Orno's Meat.
The letters etched into the wooden board seemed like it came from a kid tinkering with a knife, rather than someone skilled. Elias stared at the banner of the butcher shop, not knowing if he should laugh or feel bad. He knew the outskirts people could get weird at times but the sight was still sad.
"Oi, buy something or bugger off, ya git!"
Elias noticed the glistening bald head before the man. And what he saw made him back up a few steps. Orno’s meat shop wasn't a small establishment if you went by the poverty standards of the outskirts but the man running it was the exact opposite of the average lanky man of the outskirts.
Tall enough to almost hit his head on any careless jump, the man made his shop look tiny in comparison. His shoulders wide enough to make it hard to see the goat carcasses chained down to the ceiling behind him.
"Ya ain't got the dosh then keep walking, this ain't charity!" The bald man, presumably Orno shouted again, seemingly upset at being scrutinized.
"Uh, I have the money. I don't want meat." By the gods, Elias felt weird saying it after reading the ridiculous shop name.
Orno, brought his cleaver down on the table, "You ain't after the meat, what's your bloody game kid?"
Feeling irritated by the word meat, Elias snapped at the man, "Blood, a bucket of goats' blood."
Orno looked taken aback. With a creased brow, he glared at the kid in front of his shop.
"This ain't some blood joint, kid. It's a meat shop. What's your angle? You being strong-armed into something dodgy, yeah?" Orno asked crossing his arms. An action which Elias could only read as being concerned. Concern, huh. A rare commodity in these parts of the city.
Elias shook his head, not wanting to needlessly stretch a simple errand he took out a 100 bill and slammed it on the butcher's counter, "The blood, please? I'm in a hurry."
The sun disappeared behind the gnarled trees, the ravens cawed as they flew by making for an eerie start of the evening. With a bucket of blood in one hand and a packet of salt in the other, a book tucked in his pants Elias walked into the cemetery cursing under his breath.
"All in a shitty day's work. Blazing hells, bless the poor souls who got buried in this shit hole." Elias couldn't help but offer his condolences at the sorry state of the cemetery.
Comparing it to where he lived, Elias felt a little depressed. Back in the good parts of the city if you wanted to visit a loved one's grave you had to get through registration, a guard and the graveyard keeper always keeping an eye lest some commoner like him accidentally disrespected some buried rich noble.
Yet here out on the outskirts. All anyone had to do was walk right in. No one here to stop or question Elias as he walked in with a bucket of blood in the cemetery. His grip on the bucket's handle tightened as he remembered his missing father, was he dead? He had no clue.
"May the lady help your souls to the cycle." Elias offered a little prayer. To end up in such a god awful place. Truly, poverty was a sin.
All around him lay tombstones, weathered and cracked. Neglected graves covered in grass, the inscriptions that were worn away by time's march Elias saw a few graves that seemed like they were dug up, even the encroaching darkness seemed like it had something moving within making his spine tingle.
"I see nothing. Except this, this seems like a good spot." Elias focused on the unblemished block of flat stone he found. After he cleaned up the dirt, he would be good to go for the ritual. Taking a look at the darkening sky, Elias sat the blood bucket near the stone, "Knowing my luck, this will go wonderfully."
Taking a piece of paper from his back pocket, Elias muttered, "Veritas mea."
Words appeared on the blank sheet of paper, writhing, changing until they settled into something readable.
| Name: | Elias Thorn |
| Vitality: | 0.8 |
| Strength: | 1.3 |
| Agility: | 1.1 |
| Intellect: | 10 |
Within a few blinks, the paper burned away leaving no ashes, It had been a long time since he made use of these tier zero items.
God of knowledge, the truth seeker. A greater god who believed every being under the sky to be equal. As long as you had your intellect stat reach 10, the baseline of sentience. Anyone human or not could take a glance at their true self by uttering two words along with this spell paper or with the help of priest from the truth seeker's library.
Focused entirely on getting by financially, Elias had little time to keep track of his stats. Let alone put any effort into growing them. Nonetheless he could tell it hadn't changed in a long time nor had he wanted to change it.
However, today, he was hoping for a change.
Tyre jumped over the rusty rails, entering the cemetery under the shade of the eerie trees. Some part of him felt disgusted by what he planned to do but this disgusting work had kept him fed for the last few days. Hells, it turned to be more lucrative than all the odd jobs he did, combined.
Bringing the shovel to rest on his shoulder. He spat out the chewed up tobacco to the side. "Ay, let's get ta digging."
He had heard some fella, from the central Rayton recently got himself buried in this shit hole. Falling out with some rich family or what not. Those details weren't important to Tyre though.
"Them golden teeth won't sell themselves, eh. Hahaha." Tyre walked, scratching his crotch, carefully reading the names on the tombstones. After all, the rich fella wasn't the only one in his list of dead to rob for the night.
Dried up blood covered the block of cold stone. Elias felt the tension leave his body as he managed to draw a close to perfect circle onto the flat stone. His relief did not last long as he glanced back at his open book, the diagram he had to draw inside the circle reminded him of those mind numbing geometry lessons he had endure.
"Ah, bloody hell. Just do me in math, why don't ya?" Elias shouted at the open book, his voice travelling the eerie darkness of the empty graveyard. Following his shout the pages turned in the breeze, only a soft rustling answered him. Then suddenly a low snicker rang out behind him. Eyes wide open, he rushed to open the page with the diagram and got back to drawing with a renewed passion for living.
By the time he was done his shirt clung to him, drenched in cold sweat. Every few seconds he had to look over his shoulder in fear, he cursed how the mind worked. One scary occurrence and now he started recalling several horror stories in vivid detail. Luckily for him a bucket load of goat's blood mixed with a small packet of salt dried quick.
Elias took a moment to appreciate the diagram that settled upon the flat stone. Seeing his handiwork he laughed recalling how Orno asked him if he was being coerced by some cult. He wondered how the meathead would react if he saw him doing this.
Shaking his head Elias sat down in the middle after making sure the patterned stain had dried enough. With the book open in his lap, he went over everything he had do.
The diagram, a self-sustaining mana rune that would slowly draw miasma to itself while protecting him from any outside disturbance. That was the theory at least, Elias did not want to think about what he needed to be protected by. Out of sight, out of mind as those temple of war monks said.
Trying to ignore the dark thoughts Elias tried to calm down when a sudden shiver ran down his back.
Meanwhile, far from Elias. Already three feet deep in the ground, Tyre couldn't help his teeth from clattering as he mumbled, "Mighty cold tonight."
Arms crossed, forehead creased and his eyelids shut. The temperature had taken a nose dive out of nowhere making Elias shiver as he took a seat on top of the rune diagram he had drawn.
"Time to meditate." Elias said but that was easier said than done. He knew how to meditate of course but there had to be something different in how magi meditated, else everyone and their mothers would become magi by now.
Revising the technique in his mind he started breathing in the freezing air of cemetery.
Despite his best efforts Elias could not help his shaking body, the cold seeped in his skin making it even harder to calm his breathing. He couldn't help but curse, it almost felt like it would begin snowing at any moment!
It had been an hour or a few hours Elias couldn’t tell with how much he was struggling. His attempts at meditation were going nowhere. Helpless, he thought about giving up and he would have if not for the two ironclad rules of the ritual stressed were not to be broken.
First being, not opening the eyes under any circumstance until the sun rises. Second, not crossing the rune circle's threshold no matter what he heard or felt.
"Bloody Hells." Elias muttered thinking how he had to be seated like this till the morning, even going home wasn't a option since he felt that something was wrong with the cemetery. Along with the frustration of having his ears getting molested by the chilling winds. Every breath brought with it the scent of damp soil, his ears only picking up groaning echoes of the crooked cemetery gates far, far away from him.
Despite the feeling of isolation, Elias decided to try again. Breathe in, hold the breath for a minute, breathe out. Mind empty and focused on feeling the runes underneath him.
Before too long he felt something.
With an uncontrollable itch in his nose, Elias sneezed.
“Excuse me.” Rubbing his nose he apologized out of habit.
"It's okay."
"Yeah, it's really col-'' Elias paused. What happened just now?
