"Seawatcher... that's a very unique name you have there. Seawatcher..." Uriel had been repeating his name for the last ten minutes now. Seawatcher was starting to get tired of it.
"Okay, enough. No need to keep repeating it! Now I already told you my name. What's yours?"
Uriel's whole body froze when he was asked that. After all, he didn't like it when someone asked for his name, since his alcoholic father was the one who gave it to him. The name carried a deep stain, like everything his father had ever touched. That man had given him life, then taken everything else. Even the name felt like a leash now.
But Uriel threw all those personal feelings aside, since his savior was the one who asked.
"It's Uriel. The name means 'God is my light.' I was named after our village was struck by a deadly plague, and the people there prayed to the being up there almost every day and every second.....hoping to get just a bit of salvation from the mighty lord....." The blonde boy narrowed his eyes at Seawatcher, hoping to get a bit of reaction, but all he got was a painfully awkward silence.
Wanting to break through the thick atmosphere, the boy came up with another question.
"Say... what does Seawatcher mean? Is there any deep message behind it? And also, why are you watching this sea? I don't even know where we are."
Seawatcher didn't answer Uriel's question yet. He tapped his walking stick a few times on the creature's hard bone and pointed toward the distant sea with his pole. The creature wailed a beautiful melody tone and changed its direction toward the area the watcher had pointed at.
"You really don't know where you are?" The mantle man finally spoke, his voice deeper than ever. Uriel was puzzled by that question. Besides, how could he know that the tiny well he was dropped into would lead to this vast black ocean?
"No, I don't even know if we're still on Earth. Everything seems so confusing ever since I saw two giant creatures fighting in the water..." Seawatcher flinched after hearing Uriel. He turned his body toward the boy and spoke.
"Really? Are the creatures the only thing you found strange?" The mantle figure seemed to be hinting at something. Uriel thought for a while, then his eyelids proceeded to open wide after remembering the strange encounter while he was still being dropped down the dark well.
"Something weird appeared when I was falling before landing on the sea. A woman's voice spoke to me, and suddenly a screen appeared in front of me. It was saying some nonsense words, but I do remember it mentioning the word..." Uriel thought for a while, then looked at Seawatcher and said, "Nihigloo... It was saying that they'd transport me to Nihigloo." The cloaked man gave no reaction, unlike Uriel. He simply turned back to his previous position.
"There. You got your answer. You're in the treacherous Gloom Ocean of Nihigloo."
Seawatcher swayed his walking stick, the lantern tracing a slow, glowing circle through the air. The amber light washed over the dark water in a wide arc, illuminating nothing but more waves, darkness, and more of the same endless sea.
"The Gloom Ocean... once a vast coast, ruled over by a tyrant ruler. The God of Nihility."
Seawatcher turned his head slightly toward Uriel, just enough for the blondie to see the edge of his hood shift. Then he looked away again, back to the endless black water.
Uriel blinked. "The God of what? What do you mean?" All of this made Uriel confused. A couple hours ago, he had just been banished inside a tiny well that could only fit one person at a time. Then a window suddenly appeared in front of him. After that, he got dropped into a violent ocean, just to get caught up in two monsters dueling. And now Seawatcher was telling him things he didn't understand.
"Could you please explain more? So you're saying we're at an ocean called the Gloom Sea, but it was once ruled over by the God of Nihility? How does that make sense?"
Instead of answering Uriel's question, Seawatcher gave a short, sharp tap to his walking staff again. The creature shuddered beneath them, then slowly pivoted, following where the rod pointed.
"Didn't you get gazed at by a God before coming here? Every witcher has experienced it." Seawatcher spoke in such an eerie, calm way that made Uriel shiver slightly.
"Gazed... I think I remember that." He recalled the time when the screen disappeared and was instead replaced by a more elegant looking one. He didn't really know what the window meant when it said a God had bestowed their gaze upon him.
"Yeah, I remember it said the God of Light bestowed their gaze upon me." All of a sudden, he heard a weak and faint chuckle coming from Seawatcher. The mantle figure turned his head over his shoulder a bit to look at the blondie.
"God of Light. That's fitting for you, considering your name's meaning. Maybe that's why you caught the interest of that God." Uriel also just realized that, but he quickly pushed that thought away when he heard how Seawatcher's tone changed to a more light and friendly one, instead of the deep tone that would always intimidate the teenage boy.
The Seawatcher let out a few chuckles before turning his head away, toward his previous position.
"Just say this word inside your head: 'Turn the page.' This'll make things easier for you, and also for me to explain." The blonde boy was perplexed at first, but shrugged it off since his savior was the one who told him to do it.
Turn...the page.
Uriel barely finished the thought when his head went weightless, like someone had scooped out his thoughts and left only empty space behind. Then came the black ink. It flooded his eyes for a fraction of a second, turning the world into a dark blur before vanishing completely, leaving no residue and no stain in his eyes.
When his vision cleared, pages were already turning in the air before him. One after another, they flipped swiftly, becoming faster with each passing moment until it was a cascade of paper that blurred into motion. Then, just as suddenly, they slowed down. The rustling softened. One final page turned into place, and the system stopped, with strange runes written all over the page.
{ Witcher Uriel Codex }
{ Origin: God of Light }
{ Oddity: Divine Assimilation }
{ Rank: Fledgling }
{ Condition: Disoriented }
{ Stored Essence: 0 }
{ Titles: [Accursed Son] }
{ Marks: [Banished] }
{ Race: [Human] }
{ Alignment: Light 81% | Dark 19% }
{ Burden: Light alignment must not fall under 60% or the witcher will face consequences }