SWW 02

Scáthach: World Walker 02

Orientation

I looked around, curiously, in the realm between worlds.

We hadn’t exactly gotten far from the doorway I’d stepped through. The barrier between myself and the void frayed, indistinct, almost permeable. Yet, what stopped the journey were the thousands of black threads snaking out of my body, and back to the Realm of Shadows.

Great, white wings unfurled beside me. Sam frowned. “Man, place has its hooks in you good,” he said, poking one of the strings with a ‘thum’.

I nodded, the gesture more felt than seen in this not-realm as my head split into four, each looking slightly different. One cried, one snarled, one looked horny, and the last was me. “Is it always like this?” I asked, holding my hand up to trace the many threads coming from my flesh like. As I did so, my hand split apart like a million threads.

Sam was less portly man and more wing by this point. Wings that were still unfurling, for that matter.  “No. Most people can leave their world through the White Gate easily, but you’re bound tighter than most. Let me see…” As he spoke, three brown eyes opened in the wings, scrutinizing the threads.

“To be expected. I dwelt there for thousands of years. Its energies suffused me, and mine it. We were intertwined and never meant to break. Unfortunately,” I said. I summoned Gáe Bulg, the spear, or one of them at least notably more stable in this in-between realm and swiped at the threads. It passed through them harmlessly. “See?”

“I sure as Hell can. Rare to see anything with this much binding associated with. I’ve seen great seals less bound up than you are,” Sam grumbled, opening five more eyes. These were rainbow colored. How pretty.

“Will that be an issue?” I spoke idly. “If so, I would appreciate it if you could simply annihilate me. I would not like to linger in that realm longer than necessary.”

Eight eyes become twelve, and twelve became sixteen. All looked at her. “No. I am an expert in matters of the soul. I just have to operate on you to untwist the realm’s threads from your own,” Sam said, each feather, now that I looked closer, glinting with a sharpness to rival my blades. That answered how he was going to operate. “Question. Would you like to be unconscious for this? It will be very painful.”

The face of rage mouthed a prideful taunt. The face of tears cringed. The horny face was best not spoken of. My own? I was curious. “No need. Proceed. I wish to see a fellow master of souls at work.”

Half the eyes widened, while the other half narrowed. All turned gold. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I am beginning the operation.”

“This should be interesting,” I said, holding my unraveling arms out in welcome the being named Sam.

I’d endured much pain. Cuts, slashes, lacerations, stabs, rips, tears, gouges, bites, abrasions, bruising, freezing, burning, maiming, and more were just the start of what I had endured in my long life, and that was before we got to the blatant torture. I wouldn’t say I found pain pleasant, per se, but it was an old friend that’d been with me since that first night stalking beneath the stars so long ago.

That was all to say, I was more than prepared for pain, and as I was embraced in tens, hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of blade-like feathers that all moved to cut not just my flesh but the very stuff of my soul.

~~~~

I opened my eyes and sat up. “That was painful,” I commented idly. I’d lost consciousness against my will at some point. How disappointing.

I was in a new room, barely furnished only a bed, a writing desk and lamp, a chest, and an empty bookcase. I stood, stretching as I investigated my surroundings.

It was awful, truly among the worst pain I’d experienced as it transcended the far more common physical pains. Expected, given the degree to which the Realm of Shadows had intertwined with my soul, but even so.

I stood, discarding the simple cotton blanket. I stretched, testing my muscles group by group, before following up with a test of my Od, eliciting a pleasing burn through my body.

The door slid open. Sam in human form scowled. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sam asked, eyes wide and back in human form. “I literally just finished operating on you minutes ago. You should’ve been down for another twelve hours.”

“And yet I wished to stand,” I commented, working out the kinks in my hand before channeling my Od through my arms to a pleasant burn. “You were quite skilled,” I bent, stretching my arms behind me. My words were truth. I’d seen death gods with less skill in the soul arts.

“I’ve seen humans go mad with half what you experienced. I had to slice your soul, section off the very fabric of your deepest being like a butcher carving choice cuts from a carcass, and then rip out each individual thread of that realm’s vile energies wrapped around and in you like a bloody parasite, all while it fought me, and you are standing when you should be resting you maniac!” Sam growled, stomping in.

I laughed. “Indeed. I’d rank it as an eight out of ten in my most painful experiences. Remarkable,” I commented, kicking a few times the air to gauge my hip range, finding it satisfactory.

“Only eight?” I couldn’t quite tell if Sam was insulted or bemused by the ranking.

“It lacked the emotional component for true torment,” I explained. The soul surgery was certainly agonizing, and the fact it succeeded was indicative of a transcendental level of skill on Sam’s part, but it still ranked behind the more… troubling, moments in my long life. Although, the operation did exceptionally well on the physical and spiritual levels in regards to agony.

“I don’t suppose you could show me more of your technique?” I asked. I’d been in less than a great state to properly observe Sam’s workings, but what I had seen was fascinating and giving me ideas.

“You want to go through that again?” Sam asked incredulously.

“I didn’t quite manage to grasp your technique fully, so yes,” I said, summoning Gáe Bulg and thrusting experimentally, finding a small kink in my shoulder that made my thrusts a touch slower. “Annoying,” I muttered, adjusting.

“Whatever,” Sam threw his hands up in defeat. “Eat and join me in the next room when you’re ready,” Sam said, tossing a paper bag at me as he left.

I caught it as Sam slammed the door. Inside, I found a sandwich of wheat bread and fish. Simple, but wholesome. I sat on the bed, trying the fish first.

“Needs salt,” I idly said after the first bite, but dutifully ate. Hunger was among the first enemies, after all.

~~~~

I emerged into a long hallway lined with similar white doors with overhead light panels. Each door had a number above it. One sign at the hallway’s dead end said “Guest Rooms”, while another at the opposite turn helpfully read, “Operations Room” with an arrow pointing left.

That, in turn, led me to a grand room, multiple stories tall. Painted a mix of whites, grays, and blues, its far wall was dominated by over a thousand monitor CRT monitors showcasing a thousand scenes: a dark city lit by a great tower, a sundered mountain beneath a dark sun, an isolated glade of white flowers upon which an elfin woman fretfully slept, a frozen over modern city, and many, many more. Some were peaceful, some not. Some showed nothing, simply displaying a screen that read error or showed static, if they were not fully off.

The rest of the room was dominated by tables, smaller workstations with consoles, and more. Walkways circled the room with stairs, with a raised area at the back splitting off on a level that led to several halls, all labeled with signs: “Residential Sector”, “Martial and Training Sector”, “Agricultural Sector”, and some place simply called, “The Office” with another sign indicating, “Caution! Not stabilized! Halls and Rooms May Shift!”

Some tables had maps of lands I did not recognize in any sense, others showcased urban areas I also did not recognize, and more. Papers, documents, and books were everywhere in a loose organized chaos. Snatching one, I saw a profile of an orphaned huntress in some place called the Dark Wood.

“Fascinating,” I muttered, reading deeper and seeing… if not potential, at least possibilities. Anyone who managed to wield wraith bone and mastered ghost arrows at such a young age had my attention.

“Is that Abigail’s Profile? Yeah, it is. We’ve got her under monitoring for now, but her worldline seems fine, at least at our last check in, ” Sam said from further in the room, clicking and clacking at a console and staring intently at the veritable mountain of CRT monitors on the far wall.

“I see,” I said, walking up to look over his shoulder. “Oh? Writing about little old me?”

Sam snorted. “Everyone gets a file. You’re no exception.” He didn’t pause his typing about me.

“And what are you going to say?”

“That you’re a maniac, possible masochist, and don’t listen to your surgeon when they tell you to rest,” Sam retorted.

I laughed. “A bit of pain can be exciting, but I wouldn’t say I’m a masochist, at least not in that sense.”

“Fine, a sadist, then.” He reached for a steaming mug of potent smelling coffee. The mug had something I wasn’t really sure of.

If (Coffee.empty) {coffee.refill (); } else { coffee.drink(); code ():}

“More accurate,” I said.

He paused mid sip. “I was joking.”

“I wasn’t,” I said with a smile. It was a touch exaggerated, but a good fight could definitely get my blood pumping in all senses of the word. Setanta had been most delightful when—

Just like that, the familiar ice came knocking back at my chest. He was gone, just like everyone else. Even another world line similar in every way I had known down to the color of my counterpart’s underwear wouldn’t exactly be mine.

I would have remained, as a monument to all that was lost. Nothing had ever really changed?

“Thank you, for saving me from that dead world. It… would have been some time, before I was allowed to die,” I said.

Sam grunted. “No problem. I don’t think I need to give you the fates worse than death speech, huh?”

“No, you do not.” After all, how could something unkillable be loved?

The silence that followed was not peaceful, per se, but we both had an understanding on the sentiment. I did not know Sam’s history, but there were enough piece together that whatever it was, it wasn’t a happy story.

I watched the numerous screens, eyes flitting from one to another as movement caught my eye, Sam clacking away at his computer. Eventually, he spun around and leaned forward.

“I believe I owe you an explanation as to who we are,” Sam said.

“Indeed,” I leaned back against the half wall. Under other circumstances, in similar poses, I’d seen men eye me with a familiar perverted gleam, but Sam…

Well, Sam wasn’t human. He only saw me.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Isn’t that the Final question?” Sam responded, rolling his fingers on his thigh. “The place we’re in is just our headquarters. It’s where we keep our shit and actually live when we’re not busy saving worlds.”

“How creative,” I commented.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Sam waved me off.

“What about the rest?” I said leadingly, inclining my head to the back of the room, and specifically the mundane doors leading to The Office. The entire place had spatial anomalies and barely felt like any land I’d known, but that section had all sorts of oddities I’d noticed.

Sam snorted. “When I first arrived, it was nothing special, just an endless mass of undifferentiated yellow rooms, but that changed pretty quick. Seemed to pick up on the environment I found familiar, and now…” Sam trailed off, searching.

“I don’t know the full extent of it and I’ve studied it. I call it The Office, but it seems to take bits and pieces it likes from anyone who comes here. If you wanna explore, feel free, let me know if you find the end. I certainly didn’t,” Sam gestured at the doors at the back of the Operations Room, an oddly mundane path leading out into more halls with caution signs around.

“How long did you search?” I asked.

“53 years before I decided I had better things to do. Gets stranger the farther you get from here,” Sam said. “I would offer my maps, but it likes to switch things up every so often so they’d be useless.”

Ooh, that was exciting. Endless exploration of a strange new realm that picked up its own inspiration from those that walked it? It’d be almost like when I was a young girl, walking among the soft grasses just outside the village, peering into a dark yet oddly enticing forest beyond I’d been forbidden from entering.

I wonder if it made things I could hunt? How fun!

I tilted my head. “Why is this place immune?” I gestured around.

Sam shrugged. “Several factors. It doesn’t like changing things when we’re watching, plus it’s…” Sam paused, searching. “I think it’s at least somewhat  polite. Benevolent?” He snorted. “No, it can kill you. I imagine mortals who fell into it had bad ends, not that I found any, but it’s oddly fair. I think it acknowledges this as our territory by this point.”

I nodded along. “Any suggestions? No major spoilers, please, but your perspective could be useful.”

“Don’t smash your way through walls, it hates that, the signs are benevolent if snappy, and don’t trust the vending machines,” he counted off.

“Noted.” The vending machines seemed promising if a being like him didn’t trust them. I wonder what I could take from one?

“Still, as fun as this is, that’s not the reason you brought me here. What was that about dangerous worlds? You can’t just mention that to a girl and not follow up, you know,” I teased.

“Ha, as if. We’re the Corrections Agency,” he said, spinning back around to face me.

“Catchy,” I noted.

He rolled his eyes but didn’t rise to my taunt. “Long story short without getting poetic or pretentious about it? We fix worlds that have gone to shit. Dark lord gotten too powerful? Unstoppable plague of self replicating monsters? Hero slain before he can grow up? Fates ending before their time? You getting the idea or do I need to break out the blackboard and markers for you?” Sam said, lighting another foul cigarette.

“Oh my. Tell me more,” I said.

This had just gotten interesting.

~~~~

AN:

HiddenMaster: The idea of Sam the angel here and his eldritch office space has been in my head a while, as well as that of an agency that tries to fix worlds. Originally it was isekais, but so many stories have absurd circumstances that turn out well only on seeming flukes or rule of good/heroism/cool.

Lots of game worlds are like that. How many worlds with everything on the line end because a player can’t beat the game in one shot?

Just one example.

I do hope I am getting Scáthach right here. I am most familiar with her from FGO and she has an… interesting, way of being and philosophy to life.

Fg2: -Be Scáthach- =wakes up from Soul Surgery... checks if she’s fighting fit= aka just
Scáthach things

HiddenMaster: Indeed! That is number one priority. Really, list goes like something like this:

Wake up > determine fighting fitness > scan for targets to fight > scan for targets to seduce > everything else.

Anyway, if you would like to commission me or throw some support my way so you can continue seeing more beautiful words, please check out my support carrd below
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