Chapter 34: Vortexus
After returning to her room on the Inn’s third floor, Mercedes settled into a comfortable sitting position on the wooden floorboards, her back and shoulders pressed against the bed’s footboard. She opened her Active Skill menu and examined the [Spiritual Communication] Channel options closely.
Cost: 2 S.ENG per minute for Astral Spectator Channel and at least 5 Favor with the spirit or guardian you wish to communicate with.
Cost: 5 S.ENG per minute for Titan Observer Channel and at least 10 Favor with the Titan you wish to communicate with.
Cost: 10 S.ENG per minute for Primordial Ascendancy Channel and at least 25 Favor with the Primordial you wish to communicate with.
‘I’m guessing the [Astral Spectator Channel] is the one I need. It also has the lowest consumption of S.ENG per minute. How much Spiritual Energy do I have now anyway?’
She pulled up her Mystic Profile to look over her Primary stats.
Astra Profile
Name: Mercedes
Race: (Tainted) Bloodborne
Level: 6
Discipline: [Locked]
Vitality: 1,187 / 1,187
Stamina: 486 / 486
Magic Energy: 1,108 / 1,108
Spiritual Energy: 200 / 200
Experience Points: 2,476.20 / 2,529.82
‘Wow. The stats from the new gear really made a big difference, not to mention the temporary stat bonus from lunch. Okay, so if it’s 2 S.ENG per minute, that gives me almost 2 hours. I have about that much left on my food buff as well.’
With a bit more confidence, the Sparrow resumed the meditative position she had used in the Temple and closed her eyes while activating [Spiritual Communication]. She received a familiar prompt asking which channel she wished to use and selected [Astral Spectator Channel].
[Please select the name of the individual you wish to communicate with]
* Nicodemus [Mystic], Master.
* Vortexus [Void Ravager], Elder.
* ???
‘Okay, that’s—huh.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll worry about that later, for now…’ She selected Vortexus’s name, and a new prompt appeared.
[Selected Elder is outside the Arcane Communication Restricted Sphere.]
Authorized override detected…
[Target Elder is located outside the Mystic Realms. S.ENG consumption for this call will be increased to -6 S.ENG per minute. Do you wish to continue?]
‘Well—shit, that’s—barely more than half an hour.’ Mercedes growled and confirmed her request, selecting [yes].
Submitting your request to open a communication channel with [Elder Vortexus].
Request pending…
The Sparrow opened one eye to peek at the Primary Stat menu she had left open, confirming that no S.ENG had been consumed just yet. She smacked the back of her skull against the top of the bed’s footboard when the ghostly visage of a void ravager appeared floating through the wooden panels before her.
[Request Accepted. Elder Vortexus has entered the channel.]
‘No shit.’
“Greetings, Sparrow. It is good to see you—alive.”
“Are you—here?” Mercedes asked as she leaned forward to wave her fingers through the transparent void ravager.
“No. You are seeing an astral projection of me as I am you,” Vortexus replied with a rumble of annoyance. “I take it you are still finding your feet?”
“Ha. I suppose you could say that. My arrival drew a lot more attention than I anticipated.”
“Yes. Serenitus’s Temple made one last attempt to reclaim your old world. They were forced to give up before the Blood Moon ended. The Lich King was expecting them and added a couple more Mystics to his undead army.”
“That’s good. That means they didn’t have a chance to obtain my service records.”
“None. Now, what news of your progress?”
“Well, I did make it to the Arcane Realm. I’m a student at the Arcanum Mystic Academy, and I’ve—gained a few nice pieces of gear along the way,” Mercedes explained as she tapped the Arcane Transceiver Earring. “To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have survived the landing if it weren’t for the aid of Primordial Arcantheon, Titan Astralindar, and their disciple, Master Nicodemus, who is my Professor at the Academy. They’ve helped me quite a bit since my arrival.”
“This—is suspicious. The Primordials would not involve themselves with someone of your rank for no reason. Was your identity discovered?”
The Sparrow drew in a slow breath before answering, “I believe the Primordial and His Titans know who I am and my purpose for being here.”
“Impossible. If Arcantheon knew you were Nyxus’s Harbinger, He would have eliminated you as a threat to His realm.”
“Actually, He—offered me a deal. Arcantheon wishes to form an alliance with our Master.”
“You are in NO position to make deals, Harbinger!”
“I know. I told them as much. Titan Astralindar only asked that I pass the message along to my Master.”
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The void ravager fell silent. His inky black eyes thinned into calculating slits. “What message?”
“That Arcantheon and His Titans wish to support our Master’s return and aid His revenge.”
“The same opportunist who turned His back on our Master now wishes to extend a hand of friendship?” A guttural laugh echoed from the Elder’s ghostly visage. “This is but a cunning move on Arcantheon’s part to place his flag in both camps in order to choose a victor with more certainty at a later date.”
“It is our Master’s decision to make. I will abide by his wishes,” Mercedes replied firmly. “But I cannot survive here on my own yet. Serenitus’s disciples are hunting me. For now, the Academy, Arcantheon, and Astralindar have offered me sanctuary and promised to support my training and growth.”
“Growth?” Vortexus snickered. “You are still but an insect at the bottom of the food chain from where I’m standing. You have barely progressed despite being in the Mystic Realms for three days!”
“I am learning as fast as I can!”
“Learning?” The void ravager spat. “A Harbinger does not learn by reading books but by killing, feeding, and evolving.”
“I am not like you! I am not a creature of the void—”
“But you are not like them either. You do not eat like them, think like them, or even look like them.”
“But I can use their magic!” The Sparrow’s fingernails dragged along the wooden floor as her hands curled into fists. “I can learn enough about their world to blend in and—”
“What is the point of knowing anything about their world when it will disappear the moment our Master is free?”
“We don’t know every part of his plan. And I can’t afford to move about mindlessly. If pacifying Arcantheon and his Titans grants me the time I need to find the means to liberate our Master, then so be it.”
The void ravager’s ghostly image hunched towards the albino as he loomed closer. “You made a deal with them, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Mercedes replied through gritted teeth. Despite his current state as an astral projection, the Sparrow still shielded her face as Vortexus's nightmarish mouth opened wide with a horrific, enraged roar that rained acidic inky black spittle towards her.
“Fool!” Vortexus bellowed as streams of hissing smoke circled the spikes that now rippled in anger around his face.
“It is nothing that would be a detriment to our mission. And if Astralindar, Arcantheon, His Titans, or the Academy betray me, the deal is broken.”
“A Sparrow believes she is cunning despite making a deal with a Superior Being who has lived eons of her lifetime—the Titan of Arcane Knowledge, no less.”
“You forget yourself, Vortexus. I may only be an Initiate, but I am still His chosen Harbinger.”
The void ravager snarled but retreated all the same, giving the albino room to move as he shrank back into his usual formless blob of void darkness.
“Now that I have entered the Mystic Realms, what is my next mission?”
“To liberate our Master, the next step is to break the Sacrificial Seal that keeps the location of his Inter-Realm Prison hidden.”
“Okay,” Mercedes said with a nod. “How do we do that?”
“First, we must reestablish Nyxus’s power inside the Mystic Realms.”
Her pale brows furrowed. “By His power—do you mean—the Void Realm itself?”
“Yes.”
“And we do that by?”
“Feeding that which the Void contains.”
‘Feeding the Void?’ The albino rubbed her neck as she mulled over his meaning, annoyed with the void ravager for not being more straightforward. ‘It’s because he’s angry with me.’ Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the Astral Broadcast, which showed each of the realm’s rise and fall in power.
“Are we talking about magic crystals?” Mercedes asked for clarification.
“It is not the crystals but the energy they contain that fuels the realms,” Vortexus corrected with a muffled growl. “But that same energy flows through the buildings around you, the earth, grass, beasts, air, and even Mystics. We will take all of it.”
“All of it?” Her dark pupils shrank into tiny dots as realization set in, then slowly widened as her pink irises took on a reddish tint. “You mean—everything?”
“Everything,” the Elder affirmed with a malicious fanged smile.
“When?”
“You are not ready for all this will entail.” He snorted, somewhere between amusement and resignation. “You have one month, Sparrow. Before the next Blood Moon appears. If you are not ready—” the long, deadly claws he had used to shred her chest open emerged as Vortexus crouched down towards her, “—then I will eat you and take your place as His Harbinger.”
[Primal Mission Update! Locate the Master of the Abyss and Liberate Him from His Sealed Interdimensional Prison.]
Current Objective: Grow Stronger.
Suggestion: Instead of spending all your time in books, try killing something.
Mercedes dismissed the quest screen and scoffed as she rolled to her feet, forcing the void ravager to shift backward until they stood at eye level. “You can try.” She watched as his face rippled in displeasure. The albino’s trembling hands gripped tightly behind her back as she waited for the Elder to flinch first. The silent test of wills ended when his ghostly image suddenly flickered in and out of focus. “Vortexus?”
“You are almost out of time.”
‘Shit. Already?’
A glance at the Primary Stat Menu confirmed she was down to just 12 S.ENG.
“I will check in on your progress later, Sparrow.”
“Okay,” she muttered, scrambling to think of anything important she might need to bring up. “Wait, Vortexus, what about—” The name of the Titan who had betrayed their Master was on the tip of Mercedes’s tongue when the channel disconnected abruptly. “Ha… Never mind.”
The Sparrow managed the few steps it took to reach the corner of her bed, which she quickly sank into before slumping down to one side. The power core that flashed with a pale blue light in the corner of her vision seemed to suggest the disorientation she was feeling was the result of burning through most of her Spiritual Energy.
“I should probably rest for a bit before I get to my—reading assignment.” The words slurred out of her mouth as the albino’s pale lashes fluttered, the crimson ting fading as they closed beneath the irresistible tides of sleep.
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The nostalgic creak of a rusty old gate pulled the tired ten-year-old albino’s gaze from the dirt path she followed. She blinked through the sand and dirt that coated her hair and face and stared at the yellow house with its red roof on the hill.
The flutter of wings pulled her hungry gaze towards the scattered flock of brown and white chickens who pecked their way through overgrown grass that rose as high as the front porch steps.
The sound of distant waves from beyond the rippling, grassy dunes called out to her in the distant cries of hunting seagulls. The wind thrummed through her tangled, long white hair, grating her eyes, soothing and familiar.
Mercedes clutched her stomach as her gaze returned to the house, as silent as a graveyard.
‘Don’t go there,’ her mind warned. ‘Just because it looks abandoned doesn’t mean it’s safe.’
But hunger had a way of overruling her cautious nature even then.
Her bare feet were numb from days of walking, running, and stumbling through the war-ravaged streets of Islia. The simple burial gown she wore was no longer white, streaked with dirt and blood, some of which belonged to her. It had been weeks since she left the inner cities, now overrun by the undead, escaping to the solitude of the countryside—which presented its own challenges. Namely, the lack of food.
Mercedes’s cracked, weathered soles carried her forward with renewed energy, revived by the prospect of finding any source of substance. Her focused thoughts failed to notice how the color of the building, roof, and grass all faded to a dull, withered grey as she raced towards the steps, ignoring the white and black chickens that scattered frantically to safety beneath the porch.
The ten-year-old’s left foot barely grazed the top step when the door flew open. A man in gray overalls appeared. Her gaze focused instinctively on the pulsating color of red that rippled through his face and body before a sudden, powerful, reverberating explosion sent her flying from the porch, through the yard fence, and back onto the dusty dirt road, where she rolled to a halt, frozen in confusion and pain.
She thought she heard someone swearing and the sound of footsteps approaching as her first and last gasp of air coated her throat and lips with blood.
Mercedes died then, for the second time, or at least some part of her did.
When the albino child next opened her eyes, she gazed up at the clouds through the matted curtain of her white hair. Her head rested across the man’s cold torso. They both lay sprawled out in the front yard of the yellow house. The hole in her chest was gone, and the man was dead.
His face was pale, his throat ripped open. His dog, a beautiful greyhound, lay dead near the porch steps, its neck broken. The man’s shotgun, now ripped in half, lay at a distance in the tall grass.
‘Why did he shoot me? Did he—mistake me for a zombie?’
Mercedes’s hands shook as she reached up to touch her blood-stained lips. Her pink eyes widened, dark pupils constricting in terror, before they expanded and turned to where the chickens all huddled under the porch. The glowing red aura of the trembling fowls’ tiny hearts skittered audibly beneath a new wave of panic as the albino child rose to her feet and then stumbled back through the rusty old gate—no longer hungry.