Chapter 113: The Names of Songs that Don’t Exist
“You want to visit Raina Bow? I cannot recommend it,” Zinnia told the iron ranker and her team sitting across from her.
“Is that a yes?” Nara said hopefully.
“No! Why in ravager’s gaping maw you want to visit the person who tortured you?”
“Catharsis?” She suggested unconvincingly.
“Try again.”
“I think there’s something more I can learn from her. Maybe something you haven’t though to ask. I was there for three weeks. Part of it, delirious, but I may know more than anyone else out there. They gave me special treatment.”
“Some ‘Special Treatment’,” Zinnia scoffed. She raised an eyebrow and leaned back, “The Adventure Society’s truth drugs are thorough. You think you have anything additional you can weasel out of her?”
“Not something the Adventure Society would fine useful, to be honest. It’s for myself.”
Zinnia tipped back in her chair precariously, spinning around on a single chair leg in a way that unintentionally exhibited the perfect bodily control of gold rankers. She was Inception’s spinning top, every wobbly but never falling, no matter how far she tilted herself.
She stood up in a flash, sending the chair clattering to the floor and eliciting a flinch from Nara.
“Alright, I’ve decided. Let’s go!”
The Adventure Society had dungeons, because of course they did. Where else would they keep captured criminals, and where else was more secure than the headquarters of the adventure society?
It was a refreshingly typical dungeon (that didn’t pretend to be anything but a dungeon) with stone walls inscribed with innumerous magical arrays that blocked teleportation, communication, auras, perception, detection, and external magic. It was the single most secure location Nara had seen; aside from a diamond ranker’s abode. They were the security. (In that case, Sezan’s house was the single most secure location she had ever visited.)
Nara could only sense the hum of the magics, but Aliyah’s deep expression mixed of curiosity and morbid intensity of a doctor observing a rabies patient told her all she needed to know. Mirroring Aliyah’s focus, Nara’s guide flickered to a stop the lower she descended. She wondered if the protections could stop her astral jump but didn’t put it to the test.
The only way the dungeon was not typical was that it was clean. There was, blessed be Purity, no smell of defecation, vomit, or blood, or any other unmentionable fluids that a body could produce to paint the walls. Despite whatever The Advent thought of Erras as a whole, the Adventure Society and Erras’ modern societal structure weren’t savages, and the barred cells were cleans and comfortable, for what they were.
Almost all of the cells were empty; Sanshi didn’t need to use their dungeons often. Ordinary criminals had ordinary prisons, and iron rank and bronze rank suppression collars were enough for the vast majority of Sanshi’s troubles. The dungeons were intended for essence users.
Raina Bow was chained to a wall, a thick suppression collar around her neck. Thick metal rods inscribed with complex runes pierced through her hands, chest, and thighs in a dark reflection of Nara’s own imprisonment (which was not comfortable, but suppression at high ranks became a bit tricky). Gold rank healing had long closed her flesh up around the rods; a stake through the heart wasn’t enough to kill a gold ranker, not by a long shot. Raina raised her head, dark wavy hair and deep, swirling irises of brown creating the image of a trapped but unbroken heroine.
She is the villain, Nara told herself, no matter how tragically beautiful she looks.
“You…” she said, her voice clear that the inherent strength and vitality of a gold ranker was difficult to squash, “Why are you here? You can even bear to see me after what we did to you?”
“You’re self-aware then? How about stopping there instead of doing the awful torture?” Nara sighed, “I’m actually a pretty chill person. What I did to Ceram ain’t all that representative.”
She chuckled. “You can push aside your memories of pain to focus on the task at hand. You’re more suited to join the Harmony than you think.”
Nara internally groaned. Do they ever stop their proselytizing? “I’ll pass. No hard feelings. It’s just not for me. I had your free trial of Harmony Plus and I’m not interested in the premium subscription.”
Nara conjured a chair and sat down across from the chained Adventist. Her team members looked on in a mix of worry and anticipation.
“So? What are you here for miss Edea?”
“I was thinking over things, as people do, and I couldn’t help but wonder what drove you so far? At first, my treatment was special, but it was peaceful. What did you see that changed your approach?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“I’ll give you the answer,” Nara said, “because if it’s what I suspect you’re interested in, it’s better if more people know.”
Gold rankers thought quickly, and Raina made her decision, “I sensed a connection to the astral within your soul. I had only seen such a connection in gestalts, the Messengers. But you are not a gestalt.”
“A gestalt?”
“One combined of body and soul,” Aliyah said.
“If you’re unaware, the Messengers are born ageless, fully grown, and with culture and knowledge. The call themselves superior for it,” Raina said, helpfully filling in for an outworlder.
“They’re your enemies?” Nara could hear the distaste in Raina’s voice.
“They regard as all other races as servants and lesser. Fundamentally, we believe everyone is equal. Some may hold positions of power, but all are necessary for a functioning society, and all deserve to live.”
“Damn bro, like if you just seriously stopped kidnapping people and suborning worlds, you’d be pretty cool.”
Encio gave her an incredulous look.
“What?”
“They just kidnapped you and tortured you. I know you’ve said you’re ‘chill’, but isn’t this far too lax? Are you serious?”
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“I hate working and they have a nice work-life balance. If I were to believe their propaganda videos, which I don’t.”
Raina rolled her eyes, “And my answer?”
“You think she needs to give anything back to you?” Eufemia shot back.
“Nah it’s fine. I need just a little more to figure out what exactly you’re asking for. Why exactly are you interested in that connection? It’s not as if others don’t have it, as you’ve mentioned.”
“We seek to equalize the difference between essence users and non-essence users,” Raina said, “It is life’s greatest inequality. The amount of essences is forever limited. Just as it vexes your world, it vexes ours—we cannot create essence no more than you can. We have developed methods to equalize this imbalance, such as procedures to extend lifespans, but they are stopgaps for the agelessness and born silver rank Messengers inherently possess.”
“You said 300 years, right? That’s not bad. Longer than a bronze ranker, even. That’s not enough?”
“While there are those more than content with 300, there are always those that wish to live longer. Should we not offer it?”
“What’s that have to do with me though?”
“You don’t get it?” Raina said, “Aren’t you immortal?”
“Am I?”
The entire group stared at her.
“No seriously, am I? If I’m not exactly like the messengers, just similar, how do you know that?”
Raina made a face like she had bitten into an unexpectedly bitter grape, her thoughts moving at computer processing speeds. “I may have… jumped to conclusions,” Raina slowly and reluctantly admitted.
“Wow. You think?” Nara said sarcastically, her words stabbing nails into Raina’s overeager heart.
“If not immortality, why do you have such a link to the astral?” Raina said, tempering her disappointment.
“Racial ability,” Nara said, “Outworlder stuff. All you have to do is just outworlder yourself. I’m sure you know of a way to do it.”
“We do,” Raina admitted, “Although survival isn’t guaranteed.”
“Now John doesn’t have an ability like that—"
“Now wait right there, Nara,” John protested. “Don’t bring her sniffing onto my trail.”
“—So it’s up to luck.”
“What is the ability that created such a link?”
“It’s just a…mini dimensional space of my own? I can go there and sleep. It’s a safe haven. Pretty appropriate for an outworlder lost in space. I can access it whenever and wherever, and it doubles as my inventory.”
Dimensional inventories for outworlders were common. A dimensional space that could be entered was rare, but not unheard of. Nara wasn’t telling Raina the full truth; From their conversation Nara had realized something that was kept secret from her, for her own good. Raina didn’t need to know. What she said about her Astral Domain was inaccurate but not untrue, and Raina didn’t have her aura verify if Nara was lying.
Even if she did, Nara didn’t feel like she was lying, which is all that actually mattered. Eufemia’s perception had helped the team figure out what they could and couldn’t get away with against more powerful senses.
“Does that answer your question?”
“…Yes, it does.”
“I really got tortured for a misunderstanding,” Nara said, sounding very put upon. Because she had been.
“It wasn’t just for that,” Raina denied, “The information you hold is plenty valuable. You endured it well.”
“Wow. Thanks,” Nara said dryly.
“Are we all done here?” Zinnia said. “That was disappointingly amicable. If you asked me to hit her, to release some pent up stress I would have.”
“I guess I can’t hit her,” Nara said, staring at her hand like it had disappointed her with its fragility, “I would break my bones on her skin. Snap, crackle, pop.”
“I can still hit her. We don’t have to be done yet,” Zinnia offered with poorly concealed enthusiasm.
“That’s not the case,” Aliyah corrected, “Unless the gold ranker has retributive protections, you’d have to hit them hard enough to break your own bones in the first place. You won’t do damage, but you won’t necessarily hurt yourself. Otherwise, they’d break doors just by using them. Even then, depending on the details of the ability, it’d have to be dangerous enough to even register as an attack.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you sound disappointed? Did you want to break your hand?” said Eufemia, “What is wrong with you?”
*****
Nara was partially hoping Raina would escape and tell the rest of The Advent what Nara had fed her; They might leave her alone in the future. Nara hoped they wouldn’t target her again, but she couldn’t be sure. If Raina had sent a message to the rest of The Advent believing she had found a clue to immortality…something much worse might be coming for her.
Unless the Adventure Society intentionally let her escape, it was a snowball’s chance in hell she’d escape from the deep dark dim dank dungeon.
She sat in a comfortable outdoor chair on her balcony patio, lute in hand, gazing upon the moons and the stars stretching over the dark ocean. Her room was at the top of her water top pavilion. With all the plants she added, the pavilion fully represented both halves of the word ‘greenhouse’. Flowering trees with pastel buds of white, pink, and lavender grew created dappled shade, soft fern leaves brushed at uncovered ankles. A miniature water feature formed water walls; resultant pond adorned with jewel lotuses and lily pads.
Nara absentmindedly picked a song on her lute to match her moonlight mood. Nara sensed Aliyah at her door before she knocked.
“Come on in, door’s open.”
The door misted away into cloud stuff. The free form base material meant that construction didn’t follow ordinary conventions or physical restrictions.
Aliyah sat down beside Nara on chair on the terrace. Nara poured Aliyah a cup of jadebrew sake, one of Sanshi’s specialty alcohols. Nara wasn’t much of a drinker except when the mood was right. Today, it was.
“Sen sensed something odd during the questioning today.”
“Did he?” Nara chuckled, already expecting Aliyah’s response.
“Something is off.” Aliyah mimicked Sen’s confident baseless statements that were entirely accurate. “I think I’m the only one that figured it out. I’ve poured over all the racial abilities you’ve shown us. The others don’t have my penchant for detail.”
“Complimenting yourself?”
“We can all learn a little from Eufemia and Encio. Self-love is good, and I know my strengths. Physical combat is not one of them, but technical detail and theoretical intricacies are. Sen’s slowly transforming the first not into a not skill…but an acceptable competency.”
“And? What is if your astute mind has divined?”
“Would you show me your Astral Traveler ability again?”
-------
Racial Ability: [Astral Traveler]
Transfigured from [Outworlder] ability [Astral Affinity].
Increased resistance to dimension effects and astral forces. Dimension abilities have increased effect and transcendent damage is increased. This is a legacy effect of [Astral Affinity].
If your body is discorporated, your soul will return to your [Astral Domain]. You may reinhabit physical reality upon the recreation of a physical body.
Within the astral you will be able to create and maintain a small zone of physical reality around you.
Within physical reality you will be able to create and maintain a small zone of the astral around you.
You are able to sense and enter coterminous dimensional spaces. Your presence stabilizes unstable dimensional spaces.
You are able to enter and traverse the astral.
-------
“The retreaters didn’t tell me, but they probably knew what you figured out from the start,” Nara said, “If my body is destroyed, my soul returns to my Astral Domain.”
“You said your astral domain is your soul. I’ve felt it.”
“It is. This…me,” Nara said, gesturing to herself, “Is like the conscious mind of my soul. The other part is more subconscious, unless I’m there. Which means when my body is destroyed, the mind is just rejoining the whole. The bear goes back to its den.”
“Raina wasn’t lying then, you are immortal.”
“Maybe? It’s not like I’m testing it. Whose to say the astral domain can’t be destroyed? I tore my soul apart and by the whims of the great astral currents enough of it flowed back together to form a conscious entity again. Maybe there’s something that can take a few whacks at my soul to send the whole paper mâché piñata crashing to the ground to be savaged by squabbling children for my soul candy innards.”
Aliyah pursed her lips and decided it was more effort than it was worth for an explanation of a ‘paper mâché piñata’.
“Moreover,” Nara continued, “I have no idea how long it’d take to recreate a physical body. I borrowed Amara’s ritual last time—and I found it with Chrome’s inter-cosmic google search array.”
“The astral divination array.”
“The inter-cosmic—”
“The astral divination array,” Aliyah insisted.
Nara narrowed her eyes, “I did the ritual, so I get to name it.”
“No.”
Her staunch rejection resembled her equally stubborn student.
“Boo.” She pouted. “You’re no fun. Anyway, even if Amara casts her ritual again when I die, there’s no guarantee I can find that ritual. Luck was an aspect of the first ritual, and I don’t know if I can identify the ritual’s caster—I wouldn’t know which ritual would be the right ritual to get back here.”
“If you die, it may be the last we see of you, and you of us.”
“Yeah. That’s the same for everybody else, so it ain’t all that different,” Nara smiled, “Everybody is trying not to die. I think I may try to write a song with a name like that.”
“Isn’t the order reversed?”
“My order was reversed,” Nara said. “Immortality first, then diamond rank.”
“You’re not diamond rank.”
“I can’t die permanently. I’ll get there eventually.” Nara held her hand up to the sky and snapped dramatically. “I am inevitable. So I may as well write the names for songs that don’t exist. I’ll get around to it.”