The Runic Alchemist

Sam brought them down, and from there they walked, saving what little strength Sam had in his body. Damian knew he had not checked this first village perfectly, but for now, the people inside were too agitated, and he didn’t want to kill someone for no reason — even if they were simple illusions. His gut told him they were too real for that, though. An illusion had to be like the ones Damian had seen in Sam’s memory — doing simple things and too busy in their work to pay others any mind.

Sam and Damian walked through the shallow tree line of the one-sided forest to hide from the villagers looking for them. After a while, though, they had come too far, so they stopped hiding and walked straight into the grass field — towards the other village. Damian kept looking back in the hope of catching this “Chief” of theirs, but the guy never came out of the giant hut. Damian doubted if there was someone inside at all. Not that his human eyes could see that far for long.

“If you found Shadecaster and killed him.. shouldn’t that end this weird skill of his?” Sam asked.

“It’s probably not his skill. Shadecaster was most likely just a puppet; the control and the source of this weird skill has to be the Demon Lord. This is how he takes over people’s bodies and minds. Hopefully, everyone we know should have left the pigmen world by now — or with the body of yours and mine, the guy could create real havoc.”

“Are you saying we are in his control even right now?”

“It’s just an assumption. The worst-case scenario. I bought enough time for everyone to get away before coming here,” Damian replied.

Sam had stopped walking altogether and only relaxed after hearing his reassurance about the people in the stone shrine. Still, it was not exactly safe even if they all had made it out.

“You think Einar and Evrin reached home?”

Sam asked, half scared for everyone’s safety and future, and half hoping for their own fucked situation — from which it was a question mark if they would ever get out or not.

“I will believe they did so until proven otherwise,” Damian replied simply.

Sam looked at him and nodded. Damian put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. The scene was weird — a scrawny, thin, sweaty-all-over guy reassuring a fit, muscular, powerful, and much more impressive-looking guy in the middle of an open field. Damian ignored the irony, and they moved on.

It took a few hours, but finally it was clear what they had noticed from afar — it.. wasn’t a village.

The shapes they had noticed, that looked like huts from a distance, were giant, pitch-black boxes of all sizes and weird thick tree-like structures with large mushroom-top-like dark things placed on thick white trunk-like bases. It was the weirdest thing possible. When they reached near and cut the dark thing open with the axe — they saw humans inside.

People.. naked, hanging from a dark hook-like thing that seemed to provide them energy. The people looked somewhat similar to the villagers Damian had seen in the village earlier. It was just a feeling, but when he found the muscled female with the unique face — the one who had the axe when she found him near the blue sphere — it was confirmed.

Clones? Replacements for the real creatures that lived in that village? What in the hell was going on?

They all had their eyes closed as if they were dead — it looked creepy and disgusting.

“Trees that grow humans?” Sam asked, confused.

“They are all from the village we just came from,” Damian replied, feeling equally confused. “Let’s just check it for anything colorful before leaving.”

Sam nodded, and they both started searching the strange field that had rectangular black boxes and black-and-white mushroom-shaped giant trees. When, even after 20 minutes of searching, they found nothing, Damian decided to turn back. Their answers had to be inside the one and only village.

The mountains blocked the other side, and behind this weird human factory was a vast ocean filled with white water. They were up on some high land, though — the ocean was far and much below from there and the field containing the village’s height. There was no way forward. On the two sides of the open field was a dark forest — they could go inside and wander around for days, but that felt like wasting time. If they found nothing even after thoroughly searching that single village, then the only option would be to go through this black-and-white jungle.

By the time they arrived near the village, the evening had turned into the start of night as everything seemed to be devoured by the darkness of night. The white shade of burning fire placed around the village was the only source of light. Strangely, there were no torches near the large hole where the blue sphere was — that thing must glow at night just like it did in the day to light the village. No wonder these people called it a divine relic.

The people of this strange world were very weird existences, but Damian had no time to divulge into their affairs — first came finding his friends.

With the help of Sam, Damian had jumped inside the wooden wall, and they were hiding currently behind a hut in the shadows. The people of the village had all gathered around a large fire burning in the middle of the village and were talking about the day’s affairs with each other. Some people had earlier gone to the biggest hut to call the chief and had arrived back empty-handed — another point of discussion going around among the people.

Their village chief had suddenly disappeared.

“This is the perfect time. They all are here,” Sam whispered in Damian’s ear, and he just nodded.

They had already seen that nothing else was colorful or visible in the village — the only places left to check were inside each hut. At least, that’s what Damian thought was the only possible place for these people keeping anything divine.

At first, he had thought to avoid the chief’s house, but now, hearing the news of his absence — Damian was curious and planned to check out that place too.

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