Melisia continued to agonize over her thoughts as she adjusted the levels of an astral scope, the final device that needed to be attuned to Kal to reveal his core. The sense of dread was growing stronger every moment the more attuned the device got. She was forced to take breaks as she worked. Memories of her past often slipped to her head in these moments. She was fooling herself into thinking she was simply researching the unascended anymore.
Her master would be laughing right now if he knew what she was up to, which he probably did. Melisia’s childhood had been far from normal, she had been like many of the children taken by the cultists or as she knew them, The Order of the Red Dawn. A group dedicated to locating a unique birthright, one that could be nurtured and lead them into a new world. They were insane, she later learned, but their ideas were not without foundations in fact. The order had several prophecies regarding the birthright and the events surrounding its appearance, most notably the weakening of the firmament. The followers of Dhinir liked to accuse the order of being the perpetrators of the changes to the barrier around their realm, but any scholar of the seventh tower would know that it’s incredibly unlikely that such a small order could create such a massive effect using ritual magic. In many ways The Order of the Red Dawn and the Seventh Tower were similar, both explored the secrets of reality and searched for the ancient treasures of the past. It was the order's recruiting strategy that put the two at odds. Melisia, like hundreds of other children had been captured and tested for the presence of a birthright. Those who failed were indoctrinated into the order while still unascended, as they had a harsh distrust of any who had already ascended, not allowing any with a blessing to join. All failed, of course, birthrights were mythical. If there wasn’t so much ancient documentation of the phenomenon nobody alive today would believe they may have existed. A myth that was sitting on the ground in front of her, smiling contently. Quotz must have stopped looking for a moment because fate seems to be making its presence known. Melisia sighed, of course, the rescued order member was the one to locate the birthright. Melisia knew deep down that she wouldn’t just abandon Kal, her curiosity would see to that. But it was also the fact that if she didn’t help Kal he may very well never ascend, and that wasn’t something she could allow. If he was able to ascend on his own it was acts like those that would turn him against the world and the people who allowed him to wallow in despair. She was better than that, but she could never allow him to fall into the order's hands. Perhaps it was a mistake to request that he follow her to the raid, but how could she have known? Well perhaps she should have, Kal being unascended at seventeen should have been her first clue. She had made mistakes. First, she failed to see the risk in bringing the Kal with her then she jammed a wedge between them with her reaction to the discovery. Melisia couldn’t do anything about the first but she could correct the second. It was time to get to work, and finally do as she promised. Melisia activated Comprehend the Astral Threads and began her final preparations.
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Kal moved through the void of his core space. Each time he entered the space felt denser somehow, like there was something all around him. He still couldn’t see anything but the crimson-gray cloud stuff and the utter black that was his surroundings. Kal had been attempting to create a permanent crimson ring, the duration had increased significantly as his precision grew but they never lasted longer than a few minutes. He was starting to suspect there was something fundamental he was missing since now the rings didn’t seem to leak at all but somehow they still dissipated. Perhaps they used whatever the energy was slowly over time and once they ran out they dispersed. That was what Kal had planned to try out tonight. He spent the next couple of core hours slowly weaving a crimson thread, trying to make it as perfect as possible. Kal strained his perception as far as he could inspecting the thread. Each strand in the thread appeared to be identical, but the more he looked at it the more he felt like something was missing. In the small crevices of the thread, he could feel an emptiness, no not emptiness it felt more abstract than that. It was a lack of purpose. Then it hit him, the threads were a framework. No wonder they dispersed, they had no reason to stay in place. Kal had always wondered why creating these constructs didn’t appear to use any of his resources other than mental energy. So did he need to somehow infuse his health or mana into these threads as a power source? Kal decided to put his experiment on hold and speak to Melisia about it.
Kal exited his meditative state to find Melisia staring directly into his face from less than a foot away. “Gagh!” Kal fell backward banging his head on the leg of one of Melisia’s diviners.
Melisia giggled, “Excellent, you are back.”
“Why the fuck…?!” Wait, she was talking to him without him speaking first? Well, he didn’t want to ruin it so he shut up. “Uh, yeah. What’s up, is everything ok?” A flicker of a frown flashed across her face. Dammit, now she is going to kick me out again.
“Yes, everything is fine. But I did want to apologize for my recent behavior. I have hardly kept my promise to assist you for the last week.”
She said, looking a little embarrassed which surprised Kal.
“No, it’s ok. I have been happy with my progress so far, don't worry, but I do have a question that I think will help my progress a lot.” Kal saw his chance to ask about vital energy and took it. He really wasn’t comfortable with awkward situations like this.
Melisia smiled, seemingly as relieved as Kal was. “Of course, I can answer any of your questions, but I believe we are ready to finally finish divining your core.”
Kal was already preparing to enter meditation the moment the words left her mouth. “Gods yes! Let’s do it!” Sure Kal wanted to know about vital energy but he sure as hell wanted to see his core first.
Melisia smiled, “Ok then, enter your core space and we will begin.”
Kal of course dived straight back into his core space, the process much faster than his first attempt. It only took him around ten minutes to find the void again, this time was different though. He could hear a high-pitched whine that seemed to come and go for a few minutes before it evened out.
“Kal can you hear me?”
“Yeah I can hear you, I didn’t realize you could speak to me here.”
“Yes, well… it only works once I have fully attuned the astral scopes.”
Kal didn’t need a high perception to tell she was lying. But whatever, he was sure she had her reason. Kal chuckled, “Sure, what now?”
Melisia was silent for several moments before replying, was she busy or was it the strange way time seemed to flow here?
“I am going to activate the diviners now, they will attempt to resonate with your core. It may feel uncomfortable depending on the amount of damage that has been done to your core.”
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Kal nodded and waited for something to happen.
“Kal?” Melisia asked warily.
Realizing he couldn’t actually nod here and that even if he could she wouldn’t see it replied hastily, “Oh sorry, go ahead.”
A moment later Kal felt a sudden wave of pressure move through the void around him and as it went by he saw thousands of tiny flashes of gold and red light. It looked very similar to his cloud stuff but much smaller, like embers. Once the wave had truly passed him by moving further than he could perceive into the distance he noticed that he could now locate the tiny embers floating all around him though they didn’t resonate like before he could still clearly feel their presence.
“There should have been some kind of resonance with your core, it may be difficult. If you need another activation let me know.”
Kal decided he would investigate them later before he began moving in the direction of the wave. Moving through the darkness was as it was over the past week, at least at first. After about five minutes something changed, he could sense back pressure. Like something was trying to push him away from his current course. Kal stopped, trying to perceive whatever was affecting him and to his surprise, it was those tiny embers. Like before they were not resonating with anything but this time they seemed to be moving towards him from one direction. Kal couldn’t see any of the specks past about five feet.
“Hey Melisia, could you activate the device again? I think I’ve found something.”
A moment later Melisia replied, “Of course, just a second.”
Kal waited, simply floating in the void. It had to have been at least ten minutes before another wave came. He would have to speak to Melisia about the weird time difference, but he threw the thought aside and carefully inspected the embers again. He was right, they were definitely moving. They flowed around the void almost like currents, but still pretty sparse but from his current observations he expected that to change the closer he got to where his core should be. He set off again this time following closely behind the wave, carefully navigating his way through the strange currents of his core space. It really did seem infinite, just swirling currents of red-gold lights as far as he could see well, at least as far as the wave resonated with them. That fact that the embers only seemed to resonate with the divining wave felt strange to Kal, shouldn’t it resonate with him? It was part of him, wasn’t it? He decided to ask Melisia while he moved.
“It’s possible that it is due to your core not fully recognizing your presence, likely because of the damage the notification suggested. Continue searching for now. “ she suggested.
Kal was getting a bit worried about how damaged his core really was, if it wasn’t able to detect him could he ever use it? He continued further and further into the currents, they were beginning to get rather difficult to maneuver. Pretty much all of the currents were getting incredibly dense, the easier paths still taking considerable mental energy to push through. He was starting to feel that if he kept going as he was he would be exhausted before even making it to his core, and forced to try again later. That wasn’t going to happen if he could help it, so he stopped, allowing the wave to continue forward without him.
“This is getting difficult so I’m going to spend a minute to try and make things easier.”
“Ok, I’ll keep the activations coming. I can tell that we are getting close,” she replied.
Kal wanted to see how these embers reacted with his crimson rings. So he spent several minutes weaving a thread out of the crimson cloud, once he had finished he separated it from the cloud tying it off so that it would remain for at least a few minutes. He moved it around with his cloud appendage for a few minutes and found that it didn’t really react at all with the embers, it sort of just pushed them away like swinging a stick at some flies. He was about to move on with his wedge idea but then another wave rushed past him lighting up the countless red-gold embers around him. The thread was like a magnet as every single ember flowing around suddenly changed direction and flew straight toward the crimson rod he held in his hand. The rod started to glow brighter as it began to absorb the sparks slamming into it, resonating more with the surrounding embers. Kal suddenly felt something wrong with the rod and tried to drop it but was too slow as a single ember merged with his cloud form. He had felt this energy before and had rejected it. Dhinir. The energy felt insidious and controlling. Kal felt a deep anger begin to well up within him, his cloud form growing agitated, almost seeming to burn. His anger only grew as more of the foreign energy attempted to move in and overwhelm him. The rod exploded filling the cloud with even more of the embers. Why was Dhinir's energy here? Did the god have something to do with Kal’s failed ascension? If not, the god would have to be aware of it. Fury replaced anger, Yes it knew. A primal urge filled Kal, something he hadn’t felt in a week, an emotion he had forgotten about after the fact. Kal needed to kill. Not mindlessly, no, with intent. He would kill his enemies, all that would attempt to control him. His vision exploded with red-gold light as the trillions of embers suddenly recognized Kal’s presence. Kal’s form shifted instantly, one moment it was an amorphous burning cloud the next a crimson humanoid form, its face passive mask but his eyes burning with hatred and fury. His thoughts began to drift, his rage muting all unnecessary thoughts. He was wrath.
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Melisia shot up from her chair as the astral scope in hand cracked bursting into crimson flame. The pressure of the dark aura radiating from Kal’s core had drastically increased, overwhelming her instruments, and almost Melisia herself. She staggered back from the broken pieces of the scope and turned to look at Kal. He was frowning and his skin had become ashen. She immediately knelt and placed a hand on his shoulder extending her mind to the edge of his core space. Yes, she had lied about it to Kal earlier. Melisia could have done this from the start and would have if what she saw that first day hadn’t terrified her so badly. She was nervous to get even this close but she had a promise to keep.
“Kal are you ok? What’s going on?”
It was a mistake, suddenly an awareness washed over her. She froze her blood running cold, she staggered backward tripping on one of the rugs on the floor. Then she heard the screaming, but she ignored them, her thoughts filled with fear, fear of persecution, fear of he who… His awareness shifted and it was gone. As if it was never there. Her muddled thought assumed she was the one screaming but once she came to herself she realized the screams didn’t stop.
All around the camp hundreds of soldiers suddenly awoke from their dreams screaming in terror. Convinced they were under attack the commander ordered his men to find the assailants.
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Nearby a scout climbed her way through a tall oak, activating her perception skills as she went. The enemy was closing in and they would need to flee further north once again. Nyx smiled to herself. Even though her order was currently on the run, she was content. The omens were clear, he was coming. They may even already possess the child, only time will tell. The order had little time to perform the required tests to determine the presence of a birthright. But soon they would re-enter the Ways and leave their enemy behind. Nyx looked over the enemy's camp. It was quite… Well, it was terrible. They seemed to have almost no regard for security, their sentries were few and far between for such a large force. What was worse they seemed to be in no rush to chase them down, if it weren’t for the elders of the order insisting they perform what few tests they could on the children they would have been long gone by now. She almost felt sorry for them, if only they knew what was coming. But eh she didn’t mind an easy job like this, as long as she went for a hunt on the way back to camp she made decent progress with her growth. She was just about to settle into finding a relatively comfortable branch when she felt a sudden pressure. She flinched, almost letting go of the tree and falling fifty feet to the forest floor. Just as she recovered her blood ran cold, and she heard hundreds of screams break out throughout the entire enemy camp. The endless lines of prophecy and omens ran through her mind as she tried to calm herself. …He will come with the cries of men, and we shall know his Wrath… Nyx was overwhelmed with joy and fear. She activated her message stone. It was him.