Elean continued tracing her fingers along the collected works of her mentor. Bequeathed to Elean some decades ago on that day, the last day they had been seen. The sadness and resignation in their eyes still haunted Elean to this day. When she looked in the small mirror that was in the collection… she saw it in her own eyes, not as strong, but growing every year. However it was that her mentor had escaped the Compulsion, they had not left notes. It certainly was not through the means Elean now considered. The Compulsion prevented suicide or acts to intentionally cause harm to oneself. There were potentially some loopholes that Elean had discovered but she hadn’t managed to go through with the attempts.
Her heart paused for a moment as her finger finally settled on the small tome, a notebook really, she was half-looking for. Carefully she pulled it out. The small item seemed both of low quality and completely uninteresting. A small travel journal, stained and worn looking. She took it to the small bag chair stuffed with last season’s dried grasses and plopped into the seat, letting it conform a little to her shape. Not that it wasn’t already well molded to fit her. Reverently she stroked the unlabeled little tome, then opened the cover. The pages were all blank and yellowed, yet intact. On the inside of the thin and battered leather cover was a small black dot and a tiny splinter that somehow stuck out of the cover and yet never seemed to pierce the pages or interfere with closing.
Taking a breath, Elean waited for the last of her Mana reserves to fill up, drinking the last of her water as well. She had a supply cache nearby that would be visited afterwards. She absolutely did not mix the foodstuffs with her treasures, too much risk of damaging the often-delicate paper in several of the volumes with a smear of food or a splash of water. This one though, was far more durable than it seemed. It had been recovered herself after all, from inside the highly corrosive stomach of a small Dragonling that had fallen ill and sought to hide in the prairie. She’d found it and slayed it in its fevered state, unable to fight back or even recognize her presence.
Her thumb shook a little, hovering over the little spine. This part had badly drained her the last time. Maybe she should go get the foodstuffs and more water before doing this. That would be the wise thing to do.
“Fuck it.” The little spine slid into her finger with a sharp and quite tolerable prick, drawing out a single drop of crimson fluid. What was not tolerable however, was how her Mana was suddenly and violently drained from her body. The book glowed silvery white-blue, gradually shifting to a muted gold color, as the hidden Essence Enchantments were powered by the inferior Mana. It needed more though, she knew, bracing for what came next. Mana alone was insufficient to power Essence effects. Essence was the power of the divine, of creation. From it Mana and Life both flowed. To create it…
Mana and Life were required. That’s when it hit her, the very Life in her body being dragged out through a tiny prick in her thumb, blood bubbling and boiling as it exited her body, the little book seemingly able to absorb it endlessly. Where it went, Elean could not fathom. Perhaps the raw material itself was even consumed into the creation of Essence. She was entirely unable to remove her grip on the tome, even as the strength left her body. Distantly she could hear someone screaming, her mind unable to register that it was her own screams.
After an eternity and a moment, the feeling stopped and with it, Elean fell unconscious.
When Elean awoke with a groan, she coughed drily, and her stomach growled mightily. She should have gotten more food. She’d eaten her last biscuit on the run here and it was not nearly enough to provide for her recovery. She’d drunk the last of her water as well. Fool. A Sentinel for over a century, an adult for nearly two decades more. Still an impatient child inside. The same impatient knowledge-seeker that got herself bound to the Compulsion, exiled to the Outer lands. What would a few more hours delay have caused?
Her eyes eventually managed to refocus themselves and the trickle of Mana replenishing her reserves allowed her the strength to return to a seated position. The little tome was easily found, having fallen within reach after her grip was finally released. Shaking, exhausted beyond any exhaustion she had ever felt except when accessing the tome in the past, she opened it again. Pale glowing golden letters, so faint as to be barely readable, were writ upon the pages. She did not know the language in the slightest, but she understood it somehow. Essence was a hell of a thing.
It contained a limited amount of information regarding the nature and structure of Archives. However had created this tome had considered the possibility of forming artificial Archives and Nodes, theoretically granting the ability to hold Mana, store spell structures, and cast spells to non-sapient creatures or objects. They had apparently been obsessed with some kind of golem, something they called an ‘Android’. They labeled it CS Model 101 and it looked frankly horrifying, a creature metal bones and sinews and copper strings covered in a living, non-sapient flesh. The pages were filled with ‘programming’ for the ‘artificial intelligence’ structure, which was a tier 3 supervisory spell that activated a monstrous library of tier 1 spells to manage all of the actual interfacing actions.
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She’d modeled her enhancement spell very closely after the befuddling design, though it lacked the full extend of the ‘intelligence’ portion. Using the full golem control system directly on her body would have been, at best, insanity. As it was, she’d spent decades just refining her understanding of the design, which had been copied into her Archive the first time she’d found and accessed the tome.
It wasn’t that portion which she needed though; it was the part she’d ignored the previous times she’d accessed the tomes. The part that seemed completely useless to her. The part about creating an Archive. It claimed to have been tested successfully on a Man who’d had their Archive shattered as a punishment. A criminal sorcerer who, upon their defeat, was subjected to this horrifying crippling by no less than a dozen more powerful sorcerers, including an Elder Dragon. The sheer amount of Mana it had supposedly required to actually destroy an Archive, without simply killing its owner, was mind boggling. It was thousands of times more Mana than Elean could pack into her reserves even with more than a century of growing her capacity.
The creation of the Archive seemed deceptively easy, in comparison. The Archive was normally created sometime around when a child became viable inside its womb or egg. The Essence core that was the Soul formed spontaneously, the mechanics of that were briefly mused upon but totally unknown to the tome’s author. That formation was followed almost immediately by the formation of the Archive. The Archive was formed with only a tiny bit of Essence, though more than the tome took to be activated, not quite double that amount. The quantizing of the amounts was also a useful approach by the author.
“…using the basis of a standard healthy Man as 100 Life Points and the exact corresponding portion of Mana which would fuse with it as 100 Mana Points, the typical wizard of which would have actually far less than that until they reached a substantial level of mastery and with Grandmasters sometimes reaching to the low 1,000 Mana Points…” She flipped through to the section that actually quantified the process she was looking for. “…successful attempt required only 0.47 Essence Points, which translates to 47 Life Points and 47 Mana Points and is thus achievable by a rather daring pair of well established casters without permanent injury. The following spell structure can be expanded to include up to five individuals and further lessen the impact. Additionally the spell is able to do the process slowly, allowing the Mana Points in particular to be naturally regenerated during the casting and facilitate the use by even weaker casters.” She looked at the spell structure and felt the harmony with her Archive, indicating it had been Enchanted into the tome specifically for the purpose of copying it.
Unlike the previous times she’d looked at it, this time it had earned a place in her vast though still limited spell storage. The spell flashed and faded from the tome permanently, writing itself into her. Her vision blurred as she concentrated inward, confirming it seemed to be successfully inside her Archive now and without any portions missing. It wasn’t even that complicated, though it was firmly a tier 3 spell due to the particular structure. No, not a spell, a Ritual, designed to involve multiple persons, items, or reagents, not simply cast from within. Rituals temporarily Enchanted the world outside of one’s Archive and could thus interact with multiple Mana sources.
With the spell now gone, she almost closed the tome, but hesitated. After the structure had left the pages there remained an almost unreadable text. The Essence was starting to fade further, the letters beginning, almost imperceptibly, to flicker. She read as quickly as she could.
“WARNING! This spell can result in the permanent fusion of-“ The text was gone, the Essence depleted. She briefly considered the warning, partially read, not at all understood. Should she delay further? Should she eat and drink and rest and attempt to read the tome again? It would take her no less than a day or two to recover fully. That was the most logical choice. Elean licked her cracked lips, looked at her hands, shaking just to hold the little tome. Wished her water skein was not empty.
Yes, two days was a worthwhile delay for what could save her from failure after more than a century of being a prisoner. Shaking, stumbling, she made her way out. It was night, and cold, when she exited. How long she’d been unconscious, she could not be sure. The first time it had been an entire day. The second time, it had been only hours. She pulled the spell out of her Archive and connected to the Network, just listening. Hmm, not quite half a day, it seemed. That gave her time to eat and sleep still before light.
She had a few small things to check on once it was daylight, her Compulsion would not allow her to ignore the things the Network detected and identified as potential intruders. Based on the movements they were almost certainly just animals. Owl-lan and the other Summons hadn’t stepped foot into the grasses again. This was good, it prevented the Compulsion from driving her to destroy them urgently, ruining her plans and no doubt not what the Summons themselves would prefer. She took control of her breathing and shivered in the cold air, body starved for energy.
Her tier 3 spell snapped to its three Nodes and gradually ‘booted up’, the status messages running through her subconscious, strangely cold and logical. Her breathing deepened further, heart rate stabilized. Limited fat stores were broken down at an accelerated rate, heat production increased. Fluids were distributed to allow muscle movement as a priority and digestive activities were slowed to reduce the system load.
Her shaking stopped, her lips started to feel less dry, her throat no longer burned when she breathed. Food, water, rest, check the tome again. She had it with her, in her Storage pack.
Soon, freedom.