Oblivion's Stairway

Day 2 life 2 Soma Gaol 

Jord Breckenmere 

Wolf Den 

John was alive, but that was hardly the same as thriving. He released the mother wolf, and she didn't try to eat him immediately, which seemed like progress. 

The wolf den was warm. The mother wolf and the fluff covering the floor kept his body warm, and the pups also huddled around him. 

The little grey balls were all fat and happy, and he probably wasn't taking that much milk. He didn't plan to remain for more than a week or two. 

John was suffering from some personal issues. His envy chains were at their weakest because he was doing relatively okay. Grace would fill in the gaps, and he could still walk on them. 

He fell asleep a few times and woke up to the mother wolf licking his ass. Thankfully, she didn't try to eat him. 

Day 3 Wolf Den

He focused on his spiritual sense and found little motes of golden energy floating around. John wanted them. One floated nearby, and he pulled at it with his grace. The stubborn thing floated on like he wasn't there. It was denser than the spark of grace in his soul. That was a blow to his pride. 

It couldn't be born. 

Day 4 Wolf Den

He pulled at the golden mote, fell asleep, woke up, and pulled some more. Each time he failed to snag one, he fell unconscious from exhaustion and woke up sucking on wolf milk. 

The pups had grown noticeably while he was a human child growing slowly. Still, he had changed a little. 

His grace was becoming more reactive to his commands. At first, it was just a spark, but after repeated use, it grew. If before it was a 1.0, it had become a 1.05. 5% growth from a full day of trying to use it would be great if that were the growth rate. 5% per day would double his grace in 15 days. 

Day 5 Wolf Den

Motes had their gravity or a form of it. Where they came from or what they were for was a complete mystery. As an infant in a cave feeding off wolf charity, he didn't feel he could do more than stretch his grace and try to pull the mote in. There were lots of them all around him. 

John saw them in his spirit sense; they were floating somewhere. John could feel a current but not where it flowed. One hundred years of practice in hell hadn't increased the range of his spirit sense, only its detail. There was more he could tell like the wolves slowly absorbed the motes from the food they digested. 

Upon death, motes stored in the body were released. 

It was like they also had grace but no way of using it. Being animals must be very frustrating, but ignorance was bliss. 

Day 6 Wolf Den

He hadn't stretched his spirit sense to its maximum range in a century. Out of boredom, he tried it. 

It moved!

His range moved for the first time in a century, but why? It didn't make any sense. The only changes were his lack of sin energy, reincarnation, and being outside hell. John pushed his range out as far as it would go. 

His range had tripled in size after losing sin energy and leaving hell. 

He couldn't ignore some things, like the smell of the den, the flees that crawled over his body filled with who knew what diseases, and the easiest meat to find. 

The male wolf brought human baby corpses for the mother wolf to feed upon. Both wolves were fat from the easy meals. He had no choice but to bury his feelings on the matter. 

They were dumb animals trying to survive, and they followed the path of least resistance. If they didn't eat the corpses, the flies or other scavengers would. 

John knew he couldn't stay much longer after the wolves gained a taste for human flesh. How long before a cleaning from the mother wolf turned into reclaiming lost calories? No, he had to get away. 

That meant he needed another source of mother's milk until he developed enough to eat solid food. 

Day 7 Wolf Den 

It wouldn't be long before the pups opened their eyes and started moving around. They were quickly growing larger. 

He began improving his Chains of Want, which were previously tools meant to bind and bring down flying enemies. He gained wrath and pride after earning his first source and becoming an avatar of a primal sin. He could combine his Sword of Hate with his Chains of Want to form his Chains of War, weapons designed to rip enemies apart. 

John wasn't in hell anymore, and he had access to grace. Tweaking a technique might not be impossible. He wanted to add hands to the end of his chains. It was ambitious, but he thought it was possible. 

Day 10 Wolf Den 

He pulled a mote from the air and slowly took it into himself. He fell asleep afterward. 

Day 11 Wolf Den 

The pups opened their eyes and wouldn't stop staring at him. Water began to spill into the Den. It was only a little at first, then more. The mother wolf took two of her pups and left the den. The father wolf entered, took one look at him, grabbed two more, and left. Hours later, the mother wolf returned and took the last two. 

He wasn't entirely disappointed when they didn't try to take him with them. John was tired of wolf milk. Maybe he should go after something a little fattier. He sprang up four chains and found his body had grown much heavier. 

After absorbing the mote, his grace levels increased by 0.5. 

His grace had grown from 1.0 to 2.8 in only 8 days. Powering his chains no longer required an intense emotion. He observed the end of his chains. They had two fat toes instead of hands like he wanted. The emerald metal pressed against the dirt, and he used a fifth chain to wrap clumps of wolf fur around himself to help protect himself from the cold and support his head. 

Outside the formerly warm and dry den, the cold hit him like the blow of an angry Gelugon of Cocytus. 

Many treasonous people he heard about, from the radio to Tictoc, ended up there. He took pleasure in killing them with his Sword of Hate. Even knowing they would respawn, he couldn't help himself. 

He shook off the pleasant memory, returned to his situation, and wished he hadn't. 

His eyes were still too cloudy to see the bloated, fly-infested corpses of infants and toddlers that his spirit sense's panoramic vision gave unblinking clarity. 

John's fragile infant body zoomed over the ground as he stretched his spirit, noticing his increased range. There was a farm nearby with goats and cattle. With any luck, some of them were producing milk. 

…

TO ANY WHO PASS THIS WAY—

Run.

Turn back if your path leads you near Brackenmere or any town the River Bryn touches. The wolves are not in the woods—they wear the red cloaks of Abel and carry blades etched with scripture. Their leader is no man but a devil with a priest's tongue. They call him Inquisitor Veritas Clades. Do not speak his name aloud. He hears it in the wind.

Three nights passed, and they came for us. They didn't steal grain or coin. They stole souls. They ripped babes from cradles and tossed them into the Bryn like stones, laughing as the current took them. My sister's boy, Emmett, was born just last moon—his tiny hand slipped through my fingers. Clades stood on the riverbank, chanting prayers to god as the water choked the life from those babes. He said it was a "mercy."

His men are worse than brigands. They're fanatics. They carve the Hundred-Day Reckoning into doorframes before they burn homes. They drink wine from our temple's chalices and piss on the graves of those who fought them. Their eyes are empty, like dolls' eyes. No remorse. No mercy.

 Abner tossed the latest villager's warning sign, the men fished out of the Bryn River on a roaring fire and pressed his hands against the flames. 

"A little wordy, don't you think." 

They found the man with a sack full of the signs, each with the same warning. It was clever tossing enough down the river the current would take the signs with the babes. Someone was bound to see them. 

"You people's priests say we read the scriptures wrong, and the old god is the evil creator, and the new god is our savior. As I recall, when the pharaoh demanded the firstborn of every slave's home, my god saved Amasa after his mother sent him down the river to save him." Abner kicked the tied peasant's back and watched him fall into the river. "I'm not one for speaking my prayers aloud; I'll leave that to the priests. But you should be happy I'm freeing you from the cage of your sinful body." 

Abner recognized the man who placed the warning as the farmer, the same scared shit who let them take his son. They left the man's cows, goats, and chickens alone and only butchered his plow horse for the meat. 

He'll send some boys to grab the lot if they aren't called to regroup with the main force in a few weeks when they run out of fresh meat. It would slow them down, but they were in the middle of winter, and the roads were mostly shit. No one was coming to check on the village for months. 

Normally they would run a little wild and rape a few local girls, but the inquisitor would find out and kill them. That was the problem when dealing with scary guys like him. 

…

John hit the jackpot when he found a young nanny still producing milk. She was painfully full. He dragged her into the farmhouse out of the cold wind and glutted himself on her milk. 

Once John was out of the cold and full, he fell asleep on the farmer's bed. 

Chapter 3 is up on my Patreon1 for $1 and 4 and 5 are up for $5.