Serial
6: Oppressions
October
22nd, 32 S.D. 23:03 Palostrol, Upper Vestel
The clock had just struck eleven, yet scarcely a soul was awake to hear it. Nearly everyone at that moment whiled away the night in peaceful sleep. Unaware of circumstances as they were, the students rested in their beds otherwise oblivious to all things impending. Yet how could they have foreseen what approached even had they been awake? They were but children raised in the absence of all the world’s harms. At any rate, their skills alone were far from what was necessary to detect the arrival of the people who silently crept upon their home.
However, Master Eltin - given his prowess as a serialist, his foresight as an elder, and his familiarity with the oncoming strangers - was all too informed of these unfolding events. As soon as that group had so much as seen Mount Anhel from a distance, Eltin had felt them drawing nearer. Even before that, he had felt their presence - or rather that man’s presence - growing stronger by the day until now he could tell they were nigh upon Palostrol itself. At least such an early warning had given him time to make his mind along with his soul as peaceable as possible.
In the darkness of his room, sitting by the window cross-legged, he took an instant of repose before they came, before he was to face a most terrible task. Moonlight filtered in through the window as nocturnal clouds temporarily broke ranks. He sat robed in a long, flowing, white coat of thin material, as well as shirts and pants of much the same simple style. These were quite a contrast from the black garments he wore everyday. The emblem on his back symbolizing his mastery was notably missing in this outfit of his.
With his hands on his knees, he looked straight ahead into nothingness, biding time until the proper moment arrived. Ever still, without the slightest motion, he sat there just so as the night’s course carried on. Then suddenly he stood up at once, and with a face bearing no expression, he cast the door open before him. The moon faded into blackness as the skies above again drew clouds en masse over the land. Calmly, slowly, he stepped forth, walking out into the empty grounds of his school. Though it were close to midnight and the hour was late, he easily maneuvered through the evening. He continued until at last he reached the central courtyard’s circular brick path. Standing there in the middle, he merely looked up above him, his eyes steeled towards the air.
Mesel, meanwhile, contentedly found himself deep in the throes of slumber. He was far gone for the night, utterly apart from the very world that stood in present danger. However, his dreamy escape would scarcely last, for with the coming of a certain man and his group, disturbance and unrest were swift to follow. This was true figuratively as well as literally, for these ten outsiders held within themselves power enough to physically cause the elements to quake in their presence. Such was the sheer volume of seras contained by their souls that all things began to tremor greater and greater as they made their way onto Palostrol. Violent vibrations radiated everywhere causing the very world to shake. While at first this phenomenon started as no more than a rustling, once that said group reached a specific proximity, the quaking broke out full-strength almost instantly.
As he lied in bed, carefree of the ones making their way upon Palostrol, a sudden rushing wave hit Mesel. To him, it sounded like a great flood of water collapsing on his ears. Ripped away from sleep, he gasped loudly as he woke up. It felt like an immense pressure - like an entire atmosphere - weighed upon his body. He could only lie there, seized by the massive downpour of oppressive energy. Wheezing, he barely managed to breathe at all. His eyes fled left and right, darting wildly about his darkened room. With short, curt pants, he turned to the side of the bed, looking at the door leading out of his room. Mesel had no idea what was going on; he thought he was sick or delirious and needed help.
The bed beneath him shook madly, its posts dragging across the wooden floor with intermittent screeches. He managed to throw himself over the edge and onto his rug as he careened and landed on his shoulder. At that point, he couldn’t much move except for crawling; such was the intensity of the force pushing down on him. Weakly, with twitching limbs, he dragged himself to the door. His hand fumbled and faltered as he attempted to work the door. Only after much effort was he able to wretch the portal open.
Getting even this far, however, had apparently proved too great for his endurance. Here Mesel fell face-first into the corridor of his dormitory. His mouth hit the floorboards with an audible thud, and thus he was pinned down by the surging flow of seras. He could do naught but remain there immobilized yet again. Mesel turned his head down the corridor’s path towards the door that lead outside to the school at large. The hall kept several lamps on either end burning throughout the night as a convenience, but by their glow, he could see what was happening to the building. The walls crept with shivers as the air itself became distorted, like a thousand needles racing downward. The flames of the lamps dimmed and danced on the verge of death.
Was this all some nightmare, a vision warped by fever? He wanted to scream, to call for aid, but all he could do was take short, rapid breaths with wide eyes. It felt like he were being crushed, as if a hand upon his whole body meant to smother and smash him. His arm blindly shot out down the hall but shortly fell in front of his own eyes. By then, this all was too much for the child; it overwhelmed him. His sight began to fail, and pitch blackness consumed the space around him. The last thing he remembered that night was that thundering, roaring sound, as if he were drowning beneath a grand ocean.
What with there being no need to rise up early to prepare for daily lessons or any other aspects of their normal routines, Losha and Siersus had gotten into the habit of staying up late into the night, sometimes even until dawn. They did so because of their desire to finish the master’s test. While they could be sleeping, it was equally true that they could have been practicing serialization or uncovering the mystery behind this series.
This most fateful night was no exception. They sat together with their mats pulled close to one another. Based on Losha’s theory about raw seras, they’d spent hours in that direction trying to refine their control over the pure energy. They were starting small for now. If the series they were to perfect truly did work based on raw seras and skipped conversion altogether, then it should have been possible to perform other series using only raw seras as well. The two of them tried to generate simple balls of light with raw seras, much like the lights they used to brighten the temple. If Losha and Siersus could muster that much, they could work their way up to the series described on their sheets.
Taking turns, one would create a ball of light, serializing as they always had, using conversion. The other would then attempt to use raw seras to manifest a second, comparable orb. The setup maintained a lit room while providing a constant example of what they were supposed to achieve. If the orb made from raw seras didn’t look like the other, it was a clear indication that something was off with the former. The idea had been to check how accurately they were serializing with only raw seras, but it remained painfully obvious that they still had a long ways to progress.
As an example of the lengths they had yet reached, Losha at this time was trying to serialize a sphere of her own while Siersus held his between them. She’d already aggregated the seras but as she tried skipping conversion and going straight into execution, only a momentary spark came to life. She mumbled something lowly to herself in Asten; Siersus yawned.
“Once more,” she said distractedly. “After this, it is your turn.”
“After this, I think I’ll call it a night,” he responded, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes with one hand.
“Very well.”
She focused on that night’s last round, wanting to see some improvement before they quit. Losha was right about to perform the series again when there came that same great trembling that befell Palostrol. Thus far removed from the school, however, the effects here at the temple were less severe than at the epicenter. Still, the table rattled loudly as the air shook before them. In an instant they both looked at the door of the temple, with Siersus whipping his head all the way around. They stared as the rumbling continued on, as if they could see through the temple itself and down the mountain.
“What is this?” Siersus asked, his mouth hung agape. “Losha,” he said turning back swiftly. “Do you sense it too?”
She glanced at him with anxious eyes, speaking now with a rare lapse into a thick accent as she grasped for words. “It is... people? But... ” Even though Palostrol was some distance away, she could quite clearly distinguish the seras frequencies of several unknown individuals. Yet, their frequencies were so incredibly high she was bewildered enough to believe herself mistaken at first.
“This shaking,” Siersus said, standing up. “Is this a series?”
“No,” Losha said. “It is not that. They are not serializing. It is their seras alone. They have so much that it is causing disturbances in the environment.”
“What?!”
“It is just a theory at the moment, but serialists with vast amounts of seras can create physical disturbances and anomalies in the surrounding environment. It is akin to mixing high pressures and low pressures rapidly; you get severe storms. A lot of seras moving into an area of lower seras creates such an effect, so the thinking goes. But this degree is unprecedented... It-it should not even be possible to tremor the earth, let alone brush the leaves of a tree.”
Siersus vaguely recalled her having mentioned all of this before; the appropriate technical name, seratic diffusion, was the only point he clearly remembered though.
“What do you think it means? I don’t recognize any of the seras.”
“I don’t know...” Losha said as both of her languages left her wanting proper words for the situation. She frowned as her head was cast down to the side. Surely they couldn’t ignore it; that course was much too ignorant. But what did she expect them to achieve even if they took action? Unsure of what to do, they waited a full minute, and approximately after that period, the quaking subsided entirely.
“It looks like the environment has stabilized and adjusted to the new seratic magnitude,” she said, a slight quiver stuck in her voice.
“I’ve never sensed such a concentration of seras before. I... would never would have imagined this much possible... It’s almost immeasurable,” Siersus said, fixing his glasses as the trembling had somewhat knocked them off. Suddenly, Losha stood up.
“Sunadet pashov!” she exclaimed in Asten.
“What?”
“I meant to say, we go, now.”
Siersus blinked as she headed for the temple’s doors.
“Test of no test, we are hardly fit to be masters if we do not heed the call of urgency, whatever the matter. I do not like this feeling in any degree. It... ” she paused as her hand touched the door’s frame. “It scares me... Something below is unwell. I can become a master at any time, but I can only make a choice such as this tonight. I will not have it a choice steeped in regret.”
“That’s fine, yes,” Siersus said, right behind her. “But we’re talking too much, let’s go.” He hurried them through the entrance.
“Sa, sorry... ”
They ran out of the temple as they both serialized orbs of light to guide them through the night. However, before they journeyed too far, Siersus yelled out.
“Wait, Losha! Let me show you a series quickly.”
“What for?” she asked, spinning around.
“It will help us get down the mountain faster.”
“Are you positive?”
“Yes,”
“Show me,” she breathed. “Hurry.”
King stood above Palostrol, hundreds of meters higher than the school. He needed only take one step further before he knew he was at exactly the right spot. The weather of gloom and overcast that evening, however, did not suit his tastes. With the sweep of his left hand, the clouds pulled away like an expanding hole in the sky. A perfect circle widened across the night’s ceiling, and the moon was once again revealed. But against these lunar rays, the distinct forms of ten beings suspended over the earth were seen. King himself stood centerfold ahead of his nine companions. The nine fanned out behind him in a rough semi-circle.
“You can tell King’s excited,” Einer whispered. “He didn’t even try to restrain his seras.”
“King’s certainly excited, but I doubt that’s the reason he’s been pumping out seras like that.”
Einer turned and looked at Marla, a young, clear-eyed blonde woman who had a way of saying the bluntest and coldest of things in a perfectly serene voice. Einer had figured that she wasn’t intentionally insensitive in her assessments, she just didn’t know how to explain things in any other way but as they truly were. She couldn’t sugarcoat words, even though she always spoke softly and gently without a trace of condescension.
“He’s probably doing this to call Sambur out, telling him King knows he’s here. It’s as much an announcement as it is a demand. He does intend to kill him after all. This is a personal matter for King, you know.”
King looked down for but an instant before his body whisked away faster than any eye could blink. His image faded from the sky and almost immediately appeared below on the ground. He stood just beyond the gates of Palostrol on the inside. Directly ahead, Master Eltin stood with his arms at his sides, idling and waiting for King to make his approach. King stepped forward, and not even after a dozen or so paces, his group of nine zoomed down behind him, maintaining their prior formation.
The very forefront of Palostrol was still flowing with darkness, but further in, the school was bathed in lustrous moonlight from the unnatural chasm King had ripped in the clouds. From the depths of these shadows, their murky forms marched forth into the beaming brilliance, as if a black shroud were slowly pulled over and away from them. King grinned as he came closer and closer to Master Eltin, but after crossing a certain threshold, he raised his hand. At once, his nine followers ceased where they stood as King himself continued alone. He entered onto the large, round courtyard on the southern end. Master Eltin stood motionless on the northern end. King halted upon reaching this place. For a brief moment, he merely stayed there looking at Master Eltin.
“It has been a long time, but at last we meet again, Sambur Eltin.” Eltin made no initial response to his words. “How long has it been since we last spoke? Surely it’s been past 30 years already. Although, it looks as if you’ve aged a bit. As expected,” King said, closing his eyes and smirking somewhat. “You haven’t been able to completely reach the regenesis process. How unfortunate.”
“Why have you come here?” Eltin said, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms.
“Why?” King asked in return. “Is it not obvious enough?” He suddenly flashed his eyes open, yet his expression was both cool and collected, embellished by the slight smile that played across his face.
“I came here with only one purpose” He held out his arm, his palm upturned and opened. “To reclaim what is mine.” Then he quickly snapped it shut. “Serialization.”
Eltin said nothing at first, but he spoke later as he frowned. “You really haven’t changed in all this time. Even after all of these years you insist on having the world follow your course of ignorance. Tell me,” he said, raising his voice. “What good can come of your ways? Where shall we see the benefit of keeping everything you’ve learned a secret?”
King hummed amusedly to himself for a second. “Change you say? How curious. One only changes out of desire or circumstance. Neither has there been any need nor want strong enough to dissuade my mind. Regardless of whether you deem my judgments right or not, you have no place to decide what actions I should take. It is my right alone to determine the fate of serialization.” He raised a hand and pointed squarely at Eltin. “As well as the fate of all who serialize.”
A scowl began to spread over Eltin’s mouth, but he tried to keep his anger in check. Nevertheless, his fists dropped again to his sides, tightly clenched, shuddering ever so minutely. “Do you believe you can control things so easily?”
“Sambur,” King called out clearly. “This is a topic we discussed decades ago. It is not a belief. I know I can control these things, as I shall demonstrate tonight.”
Eltin tensed all at once as his stance changed; his legs widened as he drew back an arm. It looked as if he meant to engage King, as if he were readying a weapon with which to strike.
“Do not mistake this school of yours, this Palostrol, as a sign of triumph,” King warned. “You’ve scarcely wrested a modicum of freedom for yourself.”
“Leave now,” Eltin barked out. “You have long since stopped being the man I used to respect.”
“Do you intend to draw your servai?” King asked calmly, as if he didn’t even register Eltin as a threat.
“If I must,” the master answered.
“It will be but a waste of your own seras. You could barely lay a scratch upon my soul then; the matter has nowise changed since. Come; you can’t possibly think to have bettered your prowess by teaching children all of these years.”
“As ever, you talk far too much...” Eltin began to spread his legs even further as he leaned forward. “If you will not end this, then I will-”
“Master Eltin! What’s happening?! Something’s wro-”
Out of nowhere Denze arrived. On his back he carried an unconscious Mesel. Somehow he’d managed to withstand the brutal amount of seras that had rained down on Palostrol. Reacting to his fears, he’d instinctively rushed out of bed. After going down a single flight of stairs, he had found his friend lying there in the hall. There had been no time to think, so his choice was to take Mesel along with him. He didn’t know exactly what he should have done, save for fleeing or finding their master, whichever came first. As Denze raced out onto the school grounds, he had caught sight of Master Eltin, but once he did, he also noted the presence of several menacing strangers. Thanks to his shouting, they too were now well aware of his own sudden appearance.
“Denze!” Master Eltin said in a harsher tone than the lad had ever heard him use. Eltin did not turn around as he spoke succinctly. “Stay away. Turn around and leave. This is a matter I must bear.”
Denze froze, unable to move closer or retreat. He was utterly paralyzed, perhaps just then realizing the sheer amount of seras controlled by King and his nine followers. “M-master... Who are...” he said, his teeth gritting. Were they even human, to command such an incomprehensible wealth of seras?
“Get back!” Eltin ordered, but King laughed at this genuinely, albeit briefly.
“How very interesting; you have them call you ‘master’. One wonders what sort of other notions you’ve embedded in them.”
“My students are none of your concern.”
“On the contrary,” King said. “Like you Sambur, they are part of the problem. At the very least, however, this boy deserves to be dispelled of some of your inaccurate teachings. The minimum should be to understand who I am.” King took two steps closer before speaking.
“I am Nabel Viska, the first serialist that ever lived and the true creator of serialization.”
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