's face as his companion said nothing, seemingly still in shock by what had just happened.
"Yes, that's fair." Effigy conceded, shrugging their massive shoulders and moving to put the game away.
"You're... not mad?" Gaius tentatively put forth.
"No, of course not, I set the rules, why would I be mad?" The spirit responded with seemingly genuine innocence.
Had it actually worked? Was Gaius actually getting away with it? This seemed almost impossibly fortunate.
The rock-person stomped their foot, opening the tunnel back up, and began putting away all of the game boards. "You may leave whenever you are ready."
----
After a few hours of letting a Qi Replenishment Pill work its way through his system, then making sure he had everything he needed, Gaius was ready to leave. He turned to Effigy one last time with a contrite look. "I'm sorry things happened this way. I need to have this, but I swear never to take from you again, and never to speak of this place to others who might exploit it."
"Hmph. If you really value me as a friend, then give me a piece of yourself just as I give you a piece of myself." The spirit muttered dejectedly. "At least then you'd understand what you're doing to me..."
"Okay."
"What?" Effigy whipped their gaze around to stare at Gaius.
"Okay, I'll do it. You're my friend. I don't care if you never want to speak to me again, and I certainly won't ask you for treasure again, I'm genuinely glad I got to meet you." Gaius insisted, drawing a knife. "So tell me, how many ounces is enough? I want to prove my determination to you."
"I didn't mean it; there would be the point to such a thing." They said dismissively and crossed their arms. "I wouldn't get much use out of your flesh, not like you'll get out of that soil."
"It's not about use. I want you to understand my feelings better. And more than that, I want to be worthy of this treasure, so I will inflict upon myself the same pain as I have upon you."
"You're insane. I suppose that's why you get along so well with spirits." Effigy muttered, shaking their head. "Very well. Please don't cripple yourself, but if you really wish to leave an offering, go ahead."
The knife flashed, and The Seeker gritted his teeth through the pain, trying not to scream too much.
When Gaius finally limped out of that cave, one pinkie toe lighter and with his hard-earned treasure safely tucked away, he walked with his head held high, for he had gained a second thing. Something not as important in a practical sense but every bit as bolstering to his confidence: a new friend.
Here's the second half of that LST mini-arc. This isn't the last we'll see of Effigy, most likely. At the very least, I have may ideas for what to do with them in the future, but I can't be certain since I don't know what will happen to Gaius.
@Humbaba @Alectai @TehChron @Kaboomatic
