“Then they shouldn’t be out there at all,” Jason said. “Isn’t that the whole point of all this training? To make sure we go out as ready as we can be?”
“Does that justify what you did to them?”
“My powers are what they are, Humphrey. There’s no point trying to stab someone with a hammer. If I run around pretending I have your powers, then I will die, and die quickly. Maybe I should have waited for different essences, but you have no inkling of how lost I was when I first came here. I would have done anything for just a little bit of control over my circumstances, and now all I can do is live with the consequences.”
“You think that makes it alright to terrorise people?”
“I know what my powers are, Humphrey. Misery and death. Blood turned black with taint, your body dying around you while you're still alive. You think I want to use that on a person? Maybe someone wants to come after me, but they hear about that day in the arena. Maybe even see the recording. They decide against coming after me because the price of failure is too high. Not some clean, quick kill, but a slow, lingering death. Every enemy that fears me too much to come after me is a person I don't have to use those powers on.”
Humphrey shook his head.
“You’re good with words, Jason. Anything I say, you’ll have an answer for.” He stood up. “That’s why I’m done listening. I watched what you did in that arena. I listened to you taunt them. I’ve never heard a sound so cruel, so inhuman as you laughing at the suffering of others.”
“Humphrey, that was just theatrics.”
“Was it?” Humphrey asked. He walked over to the door and opened it.
“I think you need to take a look inside yourself, Jason. To find out where that was coming from.”
75
Progress
“So,” Clive asked, “the original sanguine horror came from the full creation process? The sacrifice chamber, the alchemy pit, the whole thing?”
As he talked, he enthusiastically gesticulated with a fork, a piece of fried sausage skewered onto the end.
“The whole thing,” Farrah said.
The large suite shared by Farrah, Gary and Rufus included a space with a large dining table. The three of them, plus Jason and Clive, were eating the breakfast Jason had brought upstairs from the inn’s kitchen. Gary was excavating the small hill of sausage, egg and fried vegetables on his own huge plate while Jason and Rufus ate quietly. Farrah and Clive were caught up talking, having barely picked at their food.
“I’d love to see that chamber,” Clive said.
“I’m not going to stop you,” Farrah said, “but it’s way out in the desert, so I’m not going to take you there, either.”
“And the awakening stone came from the horror itself?” Clive asked. “Produced by your looting ability, Jason?”
“That’s right,” Jason said. “You keep waving that sausage around and it’s going to end up on the other side of the room.”
“What?” Clive said, then looked at his fork as if surprised to find it there. He bit off the piece of sausage.
“What I find interesting,” Farrah said, “is that a summoned familiar is created through completely different means than the sanguine horror we killed. Yet, that’s what Jason summoned.”
“A good thing they’re different,” Rufus said. “We wouldn’t want a sanguine horror roaming around at full strength.”
“Well,” Clive said, “it is possible that if Jason ever reached diamond rank, his familiar would attain the full strength of a sanguine horror. Of course, it would still be under his control, thus would be unlikely to scour all life from the planet.”
“I actually think I figured out what they wanted the horror for,” Farrah said.
“And you’re only telling us now?” Rufus asked.
“Well, I've been going over that book from the sacrifice chamber,” Farrah said. “As it turns out, you can get a non-summoned sanguine horror as a familiar. First, you have to make the thing, which they did. Or we did, whatever, but you start by making the thing, and then you have to starve it. It starts at bronze rank, that’s how it was when we fought it, but it goes down to iron rank if you leave it long enough.”
“Can you do that with other monsters?” Jason asked.
“No,” Farrah said. “The sanguine horror comes with the inherent ability to shift ranks, which normally means going up, but down is possible too.”
“There are other monsters like that,” Clive said. “They’re all quite rare, though.”
“Very,” Farrah agreed. “So, once you have your sanguine horror, and you’ve starved it down to iron rank, you get the right essence and awakening stone and then hope you get a familiar bond essence ability. There are no guarantees, of course.”
“Which essence and awakening stone are best?” Clive asked.
“For top reliability,” Farrah said, “according to the book, a blood essence and an apocalypse stone are what you’re looking for.”
“That’s exactly what I used,” Jason said. “Why bother with all the big chamber and the sacrifices when you can just get one? Are the made ones better than the summoned ones? Do I have a defective familiar?”
“The actual sanguine horrors would be the same, in terms of abilities,” Farrah said. “The difference would be the same as between any bonded familiar versus a summoned familiar.”
“Which are?” Jason asked.
“Bonded familiars survive, even if the essence user dies,” Clive said.
“A summoned familiar won’t survive the death of the summoner,” Farrah agreed. “It also can disappear into the summoner's body, which bonded familiars can't.”
“That’s alright then,” Jason said. “I’d hate having to carry Colin around in a bag or something.”
“I still can’t believe you named an apocalypse beast Colin,” Rufus said.
“Well if you call your apocalypse beast Gorgos, the Enslaver of Worlds, then people are likely to start questioning your intentions,” Jason said.
“That’s actually a good point,” Farrah said.
“I have to imagine reliability is the key factor that led them to make the sanguine horror themselves,” Clive said. “When going for a bonded familiar instead of a summoned one, things are much more likely to go your way, if you prepare accordingly. So long as you have the creature on hand and use the right essence and stone combination, that is as close as you’ll come to a guaranteed result with any awakening stone. Look at your friend Humphrey and his dragon. I guarantee the Geller’s didn’t leave anything to chance.”
Jason scowled.
“They had a little bit of a tiff,” Farrah said.
“It wasn’t a tiff,” Jason said. “It was a philosophical disagreement.”
“Of course it was, sweetie.”
“Actually, there’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Jason said. “The sanguine horror we fought was vulnerable to salt. I checked, and my familiar is the same. So how would it kill all life in the ocean, which is full of salt?”
“Those vulnerabilities would eventually go away,” Farrah said. “That book has a lot of details about sanguine horrors. It starts off a bronze rank, which is where we fought it, and has some extreme vulnerabilities at that stage. Fire and salt are the big ones, along with esoteric ones that only essence abilities can produce. But those vulnerabilities go away as it grows stronger. Salt stops being an issue once it reaches gold rank, after which it can go swimming all it likes.”
“I’d love to get a look at that book,” Clive said.
“Why didn’t Anisa take it?” Rufus asked. “She was collecting everything.”
“From the manor,” Farrah corrected. “We weren’t in the manor when we found it, so she had no right to it.”
“I’m not sure she would agree,” Gary said. His first contribution to the discussion coincidentally came right after his huge plate was emptied.