Chương 34: Chapter 29 – Songs Between Strangers

The world snapped back into a shape Cade recognized. One heartbeat he was suspended in gold and the next he was slammed into his own body, nerves screaming awake as pins and needles chewed through every limb. His lungs dragged in humid swamp air thick with the sweet, metallic stink of mucus. He gagged reflexively. An orange frog leaned over him, round eyes wide with a concern that looked a bit comical. Behind the orange frog sat the towering golden toad that was larger than a car.

Cade lifted his head, finding his neck working again. Sensation returned down his limbs in cold sparks.

"What the fuck was that," he said without thinking. The giant toad turned its head, a gravelly voice that somehow sounded as smug as the toad looked.

"See? I told you, Pearl," the obviously male voice said, savoring the syllables.

"I knew he could survive my mucus. Ash Tortoise bodies are resilient, a small amount of poison wouldn't hurt one even in that wretched state you brought him in." Who said that, Cade thought as he looked around but saw only the frog and toad. Cade looked down at himself in a panic and saw the state of his body. His skin was burned, blistered, and flaking in places where lightning had licked straight through.

Angry lines like Lichtenberg figures forked across his wrists and up his forearms in branching scars that pulsed faintly with his heartbeat. The tar he'd once been coated in was gone—all of it. Either scoured away by rain or vaporized in that reckless attempt to pull lightning into himself. Why the hell did I do that? What came over me? Before his mind could race any further, a voice pressed gently in.

"Easy, hatchling." Cade jerked in place—instantly regretted it from the pain—then looked up at the towering golden toad now leaning closer. The voice was deep, warm, and resonant, vibrating in the bones behind Cade's ears as much as in the air.

"There is no danger now," the toad went on.

"Do not rush. Do not run. You are safe on my pad."

"Hatchling?" Cade echoed.

"Safe? I—what—?" The golden toad blinked once, slowly, with the unhurried authority of someone who expected the world to wait for him.

"I am Second Elder Varosk," he said.

"And the one who carried you from the storm is Pearl." Pearl thumped the butt of her spear against the pad—not aggressively, more like a crisp acknowledgement.

"You were found trailing the Ash Emperor's wake," Varosk rumbled.

"Far from where any hatchling belongs. The Desolate Front is where your kind should remain. So tell me—why were you wandering so deep into the broken lands?" Cade blinked at him.

"My—kind?" Then another realization crashed down on him so abruptly he said it out loud without thinking:"How the hell am I understanding you?" Varosk's throat sac expanded, glowing faintly gold.

"The bridge," he said simply.

"My mucus tunes the mind. When two beings do not share song or throat‑music, the bridge harmonizes their patterns. Temporary, but effective." Cade stared. Translation mucus. Sure. Why not? It's not like this place can get any more insane. His thoughts spiraled. Why weren't they killing him? Why bring him here? What made these frogs different from everything else that had tried to bite, crush, or attack him since the Tutorial began? Were dungeon monsters supposed to be smarter? More structured? More civilized?

Before he could chase the thought further, Varosk's voice nudged in again—firmer this time.

"I will repeat the question, hatchling: what is a tortoise child doing trailing the Emperor of Ash? Did the main sect cast you out because of your disfigurement?" Cade blinked, baffled.

"I'm not a tortoise." Silence washed over the pad. Pearl's eyes narrowed.

"Then how do you explain the shell on your back? Why else would you hide beneath it when I found you?" Cade stared at her. Silent for a beat as his brain worked double-time trying to catch up. They think I'm a tortoise hatchling. Was that the only reason they hadn't left him for dead—or finished the job? Was that what had bought him a seat on this lily pad and a conversation instead of death? He didn't know. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know.

But lying to the first intelligent beings he'd met since leaving the others behind didn't sit right with him. Especially not after everything he'd seen so far in this corrupted dungeon. He looked down at his battered hands. At the forked scars. At the flakes of skin curling away from his body like burnt paper. Then he looked back up at the toad and the frog watching him with expectation. No. He wasn't going to fake his way through this.

"My name is Cade," he said, voice quiet but steady.

"And I'm not a tortoise, I'm human." He shifted, pushing against the shell's edge to sit up further. His muscles screamed. His bones felt like soggy wood. Still, he braced his palms and began levering himself out of the tortoise shell. Pearl stiffened slightly but didn't intervene. Second Elder Varosk watched him in silence. Cade swung one leg over—then the other—and tried to stand but that was a big mistake. His knees wobbled immediately. The ground lurched.

He made it all of four seconds upright before his legs gave out. His feet tangled, his calves cramped, and he toppled forward with a strangled grunt. He hit the pad hard, arms splaying out, failing to catch as he hit the surprisingly solid plant. The shell tipped behind him with a soft clunk. His whole body buzzed with fatigue. His stomach roared, a deep, echoing groan that seemed to vibrate the lily pad itself. Just what I needed. A dramatic collapse in front of the talking frogs.

Pearl was still staring, but this time her expression had shifted. Her wide amphibian eyes were unreadable, but something about her body language seemed wary. Uncertain about what to make of Cade. The Second Elder, for his part, didn't look amused anymore. He leaned slightly toward Pearl.

"He will die like this," he said simply.

"Go. Fetch food." Pearl turned her head toward him. She didn't speak, but the tension in her jaw was visible even to Cade as he looked up. She gave a small, stiff nod, then turned and slipped behind a wall of hanging lichen, disappearing without a word. Cade rolled onto his side with effort, finally managing to sit upright again. His arms shook. His throat felt like he'd swallowed sand. Varosk's voice came again, quieter now.

"I have never heard of a human," he said.

"Not in the songs. Not in the elder-rhythms. Our realm has been knotted shut for tens of thousands of cycles. There are no paths in. No rivers out." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. His amber eyes narrowed slightly.

"So I ask again, human —how did you come to be here?" Cade hesitated. He could feel a strange compulsion tugging at the edges of his mind. The need to answer truthfully. Not forced, exactly, but encouraged.

"I was sent here," he said slowly, "from the System's Tutorial." Varosk tilted his head slightly at that. Cade took a breath and pressed forward, deciding—wisely—to abbreviate the crazier parts. He glanced up, meeting Varosk's gaze.

"I was helping someone. A small gator by the name of Aquelion. The System gave me a quest to bring him to his ancestral training grounds. One named Cynthia's Legacy. The reward for the quest was access to the dungeon and I sort of followed him through." The moment the name Aquelion left his lips, he saw it. Varosk's eyes widened—only slightly, but enough to notice. The movement was minute but Cade definitely saw something there. Then, a blink later, the expression reset.

Blank neutrality returned to the toad's face.

"I do not know this 'dungeon,' nor have I heard the name Cynthia," Varosk said.

"But the name Aquelion… that name echoes in the ancestor-songs." He leaned closer, eyes boring into Cade.

"Where is the other hatchling now?" Cade winced.

"We got separated. After we entered the—uh, portal, we were split. I don't know where he ended up." Varosk didn't answer at first. He seemed to absorb that in full silence. His heavy lids lowered half a fraction, expression unreadable.

"I see," he said at last, voice giving nothing away.

"And how did you arrive in the Eye of Ash, if not alongside him?"

"I don't know," Cade admitted.

"I mean—one minute I was in the Tutorial, helping Aquelion perform this ritual thing—he seemed to know what he was doing—and the next, a massive beam of violet light exploded out of the ground. Aquelion was already in it and I didn't really think. I just followed." Varosk made a low, thoughtful sound in his throat. Cade scratched the back of his neck.

"Okay, that's not totally true. I did think. Just not with the part of my brain that handles logic. All I knew was that I'd promised to protect him, and he was inside of something wild and glowing, and I wasn't about to let the little guy do that alone." Cade paused and internally debated but ultimately decided to leave out the part where a giant violet eye had watched them mid-transport, peeled them apart like paper dolls, and hurled Cade through the void into an ashen wasteland.

That was too weird, even for a talking toad.

"So," Cade finished, "when I woke up, I was in the middle of a desert that seemed to expand forever. I assume that's the 'Eye of Ash' you're talking about." The Second Elder didn't respond immediately. He looked past Cade, gaze drifting somewhere distant.

"The knot weakens," he murmured.

"If your tale is true, then the seal on this realm frays. And if it frays others may follow." Cade didn't know if that was good or bad, so he kept his mouth shut. Silence bloomed between them, wide and awkward. The only sounds came from the distant trill of frogs and the whisper of mist slipping through the hanging lichen. Cade shifted slightly, glancing toward the path Pearl had disappeared down. He wanted to ask so many things. What was the Ashen Emperor? Why did Aquelion matter so much to them?

Was the vision he'd seen real, or some psychedelic side effect of the golden frog-goop? But something about the weight of the silence warned him not to push too hard. Eventually, the Second Elder stirred again.

"You said the System brought you," he said.

"That you came from a 'Tutorial.' Explain. What is that?" Now it was Cade's turn to frown. He looked up at the toad, half-expecting Varosk to be joking. But the golden toad's face was solemn.

"You really don't know," Cade questioned.

"We do not," the toad answered.

"There is no 'System' here. Only the Record. And the Record does not assign quests." Cade rubbed his face with both bony hands, trying to clear the lingering fog from his mind.

"Okay," he said.

"Then I'll keep it simple. Earth—my planet—had no magic. No talking animals. No glowing frogs or System messages. Just… people…humans. Then, about a week ago, something changed." He drew a breath.

"One moment I was at work. The next I was standing in a blank white void while some projection of the System explained how everything had been rewritten. It said all sapient beings were being relocated and given System access. And then it booted me into something called a Tutorial." He exhaled slowly, watching Varosk's expression for any sign of recognition. There was none.

"The Tutorial," Cade continued, "was supposed to help us learn how to survive in this new reality. Teach us about stats, skills, combat… whatever. But for some reason, I got dropped into the wrong one. It was meant for people who already had System Cores." Varosk's brow furrowed.

"You have no Core?" Cade shook his head.

"The System tried. Said its 'automatic formation' failed. Since then, I've been flying blind. I barely understand what a Core even is, let alone how to make one. I've just been guessing and doing my best to just survive." The Second Elder didn't reply. He only watched Cade in that unsettlingly still way—like a statue made of gold and judgment. Cade licked his cracked lips.

"The other people in my group—back in the Tutorial—they all had Cores. They all had Classes. I left them because I didn't want to drag them down." The toad's throat sac fluttered once—no croak, just a faint motion. Cade couldn't read it. Agreement? Sympathy? Disapproval? He leaned back, resting his weight on his palms. The effort made his shoulders tremble.

"I didn't ask for this," he added.

"But if I'm here, there's gotta be a reason. Right?" The Second Elder still didn't answer. But just as the silence grew long again, a rustling came from the moss curtain at the edge of the pad. Pearl emerged from behind the thick curtain of moss with a massive broad veined leaf in her hands the size of a small serving tray. Balanced atop it was what Cade could only describe as a very swamp-themed charcuterie board. She set it down in front of him with a faint thwap, then stepped back and crossed her arms.

"Eat," she said curtly.

"You look like a shriveled tadpole. I've seen toadspawn with more bulk." Cade sat forward, blinking down at the array before him. It was a collection of grubs, fruits, maggots, seeds, and what he thought were beetles. The maggots and larvae twitched faintly in places like they might still be alive. His stomach gurgled in response, eager and pained.

"Thanks," he said, and activated his [Identify] skill just in case. Glowmidge Larvae — Bioluminescent worm commonly found under lily pads. Bark-Chip Beetle — A mildly resinous beetle found under the bark of many trees. Leechfly Maggot — The larval form of a leechfly, commonly found in stagnant ponds. Brackish Plum — A stone fruit commonly found in salt marshes and brackish swamps. Lantern Fig — A faintly glowing drupe grown on aerial roots. Walker-Lily Seeds — Pungent, peppery, starch-filled seeds.

None of the entries came with danger warnings. But then again, his [Identify] skill didn't exactly inspire confidence. It told him what things were not necessarily whether they were toxic to humans like he had hoped. Still, hunger roared through him. He hesitated for only another breath before snatching up the Brackish Plum. The fruit was glossy and a little warm as he bit into it. Juice burst across his tongue—salty and sweet, like biting into a sea-soaked peach. It was surprisingly good.

He devoured it in four savage bites and reached for one of the Lantern Figs next. That one was different. Sweet and fragrant, like a mango crossed with honey. The aftertaste tingled against his tongue, like licking a battery. Cade moved on to the Walker-Lily seeds. They crunched under his teeth with a peppery heat, like spicy edamame. He grunted with satisfaction and cupped both hands around the pile of seeds, shoveling them into his mouth. As he chewed, the Second Elder's voice thrummed low beside him.

"We know of a Core," Varosk said.

"It is the first true step of any youngling's path—but it must be their step. No teacher may gift it. No rite may forge it. You meet yourself. You kindle. You hold. And you take your first step." Cade swallowed the last of the seeds and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yeah, that makes more sense than anything the System's told me, even though I don't understand any of what you just said. The System said my automatic Core formation failed. No real clues as to how or why. It gave me no instructions to form one either, just that it was rare for people to do it without the System's help. Basically it told me to try and survive, to level up, and to hope for the best." He paused.

"Honestly, it's a miracle I haven't died yet." The Second Elder's heavy-lidded eyes did not blink.

"Strange," he said.

"This System of yours claims power, but offers no wisdom."

"That's kind of its thing," Cade muttered, reaching for another fruit—only to realize he was out of anything plant-based. What remained were the larvae, the maggots, and the beetles. He stared down at them, stomach growling again.

"Okay," he muttered to himself.

"You're hungry and they're protein. You can do this." He reached out and pinched a glowmidge larva between two fingers. It wriggled.

"Sorry," he said reflexively to the larva, and popped it into his mouth. It burst against his tongue like a grape—but with a sour, slightly acidic tang. There was a faint sweetness beneath it, almost like unripe melon. He shuddered, then swallowed. It wasn't awful but far from pleasant. He followed it with a leechfly maggot. That one was softer, squishier, and released a strange fizzy sensation like Pop Rocks. His gag reflex twitched—but hunger won. He swallowed and reached for another.

By the time he finished the last of the larvae and maggots, only the beetles remained. They stared at him with tiny, emotionless eyes. Cade stared back, hunger still gnawing at his insides. He grabbed one, steeled himself, and bit down. It crunched loudly as the shell shattered under his teeth, giving way to a smooth interior that tasted startlingly like roasted cinnamon nuts. Cade blinked.

"Well. That's not bad."