Reconer Galina had no regret even as she watched her body wither away. At her feet lay the unmoving form of the Siaglas boy. In front, the twisted maw of the faediaga eldress.
But the enraged and now childless beast passed through her body as though Galina was a mirage. This was [Spectral Sacrifice].
The Impelakt had foreseen that pure destructive power, even at the sky realmer level, could not break through the Earthloch defences. So he had granted her this spell that morphed her body into an astral form that no one could touch or harm along with a plan to eliminate the targets without fail. Galina carried it out spectacularly.
It took an ancillary riogh hearts worth of 'Time,' 'Soul,' and 'Space' aspected manna embedded in the device and the gateway behind her to cast the spell. Still, all was worth it for the Impelakt's will. Since the life of eight competent reconers was this mission's actual price.
As her last moments drew nearer, Galina let her mind wander. The amount of manna inside an ancillary riogh heart, if forcefully assimilated, could elevate oceanic to sky temporarily. Her comrades, blessed be their valiant souls, blew up five sky realmer marrow cores to send all Earthlochian forces retreating.
In those few breaths when the faediaga and shamans thought they were all but safe under the protection of the barriers, Galina made her move.
The reconer was now a being of the astral planes. The light and heat from the physical explosion did not impede reconer Galina like they did everyone else. She used the spell to open gateways to open a smaller one right under the curled-up faediaga, connecting it to the gateway behind her. In the process, she had sacrificed all but a few earthen spells worth of manna from her reserves.
Astral beings lived on manna to exist in the material world. This act had guaranteed Galina's death, with only half a minute to live.
She pushed her hand inside the gateway, then grabbed the Siaglas boy right under the faediaga's nose with the earthen level [Manna Hands] spell and pulled.
The tether connecting the boy to the girl stretched taught as the boy travelled through the gateway to fall at her feet before snapping beautifully right in front of Galina's [Astral Sight].
The Impelakt's words held true. Distance, was the most fatal nemesis to tethered souls. Galina and the dying boy were less than fifty meters away from the faediaga who only now came to her senses. She could traverse that in a heartbeat. Yet she was too late.
The tethers from the two children danced in the air their final rhythms of life, like headless snakes yet alive. Their manna leaked like a punctured heart.
Screams rose in anguish as the Earthlochians cried.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"What did you do?!"
"Gwynnie, Rhainy, nooooo!"
"Answer me kiddo. Don't you dare close your eyes! Don't you dare!!!!"
"…why?"
Reconer Galina could not discern who asked what. But… why indeed?
She had only followed the will of the Impelakt, as should every soul on this disc.
She did her duty, and the Impelakt would reward her family heavily for it. They would be made Reanakts from Onthoakts and given glory for millennia to come.
Galina watched with content as the last visages of her astral form scattered. First her feet, knees, then pelvis.
The torso. Her arms.
Her neck, lower jaws, nose….
But when only her eyes remained, it appeared.
Reconer Galina screamed out in fury as the two broken tethers from the boy and girl snapped into place upon two inconspicuous blue crystals jutting out from the ruined cavern floor. But alas, she had not the mouth nor the vocal cords to make a sound.
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She could only curse with her dying breath as the spirit-like being in the shape of a fuzzy fish gremlin observed everything with interest.
******
The white specks scattered before Cyra's eyes. The enemy vanquished like the rotten dogs of the Impelakty they were.
The faediaga eldress stood there, motionless.
"…..el…ss,"
Her mind was a blank void. Her body ached from the heat of the blast and her heart pained like torn memories.
"…if…ne..."
Someone called out to her, but the words did not reach her.
No. They actually did. But Cyra’s mind could not parse the meaning.
She turned around to see a small dhionne, maybe up to her naval, frantically waving his muscled arms. He was gathering manna for a ritual of some sort. Why though?
"…D…SS."
The man was tiny but looked too old to be a child.
'Oh. Right. That's Tudor Arente Earthloch…'
Cyra's gaze wandered behind, noticing a group of children huddled around something. They cried, with the youngest three wailing madly in hysteria. The older children sobbed while the winged boy was on his knees, muttering incomprehensibly.
The child with the shadows stood at the side, collapsed upon a cavern rock with a deathly pale face.
'Huh…?'
The children surrounded a girl. She was a tiny little girl, no taller than a fish gremlin, with cute buns on her head. Cyra remembered her… she was so active yesterday, crying with unending energy when Cyra forbade her from visiting any more settlements.
An old woman, along with three more shamans Cyra recognized, had enveloped the… girl… in films of manna. But the manna didn't reach the still body. It was repelled by a violent force.
The girl lay in between blue crystals, the type that could be found anywhere under the loch Sagathan Temple. They had weak manna, with no other use than to serve as lamps along the dim caverns. Break them away and they grew back like mushrooms. Yet they weren't edible, so mushrooms were more valuable.
However, the manna in those crystals now swirled with intent. Each speck of light elongated until they covered the fallen girl head to toe. Like a barrier. Or a prison.
So…. Why was the girl lying there doing nothing? It could be dangerous. Well, knowing Agwyn, she was probably just curious.
Cyra stopped. Agwyn?
".. … . don't do this… I beg you, I-I…."
Someone let out a harrowed cry. Cyra's line of vision suddenly lowered and the tiny dhionne man turned into a giant. Cyra thought for a second before realizing she had crumpled down into a puddle of water.
The crying wails rang in her ears louder. The voice was strangely familiar.
'I swear I know... Wait… what… happened over there?'
Cyra then moved her gaze away, looking at where the attacker had disintegrated into manna.
"Gwyn… Gwyn………. … hic… Mommy was wrong…." The cries continued. Cyra was quickly growing annoyed by it. They made her sad. Or was it the sadness that made her cry?
Wait, that's ridiculous. Why would Cyra be crying?
Cyra shook her puddly body and focused on the matter at hand. Why had the Impelakty reconers attacked…
'Attack who?'
Cyra slithered forward. For some reason, she could not take her dhionne or faediaga form.
'Am I wounded? Where? Why would anyone hurt me?'
Ignoring the calls of her flock and Tudor Arente Earthloch, Cyra moved until she saw another fallen dhionne child.
There was something strange going on. Why were there so many sleeping children? The underground cavern was no place to take a nap.
"…. Rhain?" She spoke. Her voice came out like shattered ice, quivering and cold. Wait, that really was her, wasn't it? The crying voice.
"Rhain… why… aaaaaaahhhhhhh."
It certainly sounded like her. But then, why was she crying?
Cyra's mind throbbed, but she ignored the pain. Ignoring sad things was the best way to not be sad.
An elderly shaman sat beside the boy with a palm over his chest. A soft glow permeated the old man's hands, then a healing spell materialized.
The glob of green manna tried to sink into the boy's chest, but it was scattered away by a familiar prison created by those blue crystals. Cyra could see the sweat dripping down from the old man's wrinkled temples as he kept trying.
'Why is he?… how….'
"ELDRESS!!!!!" Cyra snapped awake at Naira's call.
"….Gwyn? Where's Gwyn?"
"She lives," Naira spoke, her sapphire eyes strained with worry. "She is not gone to us. She… lives."
"… Rhain?"
"… Eldress. The boy is alive too… Eldress, we need you. Strange magic from the Sagathan lamps imprisons them. We-"
Naira stopped. "There is something wrong with your manna. The explosion from the reconers' self-oblation!" The younger faediaga realized.
Naira immediately brought over other members of her flock. An older faediaga examined Cyra's manna. The eldress was now a wailing puddle of water and gave no resistance.
"The Eldress had shielded a good half of the blast with her bare body. Before that, she had taken direct discharges from those… those manna riogh heart-like devices. The rampant aspects have muddled her totemic soul. She will be back soon." The old faediaga said.
Cyra understood none of that. She suddenly missed someone. Two someones. A girl, a boy. She was afraid she would never meet them again.
"Give them back!" She shouted, seeing a fish gremlin pick up her son and daughter. They weren't snacks!
"GIVE THEM BACK!" she screamed, chasing after the rogue ahnmigheist that looked like a spirit. But the accursed puffball ran through a nearby wall like a ghost while holding up the two children with its button-like paws.
Tudor, Shaman Maeog, and everyone else first looked on with confusion, not realizing what had just occurred. It took only a single heartbeat for the ghost-like fish gremlin to materialize, kidnap their lieges from within that unbreakable prison, and warble off without a care in the world.
"GIVE.THEM.BACK!!!!" Cyra crashed into the wall, finally in her faediaga form. But behind the collapsed stone rubble lay even more layers of stone and earth, with the fish gremlin nowhere in sight.