blairehawthorne

WPF#24 Entry
Aleph Von Erich has been consumed with rage since Firmament, the kingdom above the clouds, exiled him to the barren wasteland called Dead Gardens.
By virtue of the dying god Dominion, Aleph lived to see another day. But only if he acts as Dominion's avatar for vengeance against those who wronged them both. Plagued by pain and betrayal, Aleph will stop at nothing until he has laid waste to Firmament. To aid his revenge, Dominion offers a powerful System that can generate items, examine foreign objects, and monitor his status. But for a hefty compensation:
His soul.
-----------------------------
Schedule: Daily 
Chapter length: 1000 to 2000
Content Warning: The novel contains detailed gore, horror, drugs, sex, and other extreme themes, implied or otherwise, that are not suitable for younger audiences.

Dead Gardens

'Fuck... We just crashed, and your little assistant thought it's the best time to do a fucking lecture?'


'Not really. I don't want to see her gone completely, but she's getting on my nerves really, really fucking hard right now if I do say so myself.'


<Well... I could delete it. But it's not like I care! You need to learn these things, Aleph! Or else you will be an ineffective Praeceptor.>


'Ugh. Fine. It's good to see Mr. Unreasonable Dominion back in business. I do have a question, though.'


'Can we hear what a person is talking about if we use the ZOOM command?'


<Unfortunately, we can't. Sceneries can be seen up close through the command, but sounds are complicated. It can be achieved quickly without the System, though. But it would need a specific mechanism first. Well, two of them.>


'Ah, sorta like a medium for communication? Yeah, I had seen and used one of that plenty of times in my line of work back then when  I was still in Firmament. So if we would want to monitor what someone is saying, we need to plant a sort of mechanism on them that would send what they were saying to us?'


<Yes. The System, unfortunately, cannot do that on its own. You'd need the help of others.>


'How unfortunate. But I guess we can't have it all, even the gods.'


'That's reassuring. Ugh... My head fucking hurts. I can't believe we live through that.'


'It really does look like that, eh? He has his very own ass-kisser.'


<Well, you gotta admit that the ass-kisser kinda saved your life. Whatever he did earlier really did make the hot air balloon move faster, even more with Vyur's wings. I just hope the two of them survived.>


'Fuck! You're right! Where are they anyway?'


'Can't we just do something about this balloon? Maybe we can harvest it and fix the balloon somehow?'


'Haa... You're giving me too much credit, Dominion. I am no master of aeronautics. I barely even know how this bloody thing flies. I just know it looks funny, and it needs fire to fly.'


'Can't the damn thing just assemble itself once we recreate it?'


'Ugh... Fuck... I think I just broke another bone somewhere. I don't know what's the logic there, but flying an aircraft above enemy territory is the shittiest idea I've ever seen, and no one can convince me otherwise.'


'Absolutely! You can at least make up excuses for Firmament. But that hot air balloon performance we did earlier was whack! Shit... I'm never riding a hot air balloon ever again.'


<Hey. Give the damn thing some credit. Look around you. If it weren't for the balloon, you would have been found dead somewhere in the mountains. Or worse, the kapres would have already churned your shitty human body and turned you into balete fertilizer. But you managed to pull yourself together and crash somewhere safe. Consider that your last stroke of luck because with how you pulled through today, I am more than confident that your luck has already run dry.>


'Haa... Look around me, huh? I don't even know what I'm looking at. Where the fuck are we anyway?'


<This? Hmm... I'm not sure yet, but it looks like we're in a ravine.>


'A very narrow one at that. Streets in Firmament are much wider than this one. But not too narrow that it gets suffocating.'


'Just enough. I see Skystead Keep above there; looks like this ravine goes up to the Keep if we just follow it.'


'Really now? How very convenient that we managed to crash in this place then.'


<Heh. I know what you mean. I don't know if you're the luckiest person I know, or this whole "clueless human" schtick you're doing is just one big overdone performance and you actually know what you're doing.>


'You're giving me too much credit again, Dominion. I'm not as smart as you think I am.'


'Let me get this straight, Dominion. I almost died, got stuck in a bullshit eternity and a half with you, almost died AGAIN after encountering a VERY angry kapre, barely managed to live after seeing the most vicious man in the Keep. Then, our only mode of transportation to the Keep got compromised by an unknown warlord that may or may not be a spy from Throne's team. You call that lucky?'


<Well, you're still alive, right? Most people would have already died after going through their third life-threatening encounter.>


<...Really now? You're a tall blonde man with blue eyes and shining white teeth. And you still have the gall to not call yourself basic?>


<No, you idiot! Gres at least has green eyes! That's like, a step above being a basic bitch. YOU, on the other hand, are the perfect Firmamentian stereotype but thinner and a whole lot more pathetic.>


<Yeah, I'm a happy boy now again. Tee-hee~>


'Right. So how should we get to the Keep from here?'


'If it's THE only ravine in here, how come it took you a while to realize what it was?'


<You'll see. Last time I heard, it would take two or more days to go to the Keep through this ravine, Auld Mountain Pass. It would take only about less than an hour with an aircraft.>


'Haa... I'm starting to understand the logic behind the hot air balloon now.'


'Well, we better start walking now. I don't know where the general and his sidekick is, but let's just hope for the best for them now. I've already injured myself enough; I can't carry two more people.'


While Dominion and I were bickering about what we would do in my mind, I suddenly heard a pained grunt on the basket.


'Looks like that luck you've been yapping about worked better than we expected, Dominion.'


<Gosh, I can't wait to see it run out soon.>


Archive IV: About Lord Dominion's System III (Aleph and Dominion's After Talk)