Etaja flees, as quickly and subtly as he can, the endless blue patterns of the Way shifting around him as he goes. He doesn't know what's on his tail, precisely: he knows it's an Abidan, because the pursuer attacked him immediately. He knows it's not one of the Abidan Judges, because he didn't die instantly when the Wolf--at least, he thinks it's a Wolf--caught wind of him. It's bad enough even without being a Judge. This is no one-star Abidan, whom Etaja might overpower, steal the Presence of, and flee back to the Vroshir worlds with his prize.
No, the Wolf brought an instant and overwhelming strength in the form of conceptual attacks, time-twisting minefields and sensor nets, and some sort of mental strike Etaja hasn't been able to identify yet. The Wolf clearly didn't have a full lock on Etaja, or the first attack would have been a crippling strike, instead of a near miss.
Iterations spin past below as Etaja flees, each world attached to the Way, anchored by its inhabitants. Each was a distraction, a foil, another fork in the path: its presence stirred the Way and made Etaja's already all-but-imperceptible shadow even harder to follow.
Yet, this is a Wolf. It pursues, slowed only slightly by all Etaja's wiles. As another lance of energy that could sterilize an unprotected continent brushes past Etaja, he triggers his final resort.
It had taken three decades of hard work and trading for what he couldn't handle himself to create this, but he doesn't even wince: if it keeps him alive right now, it was worth every second.
His body warps under the strain of insane acceleration in every direction at once as his signal splits: to the Wolf's senses, if this all goes correctly, it will appear as though Etaja has literally split in two.
There is a hesitation as the Wolf's senses probe the duplicates: Etaja is not splitting into two bodies, but rather a real one and a decoy, mimicking his signature exactly. Then one of them splits further.
The Wolf's reaction is instant as two become three: tripled spears of the concept of destruction, each enhanced by the Wolf's authority and the Way's ultimate order, fly out. The Wolf's attention is mostly pulled to the last two to split: logically, one of those is the correct one, but the Wolf will not risk it. All three must be obliterated.
Etaja breathes a sigh of relief, as the one that the Wolf took its eyes off of for a tiny fraction of a second releases its true payload: a tiny capsule even more subtle than Etaja has shown so far... with Etaja crammed within, his powers as a Vroshir suppressed to a merely human
level. He's done it.
Then, the spears strike home, and the local Way rumbles and shakes with the unleashed power, a greater payload than Etaja has predicted. A filament of its declaration of destruction, practically shrapnel, nicks Etaja's capsule and nearly finishes the job, sending him tumbling almost uncontrollably.
He's deep in Abidan territory, perhaps deeper than any Vroshir scout has penetrated in ages, but while the Wolf should believe that Etaja has been slain, he'll also keep watch. As Etaja spirals down to a nearly-uncontrolled crash onto some Iteration he doesn't know, a world too deep in Abidan territory for him to know its name, he knows he'll have to lay low.
A world opens beneath him as the Way vanishes. A large world, reasonably heavily populated, but unfamiliar. He doesn't dare steer, and his capsule's automatic elements aren't trustworthy after the hit he's taken.
Not for the first time, Etaja wishes he had a Presence to help him plan, to know if he's fine or doomed, but he doesn't. Instead, Etaja braces himself, hoping he will not die from the impact. Well, he thinks to himself, we all live in hope.
9 years before the Dreadgod's arrival
14 years before the Uncrowned King tournament
You scramble over the rocks by yourself, humming in pleasure. It has been a great month!
You had advanced from Foundation to Copper three weeks ago, and you are only five, as of yesterday. Your birthday party was fantastic! Both of your friends were there, and your parents were so happy that you'd advanced so young. "Kid's going to surpass me one day," your father said with a laugh, rubbing your head in a rough but fond way while you tried to wriggle out of his grasp.
Your father's a Gold, so it would be impressive for you to surpass him, instead of just equal him, but it was your birthday, and everything seemed possible while you were staring around at everyone else with your new Copper sight, observing their auras with your new sense.
That was yesterday, though. Today, no one was paying you too much attention this morning. It would be afternoon before your lessons picked back up, which led to your exploring on your own.
You're not supposed to wander this far, but the Silent Hinterlands are a safe place, and you're both five years old and a Copper, now. You can handle anything! Infinite power feels like it's flowing through you, as your family had even given you an orus fruit yesterday, one that had grown into a spiritual treasure. It was the first time you'd tasted one, and you can still
feel its power cycling through your core to enhance your madra.
You keep staring at everything. Copper sight has changed everything. Birds and plants show life aura, the sky is filled with wind and cloud aura, and you can even see a few flows of earth aura in the ground underneath you. Each of them is new and exciting to you, even if everyone older than you has already gotten used to it: the older kids who are at Iron, and the adults who are Jade or, occasionally, Gold.
Then you take one more step and everything changes.
It was like you had been exploring a deep forest on a moonless night, with a single candle in your hands, thinking you could see everything. Then everything lights up like the summer sun at midday. You shriek, and stumble back, falling on your butt. The startlingly vivid apparition vanishes.
You catch your breath, and creep forward on your hands and knees. Light and fury overwhelm your Copper eyesight again, until you inch back. After a little more experimentation, it's clear enough: there's a line here where you can see some overwhelming aura once you're inside it, and can't outside.
You should probably report this, but you're five, and a Copper. You can handle anything. (Also, you're curious, but you pretend that has nothing to do with it.) You lock down your Copper sight to prevent yourself from being overwhelmed and forge on in.
What you stumbled on is a tiny thing, so it takes less than a minute for you to find what has to be the cause: there's someone here. It's a body on the ground of a tiny cave, almost just an indentation in the rock.
The body is dressed in some unfamiliar sort of dark leathers, and... he's unusual. Blue skin, no nose, and what looks like gills on his neck, which are covered in turn by... something. It's a smooth-looking construct of some sort, but you don't know how else to describe it. You can see water flowing along its tubes, to some other thing on his back. Maybe a drudge? You don't know drudges very well, so it's the first comparison you have.
He's sprawled out, reaching for another... thing. It's on the ground just out of his reach, or maybe it rolled out of his hand. Is he dead?
As you consider that possibility, green eyes snap open and lock onto yours, showing far too much comprehension to be dead. "████?" he says. You hear it in your mind.
You don't know if the skin and gills is some sort of unfamiliar Goldsign, or if this might be someone from distant lands, or even some unusually human-looking sacred beast, so you do what your family always told you to do: be polite.
You press your fists together in front of your body, and bow. You feel it's probably an awkward bow, but it's the best you can do. "This one did not mean to intrude, honored... visitor."
"████Damn █████. This one beseeches you to retrieve my ████." His finger twitches, which at least tells you what he's asking for. After a moment of hesitation, you scoot closer and pick up the... thing... and set it in his hand. It's heavier than you expected, but your Copper strength is enough.
His arm curls up without the rest of him moving. As soon as he cradles it to his belly, needles and various other implements slide out of it, and begin to poke him.
Inside of five seconds, he looks better, and pushes himself up to a seated position. "Gratitude, honored sibling," appears in your mind as he gives you a casual nod.
You hesitate, not sure how to take the combination of his words and familiar body language. "Honored visitor, why are you speaking so... formally?"
He shakes his head, taps the thing on his neck gills, and tries again. "Damn, were you being overly polite? That's going to screw up the translation ███." He looks at you again. "Just talk normal."
"A... Alright." You trail off, not sure what else to say.
"Thanks, though. Would've been really embarrassing if I'd died an inch from my ████." He shrugs. "I was trying not to be found, but I guess the jig's up on that. Who're you?"
You hesitate again, but your family has always drilled in the importance of keeping powerful strangers from getting mad at you. Answering probably is best. "I'm--"
[] Plan: [first name]
This is only for given name. Cradle is a big place; most names could be appropriate.
Your visitor continues to look at you, so you keep babbling. "Uh... my father's the local elder. He's a Gold-rank sacred artist. A very strong one! I'm his youngest--
- [] daughter
- [] son
- [] child
"and my family is in charge of--
- [] the halfsilver mines."
Halfsilver is a very rare material that can disrupt madra, meaning it is almost impossibly valuable in handling advanced sacred artists, sacred beasts, and Remnants. Wielding it also takes its own tricks.
Your family practices the
Path of the Piercing Blade.
- [] the spirit orchards."
The halfsilver lode buried half in the mountain pushes a lot of spiritual energy to the far side, leading to orchards that produce many powerful and tasty fruits, popular even in the distant Seishen Kingdom.
Your family practices the
Path of the Evergrowing Field.
- [] the fishing."
The high mountain springs and lakes are home to many sacred beast fish, who are hunted by sacred artists who pursue them underwater with spears. Their meat and scales are prized by soulsmiths and refiners.
Your family practices the
Path of the River's Undertow.
You pause, before blurting out. "That's kind of a big deal! It's one of the three big industries in the Silent Hinterlands."
Your visitor laughs. "I'm sure it is," he says, and somehow he doesn't seem to be patronizing you.
"Uh... and who are you? Where are you from?"
"Etaja," he says, and you can see his hesitation even in his unfamiliar body language. "I come from... very far away."
"Are you a messenger of the heavens?" He meets half of the criteria you've heard about in stories. He might be.
Etaja laughs again, this time aloud, the first actual sound you've heard from him. His speech is still mental. "Not exactly, but also yes. But, kid, I can't say this strongly enough:
don't tell anyone about me." You sense his spiritual attention on you, more strongly than even your father could manage. He thought the question was funny, but his answer is deadly serious. "It's for your protection.
I might be able to get out of here through a class six spatial warp, but if I do, they might scour half this continent to be sure I didn't leave anything behind. Okay? Don't tell
anyone."
You know your eyes are very big, but you can't think of anything to say.
The fish-like man cocks his head. "Sorry, kid, didn't mean to scare you. Look, think of it like this. You can literally just forget about this, and it'll be okay. In another couple days, I should be together enough to seal this cave up well enough no local will ever find me. Then I'm just going to sit here until everything quiets down, and leave. Okay? Not going to hurt anything. Just sit here, locked away."
"For how long?" It's a stupid question, you know.
"Uh... hm. Ten, maybe fifteen years? Not that long."
You gasp. That might as well be a thousand! "Are you actually
immortal?"
Etaja groans mentally. "Well... I'm not going to die of old age if that's what you mean."
"It sounds boring!" Your attempt at keeping your politeness up has evaporated completely in the face of Etaja completely acting in a friendly manner.
"Better boring than dead. No one
actually dies of boredom. And I can sense a few things even buried under a mountain."
"You
can?" This is enough to impress even you.
"I... look, kid, I'm serious. This is really dangerous for you to hang out near me, okay? I'll be fine. Leave me alone." You turn to leave, a bit disappointed that that's everything. Of course, antagonizing unknown, powerful beings is dangerous, so you're still going to obey. Before you go more than than a step, Etaja speaks up one more time in your head. "Actually, wait. What's this world called?"
You pause, unsure of what to say. Surely a messenger from the heavens should know the goings-on of earthly matters. At least the broad strokes. Finally, though, you answer his question. "We call it Cradle, I think?"
"Cradle?
Seriously?" Etaja's attention sharpens on you again. It's not madra, but you're not sure what it is... just that it's making it hard to not fall to your knees. "That can't be right. I ███████ on
Cradle?"
It's something between disbelief and interest on his part. Still, whatever power he is using is almost suffocating. You can't put much of your attention to listening to him when all of your willpower is going to keeping yourself on your feet and your breathing going. "H-honored--"
"...Right, crap, sorry, kid.
Recover." Etaja's attention lifts, and you feel... refreshed again, like you'd just woken from a nice nap, even the memory of the crushing weight of his spirit no longer painful or weighing on your mind. You can still remember it, it just doesn't hurt. He's still talking, though. "...Okay, I'll strike you a deal. Agree not to say anything about me, and come back in one year, and we'll talk about what further gift I can give you in exchange for helping me and giving me info. Deal?"
"Deal!"
You beam at him, then turn to run off and uphold your end. It's been a
good month. This is great!
What you don't know then is the extent to which this chance meeting will change your fate. No longer will you live a long and happy quiet life here in the Silent Hinterlands, passing peacefully in old age.
You will rock the world of Cradle itself, in time, if you live.
This is a narrative quest, set in the world of Will Wight's Cradle series. No familiarity with the series is expected or required. Technically, this is slightly AU, but in practice I'm focusing on a chunk of the setting that's not explored, so the quest and the book series are barely a spoiler for each other until about book 6, unless you count learning how sacred arts (what this setting calls cultivation) works as a spoiler.
Typically, voting will just be "largest vote-getter wins", but for this vote in particular,
please use plan voting, since creating our protagonist's background is so closely linked, like this example:
[] Plan Robin
- [] child
- [] the fishing."
