The surface of the once calm, blue sun became violent and reactive as Zalia and Aylie walked closer. Zalia prepared herself to react in an instant if the power decided to strike out at Aylie, who she had told to leave the Astral should she need to use Protection of the Wilds. If it came down to her using that ability, they’d both need to get out as soon as possible.
Hanging below the sun, Hildebrandt watched them approach with warning in her eyes. Zalia tried to reach out with her telepathy but found that the power didn’t work. Odd.
They took a few steps closer and one of the tendrils of power floating off into the unseeable distance whipped down to strike them. A wave went through it like a loose rope that had been flicked by a hand and a central section of the tendril came down with a crash next to them. They managed to jump out of the way of the tendril just in time, the thing thicker than Aylie was tall.
“Hildebrandt!” Zalia yelled.
Hildebrandt didn’t respond, but her struggling grew stronger.
Looking over at Aylie, Zalia could tell she was still resolute and the duo continued forwards.
There was no heat coming from the sun but there was an oppressive aura of some kind. It was a weight on their souls that grew heavier the closer they got.
Now knowing that she needed to watch out for the tendrils, Zalia could see the beginnings of another attack coming from a different one. It wobbled ever so slightly and when the wave of movement returned to the sun, it increased tenfold, the section of tendril flying down towards them.
Zalia tried to teleport at that instant, yet found that Mobility didn’t work either. Late to react, Zalia was scraped by the tendril, a burning pain sent down her back. It coursed through her but the defence of her armour and the ointment in addition to her natural resilience allowed her to struggle back to her feet. The pain was considerable but nothing she hadn’t dealt with before.
“Are you alright?” Aylie asked with worry.
Zalia nodded, but found that Healing Presence wasn’t working. Hers wasn’t, yet Aylie’s was.
“I thought you said abilities worked in the Astral?”
“They do!” Aylie exclaimed.
The burn all down her back was slowly healing up from Aylie’s power but nowhere as quick as Zalia’s own power would have worked.
“Something is wrong, my abilities won’t work, any of them.”
Aylie frowned and opened her starlight portal. Moonlight shone down from somewhere above, the radiant light illuminating an oval shape in front of them. A similar beam of light was cutting straight through the sun in front of them to create the other side of the portal next to Hildebrandt.
“Come on, let’s get closer. Those tendrils will have a harder time hitting us there.”
Zalia looked at the portal sceptically, but stepped through.
The weight pressing down on their souls grew substantially stronger as they arrived near Hildebrandt, the look of warning still in her eyes.
“We’re going to get you out Hildebrandt”
Zalia tried summoning her weapons and found that at the least, they still worked. Her sword appeared in hand while her bow floated in the space next to her. They hadn’t had a set plan to help Hildebrandt out of her situation but seeing her strung up by the blue sun’s power made their course forward obvious.
She stepped up and swung at one of the significantly smaller tendrils even as Aylie spoke.
“Zalia, wait”
Her sword passed straight through harmlessly and she looked back at Aylie in confusion.
“I don’t think you can help here. Only my power works. I think the reason that your vision shows me kneeling before the sun alone is because I’m the only one that can fight this thing. You should leave.”
Zalia walked over under the still growing weight.
“What!? You can’t be serious Aylie. I won’t leave you here alone. I might not be able to fight, but I can still stand by you.”
Aylie looked at her with a sad smile.
“Don’t worry mum, I’ll save her.”
With that, Aylie pulled the fabric of the world over Zalia, sending her back.
The nauseating feeling of movement mixed with blurred colours came back to Zalia as she was sent away. Her vision swam until the real world came into focus.
“No! Aylie…”
Ember turned in alarm at her sudden appearance.
“Where is Aylie? Zalia, where. Is. Aylie?”
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Zalia dropped her weapons, which faded to a quickly dissipating mist.
“She sent me back…”
Ember stood sharply.
“What? Why?”
Zalia shook her head.
“My powers didn’t work in the Astral but hers did. I think she sent me back so I wouldn’t get hurt.”
The burn she had received in the Astral wasn’t present here in the physical world, yet she could feel the pain on her soul instead. It wasn’t dissimilar to the discomfort of overusing passive abilities or mana.
“Your vision was right…” Ember whispered.
Zalia moved to hug her close.
“She’ll make it out.”
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Aylie stared at the space Zalia had just been in, immediately second guessing herself. Steeling her mind against the doubt, she turned to face the blue sun. It almost felt sentient to Aylie’s senses, like a spider with prey in its web staring down at another possible catch. Here, though, Aylie was not prey.
She used the healing surge of her Healing Presence, multiplying its strength tenfold and giving it the ability to affect the soul. With newfound strength, she pushed back the weight of the sun and tried to encompass Hildebrandt with it. The sun pounced, hundreds of smaller tendrils of power shooting from its surface above to slam into the incorporeal presence of her aura. A struggle between them began, one not of physical strength or finesse, but one of the soul.
The tendrils of power from the blue sun pushing against her aura made the usually invisible bubble into a visible boundary. She struggled, eyes closed and teeth gritted against the sheer force of the power fighting against her. It may have been a semi-mindless chunk of power given purpose in comparison to her very real and very resolute will, but it was Emerald rank.
She staggered forward, one step, then another. Each foot in front of the last brought her that much closer to Hildebrandt. The barrier that was her aura was crushing inward, forced within a metre of herself in any direction. Sparks of blue and yellow power melted away as the blue sun sacrificed parts of its strength to try and crush her underneath it.
It felt like an eternity before she was able to take another step forward and even longer for the next. All thought passed from her mind as the strain of maintaining her aura brought her to one knee. She struggled up and took another step, lifting her head and opening an eye to find Hildebrandt in front of her.
The tendrils of power that had been suspending the powerful form of the Emerald rank Hildebrandt had been pushed back by Aylie’s advance. The form of Hildebrandt’s soul now lay on the ethereal mist that made up the floor in front of Aylie. She fell to one knee again, managing to scrape forward and within reach of the woman. Her other leg buckled and Aylie found herself kneeling, head bowed, before Hildebrandt.
She reached out and pulled the fabric of the Astral over the woman, sending her back to the physical realm.
Even as she did, the strength of her aura finally failed. The minute of tenfold strength had passed and the power of her aura fell with it.
The tendrils from the blue sun flicked angrily, the purpose of the power having been stolen from it. They snaked slowly towards Aylie and she struggled to lift an arm to take herself from the Astral. A tendril latched onto her arm, dragging it up and away from its purpose. Her other arm soon followed and Aylie found herself being oh so slowly lifted from the ground.
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Zalia and Ember waited with bated breath as a war waged within the Astral. The usually stagnant form of Hildebrandt was thrashing in defiance of the power that sought to destroy her. Knowing that the Astral was a space of thought, Zalia pulled out the poultice of Soulroot and dabbed some onto her forehead. Its purpose was to assist someone in entering a more meditative state where they could see into the Astral ever so slightly. She handed it to Ember who did the same.
All of a sudden, Hildebrandt woke with a shocked gasp of breath. Her eyes were wild with the adrenaline of prey hunted by a predator. Ember rushed forward to check on the woman but Hildebrandt’s eyes locked onto Zalia.
“We have to help her.”
Zalia nodded, taking the Soulroot poultice from Ember and dabbing some onto Hildebrandt’s forehead as well.
“This will allow us to enter a meditative state and see slightly into the Astral. I understand now why my abilities didn’t work there, it’s not a place of power but a place of the mind. If we lend our mind’s to Aylie, she might be able to fight against the blue sun.”
They all sat in silence as they descended into the meditative state. Slowly, their vision was overlaid with the misty land with the giant blue sun. It had Aylie in its grasp, pulling her up to replace Hildebrandt. Zalia pushed all of her mind towards lending Aylie power, believing in her, trusting her.
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Aylie’s head drooped as she lifted up, certain that this was the future that Zalia had foreseen, the fate that had awaited her. It had needed to be done, though, for Endaria. Aylie might never have grown strong enough to avenge her parents slaughtered by the demon invasion, the invasion that had been orchestrated by the Astar, but she knew Zalia would do that for her. She knew that Hildebrandt would do that for her.
A trickle of power from somewhere else made its way into Aylie’s soul. She knew that power, she had felt it from the day that she had been saved from the demons by Zalia. Her head lifted to stare into the sun in defiance.
It sent more tendrils to raise her as she pulled against its influence but another tendril of power came to her. She knew the feeling of this power too, the kind, calm, sternness of the other woman who had adopted her. With the support of Zalia and Ember behind her, Aylie’s feet found the floor once more. She shook off a tendril, finding two more in their place, yet continued the struggle.
Her aura managed to push back all the tendrils entirely, forcing them mere inches from her skin. Teeth gritted with concentration, pure will holding the blue sun at bay, Aylie continued the fight.
Another source of power came to her, this one unfamiliar. It was incredible, stronger than that of Ember, Zalia and herself put together many times over. She pushed the tendrils back with ease, summoning the staff gifted to her by Zalia.
Holding it in two hands, she raised the staff up to the sky and, with eyes closed, began to channel the power granted to her into the staff. With a flash of light, her eyes opened, glowing white and blue as the stars above. A twinkle in the heavens heralded the doom of the blue sun as a star equal in size descended at speed, trailing a blazing, white fire.
Aylie slammed the butt of her staff into the misty ethereal floor beneath her and the called star impacted the blue sun, the collision of the two massive celestial objects sending an explosive ring of blue and white fire spiralling away. The tendrils of the blue sun vanished with the blast, blown away by the sheer force of the two objects.
The surface of the blue sun cracked, then gave way as Aylie’s white star slammed straight through into its core. The blue sun exploded from within, the remnants of its power sprayed across the Astral as Aylie’s star took its place.
She took one hand off the staff and smiled a victorious grin as she pulled the fabric of the Astral over herself, transporting back to the physical world.