A Broken World [Rewrite] - Chapter Eleven - A Cutting World

**Lucas Jaeger**

There was, Lucas was coming to realise, something deeply and seriously wrong with him.  Worse still, he had a terrifying suspicion that the roots of the problem lay in some kind of psychological shock that had resulted from being brought, not only into a new world, but into a violent one mid battle.  If his mood swings and anger were a result of something like that, he was pretty much fucked.  It wasn’t like this world had any mental health care, so he would more or less on his own in that regard- and experience had shown Lucas that he did not do well trying to fix his own psychological problems.

The other possibilities were not much better though; worse, he supposed, depending on your point of view.  Emotional instability was, according to Terrasin, to be expected- though Lucas’s had gone on longer than the Heroes before him.  This body was not his body, and that thought was hard for Lucas to accept.  Intellectual understanding was not the same as acceptance apparently, and Lucas was getting a crash course on the difference.

Lucas, unlike the pretty young lady who had told him that incredibly disturbing factoid, was not very impressed by the two thousand to four thousand year old records that formed the basis of Terrasin’s opinion.  He already had, he was fairly sure, a grasp on the science of this world- or lack thereof- and was aware that the practices behind the studies and record keeping of his world were absent from this one.  Which meant that the accounts were unreliable at best- but even if they were exactly and perfectly accurate, it would still not matter much, because a sample size of two is not even large enough to be worth a discussion.

Lucas only managed to make that second possibility a lesser worry by assuring himself that if the magic that summoned him here could modify a body so completely than it certainly could modify a body in other ways; he had a way he could theoretically fix himself.  This was, unfortunately, a delusion, and he worked hard to convince himself of it despite his own awareness of it.  Realistically, even with all of his knowledge, he was not a neurologist.  If there was something wrong in his head, Lucas would have no way of noticing it or understanding what was supposed to be there instead.  Presuming that he could even get an image of his own brain using magic in the first place.

The trigger for Lucas’s unpleasant introspection?  Simple frustration at having to dictate the textbook to Moru and the difficulty of arranging his thoughts to be understandable in that form.  It had so quickly become rage that Lucas managed to surprise himself, which was thankfully enough for him to regain some self-control.

“Again, I apologise.” Lucas said after some deep, calming, breaths.  He felt there was no point in holding the information back, so he shared his worries.  “I was not like this before.  Perhaps I was not precisely an extrovert, but these sudden bursts of anger are simply unlike me.”

The looks of concern on the three noble’s faces was well meant, but even in that the thought that they were perhaps less interested in his well being as Lucas than the well being of their Hero had to be stomped down before he became angry again.  Obviously they would care more about him as a Hero then as himself; they hardly fucking knew him yet!  Even then, Terrasin and Versi at least had given the impression that they would care regardless, so his anger would have been misplaced even if had made any sense in the first place.

“If I might say so Lor- Lucas.”  Moru almost called him Lord Lucas again but caught himself.  “From a practical perspective, it may not matter much; it might even be to your benefit.”

“How so?” Lucas could see no way that this would benefit him, especially not in a society that clearly valued etiquette more than they valued good sense.  The girl’s dresses were very flattering on them, but it had not escaped Lucas’s notice that they had to take great care when sitting down that morning.

Wait- why the hell was he so aware of their looks in the first place?  He was old enough to be their father!  No, wait, despite his appearance, he wasn’t physically almost forty years old anymore.  Lucas had asked, and the body he was in now was somewhere between seventeen and twenty-three years old, and their lack of surety in that regard had caused him to lose his temper as well.

Cognition, including emotions, is a function of biochemistry and realising that his more adult and mature mind was now at the mercy of what could be a teenager’s biochemistry was another fresh horror.  Lucas groaned as he put his head in his hands, fervently praying that when he opened his eyes again he would find himself in a padded room in a hospital somewhere.

Nope.  He was still in a carriage and there were still giant floating rocks outside the window.

“As long as you live up to the title of Hero,” Moru was saying, responding to the question Lucas had forgotten he had asked.  “You are very nearly unquestionable.  Having heard your words over this past week, I have no doubt you will easily meet that benchmark.  The benefits you can bring are far greater than the worth of manners or niceties, and by obviously ignoring them you can cement yourself as above such trifles.  Frankly, you could do whatever you wanted without fear of repercussion.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Terrasin quickly said before Lucas could respond.  “Even if you can get away with anything, you should not.  A broken custom or a broken law may not immediately cause you harm, but at some point someone will use them against you.  There is no need to create enemies where you could have friends, and even less reason to give those new enemies ammunition to use against you.”

“It is a moot point,” Lucas sighed, understanding what Terrasin was saying and agreeing with it- though, as he had just said so wearily, it was moot.  “Because I am less concerned with how my behavior will be received than the fact I am not very much in control of it.”

The carriage rattled across another bump in the dirt road as the golden grass the island was named for waved in the wind.  Lucas thought, not for the first time, that it was a picturesque landscape.  One with an added fantasy bent lent to it by the floating Skyislands that were in the backdrop wherever one looked.

Inside the carriage, Lucas idly ran his hand over the seat cushion as he examined the inconsistent stitching that signalled it had been produced without machine tools.  He had found that letting his focus wander tended to help him reign in his mood, for a time at least.

“If I decide that I want or need to ignore the conventions of society,” Lucas continued, looking back towards Moru and Terrasin.  “That is one thing, though not a thing I am likely to do.  On the other hand, to do so because I simply cannot control myself is another thing altogether.”

“There would not be anyone who understands the ritual you used enough to see if something went wrong, and then fix it, would there be?” Lucas added hopefully, only to be immediately shot down as he had expected by Terrasin’s shake of the head.

“There is no one outside of my family who even has access to that information,” she said gently, almost pityingly.  “And of my family, I would be the one who understands it the most, which amounts to barely anything at all.”

Lucas could do nothing but slump back in his seat and close his eyes, then gather himself up and continue his work with Moru having dropped the topic at that.  He was stuck with this until he could deal with it himself, or perhaps until he settled into this body- though that had probably already occured.  It would not be easy, especially be Lucas felt eminently justified in his anger.

But no one would care for his whining, not to any real degree.  They apparently had no way to send him back, so his complaints had no possible means of redress.  For that matter, from a purely logical perspective, Lucas could admit that if he were in the shoes of the nobles, he would not want to send Lucas back regardless.  His knowledge was too valuable.

How little they knew; literally and figuratively.

For now though, he would throw himself into this work and try to control his emotions by himself.  Perhaps he would try meditation, though he only knew the basics about the subject to begin with.  Still, it would be better than nothing; an otherwise ineffective treatment can still give benefits via the placebo effect.

He had calmed down enough to take stock of his companions, which was a plus, he supposed.  Maybe time would be enough by itself if that trend kept up; a hope he did not find very likely.

Moru, whose silver circlet did nothing to help the fact that his wavy brown hair, brown eyes and relatively bland face made him quite forgettable normal; the kind of person who would blend into a crowd and hardly ever be remembered.  Except that he was a fairly forceful individual.  An observation, Lucas considered to be reinforced by his earlier suggestion.  While he did not agree with Moru’s bullishness, Lucas did appreciate it- acknowledging the option was in itself a form of catharsis for him.

Versi, on the other hand, was unforgettable, as very beautiful women often were.  However, Lucas almost felt that Versi’s- who he should perhaps be calling Archi, considering that Versi was a family name and not a personal one- beauty worked against itself.  Her platinum hair and seemingly perfect skin still reminded Lucas of a life size doll, which detracted from her attractiveness as a person.

Versi’s- Archi’s- personality was seemingly quite traditional.  But Lucas doubted that his feelings were right here, because conversation had made it quickly and abundantly clear that going on an adventure to summon a Hero from behind the Demon’s lines was not even remotely normal for a well bred lady.  At a guess, Lucas figured that her ambition was more important to her than her traditions, but it was hard to tell.

Terrasin, was striking with her red hair and green eyes to a frankly uncomfortable degree for Lucas.  He would have to have some time to himself, and probably a lot of it, to work through the implications of his younger body, but it was clear that she would make focusing difficult for him on occasion.

Her personality was the most easy to understand of the lot though.  She practically radiated her desire to make sure everything ran well and that the schedule was kept.  It was not that she was obsessive about it though, Terrasin was obviously just determined that this mission of hers would have as few problems as possible.  Beneath that obvious part of her nature though, Lucas drew a blank.  Parts of her were very subtle, and Lucas was not entirely sure of the motives behind her desire to make things go smoothly.  He was not sure that those really mattered though in any practical sense.  The motive for this entire expedition boiled down to, “obtain and exploit Hero,” and Lucas was already stuck here with nothing to do but work to prove his value and not end up in poverty.

It was, Lucas knew, a rather pathetic analysis.  Lucas was just not enough of a people person to dissect their personalities in a short time, but he did what he could during this trip.

The trip itself was horrifically long.  Again, Lucas realised the difference between an intellectual understanding and accepting reality.  Lucas understood the difficulties involved in long distance travel, but experiencing it was painful to say the least.  The ninth and tenth days crawled by so slowly Lucas would have sworn time had broken just like gravity had here.

He almost wanted to say that he was relieved that they were attacked on the tenth night.  Lucas would not say that though, mostly because it would be a lie; he would never be bored enough to want to be attacked by a nightmare spawned group of monstrosities.  In fact, the only part of the attack that could be described as good from Lucas’s perspective was that he did not have to fight this time.

He had spent an hour trying very hard not to look like he was cowering inside the carriage as the soldiers who were escorting them fought outside.  He supposed he could have tried to fight, but Lucas did not get two doctorate degrees by being stupid.  He was well aware that he had about as much combat potential as the impractically dressed girls with him in the carriage and that relying on luck was a good way to end up dead in a combat situation.

Luckily, it seemed that the Demon’s had not been able to gather very many forces to attack them.  It almost was an attack out of desperation, as far as Lucas could see the following morning.  He had gone out to exam the bodies, curious about the nature of the monsters who had been chasing him.

Dead bodies were not a bother to him, another thing that won’t get you a doctorate in biology is being squeamish around dead creatures.  If not for time constraints and a lack of tools, Lucas would have probably dissected the dead.  Their appearance was by itself enough to warrant the attention.

The majority of the bodies- not that there were all that many- belonged to what the knight Carsin referred to as “Twistlings.”  Roughly humanoid, though shorter than most all but the shortest of people, they were actually rather fascinating.

“It is just a guess,” Lucas was saying to Moru as he poked one of the twistling bodies with a long dagger he had borrowed from a soldier.  “But I would say that what you are calling corruption is a form of cancer afflicting the species.  It is actually quite interesting that they had so many growths on their bodies and yet were still alive- I would have expected cancerous cells to have migrated to one organ or another and killed them far before they reached this stage.”

The twistling’s skin was more like a combination of soft chitin and scales.  The cancerous growths caused extra layers of skin to grow irregularly over the body, functioning as a natural armor.  In fact, judging by the scarring Lucas found on on of the bodies, it seemed likely that if a twistling survived a blow the area where they were struck would develop a cancerous growth as they healed, like some kind of slow adaptive armor.

“Which raises the question,” Lucas continued with his observations, oblivious to the fact his audience- Moru- was holding a scented handkerchief to his nose in distaste.  “If this is some form of natural adaptation as the growths appear not to impair them and in fact protect them.  The prevalence of these growths- especially given your testimony that these are representative of the species- suggests that is natural for them, but without dissecting them I cannot be sure about whether or not they themselves are damaged by it.”

The next specimen was noxious, even to Lucas.  Identified as a “Firgue Demon,” the unpleasant smell was actually quite familiar to Lucas and would be somewhat recognizable by nearly anyone from his world, though most would not be able to identify it accurately.

“Is that…”  Lucas too a sniff and then started coughing and wheezing, having to walk away for fresh air.  “Yeah, that is butanol.  It is not a scent you forget.”

Or want to smell ever again, but no one ever said microbiology was a pleasant field of study.  It was not the worst smell you could run into, Lucas was personally more repulsed by autoclave cultures and hydrochlorite- better known as bleach- but the weirdly alcoholic smell of butanol was a close number three.  Which made it odd that Lucas was so obviously excited by the discovery.

“Unbelievable,” Lucas said with his eyes sparkling.  “I never would have imagined a living creature would be able to produce such yields, most yeasts and algae perform poorly by comparison.  How ironic that I am standing so close to what would amount to a gold mine back home if I could find a way to hijack its production…”

Butanol was a very valuable chemical, especially if it was produced in bulk.  It could be used as a biofuel, one that had the potential to be more effective than ethanol, and there were several microorganisms that produced butanol naturally.  This creature could answer the problems regarding the butanol yields, effectively turning plants into gold for whatever team of scientist could make it work.

Of course, that was irrelevant now.  Even if Lucas somehow gained what he needed to do the research here, he couldn’t build a combustion engine to run it off of.  It was a depressing thought, one that pushed him to leave the Firgue alone and go to the last specimen, which at least had clearer air around it.