Heretical Fishing-Chapter 51Book 4: : Monster

Deep within a cavern of their own creation, a being of multiple parts bided their time. They were likely the oldest form of awareness remaining in the Kallis realm, a force so ancient they’d outlasted entire civilizations... and yet, they squabbled like children.

Following the realization there was a cultivator or spirit beast foolish enough to channel unaspected chi, a tiny crack had formed between the two souls comprising the one. That crack became a fissure, and the fissure a chasm. So wide did the gap grow that their awarenesses had partially split.

It was... frustrating.

The rejoining was supposed to be absolute, but because the other parts of their body weren’t yet present, their individual personalities were distinguishable. And those same parts, the other earth elementals on their way, were also the point of contention between the two.

We must remain, the first brother reiterated with a thought more solid as stone.

We must go! the first sister replied, just as immovable in her conviction.

She couldn’t make them, of course. He had seniority. However, she was as much a part of their combined body as he was. She was him. Forcing her to remain still, making her ignore her instincts, felt like a betrayal. It threatened to tear them apart with finality, a possibility that brought him genuine pain.

She could feel these thoughts, but his reluctance didn’t change the fact he was robbing her of agency—putting them at risk of rupture.

I am sorry. He let out a regretful rumble. I must, for if we are discovered in our current state, destruction is certain.

She need not reply—her fury wove through every inch of their singular body. There seemed to be something hidden fueling the rage, but he dared not ask.

Seeking distraction instead of reason, he queried what she wanted to do once the other pieces of themselves arrived. Her answer was as immediate as it was fierce: fight.

This, at least, they could agree upon. He nodded mentally, the accord making their separate spirits intertwine at the base, yet it wasn’t sufficient for full homeostasis.

Whoever or whatever was channeling pure chi... it had to be destroyed. Such a blight couldn’t be allowed to exist, lest it grow strong enough to conquer and rule. The threat of it gaining adequate strength to overshadow them was minimal, at least—it was far more likely for the moronic being’s core to implode. But if there was even a chance...

Such a being could become divine.

And not the empty divinity of the gods that had departed this planet. Real divinity. The kind that would use the heavens of this realm as a stepping stone.

Again, the first sister agreed. Tendrils of his and her chi reached out toward one another, becoming further enmeshed—further aligned in body and soul. It was enough for the first brother to risk a thought, one that had lingered since feeling the blasts of unaspected chi.

Do... do you think it might be connected to the newborn elemental that we were hunting?

Rather than the anger or despair he’d worried this possibility would make her feel, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and slide a great boulder aside, which revealed a hidden fear—the very thing she’d been concealing.

Now that the objects sealing the thoughts away were clear, associated musings flowed from him to her, and her to him. They’d both been trying to protect the other. The thin tendrils connecting them grew, turning into thick roots that pulled them together. It was almost enough for them to become singular once more, and with a feeling of rightness flowing between them, they explored their shared worry.

If the wielder of unaspected chi and the newborn elemental were connected... they would need to be destroyed. Assimilation was always the goal when confronting others of their kind, but they couldn’t risk trying to do so if there was a cultivator of pure essence nearby—the foolish being was just as likely to blow them all up by accident. Their earthen form could withstand such a detonation... but not if they were in the process of bringing another into the fold.

There was an alternative possibility, however. If, despite the distinct lack of chi in the world, a traveller had somehow arrived in Kallis... their course of action would entirely change. The first brother and sister gave each other the equivalent of a sidelong glance. They could only hold it for a moment—amused rumbling rolled from the center of their mass, boulders and sediment churning within.

Yeah, right, he scoffed. A traveller. More likely that we’d sprout wings and take flight.

She laughed so hard that he had to suppress the movement, lest their enemies learn of their position.

Abruptly, a shadowy form leaped into the opening of the hole they’d dug—but unlike their multiple foes, this ambusher was invited. More followed, and some of the other elementals—the other parts of them—descended the walls. The twenty-seventh brother, who had been a particularly speedy embodiment of fire before assimilation, vaulted over the precipe.

His shape became like the spine of an urchin, and he swiftly overtook the rest as he raced to the bottom of the cavern. When the twenty-seventh brother struck their mass, he immediately reached out to them. Like mortar sealing the gaps between the first brother and sister, he flowed out, preparing to reunite… He paused for a moment as their myriad thoughts hit him.

Hehehe, he chuckled, the idea of a traveller being present amusing him. Ridiculous.

The others, those that were fast enough to arrive with the first wave, landed in a barrage of silt, dirt, and minerals. All but one of them laughed when they heard the joke about the traveller—the exception being a former water elemental that had always been ornery. He tried to chastise them all, calling it a distraction, but then he rejoined, becoming a part of them.

They churned the center of their mass in mirth. It really was a preposterous theory. As if such a monster could be transported to a chi-starved world…

***

I stared down at the patch of blackened grass that continually drew my attention. In retrospect, if I’d been aware Borks’s hellhound form had the innate ability to spew fire, I probably wouldn’t have fed him chili-covered squid.

But how could I have known? My doggo pal had some dragon-like bullshit going on with his anatomy; his flames didn’t even use chi. I connected to his core to reiterate just how gods-damned cool he was, but he spoke first.

Sorry! Sorry! Very sorry!

I shook my head. There was nothing to apologize for, and I relayed as much for the tenth time in so many minutes. He’d hidden it for good reason; his goal was to be a part of our pack, and he had worried that spitting fire would ruin that possibility. It was a small lie that had snowballed into a big one, and frankly, who cared? I was only sad we’d missed a bunch of chances to mess with people.

From Borks’s position atop the portable forge—a construction made of bits and pieces stored in his dimensional space—he wagged his tail at me. After his love had been adequately conveyed, he bent down once more and sent another blazing conflagration down into the chimney.

“Hey!” came a voice I barely heard as the forge’s heart glowed red and heated the metal within. “Idiot traveller dumb-dumb with weird little toes! We’re talking to you!”

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“Huh?” I looked up at the ostensibly insulting yet undeniably fun sentence. “What’s up?”

Ruby, who’d been the one to deliver the insult, beamed and held a hand out toward Barry. “Pay up, chump.”

He crossed his arms and frowned at both of us. “There’s no way you two didn’t set that up. I’m calling shenanigans.”

“Mate, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been busy crafting this... this...” My eyes had drifted back down to the piece of metal I was shaping, then to the works of the other smiths. “Damn, using my hands to mold it might have been a mistake after all. Maybe I am an idiot traveller dumb-dumb.” I raised a finger. “I do not, however, have weird little toes. Theo, please confirm.”

“Yes, sir!” He marched over and bent at a ninety-degree angle. “Present them for inspection!”

“Oi!” I stepped back, suddenly self-conscious. “I wanted you to confirm my words, not voice your subjective opinion of my flawless toesies!”

“Oh. Right. Honest mistake.” I didn’t need his ability to detect lies to know that it had been no mistake. “In that case, no, you didn’t set that up with Ruby.”

I had to fight down a smile; the trickery had been all me.

“Told you!” The seamstress waved her hand in Barry’s muscular face. “Pay up!”

He sighed and reached into a pocket to retrieve her winnings.

“Furthermore,” Theo continued, “on the topic of Fischer’s quote-unquote weird little toes, he was telling the truth when he denied having them.”

“See?” I raised my nose at Ruby. “What did I say? My toes are perfectly norm—”

“However...” Theo interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “He was absolutely lying when he said his toes were flawless.”

“Hah!” Barry latched onto the revelation like a drowning man. “You were lying!”

“That’s because all toes are weird and little, Barry! If they’re all weird, mine are actually normal. And you’re one to talk! Of all of us, your weirdly muscular feet are the odd ones out.”

Paul, who’d been glancing around at everyone’s toes since they’d been brought up, leaned down to get a better glimpse of his father’s. “You’re right, Fischer. They almost look like thumbs.”

“Truth!” Theo roared with laughter. “Complete truth!”

Barry tensed his jaw so hard that tendons bulged from the sides of his head. “If Paul wasn’t here, I’d ask you to throw me back home, Fischer.”

“And I’d happily deny the request!”

He shook his head, smiling despite how bothered he was trying to seem.

“What did you want before, anyway?” I asked. Barry just gave me a confused look, so I turned to Ruby. “When you were soliciting my attention...?”

“Ohhhh.” She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “Nothing, really—I was trying to tell you that your creation looks like absolute garbage, but you weren’t hearing me. Naturally, we started taking turns insulting you.”

“Naturally,” I agreed. “Wait—absolute garbage? It’s not that bad...”

Fergus, the highest level smith Tropica had, formed a line with his mouth. “It’s pretty bad. You said it needed smooth surfaces, didn’t you? To reflect the sunlight?”

“Yeah? So?”

“So...” He held a hand out to accept my pride. My joy. My rod. He poked one of its many dimples. “I know we were trying to think outside of the box, but what are these…?”

“Speed holes. Helps me reel faster.”

“That… doesn’t make sense.”

“Let’s agree to disagree. It still looks like a rod, right?”

To be fair, it was at least rod-shaped. I’d taken a bamboo pole and coated it in metal, but in my distraction, had accidentally squeezed too hard, leaving divots all over where my thumbs and fingertips had been.

“Aye, it looks like a rod,” Duncan muttered. “If it was chewed on by a fish, spat out, chewed on by an even larger fish, then spat out again, only to be—”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. My rod sucks. I might not be the best smith, but luckily for all of you, I am a flawless leader...” I raised an eyebrow at Theo. “Please confirm.”

He raised one back. “I think everyone already knows that to be a lie, Fischer.”

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“Ah well. It was worth a try. Anywho, as I was saying, this flawless leader predicted his possible inadequacies in the ways of the forge. Because I’m so busy, you see. Leading and stuff. So I made sure to assign the same task to my best smiths!” I looked around at them all, grinning as I once more assessed their creations.

My loss to the massive creature I’d hooked had been humbling, to say the least. Despite how much strength I possessed, it wasn’t enough to reinforce my rod, line, and hook. Something had to give. I could always try to gain more power, of course—improve my cultivation base so that I could fortify all three of them at once—but that wasn’t feasible on this short trip out to sea.

That left a single solution, one that, despite being on a wooden boat, was our best option: creating stronger tools. Borks, being the good boy he was, had brought supplies for just such an eventuality.

Agreeing that he was, in fact, a good boy, Borks wiggled his butt and blasted more fire down into the forge. Both he and Trent could fuel it, but considering one of them lacked the opposable thumbs necessary to mold things, my canine companion was the obvious choice.

Duncan and Fergus were attempting to produce new hooks, infusing their chi into them; it didn’t seem to be working, the large shapes not holding chi properly. Ruby and Steven were messing about with lengths of yarn, and though I knew they’d eventually make another logic-defying creation, it wouldn’t happen in a day. The rest of us, every single human on board, were making rods with varying amounts of wood and metal.

My rod had a wooden center and alloy coat, as did Paul and Barry’s, the father-son duo working together. Theo and Deklan were doing the inverse, attempting to smelt a core into hollowed out bamboo. It… didn’t appear to be going well, if the pile of discarded and blackened sticks could be believed.

But that was okay. As much as I played up my reliance on everyone, there was really one person I was banking on—Bonnie. My belief in her abilities was so great that I’d willingly sabotaged my own rod, giving it neither my full focus nor will. I turned her way slowly, my breath catching as I prepared to find whatever weird and whacky invention she’d dreamed… up?

“Bonnie…”

“Yes?”

I pouted as I pointed down at the object before her. “What the frack is that?”

“Uhhh, something to fish with?”

“Yeah, I can see that.” I leaned in closer, trying to spot any unexpected features—there weren’t any. “But why is it so… regular?”

“Ohhh,” she replied, hefting a pole that looked just like mine—minus the speed holes, naturally. “Well, when I saw what you were all doing, I thought I should just make something normal instead.”

A spark of hope ignited within me. “Does that mean you had an idea for an abnormal creation?”

“I… don’t know how to answer that. It’s subjective. I started, though, so I guess you can be the judge.”

She bent down, grasped something with both hands, and raised it above the bench.

I froze, blinked a few times, then barked a laugh. “Forget subjectivity, Bonnie—that thing is objectively ridiculous.”

“I know…” A hint of self-doubt escaped her core, the emotion entirely unexpected from my adventurous pal, but she hid it again almost immediately. “That’s why I dropped it for a normal one.”

I gave her a half smile. “I said it was ridiculous, not bad. You should finish that one.”

“Wait, really?”

“Truth,” Theo said. “He really thinks so.”

“I do! Of all the rods made by this squad of goons—er, no offense, fellow goons.” The only response I got was a few shakes of the head, so I continued, “Of all the rods, yours shows the most potential.”

“It’s not too… dumb?”

“Dumb? Listen, Bonnie, you’re the brains in this situation. I have so much faith in you that I couldn’t focus on mine—hence the speed holes.”

She shot me some side-eye, a small smirk playing on her lips. “I thought that was so you could reel faster…?”

“By the gods! What’s that?” I yelled, very elegantly changing the subject as I dashing over to the port-side railing.

A series of scoffs and snorts answered came in reply, but Borks and Cinnamon joined me, all too happy to play along. I tousled the fur on their heads. They leaned into it, arched toward me, their faces melting into expressions of sheer bliss, and the same sentiment flowed out from my core and through our connection. As with all good things, however, our frozen moment couldn’t go on forever.

“Hey! Love bugs!” Bonnie said, lifting a crucible with a massive set of tongs. “I need fire!”

Borks heeded the call. He whirled, spun back to give my palm at least a dozen licks in less than a second, then leaped up onto the forge. Heat washed over my neck as his flames poured down into the chimney.

Now that my other hand was free, Cinnamon hopped up into my arms and went almost liquid, her muscles relaxing and belly offered up for a good scritching—which I obliged, of course. I wasn’t a monster.

With a bunny cuddled to my chest and my friends toiling away behind me, I stared out at the deep blue ocean, wondering what kind of adventures tomorrow would bring.