Amara awoke with a gasp. She glanced around to check her surroundings and backed up into the wall on the floor. She was back in her cell in the Brotherhood station. Only this time she had Nemeseikon and the shield from her… dream?

“No. A memory. Gifted to its rightful owner along with a portion of its original power.” Death said.

She glanced down at the weapons and then back up. Okay. She could process that. But later. Right now, her friends needed her.

We must act. We are needed now. Nemesis urged.

Nemesis. She had awakened, after all. She felt at her neck. The collar was gone. It twirled playfully in Death’s hand on an extended index finger.

“I hope you won’t mind. I took the liberty.”

“No. No, not at all. Thank you.”

Death bowed its head again.

“So now what?”

“Now? You bring vengeance to the dead. And save your friends.”

“Can I take my friends with me?”

“You may. Should they choose to follow you?”

Death waved its hand, and the wall went transparent, showing Tanak and Luffa. They each blinked and then looked through at Amara.

“What’s going on?”

“I have to go somewhere to help my other friends. I got the ok to bring you with me if you want to come.”

Luffa shook her head. “No. It’s probably best I stay here. You were right to try and put distance between yourself and friends.”

“I would only bring danger to your friends for now. Perhaps later, when circumstances have changed.” Tanak said.

Amara nodded. She was sad to have to go, but she knew she needed to. There was a burning need to go. The fire of retribution and vengeance. Knowledge she’d gained from Nemesis. Her connection to the divine half of her soul.

She turned back to death with an apologetic shrug. “Guess it’s just me then.”

“The funny thing about mortals is they always like to be offered the choice. Something you’ll discover with divinity and immortality is that many often those more inured to the eons will consider mortal needs less and less the more detached they become from their mortality. Seeing it so urgent and considerate is… refreshing.”

“Thanks. I think.” Amara said, rising. She glanced around uncertainly before turning her attention back to Death.

“So what do I do?”

“I’m going to teach you something about divinity. Divine Translocation. End result? It’s an instant teleportation of your person and anything you’re carrying to another location, no matter the distance.”

“Wow. That’s really powerful. Sounds like there’s another edge to it, though.”

Death bowed its hooded head. “Astute observation. Yes. While it can project you to any location, you will. It comes at a great cost. The act of rewriting your presence in reality to a different position exerts a toll. The strain makes it impossible to execute the move again immediately.”

“So it has a cooldown. How long until it can be used again?”

“Thirty minutes.”

She shrugged. That was fair enough. Maybe it was something about the strain on reality or the user. Possibly both?

“Ok. So how do I do this?”

“Visualize your destination. Note your absence. Then, visualize yourself there. Once you can see your presence in your mind’s eye, will it so. Once you believe you’re there, you will be.”

“That simple, huh?”

Death gave no response. So Amara closed her eyes and focused. It turns out that it wasn’t that simple. She opened her eyes and still saw Death watching her.

“I have stopped time and removed you from the time stream, so rushing will only impede your progress. Not aid it. Now, step by step, do as I’ve instructed. Only once you’ve finished each step will it work.”

As a priestess, she was used to long periods of focused mediation. More so when she learned to be a spell weaver. With a reluctant huff, she sat down lotus style and closed her eyes to tune out sensory data her mind didn’t need. She shut everything out of her mind she need her thoughts on until it was only herself. She existed within a white void. Then she reached out to sense Akamori. He shone like a bright star and made it easy for her to zero in on. He was deep underground, fighting the undead. There was a haze surrounding him. Like the power of a rival god, but diffuse.

It was the aura of the necromancer controlling the undead. She knew Akamori wouldn’t have a way to attack the necromancer directly and leave the squad. She couldn’t sense many lives left. There was so much death in that world now.

Now it was time to see herself there. She chose a spot near Akamori. Then she imagined herself there. Nemeseikon and shield of judgement in hand. She sensed a shift in reality. The air was thicker around her, heavy with the scent of death. The floor was sick was blood and meat.

System Info: You have learned the ability: Divine Translocation

She opened her eyes and saw Death’s hooded form before her. Then almost flinched back, nearly falling on her ass. She saw Akamori paused in time along with the undead. She shook her head.

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“Time magic is so wild. Does he know I’m here?”

“He will sense your arrival, but will not fully process it until I merge you back into the time stream.” Death replied.

“So I have time then.” She said, glancing around.

“I’ve had some basic weapons’ training, but a sword and shield were never my style.”

“These artifacts are forged to function in concert with your soul. If they are ill suited to you, then you need to simply reforge them.”

“I’m no artificer.”

“No. You are not. You are a demi-god now. Focus on your tools, and will their shape into something more useful, and you will find they’ll meet your needs.”

Now that she’d had some practice at this, reshaping her divine weapons came faster and easier. It took her about half the time to reshape the shield into a bracelet and the sword into a pair of gloves with hardened knuckles. She flexed her hands, satisfied with the range of movement and flexibility. She could still weave and fight.

“Excellent.”

“You are ready. I will now merge you back into the time stream. Go forth, goddess of vengeance, and remind the undead that I am inescapable.”

There was a perceptible shift, and everything was back in motion like someone had just hit play on a magi-holo. Akamori double palm struck an abomination across the corridor, bowling over the rest comically. He stopped, did a double take, and just stared at Amara.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ll explain later. For now, we finish the mission. That’s why you’re here, right?”

“Right.”

They flowed into combat. Each time Amara struck an opponent, it lost the use of the limb or staggered off balance. Using her maetrayopts visual ability, she could see where to cut off aether flow points that the necromancers were using to drive the corpses. She was effectively cutting the puppeteer’s strings. This did not go unnoticed for long.

The focus of the combat progressively shifted from Akamori to Amara as more and more Abominations began shoving each other aside for the chance to either take a shot from her, or take a shot at her. It mattered little. Both Akamori and Amara drilled in air warrior kata on Hoshun for years as children. This duo was compounded by Amara’s new found divinity.

Each strike landed bought the survivors behind them time, but this was still a delaying action. Amara’s arrival gave Akamori a slight reprieve, but they needed to take the fight to the Necromancer. Her eyes flitted left to right and left again. Searching and scanning the ambient magic, trying to see if she could find some exploitable anchor point tying the undead to the necromancer, who was no doubt lurking in the soul plane.

She ducked under a lunging jab and retaliated with a punishing strike to the underside of the arm, sidestepping it as it fell limply to the ground with a wet slap on the congealed black blood pooled into large puddles. She glanced back at Akamori who struck an abomination in the head so hard it erupted into a cloud of mush and sprayed the back wall. On a whim, she broke off from the Abominations and sprinted for a faint distortion and slid to a halt, studying the anomaly quickly before the Abominations could bear down on her.

Akamori interposed himself between her and them. “Whatever you’re doing. Make it fast. I’ll buy you the time you need.”

Amara gave him a nod and turned back to focus, squinting at the crack. It was like a wound in reality that was sutured shut. Only it wasn’t a clean seal. The edges cut back and forth in occasional ragged patches, with small gaps showing. Cracks large enough to let an aura permeate out, but not be overtly obvious. It would take a powerful scrying spell, or a divine magic visual ability like her own to see this.

“I’ve got an idea.” She said absently.

Weaving a few quick hand signs and channeled her mind magic. She lacked the skill to channel an aperture into the soul plane. She could however borrow a page from Akamori, and brute force her way in. If the portal was soul magic in nature, that meant the magic plugging the portal mostly had to be sympathetic in nature.

Pallid white and green flames of magic flowed along her arms, writhing around Nemeseikon, and her bracelet. She tuned the fighting out behind her and focused on the cracks in reality, then struck. To her surprise, her hand struck a surface as solid as any wall. She noted a change in the crack. A slight widening where the attacks and the plug had interacted. So her hunch was correct then. This was an actual opening to the soul realm, partially sealed over to prevent anyone else from going in.

“Knock knock.” Amara said with a grin before she began methodically punching. Each strike she verbalized with a quick loud exhalation, calling to mind all her training and power. Each strike caused the seal to fracture more until it eventually shattered, revealing the soul plane portal.

“Go! I’ve got this here.” Akamori shouted from behind her.

She didn’t look back as she heard more strikes landing as a chaotic fight unfolded behind her. She wasted no time deliberating, taking one steadying breath, and then stepping into the soul plane.

A coldness seeped into her like a frigid winter chill that poured past skin into bone. It resonated in her very soul. A feeling that life did not belong here. For this was the domain of the dead.

Everything had a surreal off lit glow. Like viewing film negatives. Black was white, and white was black. Colors were blander, and scents lacked strength. Her senses were duller, like they were being pushed through a filter that subdued them.

Even below in this soul plane version of the bunker, she could see stars. Only they weren’t stars, they were souls. These were souls anchored here by the necromancers. She focused and could see small strands of soul magic anchoring them down.

The trapped souls reminded her of small Honshu spider hatchlings. They would anchor themselves to plants with their webs and reel themselves out into the winds during the spring time storms to be carried off to other areas, so they didn’t over crowd their habitats. Only these souls all seemed to flow in one direction. Towards the distant Maw.

“You’re unable to leave…”

This perversion must be destroyed. Nemesis said, floating next to her. Or rather, her past self. Left behind to guide her next ascension.

She summoned mind magic with her hands again, forming a knife edge at her palm and chopped a strand free, watching the soul wobble in the air before it floated off into the walls on its way off to the maw.

Yes. We must free these souls. Weaken the necromancer’s power and we will force it to show itself.

“I’ll need a blade or something. I can’t just go around and chop these loose with my hands alone.”

Use me , Nemeseikon said. It sounded almost like a plea.

“I can’t. I reshaped you.”

I am ethereal. I am what you need.

“Alright.”

Amara sat down, lotus style, and closed her eyes. She’d need a unique weapon if she wanted this to work. Fortunately, she had just the idea.

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