Chapter 162 - The Search Continues

Zeke sat on the bed, shirtless and with his shoulders slumped. For a few seconds, Abby stood in the doorway of their bedroom, just staring at his broad back. It was crisscrossed with scars; some were old and pale, but others were jagged, red, and raw. The past few weeks had not been easy for him. Indeed, he’d scarcely had a moment to rest and recover in the years since he’d been reborn, and the time in the demon realm had been worse than ever. That he was still going was a testament to both his vast vitality as well as his uniquely durable constitution. It was more than that, though. Even if other people had his gifts – and there were likely some out there, Aby felt sure – would they have thrown themselves into battle so recklessly? Abby wasn’t sure, but she suspected that, for better or worse, Zeke was special in that regard.

Or perhaps she was just biased. Considering the way she felt about the man, that was a distinct possibility.

“I’m fine,” he said, not turning to look at her.

Abby didn’t immediately say anything in response. Instead, she joined him on the bed. Sitting beside him, she looked at his face. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks were hollow, and his hair and beard were both entirely unkempt. He’d taken a shower when he’d gotten back from his latest gathering expedition, but no amount of water could wash the fatigue away.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” she said, reaching up to put her hand on his back. He winced a bit at her touch. “You’re still injured?”

“It’s nothing,” he insisted, his head still hanging. “Just a couple of broken ribs.”

He held the remnants of his shield in his hands. The thing had once been a magnificent representation of flawless craftsmanship. However, after having been ripped to shreds, dented innumerable times, and melted, its repair enchantments had been entirely overwhelmed, rendering it into so much scrap. Zeke’s armor had succumbed to the ill treatment far sooner, and Abby knew that he felt naked without the protection. Even so, he kept leaving the tower and trekking into the demon realm in search of anything that might help the others survive the caustic environment.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, idly massaging the knotted muscles of his back. She hated that she couldn’t accompany him outside the tower, but that was an immutable fact in this new realm – at least until the alchemist came through with his promises. Tucker kept saying that he was close, that he only needed a couple more ingredients, but Abby couldn’t help but mistrust him. Any man who could do the things he’d done was, by his very nature, untrustworthy. A few months’ worth of companionship wouldn’t change that.

Either way, she’d resolved to focus on the things she could affect. If all she could do was support Zeke, then that would be her goal.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

“I thought you had a plan,” Abby said. “You’re going to keep trying the lava flows, and then –”

“Not that,” he said. Abby had suspected as much; Zeke was a lot of things, but indecisive wasn't usually one of them. “This is about my path.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He let out a sigh, then turned to face her. When she looked into his eyes, she saw a flash of gold streak across the otherwise green irises. Abby knew about the change he’d undergone, that he had become a different species – a half-demon. It frightened her, but in the weeks since they’d come to Mal’araxis, he hadn’t given any indications that his personality had changed. He was still Zeke, albeit with even more power and a new set of abilities.

“A while back, Tucker and I were talking about it,” he said. “It was right after I took my level twenty skill, and…well, you remember. I kind of wanted to take [Bulwark] skill, but you talked me out of it.”

“I didn’t talk you out of anything,” she said, annoyed. “I just pointed out –”

He held up a hand, saying, “I know. I know. You were right. Tucker helped me to see that. But it got me to thinking about what I wanted to be. I mean, I could try to be a supreme protector, but would that fit me? Is that who I really am?”

“I don’t think anybody can answer that but you,” Abby said.

“I know,” he responded. “But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I started thinking about when in my life I’ve felt the most powerful, and I kept coming back to when I was in those troll caves.”

He sighed, running his hand through his wild hair before saying, “My memories are probably a little skewed, but back then, I hardly ever even considered failure. I was facing monsters twice my level, sometimes, and I didn’t hesitate. I just waded in, swinging my mace. It wasn’t until I met you and Pudge that things started to change.”

Abby’s breath caught in her chest. Was this the moment? For months, she’d been waiting on the other shoe to drop, for him to realize that she was dead weight. Zeke might be a little better off with a group backing him up, but he didn’t need it. If nothing else, the time in the demon realm had made that abundantly clear. Abby was stronger than most, but despite her every effort, she still hadn’t closed the gap between herself and everyone else in the group. Even Pudge, who was little more than a child, was more powerful than she was. She had made strides, and the gap had narrowed, but it was still a wide gulf, and one she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to cross.

The fight in the obsidian caverns had hammered that point home. She didn’t remember anything after they’d reached the island in the center of that lava lake – courtesy of Oberon, she was sure – but she still felt a lingering dread every time she thought about it. Clearly, something horrible had happened, and the dwarf had done something to quarantine those memories so they couldn’t hurt her. The others had experienced much the same, which only supported her theories.

“And I’m fine with that,” he went on. “It should change, right? But thinking about it has gotten me to thinking about why I’ve chosen to go the way I have.” He held up his shield. “For instance, I never even wanted this thing. It was just…I mean, I had an extra carapace, and when Luigi made it, I figured I’d give it a shot. I wanted to protect you, and what better way to do that than with a shield, right?”

“I don’t need protection,” she said, knowing that it wasn’t true. Even if she became as powerful as Zeke – or even just Talia – she would still work better when she was shielded from their enemies. That was just the nature of her chosen path.

“I know,” Zeke agreed. “You’d be fine by yourself. You’ve proven yourself a thousand times over. This is about my issues, though. It was never about you.”

“Go on,” she said, wanting nothing more than to move the discussion past her incompetence. That Zeke claimed not to see it was either his attempt at sparing her feelings or the biggest blind spot in all the Radiant Isles.

“Right. Yeah,” he said. “So, like I said, it’s been on my mind for a while. But when Oberon saved me, he said something that made it all worse.”

Zeke stood, dropping the shield to the floor. When it hit, a few pieces fell off. He said, “He said something about a muddled path, about not letting fear guide me. And I haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since. I keep thinking about what I really am. At my core, I mean. Does that make any sense at all?”

“I don’t know,” Abby admitted.

“When you met me, I was completely lost,” he said. “I hadn’t seen another person in years, and all that time, I’d half expected to spend the rest of my life alone. I was prepared for it. But the moment I saw you, I realized just how much I needed other people. I think I let that change me. I think I let it push me into doing things I probably shouldn’t do. But I had this idea that I could keep everyone safe, that if I did, I wouldn’t have to be alone again. Now, I know that even if I try to walk that path, even if I put everything into it, I’ll inevitably fail. Eventually, I won’t be able to shield everyone from everything. It’s just not possible.”

“So, what now?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “But it’s got me thinking about who I really am. Am I the guy who sits there and hunkers behind a shield? Or am I the guy who takes his mace in two hands and attacks? I want to be the first one, and not just because it makes me feel like I’m keeping people safe. It’s also because the second one makes me seem like an untrained barbarian or something.”

“I like that version of you,” she said.

“Really?” Zeke asked. “But you made fun of me for being like that.”

“Well, I probably would have made fun of you regardless of what you did,” she admitted, albeit a bit sheepishly. “You needed to be knocked down a peg or two. I didn’t want you getting a swelled head or anything.”

He gave her a tired smile as he said, “Probably a good idea.”

“Aside from that, are you okay? You look exhausted,” she said.

“I’m having to go further and further every day, and I still haven’t found that last ingredient,” he stated, starting to pace back and forth. “Tucker seems so sure it’s out there, but I think he’s just forcing the optimism, you know? What if I can’t find anything? We’re well-stocked, but…well, eventually, the supplies are going to run out. And the monsters here aren’t edible.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “I have faith.”

“That makes one of us,” he said.

Abby stood, then reached out, stopping him by grabbing his arm. “Just stop for a minute,” she said. “Maybe try meditating or something. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep going like this.”

“Meditating? Really?” he asked.

“I’ve seen you meditate before,” she said, confused.

“Oh – no,” he said. “I definitely wasn’t meditating. I was probably just examining my runes.”

“I’ve seen you sitting there with your eyes closed for hours at a time,” she said. “You’re telling me that you can spend that long just looking at runes?”

“I might have a bit of a problem,” he said with a bit of a grin. For the first time in the past few weeks, he looked like himself. “But in my defense, they’re really complex, and I’ve only started to scratch the surface of what’s there. I’m focusing on [Heart of the Berserker] right now, but I’m not making much headway. Either way, all those patterns and glyphs – it’s soothing.”

“Weirdo,” she said, shaking her head. After a few seconds, she asked, “When are you going out again?”

“About twenty minutes,” he said. “I saw this spot about ten miles away that looks like it might be some kind of oasis. If I’m going to find anything different, it’s going to be there.”

“Is it safe?” she asked.

He laughed. “Nothing here is safe,” was Zeke’s response. “In the last three weeks, I’ve fought giant caterpillar worms that had human hands instead of legs, rolling balls of fleshy strings, and lava ghosts. And that’s just some of the weirder ones. Safety is being stronger than everything else out there, which has kind of worked out for me so far.”

“Yeah. I could see that,” Abby said with a smile. Whatever issues Zeke might have, strength certainly wasn’t one of them. And Abby had often found herself thinking that he hadn’t even begun to tap his full potential. “But I just wanted to check to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired.”

“There’s no crime in resting for a few more hours,” Abby stated.

“There might be,” Zeke said. “I’ve got a feeling that we don’t want to stay here much longer.”

“Did you see something?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he answered. “It’s just a feeling. I can’t explain it, but it’s like there’s something looming over us. An awareness pressing down on my mind. It knows we’re intruders, and it wants us either dead or gone.”

“D-do you know what it is?”

Another shake of his head preceded his answer. “I don’t,” he admitted. “And there’s every possibility that it’s all in my mind. But if it’s not…”

He left that horrible idea – along with the implication that came with it – hanging in the air.

“Okay, then,” he said, his padded under armor appearing in his hand. It had survived mostly intact, but it wouldn’t be long before the enchantments keeping it together succumbed to reality as well. He continued, “Enough messing around. Nothing left but to do the work, right?”

Abby didn’t agree, and she wanted to plead with him to rest a little more. But she knew that any objection would fall on deaf ears. Once Zeke got something in his head, he wasn’t going to let himself be deterred from doing what he set out to do. In this case, that meant exploring whatever counted as an oasis in the demon realm’s black desert.

As Abby watched, Zeke donned his padded, black under armor before putting on a spare leather breastplate and matching, leather pants. His boots, which he’d gotten when they had killed the drachnid queen what felt like ages ago, were still intact, if only barely. If he didn’t give them time for the self-repair enchantment to do its work, they would be lost just like the rest of his armor had been. Not that that would stop him, of course. Abby couldn’t help but wonder if anything could accomplish that feat.

After Zeke was dressed, he said, “Back to work, I guess.”

“Take Pudge with you,” Abby said.

“What? Why? We need someone here to protect the –”

“The tower is protection enough,” she interrupted. “And you coming back safe is important.”

He shook his head, obviously searching for a valid argument. When he didn’t find one, he said, “Fine. But I want you and Talia on high alert. If anything comes close…”

“I’ll start shooting it,” Abby said. The tower had changed quite a bit, and instead of balconies, it had arrow slits on every floor. Those openings provided perfect launch points for her arrows, and any monster that made it to the tower would have had to wade through a barrage of lightning to do so. “We’ll be fine. Just concentrate on what you need to do.”

He nodded, and after a quick embrace, he left their quarters. Abby followed him through the corridor and down the steps, barely seeing the statues that ringed the entry hall. Pudge, who’d been lounging near the huge, double doors, rose and padded over to Zeke, receiving a scratch behind the ears for his efforts.

Just like his bonded companion, the bear had changed as well, sprouting horns and picking up a new color scheme. However, even if she hadn’t seen the new Pudge in action, yet, she knew that the transformation exceeded mere cosmetics. When she looked at him, a sense of dread invaded her thoughts. He was powerful, and in a way that belied his level. Just like Zeke. She shook it off and, before Zeke left, gave them both her best smile.

“Be safe,” she said.

Zeke rolled his eyes, responding, “I don’t think that’s possible out there, but we’ll try.”

And with that, Zeke and the bear left, the doors slamming behind them with a sense of finality. She didn’t read anything into it, mostly because any time he left, she half-expected it to be the last time she saw him. Not because he might die, but rather because he might suddenly realize that she was dead weight.