Oil Tongue - Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

Vagan had never heard of anyone with the Accursed Role before but knew it did not bode well.

That woman called me a misbegotten child of the Goddess.

He spun around, looking for any trace of her, but found no trail.

What he did find, however, was that towering mushrooms rose from beyond the walls of Sirk and everywhere in sight was covered in fuzzy mould, looking like snow and grass mixed together.

Vagan looked down around his feet, the place where Benja and Sam had died. There were no sign of them. Nothing for him to take and bury.

He swallowed down the urge to vomit, tasting the oil that filled his mouth and throat.

When he tried to speak the black liquid dribbled from his lips and down his chin, and he was unable to form coherent words.

His stomach was like a gnawing pit, and he started to wander down what had once been the main street leading from the market to the chapel.

The town was nothing like what it had been. Houses were replaced by fungal growths that created lattices of interwoven mushroom stalks and had wide-brimmed caps casting large shadows on the ground. The dirt underfoot was unseen beneath the mould, but he felt how its texture had changed. It too had undergone a type of decay, becoming soft and finely granulated. Though perhaps the large worms and detritivore insects had been the cause and not the decay itself.

A part of Vagan’s mind thought there had to be a connection between the fungus, insects, and rapid decay. Perhaps the airborne sickness was more than it seemed, and he wondered if this was the effect of some foul magic cast by the woman who had cursed him.

She said I was cursed before she gave me her ‘gift’, but what did she mean by that?

Is it my inability to succumb to this disease that makes me cursed?

If the Goddess is the one who cursed me, did my Role come from her?

But if that’s the case, then why did I receive the Role only after my tongue was turned to oil and my body devastated?

Vagan had so many questions swirling around his mind, but the woman had gone and the Goddess was deaf to his pleas.

He knew he was in a state of shock. The sight of his best friend unravelling before his eyes was seared into his mind. But it did not feel real.

In time, he would accept it as fact, but for now it was disconnected from reality in his mind.

It was not the first time he had experienced such a feeling.

Back before he had become Vagan, when he went by the name Jack Woods, he had accidentally killed a man. He had been a lousy debtor who had lost his family their house to his gambling addiction, and Jack’s boss had been more than willing to step in and loan him more, even though he must have known the sucker would never end up paying it back.

Jack had been sent to collect whatever valuables the man possessed after he defaulted on his loan. But he had fought back, finding some dignity amongst the dregs of his life, and Jack had been forced to defend himself. He had hit the guy a bit too hard with his baseball bat, knocking him into the corner of a table. Blood had been everywhere and Jack had left in a panic. Somehow, the police had never caught him, but he still remembered the feeling.

It was similar to what Vagan felt now. He had not killed his friend, but he had survived without him, and though it seemed so unreal in this moment, he knew the guilt would eventually come and eat away at him.

If only Benja had already gone to Himmelshaft like Sam wanted, he thought.

If only I had taken the bird deaths seriously and urged Sam to evacuate the town!

There was no way to go back and change it now, but it did not stop him from speculating on all the what-ifs.

The sight of the chapel pulled Vagan out of the dark spiral in his mind.

It had been built from sand-coloured stones, same as the walls, but it had not survived fully intact, as several giant mushrooms had broken through its roof and collapsed its square bell tower.

The large door that aspiring youths would go through to receive their Role was rotted away, any remnants devoured by the giant detritivores. Even the iron door handles were gone without a trace.

Vagan walked through the opening and climbed over the collapsed part of the roof, setting his bare feet down on sand. The sensation surprised him for a moment, until he remembered that it had been Thor’s Day, the day before the week’s Role Assignment ceremony was to take place. There had only been one sixteen year old youth who was meant to walk down the path to the altar this week.

It suddenly hit him that he would never again hear Lisbeth’s voice or feel the warmth of her embrace. All the unfortunate orphans would never find their purpose. All the residents with their hopes and dreams… They would never know what the future would have brought.

“I’ll kill her,” Vagan croaked, oil dribbling from his chin and staining the sand under him.

He walked the path to the altar, pretending that he was taking part in the Role Assignment. Only a sparse bit of light came through the ruined ceiling, since the large mushrooms sprouting up through the floor shaded the holes they had made in the roof.

As he reached the end of the path he knelt before the altar. The statue upon it was made of materials that did not decay, though the gold had tarnished.

Vagan looked up to meet the gaze of her helmeted face, but found that her head had been torn from her neck. The statue of the Goddess was locked in a posture that suggested she was reaching out for someone standing in front of her.

That woman took her head, I’m sure of it.

He thought that maybe it was the entire reason she had come through here.

Though her words had carried conviction, Vagan could not understand why she hated the Goddess so much.

“She sought to make you twisted and wrong.”

“She meant for you to become a monster same as me.”

What did she mean by that?

Was I meant to turn into someone like her? To become someone whose existence condemned those around me?

I suppose it would be a fitting punishment, given the way the Goddess spoke of my past life.

And that incarnation of decay sought to prevent that.

Regardless of her motives, it did not change Vagan’s mind. He would kill her and avenge his friends, his substitute mother, the people of Sirk, and the life he would never get to live now.

But that is why she let me live…

She wants me to kill her, but perhaps I am not strong enough to do it yet, even if I am immune to her power.

Vagan pretended that the statue above him was not headless.

He pretended that it was his Assignment ceremony and its gold-veined hand touched his head.

His eyes lit up with a dark light, midnight blue or maybe even black, with gold lettering spelling out who he was down to his constituent attributes.

< < Vagan of Sirk > >

< Accursed >

< Strength — 3 >

< Agility — 4 >

< Vitality — 2 >

< Intelligence — 1 >

< Willpower — 2 >

< Arcane — 1 >

< Charisma — 4 >

< Perception — 2 >

< Luck — 1 >

So this is what Benja meant when he was always talking about his Strength and Vitality.

I wonder why my Charisma is so high.

It seemed like the first three attributes were connected, as well as the middle three, but the last three were hard to see a pattern between.

How would I train Luck? And what is the purpose of Intelligence if there is a Perception attribute as well? Is Intelligence not associated with cleverness perhaps and serves a different purpose instead?

Like magic?

Arcane sounds very magical in nature, and I’m sure Willpower is somehow related given that the order seems to be three sets of three, since otherwise the list would be sorted according to the alphabet or highest-to-lowest.

There was another thing Benja and Sam had always talked about. They called them skills.

He concentrated and the black screen before his eyes scrolled, the golden lettering of his attributes replaced with new text.

< Skills >

< Charm I >

< Endurance I >

< Fleetfoot I >

< Lurk I >

< Swordplay I >

< Thievery I >

Sam told me that I might have some skills to start with because of our intense training, but as expected, they have not progressed at all, since growth is impossible before Role Assignment.

Not sure where I have Charm from though.

The moment he thought about the skill, it popped up with more detail.

< Charm >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Charisma >

Makes you capable of charming people you encounter, earning more beneficial treatment over time by interacting with them repeatedly.

Did I get this because I made people grow to like me despite my appearance?

In his past life, charisma was not something he could have been said to possess. And he was unlikely to charm anyone now that most of his body looked diseased and his eyes, hair, and tongue were warped by the woman’s cursed gift.

Vagan went through his other skills, trying to figure out what he had to work with.

< Endurance >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Vitality >

Makes you less susceptible to fatigue from physical activity.

< Fleetfoot >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Agility >

Makes you faster while running.

< Lurk >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Agility >

Makes you harder to detect while sneaking and hiding in shadows.

< Swordplay >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Strength & Agility >

Makes your sword handling more precise and powerful, and fighting with a sword tires you out less quickly.

< Thievery >

< Rank I >

< Scales with Agility >

Makes your attempts at stealing and lockpicking harder to detect.

Vagan did not see anything about resistance to decay magic nor whatever was causing him to vomit out crude oil.

He tried to think about curses, but it changed nothing about the dark screen and its golden text.

She called it a gift, he then recalled.

That word brought up new text.

< Gifts >

< Affliction Immunity >

< Niamh’s Benevolence >

He pulled up their descriptions.

< Affliction Immunity >

< A gift imparted to you at birth by the Goddess of Light >

Renders you immune to all afflictions.

< Niamh’s Benevolence >

< A gift imparted to you by Niamh’s touch >

Transforms your tongue into oil, providing your body with a magical anchor for the Oil Affinity.

The toxic effects inherent to this gift are negated by your Affliction Immunity.

That woman’s name is Niamh, he realised.

How is this curse supposed to be benevolent though? And what does it mean by magical anchor?

He looked up at the headless statue for answers, but whatever life or power it might have held before was now gone.

Niamh said that her gift would make me strong. Strong enough to kill her.

Perhaps she’s unable to die in her current state, or maybe it is simply that I am the first person to survive being near her and the decay she exudes.

But how is her ‘Benevolence’ meant to save me from the Goddess?

Vagan got back to his feet, sparing the statue another glance before stepping off to the right side of the sandy path and returning to the chapel’s entrance, walking on the side of an adult. Even though it was make-belief, this was as close as he would get to a real Assignment ceremony. His heart pounded in his chest at the indignity of being robbed the chance to have this meaningful coming-of-age ceremony for real.

Niamh will pay for this. All of this.

He let out a deep breath.

I need to figure out how to use this magical anchor and Oil Affinity, but first I must find something to eat.

There were plenty of mushrooms growing all over Sirk now, and with his inability to suffer afflictions, of which disease and decay were clearly included, it seemed likely that he could eat the fungal growths to sustain himself.

Hopefully poison, toxin, and venom are included under the ‘affliction’ term as well.

He climbed over the ruined chapel roof and walked down the stone steps, coming to a stop near a cluster of small mushrooms that sprouted from the side of the building. They were greyish-white and shaped like pencils.

Vagan pulled them out of the crack in the stone and lifted them up to his mouth.

If I’m wrong and this kills me, then I’ll return to the Goddess.

I wonder what she would say and how she would judge me now?

I’ve had a good childhood and was able to start on the journey towards becoming a proper man.

Maybe she would be pleased with my progress?

He had nothing left to live for at any rate, so he chomped down on the mushrooms, shoving them all into his mouth and chewing them to a pulp before swallowing.

All he tasted was the oil covering his mouth and throat in a greasy film.

He waited a few moments, but nothing happened.

His stomach still felt hollow, so he searched for other mushrooms to eat.

Over the next several minutes he located and devoured eight different types of mushrooms. Besides the white-grey pencils, he also ate black bells, dirty-yellow puffballs, straw-brown stars, white-and-blue cones, fuzzy red-brown half-moons, small thin umbrellas with white tops and yellow stems, and translucent-green ones. He even tried eating a handful of the fuzzy grass-like mould.

It was all quite filling but he could not taste anything besides the oil, but at least they did not make him feel sick in any way.

I wonder what Benja would say if he saw me gorging myself like this.

He would probably say it was fitting.

Once, when the orphanage had received a lot of food donations from one of the Merchants, Vagan had snuck into the kitchen and stuffed himself so full of food that he puked. Lisbeth’s punishment had been like the wrath of God and he swore he could still feel the sting of the spanking she’d given him. Benja had laughed his ass off, which had somehow gotten him in trouble as well.

Vagan grinned at the memory.

Suddenly the black screen and gold text appeared before his eyes with an announcement, vanishing a couple seconds later.

< < Skill Unlocked > >

< Affliction Eater >

< Scales with Charisma >

Makes you able to gain sustenance from afflicted food.

Why does that scale with Charisma?

Vagan could not recall Sam and Benja ever talking about the attribute, but he thought for sure it did not apply to something like eating. That seemed more likely to be associated with Vitality.

Charisma is what Merchants use. It must be. They always seemed so approachable, despite all the yelling they did in the market.

I wonder if they had a skill to avoid getting a sore throat.

He thought about how he had been able to inspect his skills and gifts by focusing on them and brought up his attributes again. The moment he focused on Strength, its description appeared.

< Strength >

< 3 >

Governs physical power.

Vagan quickly went through the rest.

< Agility >

< 4 >

Governs movement and physical precision.

< Vitality >

< 2 >

Governs physical health, endurance, and resistances.

< Intelligence >

< 1 >

Governs magical power and mana.

< Willpower >

< 2 >

Governs mental strength and magical resistances.

< Arcane >

< 1 >

Governs magical adroitness, ritual efficacy, and afflictions.

< Charisma >

< 4 >

Governs personal agreeableness and persuasion.

< Perception >

< 2 >

Governs personal astuteness and ingenuity.

< Luck >

< 1 >

Governs personal fortune.

I wasn’t wrong, Affliction Eater definitely shouldn’t scale with Charisma.

If I’m going to use the magical anchor tied to the Oil Affinity, then it will rely on my Intelligence, which is as low as it gets. But since it’s tied to mana and magical power, I should be able to raise Intelligence by training the magical anchor.

He was unsure how to actually do it though, and he had never even heard about oil magic before. It sounded absurd. But he at least knew that he was not in short supply when it came to oil, since his body overflowed with it. Having no other idea on how to get started, he simply spat out a glob of the dark oil that swirled around inside his mouth.

It had a viscosity closer to syrup than water, but still eagerly ran down his hand and through his fingers if he let it. Cupping his palm to stop it from all spilling to the ground, Vagan focused his mind on the glob of crude oil.

Almost immediately it shifted under his gaze.

It’s actually working!

He shut out all other stimuli and concentrated entirely on the oil in his palm. A tinnitus whine filled his ears, but the oil was slowly coming together into a ball.

With one final push, he managed to lift it up into the air, but then it popped like a balloon and he collapsed to his knees, a feeling of immense exhaustion overcoming him.

Something dribbled from his right nostril. It was oil but tinge slightly red.

A nosebleed? Guess it’s good to know I still have blood in my veins, even if it’s also infected…

I think using mana really puts a strain on the mind, he realised, feeling a splitting headache.

The tinnitus slowly died down and he shifted to a cross-legged posture before trying again.

This time he managed to lift a small glob of oil from the ground and half a metre into the air before it popped and a stinging pain shot through his head.

“Argh,” he groaned.

I think the oil made my voice deeper.

I sound like a forty-year-old chain smoker now…

After the headache died down a little, he went for it a third time. Before he could even lift the blob into the air, his vision flickered rapidly and he lost consciousness.

Vagan came to in a puddle of black oil, half his face submerged in it.

His stomach felt hollow and empty, so he got to his feet unsteadily and looked about for something to eat.

Nearby was a tree-sized mushroom with a flesh-coloured triangular cap that had short hair-like tendrils hanging below it. He tore at the thick stem, managing to pull off a large chunk with relative ease. When he bit into it, the texture reminded him of a school eraser, but with some persistent grinding and gnawing, he was able to devour the whole thing.

He was glad his teeth had not fallen out from his curse, since he had an irrational fear of losing teeth, which had made reliving childhood a harrowing experience. The only thing worse than his milk teeth falling out had been the second coming of puberty. Even if he was an old soul trapped in a child’s body, the onslaught of teenage hormones had been impossible to guard himself against.

At least with my Accursed body it now seems to be gone, along with any sense of normality…

As soon as Vagan was done eating, he immediately started to feel better.

Then the black screen and gold text returned.

< < Skill Unlocked > >

< Magical Appetite >

< Scales with Charisma >

Makes you able to absorb a small portion of the latent mana within the raw materials you consume.

Again, why is it scaling with Charisma?

But I suppose this will help me with my practice, since it seems that I am quite low on actual mana, given that two and a half attempts to manipulate oil is enough to make me go night-night.

Since these mushrooms were created by some kind of magic, they probably have a lot of mana inside them, he theorised.

Before he continued practising with the oil magic again, Vagan went about collecting many different mushrooms, using one of the interwoven lattices that grew up against the city wall as a net.

I should find something to wear as well… he thought.

Niamh was wearing clothes made of mushrooms, but maybe those were growing from her body?

There was no one around him though and he got the feeling that beyond Sirk was more of the fungus-infested wasteland, so propriety was the least of his worries right now.

After stocking up on many different mushrooms, Vagan went over to where Benja and Sam had perished. The only sign that he was in the right spot was the large puddle of reflective oil.

He hoped that they were watching over him and seeing how hard he was working to grow his strange new power. He wanted them to know that he would avenge them, even if that was exactly what Niamh desired of him.

Vagan dropped his improvised net of foodstuffs and focused his mind on the large puddle. He reached out with his hands, imagining that they were aiding him in lifting up the oil and forming it into a ball.

Tinnitus filled his ears, a jabbing headache manifested above his right eye, blood drippled gleefully from his nostrils, and his vision flickered.

But the crude oil responded to his command, forming into a ball the size of his head that lifted a few centimetres off the ground.

Vagan’s knees buckled and the floating sphere popped and cascaded its dark liquid back down into the puddle. He caught himself with his hands and quickly stuffed a mushroom into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as he could.

Somehow, he managed to avoid passing out again.

< < Attribute Growth > >

< Intelligence 1 => 3 >

< < Skill Unlocked > >

< Oleumancy >

< Scales with Charisma >

Makes you able to wield and manipulate the Oil element using mana.

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