Chapter 34

“Oh, okay. Nope. Don’t like that,” Luke said. “Can you speak out loud instead of directly into my head?”

The bird-man let out a warbling screech, followed by another telepathic message. ‘I do not think you could understand my language. And I certainly do not understand yours.’

“But you’re responding to it right now.”

‘I am not. I am responding to your thoughts. It is… imperfect, but far more meaningful a conversation than we could otherwise have.’

It was also giving Luke a killer headache, and he’d only been talking for thirty seconds. He didn’t think he’d survive a full-blown conversation. Any second now, blood was going to start leaking out of his ears and eyeballs, then he’d have a stroke and keel over.

‘Ah, I see. I apologize. Is this better?’ Kareem asked.

The headache didn’t disappear or get any better, but it also didn’t get any worse. “Kind of,” Luke admitted, somewhat begrudgingly. He hadn’t actually vocalized any discomfort, and he didn’t like that Kareem was apparently reading his mind.

‘Surface thoughts only,’ the bird-man assured him. ‘Only to facilitate communication.’

Luke didn’t think that made it any better, but he nodded. He supposed there was no need to say it out loud since Kareem was reading it straight out of his brain anyway. The bird-man tilted his head in exactly the same way Red did and regarded Luke.

‘It is easier to limit myself to only reading your conversational thoughts when you speak aloud, but it is not strictly necessary.’

“Okay. So then, it was nice to meet you. I assume you’re friends with… uh… I have been calling it? Him? Red…”

‘Him,’ Kareen projected firmly. ‘You would not be able to pronounce his real name. I don’t know of any human who was able to speak our language. ‘Red’ is a good name for him.’

“Red then.” Luke nodded at the hawk. “Like I said, it was nice to meet you, and no offense, but I have a ways to go and I’m not comfortable with this form of communication.”

‘I’ll keep this brief then,’ Kareen said. ‘First, a thank you for sharing your food with my soulbond. Your generosity was noted and appreciated.’

“You’re welcome?” Luke asked as much as he said. That had definitely only started because he was afraid Red was going to kill and eat him, though as time went by he’d started to grow fond of the bird and there was always more meat than he could eat himself anyway. It hadn’t cost him anything, and Red had saved his life, twice. “I really didn’t do anything special.”

‘It is still appreciated, nonetheless. Second, I wish to give you a warning. I am told that the human who attacked you was marked with the Sign of the Six. You should know that those wearing that mark, the same one on the armor you’re wearing now, are considered to be the Voice of the Pantheon. It is their job to enforce Divine Will upon this world. Attacking you clearly implies that they consider you to be an enemy of the gods.’

“What the fuck did I do to deserve that?” Luke asked, somewhat taken aback.

‘Perhaps because you are from elsewhere. Perhaps they do not want your knowledge and customs to influence this world. I do not know the answer. I merely seek to warn you that your death has likely been mandated by the Pantheon, and that you should not expect them to give up after a single failed attempt.’

Luke thought about how many bodies he’d seen on the trail. If all of them had made it through instead of just one, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. Hell, if even two of them had survived, they’d have killed him easily. Maybe if he’d been fresh and they’d been exhausted, he might have gotten lucky, but Luke doubted it.

“What am I supposed to do about that? I’d go home if I could, you know?”

Kareem hopped off his perch and landed in front of Luke in a flutter of feathers. ‘I see no evil in you. You do not wish to harm me, and you did not wish to fight the templar who attacked you. The gods surely must know this, and if they still call for your death, your very existence is a threat to them in some way that I cannot fathom. If you cannot flee this world, your only options are to fight or hide.’

“Fuck. Of course I must be a threat. That makes sense.”

His bloodline was called fucking SysAdmin. He was screwing with their system just by being alive. If he actually made it to the command console at the God Machine, he could do all sorts of stuff they wouldn’t be happy about. Hell, he’d already made that an express goal of his. Screwing with the system was literally what he was going to do.

“Why didn’t they just smite my ass and be done with it though?” he wondered. “Zap me with a lightning bolt, or have a tree fall on me, or something?”

‘The Covenant. No god may interfere with this world directly. They are all bound by it. Their churches and their faithful carry out their will.’

That was… suspiciously convenient. Luke didn’t buy it. If a literal god wasn’t doing something, it wasn’t because they didn’t have permission. There had to be more to it than that. That was if he assumed everything Kareem said was true, which he didn’t have any reason to think the bird-man was lying to him.

It was a mystery for another time. For now, Luke’s takeaway was that by wearing the armor and using the sword, he was impersonating a religious figure with probably a lot of authority, and that meant he probably shouldn’t get caught. He might even ditch the armor completely when he did finally reach civilization, but for now he was going to keep wearing it. Some random monster out in the woods wasn’t going to care if there was this world’s version of a cross or whatever etched into it. The sword was getting dumped into a gully though.

This was a whole new layer of stress he did not need. It wasn’t like he was expecting to just hop on a plane and then take a cab to the God Machine after he landed, but the fact that humans would be actively trying to kill him in addition to everything else that moved was more than a little frustrating. The shit part was that he wouldn’t even be here if he could help it.

“Okay, so this all sucks. I’ll figure something out though. Thank you for letting me know. I could have just walked right into a group of people who wanted to kill me without ever realizing it.”

‘I think you may be pleasantly surprised to find that not all humans are enacting the Pantheon’s will at every moment, but yes, you should be wary of them. It would be better not to announce your status as an outsider if you can avoid it.’

“Right, good advice. Thanks again. Listen, not to be rude, but I really do need to get going.”

‘One moment,’ Kareem said. He reached up to his wing and plucked a single feather out, then held it out to Luke. ‘Take this with you. It has the power to conceal you from all senses. It will only work once, when you have deliberately broken it, and it will only last for a short time. If you find yourself in a perilous situation, it may help you escape.’

“Oh damn. There’s already been a bunch of times I could have used one of these,” Luke said as he accepted the feather. “Are you sure you should be giving this to me? I mean, I know you have a whole wing of them, but still…”

Kareem laughed, or at least that’s what Luke decided to interpret it as. It was a kind of awkward hiccupping screech, like a nail being skipped across a chalkboard. ‘The power comes from inside me. This token is just a physical manifestation of it. I will regenerate it by the time the sun comes up in the morning. It is a small enough thing for me, a gesture of goodwill from myself and Red.’

“Oh, well… if you’re sure. Thank you again. I do need to get going,” Luke said. “Um… this is the right way, isn’t it? I only took this pass because Red was here.”

‘It is indeed. Red will guide you to the far end of the pass, but from there you will have to find your own way. If you ever find yourself returning here, and you have gained the ability to fly, you should consider visiting our roost. We do not have guests all that often, and we do prefer it that way, but it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of an outsider on this world.’

“I will… um… keep that in mind,” Luke said. He was mentally going over all the skills he’d browsed, trying to remember if there’d been one that let him fly. There couldn’t have been, at least not that he’d seen. If he’d found that, it would have stood out as a way to escape the valley. It would probably also be something outrageous like 100 AP to learn.

Luke said his goodbyes, and the bird-man flew back into the air. He disappeared beyond the canopy and Luke looked over at Red, who was still sitting on his perch. The hawk gazed back down at him impassively while Luke adjusted his pack and slipped the feather inside.

“I had no idea you knew psychic bird people,” he told Red. “Kinda cool. Not gonna lie. He was nice too, but oh man does my head hurt now.”

Luke took a few minutes to see if the pain would go away; thankfully it did start to subside quickly. He would be more than okay with never seeing Kareem or any other bird-person again if it was going to hurt like that just to talk to them. He’d been stabbed and had it hurt less, literally.

Eventually, he ran out of excuses and it needed to get moving again. Luke started off a light jog and picked up speed as the trees thinned out. Occasionally he’d catch glimpses of Red flying overhead through the trees, but for the most part he just tried to keep going in a straight line.

Finally the trail opened up, which was great for putting on speed, but sucked because with the disappearance of all the vegetation, earth elementals started popping up again. Luke wove through them as best he could without slowing down, only occasionally stopping to break a few apart when they blocked his way forward.

Finally, some time well after the sun had gone down, the ground tilted down and twenty minutes later he found himself in a new forest. Red cawed overhead and landed nearby. “This it then?” Luke asked. “Eh, I know it is. It got warmer on the way down. Listen buddy, thanks for everything. You really did save my ass a few times, you know? I get that you have to stay with your bird-man, your, uh… your soulbond I think he said? You want me to see about rustling up some dinner for us before you go back?”

Red cawed again, which Luke took as an affirmative. He spent twenty minutes snooping around the forest until he found something that looked scarily similar to a skunk trundling along. It didn’t smell like one though, so he approached with care, clubbed it over the head, and built a quick fire to cook it.

Red got most of the meat raw, and when dinner was over, the bird hopped down onto the ground next to Luke. It gave him a quick peck on the shoulder with its beak, hard enough that Luke felt it even through his new armor, then it flew back off towards the mountains.

“Guess it’s just you and me now, System,” Luke said. “So, what the fuck is this shit about some gods wanting me dead?”