88 - Another Conversation With The Lord of the Eldritch

Even as she jolted upright in her seat, heart throttling in her chest, Lexie had a split second where she didn’t know what she was going to do. She simply sat staring at the Eldritch manling floating outside her window. Her first thought was, “Well, that’s creepy” quickly followed by, “If Glinda sees that she’s going to freak out and expect the worst.” 

Glinda and Terry lived not too far away, in an apartment complex just at the end of the street. While they, like most people in town, no longer actively feared and shunned Aiden, an Eldritch creature outside their window might drag all that hostility back. At the very least, they would begin throwing him suspicious glances again. 

Lexie didn’t want that. 

So she went to the window and ignoring the fear that gripped her chest, she told the creature, “My dad’s not here.”

“I know that,” he said. “And he has put in measures that don’t allow me to enter his home without permission anymore.”

“He has?” Aiden said he would but he seemed too busy for it lately.

Naem nodded. “I need either you or him to invite me in.”

Like a vampire. Lexie stared at him. “Are you asking me to give you permission?”

“Will you?’

She shook her head slowly. “If he doesn't want you here, it’s probably for a good reason. You should go.”

Lexie wasn’t sure but she thought his face looked a little sad.

She sighed. “He didn’t make any cookies, not any fresh ones anyway. He’s been too busy with work.”

“Work?” His whisper was dotted with confusion. “He found a more worthy cause than making delightful round pieces of excellent desserts?”

Lexie smirked. “Believe it or not, yes.”

Naem made a sound that could have been a huff. “I suppose I’ll wait for him to come back then.”

“Sure. But could you wait a little…conspicuously?” 

Lexie's words caused him to look down at his form. Then in a swoop of swirling darkness, he transferred into a crow. 

“Is this form more palatable?” The beak didn’t open and close but the sound echoed clearly around Lexie. 

“Yes,” she said. And then not knowing what else to say, she simply shrugged and returned to her desk, angling her chair so she could keep an eye on the creature. It remained at her windowsill, still and unblinking, which made for a very strange and eerie experience. 

Lexie wondered why the creature was there. If he had indeed come to see her father, why did he always seem to find himself here when Aiden wasn't home? 

Was he here for Lexie? Maybe to rectify the soul thing. Or was she being paranoid?

After all, Aiden was supposed to be home by now but he’d simply told Lexie that he had gotten held up by work like last time. But had Naem even called him? Could he call him?

After thirty minutes the creature still hadn't said or done anything and Lexie began to think that she was just being paranoid. With Naem here, it was difficult to separate her true natural caution from eldritch-induced fear, so maybe her paranoia was part of the latter. She decided to put it out of her mind and focus on finding an intent for a card that would help keep her and Tate safe. How should she even begin?

Start from the story. That was what Naem had told her. 

It was easier said than done though. How far back should she start? Did she begin when Tate asked her this favor? Or did she go farther back, from when she met him again on Earth 9? Or should go all the way back to Earth 2, when she died trying to save him?

Yeah, that was too morbid. And probably not necessary. 

Okay, so she would probably need to start with them meeting again. What was the story? She met with him and he asked her a favor. She wasn't sure she wanted to do it though. But she promised him she would think about it.

Now what?

Nothing was happening so she guessed that she was getting it wrong. Maybe because it was not a compelling story. It wasn't much of a story at all, as much as it was simply a series of events. Where was she going wrong? Maybe she needed to understand the components of a story first. 

She suddenly glanced back at the window where the crow still sat waiting. His face was turned with one eye blinking into the room and the other eye into the darkness of the night. Lexie weighed her options in her head. She could either spend the next few hours or days trying to figure out the intent of the card. Or she could the eldritch creature on her window or help. 

It was a tough choice, surprisingly. She didn't think it was a good idea to keep asking him for help because he might take that as an invitation for a contract. But Aiden already confirmed that Naem didn’t want a contract with her and didn’t want to hurt her either.

Was there anything else he wanted from her? Or was he simply keeping an eye on her because her soul looked 'different' as he put it?

Lexie cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Um…Sir?”

The bird turned its head. It didn’t open its mouth but once again, he didn't need to. “I assume you’re referring to me.” 

“Um yeah.” Was there any other sir in the room? Lexie then realized that she didn’t know what gender the Eldritch Lord was. Did Eldritch even have gender?

Now was probably not the time to ask. 

“Do you think you can help me figure out my intent for a card I want to make? It’s a card that would transport someone from wherever they are to me.”

“That feels like only part of the story…” he said. "And you're not showing emotions, much less rage or fear."

“Exactly.” A story probably needed more context than what she'd given and also more emotional depth. But Lexie didn't know how to force emotional depth. Instead, her mind brought up another unrelated point.

Naem might be the best person to confirm Tate's theory about dungeons being made from Eldritch. But would ask him that endanger her and Tate? Was this a fearsome secret? She didn’t know but she put that on the backburner for now, focusing on the story instead.

How much should she tell Naem? She didn’t want to tell him much more than she already had, but it had to be enough accurate information for the intent to work. 

“Can you keep a secret?” Lexie asked the Eldritch Lord. 

“Of course,” he answered. “I keep many secrets.”

“Okay, good, because you can’t tell my dad this. But I have a friend who wants to go on a dungeon raid, and I’ll be accompanying him. Again, don’t tell my dad or he’ll freak out.”

“I will not tell him. If you would like, I may even remove the secrets from our conscious mind and attach it to a secret item only to be returned after an expiration date has passed.”

Lexie wasn’t sure what expiration was in this context, but she thought it meant death.

“Er, no need to go that far, just don’t bring it up. Anyway,  I’ve not really decided if I’ll go yet or not but I’m considering it. And if I go, then I want to take this card with me so we can both be safer. Something that transports him from wherever he is to me.".”

“Humans are so odd,” Naem said. “How do you not know your intent when you’ve explained it perfectly in other words?”

Lexie didn’t know but she had come to associate intent with that aha moment, that emotional conviction that accompanied what she was doing. She thought hard about it. 

Start with the story,” The Eldritch Lord said. “Always begin with the story.”

Lexie nodded. “Okay. Me and my friend want to go on a dungeon raid.”

“Who is this friend?”

“Just a boy I know. Not my boyfriend,” she said in a firm voice, even though she didn't think the Eldritch Lord would care about that.

"He's someone I’ve known for a while. At the same time, I don't know him all that well.”

“A stranger who’s not a stranger.”

“Exactly.”

She expected Eldritch Lord to ask about why she’s raiding the dungeon, but he simply stated, “I sense there’s more to the story with you and this friend.”

"No," Lexie said automatically and a little apprehensively. 

He kept staring. 

“Can you read my mind?”

“No, but I can read your facial expressions. You’re hiding something and honesty is key with intent.”

Lexie chewed on her lip. "Okay, fine. We’ve been through a lot of the same stuff, but t I wouldn’t say we’re friends or even that close.” Something shifted in her chest as she continued talking, “He's mundane and he very much doesn’t want to be so he’s trying to do something really dangerous and I feel like he's’ going to get hurt and I don’t want him to get hurt. But he won't listen to anyone. So I’m trying to keep him by my side so he doesn’t." The words left her in a rush and she was relieved when it was over. 

And even more relieved when the intent cemented in her mind.

Tether him. 

The intent immediately cemented in her mind and she gasped. 

“Wow,” she said. “That was easy.”

“Was it?” he said. “That’s good. Then it means you must be getting better.”

She beamed. Human intent prevailed again. 

Lexie's good mood died a second later though when she considered what happened with the last card she'd made.

“But finding intent is only half the battle,” she said. “The system might reject this one too and then I would be back to square one. "

He nodded. “The Human System has to take into account the potential usage of the card to analyze how much danger it might cause to the caster. Card mages have mostly low mana capacity but teleportation is a high capacity skill. The Human System will not allow for it because it could cause user damage.”

“Not if the User had a high enough capacity,” she said.

“But you don’t." The bird finally.“It’s not just the system that limits. It is your abilities.”

Lexie pressed her lips together. She knew that it was true but she didn’t like hearing it, not from her father, much less from this demon bird. “So you’re saying that, even if I have everything right including the intent, I won't be able to create the card.”

“Precisely.”

“You don’t know that.”

“But I do,” he said. “I know a lot about card magic. After all, I’m the one who helped your father make his first untethered card.”

Oh yeah, she forgot about that.  “Untethered?” 

“A card that does not abide by the rules of the human system.”

She cocked her head. “Does that mean that the eldritch have their system?” 

He didn’t answer that question but he may have given her the demon bird equivalent of a shrug. She wondered if that was secret knowledge that humans weren’t allowed to know. 

But Lexie couldn’t let it go. 

“So that’s why <Out of Mind> doesn’t need to be a part of a deck, and doesn't need any internal mana to work,” she said “Because it’s made the eldritch way, not the human way.”

“There is no human way,” he said. “The human method of making cards is currently designed by the Fae, and they are the ones who made the system as it is.”

“Right.” Now that Lexie thought about it, it was probably true. Card magic according to Elvira had once been capable of holding high-powered skills but it had been made weaker and weaker until they were relegated to small party tricks. Elvira said it was because cards were made in a time when people had low affinity and thus, they would often hurt themselves activating.

Lexie wouldn't have done that. But she was a C-Rank and that was all they cared about.

“Would you be able to help me create the card?” Lexie asked tentatively. Once again, she knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to be asking the eldritch any favors, based on everything she’d read. But she felt she had no choice.

“Probably not,” he said. “You are not your father. You do not have his mana.”

Once again, Lexie hated being reminded of her disadvantage, the limitation of her power. She sighed and then pouted.

"But you're the Lord of the Eldritch. You have tons of power. So, you made an amazing card for my father, one which he'd barely asked you for, but you won't help me make my card?"

“You do not have the requirements,” he said. “Your mana capacity is low. The system was close to ranking you as manaless if your affinity hadn’t been so high.”

He gave her a droll look. "What you're trying to do is essentially impossible."

“My father didn’t say it was impossible,” 

“Your father didn’t want you to lose hope. Loss of hope is painful for humans.”

It was. Lexie felt crushed. She wanted to argue that Naem didn’t know her and what she was capable of, but that was a childish reaction. This man-creature wasn't saying it to hurt her feelings and he wasn’t saying anything that she probably didn’t already suspect.

For weeks now she’d been fighting against the constraints of her rank, which made things more difficult even with making basic cards. She’d worked hard for over a year and only had a few faulty cards to show for it. Sure she’d made progress and she was so knowledgeable about pathways, to the point where she could read another person's pathway. But all her hard work and studying weren't giving her the results she wanted.

"Argh!" Lexy let out the frustration. And before she knew it she was asking him, “Is there nothing I can do to improve my mana capacity?”

"The question you must ask is not if you can,” he said smoothly. “It’s if you should.”

Lexie figured he was talking about so-called mana potions that people sometimes took to increase their mana output. While having limited results, those potions were known to be dangerous and could lead to organ failure.

Lexie suddenly recalled Tate and how he’d managed to infuse his mechs with mana. She wondered if there was a way to do it in the same manner for cards, rather than the traditional way through the system. 

Lexie considered Naem again and decided to ask the questions that perplexed her. She did it in a roundabout and tried to act casual about it:

“I heard a rumor that dungeons are made out of Eldritch.” She analyzed him and sensed he wasn’t surprised. “Is that true?”

He nodded instantly. “Yes.”

Lexie gaped. Questions began pouring from her lips. 

“So it’s true? Dungeons really are made from eldritch? How? And what happens when the dungeon disappears? Does the creature die?" 

Naem seemed about to respond, then he cocked his head. ‘“Your father is home."

“Oh." Lexie was disappointed to hear their conversation had come to an end. “One last thing though, does it not bother you when the eldritch die in dungeons.”

"Who says they die?"

"They don't? Oh sorry, I just assumed that they died once you deactivated the dungeon core."

"They do in a sense." She got the sense Naem was smiling at her. “But eldritch, unlike humans, are excellent at recycling.”

AN- brain fried again. Sorry.