The morning sun, struggling to pierce the perpetual twilight cast by the massive, ancient trees near the Iron Forest, filtered down in scattered, dusty beams. Roric had left them at the designated boundary, where the ambient Flow from the nearby Node would occasionally spill over the perimeter. This overflow sometimes solidified into Flowstone fragments which could be found around the area.
"First one to fill their pouch with ten fragments gets the largest trout at dinner," Roric had announced, his voice echoing with easy confidence, before vanishing into the dense woods of the outpost.
"Stay clear of the deep growth near the Node itself. I'll be back shortly."
Jamie, already energized by the competition, had darted off, her movements quick and unpredictable, searching the roots of the massive trees.
Elias, however, had immediately excused himself. He walked deeper into the thicket, ignoring the dull, ever-present hum of the Node. He needed privacy, not for Flowstone collection, but for a private experiment.
He found a secluded hollow, shielded by the thorny, metallic bushes characteristic of the Iron Forest. He stood there for a moment, his Flow discipline perfectly maintained, his face an empty mask.
'The simplest way should be the cleanest.'
He lifted his hand, channeling a pinpointed burst of crystalised Anti-Flow into the carotid artery while circulating Flow through his body.Blood sprayed as he gasped for air. The expectation was that the two opposing energies would cause the cells around the area to cease function instantly. The area turned cold, briefly deadening the tissue, but his body broke down the shard lodged in his neck and flooded the site with rejuvenating energy, repairing the damage before any lasting trauma could set in. The whole thing took a few mere moments.
'Tch.' He pulled out the Velvet Archive and recorded the outcome. Inside there were a number of scribblings from his previous attempts as well as Flow theories to reproduce technology from his old world he had written during his boredom.
He tried everything from shooting himself in the head and chest to overloading his organs with energy to cause a systemic crash But he automatic rebound mechanism always found ways to heal the damage he dealt.
He returned his Diary to a pocket within his jacket and, with a sigh, he pulled the Jade dagger from his belt—the weapon Aina had given him, supposedly capable of draining a user's spiritual reserves.
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Elias drove the dagger swiftly and surely into his own chest, just above the sternum.
The sensation was sharp and intense, but not because of the physical injury. It was the sudden, shocking vacuum created by the blade's ability to pull Flow from his body. For a fraction of a second, Elias felt the rush of his spiritual life force being forcibly extracted. It was a cold, draining emptiness, exhilarating in its finality.
'Is this is it?'
But his body, fought back. Elias had far more energy than the jade could absorb; the dagger became a bottleneck, a tiny drain attempting to empty an immense, deep lake. His dense, Flow reacted violently to the forced depletion. With a sudden, muffled thwump, his contracting chest muscles forced the dagger back out, the blade skipping away to land silently on the mossy ground.
Bright, crimson blood immediately pooled on his jacket tunic, soaking into the fabric. Yet, as quickly as it spilled, the massive regenerative forces closed the wound entirely, leaving behind only a faint, angry red scar that would fade completely in minutes and the blood itself seemed to wither away.
'Fruitless,' his mind concluded, the word devoid of emotion, yet heavy with the weight of ultimate disappointment.He stared at the dagger, his pupils wide and lightless.
He had tried this method within his Soul Domain thinking it was capable of shattering his soul.
It didn't work.
His nascent Flow had instantly knit the fragments back together. Now, in the physical world, away from all that energy the result was the same.
'Pointless. All of it. A fruitless endeavor from start to finish.'
Elias was starting to doubt he could successfully off himself. Just last week, his mother had announced she was pregnant again. He thought back to his younger sisters in his previous life—the joy of his parents, the way they fawned over them, distracting them completely from him, the him who was going through...
He pursed his lips into a thin, white line.
He glanced at the jade dagger. Its white blade glinted cruelly in the speckled light.
A musical voice, light and slightly tomboyish, cut through the heavy silence of the forest.
"Hey, what are you doing with that knife?"
Elias flinched and looked up instantly. Jamie was perched crouched on a massive, horizontal branch of an oak tree, looking down at him with genuine curiosity. He noted how she had arrived—no sound, just there, like an elemental sprite.
'How much did she see?'
He quickly cllosing the jacket he had opened to stab himself and hide the blood stains.
"Nothing," Elias said, his voice flat, his old, detached consciousness asserting itself.
Jamie slid vertically down the trunk, landing with the lightness of a cat. She walked toward him, her hands linked behind her head, her blue eyes sharp.
"I haven't seen you in like, an hour. I wondered if you were crying because you were gonna mis out on Papa;s Trout dinner."
Elias didn't react he just looked at her with his dead eyes and turned.
"I found some Flowstone." He said discreetly crystalizing shards of his flow and showing them to her.
"Hmm, Whats wrong?" She asked ignoring the shards and leaning towards him.
"You've been weirder than normal since your mom announced she's expecting."
Elias began to walk, pushing past the dense undergrowth, forcing her to follow.
"What do you mean, 'weirder than normal'?"
"Like, down," Jamie explained simply, keeping pace easily.
"And honestly, I've noticed you have a tendency of hurting yourself. I can't tell if it's deliberate or if your Accelerate Heal is so awesome you just don't notice when you run into things."
He glanced at Jamie, her attention drawn away momentarily by a large, bright orange butterfly fluttering past her ear.
'She is oddly perceptive.'
He had always contained his contemplation within the confines of his own mind, recently talking only to his clones,which he could now manifest a handful of, who, unfortunately, only mirrored his own empty dialogue. Yet, this girl, this loud, chaotic individual, saw the pattern of his self-destruction something he though he'd masked to be imperceptable .
He glanced at her again. Her hand was outsretched, palm-up, and the butterfly—a species he recognized as drawn to high-Flow density—slowly landed on her fingertip, gently opening and closing its wings. He saw the look of unblemished wonder in her clear blue eyes—the gaze of an innocent who had yet to be truly touched by the unfairness, the ultimate pointlessness, of the world.
Liv...
He tried to visualize her face, but he couldn't. Only the fleeting memory of her smile remained. He couldn't remember the faces of his parents or the school he attended. It was all a hollow echo. He thought of Alaric and Elara, and Aina and felt a strange relief that their faces were now the only ones that came to mind when he thought of family, but...
Despite himself, he spoke the question that was consuming him.
"Hey Jamie," he started, his voice the detached, slightly older tenor of his previous life.
"What's up Ellie?" she asked, not looking away from the butterfly.
He turned to look at her fully, and she was now covered in butterflies. They clung to her shoulders, nestled in her hair, and dotted the fabric of her tunic. He yelled in genuine surprise, startled by the sudden, whimsical vision.
"I thought I told you to stop calling me that, I'm not a girl."
"But it rhymes with Jamie. Besides, its not like you could stop me." Jamie laughed, a clear, musical sound, more butterflys dancing around her. Elias sighed.
"Whatever. So If—just assume—you were in a situation where you had a lot of siblings-"
""I don't. I'm an only child."
"I know but imagine that you did, and your dad gave them more attention, what would you do?"
Jamie tilted her head, considering this odd premise.
" But… why? Are you anxious that you won't be getting enough attention from your papa and mama now?" She nudged him playfully with her elbow.
Elias blushed and looked away.
"That's—that's not it! I'm asking philosophically. Wouldn't you think of it as unfair that the father who always showed you love is turning his attention to the most recent spawn? The newest project?"
Jamie stopped walking, reaching a clearing that was unexpectedly bright, filled with Silverbell flowers—small, trumpet-shaped blooms symbolizing enduring love—and the deep purple Mourning Iris, often associated with loss and memory. The air here was lighter, sweet and deceptively peaceful.
She released the butterflies, and they spiraled above the sea of flowers, a breathtaking, orange and black cloud against the sun-dappled green.
Jamie turned to Elias, her expression unexpectedly serious.
"I can't really understand where you're coming from with this philosophy talk, Ellie," she said, her voice dropping some of its childish lilt.
"But it's the same with my mother. I never really knew her. She died when I was really little, littler than I am now. I only have faint, blurry memories. And Father won't talk about her much, other than the fact that she loved us both."
She looked down at the flowers, then back up at him, her gaze clear and resolute.
"I still believe she loves me, even if she's dead. And that's what makes living with my dad more exciting. Because she wouldn't want me to be sad. She'd want me to have fun and be awesome. So I am."
Elias watched her, thinking of Roric—the quiet, powerful man who seemed to carry an invisible weight, yet never failed to meet his duty or show profound, unconditional love to his daughter.
They stood in silence in the clearing. Then, Jamie reached out her hand and gently, firmly, took the Jade dagger from Elias's hand intertwining her fingers with his.
"You shouldn't worry about not getting attention, Elias," she said, holding the Flow-draining blade carelessly, as if it were a twig.
"You have me. And I'll be your friend forever."
She smiled, a wide, genuine, utterly innocent expression that filled Elias with an emotion he hadn't recognized since his previous life—a sudden, sharp warmth that chased away the cold detachment of his beliefs. He smiled back—an authentic, unfiltered smile—and reached out to gently pat her head.
"You're still such a child, Jamie."
Jamie's nose twitched.
"Why do you smell like blood?''
Elias froze.
"It was...uh... a mosquito."
"Theres a lotta blood.''
"It was a big mosquito."
***
Miles away, an old man with a weathered face and eyes that held the quiet knowledge of the ancient woods, the old man S.K., stepped out from the dense treeline. He paused, looking back toward the turbulent heart of the Forest, before turning and beginning his long walk toward the distant, gleaming spires of Blackhaven to procure supplies.
***
Deep within the forest, where the metallic trees twisted into monstrous shapes, the men in grey robes gathered around a cleared pit. At the pit's center lay the remains of the elaborate, arcane cage they had used to thold a certain creature. The cage was twisted and destroyed, and where the formidable Beast had been, only a pulsing, grey blob of corrosive flesh remained, the remains of the man who was gaurding it. Frosted reptilian foorprints led out of the camp toward the direction of Blackhaven.
Their leader, a thin figure, stood before the wreckage. The upper part of his face was completely obscured by the deep shadow of his hood, but his exposed lips broke into a smile.
" Our plans begin now." He said.