Sammy shot out in flight from Heavenpeak into the spirit world, to more accurately deduce the location, primarily through the ease of simply targeting Azure.
It was nearly right in the middle of the large forest immediately east of Rivermount, in what was no doubt former elven territory aeons ago. Jeeves reminded her of the name she’d heard once: The Elekeserries, or the Eleks for short.
The forest — and the wood of the trees themselves — was said to be cursed, and few utilized the lumber for these superstitions. The heartlands had annihilated many other forests around Matrazere and the Capital for expansion. Northeast of the Eleks was the Everwood which had once covered most of the landscape near the capital, but year after year was reduced. In contrast to the Eleks, Everwood lumber was prized for strength.
A giant cursed wood. I wonder if the village ruins have ever been found? Surely the Dominion would’ve torn down the monument if they knew about it.
Sammy instructed her realm to plot a route back south to the mountains through mirrors and reflections, so she could get her Avatar out of there… if necessary. Hypothetically, she could find more routes via the Bridge of Edges much easier than what it took to find the first one. There was already a likely one to the Land of Naug that Azure found, though she suspected she’d need Azure for it.
I’m not going there before I have a safer location. Hopefully my general affinity with the Southlands gets me a spot there somewhere.
Sammy zipped back to Heavenpeak, then shunted over to awaken in her other Avatar — ‘Green’ — still in Caneboro at the Farm. She popped up in a sequestered bedroom allocated to her.
Remaining in a sitting position to focus and meditate, Sammy sent to Azure, “Alright, let's do our thing, here, to get you somewhere safer than there. No particular reason for you to be there for scouting. This is closer if you want to head back to the Southlands anyway.”
Azure sent back confirmation as she began the process to do a slow-mo Girlfriend Teleport. “It’s strange. I feel a familiarity here, too. I wonder if it is an affinity through you and your connection here, whatever it is?”
“Yep, that’s probably it.” Oh fuck me, she’s going to get suspicious now.
“Right…”
Sammy was rubbing at her chest, right over where the heart was, when she caught herself. She deliberately stopped. The scene played back through her head in a vibrant flash — the streaking arrow, her too-slow movement, the horror of being stabbed right through. She shivered.
An arrow through the heart. Through the soul. I still feel it. I’ll never stop feeling it, will I?
While she waited, Sammy drew up the recent upgrade information as a distraction, under the ‘Abjurer’ tag of her [Magineer] class.
Spellcraft Specialization (Abjurer)
For all arcane magic under the Protection/Abjuration school, you have +2 Effective Levels for all purposes related to spell effects and learn the school’s spells 30% faster. You are considered a [Wizard/Magineer] of +2 levels if there are special effects in spells from raw class levels for this school.
In addition, add +20% to the raw bonuses of arcane spell buffs, rounded up (thus providing a minimum of a +1 bonus).
Oh! Yeah, I remember Zephyr telling me about this a while back. Shit, I still have a quest for Protection spells since I chose my specialization. I’m such a damned slacker. Never enough time, and then I keep fucking up. I was doing well. Ambushes. Attacking from the shadows. Running. And now…
Azure soon phased into the room, her body forming out of the shape of something briefly like liquified, mirrored crystal. She turned to Sammy, standing over her, as the liquid became flesh.
“Hate to phase and run,” Sammy said with a grin, “But I should probably dematerialize and-”
Azure dropped down to her knees facing Sammy, hands going to her shoulders. Her eyes were possessed of firm insistence as she shook slightly. “Chestnut. Samantha. Please.” Her eyes flickered over to the bed nearby. “Take ten with me. Just to lie down. Ten mere minutes. No explanations, just lie there with me.”
Sammy opened her mouth in protest-
The blue beauty only tilted and cocked her head, eyes shifting in a way so subtle yet so powerfully spellbinding. Undeniable. As Sammy closed her mouth and nodded reluctantly, Azure took her hand and led her to the bed, more or less pulling her into it and wrapping around her in a possessive hug. A comforting one, with a goddess’s head nestled into a bosom, and a hand petting her hair.
Gradually, Sammy’s flickering eyes and anxious mind calmed under the power of warmth, closeness, soft skin, and mingles of her favorite scents. It melted away tension she didn’t know she had. As it did, though, she was almost panicking, because she was stuck confronting the unbearable weight of what she’d fought and survived through. What she had been trying to just charge past.
“It’s alright, Chestnut,” Azure purred comfortingly.
Sammy felt her eyes welling up. “I-I didn’t expect the… I… I’m so stupid…”
“Shhh… life is stupid, love. It makes us all that way. Those who think they dodge it trample in the mud of their own ego. It paints them, and all point and laugh behind their back, made crude for all their elitism. At least the humble can see their own dirty face and wipe it clean. See with clarity the muddy path is the same — for all of us.
“You don’t have to speak, or even think, right now. You can just feel. You can cry. It helps. No matter how tough you are, or how tough you get, you can purge and cleanse that sorrow. From out of your body and psyche, it desires a channel. Release it. Release it and find a little relief, hmm? Just give in, my love. It’s okay.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
As though summoned, pain from those flashes of supreme trauma dug into her like a knife. She broke helplessly and began to sob, all her resistance obliterated as the paper tiger it was before Azure’s words — before her allowance and assurance and compassion.
You aren’t her! Not a monster. You can’t be, I know that — you are pure and beautiful and kind — and I will never let you bear this burden. You don’t deserve it, and it will do no good.
Some things truly are better off forgotten.
As it turned out, she ended up lying there in her lover’s arms a mite longer than ten minutes.
✦•············•✦•···········•✦
The ritual was imminent, ties were already bound and approved, and Marjorie was quite nervous.
She’d said her goodbye to ‘the boys’ — that was, Tashome, Orswyth, and Uriel — who’d had to get back to her own material world lives and duties. Constance had left in a hurry a little before but had been a bubbly delight chatting endlessly, often pointing out things she’d designed in that place herself with great pride.
The City of Tomorrow tour was an incredible experience. She learned how to fly on a personal ‘bike’ vehicle and almost crashed. She’d walked a bazaar and tasted many strange and delightful delicacies such as ‘cotton candy’ and ‘mint chocolate chip ice cream.’ She’d ridden ‘The Super Dragon Time Badass Rollercoaster,’ a frightening and exhilarating experience apparently designed by Dartagnan.
She was just a little sad to leave it all, as there was much more to do in that truly magical place.
The world is more important, as is my daughter. Moreover, I can get to know these friends I’ve made as true compatriots. As living, breathing human beings — as well as other varieties.
As Marjorie stood upon the observation tower and looked out in perhaps the last view she’d have of the City’s splendor, she felt another bubble of trepidation at the thought of ‘varieties.’ She’d be a ‘variety’ too, rather than human. Soon. Like her experience in Heaven, it was slightly terrifying and wondrous at once.
What an interesting life to lead.
Samantha had been subdued. Busy. When the ritual notice seemingly went through the realm, the goddess finally contacted Marjorie to tell her she wouldn’t physically be at the ritual but would be present through a mirror along with Azure. Though that was fine, Marjorie could tell Samantha was troubled instantly.
Something had happened in the interim, though no one was inclined to tell her what, including Samantha. It explained why Constance had gone quiet, distracted, and departed early, and why the others had seemed distracted until eventually saying their goodbyes as well. She had assumed it was normal to have worries over duties, but it had apparently been a graver matter.
At least everyone seems more relieved now. I will get the truth later. I know they are just avoiding bothering me due to my own ordeal to face.
She’d told everyone she wanted to be alone to meditate leading up to the transfer. After all, she’d see them the way she really wanted to all too soon — with new, fresh eyes.
The last sights of the old ones were more than she could ask for. Gleaming gold, bronze, and silver, in a magnificent afterlife she would never forget. She would hold the vision of it in her heart as inspiration for the new life waiting.
The feeling of her soul being pulled downward was very subtle. A ‘work’ was finishing, a pathway widening gradually from the bottom upward. It was almost like being tickled in the brain, in places she never knew had such sensitivity.
Redberry swept into her puzzled mind suddenly, in a burst of wild greenery and blooming roses. With her was another — a bundle of sensations like a wizened smile in summer. Welcoming arms. Branches, actually. “The ritual is ready for you, Marjorie. As is Zheramoss, the tree you will fuse with. She is here with me. Note that this is a secret name kept only between us. When you are ready, greet and hug her, and release yourself to the mix. Impressions will come to you. Form them into one word, which will be your name as a dryad — your identity as combined personas, though Marjorie and Zheramoss remain distinct.”
Marjorie sent a mental nod to Redberry, all of that being stuff she was already coached on. Suppressing flutters of nervousness, she sent solemnly to the tree, “Zheramoss, I bid you good tidings and a hope for much sunlight. Thank you so much for this opportunity and this sharing of your vibrant life. I look forward to a long life together as one, in strength and supreme health.”
The tree only rippled with joy and insistence in response, beckoning her into the hug receptively.
Taking one final, deep breath of the sweet air of Heaven, and a last glance at the gleaming towers and walls, Marjorie closed her eyes and mentally reached out to hug the tree.
It hugged her back, and then there was a pulling as if being swallowed or buried.
There was a last, fleeting resistance, her own survival instincts triggering, but she pushed it away and let go, falling into that embrace. As she did, the world around her became the world behind her.
The feel of stretching out and upward into the sky. The lick of beaming light and life felt while blind, but warm. So warm and comforting. Satisfying. All manner of small things crawling over her, and little flyers zipping around to and fro on her many arms. Their lives were fast and free!
Legs deep, deep and buried, past water into mud and earth, stretching and expanding. Absorbing more sustenance, to persist in health, to flourish and grow, always seeking light. She adored it all. Adored the world.
And Zheramoss felt her — into memories it blossomed curiously, and pulled foremost her relationships. Her husband and true love dead many years ago, and her role as a mother to several children. The sacrifices she made for them. The principal things that drove her, the things she was most grateful for.
And so a simple name came to her.
“Lovelight.” A word that summarized so many deeper feelings and meanings layered within. A word that resonated through the swamp and earth below, and one that carried to the air with rustling leaves. North, South, East, and West, the name echoed, and a vast wilderness took it up as though rejoicing.
The trees sang in their own, secret language. “Lovelight! A Queen comes to us! Lovelight! A dryad tastes the warm air rejoicing in graciousness! Lovelight! A beautiful new life is born! We declare with, we rejoice with, we love and live with!”
From out of Zheramoss and carrying the soul of Marjorie, Lovelight spawned into Calrenazzod like a blossoming starburst.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/DlqjOYj.gif]
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