Victoria Blackwood hadn’t slept since returning from her interview with the council in the Hall of Leadership. Not that she was complaining, as it had turned out to be a very productive 60 hours.
She had been able to provoke several challenges from her competitors, and force those that remained into the arena. Her hot-blooded brothers and sisters thought that they would find victory in the arena, while her business rivals thought she wouldn’t have the stomach for violence. This illusion of weakness had taken years to cultivate. So many times, she avoided settling things in the arena, doing all that she could to feign a preference for settling conflicts through the house’s financial leader-boards.
The moment her father was executed, her plans came to fruition. Those sisters and brothers who could never beat her in a contest of financial acumen or scholarly pursuits had been counting on meeting her in the arena. They had been biding their time, counting on the fact that multiple defeats would have removed her from contention for the leadership of House Blackwood. Each of them had wasted years focusing on their training, believing that she was weak… all according to her plan. Now they were dead, and with her victories and petitions, she had finally been confirmed as the new Lord Blackwood.
It hadn’t been easy. In addition to the standard House hierarchy model adopted by the noble houses across all of Oglivarch, every house had a few metrics that were determined by their head of house. For years, their house’s ladder had balanced on the whims of her father’s favor. And in her opinion, her father had weighed political connections and relationships too high in the ranking metrics. After all, a real noble only needed three things to be successful.
They needed to be cunning, able to see through the plots and plans of others. They needed to be strong in both mind and body, able to meet their enemies in any field of battle. And above all, they needed to be cautious, for false confidence is the natural result of being both cunning and strong.
These thoughts ran through her head as she let the steam from the shower wash away her stress. The hot water and scented soaps acting like balm on her soul. With one hand propped up against the wall, she closed her eyes and let the water fall across the back of her neck.
Years of planning had culminated in a bloody few days. It had been a perfect victory... almost too perfect. At most, she had expected 80% of her preparations and plots to have succeeded. Yet, after it was all said and done, every single one of her plans had worked out exactly as she’d hoped. And now, there was no longer anyone remaining in the branch that could challenge her position. She had won, completely.
She let shoulders sag in relief, taking a moment to revel in her victory. But all too soon, she knew it was over, and she forced herself to look away from her past and focus on the future.
Summoning what remained of her will, she opened her eyes and straightened her spine. With a flick of her hand, the shower turned off, and she headed off to bed. Tomorrow she would find out who had been aiding her behind the scenes, and then she would have to decide what to do about it. As the new Lord Blackwood, she needed to know if they were in fact a secret ally, or a hidden enemy.
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While Cathleen was getting her amusement out of her system, Nick helped Nero stumble to his feet. Rose and Sergeant Wesker returned to their positions, pretending to focus on the surrounding forest while not-so-subtly listening in on what Nero had to say.
Nick held Nero steady as the young man tried to shake off the after-effects of whatever had just happened to him. Even though he was ecstatic to see Nero alive, his impatience for answers forced him to ask, “Nero, seriously, what happened? One second, you were examining the essence knot, and the next, you collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.”
Nero’s mind couldn’t help but imagine the scenario as Nick described what he’d seen. With a shiver, Nero replied, “I’m not entirely sure. But I can make a few guesses. And they wouldn’t even really be guesses. I think I somehow connected on a deeper level with the local essence signature. I saw so much… so quickly… it was like reaching enlightenment, but only about little things. Does that make sense?”
So often, Nick had seen Nero looking at him with confusion and annoyance, seemingly expressing his unhappiness with Nick’s explanations. Now, for once, Nick had the pleasure of giving Nero that very same look. “No, Nero. That doesn’t make any sense. How about you start from the beginning and walk me through what happened.”
Nero nodded, his face unusually calm and blank, the echo of his experience dulling his emotions. Turning away from Nick, he took a step toward where he remembered the tangled essence had been floating in front of them. Very gently, he let his psychic field expand over the area, once again allowing him to see what had been hidden from the material plane.
Nero heard Nick’s soft voice from behind him, “Nero, now’s not the time to experiment. Tell me what exactly happened. Ignore the essence knot for now, and just use your words.”
Nero collapsed his field carefully, reinstating his essence barrier. By now, he just couldn’t feel comfortable without it active. Forcing himself to turn away from the essence knot, he looked at Nick and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Nero took a deep breath, then started his story. “A couple weeks ago I -”
Nick interrupted harshly, “Nero! I mean what happened just now. You died! I want to know how.”
Nero’s calm expression turned to a frown, and he replied, “I’m getting to that. Calm down, old man.”
Nick replied with a huff, then crossed his arms and pouted.
Seeing Nick’s expression, Nero adopted a smirk. He could feel his emotions waking up, the world around him regaining a bit of life.
After lightly clearing his throat, Nero began again, “As I was saying, a couple weeks ago, I read about ‘delving’. At the time, I wasn’t able to actually do it, but trying turned out to be great practice and allowed me to get a better sense of the world around me. Eventually, a day or two after training started with the elites, I managed to delve into the chair in my room in the barracks. Accidentally, I went a little too deep into the history of the chair and lost myself a little. Jennings somehow showed up… I think he teleported right into my room, actually. Anyway, he pulled me back from wherever I was and explained what happened to me.” Nero paused his explanation, asking, “You do know what ‘delving’ is right?”
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Nick replied quickly, eager to get Nero to move it along. “Delving is sending a part of your consciousness into the identity of something. Typically its used to determine providence of a material or object, or to examine someone’s background to confirm their story. It’s looking at the historical record of an essence signature.”
Nero wouldn’t have put it exactly like that, but then again, he wasn’t a scholar.
Nodding, Nero continued, “Right. So anyway, Jennings warned me about keeping my mind intact when I was moving along an essence stream. He also warned me about not delving into things, because I’m not strong enough to hold myself together. That’s why I don’t want you to say anything to him... Crap, you think he’s watching us right now? Does he already know about what happened? That peeping son-of-a-bitch is never going to let me live this down.”
Nick wasn’t willing to let Nero go off on one of his rants and interrupted him again. “Nero! What. Happened?”
Nero shook off his anger at Jennings’ pervy behavior and returned to his point. “Right. Anyway, since then I’ve noticed my mind getting stronger. Or, more accurately, my identity becoming more firm, more solid. It really helped me when I was screwing around with scrying people. You know, like that archer chick… not Rose… the other one. I mean the assassin one. I mean the assassin one that tried to kill me in the wilds.”
Nick replied, “Yes, I know who you mean. Go on.”
Nero nodded, and continued, “OK. So, my identity is pretty firm now. When I’m examining things in my psychic field, I can get a pretty accurate picture of stuff. You know that I was always good at that. But I think I figured out why. It’s my soul, Nick. You told me that the different fields are affected by the strength of the soul. Even though we didn’t specifically cover scrying, I’m almost positive that scrying works the same way.”
Getting annoyed, Nick said, “I know this Nero. Everyone knows this. What has that got to do with you dying? Don’t tell me you think you delved into an essence knot. Not only would you be wrong, but I’d have to question your intelligence, which up until now, I’d actually thought was at least average.”
Nero’s reply was quick and unwavering. “I did actually. Whether you believe me or not, I accidentally sent my consciousness into that tangle of essence, slipping through the essence strings. I think that’s what did it actually. I was fine when I was just examining the outside, but when I tried to look at what was in between the strings, it’s like I got sucked in. What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m only alive because I was able to keep my identity intact along the journey. I think I scried the other side of the ‘essence knot’, as you call it.”
Nick’s jaw dropped, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “You can actually see the individual essence flows that make up the essence knot? That’s amazing!”
Nero nodded. “Yeah. I told you that the detail in my psychic field is pretty good. But the point is, there is something on the other side of the thing. When I was pulled in, I think my soul came with me. It was weird, but after a bunch of sensations I can’t describe, I got a sense of what’s on the other side. It’s like the essence in the air was translating the common knowledge or identity of the area. I finally understand what you meant when you said essence events are connecting our world to another plane or whatever. There was a dark, creepy forest, and an elf just standing there. He was some kind of scout, monitoring the other side of the essence event. Just being there, I learned all about him and where he came from. Also, I don’t think the other side works the way it does on this side.”
Nick nodded, full of enthusiasm. “That makes sense. This event is a spawn point, which means that this side is pulling in identity information from another plane. I’m guessing it’s probably connected to one of the Elfen realms… maybe the Darklands. But that doesn’t really matter,” he said, waving the issue away as if it weren’t remotely important.
Returning to his main point, Nick said, “What matters is that you somehow treated a spawn point as if it were an astral inflection point. You managed to actually travel through an essence knot that hasn’t manifested a planar gate! That shouldn’t be possible. No one has ever delved an essence knot before, they’re too compact, the flows too severe. It’s an unprecedented scientific marvel! I bet with some training, you might be able to manipulate the essence flows in order to alter an essence event into whatever you’d like. Don’t you understand?!? Nero, you might be able to influence dungeon development. That is a VERY big deal.”
Nero could tell that Nick didn’t seem to be understanding the bigger picture. Nero wanted him to focus on what was important, but he also realized that he didn’t know how to explain it any better. So, rather than argue, he tried to move on. “Yup. We’ll have to discuss that at some point. But listen, when my soul was….” Nero’s voice trailed off, his thoughts started catching up with his mouth.
From the sides of his perception field, he could sense both the sergeant and Rose’s essence signatures. They were both bursting with interest, their attention fully focused on his conversation with Nick. Did he really want them to know that he managed to keep his mind intact while his soul was outside of his body? The implications of that were nuts. He might even be able to heal himself after he were killed. Or maybe he could take over a different dead body? Could he body-jump now?
Nick’s voice shook him from his thoughts. “When your soul was what? You mean when you were dead, you ….”
Nero matched stares with Nick, his eyes full of worry, and he could see the moment that Nick realized the greater implications of what Nero was saying. If Nero was able to recount what happened when his body had been dead, then somehow he had been able to maintain his mind without a body. Nick’s face lost all its color, and Nero worried that the old man was going to start freaking out.
Before Nero could decide on how to prevent Nick from losing it, the old man awkwardly smiled and said, “That explains why you weren’t really dead. I had wondered why I could still sense an intact soul-space, but your body had the appearance of a corpse. While you appeared deceased, you were, in fact, just too distracted by the delve. I should have thought to check for that. Regardless, that’s incredibly interesting.”
Nero could see right through what Nick was trying to do, and he felt like his heart grew two sizes in response. ‘This must be what the Grinch felt like when he discovered the meaning of Christmas. This old man is a true friend,’ he thought.
Nick’s shoulders squared up, and he shook off his fear of Nero’s odd achievement. Firming up his voice, he said, “Well, let’s get this spawn-point dealt with, then we can move on. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk about essence knot dynamic manipulation at a later date. For now, we have work to do.”
Taking a step past Nero, he said, “Now listen closely, and try and follow along with what I’m doing. Do not under any circumstances probe the essence knot. I don’t want a repeat of your accident. Let’s just focus on clearing up the local essence flows and then we can talk about that later, OK?”
Nero nodded, his face full of thanks. “Sure, Nick, you got it. You talk. I listen and try not to do anything stupid. I know the drill.”
Nick smiled at his friend, and replied, “Right you are. OK. Here we go. The first thing you have to do is…”