Xerion screamed as weightlessness overtook him. The void surrounded him from all sides, pressing on his body and his protective layer of Courage essence. There wasn’t much strength behind this dark embrace, but the insistence with which it clung to him burrowed into his psyche and birthed a new fear within the boy.
Ether, his companion Spirit, changed from its previous frightened tune, now howling in outrage at the betrayal they both experienced. It bit at the darkness, its golden aura growing thicker. The air near its presence smelled of fire and ash.
Barely milliseconds passed since they were thrown from the top of the colossal wall surrounding the city of Virsha, yet the images of their imminent meeting with the ground, deep, deep below, flashed through the young Practitioner’s mind one after the other. He wouldn’t have to worry about the monsters dwelling in the depths, the impact alone would lead to their end.
He wouldn’t let them perish in such a futile manner.
Lines of energy with the density of magma ripped their way into existence. They seeped into his flesh, [Resolve Augmentation] bringing him terrible torments in exchange for a vast boost to his Attributes.
The same ability sunk into the mist-like fur of his wolf, though the fact it was borrowed and not its own resulted in the pup gaining a lesser increase to its power.
With all of his techniques employed, Xerion did the only thing left for him to do – he sent a torrent of essence into Ether and asked it to grow.
The puppy’s dimensions multiplied in a blink of an eye, its prior cute form abandoned to show a being truly worthy of the Spirit designation. Majesty oozed out of its thick mane and royal aura, while its tail looked like a lazily drifting cloud plucked right from the high heavens.
The newly-initiated Practitioner saw no more, for its companion jumped in a desperate bid to rescue the two of them. The hound’s hind paws, or rather the ethereal claws placed on them, sunk into his armor and robe both, while its front ones drove into the enchanted rock of the great wall.
They barely pierced it, yet that sufficed for his supernatural friend to halt their descent. The ever-present pull, that force binding all weak of heart and Rank to the dirt of the earth, seemed of no concern to the grown-up Ether, as he hung and held him with no effort.
Xerion froze for a moment as he witnessed the wolf withdraw one of its paws, only to throw it upward, creating another groove in the stone. Slowly, taking great care to not drop him, the Spirit began climbing up the vertical surface.
Over a minute passed in complete silence, the boy forgoing to even breathe during their ascent, for any distraction had a chance of causing their end. His chest pounded while his face grew red, not to mention his lungs demanding to be provided with some of that wonderful, life-supporting gas.
After an eternity, the pair returned to the top of the wall. Four faces greeted them there, all filled with smiles yet hiding various degrees of shame in their eyes. The worst off was Vaikus, the giant emanating so much embarrassment, it seem as if he wished for little more than to sink into the ground and disappear.
Nevertheless, he gladly accepted the three clinking pouches offered by the rest of the Team Hylkiö’s members. After hesitating for an instant, he threw one of them to the not-too-amused Xerion.
Nadia cleared her throat. “Well, my dear mentee, you passed your pre-mission initiation with flying colors. I never doubted you, of course, but it’s wonderful to see you prove me right.”
“I just saw you lose money,” the boy said flatly. “You were betting whether I’d fall to my death or not, and you lost.”
“Yep,” Duene said, nodding. “We were sure you were a goner.”
“Oh, stop that,” his teacher said, swatting at her paramour. “You were never in any danger, not truly. Most fail this test. We would’ve caught you if you reacted even a second slower.”
“Oh, joy. I feel so relieved.”
The most irate of everyone present was Ether. With its size fully unleashed, its back almost matched that of Xerion’s waist, not to mention the height reached by its raised snout. Its fur was bristled, golden power arcing through it. The young Practitioner petted it, but the action only stoked the wolf’s wrath.
It glared at those responsible for their mistreatment, those depthless swirls of blue it used as eyes forcing even Duene to look away.
“Shhh,” the boy whispered. “It’s okay, buddy. They’re assholes, but they’re our assholes.”
The hound turned its head to its companion and chuffed gently, agreeing to forgo hostilities this once. The feelings it transmitted spoke of finite patience, however. It refused to let go of any further wrongdoings.
Xerion told the group of Ether’s thoughts, and instead of disdain or anger, he saw respect flash across their faces. That, he’d have to think about.
As it turned out, the only reason they scaled the wall was to throw him off of it, the real exit from the city being a gate located on the ground level. Oh, how he’d pay them back for this. He wasn’t sure how, yet, but something would come to mind eventually.
After descending the hundreds of steps and walking for a while, the team met with an elderly Practitioner named Agatha. The woman was permanently stationed at this imposing fortification, and burdened with the duty to help those who sought passage in and out of Virsha.
Not that she saw this assignment as a burden. No, she spoke of it as of the perfect retirement, away from the unending chatter of her half-witted descendants. Her words regarding her family were some of the harshest Xerion ever heard, yet the granny seemed to be pleasant overall. He thought it strange, but then again people tended to be quite the contradictory creatures.
She brought them to the gate, the thing minuscule when compared to the size of the wall yet massive by itself. With a couple of essence workings performed too quickly for the boy to follow, she opened it and activated some special mechanism.
The newly-initiated Practitioner’s jaw nearly hit the floor as he witnessed an enormous, rectangular plate of black rock slide out of the canyon’s cliff face. It blazed with markings of power as profound as those found on the barrier itself.
He couldn’t imagine a more fitting start to his adventure than by strolling into the darkness through this incredible bridge.
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This isn’t a relaxing trip, he reminded himself. You’re on a mission, and you can die at any moment.
Despite repeating those words in his mind, excitement threatened to bubble forth and show on his mug. That, he managed to stop, well-practiced in the art of hiding his true feelings.
Nadia clapped, the sound bringing everyone’s attention to her. “Let us go, yes? The journey will be long, and we have places to investigate and people to save, no?”
“And things to kill,” Duene added, her voice heated.
Xerion listened, his interest piqued by what he heard. Then a thought struck him. This was the first time he learned anything about the contents of their mission, and as noble of a cause as braving dangers to rescue strangers was, his eagerness to venture into the Void Lands appeared quite a bit earlier.
That must’ve told something about him, revealed some profound truths of what lay at his core, yet he didn’t care. Not at all. An adventure awaited, and Xerion Säkene Širdis planned on answering its call.
---
“This is awful,” Xerion said, the inky darkness trying to force its way down his throat after he opened it.
“Did you think people called this place the Void Lands due to its stunning scenery and lovely vacation options?” Philip asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Well, no, but I imagined it to be… not this.”
“Not like traveling through the insides of some devil’s butthole?” Duene chimed in.
He didn’t bother gracing that question with a reply, and the pink-clad woman didn’t seem to be expecting one.
Each of the boy’s steps came with difficulty as the ground grabbed at his feet, its sometimes solid, sometimes tar-like consistency sapping at his strength. It also made his mind wander, causing it to conjure futures in which he flew in the sky, above the puny weaklings forever bound to the dirt by the world’s pull.
The [Penetrating Gaze of the Sorrowful] allowed him to see the next hundred or so paces ahead of him in perfect clarity, double that in less detail, and four times the original number as if through a cracked lens. Further away laid nothing, to his senses.
Despite his highly limited vision, he found himself wishing for an even worse one, as what he observed just brought fear to his heart.
Mists clung to all members of Team Hylkiö, their color outside the spectrum he could reliably describe. If he had to try, he’d say it left him tasting rot born in the souls steeped in darkness for eons.
And it was so quiet here, most of the time. As if existence held its breath, leaving the place still, yet also stifling in that awful way when lungs begged for air yet failed to receive any.
But there were moments in which the sound did travel. On nights when sleep wouldn’t come, Xerion liked to imagine the Void Lands to be filled with eerie laughter and screams of beings dying in torment. It certainly wasn’t the nicest of thoughts before hitting the pillow, but it was a common one for those cursed to endure their lives while surrounded by eldritch blackness.
The truth, as is often the case, was worse than he imagined. No hair-raising giggle reached him, nor did fake calls for help arrive, but he heard breathing. He knew it wasn’t coming from his team members, for it always appeared directly behind his ear, the vibrating air seeming to gently kiss his skin.
At other times, the noise of something spilling would steal his attention. Such occurrences were then promptly followed by faint, almost indiscernible scents of copper, bile, and excrement.
That last one left him checking his own pants, for it never hurt to be too careful.
To call this landscape morose would be the understatement of the millennium. Life existed here, but in a way so twisted, the word wouldn’t exit his mouth after reaching his tongue.
Trees with barks of shadows and fruits filled with smoke smelling of pus and death, dark grass whose sharp tips bit instead of piercing, rocks as if made from hellish goo formed into unsettling shapes.
What deeply moved Xerion was the fact the sun was present here. An onyx orb hung high above, appearing in his sight despite his ability’s limitations, and bringing agony to the minds of all who laid their eyes upon it. Its rays fell like waterfalls of black filth, bathing the earth in a chill that seeped straight into his bones.
The boy kept his Spirit companion close to his chest, the fingers of one of his hands combing through its fur in a steady rhythm. Ether’s return to the pup form happened because of the connection between its size and essence expenditure, of course, and not because hugging this ball of fluff brought a much-needed degree of comfort to the young Practitioner.
On the matter of essence, his stores were filled to bursting. Each step he took in this land warped beyond comprehension required so much Courage from him, he could’ve walked with all his abilities employed for a century and still not be in danger of running out of energy.
“Uh, Nadia?” Xerion asked, startling slightly at the sound of his voice. It seemed to come from a distance, despite exiting out of his own mouth.
“Yes? Are you in need of some words of comfort?”
“No no, nothing like that,” he lied. “I wanted to go over the details of our mission again, is all. I want to be extra prepared for it, ya know?”
“Certainly. We’re to head over to a gemstone mine claimed by our city, twenty-some leagues to the northwest of Virsha. There—”
“Um, there are other types of mines there, like the ones from which we extract metals, right?” the boy cut in. “Oh! Places with special resources! Will we see any of those on our way there?”
His mentor waited patiently as he shot off a bunch of questions he already had an answer to. Once silence reigned for long enough, she continued. “Xerion. If you wish to simply talk, all you have to do is ask.”
“No! I really do want a refresher on what we know about the mission. My mind just wandered.”
Duene snorted. “Wimp.”
“You—”
“After we get there,” Nadia said, “we’re to investigate why a distress signal was received by the Pillars and provide aid, if necessary. Given the second-level alert, we should expect survivors. If the Empyrean blessed us on this day, maybe more than one.”
Having finished her piece, the middle-aged woman let the silence return, much to Xerion’s displeasure. The rest of Team Hylkiö’s members didn’t speak either. Were the Void Lands truly not affecting them at all? Then again, his teacher was nearing a century of existence, and Vaikus’ age far surpassed such, so their many forays into the domains of darkness must’ve steeled their hearts against the horrors contained therein. But what of the other two?
The young Practitioner turned to his left, seeing an outline of a person with a sword in hand and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a giant grin on their face. Well, on further thought, he expected nothing less from Duene.
To his right ran a man utterly unconcerned about his surroundings. He appeared to be having the time of his life, playing with a floating stream of water.
Ah. He forgot for a moment he was in the presence of a bunch of weirdos. How someone decided he’d fit in with this crowd, he’d never know. In the meanwhile, he continued to pet his Spirit companion, an ability-creature made through the use of a system he invented, one with a semi-independent mind and its own wants and preferences. A completely normal thing.
He wished so dearly to be able to use his [Conceptual Manipulation] on himself, to stoke the fires of Courage burning within his heart, but alas, that power worked only on other beings. The heavens were ruthless indeed, barring Practitioners from utilizing a cheat that’d allowed them to generate essence endlessly, regardless of circumstances. It was truly unfair.
Hours went by in a blur as the land ruled by the dark gave it all to screw with the boy’s mind and mood. Frequent breaks to converse with his… friends, or whatever those people were to him, alleviated the worst of the feelings trying to worm their way into his chest.
Despite the terrifying nature of their surroundings, their journey remained largely peaceful. That ended as the sound of metal hitting metal resounded. For Vaikus to request their attention, something bad must’ve been afoot.
Nadia cursed. “A small pack of Darkfiend scum is racing our way. They somehow slipped passed my wolves. My bad. Get ready to fight.”
Xerion needed no further instructions, his saber exiting its sheath and making the air whine as it sliced through it. Finally, he could do more than just think on repeat of how awful this devil’s butthole of a place was. Never in his close to two decades of life had he felt such excitement for an upcoming fight, and he was a blade fanatic.
Ether seemed to share his thoughts as it jumped out from his arms and instantly transformed into its majestic, adult size. Its maw opened, showing rows of deadly-sharp fangs and pools of milky white saliva. A single drop of it flowed down its lip and hit the ground, the darkness hissing in response to the contact.
[Resolve Augmentation] activated, filling the pair with power and pain in equal measure. Once the initial burst of hurt left, they were ready. Now they only had to wait for the monsters to arrive.