As Corvo's head hits the pillow and he closes his eyes to sleep, he is instantly forced awake, jumping as the world violently shakes.
"W-what!?" he shouts out loud in surprise, as well as in annoyance at having his sleep be disturbed.
'Oh yeah…. How could I forget.'
Corvo's annoyance is swiftly replaced by expectation, and he quickly gets out of bed to walk to the door of the room.
Reaching for the handle, he hears indescribable sounds coming from outside, bringing a chill down his spine and urging a plea from his instincts to stay away, not to go forward and meet who he was supposed to meet.
Corvo pushes away these thoughts and fears to the back of his mind, carrying on with the task he has to complete, even if his heart is pulsating to the point of pain.
With a breathless step, Corvo pushes the door open and is greeted by an eldritch-looking view, so beautiful almost to the point of being unspeakable, if anyone could even comprehend it.
Outside, the Hound Pits building seems to break away into a bluish-dark void filled with random buildings, upward-flowing waterfalls, patches of water carrying sea dinghies as well as floating boats. There were stairs on the other side of the wall also, leading to a passage onto a clearing that doesn't exist in the real world, as if a chimera of multiple incompatible buildings are hazardously conjoined together.
Corvo continues up the stairs and into the clearing, where he's given a compulsion to wait there, to not continue further.
Before all of a sudden and without a sound, a seemingly ordinary man appears in front of Corvo, but Corvo can tell he is anything but, floating a few feet off the ground as if to show his superiority to mortal beings.
Arms crossed like a parent showing disappointment in their child, and dressed in a black leather jacket that seems worn down by time.
His eyes, blacker than the void of space, like his pupils expanded his entire eyeball, piercingly stare at Corvo, seemingly looking into his very soul.
"Hello, Corvo."
The mysterious man's voice too is completely ordinary, though it carries an ethereal tinge as if his voice is powered by the winds making up this realm.
"Your life has taken quite the turn, has it not."
The man, if you could call him that, states both to Corvo and to the world itself as if to a hidden audience that only he could see, as a black aura billows around himself like lingering smoke.
"The Empress is dead, her precious daughter Emily is lost somewhere in the city, and you will play a pivotal role in the days to come."
A mocking tone touches his lips, as if showing disdain, that would be if this being in front of Corvo could truly feel emotion.
"For this reason, I have chosen you and drawn you into the void."
His voice becomes softer, less mechanical as he places one arm behind his back.
"I am the ôǔťșíðêř, and this is my mark."
With the wave of the Outsider's hand, a searing pain burrows into Corvo's hand, as a cloud of yellowish-orange smoke etches a glowing rune onto the back of his hand.
Clenching his fist in its burning pain, Corvo steadies his breathing to ignore it and continue listening to the being in front.
"There are forces in the world and beyond the world, great forces that men call magic, and now these forces will serve your will."
As he talks, the glowing of the mark starts dying down, revealing a pitch-black tattoo, the same colour as the Outsider's eyes.
"Use this newfound power, my gift to you."
"Now come find me."
The Outsider's voice becomes even more ethereal as his body disintegrates and disappears into nothingness.
sighhh
Seeing the Outsider leave, Corvo releases a breath he had been holding since his appearance.
'Finally, after 6 long months, I've got the mark.'
Corvo thinks to himself, observing the runic tattoo that was engraved on his hand, trailing a finger over it, its texture indistinguishable from the rest of his hand.
Though in the process of looking it over, a stream of knowledge starts appearing in his mind.
The first ability of his mark.
'Blink'
After a moment of standing there, eyes closed, accepting the information, Corvo walks to the edge with no direct path leading forward.
Despite this, at the edge he extends his marked hand forward and grasps the air, his mark glowing the same colour as its engraving, and power quickly fills his hand.
His hands start shaking as he holds the ability and focuses on the next building ahead, a familiar concrete gazebo.
He releases the power, and in less than a blink of an eye, his body is transported to the very spot he was focusing on.
'Woah… that was a rush.'
Power: Blink-
a traversal-based ability that allows the user to warp through the gaps in the void to achieve rapid forward movement for short distances.
'So essentially it is both a teleportation power, as well as a dashing power. Kind of hard to quantify, but basically a spatial ability in essence.'
Corvo shrugs at his attempt to comprehend something he's so new to and hardly understands, so he continues on the path the Outsider made.
Looking to the side, Corvo finds a chest and of course opens it, finding a blue potion bottle in sleeker glass than Sokolov's, and picks it up.
"Pierro's spiritual remedy, pretty sure it's made of whale oil, so it probably can't be good for you."
He says, trying to escape the situation, but can no longer ignore the elephant in the room.
Looking down, he finds a freshly dead Jessamine, the Empress, at his feet with a piece of paper stuck to the blood beside her head.
Bending down to his knees, feeling the still-warm blood on his skin, Corvo looks over 'his' dead lover, negative emotions of guilt not entirely his own yet continuing to plague his thoughts.
Then, looking over an empty piece of paper, mad ravings start an assault on his mind and cloud his vision in front of him.
'YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAV-.'
"AHHHHHHH!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!"
Corvo shuts his eyes and grasps his now shorter hair, pulling it with a force that causes pain, a mad rage almost consuming him that instantly breaks him out of the illusion.
gasp gasp
He's left panting on the ground, blood pouring out of his nose and a stream of red liquid trickling down from his eyes.
Deciding to continue on the route of ignoring his problems until they consume him, Corvo intends to carry on. Though going to take one final look at the Empress before getting out of there, he notices that all the blood as well as the corpse disappears, like all of it was a bad dream.
"Ha ha ha, yes, how hilarious my suffering must be."
Wiping away the blood on his face until the only thing left is a much colder frown plastered on, a simmering heat behind his eyes.
So he keeps on moving.
He blinks across the floating fragmented buildings, going past the frozen image of the Empress' daughter, Emily, being dragged by two men with similar looks to Lord Pendleton.
Though learning from his mistake, Corvo only gives a brief glance before moving on.
Going past the Lord Regent in a broken war room with a massive table before him, as if planning something, as well as smashing things in anger.
Then past men wearing building-height mechanical stilts and carrying bows armed with incendiary bolts, wearing armour.
Then blinking up to climb a cliff, walking down some floating sets of steps, past some more broken buildings and to another clearing when the Outsider decides to appear once more.
"In the days that follow, your trials will be great, Corvo. Seek the ancient runes bearing my mark in the lonely places of your world and at the shrines raised in my name."
He pauses to make sure Corvo is listening before continuing on.
"These runes will grant you power beyond those of other men. To help you find these runes, I give you this…"
The Outsider uncrosses his arms, bringing his hand out as the black energy swirling around his body starts to condense in his palm.
"The heart of a living thing. Molded by my own two hands."
And then a heart, with a window to the inside of it showing a mechanical framework of a machine stuffed into the organ, with other pieces of metal all over, as well as wire tying the aorta as if to stop blood, if it has any left, from leaking out of it.
"With this Heart, you will hear many secrets, and it will guide you toward my runes, no matter how they may be hidden. Listen to the heart now, and find another rune."
Finishing his speech, the Outsider promptly disappears again, leaving Corvo to his thoughts.
Looking down at his left hand, Corvo suddenly finds himself in possession of the beatless dead heart.
But when faced in a certain direction, he feels the heart beating madly, its sounds silent to everyone but himself, pounding in his ears.
He quickly opens the chest next to him, finishing off another blue potion before following the direction the heart tells him to go.
Corvo heads in the direction of the rune, free-running over obstacles in his path and blinking over to those out of his reach.
But as he makes it over the large building and onto the last stretch towards the rune, the heart starts speaking to him, in an echoey, ghostly voice that he finds grossly familiar.
"This place is the end of all things. And the beginning."
Ignoring the eldritch truths the heart spouts about the void, the voice itself causes Corvo to freeze on the spot and nearly send himself off into the depths.
If not for the timely blink to safety, he would very well be as good as dead.
gasp
Laying on his back down on a floating platform, Corvo takes a minute just to catch his breath, to calm his emotions.
'I knew this, knew it would be her voice. But I didn't plan for the effect it could have on me…. This is becoming a problem.'
He thinks to himself, knowing that if he freezes up like this when out in the field, he would die, so Corvo decides to bite the bullet.
Squeezing the heart, Corvo coaxes the whispering truths out of the heart that houses his deceased lover's soul.
And she speaks on command.
"All of time is meaningless here. Neither seconds nor centuries."
"Someday, this place will devour all the lights in the sky."
"The one who walks here is all things. Cradle songs of comfort and bones gnawed by teeth."
"This is the place from which those who dabble in the black arts draw their power. And this place is their doom."
"The face of the void was forc—."
Corvo's head rings at both the emotion the voice calls out in him, as well as the meaning the truths lead to.
But the voice abruptly stops midway through her sentence, perhaps running out of things to say about the place, or she was silenced.
sighh
Deciding he has had enough and wants to finally be allowed the consuming embrace of sleep, Corvo carries on, forgetting all else.
Blinking across the final platforms, he finally makes it to this rune.
The heart's window glowing and beating madly through his grip.
Letting go of the heart, it dissolves into an orange-yellow smoke, causing Corvo to panic for a moment. But he can feel its presence, her presence, in the back of his mind, ready to answer his call again.
Now ready, he takes a step forward and grabs the rune, taking it into his hands.
With it in his grip, Corvo starts to feel a vibration inside the piece of bone, something calling out to him, like a song his soul understands but his ears do not.
He dives deeper into the silent melody released by the rune, and as he does so, unknowingly begins to create a further connection and closer attunement to the void, allowing for the absorption of the power inside the rune.
Inside his own mark, Corvo starts feeling the presence of two abilities that can be unlocked by the power of the rune.
'I don't plan on confronting anyone in direct contact unless necessary, nor getting injured, so vitality isn't a must for now, I'll pick dark vision then.'
Power: Dark vision-
Activate to see in the darkness and to reveal living beings through solid walls. You can also see their fields of view, as well as granting a visual representation of the sounds you make.
The knowledge quickly starts trickling into Corvo's mind as he stands there, a process he will become intimate with sooner than later.
Finishing with the rune, he stands there, waiting.
The Outsider doesn't make him wait long, though, and appears again to spout his wisdom at Corvo.
"How you use what I have given you falls upon yourself, as it has done to those before you. And now I return you to your world, but know that I will be watching with great interest."
The Outsider leans closer to Corvo while speaking the last words with a near smirk.
And with a wave of his hands, Corvo's vision shakes and the world goes dark.
—-
{9 hours later}
Corvo's eyes slowly open as he wakes up, bringing his hand up to his eyes to rub away the sleep.
"yawwwwwn"
A big yawn escapes his lips as he waits for his mind to fully wake up.
Sitting up on his bed, he checks his hand just to confirm and is met with the runic tattoo, his gift from the Outsider.
"Good, it wasn't a dream." Corvo voices his thoughts out loud with a smile, a deep and rough tone of voice escaping his mouth from not drinking water for so long.
Now finally awake, he starts to seek the piercing noise that plagues his ears.
Looking around the room, small bone fragments made out of the same material as the runes are scattered about all around.
On the table next to him, on the storage containers across the room, on chairs. Everywhere, basically, totalling a whopping 12, along with two mysterious artifacts.
One in the shape of a fish next to his head, and another a whale.
'Must be from the Outsider, probably just messing with me, but I won't refuse at this point.'
Corvo touches the fish artifact next to him with his marked hand, and when the two come into contact, the fish figure rapidly disintegrates and merges with Corvo's body, giving him a chilling sensation.
'Wooaahhoho… that was weird! I'm pretty sure their purpose is to increase the bone charms you can have equipped and then be active.'
Yes, bone charms. Weird little artifacts made in similar ways to runes, used to enhance the abilities of those marked by the Outsider.
Their effects are often random and incredibly varied, but their effects are often positive. With them being passive, they cost nothing to keep on your person and collect.
Other than the noise, which can attract void-sensitive beings when you equip too many at once with a low limit.
Luckily, the noise gets cancelled out by the user's own passive aura release so they don't go insane by the constant song the bone charms give off.
Corvo quickly collects all the bone charms in the room and absorbs the other figure, then chucks them onto the bed for the minute.
'I've got nothing to attach them to just yet. But Pierro did mention something about bringing clothes with the upgraded equipment. They should be outside my door, right?'
And so he quickly checks, going outside the front entrance to his room, and quickly spots them.
Neatly folded military clothes with accompanying boots, a crossbow, a pistol, as well as the skull mask, with the smaller lens changed from just one to two exchanging lenses overnight.
'Well.. let's get suited up then, shall we.'
Corvo thinks, bringing all this equipment back into his room and taking off the nightwear clothing the maid gave him while he was in the bath.
'Though I appreciate it, that was a bit inappropriate. Didn't exactly hide her gaze either, did she? I'll take it on the chin, though, and see it as a compliment.'
Placing the four bottles of mana potion that seemed to travel back with him on the bed with the bone charms, Corvo swiftly gets suited up in his gear, bar the mask.
All kitted out, Corvo starts moving about to check the ability of the equipment out and see if it could be used properly in stealth and combat.
'Mm, not bad. Pretty stylish too.'
The boots are as good as his bare feet when it comes to noise reduction, perhaps even better. The coat jacket is flexible but keeps him warm, its fabric also breathable to resist any harsh weather conditions, also providing a slight armour effect. It won't stop bullets or a sword, but it will resist their effects to get in the way of damage.
A hood is also attached to the collar that can be hidden away inside and pulled out to aid in hiding his identity, along with the mask.
'Now for the bone charms.'
Being twelve in total, Corvo knows he can't equip all of them. Also, with how most of them are not entirely useful or just disgusting when sensing their effects, he decides to just equip the few whose effects will aid him.
What he picked were:
River affinity- increases swim speed slightly.
Void channel- increases power duration by 20% and increases the range of Blink and Windblast.
Good lungs- slightly increases your lung capacity.
'Yeah, when I find some on missions, I can instantly equip one I find useful on the move instead of wasting time.'
The rest of the bone charms Corvo bags up and throws in a container at the corner of the conjoining room.
Now, with his outfit on, bone charms equipped, Corvo attaches his weapons and ammo pouches to the custom belts fitted to his clothes. He uses the heart to lead him to the rune at the end of the courtyard, blinking to reach the gap, then returning to the entrance of the Hound Pits Pub, ready to meet the Admiral once again.
——
Word count: 3,154
EDITED