The Endless Solvent

They approached Gendis in the middle of the day. The sky grew overcast and a muggy fog fell around them, making everyone including the horses uneasy. Camaz knew he was close to Gendis not because of his careful survey of the map but because of a growing sense of dread at the pit of his stomach. If he didn’t know better he would think the Gate was still open.

From what studies could be made of them, the Gates were definitely something born out of the Great Solvent itself. The disruption of the Solvent gave off waves that everyone can feel regardless of their familiarity with abilities and commonly came off as feelings of dread or anxiety. The common theory is that emotion translates to a certain ‘pitch’ through the solvent, just like sound does through air. It just so happens the Gate ‘pitch’ matches that of dread.

However the dread Camaz was feeling was strictly from within him. Laell agreed to this conclusion when he asked her in private. The Gate at Gendis was reported weeks ago and should have collapsed by itself by now, as all Gates do over time; not to mean a new one can’t have opened during their travels but this wasn’t the case.

As they rode through the forest with growing fog, the sounds of animals had grown quiet. Camaz swears that even the ground he walked on was devoid of insects. An overwhelming silence has taken over the land, not unlike the disquieting lack of noise coming from a fresh corpse. Sharp had grown increasingly transparent as they approached Gendis, although it hadn’t gone away. Its movements were slow and almost sheepish, as if it didn’t really want to be there. Camaz couldn’t really blame it; he didn’t want to be there either.

The one good thing this unsettling change of scenery brought Camaz was that he was now fairly sure none of the four students were responsible for their tail. He was the one responsible for leading them and had brought them the long way to Gendis and had changed the usual route there, making an approach from the south rather than the west. None of them commented on the change of course; Camaz assumed none of them fully realized it. For the past day after changing their course, Sharp seemed to have lost interest in their path traveled, and no longer looked like it was expecting a visitor. If someone on the group was feeding someone their location, their tail would still be following them.

If one of the Academy students were leaving a trail to follow, they would have doubly done so when they changed courses and started traveling through thick fog. Since their stalker had failed to do so, it would mean whoever was following them was informed at the start of their trip; information had leaked between the Academy, Moulu or Orrna. Someone associated with one of the three was interested in what happened to Aris.

Camaz let out a sigh which sounded loud in the unnerving silence. All four students glanced at him but he ignored them and kept going. It was too late to turn back.

Dori was the one who first went on high alert. The blond young man unsheathed his twin shivs, muscles coiling as he took on a ready stance. The other two manus students slipped swords out of sheaths before asking what was the matter.

“I smell it,” Dori simply said. He swiveled his head back and forth, then jutted his chin in one direction. The rest of the group followed him as he led the way. The fog reluctantly let them through to the first clearing through the forest path and the edge of the village of Gendis began along with traces of a long and bloody massacre.

Houses were left with doors ajar, windows broken. Some were missing walls or half burned down. Soon Camaz didn’t need keen senses to smell rotting corpses and the rancid stench of things left to fester. Raka visibly blanched at the sight of body parts strewn and half rotted while Laell held a shocked hand to her mouth.

“Look for survivors,” Camaz said. “And be careful. Laell stays with one of you.”

The four students nodded and half-dispersed, making sure they were still relatively close while spreading out to find signs of life. Camaz turned to Sharp to gently prod it through the Great Solvent, but it was still near transparent and acted like it just wanted to blend into its surroundings. It seemed like it wasn’t going to help much. Annoyed, Camaz half closed his eyes and reached out to try to look for a familiar solute. It was unreliable, of course, like reaching blindly through pitch blackness and groping around to find something. He brushed past Verne, Laell, then Dori and Raka’s solute, easily identified Sharp’s small chip of presence which he interacted with frequently but there was nothing else nearby.

Camaz tried again in several locations, yielding nothing. The students didn’t have much luck either in finding anyone.

“This looks like it used to be the town hall,” Verne commented, pointing at a larger building that was much more torn up than the others. The roof was almost completely stripped off, the wall that probably had the door in it reduced to rubble. “There’s burnt marks on the walls and a lot of blood.”

Laell immediately went over with Camaz to investigate. She let out a half strangle scream when a severed head lay just inside the house with its flesh showing signs of gnawing. The rest of it was bloated and darkened with decay. The whole house stank.

“Don’t look at it,” Camaz grasped the young woman by the elbow and steered her to a clear spot where she could see the burnt marks. “Just look for runes.”

Unfortunately more signs of bodies became obvious the longer they observed the area. At the center of the burnt marks lay an extremely rotted body with its bones showing through its melting flesh. Laell held together as long as she could before staggering out of the half destroyed house to vomit. It didn’t matter that much since there was evidence of runes being drawn but the information was so sparse it probably wasn’t worth investigating. With his stomach roiling at the stench, Camaz observed that the severely rotted body seemed to be at the center of the burn marks, what remains of the runes and lines radiating out from it. Doubtless this would be where the Gate opened.

There were no signs of the Unseeing anywhere. The entire village was cold, dead and silent. With a savage surge of dismay, Camaz wondered if he would even recognize Aris’s decaying body if she was here. His hands clenched to stop them from shaking.

“Go look for her,” he snapped at Sharp, the Shade suddenly turning more opaque than it had for days. He saw Verne look over at him at his outburst. Normally, he wouldn’t speak to the Shades in front of other people as few people could see them. But right now he didn’t give a shit. Sharp hesitated for a few moments before bobbing off. It probably didn’t understand his words, but probably felt the wave of annoyance and grief.

The persistent smells and growing annoyance left him with another pounding headache. There was no way anyone who was here would have survived any of this. His only hope now was that she escaped the village and found refuge elsewhere. Camaz mechanically looked through the other buildings, barely processing body after body, destruction upon ruin. There were an unnatural amount of casualties - while a good number of people would fall victim to the Unseeing, many more would be able to escape; hence the existence of refugee camps. But here it looked like most, if not all of the village was killed.

He walked to the edge of Gendis, still feeling out the best he could through his abilities. He passed by a farm with dead, neglected livestock. Then further out were fields where the people grew grains and vegetables. Here he met Sharp again who bobbed excitedly at a spot above the soil. Heart racing, Camaz hurried to the spot and dug at the ground with his bare hands. It took only a few moments to reach a girthy stick the length of his hand that had neat engravings in it. He brushed dirt off of it and stared at it.

Runes glimmered slightly, probably a simple enchantment to ward off pests seeing it was buried under a field meant for crops. But more importantly, Camaz recognized the runes: the nearly obsessively even spacing, the way certain runes curled to the right. This was Aris’s handiwork.

She was here. She made this.

Camaz felt his heart sink. If she cared enough to help the people in Gendis to make farming enchantments like this, then she most probably lived in the village as well. She was probably caught up in the attack.

She was probably dead.

With a start, Camaz realized cold, hard steel was pressed up to the side of his neck. He froze, then a familiar voice spoke directly behind him.

“Show me where she is, old friend,” Moulu said.