"You are finally interested in talking, I see." He nods to himself, "why don't we talk over a cup of tea? There are so many things I want to ask you—I do not even know where to start."
The space around us changes, melting away in place of a smaller one—Hallway, we are now in a hallway. And I am now standing at the threshold of a gigantic archway.
"I such a big fan of the Nchāren, you are the authors of so many fun and interesting things," he says, grabbing my arm and yanking into the chamber. "It is just too bad you went extinct by the time I was born. How unlucky… But you are here, and it is wonderful. Look at this!"
He lets go and walk past me, spreading his arms wide as he proudly showcases the surroundings
The chamber resembles a storage room, its space cluttered with a vast assortment of items stacked into small, uneven mounds scattered across the tiled floor. The piles vary in size and shape, giving the room a chaotic appearance.
As I weave my way through the scattered items, my attention is drawn to a curious object lying on the floor. It's a hundred-sided die, roughly the size of my palm, with a single glyph meticulously etched onto each of its many faces. To solve it, one must rearrange the faces to decipher the glyphs' meaning. Once the solution is found, the die opens to reveal a hidden gift inside. It cannot be moved forcefully and only works with the use of Spiritual essence. It used to be a good method to gauge the mastery an apprentice had over his essence, and was really popular among them, for contests.
Nearby, my gaze falls upon another item—a plain, cylindrical rode, about a meter in length. It's a spell bank, worn and unadorned, clearly an old model. Its capacity has long diminished, the only remaining spell stored inside is a basic shield.
Before I know it I am hustling from one heap to the next, checking the trinkets they contain; some are simple, mundane items, while others are intricate devices, whimsical toys, or tools imbued with unmistakable mystical properties—But one thing is flagrant, every single object here hails from the time of the Empire.
"You, Nchāren, sure know how to keep your stuff safe and secured," the man idly as he follows me around, "I raided a few of your settlements—and let me tell you—it was such a pain to find these. I managed to brute-force my way into some of the safes—but I know… the really good stuffs are kept in the bigger buildings, right? I have not managed to enter through those, unfortunately. But with you with me…"
I whip back to him, and our eyes meet.
"Ah. How rude, you are my guest. You should be treated as such."
He snaps his fingers, and I find myself seated at a table, an assortment of confectionaries lye in front of me with two cups and a pot of steaming tea. We back in the previous room, the massive web is still hanging up there, and the man is now sitting across me, still half-naked…
I stare baffled at the scene unfolding before me.
Across from me is a presumed plunderer of my peoples legacy, and the author of the mess that had befallen since the beginning, now he is serving me pastries like we are old friends catching up with each other. The situation is so unreal that it is ridiculous. I want to lash out, I want to ask him why he did all he did, I want him to tell me who he is, and I need to get back to the others.
But I cannot do that. From his earlier words he must be a Mythical beast. His casual display of the mastery of the most difficult dimensional and displacement spells shows that he is not a one to be messed with.
I am not cut out to deal with something like that.
So, I will go along for the time being.
"How old exactly are you?"
"Well…" He scratches his chin as he thinks. "A little over three thousand years, I think? I'm actually the youngest of my kind. They all got to be there when your people were in their prime… Haah… life can be so unfair."
I see... Long-lived, non-human, very powerful practitioner, the cobweb… A shapeshifter—Could he be?
"You are an Anansi spider, aren't you?"
He is not even surprised by my inference. Well, I suppose he was not actually trying to hide his identity. "Yeah, sure. But it's kind of rude to address others by their specie, you know. I have a name of my own, it's Dalisso. Call me that." He turns quiet for a moment before asking, "what is yours?"
"V-Vyswe'eyaga."
"Vyswe'eyaga, huh?" He repeats my name a few more times before nodding to himself.
"I have been wondering, how did you know I was a Nchāren?"
"Your Spiritual essence feels… different, that's how I would put it. I could tell you were a Nchāren the moment I sensed it, even though I had never met one before. Your essence just stands out from that of the other human sorcerers." Then his face twist into a grimace. "Ugh, it was sooo difficult to single you out from the other people. I first thought it was the whining one, since he is the most powerful, or maybe that white man, he was the only… peculiar-looking member of your little group. I would have never thought that you were the one with how… normal and fragile you are. My siblings used to tell me that the way humans performed sorcery back then was very different from how it is done by humans now—mentioned something about it being excessively flashy I think. That is why when I saw you chanting and casting runes in the air, I immediately knew it was you. Oh, and the essence that radiating as you did." He chuckles to himself, then sips from his cup.
"It was really pretty… and flashy. Just like how they had told me. According to them, the Nchāren also had a very peculiar appearance, but you all looked the same. Funny thing is it never came to mind that you would actively be concealing your appearance and the essence you give off."
He raises his hand next to his face, revealing something lying between two fingers, it is a single golden earring. My hand immediately goes to my ear, where my earring should be, but is now missing.
When did he—
"It was so obvious I feel silly for not thinking about it." He cradles his head between his hands as he leans on the table and looks at me. "Haaa. Your eyes are so pretty, darling, I almost want to take them for myself—I won't do that of course, that will be rude."
I find myself speechless and swallowing deeply. The way he casually commented on something so morbid…
"You said being three millennia old, right," I ask, changing the subject, "Do you know what happened when the empire collapsed? Even if you were not yet born at the time, your… siblings, did they tell you anything? Even if it is just a speculation."
"There is not much," he scratches his chin, "As I told you, I was really interested in your people, I would harass my family for years on end about anything that was remotely related to the Nchāren. I was especially curious about the cause of your extinction."
He sighs deeply.
"Unfortunately, it was one of the things they didn't know much about—Mother did say that your demise was solely your own people's fault… She was particularly annoyed that you had to make it everyone's problem by 'bringing in those repulsive pests' as she said." He chuckles lightly. "She was so happy that the humans were final gone from the face of the world. That was until they started popping up everywhere again."
My eyes widen.
Does he mean that there was a period in time where no human was roaming the world? Then it would mean that the humans of this era are a completely different species. That would explain the existence of the 'Warriors', and why people now wield sorcery so differently from back then. Kind of.
Still.
Disappointment creep in on me. For a moment I really thought I would have a conclusive answer—I only got confirmations to what I had refused to accept.
We are the cause of our own demise and somehow are also the origine of the advent of the Junjus.
This… is a hard pill to swallow.
"You are not going to drink your tea?"
I turn to him, finding him staring at my untouched cup with a blank face.
"I made this specifically for you, you should at least try."
His tone leaves no room for argument as he stares at me unblinking. I try to breath steadily through my nose as I hold the cup and bring it to my lips. My tongue is assaulted with bitterness as I force the tea down my throat.
Is that even tea? It feels like he just took some random herbs to boil. It is disgusting but I manage to smile as I say.
My voice came out a bit hoarse, but it doesn't seem like he noticed it.
"Try the desserts too."
I grab a round yellow ball from the one of the plates, putting the whole thing in my mouth.
It is spongy in my mouth. The outer crust has a strange salty taste while whatever filling it is made of is sour to the point to bring me to tears.
I force myself to smile, doing my hardest not to grimace in front of him.
His blank look morphs into a smile as he sees me eating.
"What do you think of staying here for good?"
I choke.
Tears well-up in my eyes as I reach for my cup, uncaring of the bitter beverage to clear up my throat.
"The Nchāre empire is gone, and the world is now occupied by a new civilization. You must be lonely without your Nchāren friends, right? I can take care of you, feed you, keep you safe. Like that I have all the leisure to know more about you, how you survived the cataclysm, and…" His gaze darkens. "Where the others of your kind are hiding. If you are here now, then others must be roaming about, right? There are so many things I want to know."
Chills run down my spine.
The prospect of staying here, wherever this place is, for the next four hundred and seventy years, and having to act like some sort of pet…
I had heard that when an Anansi wants something, it would do anything to have. They are not above resorting to treachery and violence.
I slowly lower my hands to my lap under the table to hide my trembling fingers. It takes everything I have to keep the distress off my face and not run for the exit.
No.
No way.
Still, can I stop him if he wants me keep me here?
He was able to prevent us from leaving this forest with ease, how will I stop him from keeping me prisoner here?
What, w-what should I do?
"Well, darling, what do you say?"
I take a moment to calm down. Then I take a deep breath before looking squarely in his eyes.
"I, I cannot do that. I have been given a mission that I must accomplish, so I cannot stay here."
The silence that follows suit is so heavy that one could hear a pin drop. I am trying my hardest to breath as quietly as possible and move as little as possible while trying to maintain eye contact with an unblinking Anansi.
He is still leaning forward with his head cradled in his hands, his face as blank as ever, but somehow it feels even darker and ominous. At this point I am petrified. I feel like I am about to die any second from now, but I can't muster the courage to look elsewhere but at him.
Slowly. Oh, so slowly. He tilts his head. As if he is trying very hard to comprehend something.
"Hmm… You are not lying." He says drily. His tone is not as jovial as it was in the beginning. "A mission you say… What kind of mission?"
"I-I don't know much. All I have been tasked to do is to go north—"
"But there is nothing north. Only just a dead, desolate, abomination-infested land."
I will take that a million times over this.
"Still… I must go… And I have people waiting for me. Before you took me here they were in the middle of a perilous situation."
"You mean them?"
He makes a casual gesture of the hand, and two large mirrors materialize on the walls to my right. Their surfaces blur for an instant before becoming clear again and now display two scenes.
One shows the clearing I previously was with Ike and Gamba. It has turned into a cacophony of chaos and destruction, with the clash of weapons, the guttural cries, and the relentless drone of flying monsters congregating the clearing. The bodies of the Junjus litter just about every centimetre of space and rivers of inky black blood flow like a macabre flood, engulfing the once vibrant green patches of grass. Ike and Gamba are nothing but blurry figures, moving so fast that my eyes are unable to follow their movements as they slice through the horde of flying monsters whose bodies keep adding on to the already massive pile of corpses.
I can't help but gasp when I watch the scene unfolding. They do not appear to be in a dangerous position at all. It seems I did not appropriately judge the scope of their strength and skill. Here I was worrying about them when I would have probably been an inconvenience to them.
The other mirror shows a scene not quite dissimilar from the first one. Kayin's group is also fending off a horde of flying Junjus, and just like Ike and Gamba, their position is not critical in the least.
What gives me pause, though Is the other kind of foe they are fighting against. They are… They are Constructs.
What? Why?
These types of Constructs were made to perform the sole purpose of guarding an assigned area. In a situation where intruders are identified they only just restrain them; they should not be trying to harm people.
Unless…
I briefly glance at the Anansi.
Unless the Constructs have been specifically instructed to attack.
I clench my hands into fists under the table.
My only consolation is that they don't have any problems to deal with the Constructs.
Then there are the two additional members to their groups, two men, but I cannot quite distinguish their figures from their position. Sorcerers it appears.
One is fighting off the Constructs with Ewa and Azikiwe—No, quite literally obliterating them—by the skilful use of powerful fire spells. While the other… is unmoving. He does not a lift the slightest muscle as Kayin is single-handedly slashing through the pack of Junjus who, strangely enough, are not retaliating at all. They are completely immobile as Kayin is continuously assaulting them with his wind.
Something is not right. Why would once extremely aggressive creatures suddenly turn tame as their midst is being ravaged?
"Huh. They are doing better than I had expected." Dalisso says in honest surprise. "Which means your presence is not as needed as you thought. See?"
I shift over my chair.
"Why are there Constructs attacking my companions?" I ask carefully.
"I was trying to round them up and drive them out." He shrugs simply. His face turns sour as he stares at the images in the mirrors. "Now they are breaking my stuff."
"Can you… Can you summon them here?"
He squints at me. "Why would I do that? I'm not interested in them." I feel my heart drop.
"Those scoundrels… I liked those machines, and I hadn't finished to study them too. Tsk… Should I just kill them myself?" He said it more to himself than for me to hear, but it makes me shudder nonetheless.
I spot an opportunity there, however. "I can fix them for you if you want."
He perks up. "You can do that?"
"I do." I answer with a nod. "I am well versed in everything that concerns Spell Schemes and Arrays."
I may not be proficient in combat sorcery, but I am absolutely confident in the warding domain, I did specialize in it after all.
He smiles brightly, pushing himself off the table. "That is great. I am so lucky."
"But you must bring my comrades here. All of them. Please."
His face turns sullen, his lips twist into a small pout. "Do I have to?"
"Yes."
He groans long and hard. "Fine. I'll do it." He says begrudgingly.
He claps his hands, the sound echoing across the spacious room. For a moment nothing happens, then, on the mirrors, their figures disappear all at once, and I hear several groans in the room.H
I turn around and here they are.