Zalia floated serenely, letting her power flow through and out of her body as she channelled Nature’s Wrath. Around her were five air elementals arrayed like the points of a pentagon, each focusing on its own magic.
Usually, the way Zalia used Nature’s Wrath was in an immediate and violent reaction, smashing mana into the ability to destroy whatever was in front of her. This time, however, was like the slow shifting of rocks threatening to fall in a landslide.
The sky darkened as clouds built above her, shifting and growing ever blacker as a thunderstorm built. A bolt of lightning cracked down, hitting an Astar on its short path to the town below, its scorched body tumbling to hit hard on the pavement just as thick droplets of rain began to fall.
She smiled in satisfaction, watching the Astar begin to realise what she was doing and fly up to stop her. It was too late.
Many more cracks of thunder struck as lightning slammed down, each bolt seeking the Astar that flew up to meet her. A few of these bolts even travelled through Zalia herself but she was unaffected by the magic she controlled. The few drops of rain turned to a downpour, drenching the settlement below and beginning to extinguish the fires raging across the battlefront.
More cracks resounded and more Astar fell. Zalia pushed more and more magic into the storm, letting it build in strength until winds began howling and the rain turned to hail. It was a blinding storm of ice and lightning, each crack signalling the death of another Astar as they desperately tried to reach the source of the magic.
When she started running low on mana, her quite large pool already low because of the summoning of the elemental, she stopped growing the storm and instead fed it, the torrential flow of mana turning to a trickle.
Flying down, she saw an Astar use an ability that tore a chunk of stone from her large elemental's head. It stumbled around now, blind and missing large pieces of its body, lava dripping to the ground below.
The wildlife that had joined them in this fight had all but retreated, no longer willing to continue the fight. The trick of elementals Zalia had been bringing to the fight had become one large final burst after she had come here but reinforcements no longer came. The low-ranked elementals stood no chance against the Astar without the support of the wildlife and were dying in droves.
Many of the freed slaves were helping but the majority of them simply fled from the Astar into the woods beyond, seeking the safety of the mist that now trickled slowly into town.
Boreal was fighting savagely, still tearing many Astar to pieces and freezing others. Aylie acted as a medic, healing the injured now that her single-use ability had been used. Every now and then she was forced to awaken a plant to distract an Astar as she did so.
Zalia saw this with only a glance, however, searching with her eyes and soul for Ember. She could feel where she was through their bond, quickly approaching the battlefront now. She stared and stared until… there.
Her wings beat as she dropped from the sky at speed towards Ember. She had somehow managed to get her armour on and was glowing with a halo of golden fire, flickering steps of flame following her path. Two Astar were chasing her but as Zalia watched, Ember turned and stomped her foot. A burst of flame exploded from in front of the two Astar, distracting them. During that short time, Ember had reversed course and now jumped through the fire, slinging powerful, plate-covered fists in their direction. One of the two Astar died with a caved-in head, the other managed to dodge but died moments later with an arrow through its head.
Ember turned sharply to see Zalia coming down and she could feel the burst of relief that flooded her partner's body.
Zalia only landed for the time it took to pick up Ember before launching into the sky again. There were many other freed slaves still running through the streets but she would just have to hope that the chaos they had caused would be enough for the majority of them to escape. They couldn’t save them all, as much as she wished they could.
In the distance, Zalia could see many more Astar flying in from the large central building in the town. They rose into the sky even as the hail and lightning continued pounding down. It was time to leave.
She sent a mental message to Boreal, telling her to get Aylie and Lumen and get out, then flew to the battlefront where the chaotic but winning fight had turned to an orderly regroup by the Astar who pushed the disorganised humans back.
Once they landed behind those retreating lines, it took Zalia a moment to get Ember’s power-subduing bracelets off. They both ran in opposite directions down the line in silent agreement, yelling at the still-fighting slaves to get out. It didn’t take long and soon they were all running towards the treeline, the Astar thankfully not giving chase.
That was until hundreds of them appeared in the sky above.
By the time they did, she had met back up with Ember and she reacted quickly, grabbing her and using Mobility to teleport into the misty treeline. The freed slaves that were lagging behind weren’t so lucky, unfortunately.
There was a strange sucking sound as the land, mist, hail, air and people between the town’s edge and the treeline simply disappeared. Gone in an instant.
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Zalia quickly checked her bond with Boreal and found that she was much further into the forest already, so she put Ember down and the two of them ran off as quickly as they could manage.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
Zalia held Ember close as she cried, painful sobs wracking her body.
They were in her vault back at the clearing, now far enough away from the Astar for Ember to let her guard down. Her experience had been quite different to Aylie’s. Where Aylie had maintained some semblance of control and thought, Ember had been an unwilling witness to her soul’s wanderings, incapable of proper thought or action. She had described it like having your mind stuck in a cage within a nightmare where rational thought had all but vanished.
For her part, Aylie seemed to be doing alright. The experience seemed to have less of an effect on her, perhaps having the power to actually do something changing it to an experience less like an imprisoning of the mind.
Zalia tried to comfort Ember with offered strength and calming words and she did relax eventually. It was a horrible experience for sure but they would be able to overcome it together.
“I remember everything,” Ember whispered between deep breaths.
“It’s alright, I know.”
“No, you don’t understand. I remember everything my body did, where it went and what it saw. If I did, many of the others might have as well. They might know things about the Astar.”
Zalia pulled away just slightly, enough to look at Ember’s face.
“They might know how we can fight them, where they live, what other cities look like. That’s the first bit of good news we’ve had from this whole thing.”
Ember nodded and Zalia pulled her close again.
It was another five minutes before Ember spoke again.
“Alright, I’m ready to face it.”
The “it” Ember referred to was the some two dozen freed slaves waiting in the clearing outside the vault. They were all that Boreal and Zalia had managed to drag along with them in their quick escape. Others undoubtedly wandered the mist and she did want to try find more of them but it would be extremely hard in these conditions. Still, they had to try. The part Ember would play was in trying to help heal the trauma of the people.
Zalia had tried to dissuade her from that as she needed to rest but Ember insisted, saying that helping the others would help her deal with it too. It was hard to argue with that.
After helping her wash up her face a little bit, they both stepped out of the vault to see how the group were doing. There were only a few people who stood strong, waiting patiently for Zalia. Many of them just sat and stared into nothing. They were either broken inside or trying to sift through the possible years of memories that awaited them. Maybe both. Who knew what effect the things they’d been through could have on the soul?
Aylie was nearby, inspecting each person in turn in the way that only she could. If anyone could determine what long-term exposure to soul separation would do, it was Aylie. After doing a round of the group, Aylie activated an ability and Zalia felt a strong surge of healing spread across the clearing. This healing was different, finding its way deep into the body in a more fundamental way.
Tin - Your very presence grants life to all around you. You, nearby allies and any flora and fauna you so choose within your aura are affected by a heal-over-time effect. The heal-over-time effect heals for low health every second.
Iron - Healing presence now heals the most grave injuries first and you may focus it onto a single target, increasing that target's healing while reducing the healing other targets receive
Bronze - Healing Presence now attunes to the specific needs of each individual target within your aura. It adjusts its healing output based on the severity of injuries or ailments, offering targeted healing to each person or creature accordingly. You may still change this manually if wished. Additionally, once every twenty-four hours, you may trigger a Healing Surge.
Healing Surge - The power of Healing Presence is increased tenfold and gains the ability to heal the soul. This lasts for one minute.
Some of the vacant eyes and troubled stares of the people faded away, the combination of Aylie’s soul healing and Ember’s emotional healing forming a complex net of powerful recovery. Some of the freed slaves blinked repeatedly like they had only just awoken. Many began talking to each other or staring at Aylie in awe.
Amongst the two dozen freed slaves, there wasn’t a Bronze rank person in sight. All of the assembled were Silver so while the small number of people might not seem strong, this was actually a group of some of the most powerful people in Endaria. Zalia wondered what would happen to the kingdom if she brought back all of the freed slaves, what kind of shift in power would happen.
One man stood up and thanked Aylie with a gesture, hand forming a fist over heart. The others began to do so as well, while many also thanked Zalia and Ember in a similar manner. The broken camp had turned into a hive of activity.
Now that people were looking a lot better, Zalia began to ask questions.
Everyone was still trying to sort through their memories of the time in the Astar town, but she did learn some things. For one, the large building in the centre of town was indeed a portal hub. They even had someone who had been through one of those portals and she spoke of a huge underground cavern supported by jagged, oddly shaped pillars, an entire city built within. There were human slaves there too, though not as many as in this town. By her reckoning, there must have been tens of thousands of Astar living there, if not more than a hundred thousand.
This concerned Zalia deeply. Unless that city was the major city of the Astar, it could mean that they had a population that exceeded the humans by a lot. What if they were advanced enough as a people to have cities containing millions? What could the people of Endaria do about that?
The other thing that concerned her was the possible rank of those people. This town hadn’t contained many high ranked Astar at all, only a couple of Silver ranked among them while the majority sat at Bronze. It had been a major reason Zalia had been able to take the town as while they were powerful spatial mages, the Astar were physically weak even compared to beings of similar rank that hadn’t bonded the strength or dexterity attributes.
With these thoughts in the back of her mind, she called all the freed slaves together.