Once, there was an oasis. A place in the dying realm where monsters got tired of killing. They told each other that surely, it was because of their endless fighting that mana was gone and the humans had left. So if they stopped fighting, it would all come back.
It didn't come back, naturally, and the oasis died soon after.
But the belief floated around, that such a place still existed where monsters could go and survive the mana drain. A place where forsaking one's instincts meant life. They still ventured into the dry desert in search of such a myth.
Such was the land the Parao was sailing toward.
I was sit at the ship's bow, as had apparently become my habit. Nasse had curled up next to me for a nap. We were both tired of crafting armor plates that kept breaking.
Or rather, if the oasis existed, then there was no point anymore.
The human came out from the stern and ran on the deck: "It's here! It's here! Where is it?" And climbed on the ship's crossed masts.
He could fly but, whatever.
"Calisle, do you see it?"
The wyvern's exposed skull followed us a good distance away, barely out of the ground. If he heard him, he did not answer.
But the human was right. Out in the distance, the flat landscape had started to ondulate. Small hills broke the monotony. Morning dawned through the sparse clouds and exposed their miserable vegetation.
Now Nasse was seeing it too. The lizard got up and paced a bit.
"I can hardly believe it exists." He admitted.
"I can't believe it still exists." I said in turn.
It shouldn't have. Magic ebbed and flow, nothing should have remained but a rocky waste.
Yet as we approached, the broken remains of a monolith met us. A dry stone canal attached it to the oasis. Some vain attempt at keeping this place alive.
The skeletal wyvern veered off there and let us continue alone.
Beyond were patches of black grass that kept breaking into ashes. Then the grass turned brown and brittle, covering the first hills where hollow trees and bare bushes looked dead. They relinquished a scent of charred wood in a damp air.
Tiny black flakes floated around in imperceptible gusts of wind.
A callac had been standing on the nearest hill. That deer beast saw us and fled. I knew it wasn't because of our strength.
Our ship's keels reached the grass, slid on it and soon we were sailing past the hill, into the dead meadow. On our left afar stretched a pond of boiling tar.
More monsters showed up, mostly alone, disturbed by the glory of a human boat. From the masts the teenager was taking it all. I was as well. There were monsters I thought were all but extinct.
A few were grouped and ran to ghost us along the landscape.
I steered us to a stream of tar and followed it. Here and there monsters had erected walls out of dirt and clay to imitate the hollow trees and form a lair. The rest were coming out of tunnels on the hills' slopes. They were wary of each other, yet moved together.
Before us that crowd was moving to block our path. They had all but encircled us. I folded the sails and brought the Parao to a halt.
We were still a fair bit away from the center of the oasis, but this would do.
The human jumped back on the deck and rushed to a side, at the edge of the ship to look at the dozens of creatures assembled.
"This is amazing! They are all friendly! Do you think they have a market? What kind of money do monsters use?"
I kindly pushed him back a few steps, away from the edge.
There were three ways, mainly, a monster could speak and one of them was gestures. Those beasts were expressing a lot of things but their main message was: go away.
A wilhorn among them broke off and approached. That mammoth had butterfly wings dragging down instead of the usual shells, and similar wings falling on his head. As a result of veering toward illusion, that beast was skinnier than his peers.
His voice was actually gentle, if slow: "You are breaking the peace of the oasis."
For however polite it would have been to humor him, I felt like getting to the point.
"Answer me..." I turned to the human.
"Placide."
The teenager's system could really tell anyone's name at a glance.
"Answer me, Placide. Has the oasis reached soulmate?"
That word provoked a ruckus. The monsters growled, scratched, screeched. So they had heard of it and given their state, their defiance, the hungry flanks and drooling maws, I could conclude that the answer was no.
Yet if not for soulmate, how could the oasis still stand?
"Who are you to know that word?" The wilhorn replied. "Whatever you have to say, we will hear it."
"Then let us in, and let us discuss."
"But the human must leave."
Of all things... I could see the grass turning yellow from under the keel, that teenager's magic flowing to them and they didn't want that?
"Why? What did I do wrong?" He reacted.
"You bring magic. Magic is forbidden here. And you are human. Yet humans haven't returned, have they? And so you bring false hope. Your presence threatens the peace of the oasis."
"I don't get it," he insisted, "isn't mana a good thing? I thought everyone wanted it."
"We do want it, that's true. We kill for it. But if monsters kill, the oasis dies. It is hard enough to maintain peace without your temptation."
I pushed the human further back and got in front, arms wide open.
"Is that all? Then I propos this: we can seal his magic and change his looks. Let him remain then and we will talk about soulmate."
Once more the monsters spit and snarled. They were talking among each other, unaware that a clay golem could listen to vibrations. Short words between the risk and the hopes they had.
A menilis broke off from the crowd too and hopped in the grass. That lengthy cat bare her fangs.
"As long as you disguise him better than you, golem, we can agree to that!"
So the work began. I would be alone: Nasse had left already to discover those dead meadows. In the lower deck, I equipped the human with an armor marked with seals. He immediately felt it and rubbed his arms, feeling cold.
Then, I quickly molded him a bird mask with a long black beak, and crafted a cape of metallic feathers to wear. His wings still emerged from all of that, which only helped.
Monsters would still know who he was but it was their instinct we were trying to trick.
The menilis, Chipie, took her time to agree that this would be enough. But finally we were allowed to leave the ship, now that the grass stayed brown under our feet.
Further upstream, close to the biggest hill and the center of the oasis, lay dozens of dens and entrances, as well as clay and stone walls with their jagged lines following groves of charred trees. Two rocky bridges crossed the tar.
It all looked like a wild village.
"Where is Placide?" The human wondered, his voice muffled by the bird mask.
Only that menilis monster was guiding us.
"He keeps the peace! We fight and fight and someone has to judge!"
She explained further, but I could already tell what it meant. Monsters that killed for mana were told not to kill. How to enforce that? Whoever broke the rule got killed. But then, the incentive became to find someone who broke the rule, so you could kill.
And so their oasis was full of feuds and quarrels, beasts in search of an excuse to spill black blood.
"It doesn't sound that great..."
The human sounded disappointed, almost sad. But our guide stopped, eyes wide. And frankly I would have had the same expression.
"What do you mean?! Min-Seok, don't you feel it? The realm eating you alive? Everywhere around is death, what few come here tell us of endless misery and look! Look around! Is there any place better to live?"
Yes. There probably were. Although more mana meant more predators and being on top was being the one most hit by the drain. So, arguably, this was not the most potent spot in the ream. But it was the most reliable.
She brought us along to the large hill. There, an old tree had almost entirely covered it by itself. Only the hollow trunk remain, even the roots decayed. They had brached the bark to make a path inside where bushes and thorns grew wild.
"But you are still suffering here..." The human complained.
"Yes, we are." This time the menilis had lost enthusiasm. "But the humans will come back! After all, you are here! Others will come! You will restore the realm and we will hunger no more!"
She meant they would feast. Hunt. Go back to killing without concerns.
A narrow path brought us through the thorns into a clearing.
And here it was.
She hopped forward and showed us the statue that stood in the middle of it all, at the top of that hill. The heart of the oasis, so to say.
A sky lynx.
Time had eroded the stone, cracked it here and there and roughed up the shape but through it all it remained discernable. A monstrous lynx rising on its hing legs to leap, frozen in that motion, its jaw roaring eternal.
"This is the statue the humans left us! All of us swore before it to protect the peace of the oasis! If you want to stay, you will have to do the same!"
I walked forward, too close for her to feel comfortable. My hand touched the stone and started to caress it. Where I touched, the rough mass smoothened.
"Wait! What are you doing?!" She panicked.
All she could see was my inscrutable badger mask.
"Hello old friend." I began. "How long has it been? Are you still waiting? Of course you are."
It was stone, to be clear. There was no one to talk to. Not even a trace. Still, I kept rubbing the stone, fixing the cracks. I could almost recognize the beast that had been behind.
The menilis had gone from fear to awe.
"So I guess you found it. I guess you were right. You found soulmate. You fiend found soulmate."
I had fallen to my knees again. I should really lose that habit.
So, what was soulmate? Supposedly a relation between two monsters that created mana. In practice, apparently, a way to force mana to pool where you wished. Some spell powerful enough to sustain a whole meadow and have it thrive despite the mana drain.
Or, to be poetic, a relation between all monsters that pooled mana to them.
The peace of the oasis.
I had restored the statue. All that was left was getting rid of the thorns that encroached at its base. And even that didn't feel like enough.
But the human had been staring at that sky lynx the whole time, confused and curious. He suddenly woke up and exclaimed: "Sora! His name is Sora!"
And a surge of memories made me stagger. The voice, the smiles, the anger, the death. A whole past had hit me like a punch, brought to life again.
Then the human turned frantic: "Kaele! Follow me!"
I watched him run out. I didn't want to leave the statue but forced myself, out of the bushes, out of the hollow tree. Down the hill. He was already reaching the ship. I climbed onboard after him just as he was opening the hatch.
In the lower deck, behind the stair, a monster hissed at him and scratched the bars with its sharp legs.
"Mikan!" He tried. "Daichi? Daichi! Come on, you two were friends, right?!"
I jumped down after him, froze at the sight. The dark magic had her in fury, the monster ripping on the floorboards.
"Kinako! Caline!"
And the realm changed in an instant.