Threads of the Soul

Now, it wasn't as if they snuck out during the night or anything ridiculous like that. After all, they made their exit quite public the previous day and the morning they left, to the point that they even picked up a few more of the reluctant people who didn't believe they would actually leave.

Those people were now trudging near the end of the pack, grumbling miserably to themselves as they carried backpacks full of heavy textbooks and various encyclopaedias on a whole host of topics, from advanced chemistry to architecture to even something as simple as basic farming.

There was a reason that their previous home had been considered a grand library and was big enough to house all of them moderately comfortably. It was, or at least had been, filled to the brim with books on all sorts of topics. Seth would be an idiot to leave those behind, especially if he was planning to rebuild society.

They couldn't just ignore all the discoveries and knowledge humanity had accumulated over thousands of years, why else would the system have granted them the gift of knowledge as one of their choices? Journals like Seth's were literally made to collect not just old knowledge, but new knowledge alongside it, and the training features for certain knowledge such as martial arts proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unfortunately, no matter how amazing his gift was, a week wasn't enough for him to collect all the knowledge throughout human history. Well, truth be told it actually was, if he spent all of his time dedicated to that singular task, but he had far too many other things on his plate to grind away at that mindless task.

It would have been slightly easier if they had access to the internet still, but that went down weeks ago. Even before Seth went down for his secondary mutations nap, it was already teetering on the edge.

Now, the speed of the process was just restricted by how fast they could physically feed the books into the journals. Really, he could have let them do such a thing before they left instead of carrying all these books.

Was it petty to force them to carry those massive sacks, which just so happened to be the heaviest of all the porters packs, instead of letting them feed it into the various journals and other knowledge gifts? Perhaps...

But on the other hand, what harm was there in a little petty punishment if it helped them learn their lesson. All in all, it was a net positive in Seth's opinion.

Of course, I don't want you to think that Seth felt nothing when it came to the choice to abandon those people to whatever cruel fate this world had in store for them. It wasn't the same as when he had tossed Sirius to the side, broken and beaten, so that the world may eat him up. These people, in a general sense, had done nothing malicious or wrong.

That decision weighed on him deeply, and even now he was still wondering if it was the wrong choice to make. But he also knew that there was only so much you could do to help someone if they wouldn't help themselves.

Still, even with that mindset, he would never be able to shake the feeling that there was something else he could have done better. Never be able to forget that their blood was on his hands, for he had cast them to the wolves. A phrase that was, unfortunately, no longer metaphorical.

In an attempt to take his mind off such morbid topics, Seth dove into his studies in an attempt to further understand not only the intricacies of runic power, but also all the ways he could implement them. It would have been nice to be able to dissect the Hemogoblins particular runes and figure out the exact nature of their macabre ritual, but he didn't have anywhere close to the time for that.

Instead, he was working on an improvement to the fire rune that he had read about in his teachers notes. Something to give it a little more kick than just a simple flame. Although he was using pen and paper this time, not his threads.

He didn't need any mishaps or accidental castings with this particular rune. Seth was planning to keep his eyebrows after all.

However even now, while studying hard and focusing on perfecting the shape of this new rune, Seth still had his eye on the ritual through the eyes of little Geets. Thankfully they were still adding runes around the edge of the blood pit, which was now filled to the brim, but the sheer magnitude of their inscriptions was overwhelming.

There had to be thousands of individual runes forming dozens of rings around the blood pit, which was starting to bubble and boil like a cauldron over a fire pit despite the absence of any heat source.

In fact, with every additional rune and the more the pit boiled, the colder their surroundings became. A fact Seth was only able to know from the puffs of condensate air from the lips of the hard working Mages, as well as the frost lingering on the hanging corpses.

Indeed, they were making good time overall, but the very nature of their group meant that they had to move slowly, painfully so, through the restrictive streets of the city of Thraven. Keeping a close eye out for any beasts that may want to spring a trap and take advantage of their numbers.

Many people definitely didn't feel just like a herd of zebra, just waiting to be pounced upon by a lion.

At least this herd was surrounded by some powerful defenders at somewhat regular intervals. Defenders who's numbers were only increasing the deeper into the masonic bowels of the city they travelled. Every store they passed with mannequins in the window, every decorative statue adorning a public square or hanging off the side of a century old pillar.

Each and every one was added to their number, slotting into formation under the control of the ever watchful Spirit Animal, who was flying high above in the skies in the form of a raven. Each new puppet and addition to their army began to become ever so slightly empowered by the trickling energy of Seth's soul resonating within them.

While they wouldn't be able to compare to the likes of Corvus or his main godly statues in terms of power increase, this battle was definitely more about numbers than raw power.

He had even managed to pick up some kind of life sized ice cream cone. Naturally, it wasn't a real one, that would be ridiculous. No, it was made of plastic and clearly some mascot for an Ice cream parlour that they must have passed at some point. The cone was fitted out with arms, legs, a quite disturbing face and, strangely, a pink cowboy hat that matched the colour of its ice cream head.

As for Seth himself? Well, he was somewhere in the middle of the pack, riding on the back of Omelette. It seemed as if the people simply assumed that Seth was the 'squire' of their Lord Crow. In fact many other squires had told him that he was the reason they volunteered to be so as well.

As for what a squire was exactly, well it wasn't too dissimilar to the medieval type, but with less to do with noble blood and more to do with evolutionary power. Overall, it was sort of like acting as the assistant to a powerful person.

It was actually a position Seth was happy to act as. After all, no one was going to assassinate the assistant to get to the leader. Even if they did, if he played his cards right they would most likely under estimate him and he'd be able to turn the tables on any would be assassins.

Honestly, playing the frail assistant was exactly what Seth had hoped for. It was his very own Clark Kent, but at least he could be in two places at once without contrived plotlines involving shapeshifting friends who coincidentally showed up right when he needed them.

No instead his shapeshifting friend just bugged the hell out of him at all times, even when he didn't want her.

Of course, being 'The Lords squire' allowed Seth some leeway when it came to luxuries, hence his lovely Wyvern mount, who was casually sauntered through the streets, occasionally letting out puffs of smoke to ease his boredom until he could let loose his flames once again.

He had only got the flames recently, but it was so much fun burning things with them. He wanted to be just like the ones in the stories his Father had read to him, melting the evil metal clad demons who came to kidnap the pretty ladies the dragons were so valiantly protecting.

It was possible that Seth might have tweaked the contents of those stories ever so slightly, but what Omelette the mighty didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Letting out another puff of smoke, this time forming it into a ring in the air, Omelette perked up slightly as something different happened. A light emerged from the centre of the smoke ring, glistening in the air like a fairy as it danced before his face.

He snapped his jaws at it a few times, wondering what this little floating light tasted like, but all he managed to do was eat the air.

Seth, of course, heard this commotion and looked away from his book to see what in the world had Omelette so agitated, only to find him playing with a wisp of light. Strangely enough, it was the same type of wisp he had seen dancing around the rivers of blood when the Hemogoblins were performing their ritual.