The Newt and Demon-8.76 - Khahar’s Reprieve

As expected, it took Khahar a while to recover from the effects of the reforging. In truth, this was Theo’s first time reforging someone with a powerful soul. Not only was it powerful, but it was that of an Ascendant being. The complexities of his soul had brought forth a few problems. Then there was the entanglement to deal with. But the alchemist’s approach wasn’t one of finesse. He just smacked it with more energy before the pieces were ripped apart. Both a soul and a world were resilient things.

They’d get over it.

“It feels as though you’ve ripped my chest open and danced on my heart,” Khahar said, fist clutched over his chest. He paused, cupping his hand over his ear. “Well, that’s different.”

“What?” Theo asked, trying his best to be supportive and resist gloating.

“The voices are gone.”

Tresk blinked, slinking closer until she was almost face-to-face with Khahar. “You’ve been hearing voices this whole time? What kind of psychopath sits around with voices in their head and doesn’t try doing anything about it? Suffering in silence… Sounds familiar.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Theo said. “How are you feeling?”

Khahar released a sigh. “I’m feeling fine. Mostly. This is a new sensation for me… Being out of control of my world isn’t pleasant.”

It would take a while for Khahar to adjust fully, but there was nothing they could do about that. Both the new moon and Khahak had to adjust on their own. As this was another unique situation, they could only wait and see. Theo and Tresk dealt with a Dreamworld being stuffed with two thrones, which resulted in them splitting it into two Throneworlds. Now, they had to see what happened when an Ascendant world was split from a throne.

Fun times!

“We still have more stuff to test,” Theo said. “Spend a minute, and we’ll ensure the split worked the way we intended.”

“Rest?” Khahar asked, releasing a labored sigh. “I’ll need a week.”

“You have five minutes,” Tresk said, clapping a few times. “Come on. Let’s get this train moving.”

Once Khahar was able to stand, Theo was confident with the way the energies in his body were moving that he would be fine to travel. It was most likely something to do with the way his Arbiter’s Core was messing with his body. The alchemist suspected some fresh air would do him well.

“Hold onto your pants,” Theo said, wrapping them all in his aura. “We’re going somewhere quite familiar.”

“Please, just a moment,” Khahar said. “I can’t…”

Theo didn’t wait. There had been enough waiting and there were experiments that needed to be done. He folded the void in on itself, dragging them to a location that would bring back some memories for the Arbiter. A moment later, and they were standing on the rolling dunes of the Khahak Desert. Somewhere distant was the city where Khahar had spent an absurd amount of his time on this world.

Khahar sucked in his first breath of mortal air in quite a while, and he pushed himself to his feet with great effort. “They cannot see me,” he said.

“We’re safe behind my aura,” Theo said. “The thing to take away from this is that you’re not dead. Looks like we’ve got the silent blessing of the system. More importantly, your soul is mortal again. Technically. I don’t know the details.”

Taking his first few steps in the sand, Khahar marveled at the landscape. It was desolate, but it had been his for so long. The people that he raised here were ready to leave the mortal world, starting again in the Middle Realms. Here he was, standing closer than he had ever hoped to stand.

“Compared to most of our plans, this one went really well,” Tresk said. “I mean, we still have to worry about the planets doing their thing, but he isn’t dead. Yay!”

“Hooray,” Theo said, mustering as much enthusiasm as he could. “What do you say, Khahar? Wanna walk around Broken Tusk again?”

Khahar only offered a somber nod.

Theo warped the void, grabbing the group and depositing them on the bank of the river, north of the bridge. They appeared amid the many buildings Ziz had created, rendering the scene completely different from what Khahar remembered. The action in the area was intense, even for the evening hours of the day. For his part, Khahar simply marveled as he looked around. Theo felt the man’s aura race out, taking in the details that would escape the naked eye.

“You’ve been busy,” Khahar said, nodding toward the harbor in the distance. “How has the harbor served you?”

Theo chuckled. “Just look at the masts. We’re at full capacity all the time to the point where we have quite a few anchored in the bay. Speaking of, do you want to see the bay?”

Khahar nodded, following along as Tresk and Theo led the way. Somewhere in the skies above, Alex flew circles with Pogo. When the ancient dragon had come back was beyond the alchemist, but he wouldn’t question it. More dragons was better, after all.

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No one paid much attention to the group as they moved. There were plenty of khahari who were in town, so another one wasn’t anything wild. If this was before the games had begun, they would’ve certainly drawn some unwanted attention. Now, Broken Tusk was even more of a melting pot than ever before. Theo caught pieces of nearby conversations about the games. There were a few exciting fights that day, and even a competition between crafters. As always, it was great to see the buzz radiating throughout town without end.

“Now that’s an interesting addition,” Khahar said, nodding toward the City of Qavell. He then nodded to the arena. “And that. You guys have no sense for a good city layout, do you?”

Theo shrugged. “We’re moving soon. We can clean it up once we get to our new location.”

“Where might that be?” Khahar asked.

“The skies over Tero’gal. Somewhere near Boar Hollow, I think.”

“I suppose that’s the point of a flying city, huh?” Khahar asked. The smile spreading across his face seemed to widen by the moment. “Should we attend the games? Are they still going on?”

Theo nodded. “The organizers of the events are going crazy. We have a lot of exhibition matches running. Those don’t come with prizes, but people love watching them.”

Working their way to the arena, Khahar marveled at the impressive causeway. When he learned how it was constructed, he was even more impressed. “You moved quite a few rocks to build this. What’s going to happen to your Willpower after the reset?”

“That’s anyone’s guess,” Theo said. “Our little cadre will be balanced, I’m sure.”

“Wait, so why are we getting buff?” Tresk asked.

“For fun, of course.”

Heading in through the main entrance was out of the question. Theo led the way through the tunnels, and they eventually entered the commentator room. As expected, the elf and ogre were perched at their stations, screaming about the exhibition taking place below. This was another one-on-one fight between two elves who apparently had beef. The fight had been going on for at least an hour, and there was no point-based restriction since this wasn’t an official fight.

“Looks like we’re in for the long-haul, Jeb,” the elf said.

“That’s right. A grudge match to end all matches,” the ogre, apparently named Jeb, said.

“We should broadcast this,” Khahar said.

“If only we could figure out how,” Theo said. “Getting the printing press working was hard enough.”

Clicking his tongue, Khahar approached the window, leaning over the table to get a better look. The commentators didn’t seem to pay attention to him at all, continuing their coverage of the match.

All the while, Theo was observing Khahar with his senses. The changes to his soul had already taken hold completely. It was no longer a tangled web of confusing connections and nonsense energies. The place where his Arbiter’s Core rested put off a sense of authority. It was a feeling that proclaimed him as the master of his own soul, no longer bound to be the servant of some confused Throneworld-Ascendant hybrid.

“What are you thinking?” Tresk asked. “Your brain is jumbled. Your stuff is too confusing for me to understand.”

“Just reach into my brain and obtain the understanding,” Theo said. But he knew that wouldn’t be fun for her. Or perhaps she was just striking up a conversation to make him feel better. “I’m unraveling his soul in my mind, ensuring he’s cut from the realm. The only thing that’s left is the single connection to the realm and throne.”

“Which means it worked, right?” Tresk asked. “We split him without killing him.”

“Right. As predicted, things fell into place. His soul is chugging on its own.”

Yet Theo couldn’t help but worry about what would happen if he had miscalculated. There was something about combining his thoughts with Tresk and Alex that gave him a boost in both mental capacity and problem solving skills. Considering how chaotic both Tresk and Alex could be, it was surprising that two moderately insane minds could come together to create something that functioned at a higher level.

With the second experiment of the day sorted, Theo needed to check on his first experiment. He sent Tresk off to link with Sarisa and Rowan to sort dinner out, having no intentions of letting Khahar leave until he could be sure everything was perfect. The fight rolled on in the arena below, and Khahar’s excitement didn’t seem to wane. If anything, he got more excited when one fighter got closer to a victory.

Yet Theo knew it wouldn’t come to a close anytime soon.

“Let’s go grab some food,” Theo said, jerking his head to one side.

Khahar dragged his gaze away from the fight. “So long as we can take the long way. I want to see more of Broken Tusk.”

The duo took the path under the arena. After leaving, they toured a few places in the city that had changed since Khahar’s last visit. Qavell was the most interesting thing to him. Karasan’s old city was a marvel, and the fact that it was still somewhat intact was even more impressive to him. Of course, the damaged Kingdom Core was of interest to him. With the blessing of King Hanan, they headed down to the old ritual chamber and took some energy readings.

It turned out, Khahar knew a lot more about Kingdom Cores than Theo did. He had suggestions for repairing it, which might represent an independent Qavell some time in the future. That was assuming these cores held any power on Tero’gal after the switch.

It was far later than Theo had anticipated by the time they headed to the city. Sarisa, Rowan, and Tresk had ordered some food from Xam’s tavern. Somehow, Tresk had restrained herself long enough to wait for them to return before getting to work on the food. But it was only about five seconds after Theo and Khahar stepped through the door before she started shoving food down her throat.

After Theo and Khahar took their seats, they took a more conservative amount of food. The alchemist got a bowl of classic Broken Tusk wolf stew with a side of some roasted potato he didn’t recognize. Khahar went for only the soup, perhaps feeling some amount of nostalgia for the old way Xam used to make her food.

“Thanks for kidnapping me,” Khahar said, taking his first taste of the soup. “Just as I remembered it.”

“No problem!” Tresk shouted, perhaps a bit too loudly. “I’m all too happy to kidnap people. When needed, of course.”

“Of course,” Sarisa said with a soft chuckle.

Theo spread his senses over Sarisa, feeling the telltale sensation of Middle Realm energy still swirling around her soul. So, there was no option. Reforging a mortal’s soul was the only way to get them to adapt to the Middle Realms.

“At least we didn’t nuke your planet,” Theo said. “Well, we did nuke it. I just had a barrier that stopped it from destroying everything.”

“A fact I greatly appreciate,” Khahar said, holding his bowl of soup as though to toast.