Chapter 102: The Traitor
Raina floated down through the top of the facility like a wrathful figure of myth, settling onto the grass training field. Nara absentmindedly thought that the ‘roof’ had been a real sky. The gazes of the abductees followed her; the training field was so quiet they could hear a pin drop.
Raina lifted Nara from her shoulder and set her down on the field, oddly gentle for someone who had just left a burning bruise on her face.
“I am Raina Bow,” she said with an even, almost quiet voice; She didn’t need to raise her voice, everyone was listening. “I am the head of operations for The Advent in this area. This young lady here,” she said, gesturing to Nara, “Had the false notion that it was possible to escape, and that help may arrive. I will tell you why she was mistaken. This facility,” she said waving her arm, “Is built in the midst of a very small and secluded astral space. There is no communication. There is no escape. And there is no rescue.”
She crouched down to eye level with Nara, who sat quietly on the grass. Her hand grasped Nara’s face, bringing them into direct and uncomfortable eye contact. Nara didn’t struggle—she couldn’t. A gold ranker’s grip was absolute.
“We know of those who are able to escape suppression collars,” Raina said. “This…ability is a product of twisted tribulation of a barbarous culture. For every one like you, there are innumerous broken souls. Our harmony raises us to have what you instead need pain and suffering to gain. However, there is much to learn from a soul like yours.”
She touched her hand to Nara’s neck, and her suppression collar fell off. Nara’s eyes widened in surprise. She immediately closed her eyes to focus—
She was shoved to the ground, a thin steel rod resembling an oversized needle plunged through her collarbone. She gasped in pain, the sudden and abrupt sensory overload sending flashes of light crackling across her eyesight.
She was disoriented, not only from her crushed hope, but from the pain of crushed bone and muscle. She was pinned to the ground like a butterfly on display for a gallery of onlookers. She tried to push past the pain, but could not. An anti-dimension effect was blocking her. She knew intuitively without her Guide, and wondered if this was how other essence users sensed afflictions on them.
She heard a commotion off to the side, dimly recognizing that Aliyah was held back by Jiro, who restrained her and quieted her. That was best: there wasn’t anything either of them could do.
“I want to see, outworlder, what made you.”
Raina dug through Nara’s aura in a process that felt far more spiritually excruciating and exposing than even the stake through her bone. She dug through her aura with the precision of a machine that separated a piece of paper by fiber by fiber.
*****
Raina started outwards with the outworlder. Her emotions were clear; frustration, pain, hopelessness, confusion, and fear. It didn’t take gold to iron rank disparity to sense that. Those emotions alone were evident on her face, streaked with tears and shaking from pain.
Her aura was unusually nebulous and indistinct, but gold rank power pushed past iron rank defenses. Her race was obvious—outworlder, formerly human. Her essences: Dimension, Harmonic, Balance, and Mystic, with her aura in her Harmonic essence. Her aura was subtle and kind, and Raina saw what the outworlder wanted and who she was; the pitiable, confused girl wanted to be helpful to those around her. Her aura reflected that desire; that no matter or pathetic, useless, and selfish she was, she would at least always provide some tangible benefit to the people around her. An aura of persistent blessings born of an understanding of her own mediocrity. Mediocre was inaccurate…she was unexceptional. Exceptional now, due to circumstance, but once an ordinary person. Most outworlders were.
She dug through further. Her age…was an interesting conundrum. She felt simultaneously ancient, yet clearly very young. Her naivete and innocence was revealed in the way she interacted with others and struggled with Ceram. Raina did not understand what could produce such a dichotomy. It was the first mystery that drove her to push forward, digging through more of Nara’s aura in an exposing act that was evidently terrifying for the outworlder. She trashed against the iron bar, pulling and tugging at it despite the pain it brought her.
She placed a hand down, stopping her from struggling, for her own good. Needless pain was against the harmony’s way. Pain should have a purpose—as a lesson, or to further a goal.
She felt the mark of the divine next. It wasn’t a surprise; she had been designated for her supposed advancements in soul magic. It had been kept quiet with no way for Raina to confirm the authenticity of her information source, as reliable as a wind with no direction. Now, the mark of divine was proof enough.
She dug further, there was something else there, buried within. The very first mark upon her soul.
“Transcendence? From what?” she demanded.
Nara didn’t respond.
Raina leaned in, giving the iron bar through the woman’s collarbone a shake, causing her to whimper from the pain and shake her back into focus, “I said, from what?”
“Something called a Great Astral Being,” She eked out a reply through the pain, gritting her teeth. “I-I don’t know much about them.”
“Why?” she asked, “Why did it torture your soul?”
“I don’t know.”
She twisted the bar.
“I really don’t know!” She hissed, the pain causing bitter anger to rise to the surface over the other, cloying emotions.
She wasn’t lying; Raina could easily tell from her aura. Instead, she noticed something else.
Her soul was connected to the astral. An unbreakable link that tethered the young woman to the realm of magic itself. It fed her a constant stream of magic; the exact amount necessary to maintain life and function of her body. The iron ranker didn’t need to eat and wouldn’t age. Even diamond rankers needed to ingest magic or they’d mana starve, with some exceptions. Even if that killed them, diamond rankers could revive.
She had only seen this sort of sign from one other type of being; the Messengers, gestalts of body and soul. Most life had body and soul separate, distinct, but working in harmony. Gestalts were physical and spiritual combined. Each form had their benefits and drawbacks, Raina knew. But this girl wasn’t either of them. She resembled more…a vessel.
“What are you a vessel for?”
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. Myself, maybe,” the outworlder babbled to spare herself the pain. She was learning, perhaps.
“A vessel for yourself?”
The value of this outworlder grew in Raina’s eyes. There were far too many secrets she held. The more Raina looked, the less she understood. Not only did she posses the library of the Celestial Book on this world they could not obtain, but other mysteries of the cosmos she had inadvertently stumbled upon. A new world to harmonize, new information to gain, new methods of soul magic, and this secrets of her being.
And, she was oh so close to breaking. Rain could almost feel the success that would send pleasure shivers up her spine like the resolving chord of a masterful arrangement.
Kindness would not work. The outworlder was right: there was no basis of trust. They would have to use more forceful methods to encourage her cooperation.
Raina removed two black ribbons from her inventory. There were around two inches wide, and the same thin sleek silk-like material that Nara’s suppression collar, now removed, had been made of.
“In the past we’ve encountered a few who’ve managed to shake off ordinary suppression,” Raina said, her words an unpleasant portent. “Thus, we created countermeasures.”
She held up the two bands. She took the first and wrapped it around Nara’s left wrist, and repeated it with her right wrist. The ribbons connected themselves and adjusted their length to perfectly encircle her arm, seamless as the collar once was. Notably, instead of the solid black design of the collar, there was a large white diamond, like that of the diamond suite in a deck of cards, positioned on the underside of her wrist and on the direct opposite side.
“We developed these suppression shackles,” Raina said. She lifted one of Nara’s arms to demonstrate, causing her to sharply wince against the rebar, “Focusing your aura to escape one location is easy enough, but to focus it for two, and through pain, is not.”
“Pain?” Nara bleakly muttered.
Raina smiled, then activated the magic in the diamond. This would be pain with a purpose.
*****
Nara screamed when she felt her flesh, in what she could only guess was the same diamond shape, burned away at her wrist. It felt as if a glowing hot rod had been forced between and through her radius and her ulna, carving a diamond shaped hole occupied by burning fire. Even worse, she felt something else; life energy coursed through the white fire rods, repeating a process of healing then burning in a never ending, tortuous cycle. The life energy prevented her from bleeding out through her wrists, but refreshed her flesh for the nerves to be burned once again.
Raina yanked the rod from Nara’s collarbone, the wound healing with incredible speed, courtesy of the healing energy of the shackles. It was no longer needed; suppression was back in place.
“These shackles are specially made for those special harmonants we want at all costs. Those we feel are more likely to kill themselves than join. This will prevent that. Lucky for both of us, outworlder, you cannot drown. I suspect we will have the time to change your mind.”
The gold ranker instantly disappeared in a flash.
Nara laid there in the grass, pain digging through her arms in an unceasing cycle. She curled and writhed and screamed, until she felt she had no more energy to scream. She didn’t have the awareness to care if the other captives saw her or what they thought of her.
Jiro had said he did not envy her. He did not know how right he was at the time. Now he did, watching the poor iron ranker twist, cry, and pass out from the pain, repeatedly. Once the gold ranker had passed, Aliyah dashed over, picking Nara up.
With Nara in her arms, she walked past the training field and the cafeteria with the eyes and horrified expressions of other captives. She walked past the ever-present, ever ominous arch, her gaze skittering past it. She walked down those sandstone and open air hallways and stood outside Nara’s room.
“Nara,” she said in a whisper, “I can’t go inside their room. It won’t let me. You will have to…make your way in yourself. I can only stay outside.”
Nara groaned her acknowledgement.
Aliyah set Nara down on the floor and stepped back. She watched her hobble over past the doorway, and the door shut automatically behind her. If Aliyah had tried to enter during that time, a clear barrier would have stopped her.
Jiro followed, also sitting down next to Aliyah in front of the door. Neither of them wanted to see any Adventist follow her into the room, if they could.
“I have a feeling,” Jiro spoke slowly, “That things will only be getting worse.”
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Yes,” Aliyah said grimly, “I share that feeling.”
*****
“She hasn’t come out yet today either?” Yulia asked Aliyah softly.
Aliyah shook her head.
The three sat around a table for discussion. Amas was guarding Nara’s room, and they regularly took shifts out of concern.
“Nara’s situation is concerning,” Jiro said. “To the Advent she is valuable enough for these measures, but we are not.”
“That has been my point this whole time,” said Yulia, her frustration and growing anxiety evident. “It’s not important to them that we join them. It’s more important that we stop researching. The only way they can guarantee that is with our death, especially now since Aliyah says that the Adventure Society is aware of The Advent. If they let any of us go, we’d be placed under protection. So, Jiro,” she said, eyes wide and pleading. “We need to go.”
“I won’t Yulia, even if there can only be death as the reward of my decision.”
“Don’t you see?! They’re making an example out of her!” Yulia shouted, her voice rising. “That could happen to us.”
“An example of her to sow fear,” Jiro said. “You think they care that much about us to torture us? They’ll just kill us and be done with it.” He lowered his voice and said softer, and with more understanding, “Yulia, you don’t have a family here to leave behind. You should go.”
“You are my friend, Jiro. A close friend.”
“Close enough to die, Yulia? You need to ask yourself that. I’m not going to change my mind.”
Yulia looked at the portal arch for a long while.
“We may still have a chance of rescue,” Aliyah said softly, as if not trying to unduly raise hope. She wouldn’t blame Yulia for her decision, whatever it may be.
“You mean your team mate the diamond ranker’s grandson? What was his name, Sezan Aciano?”
“Yes,” Aliyah said, “I have no doubt they are doing anything they can in Sanshi right now.”
Yulia looked towards the arch again. She didn’t make her move yet…but Jiro thought she would.
*****
The day of the abduction…
A notification in front of Sen and Encio’s eyes startled them.
-------
-Party leader [Nara Edea]’s abilities have been suppressed.
-Party has been automatically disbanded.
-------
The screen flickered, then vanished. When Nara used a suppression collar to spar in the Academy, she always notified them first. They weren’t at the Academy.
Instantly, Sen was on alert.
“I’m checking the baths,” Encio said, already moving downstairs.
Eufemia dashed out of the room, John also exiting his.
“What’s going on?”
Sen frowned, “I don’t know but I have my suspicions.”
“The Advent?” John asked.
Sen nodded.
“How do they know?”
“I don’t know.”
They waited for Encio to return.
“I didn’t see them. Aliyah too, she’s gone. I’m going to contact my grandfather.”
“Is that necessary to go that far?” John cautioned. “We should contact the Adventure Society first.” It’s not that he was not concerned for Nara, but diamond rankers were living, breathing, nuclear warheads.
“I don’t know about that,” Encio said, mind puzzling with hypotheses, discarded thoughts, information, and possibilities. “Do you trust Willard?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would they abduct Nara?”
“She made that soul-thingy,” Eufemia said, summarized in the quickest way possible.
“Tell me, who knows about that?”
“Us, obviously,” Eufemia began, “Those gold rank friends of hers—that should be all, right?”
“Besides the gods,” Encio said slowly. “There is one other person.”
“Who?”
“Oswald Willard.”
*****
If Oswald Willard was a traitor, Sen and the team wasn’t going to engage him without backup. They had two options—Encio’s grandfather was bringing a flying city fortress to deal with a mage-boat. Complete overkill. Encio would send a message to Sezan, but it would take a few days to arrive. He’d also use water link, when he had the chance, but that had it’s own issues. He’d contact the water link operators in Esmera-Mar, and they’d send someone to notify Sezan that his grandson was trying to communicate with him. If not Esmera-Mar, then Aviensa. If not Aviensa, then Saggia.
Encio tried not to think about how their best communication option was gone. He hadn’t fully realized what a convenience she provided.
The other option was Zinnia Helianthae, the gold rank Continental Congress member, who was in Sanshi for Advent related reasons. Organizing and implementing the deal with Zariel-laat was her primary purpose, but the Adventure Society wouldn’t sit around while some of their members were abducted. If Oswald’s loyalty was in question, she was the next best option, and it was less using a volcano to kill a fly than bringing Sezan into the equation was. While Encio didn’t have an issue with that (overkill sent a message he’d enjoy sending right now), political issues and pandering might slow down the investigation and rescue.
When the team arrived at the Adventure Society, it was clear the had already been whipped into a frenzy. Functionaries were speed walking through the halls, and messengers flashed outside at speed, teleporting the moment they were able.
“The situation is known,” Sen concluded.
“Nara and Aliyah must not be the only kidnappings,” John added. “They hit the entire city simultaneously. Has there ever been an incident this large?”
“What do we do?” Eufemia asked. “They don’t look like they have time for a bunch of iron rankers.”
If it had been Nara on Earth in a busy waiting room, she would’ve just taken a seat. However, Encio and Eufemia were not the type to wait. Encio and Eufemia were planning how to create a mess to draw attention like the worst sort of person in a restaurant when a familiar being manifested before them, a glimmering robe of muted silver.
“Sage?”
*****
The team, Zinnia Helianthae, the highly uncomfortable Oswald Willard, Lawrence Ruffolk, Zariel-laat, Adventure Society members of the great families, and various other functionaries from different societies gathered for a late-night meeting at the Adventure Society.
“Hours ago,” Zinnia Helianthae began, “Several Adventists enacted a city wide abduction plan. They targeted several researchers that followed a list. A list made by Aliyah Sahar, also missing.”
The list was stuck to the board Zinnia was pacing in front of.
“There is a single person not on this list, Nara Edea, who was also abducted. By a gold ranker, I will add. I tried to intercept, but she escaped. Notably, she escaped into Shanyin. The other agents that escaped also entered Shanyin. I’ve been informed by both miss Edea’s familiar here, Sage, as well as Encio Aciano, that the only person who knew Nara Edea was anyone of note that cannot be trusted is our local branch head, Oswald Willard.”
She slapped the wall, cracking stone in the shape of her palm.
“Now, Willard, I’d like an explanation before I have to beat it out of you.”
“I’m not an Adventists,” he denied, trying to avoid speaking too quickly out of nervousness. “I don’t know how I am the source of this information—I’m not. There must be someone else who leaked her information. I can’t be the only possible source.” He, admirably, did not plead.
“Unless you’d like to accuse her own team, then yes Willard, you are.”
Willard was doing a very good job of outwardly controlling his panic. He sat stoically in his chair, confident in his own innocence, but his mind was rapidly churning. He had made not one, but two gold rankers and potentially a diamond ranker very upset with him. Thankfully, his silver rank memory threw him a life ring. He could cry in relief—later, privately, curled in a blanket at home where no one would see him.
“I…I told one person.”
“Who?”
“Erin Nisei. We’ve been collaborating on the issue of the Adventists. She has exceptional reach and information gathering capabilities, as well as keeping the criminal underworld in check. She’s Adventure Society,” he added. “She’s been a reliable associate all this time.”
Zinnia turned to John, “This is the list your team member made for Erin Nisei?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “She commissioned my services as an investigator when I was normal rank to investigate the disappearances in Sanshi, as well as their cause. The list was later created by the missing Aliyah Sahar, and passed to Erin Nisei as at-risk targets.”
“Why would she commission an investigation if she is a traitor?” A functionary posed, “Isn’t that counterproductive?”
“As a ruse.” Eufemia responded, her tone saying isn’t it obvious. “A common tactic, the double spy. Pretend you’re doing good when your loyalty is called in question. ‘Look,’ she can claim, ‘I’ve been doing the right thing all this time!’ Plus, she got all that information from us for the other side too.”
“You think she’s playing both sides?” Zinnia asked.
“She’s a snake,” Eufemia scoffed. “Of course she is. I’d never liked her from the very start.”
“You didn’t like her because she was flirtatious,” John pointed out.
“She’s flirting with a married man! She’s vile!”
Open relationships were more popular in Erras than Earth, especially among essence users, but John was strictly and publicly, purely monogamous.
“You flirt with married men too,” John pointed out.
“I flirt with them to get into their homes and rob them blind, that’s different,” Eufemia scoffed. “And just because I’m vile, doesn’t mean she’s not.”
Zinnia gently rapped the meeting table, not damaging it, and pulsed her aura to bring the group back into focus, “Plausible, and enough reason for me to act on it,” Zinnia said, referring more to Oswald’s information than Eufemia’s theory. “I want a team to capture Erin Nisei and bring her to me. Bring some anti-stealth, tracking, and detection specialists. Mona, you’re in charge.”
Mona nodded, and exited the meeting room.
*****
Erin Nisei walked into the meeting room, suppression collar around her neck and manacles around her wrist. She was worse for wear. Her waterfall black hair was singled and cut short, along with long swathes of her skin. Despite her worn appearance, she sashayed into the room, ever confident with an expression of grievance.
To Eufemia, it made for an amusing scene. She sashayed without her characteristic black hair to flow and wave. Who did Erin think she was impressing?
Erin blew a stray hair from her face as she elegantly sat down.
“Mona, friend, you really didn’t have to have hit me that hard,” Erin Nisei said in her melodious, flowing voice, “You’ve ruined my hair. And I had just got it done, such a waste.”
“Then you shouldn’t have run. What are you thinking, Erin? Don’t you know how that makes you look?”
Erin crescent lips maintained their infallible smile, like the moon in an eternal night.
“I want to know why you’ve betrayed us for The Advent,” Zinnia Helianthae said.
“I haven’t,” Erin Nisei smoothly denied. “Is this not a tactic to sow confusion and doubt within our ranks? While we’re here playing ‘who’s the rat’, The Advent continues their operations. How do you even know there is a rat?” And why would you think it was me, was left unsaid.
Her eyes glanced at the information on the board, processing quickly with her silver rank spirit. “I commissioned dear John here for information on The Advent, and he delivered. Which researchers are of note and should be captured isn’t hard to determine. I remember, John. I had to ask you why they were targeting certain researchers; I didn’t even know. They are more than capable of determining which researchers fulfill their own criteria, don’t you think?”
“Is that true?” Zinnia asked.
John nodded, evaluating Erin Nisei for himself. “Many of those researchers touch upon topics that are common knowledge in my world. If The Advent has higher level of technology, they would be able to identify which researchers they needed to target.”
He was articulate and levelheaded for an iron ranker. Zinnia could see why Erin and Oswald both wanted to use him. The materials he had provided were well-organized and thorough, yet concise, which demonstrated his insight into which facts and details were important. Frankly, Zinnia wanted him as staff too. He wasn’t too low ranked to work as staff at the Continental Congress…
“See?” Erin said, aggrieved, as if she were the victim. “I’m innocent in all this.”
“You hardly are innocent.” Encio interrupted, voice icy. “There is one person not accounted for on that list—my teammate, Nara Edea. Oswald Willard said he told you.”
“Oswald Willard is the traitor! You can’t trust that I’m the only person he told,” Erin exclaimed. “Why is it me? Is it because I handle the underworld? I’ve been doing my duty for this world and conducting the appropriate investigations, at his behest.”
“Why run if you claim innocence?” Encio asked.
Erin Nisei pressed her lips together, “How do I know the Adventure Society under his leadership hadn’t sent assassins after me to silence me? Surely, I am not the only suspicious person here? Oswald Willard had been mismanaging the trials this entire time; was it not to prevent the acquisition of the Celestial Book library by a Magic Society researcher and to prevent the freedom of that familiar, who held knowledge of The Advent to begin with by forcing the examinees to rely on her?”
Eyes turned to Oswald who was doing his best to keep his outward calm again.
“I didn’t think that at all!” Willard denied fervently. “I thought a hands-off approach for a relatively safe trial is better for the development of adventurers as a whole.”
“Not because maintaining the status quo was advantageous to The Advent?”
“Is this really necessary?” Eufemia sighed, annoyed with both. “Let’s just treat them both like traitors and interrogate them. If they’re innocent, give them a pat on the back and apologize.”
“I like that idea,” Zinnia approved. “Simple, efficient.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait” Willard hastened to slam the brakes on this tram of thought. “I don’t like this idea. Look,” he pointed at Sage, “Before this familiar, we had only minor information on The Advent at all. Because of her, much of their methodology and ideology has been exposed to us. If I was on the side of The Avent, killing Nara Edea and preventing the spread of this information would’ve been by far the most efficient move, even if I had to pay the price for it. It was just me and a team of iron rankers. I had the chance.”
“A traitor isn’t the same as their adherent,” Erin Nisei explained, calm and assured with her reasoning. “You didn’t want to kill a bunch of iron rankers. You aren’t a complete monster, of course.” She said, as if it was a compliment in this situation.
“I contacted the Continental Council!” Oswald’s voice rose. “If I was a traitor, I wouldn’t help with a collaboration that would undermine The Advent’s activities on a worldwide scale.”
Oswald Willard deeply regretted his laisse-faire treatment of the trial. He didn’t think his hands-off approach would be biting him in the ass now.
As Eufemia said, the conversation had devolved into a frustrating back and forth between Erin Nisei and Oswald Willard with no end in sight.
“Who do you think it is? Or both?” Encio said with a whisper.
“It’s still that snake bitch,” Eufemia whispered back. “I’m sure of it.”
“Why?”
“Gut feeling. And she was hiding in that astral space like it’s her snake den this entire time. It’s suspicious. A famous socialite that hasn’t attended a single party in months? I don’t buy it.”
“You’re gods-damn right!” Zinnia suddenly exclaimed, her sea eyes flashing with violent energy. Her gold rank hearing and spirit attribute was more than capable of tracking multiple quiet conversations at once and had surpassed the bounds of normal human hearing. “The Adventists disappeared into Shanyin as if they knew the way through the astral space. It’s notoriously maze-like, and you, Erin Nisei, are one of the few people that know how to produce a map of the place.”
“I beg your pardon as I’d like to interject some supporting information,” Sage said. “It is not widely known beyond those who have been involved with gods such as their priests, but the divine is unable to see within astral spaces, for they are not part of this world, but adjacent to it.”
The additional information wasn’t proof, but added more context on why Erin would stay in Shanyin for months on end. It was circumstantial evidence, but Zinnia was satisfied with circumstantial evidence. Her own instincts told her Erin Nisei was the most convincing suspect (and more capable of deceit) than Oswald Willard, who, despite their differences in policy, had been working openly for the Adventure Society this entire time. He had far less opportunities to move, and more of his time is accounted for. Moreover, Shanyin’s complex structure made it ideal for secret meetings.
Zinnia folded her arms, “Erin Nisei, I am offering you one final chance before I turn to alternative options and equally enticing options.” The bulging muscles on her arms flexed as a reminder. “My question is the same as before: Why have you betrayed this world?”