Kings Game

Chapter 112 - Fracturing

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Nul realized the depth of their insanity when they started seeing Karyn. They had long since begun to understand that their melding with Akanos had gone wrong somewhere. The hallucinations were a relatively minor problem, and the disconnect from time and the world around them had become a source of frustration. It was easy for them to lose track of days as they worked on various designs in their room. But that had been manageable. Even through the hallucinations and the divorce from the flow of time, Nul had been able to work and that was enough. Then Karyn appeared.

She never said anything, and more often than not she was whole. The few times Karyn appeared with the wound in her chest had left Nul catatonic with grief for hours but those were few and far between. Still, her very presence was enough to destroy any semblance of concentration Nul had. It was also very clearly Nul's hallucination.

Most of their hallucinations up to that point had been from Akanos's past. Usually his old colleagues or visions of his homeland. Sometimes Nul spent the day working in Akanos's old workshop, sometimes they were in the secret library hidden outside of Uhlara. Akanos had always been the source of the fabrication, until now.

Nul sat on their bed, attempting to read through some of their notes, and failing, while Karyn sat behind them, combing out their hair. It was long and tangled, a far cry from the clean cut Karyn had given them. Even as Karyn worked a comb through their hair, catching knots and tangles, it never straightened or became any neater. Karyn wasn't there, just a figment of Nul's fracturing mind sent to torment them.

The rest of the room was split in half, one part looking like a normal bedroom, the other a splintered menagerie of lecture halls from the lost kingdom. Dead scholars wandered freely back and forth, sometimes watching Nul, sometimes ignoring them.

Nul made a consistent effort to focus on their notes and ignore the insanity surrounding them. They were beginning to succeed when a hallucination of Roran pulled their notebook out of their hands and waved a hand in their face.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Nul tried to retrieve their notebook but the hallucination pulled it further away.

"Nul? Hello? Are you there?"

Nul blinked. The hallucinations were gone, all except for the ones of Karyn and Roran. Roran gently grabbed Nul's shoulder and gave them a shake.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought," said Nul.

"It's okay," said Roran. "I'm sorry to just enter your room. I knocked a few times and you didn't answer. When I peeked inside, you seemed pretty out of it."

"Like I said, lost in thought. What do you need?"

"I'm fighting Destra in a couple of days, I was hoping you could adjust my etchings before then."

Nul nodded. "Right, that's a week away?"

Roran shook his head, looking confused. "It's in two days. I've been trying to prepare on my own but I can't do anything about my etchings."

"Right. What do you need?"

"I want to be able to take off my robes and I need to be able to slip past lyhlim wards. The last time I was around them for too long they made me hallucinate and pass out."

Nul glanced back at Karyn who was still happily combing away at Nul's hair. "I can appreciate how frustrating that is."

"I would also like to hide the aspect of death whenever I draw on Sarah. Having a massive specter behind me is a bit noticeable."

Nul gestured to the chair at their desk. "Have a seat." Roran looked at the chair, then at Nul, then raised an eyebrow. Both the desk and chair were piled high with books, scrolls, and notebooks. "Just put them anywhere."