Interspirit

The bar was still. Oleg had stopped cleaning the glass. Silevestia was holding her drink to her mouth, or at least to the shadow of her hood where her mouth probably was. Felix’s sword was in front of him, unwavering. Kyrylo sighed. This really wasn’t how he had expected this to go.

“Are we going to fight again?” Kyrylo asked, not trying to hide how tired he was of all of this. He was trying to take steps forwards in this world. While he expected that to have some tedium, he had not accounted for being punished by not checking if an enemy was absolutely dead.

Shychur gestured at his missing arm and shook his head. “This has not been replaced. It would be a waste of time for now.” Oleg coughed in the corner, obvious and exaggerated. Shychur growled. “And also I respect the loss. That’s the law of the sewers.”

Oleg smiled, his duty done, and he placed the glass back under the counter, withdrawing another to dry. Silvestia finished off her drink, the liquid disappearing into her hood. Felix didn’t move, keeping his weapon pointed at Shychur.

It left a question unanswered. “Why are you here?” Kyrylo asked, shuffling up to the only other table in the space.

“See an old friend.” Shychur nodded towards Oleg. Shychur smiled and shrugged his nonexistent shoulder, the stub shaking slightly. “The last time I was here I looked like this too.”

“So you were colluding!” Felix jabbed his sword towards Silvestia, voice tinged with outrage.

“That was never hidden,” Silvestia replied. Her eyes watched from under her hood. “I was very upfront about what would happen. I said you would be killed.”

“She’s right,” Kyrylo said, placing his hand on Felix’s weapon and pushing it down. “They’ve been pretty honest with us.”

“Too honest,” Felix countered. “It doesn’t make sense. Spirits feed on humans, they haunt them, they drain their life. You just let us walk around here like it’s nothing?”

“We all have our motivations,” Oleg answered. He was blunt, unphased by Felix reopening this line of questioning. “You’re not as important as you think. Isn’t that what you learned?” He switched focus to Kyrylo, who felt a tightening in his stomach at the scrutiny.

“Well, I’m still fused together,” Kyrylo said, not hiding his disappointment. “Shychur wasn’t an Honour so now I have to find an actual one. Or become one, apparently.”

“You told them I was an Honour?” Shychur cut in, head swiveling between Oleg and Silvestia.

“You know how she is,” Oleg replied, shrugging.

“It isn’t true until it is,” Silvestia said, repeating her philosophy from before. “The day you do something an Honour does is the day you’re an Honour.”

“It absolutely isn’t,” Shychur said. “And how would you know? You’ve never been close to an Honour. You’ve earned your name, you crank.”

Kyrylo perked up at all of this. Previously he had been disinterested in the broader politics of this world. He wanted back out as fast as possible, wanted to never see a glimmer again. The longer he stayed here, the more it became obvious he was going to have to unravel it. He would have to start paying attention.

“What’s her name?” Felix asked first, cutting off Kyrylo as he opened his mouth to say the same thing.

“Silvestia the Sycophant,” Shychur and Oleg replied in unison, voices monotonous and casual. This was just a fact to them that they had long accepted.

Kyrylo glanced at Felix, hoping the man who had explained sardonic to him could explain sycophant to him now.

“I guess it…” Felix scratched at his head. “They mean she’s always like worshiping somebody.”

“So she’s useless?” Kyrylo exclaimed. “Why do you even keep her around?”

“She catches a whiff of the power players before anyone else,” Oleg answered. “I would prefer if you didn’t insult my choice of patrons unless you’re one yourself.” His face darkened. Both Shychur and Silvestia stared straight ahead, trying to blend into the walls.”There’s value in having someone tell you who is moving in this world.”

Kyrylo held his tongue, staring down Oleg. Different questions swirled through his mind. He didn’t know where any of them could take him. But he knew the real goal here. He needed answers to it above all else.

“Fine,” he said eventually. “I’ll start again. I want to be an Honour, Oleg. The last tip I received here didn’t work. How do I gain power?”

Oleg pointed to Shychur. “You should’ve killed him.”

“Super helpful,” Kyrylo replied. “Can I get the less cryptic answer?”

“If you had killed me,” Shychur cut in, “you would have absorbed my essence. And every essence I had absorbed before then. You keep going until you ascend.” Silvestia nodded next to him. “You’re the same as when you walked in here the last time.”

“Except for all the spirits I already killed in your sewers,” Kyrylo countered, folding his arms across his chest.

“Small potatoes,” Oleg said. “I’m sure they helped, but nothing compared to the Rat King. And now you see why it’s not that effective to pull essence from haunting people. Real contenders hunt other spirits. The weak float around the Third Plane and leach off of you.”

Kyrylo grit his teeth, personally slighted at the idea he had fused with a meaningless spirit. He didn’t have a counter though. The beings they fought on their patrols were too easy to beat. They were nothing compared against the Rat King or Pell or whatever Drakmir was. The answer made sense; he just didn’t like it.

Drakmir was a good starting place though. He had paralyzed all of them with his presence and was hurling minions at the Rat King for fun. If he was training beings with the capacity to challenge Shychur, he must’ve been substantially more powerful to hold sway over them. And if he was that powerful…

“Fine,” Kyrylo said. “Then I want to kill Drakmir. He seems pretty big.”

“Drakmir is not an Honour either.” Oleg finally broke his stare with Kyrylo to turn around and fuss with some bottles, taking a few down to inspect and pour into a glass. “Though you would be closer.”

Shychur laughed and stood up, his bulky frame a spire jutting up through the small room. He needed only a single step to cross over to the bar and scoop up the drink Oleg had just made, gulping it down instantly. “You’ve lost your touch on these, Oleg. And you’ve got no chance against Drakmir. You wouldn’t even get close to House Alucard. You think beating me gets you there?”

“I think if we have the Overdrive Prodigy we can do it.” Kyrylo folded his arms across his chest, trying his best to stand tall against Shychur’s questions. He heard Felix hiss next to him.

“What are you talking about?” Felix asked, unflinching from his defensive posture. “You can’t just make up allies.”

“But you can,” Kyrylo whispered back.

Shychur scratched at his chin, pondering what he had heard. “I don’t know what an Overdrive Prodigy is. I assume this is some skilled agent you work with, a different human. But it still wouldn’t matter. Achieving that much power was my ambition and he toyed with me using his champions.”

“Just say you’ll go with them,” Oleg said, shocking Shychur whose eyes bulged a bit. “We both know it’s what you want.”

“That’s not…” Shychur pounded his fist into the counter but Oleg didn’t budge. “I’m not…with them? And how dare you…I wouldn’t…”

“I’m going to kill Drakmir,” Kyrylo added. “I need to become an Honour and get out of this.” He was surprised by the passion burning under his words. He could feel it swirling in his chest, a strange sensation but a familiar one he had left behind. And just like before when he had felt it, he knew how to bury it again and move past it. He swallowed his pride. “But we will need a guide here. We don’t know anything about this world. Right, Felix?”

His partner finally relinquished his sword, tucking it to the side, though his eyes never left Shychur. “I don’t like that we need the help, but I accept the logic. It’s better than falling down a hole or something.”

Shychur ran his hand through his fur along his head and Kyrylo was reminded of the familiar gesture from Felix. “I can’t help you. Not until this arm comes in. I spent everything I had ever earned as Rat King on replacing it.” His tone soured and became accusatory. “I’m not walking away before it’s done for the person who took it all from me.”

“You spent all you had as a king?” Kyrylo balked. “How much are these arms?”

Shychur’s eyes shifted back towards Oleg. “The issue isn’t the arm…it’s paying off the loan to get the first one. My lender charges obscene interest.”

“Pay it back sooner then,” Oleg replied, testing out another mixture of different liquids to form the next drink. He tutted to himself and swirled around the concoction, disappointed in the result.

Kyrylo watched Oleg with new curiosity. In the few interactions he’d had with the deer-creature, he had been fairly consistent in his actions and he didn’t change now either, frowning at the taste of the drink he made as he tested it before dumping it down the sink. He was only now starting to get a grasp of how far away an Honour potentially was given all the larger players popping up around him who themselves were not close to godhood, as far as he knew. He could be at this for a long time, possibly years.

He wiped away the pessimism. Even if it took him decades, he could reset time, get it all back. That was how any of this worked. To become someone who wrote in the laws of the universe meant he could write out the life he actually wanted, could go back further even and clean it all up.

“What’s Oleg in all this?” Felix asked pointedly. “Other than a bad bartender, apparently.”

Oleg snorted. Shychur chuckled. Silvestia remained mute in the corner, apparently content to watch.

“Look at this place,” Shychur said. “This strike you as some functional business? This is his hobby, Oleg just does this stuff for himself. All his gold comes from loans. He’s got business with every player across Sagos. Maybe even beyond the city. I’m sure he’s entangled with House Alucard, even.”

“You know I don’t disclose clients,” Oleg replied immediately. He didn’t look up from his work, now trying out a new ratio in his mix. “This is what makes me happy so this comes first.”

“Sure it does.” Shychur sneered. “Can’t even cut a break for an old friend, pretending like you’re not the most ruthless one. No wonder Silvestia is always hanging around here.”

“You’re avoiding their offer.”

“Of course I am.” Shychur’s tail started to swish back and forth. “It’s humiliating. Look at me with a stump for an arm. I was a king before, now I’m supposed to escort them around like that’s nothing?”

“I don’t like my situation either,” Kyrylo cut in. He remembered his fight with Shychur, the desperation underpinning everything the spirit did. Shychur wanted something for his own gain more than anything else. So did Kyrylo. “But I know the way out of it. You want to be on top. That’s where I’m heading. You can come with me or you can sit here and wallow. At least you’ll have friends.”

Kyrylo spun around on his heel, grabbing at Felix’s arm and tugging him along with him to leave. He didn’t know what they were going to do or where they would go, he just knew this felt like the moment where he was supposed to try and walk out. That’s what would happen in a movie. He reached the door and pushed it open, feeling the damp cold of the fog rush up to his face.

“Wait,” Shychur called out and Kyrylo froze in the doorway, doing his best to hold back his smile at that actually working. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll have my arm. You’ll have your guide. We raid the minor houses, the Drummond Estate. That will be your path to Drakmir. But I will take what essence is mine. You keep what you kill.”

Kyrylo looked back over his shoulder. Shychur was clenching his fist, eyes ablaze.

“We’ll see you tomorrow.”