Zalia slumped onto the stone bed cut into the wall. It would probably have been quite uncomfortable for most people but she preferred to sleep out in the trees and dirt over beds anyways. The only part of it that was uncomfortable for her was the fact that she couldn’t see the sky, no trees or stars overhead.
Despite her mostly stationary form, her mind was racing. She went over each and every thing that they knew about the rituals, the invasion and everything that had happened.
It had been a long time since she had thought about what or why she had been brought to Endaria. Could it have been the Astar who did that?
No, that didn’t make sense. Why would they bring her here at all? The plan would most likely have unfolded without much trouble without her there. Unless…
Assuming it was the Astar who had given Juniper the ritual and taught her how to perform it, all to get the Morning’s Shade in on the plan as well, maybe they had brought Zalia there to sabotage it so that Zayes could not be brought out of Cormaine after all. No, that didn’t make much sense either.
It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume that the Astar had imprisoned Zayes so they could manipulate Juniper and get both the king and the only other power in the kingdom in on the plan, but bringing her there to stop Juniper from freeing Zayes was stupid. It held too much randomness. That kind of plan would be too given to chance.
If she were them, she would have had the ritual given to Juniper be one that looked like it would work but in reality would dispose of the woman after it was all done…
A terrible thought occurred to her then.
The Astar had never captured her when she had been running all over in an attempt to stop the ritual, yet they had now that it was done and she was helping build a resistance to the invasion. Maybe it wasn’t her who had ruined the ritual. Maybe that was its intended function the whole time. After all, she had only been Iron rank trying to affect a kingdom scale ritual powered by many, many different people all at once.
It was all assumptions based on her initial thought that the Astar were working with the demons because they had chosen to capture her during the attack. Maybe that had just been convenient timing for them, an opportunity taken advantage of in the moment.
Who then was the envoy?
They had told her she would wait there until the envoy arrived. Well, she wasn’t about to just sit around waiting for that to happen. There must be something she could do.
Her magic was definitely subdued, yet not locked away. Healing Presence was still there, weak, but still there. Some of her other magic must work then.
She tried to teleport through the door using Mobility and for a moment her world flickered, yet she hadn’t gone anywhere. It was as if she had teleported in place.
With a little focus, she was able to open up her profile menu to look over all of her abilities.
Profile - Zalia Taori
Health - Excellent
Mana - Full
Stamina - Full
Class one - Hunter - Bronze 3
Linked attributes - Strength, Dexterity
Active skills
Kill Shot - Bronze 4
Hunter's Mark - Bronze 3
Fight or Flight - Bronze 4
Passive skills
Hunter's Sight - Bronze 3
Survivalist - Bronze 4
Class two - Herbalist - Bronze 2
Linked attributes - Vitality, Resilience
Active skills
Flora Identification - Bronze 2
Preparation - Bronze 4
Druid’s Grove - Bronze 3
Passive skills
Harvester - Bronze 3
Herbal Magic - Bronze 6
Unity class - Druid - Bronze 3
Linked attributes - Wisdom, Intellect
Active skills
Nature’s Wrath - Bronze 5
Protection of the Wilds - Bronze 3
Passive skills
Healing Presence - Bronze 7
General Passives
Heat Resistance - Bronze 4
Cold Resistance - Bronze 4
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Aura Observation - Bronze 1
Low Light Vision - Iron 18
Poison Resistance - Iron 7
Mobility - Bronze 7
Stealth - Bronze 4
Trapper - Bronze 4
Teaching - Iron 12
Flight - Iron 13
Physical Resistance - Bronze 4
Mental Resistance - Bronze 4
Weapon proficiencies
Bow - Bronze 4
Sword - Bronze 3
Throwing Knives - Tin 17
Bonded Items
Druidic bow, Blessed by Starlight (Blessed Heirloom) - Deeply bonded Bronze rank.
Duskwraith Armour (Heirloom) - Bonded Iron rank.
Ethereal Vault Gauntlet (Heirloom) - Deeply bonded Bronze rank.
“Kill shot… no, no, no. Maybe Herbal magic? Nature’s Wrath…”
Of her entire list, nothing stuck out. She tried to move stone with Physical Resistance but managed nothing. Nature’s Wrath probably wouldn’t be able to do so either. Of course it was protected against magical manipulation.
She needed to get the damn bracelets off, to allow her magic to flow properly. Maybe then she could get out.
Then she read over her bonded items. Her vault. Maybe there was something she could do with that.
She tried and tried, focusing as hard as she could on the magic. As much as she pushed and pulled on the magic however, the vault would not open. Perhaps the bracelets had a stronger effect against spacial magic. It still allowed her to pull items in and out of the storage space there though, so herbs were on the table. Those and her armour of course.
She was lucky that the vault gauntlet was entirely built into her hand, making it hard for them to take it away. Well, without taking her hand at least…
That was a disturbing thought.
If they did that, she would lose access to the vault, but not her armour. It was the gauntlet that allowed her to open the space and to store memories and objects inside. It was the Druid’s Grove ability linked to it that allowed her to summon herbs and plants from its space, which included her wooden heirloom armour. She tried to summon her sword and found it worked, then had another terrible thought. She could cut off her arms to take off the bracelets. It would unlimit her magic, allow her to escape maybe!
She wasn't quite that desperate yet though. That seemed like a painful, possibly unnecessary step to take just yet.
Herbal Magic. That was her only chance.
The bracelets limited her magic, yes, but she didn’t think it would limit magic that was outside of her. Magic like the living rituals. Sure, she would have to put all her effort into it to make it work, but once it was established it wasn’t part of her anymore.
She summoned her little chunk of wood, and then began growing it. Slowly. Ever so slowly.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
A few days… she thought it was a few days, it was hard to tell, but a few days passed. She spent most of those days growing her little chunk of wood bigger and bigger. It grew out to the size of the room, kept hidden from her captors when they entered by storing it back into the spacial storage. She even cut off chunks of leaves she grew and stored them as well, just able to crush them into powder using Preparation.
Her plan was to set up a framework for the ritual with her wood chunk, then plant each plant into place with the powdered leaves as soil. It wasn’t the best set up but she had faith that it would work.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t given enough time to test the idea as there was another click and sliding sound, the hatch opening on the door.
She quickly stored away the wood covering the floor and looked up in time to see the sliding hatch reveal a now familiar face. It was the face of the Astar that she had cut the arm off of on her first day there.
They hadn’t said anything else to her since, simply coming by and making sure she was still alive, before walking away again. She had begun to recognise them by the runes that decorated their bodies. While at first glance they looked the same, she began to notice distinct differences. Well, that and their auras. Even with her powers subdued, Aura Observation picked up on their powerful auras, each different from the other, if only slightly.
She sat waiting, expecting the hatch to close and the Astar to walk off, but this time the door swung open on silent hinges.
Her heart stopped.
Standing behind the Astar was a form she recognised all too well. The memory was engraved into her mind, a clawed hand closing down and crushing her friend, cracked obsidian skin, cruel eyes.
The demon was with the Astar. The envoy. The one she hated above most others.
She had thought the trauma and pain of that memory softened and in the past, yet seeing the creature made it all come back with a force once more. The edges of her vision narrowed, her mind focused solely on the demon as adrenaline and anger pumped through her veins.
“You piece of shit,” she spat.
A voice, grating, cracked and cruel came from the demon, much as she expected it to sound.
“There you are, filth. You will pay for what you did.”
She summoned her sword and stood with fury, prepared to attack the Silver rank demon despite it most likely meaning her death. There was no chance though, as the auras of the Astar stripped away what was left of her own Healing Presence, only for the corrupting aura of the demon to crash down into her.
It was like she was in Cormaine again, the sheer power of the thousand-eyed ones making her unable to think, unable to move, unable to act. Pain wracked her mind even as pain arced across her body. She felt a slash in her arm from claws both sharp and jagged, yet could not move to stop it. Healing Presence healed the wound, yet she felt another cut across her face.
Congratulations! Healing Presence has reached Bronze 8.
She grabbed onto the notification with her entire being, holding her attention on it like a buoy in a storm. There was no perception of the outside world, only pain, the feeling of her body withering away even as the power of Healing Presence fought back from within, restoring what was lost.
It was hard to tell how long the pain, the oppressive corruption, went on. It could have been a minute or a day, yet when it finally faded away, she found herself laying on the cold stone floor, sweating and panting.
She rolled over with a groan, arm flopping to the side. Slowly, she reached her perception back out into her body, realising that it was perfectly fine, no damage or pain remaining.
The demon and the Astar were gone, the door closed and then its hatch closed. It was like nothing had ever happened, like it had all been a vague nightmare, yet she knew it was real.
The fucking demon had the nerve to accuse her of doing something bad?
It had killed her friend, crushed them in its hand. What the hell had she done? Survived in the world they had stolen? Brought back a god whose world they had invaded and whose body they had destroyed?
Pay for what she did. Fuck, she would pay it all back tenfold when the chance arose. If it planned to torture her here, she would bear whatever it could bring, then find a way to kill it. She had no interest in torture or any payback of that kind. All she wanted was its head separated from its body.
She stood up, phantom pain tingling across her entire body. Parts of her clothing were cut where the demon had raked its claws across her skin. The clothes would repair and clean off the blood, her blood, coating it in time but for now, it was a reminder of what she had been through.
There was no time to waste, however.
Shuffling over to the bed cut into the wall, she sat down with another groan and brought out the ritual pad she was constructing, getting back to work.