Through flame and demons

„We like to think demons don’t exist, so we could feel in control. But we also love to think every sin we make is never our fault” Arion of Malzines, in his Letters
 
Dear journal, I’m a little bit conflicted about writing in you right now. Should I write sad things? Happy things? I don’t know how I feel, so I don’t know what to write. I feel a duty to be positive, but I’m not sure that’s how I actually am, and I should be honest, too. Right?
 
That’s a lot of thinking for Rash-conclusions-Eve, I know. But the last weeks really had me thinking about a lot of things. The way we are, the reason why we are like that... I, for one, am crazy. Not Nutcase-Eve crazy, crazy-crazy. I can’t explain properly to you, because you can’t agree read yourself, dear journal. But anyone who would read this would with me. Just look at the chapters I wrote in you. Going back, it’s insane. I was happy here, sad here, angry, then sad, then happy, then... I lost track. Now I’m tired too, a bit. I feel I’m not the only one feeling tired. It’s like a lifetime’s worth of feelings consumed in a couple of months. It’s not easy. It really isn’t. But it’s mostly wasted energy. In the end, they all zero each other out, and only this feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty is left.
 
It reminded me of an old tale of king Hagen the Swift who ruled over Sorilia hundreds of years ago. He was one of those old kings who went down in the muck with the rest of them, to war and in peace. He liked to come during harvest time and help plough a field. One day, there was a particularly bad harvest, and barely anything was left to take. The peasants were understandably frustrated. But when the king came, they still went to the harvest with him. News of the king’s arrival spread to the other villages, and as the king worked with the peasants, people from nearby came looking for the king, to bow to him and ask him for his blessings. And since the harvest was poor, it was actually done a bit quicker than usual, and the king decried that the remaining days will be up for games and festivals of harvest. Thousands were said to have come to meet the king, and many brought their commerce with them. Even people from neighbouring lands. And the king had all the remains of the bad crops turned to baskets and the like, and he threw in a big ball for his nobles as well, and the villagers actually managed to have very good earnings as a result of all of that.
 
Of course, such magical tales belong in the past. But they shouldn’t. Even a bad situation can be turned around. The harvest was still poor. That could not be avoided. So… I know I’m not wise in giving in to this all. Including giving up on myself, a little bit. I feel like the villain in the story here, you know?
 
But I’ll come back to this. Once again, my perfectly ruinous mental rantings overcame my attempt to write an honest account of my daily life on the World’s most adventurous ship.
 
So, we were stuck in the Haunted Marshes with the cross-dimensional fanboys of Talion. The insolent fools even threatened to execute Orman (whom they’ve somehow caught) if we wouldn’t heed to their call. So, to recap a little bit, we had come to this Red Knight in order to put our affairs in order with the authorities, so we could repair the ship. The Red Knight was a very mysterious-looking person, with a weird white-ish armour made from several interlocking pieces, over a weird red costume of some sort. And it had a big helmet, covering its entire head, quite menacing. But the Red Knight was nice enough (had a weird voice though). As I said, it turned out to be a she. So what happened was that before we left the Red Knight told us to write in our names and as I said Talion messed up again just because he’s afraid of everything but still somehow his precautions are worse than his mistakes. Well, they were after Talion apparently because he knew the queen of some kingdom from another Dimension. They told me about it a long time ago, but never expected it to be relevant now. Now, of all moments! The very day we saw the world shake with Xantinya’s power! Well… There you go.
 
They had us surrounded, but the Red Knight wanted to fight us alone. We managed to defeat her, only because of Talion’s incredibly strong spells, but I must say, she was formidable. She had a weird sword that could heat up more than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I know not what weird magic it uses (they told me that they don’t have so much magic in other dimensions, but just technology, which is even more mind-boggling actually). But it was so, so strong. Poor Xebec lost his arm to that superheated sword.
 
Anyway, the situation wasn’t better, because the minions were armed with some very weird short sticks of metal that could launch small projectiles with very great speed. And they could easily kill us with them. They are called guns and the projectiles are bullets. And you shoot with it, like shooting an arrow, but much, much stronger.
 
No matter what we tried, we couldn’t get them to be reasonable with us. They were hard-boiled spies, and we had nothing on them, other than the threat of a magical wipeout. As in “we will kill ourselves and all of you”. Yeah, talk about hot-headed people. You really managed to find like-minded people, Eve. Nixie even threatened to kill Talion so that they’d get no info from him, God bless her amazing soul. She’s my role model, did I tell you that?
 
Anywhoo, the girls (Nixie and Verfy) went to talk to the Red Knight as she had woken up from the nice sleep we had put her in. We were stuck with the very grumpy spies and made no headway with them, but then the girls returned and told us we might have a chance. The Red Knight is actually named Kelly and she’s kind of a tool of this spy organisation called the Interdimensional Defense Service (IDS). IDS also probably stands for “idiots”, so I’ll just call them the Idiots.
 
So, Kelly and the Idiots were not really in love. They kept her kind of like a political prisoner of sorts, and she had to work for them. She knew how to build them strong weapons and they kept her hidden from her enemies and alive. And Kelly would like to get rid of them, so the girls wanted to exploit that and make her an ally. I wasn’t so sure about that. I don’t trust mercenaries, and she sounded exactly like the mercenary type (I mean, for God’s sake, she even had a mercenary army apparently, and worked for Xantinya in another dimension../.!?) But I trusted the girls. We convened that we couldn’t realistically fight them, and that running away right away was impossible because we had no boat. That thing can’t hold water anymore. So we could just let Talion leave to other dimensions as a prisoner and hope the Idiots would be kind enough to return him alive and un-besmirched, or… apparently, as Kelly suggested, make a deal with her, tell her as much info as possible, give her the world map we had (she figured we had one), explain some things like how magic works and in return she would make sure Talion would stay here in the Marshes and then we would all be released after 6 days with our boat repaired.
 
Basically it was a question of either letting go of Talion or handing our world on a silver platter to the Idiots. Funny how God knows exactly what questions to ask people. I was always the hot-headed type, so I never think about very wide consequences. But I knew all to well that the Idiots were actually a big, big threat to our world. They clearly had a lot of power, far more than us. How many of us can use magic like Talion does? How many of them, however, can come with their guns and murder us all? So, I figured it was gonna cost us, but… Talion is part of the life of this world. We promised to defend Life, even in its most dumb, oblivious, oafish forms. So, in reality, we had no choice.
 
Only that there was a third way. We could get Kelly on our side, like really on our side. I didn’t like it, but never openly said it, because I knew the girls and Heron would never accept (not truly) to give the Idiots all the info. I knew they would save Talion but regret it afterwards. They were all searching for a third way, and this was it. We did it. The girls convinced Kelly to come with us, so basically she would get all the info herself, then destroy it and leave nothing for the Idiots and run away with us. My problem with that is that I don’t trust Kelly. I trusted her to destroy the info and come with us, maybe, but I won’t trust her to walk around this world of ours just like that. She needs magic for her own purposes. She wants to rebuild her face. You see, dear journal, she had her face almost cut in half by a powerful interdimensional called Antonia. It left a huge scar from the upper-right side of her forehead all the way down to the lower-left side of her jaw, taking out her nose and part of her left cheek. Quite disfiguring.
 
Still, for a 40-something year old (as I later found out her age is) she looks quite young and beautiful, you know, counting out the face. Plus she has the nicest-looking red hair I’ve ever seen. I just realized I might just be jealous a bit. Goddamnit, Eve, your Nutness just keeps on growing.
 
Getting past all this bollocks, and back to our misadventures, the girls managed to get Kelly to flee with us, so we stayed there and got interrogated by her. It was actually quite fun. She really was curious about Ionolia, but it doesn’t amaze me. Talion got interrogated by the other Idiots, too, but they didn’t take any fingers or something. I hope he didn’t spout any more stupid info. I heard he told them that he gave that queen religious counselling. Talion and counselling. Smells funny, doesn’t it?
 
The day our boat was ready, we made a run for it. Nixie went out to get Orman, using her earth magic. The rest of us had to get our stuff back from the Idiots, so we had to fight our way through the corridor. Luckily Kelly had one of those nice guns (she left the sword and the rest behind, said they probably can control her via them, God!) and helped us get through. At one moment we were surrounded and they shot all these horrid bullets, bigger than the ones before, and I thought that was it, but Talion and Bart saved the day with a deflective shield and well-timed bending of time. The Idiots’ faces were just precious.
 
We had to make a getaway through this rain of bullets. I got hold of one of their big guns myself and imitated what they did, which is press on a small trigger after aiming the thing at them. I almost fell because of its recoil, like when ballista fires and it almost gets pushed back. I couldn’t do much so I just threw that away. Horrid things.
 
We made it out and into the ship, but not unscathed, as Nixie, Orman, Kelly all got shot. Luckily, Vas saved the day and took these tiny metal monsters out of them. We were out of there and had front seats for a lightning spectacle from our captain, that made sure our pursuers would not use even bigger guns (cannons, only much stronger) on us.
 
Obviously, everyone was shaken. The crew had no idea what we were doing so we had to tell them, naturally they were even more distraught. Seeing Xebec with only one hand also didn’t help. Especially since the person who took his hand was on the ship with us. As for Kelly, the crew were either intimidated by her or weary of her as an “enemy-friend” of sorts so they didn’t approach her, but the party was all over her with questions, including my Bart. Jealous-Eve strikes again. I like being the centre of attention, what can I say.
 
We planned our route, as we had to reach the island of Prepo, which is a commercial hub of sorts, created by four countries, Worania, Roib, Vaneolin and Sten. A unique structure, actually, if I ever cared …. Obviously I care, damnit, I can’t hide my fascination with this kind of stuff!! But I have no time to write about Prepo’s incredible political and economic framework, like I’m some “crusty” wizard from Ionolia, to quote our captain.
 
Because everyone was so confused and distraught, we didn’t even notice the strange feeling all around the boat. I was actually checking out the new mast out of pure curiosity when I thought my mind played tricks on me. The vines of the wood seemed to create small symbols here and there. Looking more closely, it became apparent it was the three-pointed lance…. And it wasn’t just me. When I showed others, they all saw it. We tried to scrape it off, but somehow they appeared still, somewhere else, or in the same place even.
 
I heard my name whispered on deck, by a slimy, raspy voice. And for a second I lost my voice. I literally tried to say something and nothing would come out of my mouth. I was never more scared of anything before. It was like in one of those moments where you wake up suddenly after a very heavy sleep, and you can’t move your body, and your face is buried in the pillow and you suddenly feel like suffocating, but you can’t move at all and you feel like you’re going to die. That’s what I felt.
 
That evening, signs continued to show up. At some point, once again the terrible thing appeared on our mast, all rotting and burning. Even Kelly, who doesn’t believe in demons, saw it. I wonder why she doesn’t believe in demons. Maybe their manifestations are less evident there. But, in all truth, their manifestations were a lot less evident here too, before…. Before all this. I’ve never heard of such happenings. Or maybe in just about the worst cases out there. An entire boat…
 
And then we heard the sound of a gun shooting. Marc suddenly fell, blood on his chest. Behind him, a scared Menn’e, holding Kelly’s gun. She immediately took it out of his hand and threw it away ( should’ve done so a long time before…) Poor Menn’e saw Marc as the filthy creature and tried to kill it. But how did he get the gun? Kelly couldn’t tell. It was all chaos.
 
Horrible. Just horrible. I liked Talion’s best friend more. He was a jolly fellow compared to this wretched being. Obviously, we had to do something. Bart proposed a together training with the whole boat (well, except Marc, who was unconscious, and Vas, who had to extract the bullet from between his ribs…) Luckily, he wasn’t fatally wounded, and Vas really became a very good doctor. Before this he was actually just a herbalist, so it’s quite amazing. The journey really changed and strengthened us all.
 
As Bart indicated, we all looked at the persons on the ship with whom we “had a problem”. Needless to say it was a circus of looks, all over, especially in a triangle-area of Isbel, Dillen and Xebec. Ugh. I looked at Bart and at Heron, and at Dillen obviously. I would’ve looked at Talion, too, but then I realised I really didn’t have a problem with him. My problems with Talion died a long time ago, together with many other things.
 
Sometimes I wonder if I can recognise myself in the mirror, at all.
 
Anywhoo, we then all had to shake our hands with the people we looked at, and sort things out, so that the demon couldn’t use us. But I think the problem is that the demon uses everything, not just animosity between ourselves. We’ll have our own internal problems to solve, and they don’t come cheap.
 
The next day I talked to the three of them. I started with Dillen, since it was the easiest. I told him I can’t stand him, but that he’s my comrade and I’ll fight for him at any time. He smiled and said that he harbours no feelings for me, but that he understands we’re opposites and respects that. I swear, the guy is good. Almost convinced me he doesn’t deeply, religiously despise me. Hahah.
 
Heron was next. I was actually quite upset. I knew not what to say to him, but just before we talked I calmed down. In the end, he is my friend. That’s what matters. I told him I couldn’t understand his position and asked him to explain more, but then realised it was a mistake. In the end, the problem was that we had different views on the matter. Maybe I exaggerated last time out, but in a nutshell he focused on their faults, while I focused on ours. I still don’t agree, and I think he should review this kind of attitude, if he is to fight Evil alongside all men and women who want to fight for Good, no matter their provenance or complexity of mind, if you like, but I love and respect him as a friend and our differences should never tear us apart.
 
My heart was therefore easier when I faced Bart. Obviously, that meant nothing, my heart was still pounding heavily. I feel so secure around people, I always did. I was the same with Talion, even in the “good” days. But with Bart it’s different. I actually care if he sees me as a good person. And I mostly think of him as the good person and I the bad. So…
 
I apologised. I didn’t have something against him. Well, maybe. Well, a lot, dear journal, I hate you. I feel you’re judging me like “Come on, Eve, spit it out”. I told him something about that. I don’t know, I’m confused. I think he was harsh and distant for no good reason, he apologised to me, he admitted he was indeed distant on purpose, he had his hardships. But I care about them! I need to know about them to be able to do something, though. I felt a little… Well… Out of place. Bart sounded like he can have me as an accessory, but not a whole clothing. You know? For me, Bart is my clothes. For him, I’m a nice accessory he can wear sometimes. He doesn’t need me all the time like I, the obsessed, rage-filled, love-filled idiot Nutcase-Eve, do. At least he comes back to me now… I didn’t care about the above. I only cared he was back.
 
I hugged him so hard. Please, Bart, never let go again. It’s not humane, if nothing else. I really am a deranged person, deranged people should not be left to their own devices! Have some decency!
 
I also apologised for the Nixie thing. I still don’t know what happened there, or rather how it happened. Bart doesn’t seem to fully grasp the whole thing. I told him I betrayed him, I think he got that… I feel so dirty, even now. It will be a very hard feeling to shake off. Like, ever. I’d be less harsh on myself if I hadn’t known what I felt, the mixture of very stupid and bad feelings. And that I never kiss at random.
 
In any case, I didn’t tell him about my urge to leave the boat. I’ll carry that to the ground, probably. As split-second as it was, it’s still my biggest sin. But Eve has enough pride and sense of conservation not to show her whole rotten self at once. Or, rather, I’m weak. I’m not like Bart. There you go.
 
I hate this. Can we go back to the story?
 
I feel like I’m not in control of these words anymore. I feel compelled to write everything. That’s my way of confessing, I guess. This whole journal is basically a Damsel’s confession. Hm. Actually works for a title, if I ever publish this thing, which I obviously won’t, calm down!
 
In any case, Bart reminded me of our two-month anniversary the day after. Bart doesn’t know how much I hate anniversaries, because I had to count every day of the wretched year when Talion was apart from me, before he came back. Well, I hated anniversaries. Now I actually love them.
 
Everyone seems to have talked with everyone, and I feel the atmosphere on the ship is a little less weird. Just Kelly is sulking somewhere at the edge of the deck, never really a part of the ship, but I get that. I still think she has her own plans and devices, and is here only for a temporary ride. What is this mercenary thinking? She seems to have an extraordinary mind. She built a kind of sprinkle for our bath, so we can shower like underneath a small waterfall. Ingenious as she is, it’s only cold rationality. She still doesn’t understand what we’re doing and jokingly asked if we’re a cult. Probably in your dimension we would be. But this is the fun and smart dimension, then!
 
Going back to serious things, we passed the island called Dragonclaw during a very harsh storm. Our repaired ship held on well, thankfully. Good vessel, our Sapphire Sword. Bless her (‘cause she’s cursed…). Bart actually wrote me a poem for our anniversary (he told me to each write a short poem of 8 verses). Of course, being the incapable poet that I am, I wanted to be extra and wrote 12, well 13 if you include the word “dummy” heheheh. I’ll include both, for reference, but I keep Bart’s in my special jewelry box, together with Nixie's special fragment.
 
It was finally a great day for me, the first in many where I started to feel at ease. I still miss the unbridled happiness I had that night in the Sapphire Fountain, but I know I’ll get back. I still felt our love as strong. Maybe it’s stronger. It endured through stuff now. Like all good things should.
 
Talion used his vision the next day, or that day, things are so blurry to me now, to scout the seas west of Sten. We had seen a weird green stretch of water and he followed it to source. He didn’t want to come close, but saw a big black island-looking thing in the distance, with a green tentacle sticking out of it. And lots of green water, boiling and putrid, and with dead fish in it. And then he saw the westernmost Stenian island all burning, and a huge battlefield with Stenian and Fatorarkian dead, even dragons.
 
But far worse was what followed. The wretched demon attacked again. This time it latched onto Menn’e and made him spew and fall down and start convulsing. It was horrible, we tried to hold on to him, but he had superhuman strength. The demon was simply destroying him. Bart tried to help, too, but he suddenly fell in horror and fainted. Poor Bart, what he must’ve felt… He’s stronger than his body shows, so I’m sure it was terrible. God, I hate this demon so much. Now it’s even more personal, you whore.
 
The Elves came, alerted by Nixie, and resorted to exorcise the poor boy. The Fastodans were opposed. I felt they were very mad. I didn’t listen to their conversations with Nixie and Verfy (Didn’t want to interfere) but I believe that their religion stands in opposition with any interventions by people of other religions, at such a level. Yea, Fastodans are nice and all, until you are reminded that they serve bloodthirsty gods that make you fight the other gods or something. The Elves, Nixie and Verfy went to the Elvish ship to save him. They did… But at the cost of the eldest Elvish Elder. I was shook. The demon killed him. Menn’e actually died himself, almost, his heart had stopped, but they managed to bring him back, and make him breathe, and got the demon out. But can you believe this, dear journal? How strong is this demon!?!? The Elves described him as a Soul Eater, and Talion told us that means a Mivureh. A high-ranking Demon, but lower in rank than Marcel and even Axiol. LOWER THAN AXIOL!? Were these demons just joking around with us until now!? I’m worried. We badly underestimated them. And I thought at least I hadn’t….
 
Then again, the Soul Eaters are dangerous exactly because they… well, eat souls. That is, corrupt our magical essence and twist us, so we die in pain and fear and wrath and get straight to them, for their eternal pleasure and feeding. The kind of things your nanny would tell you so that you would stop throwing meatballs at other kids, or swearing.
 
I still want to throw meatballs at people, and I’m more curt and foul-mouthed than my appearance suggests, but… I’ll try to behave around this wretch. In any case, we were all deeply saddened and shook. We hoped Menn’e would recover soon, but the demon promised him he would return the next day…
 
As we deviated our course because of yet another storm, and because we actually saw the entirety of East Sten in flames, a giant torch with a huge Azure dragon in its midst………………………. we reached the northernmost Stenian island ourselves. It was… burning. Not all of it, but big swathes, and there was no way to stop that fire. It felt and look all-absorbing, all-destroying, it was not fire, but Destructive Flame. Kelly actually heard about the destructive powers of True Plasma as she calls it, but didn’t care to explain a lot. She simply shrugged it off as “skreling stuff”. Skrelings are these weird red, bald creatures, a race in her dimension.
 
That night we actually found a Stenian drifter. Poor man was burned heavily, sick and weak. He knew some common, and told us the Fatorarkians had invaded Sten with tens of dragons, but their biggest, a monster the size of an island (the one Talion told us about back in Ionolia – woken up by him and his friends) was slain by an even more horrid monster: a force of sickness of some sort, with green tentacles, that poisoned the water………..
 
I remembered something. There were writings of it. The prophets reminded us. And Talion remembered too. The old creatures of Cleansing. One was the Corruption of the Soul, and the other was the Corruption of the Body. Ancient beings, essence bearers, sent by the Almighty to absorb the innumerable sins and sufferings of humanity and cleanse them. Humanity, or rather, the conscious beings, had become irredeemably sinful, and risked destroying the world for ever, for all generation. The Cleansing saved the purer ones. It is said a whole race died out as a result of this Cleansing, though it has no name or confirmation. On eof the Corruptions was killed, the other wasn’t. This… This was the other. The Corruption of the Body.
 
The Stenian died in the night, suffering from what looked like Disease itself. He had green blood. I’ve never seen something more terrible. So this is how it looks. The firm Hand of the Almighty. I knew Him as love and guidance. But I know I must think of him as the Judge, too. For He is. It’s scary, I must admit. People never seem to be able to put the two types together. As if God can be either a Judge or Love. But they should. He who loves also protects. And since God is truth, only He can judge. And judgement is necessary, in a world of Good and Evil.
 
Thinking about that didn’t make it easier, though. Especially since poor Menn’e got infected by the essence of Disease itself. Did he deserve it? I don’t think so. I don’t know why he got infected. I just have faith something good will come out of all this. For him, for us. For someone. Anyone.
 
Once again, the Elves had to take care of him. They look so done with everything. They really didn’t expect this journey, now, didn’t they? I wonder what Kelly thinks of all this. Scratch that, what I really wonder is what Xixi thinks. Unfortunately, he keeps skipping her woranian lessons, and I’m left only with Drenizek, who’s quickly picking up on writing. I think he'll soon be able to read and write cursively. Reading is still hard, but he can write at decent speeds so far.
 
Our path brought us to Prepo, finally. What a place it would’ve been. Now it was just a sad place. Everyone was leaving. There were refugees from all over the place. The surrounding city-states had been burned down. The dragons were coming. Everyone could feel it.
 
That day, the Elves went to bury their Elder and speak to their kin in the northern part of the island. We went to Rodari Port in the east to sell some valuables and get money. We used it to finally pay the crew (Dillen gave them some money in the Marshes before that). They were so happy. It was literally their only happiness. They could finally start having clothes (not the rags they were left with after months of journeys and fights and storms), some new shiny things, some food, perhaps, or alcohol, I don’t know. Many bought clothes (including a still stricken Vadrek, who is walked around on a ledger by Orman and Brunek). I was actually curious to see what they would do with the money. Xebec went to buy some things from the nautical district I think, but I also saw him yell at a blacksmith to make him something really quick. Curious to see what. Dillen multiplied his money, why am I amazed.
 
I did see Drenizek sneakily getting past us and going somewhere, then I saw him frantically look for something. I followed suit, sneakily myself. My sneakiness was better, so I was able to saw him. He was getting all kinds of powders and colours from potioners, artisans and tanners. He also got a couple of brushes and a lot of fabric.
 
I felt a little lighter that evening.
 
The next morning, which is this one, I woke up early. I wanted to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. But what I also wanted was to see what the Stenians were up to. There were a lot of Stenian ships in the harbour where we had anchored our Sapphire Sword. It was quite the sight. These long ships with long flags, filled to the brim with armed people. Not only men. Women and children too. All of them painted white, with a black circle made of straight lines, rotating clockwise, on their faces. The same symbol was painted on their sails. All of them silent as the grave. None even faltering.
 
They were going back home. Back to their burnind, destroyed home. Many were from some “Exterior legion”. But there were also common folk, women, children. They were all armed the same. No remorse, no second thoughts. They would not die running. They would live dying. They sailed out of the harbour, ship by ship, with strong wind in their sails. As they left, they all shouted, with one voice: “O”.
 
Something between the O of the Stenians and Drenizek almost dropping half his bottles filled with colours and sheets of fabric because they were so many made me think a little better of this “ending” world of ours. Come, demons. Try your best.
 
May the Almighty protect and forgive us.
 
 
 
 
P.S.: I think that the ugly flaming-rotting demon won’t leave the boat until this is all over. It can’t. We can’t make him leave. It’s not that I have no faith, or hope… But the entire ship is tied to this Doom or great Change or how you want to call it. This entire ship is a bundle of continuously dissenting feelings. The demon both represents and feeds off of it. I feel that our fate is tied to the fate of our mission. That’s why I’m so anxious. I think we will all slowly come to this realisation. Our entire lives are completely intertwined with this. We must fight this demon, day in, day out, like we fight this Change or Doom. And by God we’ll fight it.