Rae knew something was wrong before she opened her eyes. The mana density of the air was far too thin, her body felt cold and hollow, and there was none of the soft chiming and singing she'd expect from celestial machinery.
Also, her arm was missing.
The stone lid of the sarcophagus of rebirth slid away above her with a whisper, revealing darkness beyond. Regular travel across the cosmic pathways to a planet so far from the Axis would take significant time. Like many of heaven's functionaries, Rae preferred to transmigrate directly into a simulacrum, an artificial body of flesh woven from sanctified quintessence.
She sat up in the sarcophagus and wiggled her toes. Her newly formed flesh was eager to move. It ached pleasantly as she raised her arms above her head, stretching her muscles and getting the ichor flowing in her veins. There was an unpleasant, tinny taste at the back of her tongue that told her the shrine wasn't only darkened but near a source of corruption. It hadn't been infected itself; the shrine's spiritual presence was one of wary dormancy, not violation or sickness.
The shrine's genus loci had likely lessened its draw on the world's mana both to keep its signature low and to reduce the chances of taking in tainted energies.
"Are you here, Vuuthas?" Rae called. Her voice echoed strangely in the enclosed stone space.
"I am," came a prompt reply.
"And you didn't think to turn on the lights?" Rae puffed her cheeks and blew out a small wisp of Radiant. It flared with golden light and curled upon itself until it became a glowing ball that drifted upwards to hover in the air. The stone of the shrine was a familiar powdery blue with every surface etched with large runic symbols and inlaid with truesilver.
"I was awaiting your arrival," Vuuthas responded in his formal, precise tone. "The shrine took longer than anticipated to create your body."
Rae twisted around until she spotted him curled up on a nearby console. Vuuthas was a feathered serpent, his body vivid blue and emerald while his wings were bright red. They had worked together for ages and Rae would never try to tackle a job without him.
"This isn't the reception I expected. Have you seen the rest of me?" She wiggled the stump of her right arm. Like the rest of her, the flesh was flawless, her muscles well-defined, but it ended in a rounded tip at the elbow.
Vuuthas flicked his wide head to the side, indicating an item foundry set into the wall. "It was out of higher materia so I provided my own. I expect you can handle the Radiant."
Rae nodded, swung her legs over the edge of the sarcophagus, and stood. She went to the foundry, her light orb training behind her, reached out to touch the interface... and realized her hand was gone. Feeling foolish, she pressed her left palm against the tablet on the wall. With a touch of focus, she pushed Radiant from her core, through her awakening flesh, and into the tablet. The machine hummed to life, white lines of atheric spread in glowing geometric runes carved over the face of the stone."
Blessed be the Makers," Rae atoned.
"Blessed be the forge and the flame," Vuuthas added.
The display showed there were small amounts of sky-cobalt, truesilver, orichalcum, and hepatizon available, four of the eight higher materia. The foundry could create regular materials from aether so there was no need to store them.
"Have you learned anything while you waited?" Rae asked
"Yes, I've accessed the shrine's database and what I have found thus far concerns me greatly. Mathel has been negligent. Inexcusably so."
Rae felt her hackles rise and she suppressed the urge to sigh. "He's struggling right now, Vuuthas, which is why others have been brought into tend to matters until he's in a better place. Hence his sabbatical."
Mathel was the lone Warden of a dozen worlds near the Rim. Rae and Vuuthas had been pulled in after he'd abruptly left his position; they weren't Wardens, merely Menders who performed maintenance or repair on celestial machinery. And Mathel's worlds needed a lot of maintenance. The issue was out of her control but it was likely that her report would lead to him being stripped of his position. Maybe Mathel would find relief in that, but it was just as likely to be a hard blow when the man was already down.
"Inexcusable--I know you like the man but he's a failure," Vuuthas replied sharply. He'd been doing this for eons before she'd started but was a classic hard ass. Rae respected his perfectionism when it came to their work but he judged everyone by his standards and they were all found wanting. "Shal's planar alignment has slipped, dropped to a lower realm. The pathway from Axis is broken."
"Yeah, Rim worlds can be slippery." She focused on her foundry work, pulling up the schematics the machine already had for a prosthetic arm and making a few changes. Makers tended to like big, bulky prosthetics while Rae wanted something more refined and dexterous.
"A dungeon infestation, of course."
"Ain't that the way?" Dungeons were the cockroaches of the universe. If a world had enough mana, they'd spawn and start belching out monsters. Thankfully, mortal populations worked as natural antibodies, creating heroes strong enough to delve into the dungeon and destroy their core before they spread.
In a healthy world, that is. In unhealthy ones, monsters would overwhelm the mortal population, weakening the planet's spirit and letting other, nastier things in. That was one of the reasons Wardens could handle multiple worlds. They stepped in or alerted the Celestial Hierarchy before matters became serious, but otherwise let mortals handle things on their own.
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Ego was always a problem, though. Wardens became overly protective of their worlds and hated the idea of needing outsiders to fix things. Since becoming a Mender, Rae had spent about 30% of her time doing basic maintenance on worlds and 60% fixing major problems that could have been prevented if a Warden had reached out earlier.
She finalized her design, adding the three symbols for Creation, Like/Love, and Use along the back of the arm.
"Isn't it funny how we mistake love and attachment?" Rae said aloud as she started the forging. "We tell ourselves we care for something but when in reality we want to possess it. Then to maintain that possession we become unkind."
Vuuthas spread out one wing, stretched it slowly, and folded it back. "I'm attempting to inform you of the situation, High Technician Rafael, please pay attention. Shal is listed as a primordial garden world, a paradise. It should be drowning in mana, vibrant with life, and producing powerful mortals ready to challenge the heavens and hells. What I'm seeing is desolation. Not to mention that he's put seals on the other shrines."
That hadn't been in Mathel's reports. They'd gone through them before leaving--sporadic notes with the bare minimum of information that nevertheless showed a steady decline in world quality. Nor had there been any mention of seals; typically they were placed when shrines were corrupted or when mortals started tampering with the structure.
"Is it worse than the other worlds?"
"Far worse. I'm going to dive into the dream realm of this world and see if the native spirits will speak with me, maybe wander the lines and find out what all is wrong."
"How long will that take?"
"A few days. No doubt you will flounder without my guidance but I'm sure you won't break anything too badly." There was a hint, only a hint, of amusement in his tone.
Rae chuckled. Despite being far older, the feathered serpent was technically her helper. She relied on his analysis and expertise to solve problems.
"I'll manage without you, somehow. I'll explore the surface and see if I can't get this shrine to full functionality. There might even be lights on when you awaken."
Vuuthas curled into an even tighter ball on the console and rested his head on his body. "A bite to eat would be nice..."
The foundry hummed a low and earthy tone while it worked. A holographic image of an arm hovered above the fabricator, spinning slowly, as an array of rolling disks rose and fell like waves beneath it. Slowly, her arm came into being, sky-cobalt spun into liquid strands that were slowly layered and woven together to form an arm.
As Vuuthas lost consciousness, Rae took a lotus position and closed her eyes in meditation. She began to circulate Radiant essence from her core through the meridians of her body. As she'd just transmigrated, she was only at the early Nascent Divinity stage--her bones, muscles, organs, and skin all required strengthening. This was a common situation for those who traveled from world to world using shrines and the Embryonic Cicada's Anticipation technique had been developed for just that reason. It rapidly and uniformly infused one's body with essence but was also inefficient, neglected core development, and left no room for specialization.
Rae imagined a glowing, golden cicada breaking free from its husk. It jerked in regular, sudden movements, using the motion of its body to pump blood into its wings and harden its exoskeleton. So Rae pushed essence into her flesh, bone, and organs right to the point the energy might damage them or her meridians, and then relented. She'd wait for a few minutes as they relaxed, excess essence draining from them into the environment, and then do it again. Over and over again. Each time her physical form retained more Radiant and the golden luster of her skin became more pronounced, until after five hours of cultivation, she opened her eyes. Her body strengthened, she was now at the mid Nascent Divinity stage.
Her arm was finished. Rae rose to retrieve it and pressed one end to the stump of her arm. Golden tendrils reached out from her flesh to the circuits of truesilver and orichalcum, joining them together and there was a rush of new sensation as joined to her. The powdery blue stone was heavier than Rae's regular arm but she'd adapt to it and liked how the color stood in contrast to the golden hue of her skin.
Unlike the prosthetic arm, it only to a few minutes for the foundry to create a set of shoes and lose silk clothing. Her pants were white and billowy while her top was dark blue trimmed with gold. It was short and fitted, leaving her arms and stomach bare.
Using the remaining materia, Rae created a ring and two bracers. The ring for spacial storage, the left bracer to manifest tools, and the right for weapons she might need.
"Lazy bastard, always sleeping when there's work to be done," she murmured to Vuuthas as she stroked his napping form, gently so as not to wake him.
The shrine's only exit was a short hallway leading to a platform that hovered a whisper's height above the floor. Like the foundry, Rae had to feed it a touch of Radiant before the atheric within it sprang to life. It rose silently under her feet, taking her upwards and out of the shrine. She felt the pressure of the earth lessen as she traveled but sick energies became more pronounced. By the time, Rae had reached ground level, it was as if an unclean oil clung to her skin and a thick, spoiling rot filled her nostrils. The shrine's entrance has been built into the wall of a steep hillside, several meters above the ground and hidden behind the illusion of solid rock.
What Rae saw beyond the false front... was a nightmare.
There was no garden in sight, only a sea of ruins covered in ugly ash. Nothing green sprouted here but a fetid crimson blight grew from the as and hideous, oozing structures akin to mushrooms or coral clung to the skeletons of buildings. Rae felt a wave of illness overwhelm her and she stumbled, pressing her hand to the wall for balance. It had been long since she'd entered a truly fallen world--Warriors and Judges traveled there, not mere Menders--and the last time she'd been prepared.
The world's diseased spiritual energies pressed on her. She focused on taking deep, slow breaths and steeled herself. She could only imagine the horrors Vuuthas now danced with in the spiritual realm. Straightening her shoulder, Rae hardened her aura, pushing back the miasma around her. Once she felt steady again, she moved to the precipice and looked toward the heavens.
Looming in the sky above was a parasite moon, its pitted surface was bloody red and Rae could see the titanic black body of a worm that had burst from its side and burrowed back in. This was an eldritch being, as long as it lived, its spores would fall to earth and contaminate the world. From its size, Rae could tell it was a mature specimen and probably grown long enough that part of it had broken off to travel the void in search of another moon to infect.
Rae couldn't believe her eyes. While she wasn't fast friends with Mathel, she'd found him to be a pleasant Warden. Thoughtful and soft-spoken with a gentle way about him. Such souls often struggled under centuries or millennia of duty but what she saw before her was no mere failure but outright treason. The Ruinous Powers had this world in their grip and it was possible that destroying it was the only realistic outcome.
Her gaze drifted away from the abhorrent moon to the landscape. There was a tower in the distance, four massive tiers piled high in a design favored by the Makers. Focusing, Rae realized the spiritual energies were less oppressive there. Perhaps there were still mortals alive and active in this world. While first impressions were grim, she'd need more information before she could proceed.