Hospitality

"Don't be so down. how about we wallow in sadness together over dinner. I know a lovely place in the nearest town from here. how about it. I am offering my hand and an open ear." Xasar, the skeleton, seemed incapable of giving up.

"I'll take the hand, thanks", Karathya said, took the hand that was presented to her and through its owner high in the air. when he came back down, she kicked him so hard that he flew along the crater they had created earlier and made him crash against the trees behind it.

"I really needed that." she exhaled like she had just untied a away too tight corset. "Your grandfather did this world a great service. I hope you can achieve the same someday." she patted his head like with a small child. "But what a kid should focus on is growing up healthy and strong so no hurry".

Damian wanted to ask what she meant by that statement. his mind finally started working properly again and he noticed that everything seemed to have gotten bigger. the silhouette of INT was now way bigger than him and the woman in front of him seemed to be double his size.

When he looked at his hands, he noticed the change. they were way too small and thin to belong to him, looking almost like shriveled branches that would fall off at any moment.

"Judging by your face right now you didn't notice it before." INT made a big mirror appear out of thin air in front of Damien so he could inspect himself better. The first thing he noticed was that there was not a shred of fat left on his body.

He looked like a 5-year-old child. His face was still similar enough from that he had possessed his whole life, but his cheeks were sunken in and his eyes had the look of a Clark after a double shift without a wink of sleep.

He was even scrawnier and thinner than he had been at that age. it reminded him of a malnourished child humanitarian organizations would use in their fundraising campaigns.

"What happened to me," Damien started to panic. Apart from the feeling that he was slowly going insane, that he had experienced ever since his grandfather had died, he thought he was starting to hallucinate. He started to touch himself everywhere and even pinched himself to expose everything he saw as a bad dream.

Pain and the feeling of touch forced him to surrender and except his new appearance as a reality. Except he didn't. he started to hyperventilate and because of his depleted strength, and the fact that he really was malnourished to the limit, he passed out.

It didn't last for long, though. Something that felt like an electrical shock made him jump up like a spring. it was like lightning was coursing through his body without inflicting any damage. a feeling of empowerment rushed through him.

"Are you insane. You can't just give him a bit of life storm and just call it a day." INT looked like he was about to jump at Karathya's neck in outrage. "He has practically no nutrient reserve left and you just injected him what is practically a massive dose of adrenaline. his heart is going to explode at this rate."

"You're always so dramatic. I just gave him a spark. party pooper." around Karathya's hand curled some kind of silvery lightning. Damien suspected that he had been injected with this very same electricity. he turned out to be spot on when the woman just waved her hand and a small spark of the silvery energy left Damien's body and returned to her hand.

The result of this action was that Damian lost all the strength in his limbs and fell face first on the ground. Shortly after he started to float in midair again with the help of INT. "That's enough," INT looked at his guests.

"You're welcome to stay over for a meal but after that I'm going to have to ask you to leave. we have a long day ahead of us even without constant interruption." he waved his hand in the direction of the barrier and a hole with a diameter of about 3 meters opened up.

"Don't mind if I do. I haven't had your cooking in a while. Melina always gets jealous when I talk about how good your food tastes." Karathya stepped inside the barrier and walked in the direction of the main entrance of the house.

"Works for me." Xasar said and followed suit.

"Wait! you can't go in there with that body and without your … " INT's warning fell on deaf ears just like the body of the skeleton fell to the ground as soon as he passed the threshold of the barrier.

"Idiot." Karathya and INT said at the same time. the silhouette gave itself a face palm that, curiously enough, actually created a sound and the well-trained woman just had a satisfied smirk on her face.

"I'm not waiting for him. if he gets in between me and the good meal we are going to have a problem." INT wanted to simultaneously agree and scold his visitor for her impatience towards the crazy skeleton. in the end he just sucked it up and didn't say anything.

They went inside the house with the still floating Damian in tow. INT placed him on a chair at the table that had materialized when they opened the door. He also gestured their guests to take a seat.

"You kind of surprised me so i have nothing prepaird. I'm going to whip something up real quick. don't try to tear the house down as long as I'm away. are we clear." he glared at Karathya. she didn't answer and just gave him a thumbs up.

He kept glaring at her as long as there was still a clear line of sight between them and disappeared through one of the doors that had magically appeared out of nowhere on the wals. The next few minutes were spent in awkward silence.

Just as Damien felt the feeling of a déjà vu coming on the woman spoke to him first.

"Now that we have a moment of peace let's introduce ourselves. as you might have guessed my name is Karathya. I'm not going to blow your mind right away with the boring details, but I am what's this asshole of a universe calls one of its keepers. I am also known as the Lord of might and the mother of all Baihu. I know you don't really know what that means but I think INT it's going to explain you everything soon enough." after saying that she kept staring at him, waiting for his introduction.

Damien had to clear his throat multiple times before being able to say anything: "I am Damien Hartell." the silence after that sentence could have only been more awkward if a cricket had started chirping.

After a while Karathya seemed to have found another topic to discuss: "say, were there any modifications made on your body. a few days back there was a strange ripple that caught the great mother's attention. it came from here, so I guess it had something to do with you. there was also a shit load of expanded energy and that's the best guess I could come up with."

At the mere mention of the torture, he had endured, Damien felt a cold shiver run down his spine and he began to curl up. he didn't even notice that, from what Karathya head said, he had apparently been out cold for multiple days.

She reached out to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. at the same time Damien felt like a stream of warm energy was filling his body. It made him feel empowered but not in the over-the-top way the silvery lightning had done. it was more like him regaining the energy that had always been his but had been depleted until now.

It gave him the strength to push the bad memories in the back of his mind and sit up straight again. when he looked at Karathya to thank her he encountered a gaze that was as bewildered as it was filled with doubt. he could even perceive a tinge of malice.

"What the fuck are you."