Jackal Among Snakes

One afternoon—or whenever, given the lack of insight that Argrave truly had on the flow of time—the Alchemist simply declared, “It’s done.”

“What’s done?” Argrave asked absently, absorbed in a book.

“The Blessing of Supersession is nullified.” The Alchemist rose up to his great height, and the stagnant abode shifted around him. It coalesced back into a staff, leaving Argrave and all his things scattered on grass. The Alchemist gripped a rod of obsidian, standing tall and alone.

Argrave shifted around uneasily, so abruptly thrust back into the world. The sun had not quite risen, but even still the light somewhat stung his eyes. He looked around, seeing vast ruins in every direction. They were on a strangely flat plateau overgrown with grass, and Argrave looked around at a wild land.

Argrave rose to his feet stiffly, grabbing the piles of things that had been dropped carelessly to the ground with the Alchemist’s hasty nullification. “Some things could use more ceremony…” he muttered, hastily putting all of his garments back on. Still, things were strangely quiet. He started to look at this place closer.

He saw signs of human life, true. But it was all old, decrepit, and lost. Nature had reclaimed entire cities. It was a wild place where only vegetation seemed to reign. The only wildlife that Argrave heard were bugs. As the pieces started to come together, the confirmation came.

“This is the place that the Smiling Raven claimed, all those years ago…” the Alchemist explained, himself looking out across the land. “That’s this continent. Humans are resettling this land on the coast, ignorant of what occurred here, but here, deep inland, none exist. There’s only nature.”

Argrave slowly walked up to him, then set the things he was carrying down to better look at it. “How do you… cope with all of this?” Silence was his answer for a long time, and he looked up at the towering mortal champion of Hause. He had grown bold enough to be honest. “You’ve killed more than just about anyone I can imagine. Seeing how you treat others, seeing the things that you’re capable of in that form… I catch myself wondering if you honestly even care. No—if you even can care.”

The Alchemist didn’t even look at Argrave, just watched the vivacious landscape. “Even if I told you, what would you do with your new knowledge? We have set on a path neither can step away from.”

rhetorically. “I just want to know. But that doesn’t mean I’ll do anything

staff of obsidian deep into the earth. It morphed into a flat platform that rose up beneath Argrave’s feet, and then two chairs took shape facing the largest of

little shocked, but he kept

people inside of myself… potentiation, as is the official term… I ceased to be myself,” he looked at Argrave. His face was far removed from what Argrave remembered it—there was no gray skin, and his nose

all responsibility?” Argrave

I was ignorant of that. The first man I took unto myself was just some thug. A lowly murderer. It was meant to be a test, an experiment that would end the life of a man who did not deserve to live. And a man like that became half of me,” he looked at Argrave. “The crude life he’d lived. The injustices he felt. The… base, primal violence he found himself driven to. None operate without some sort of engine, Argrave. The man who is a lowly killer is still a man, just the same as the king sitting upon his throne. And with that man as half of me, it spiraled until it was what you see. Before long, it ascended beyond man. Deer, cows, elephants, insects—I subsumed anything and everything that was alive, until I became nothing more than an expression of life itself. Hunger. I was hunger that fed on itself to grow infinitely, just like Hause

that were true, why was Hause preserved like

up at the purest blue sky that Argrave had seen. “Only I had become someone else. Someone different. As it grew onward and upward, this unified entity of mortality, I experienced for myself the full breadth of life. They… we…” He grasped at his head. “I reveled in what I had become. The depth of experience, of knowledge. The Smiling Raven thought that what he did was a gift, but

referred to himself confused Argrave. He fidgeted in his seat, beholding the city. At the end of the day… this city had regrown, returned. It was just without life, without people. Life, by its very nature, was hunger. The Smiling Raven had been that

thing I think it’s important I know.” He turned in the chair

a fair question. Just as you find it impossible to do what I have done,

talk about me

of me died. That was the price of my life—cutting myself off from the fundamental aspects of life that caused the Smiling Raven to flourish. Cutting off the malignancies of the mortal existence. Malice is generally born from a

I’ve done? I… want to.” Raven let silence

you gain back what

imagine that potentiating another normal human would be the catalyst for the awakening of the Smiling Raven. Alternatively… if Hause were to die… I imagine I would change in ways I cannot predict as her blessing wears off.” He looked over at Argrave. “There. You have

free from the Alchemist’s chest with a golden chain wrapped around it. Argrave watched it curiously, and when it neared, the fingers unclenched

took it into his hands. “It will protect you from all manner of illusions, mental warfare, and other such interference. Never again will you be subject to the whims of a god. Your mind is a fortress. It should aid in using the Domain of Law, furthermore.” He slowly unwound his hand from the chain, and it fell fully into Argrave’s grasp. It was a