Chapter 39: The Beginning and the End
Nara returned to the retreat, greeted by Amara, Chelsea, Redell, and Laius (with a nod).
“Congratulations on your success!” Amara said, “As expected of our apprentice, a warrior in the making.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“One of us may have checked,” Redell said. “You can’t really blame us.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Chelsea, “Redell, Amara, and I have been working on something for you as a gift. Something we know you will appreciate. And Laius gathered some of the rarest materials.”
Laius nodded his affirmation.
“Your path of adventure, we hand the reins back to you. Your equipment to source, your contracts to take. All you need now is experience.”
“And your last few abilities,” Redell added.
“But there is one gift we want to give you, for a concurrent path you also seem to enjoy.”
Redell held out a new lute to her.
-------
Item: [Path Seeker Lute] (Iron rank [growth], legendary)
Classification: Musical Instrument
A lute crafted with the culmination of new knowledge. It is gifted with hope that the new owner may blaze their own path through the cosmos. Fate is unwritten. Find the path your soul desires.
This item is unbound and its potential is unawakened.
-------
“Path Seeker Lute?”
“It is not soul bound so we do not know its exact properties, but it has been designed to be an instrument of soul communication,” Redell explained, “it will also function well as a normal instrument.”
“You wouldn’t give me an instrument that didn’t sound beautiful. I trust of that in you, Redell.”
“The intention behind the instrument is for you to determine your own path,” Amara said, “Outworlders tend to be caught up in the machinations of those more powerful than they are.”
“The machinations of fate.”
“There is no fate, Nara. That is the message. No matter what others tell you, find your own path. Create it, as you do music.”
Lute in hand, she pricked her skin with a needle handed to her by Amara, drawing a drop of blood to drop onto it.
The otherwise ordinary but high quality lute shimmered with magic as it reforged itself before their very eyes.
Light wood shifted into a rich, dark, blue wood, somehow maintaining its natural feel. Speckles of golden light mixed with other soft colors traveled up the neck of lute, shimmering as she tilted the instrument. On the body of the lute, silver lines etched out delicate designs of flowering trees, framing the center. For now, they were trees. Nara had the strange sensation that the pattern would shift over time, indeterminate, like the future. The tuning knobs at the top were crystalline clear, catching light to shimmer with color. The strings wove themselves out of moonlight, glimmering with silver.
The lute pulled her in, begging to be played, moonlight strings whispering the promise of mystical song.
She couldn’t resist its earnest request, and strummed a single cord.
She heard it more with her soul than her ears, no sound lost to the wind.
The single chord hung in the air, like the first note of a divine choir. And the world begged for more.
“Okay,” Nara said, sucking in an even, calming breath, “That’s powerful stuff. Was it supposed to do that? Redell??”
He shook his head, “I can’t play that even if I want to. It’s entirely yours. Your lute, your sound.”
Her fingers brushed against the strings. It was as if a beginner had been handed a Stradivarius.
“You’ll take a lot more practicing, wont you?”
-------
Item: [Path Seeker Lute] (Iron rank [growth], legendary)
Classification: Musical Instrument
A lute crafted with the culmination of new knowledge. It is gifted with hope that the new owner may blaze their own path through the cosmos. Fate is unwritten. Find the path your heart desires.
This item is bound to [Nara Edea] and cannot be used by anyone else. his bond allows the instrument to share the wielder’s ability to ignore rank disparity.
Effect: [Path Seeker Lute] is capable of channeling large amounts of energy without suffering damage.
Effect: For very low mana-per-second to change the timbre and sound of the instrument.
Effect: While played with the technique of soul-song, [Path Seeker Lute] can be used to modify or repair the soul or magic matrix of a willing target.
Effect: While played with the technique of soul-song, [Path Seeker Lute] can be used to communicate with the soul of a willing target.
-------
*****
The lute has surprising effects, but it wasn’t enough to phase Nara. The other had intended for it to be an instrument with power to affect the soul. The strength of the effect was surprising but expected. Whatever the full power and potential of the lute, she may not ever understand or utilize it in her entire life.
Let alone misuse the power, she barely had the power to control the instrument. To temper the sound was like trying to tame a sunset.
“Are you upset?” She asked the lute, “I don’t want you to sound less beautiful, I want you to able to be experienced by everyone. Like staring at the sun versus staring at the sun. Everyone knows the sun is powerful and majestic, but we cannot stare directly at it. Maybe I could now…my eyes would heal, but that’s not the point.”
The lute had a will but wasn’t a being like her familiar was. It would not respond to her or talk to her. At most, there was a sensation, just that.
“The only difference between a sun and star is distance…” she muttered, plucking at the strings examining the sound that echoed through her mind.
Redell said it was her sound.
“Then it’s not you it’s me? I need to temper myself?”
There was one aspect of herself she could control—her aura.
She tried again, playing the same chord but with a fully restrained aura. The sound was deadened without the previous enchanting quality.
“Oh, you’re tricky.”
*****
“You know,” Redell said, observing Nara from the patio balcony of the second floor living room, “We may have unintentionally created an amazing aura training tool.”
“Training isn’t usually on your mind.” Amara remarked. “That’s mine or Laius’ thing.”
“Seeing her has reminded me I have much to still learn.”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“We’re diamond rank Redell, we are both at the top and at the bottom of a new mountain to scale.”
“Have you thought about it Amara, the cosmos beyond?”
“I’m not looking to throw myself into that mess. Isn’t researching new magic for our home world enough?”
“That doesn’t sound like you Amara. I thought for sure you had the kindling of adventure.”
“Adventure or cosmic politics? For diamond ranks, we are young. I am not in a hurry.” Amara gestured with her head to Nara, who they could not see with their eyes but with their auras, “She has a time constraint, yet lives her life the way she wants to. I don’t think she has anything to worry about, soul wise, even as she worries about it without fail.”
“She calls herself an old soul,” Redell chuckled, “She reminds me of some old friends of ours.”
“I’ve been enjoying having an apprentice. It’s given me something to think about.”
“Chelsea? I don’t think you’ve convinced her of much.”
“The Aciano boy might have. She can’t help but think… My mind went to the earth, and yours to the stars. Even I think the opposite was expected of us.”
“My ties with this world are weaker.”
“Or,” Amara said softly, “It’s time for you to re-evaluate those ties? Have you talked to your relatives, Redell?”
“It has been a very long time,” Redell said his tone equally soft, “Maybe I should.”
“And what does your god have to say about delaying the resolution of your mental burdens?”
“Bringing my god into this, Amara?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “He says I should have talked to them a long time ago, otherwise, not at all. Being expelled because my passion was the shame of the family isn’t something I need to forgive them for, nor something I want their forgiveness for.”
“Forgiveness or not, you know what you need to do.”
*****
As promised, she set out the next day with Encio. She arrived early in the morning with him and checked out the Adventure Society.
The first floor was a reception floor, and the contracts and trading hall for iron rankers.
One of the greatest perks of Adventure Society membership was access to Adventure Society trading halls and auction halls. In the trading halls, society-approved crafters sold their products to adventurers looking to buy. For veteran adventurers it was a convenient location to restock different necessities, place orders for custom goods, or contact artisans for other specialty products. For new adventurers, it was a guarantee of quality when they may not have developed the eye for it yet.
The auction house was the best location to purchase essences, awakening stones, and other looted goods. This unfortunately meant that adventurers had the easiest time of procuring essences, but Sanshi’s unique essence distribution system alleviated this concern.
Essences were so valuable they were not just casually sold; they were always auctioned.
Normal people could contract an adventurer to buy an essence for them or ask an adventuring friend or relative to do it for them. The local government and Adventure Society would enforce these contracts if they were not followed, so there was a guarantee normal folk would not be cheated. This was a common enough occurrence that these contracts were well-tracked and verified.
There were three contract boards on each floor of the Adventure Society, one for each star rank. The one-star board was the most saturated, contracts filling every inch of the board. They could just yank them down—they were made of memory paper. Ripping up the contract would indicate its completion for subjugation contracts. Adventure Society badges recorded nearby deaths and other details even from dimensional storage spaces, so falsification of subjugations was easily investigated. It was some sort of magical enchantment by the church of Death, but she didn’t know the specifics.
The second board of contracts had its own fair share, while the third was completely empty, as Encio had told Nara. There was nothing political for iron rankers to resolve. They just weren’t useful in that field in Erras.
They started off basic, taking a few monster subjugation contracts in a loop. They’d hit the most monsters at the apex of their loop, and the contracts this time would take three days of traveling to complete.
Their path was away from the water routes, so they purchased tickets to a passenger sky ship. Another benefit of Society membership was cheaper transportation tickets. Large vehicles had to pay for adventurer escorts. Adventurers that boarded were free bonus protection. It wasn’t their responsibility to fight if they weren’t contracted, but having extra adventurers around was always a good thing.
Nara’s eyes were gleaming with excitement as she boarded the sky ship from the sky ship terminal. This particular sky ship looked like ships normally did, except it lacked the characteristic sails and masts.
Instead, large white rings encircled the ship, much like the subway or what Chelsea’s skimmer used to fly. Smaller rings stuck out from the hull for extra propulsion and control. The top deck was exposed to air so adventurers had easy access to protecting the ship, where cargo and passengers were protected below.
Air escort was normally a bronze rank contract. Aerial combat was considerably more difficult than land or even sea combat. At low ranks, the ability to fly was exceedingly rare. Nara only had slow fall and teleportation. She could hack her way in aerial combat, dropping out of the sky like a brick or a moon man the entire time.
A few flying monsters attacked, and the escort team expediently dealt with them. Precision arrows, ranged magic blasts, and flying familiars picked out half-bird half-insect monsters from the sky.
Nara and Encio weren’t dropped off so much as they jumped off. They plummeted through the sky towards the ground. Nara activated the slow-fall portion of Cosmic Path supporting Encio so she wouldn’t pancake the two right then and there, ending their journey as a crushed companionable carcass.
“That was a rush!” Nara exclaimed. Her first few steps were shaky from the adrenaline she shouldn’t have. “You don’t have a slow fall ability?”
“I have something that I can use to step on air, but it isn’t quick enough to reduce my speed.”
-------
Ability: [Frozen World]
Essence: Time
Special Ability
Cost: Low mana
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Effect (Iron): Temporarily stop time in a small location, creating a region of solid matter. This can solidify gases and liquids, allowing brief interaction with the location as if it were solid, or stop the velocity of physical objects. This cannot affect living beings, abilities, or objects in contact with living beings. Other rank effects can still be used while this effect is on cooldown. This effect will disperse when struck with a sufficiently strong force.
-------
It wasn’t so much an air-stepping ability as the ability to solidify air. Only being able to do so every 20 seconds wouldn’t be enough to reduce his falling speed to non-damaging levels: He’d break his ankles trying.
“You just trusted me to handle it?”
“I’ve seen your abilities; I knew you could.” He flashed his playful grin Nara had grown to expect.
*****
A group of tramplers charged towards Encio, their tusks pointed at him in a bull rush.
He stood in place in the field, oddly still for someone who did not stop moving in combat. Using his conjured sword, he conjured a scabbard of black energy. He sheathed the sword, energy rapidly building, arcs of crackling black energy growing in number with a commensurate increase in mana.
-------
Ability: [Vorpal Slash]
Essence: Dimension
Special Attack / Conjuration (channeling)
Cost: Moderate stamina and high mana / high mana-per-second
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Effect (Iron): Conjures a scabbard of void energy. Sheathing your blade gathers the power of the sundering void. When unsheathed, unleashes a wide ranged sword wave that deals a large amount of rending damage. The sword wave pierces enemies without losing momentum or damage. As the duration the blade is sheathed increases, damage, size, and range traveled increases up to a maximum determined by the [Spirit] attribute. Sheathing is a channeling effect and drains high mana-per-second.
-------
“It’s a long charge up time,” Encio calmly said as monsters charged towards him in a mad frenzy, “and extremely mana hungry—”
His sword swung out of the scabbard, unleashing a wide-range arc of sharp rending energy. The arc-projectile shot through the crowd of monsters, bisecting them clean in two, black energy crackling from their corpses. The arc continued forward, crashing and tearing into trees until its energy had been entirely expended. If used within a forest or city, Nara could understand why Encio was chastised over collateral damage.
“But its power is almost unmatched, save for one other ability of mine.”
“And the other ability is?”
“God-Sundering Slash.”
“That’s one hell of a name. Sundered any gods yet?”
“I am curious if it’d work.”
“Ah, a fellow blasphemer.”
He continued the discussion back to his abilities. As partners in combat, it was important she understood how his abilities functioned, their strengths and their weaknesses.
“It’s similarly high cost, but no charge up time.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Purely single target. If I miss, or the target dodges, or it gets shielded, the attack dissipates. Complete waste of mana and stamina.”
“If you miss,” Nara grumbled, “I bet that thing travels at light speed like the last one.”
“Want to bet?”
“No, that’s a guaranteed loss, ain’t it.”
-------
Ability: [God-Sundering Slash]
Essence: Dimension
Special Attack (dimension)
Cost: Extreme stamina and mana
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect (Iron): Unleash a powerful sword wave that deals extreme rending damage and ignores time and dimension manipulation effects. The sword wave travels extremely quickly to its target and ignores physical obstructions. The sword wave only affects its intended target. This ability has no effect if it has not traveled a moderate threshold distance.
-------
Encio used a sword but was more of a ranged damage dealer. Specifically, a burst damage dealer. He could instantly finish off both large swaths of monsters and a single high priority target. He could even use his time manipulation ability to eliminate his charging times and the drawback of channeling, although that was also an extremely expensive ability. Time manipulation plus Vorpal slash was enough to completely wipe out his mana reserves at iron rank.
“So this is what money can buy…” Nara said, “Absolutely busted.”
“The expense nor the rarity doesn’t make me powerful,” Encio said, “But I will reluctantly admit, at iron rank; I am unstoppable.”
“Wow. I can’t believe you actually said that.”
“I know what I am.”
“Unstoppable?”
He grinned.
“But at later ranks, the battle will be your domain. Gold rank monsters take a long time to kill since they have massive vitality. You need escalating damage, not instantaneous damage.”
“I’m sure you have an ability or two that covers you at gold rank. Your family wouldn’t leave you with such an obvious weakness, not since they expect you to go the distance.”
“I might,” he admitted, “but I will always be mana inefficient and will need to rely on allies to keep me supplied.”
“If the battle lasts more than one ability.”
“Not my fault they can’t dodge.”
“It is kind of your fault.”
-------
Racial Ability: [Lightspeed Operation]
Execute actions with increased speed. Normal and special attacks gain increased speed, including the projectiles they produce. Special attacks inflict a small amount of transcendent damage proportionate to the speed of the attack, up to a maximum determined by the [Spirit] attribute.
-------
While Encio’s abilities were powerful on his own, what made him truly dangerous was the increased projectile speed of his attacks. His racial abilities were a showcase of the power of human essence gift evolutions; they made humans specialists of their own ability set, since each essence gift evolved to tailor itself to the essence they absorbed. Lightspeed Operation had evolved when Encio absorbed his Swift Essence.
“Your abilities at its core are for sustained battle. I may have an ability to revive myself, but at gold rank you won't even need it. You’ll be unkillable and untouchable.”
“We make a surprisingly good pair then—you for early battle, and me for the end battle.”
“What are you taking about? I am the beginning and the end. You won’t have your chance.”
“Oh shut up.”