The immediate aftermath of the battle against Rhuna was a quiet one. They gathered all their allies, broken and whole. Some of the prisoners joined them on their way back, and so they didn’t take the bowl back to Clearwater Temple directly, but one close by. Operational safety and all that.
After this whole ordeal, even Elia was looking forward to its many baths. Her enthusiasm was only dampened by the thought of explaining Zane’s transformation to the spymaster.
They encountered a handful of scattered members of the pact more or less on the way. It appeared that the pact had already surveyed the area near Clearwater as a potential path of retreat, as the dregs were few and their enemies far away. A couple bowl-jumps later and they had a connection to the rest of their scattered people. Over the course of the following weeks, the rest trickled in, and were rather taken by their new homes.
“Merchant, what is this food?” one mister and one misses Mephisto asked Mahdi, who had faked the death of his identity as the quartermaster. Karla cried over him for a while before Elia reminded her of the ruse.
“It’s Pedecud.”
“It’s not bad, dear,” said mister Mephisto. “It’s no salmon tartar, but it has a certain… zest. What is this made of?”
With a smirk Elia moved on before Mahdi could regale them with the all details of regurgitated foodstuffs.
It was a shame that even after all her hard work (mostly involving murder), they didn’t dare return to their previous home. Thousands of dregs had to be moved, a dozen hidden farms abandoned and reestablished with the seeds they had brought with them. It all seemed a bit much. Then again, they were the ones who had gone through this before, they knew the importance of erasing tracks and starting anew.
Elia supposed she would just have to have faith in their judgment. A shame about the foodstuffs though.
She stepped into an abandoned part of the temple, where a few pews had been arranged in sets of rows. The church of vows, they dubbed it now. It was where those who were taken by Rhuna and wanted to rejoin the pact renewed their oaths, or where newly joined ones first spoke theirs.
Karla was already here, not dressed in armor or a tunic, but in a simple black and gray dress and blouse. She waved and not for the first time Elia felt like just running out and away.
But no, she was done with running. It was time to grow roots. She would just have to grow them so awesome and so deep, nothing could tear them out.
The master of oaths, Jeremy, gave her a disapproving look. Elia shot one right back. He held way too many offices for her taste, and he was also an ass.
“Hello Elia,” the slimy prick said. “Finally decided where your loyalties lie?”
“I’d like to ask the same of you,” she shot back. “But I’m not in the habit of gathering dirt on people.”
“It seems to me that it sticks to you like glue. And that glue says it as plain as day: All this chaos, and it was your fault, you and your little princess going on your mock adventures.”
Elia scoffed in mock offense. She walked up to the man and put a dirty boot on his table. “Listen here boy. I didn’t live two hundred years just to be lectured by a guy who thinks that the epitome of romance is to get someone else to fetch a girl for them. Rhuna would have gotten to you all at some point. Be glad we burned the problem out at the roots.”
They glowered at each other.
With a clap, their attention turned to Karla.
“Alright, all eyes here, please.” She handed Jeremy an official looking slip, which he signed and stamped after a minute of grumbling.
“And you’re here because…?” he asked.
Karla linked her arm with Elia’s. “We’re here to make it official.”
“It?” Elia asked, the instinct to flee warring with the heat rising to her cheeks.
“It!” Karla nodded and gave her a slip of paper.
Elia read it, mouthing the words in silence. “In peace and in… Karla, this isn’t my pact oath.”
“Oh. Haha, silly me.” She swapped the slip out for another one. “What?”
No amount of pretty eyes could hide that she had just tried to slip in a marriage oath. “Karla…”
The hint of disappointment in her voice was enough to make the girl crumble. “Nono, it’s not what it looks like. I mean, it is but… look, I… being a princess really sucks, you know. Every time I do something, I get a little buzzer in my head telling me ‘this isn’t proper, that isn’t how you’re supposed to be’. I just thought that maybe if we got a bit closer in official capacity that the law of princesses wouldn’t be so restrictive anymore about the proper courtship rituals. ‘Cause an oath is proper, and marriage doubly so, you see.”
“Ok. Let’s do it.”
Karla’s face turned from confusion to surprise. “You really mean it?”
“Except, with one small correction.” Elia got out a sharpy and scribbled something on the page. “There. Don’t want to take things too fast.”
All three of them read the line that Elia had stricken through, and the addendum scrawled in between the lines.
“Forever girlfriends?” Karla asked.
Jeremy snorted. “You just got girlfriend-zoned.”
“We’re going to be the best girlfriends.” Elia said.
“The best?”
“Better than any of the ones before or after. They’ll sing songs about us, maybe make some movies. Historians won’t even get the chance to think that we were ‘just friends’. That’s how good we’ll be.”
“Gee. You’re really serious.” Karla’s face was red as an apple. “Thank you.”
“No.” Elia booped her nose. “Thank you.”
Jeremy coughed. “And now to make it official. Do you both swear to your respective oaths? To treat each other with respect and honesty? To never cheat, nor betray, nor malign? To hold together, through thin and thinner?”
They didn’t need to see each other’s faces as they held hands.
“We swear.”
“And do you, Elia, swear that should death come for you one too many times, and you find yourself a dreg, that you will serve the pact even past the limits of mind, sense, spirit, and body?”
Elia swallowed. “I swear.”
The sound of scribbling filled the room.
“Alright, we’re done here,” Jeremy said and handed Elia a slip of paper, which she immediately checked for… well, anything suspicious. But there was nothing.
“I get a visa?”
“It’s how we do it in these parts. If you lose it, you will have to pay a fine of a thousand souls. Also, you may kiss the princess or whatever.”
Elia turned to an expectant Karla. It was a little thing, just a small act to show that she was serious.
Elia swallowed heavily. This may turn out to be the hardest battle yet.
They kissed, or well, they tried. An invisible barrier hung between them, dividing their lips by mere inches.
“Aw man.” Karla stomped her feet. “It says I can’t officially be girlfriends with a commoner!"
----------------------------------------
For Rye, the aftermath of the battle passed like a fugue. Her spirit was damaged and without the reassuring haven of Elia to tether herself to, she drifted from here to there, flying wherever the wind took her, and sometimes possessing rocks or small critters in the meantime.
The little geckos were her favorites, but after seeing how the malady of her spirit immediately began growing white fleshy nubs out of their’ front left digits, it only reinforced how things couldn’t ever be like they were before.
The living tar was a terrible disease. And after watching what it had done to Zane, she was not keen on inflicting it on anybody else.
After the first month of dreadful waiting and introspection, Kasimir was finally done with Rye’s new body. It was a normal body molded after her own, an unassuming doll with a soft face, and a hard carapace that could feel neither pain nor discomfort. It was a gift, he said, and she paid him regardless. For all that she asked him to keep it normal, she knew he had used what must have been a fortune in special materials.
Because she killed Rhuna.
The spirit of her regrets hung heavy, even as she watched small white nubs grow out of the unliving material in front of her eyes. There was no escaping this. She killed Rhuna and the people adored her for it.
It was so wrong, and yet she accepted the laurels and gifts with a smiling face. Maybe they were glad that they wouldn’t have to run anymore. Or maybe they were just appeasing the person who in their eyes stood above their greatest foes and fears.
Rye, Lady Dreaming, Shardbearer.
Maybe they thought she was a god, or was soon to be one. She didn’t want to be a god. But now that everybody knew that she had the shard of dreaming, every gift came with a wish, for a dream of a better time, or for making a recurring nightmare disappear.
In truth, Rye only had freedom to control her own dream. Her power did allow her to swap who dreamt what and where, and with that, she just had to try her best.
The days of being just a voice, just a disembodied spirit were over. And yet, where her left arm was pockmarked with the alabaster hairs that were thinning out into oblong plates, her right was simply gone right where Rhuna had lopped it off.
“Now try again,” Kasimir said, tweaking a few joints as her curse seemed to find a state of balance.
Rye nodded and slowly tried to feel out into her right arm. But there was nothing.
Kasimir, who was in some sort of spider-like body with a flurry of smaller limbs where the mouth ought to be, gently poked her right hand with a pedipalp. “No need to worry, I know plenty of cases that have had difficulties adjusting to new bodies. You should have seen misses Mephisto when she entered her first combat body, I can still remember the flailing as if it were yesterday…”
He babbled and talked and through it all, Rye could only worry about the future.
Was it really over? Was Rhuna really dead? Her whole faction of mind-washed people was slowly imploding, some returning to their old allegiances, others forming splinter groups. What guarantee did she have that they weren’t out for vengeance? Heck, how did she know that the legion or the tar knights weren’t about to go and get her?
“Rye? Hello-o, earth to Rye?”
Rye blinked herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“I asked if you can feel this.” He tapped her right index finger with the back of a scalpel. When she shook her head, he drew a long furrow across it. Rye just stared right past it. “Still nothing? Dang. Alright, I’m prescribing you ten weeks of spiritual therapy, three times a week, and then we’ll see how it develops from there. You really are missing the part of your spirit that you associate with your arm, but in time you’ll find some piece to substitute for it.”
“And how am I to do that?” Rye asked.
“You just gotta squeeze the rest of your spirit, like a tube of mustard.”
She blinked at him. “What’s mustard?”
“It’s, y’know, the stuff that you drown a hot dog with.”
“Hot… dog?”
He reached for some more comparisons, and though she didn’t understand them much more, by the end she roughly knew what he was trying to say. Rye thanked him for the service, got her schedule for her “therapy” and left his house, which only left her with the question of where to go.
Elia was staying with Karla, against the wishes of pretty much everyone. Karla’s aunt had taken some spirit damage as well during her fight with Rhuna and was not capable of shielding them from the pervading sentiment that it was Elia who led Rhuna to the pact. Rye could crash in one of their empty rooms, but whether her presence would pacify complaints or only draw more attention to them she didn’t know. She could go somewhere else, but all the other places were unfamiliar.
Easily two thirds of the pact’s people were like Kasimir, using words and phrases that made no sense to people not from earth. The other third was an assortment of nobility and wealthy individuals from the near past, which for Rye meant that even the closest of them was from a few hundred years in the future.
Those people seemed to mistrust each other almost as most as the rest. There was no respite here. There was no place for her to call home. And her body, too, did not feel like she truly owned it. But she could never return to her old one, or offer Elia to swap, not as long as the curse on her arm was not lifted.
Maybe she would find something like home inside her white dream, where she was creator and destroyer of all. Or maybe she would have to accept that no matter what she made, or found, or twisted to her desire, it would be nothing but a pale shadow of what she had before.
“Gods, I miss home,” she said, and was surprised that her body was capable of crying. She sat down on a bench and when she felt like she could get back up again, it was as if a river had run through her body. She felt ragged, and alone, and so, so far away from home.
Seemingly knowing her plight, the attendant of the temple approached with gentle steps. His normally mischievous face was now held tight in worry.
He knelt down next to her, and waited.
“Do you ever feel so lonely it feels as if you’re the only person left in the whole world?” she asked.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He nodded. He knew. Whatever made him an attendant bound him to this temple. Whatever he did, he could only ever hope that people sought him out. Maybe that was why he was happy, bordering on desperate, to serve and please.
“Could you share a hot bath with me?” Rye asked. “I think I just want someone to talk to, for now.”
The smile on his face was as gentle as distant sunshine. He led her to the more secluded parts of the temple, where she would hopefully find peace and comfort for a while.
----------------------------------------
In the sands of the Coliseum, there stood a tent. It was a large tent, not made for camping but for war. The sturdy red tarp was rimmed with golden metal, and was embroidered with a sigil bearing an eagle owl. The tent was also on fire, perpetually glimmering with embers that ate at both cloth and gold at a snail-like pace.
Tertius stood in front of it, together with the assembled first to fourth cohort. He thought that setting up the tent was a waste, as they had to replace it every couple of days. Good cloth in the right colors was hard to come by these days.
But the general insisted on proper appearances as much as he demanded discipline and orderliness, from the highest legate to the lowest legionnaire. He was a mountain of a man, dwarfing even Sextus as he sat in regal armor in front of his tent. Just watching him sit straight as a tower and with eyes hard as a roc made his heart of fire crackle and his bony hands grip the legion banner tighter.
This was a man straight out of a legend. Where he walked, the red sea parted, and the mountains lowered their heads in respect.
This was why Tertius was sure that the hundred or so prostrate enemies would see his glory, and follow him weeping steaming tears.
“We are those who once followed the Rhuna, and every one before her,” said their spokesman, an old knight wearing the battered regalia of the old empire. “We surrender and ask only that you do not forget your oaths to the empire, oh great general Quintus.”
The general let silence speak as his gaze wandered over the assembled throng. There were roughly seven hundred of them. These were people who were used to service since long ago. And yet, while they were kneeling, their pride was so strong they may as well have been standing on a hill, looking down at him.
“The empire is dead,” Quintus eventually said. “I cannot help it. But I will give it the funeral pyre it deserves.”
Predictably, that caused a stir. At the brewing protest, he held up a single hand and all fell quiet.
“My oaths remain the same. But it is necessary. Those of you who do not wish to see this truth, fall on your swords now, and I guarantee you one final death.”
The supplicants raised their heads. One after the other, they took out hidden daggers, or rings with hidden blades, and sliced their throats, or stabbed their hearts. By the end, a good two-thirds of them lay dead on the ground. The old knight who had spoken for them however, did not let his gaze leave the general’s face.
“Promise me that all you do is for the good of the empire.”
Quintus stared him down. “It is for the good of all. For humanity. For beasts. For the sky above and the sea below. For this, we cavort with demons too. But you are no strangers to such measures.”
Indeed, because none of them fell on their swords after that. They each walked forward, not to swear an oath, but to receive the general’s gift. The small, finger-sized piece of ember was just like Tertius remembered it.
The prisoners put the embers to their heart and within seconds, began to glow from within. Fire spread from their core outwards as they shed the vestiges of their previous life, their dirtied fine clothes, their alabaster skin, their waxed hair.
The fire abated, leaving thirty-odd souls that looked like much the rest, skeletons with muscle and sinew and a glimmer of embers where their eyes used to be. They looked much like all the other legionnaires now, except for their lack of proper gear.
The newly turned marveled at their hands and legs. If they were shocked, they didn’t have the facial bits to express it. Tertius still remembered how it had felt for him. The fire first turned warm, bordering on but never exceeding hot, before settling into his chest like a furnace. That furnace made him strong and durable, and yet he knew there was a price. The bones up until his second knuckle had grown black over the past months. His furnace still shone, albeit slightly less bright. One day he would be nothing but a skeleton of black charcoal and ash and then he would crumble and turn to ash.
But that was worth it. It was more natural than eternal undeath. And when his time came, he would go knowing that he was allowed to give all he had and more.
“You are now legionnaires of the 41st,” Quintus said and with a gesture of his hand, turned the dead among them into ash. “Look, and see what lies at the end of our road: It is the death of all, the undoing of creation, the birth of a great firestorm that shall sweep the world. We all share this one fate together, and we may never falter. Do you understand?
“…we understand.” The old knight, now cast inside his deformed armor, rose to meet the general’s gaze. “We will serve as one, oh great general who has granted us death.”
The general watched as one of the bodies hadn’t turned to ash. It writhed instead, as if a thousand worms were fighting their way out of its skin. The body burst, and a puddle of yawning darkness spread from where it lay.
Quintus bristled, the entire legion recognizing the threat as one.
“Granted us death?” said a voice like burbling tar. “I am appalled. Quintus, is your gift to this blessed world that you would destroy it?”
The general signed for the legionnaires to hold their positions. “It is better than the gift of an eternal, twisted mockery of life, Avon.”
The puddle bubbled as if laughing.
A figure rose out of the puddle, a veritable giant of a man, second only to Quintus. The general rose in turn and at that moment they all knew: this man clad in the blackest of black armor, dripping tar that wriggled and writhed as if alive, was no less great than their beloved general.
All his training told Tertius that this man was a threat and that he needed to be removed.
Would the first cohort be able to stop him? No, it was likely that they would have to use that group of their best fighters to distract him, in addition to the second. The third and fourth would pincer him from behind. Then they would have a chance, if they all ignited their cores and detonated themselves at once. Only then might victory come.
The giant man of tar simply offered his hand.
“I come bearing a gift,” he said. “I propose a truce for those down here. Your ambition still compels you climb the mountain, no, great general?.”
If it was a gift, it reeked of poison.
“There can be no peace between us, Avon,” General Quintus said. “I must remove the stains of our inheritance, and you are counted among them.”
Avon laughed, and addressed the legion.
“The path to Gatheon is free! The Warden no longer bars the path. The gods have mucked about and watched from up high for long enough. Let us not quibble over Loften like children in the muck, for even your general knows that we would kill each other, while the true foe laughs up there!” He pointed at the peak above the clouds. Then, his arm fell, and he offered it to Quintus again. “You are running out of time, my oldest enemy. If you want to live to see your work complete, if you want to plow up the mountain on your own chariot, you will take my hand.”
The general seemed to hesitate for a moment. If he did not take the man’s hand, Tertius was ready to throw himself at him right then and there.
When he took the hand, embers sizzled as it burst into the hottest of flames. But this man, Avon, just laughed, even as his arm was set alight.
“The old must go to make place for the new,” the general bellowed. “Let us make war on the gods. Let us topple their ivory thrones and throw them off their holy mountain. Let there be an age of fire.”
“An age of fire!” The legion yelled, “An age of death! We doomed ones follow, oh great one, to hell and back.”
“And from the ashes,” Avon burbled, “let there come an age of tar.”
The general pulled him close and whispered, barely audible but for Tertius and a few close by.
“Only if you get there first, old enemy. Only if you get there first.”
----------------------------------------
Elia lay awake in bed at night. It was the warmest, most fluffy bed she had ever had the pleasure of sharing. Karla groaned, talking in her sleep at night.
“I can take two dragons… in a fight? Yeeeh. A fight… Hehe…”
She stroked her hair for a while until she made up her mind. Elia’s feet found a pair of fluffy slippers and with quiet shuffles made her way through Clearwater Temple. A single candle lit her way as she stalked the halls.
Her feet made few waves as she hung them into the warm pool and sighed. She was tired after consummating her and Karla’s girlfriendliness, mainly because nothing they tried had worked. They couldn’t even kiss without some divine rule shafting them royally.
It left a sour taste in her mouth, how Karla went to bed so easily. She was so used to it.
Elia sighed. “Even in the end, the gods try to screw me over.”
Elia too was used to that. There was nothing to do but rise and overcome. Pointedly, it would have to be done without Rye, who was wounded and didn’t like all the danger that came with it in the first place. But as she beckoned her status with a steamy breath, she saw that they were still connected.
Name: Elia (& Rye)
Age: 221 & 22
Soul count: x75,300
Bone shards: [Common] x64, [Uncommon] x36, [Rare] x13, [Epic] x2
Undead cursemark: Overflowing
Slightly diminishes sense and mind.
All practicalities aside, Rye didn’t deserve to be dragged along on Elia’s misadventures.
I should give her peace.
And for that Elia would need to grow strong. Idly, she peered into her greater soul storage. But where there should have been one, there were two. She raised her eyebrows and peered over to the attendant. He was sat on a pillow, waiting patiently for someone to need him, as if that was as important to him as breathing was for others.
Meeting her eyes, he felt her beckon him over.
“The Rhuna is dead. But I got two souls from her.”
Soul of Emily Watson
Soul of a girl who lost all she was, and through desperation found herself a monster.
Soul of the 41st Rhuna
The Soul of a woman who wished to leave a lasting impression on the world.
The attendant smiled and waved his hand like a puppet show.
“All souls mix,” he seemed to say, “Four become one within you. When you die, that will be your greater soul, a medley of all that came before. But when two souls cannot mix, they remain apart.”
Elia nodded. That made sense, considering no undead dropped four greater souls at a time. She stared at them for a long while.
Those could have been me, me and Rye.
As for these souls, it was time to measure their worth. She touched her forehead to the attendant’s hand, and its depths revealed itself to her.
[Sense/Spirit] Soul of Emily Watson [Rare]
Soul of a girl who lost all she was, and through desperation found herself a monster.
0/6000 Moderate increase to Reservoir
0/4000 Minor increase to Flow
0/3500 Minor increase to Eyesight
0/18,000 Great increase to instinct, Minor decrease to reservoir
It was a rare soul like the two Elia already had – odd, but fitting. The souls in her Sense and Spirit were both uncommon, so either of them could be swapped out easily. If she swapped out her souls of a crystallized conjurer, she would miss the increase to concentration. Actually, mostly Rye would miss it for her spells, but she probably didn’t have to worry about interruptions all too much. With the new body Kasimir was making for her, pain would be a thing of the past.
I wonder if bowl-water heals stone as well?
Then she took a look at the other Soul and almost toppled into the pool.
[Body/Sense/Mind/Spirit] Soul of the 41st Rhuna [Epic]
The Soul of a woman who wished to leave a lasting impression on the world.
0/10,000 Slightly increases all characteristics while you have at least one Common Boon
0/25,000 Slightly increases all characteristics while you have at least one Uncommon boon
0/50,000 Slightly increases all characteristics while you have at least one Rare boon
0/100,000 Moderately increases all characteristics while you have at least one Epic boon
0/500,000 Greatly increases all characteristics while you have at least one Legendary boon
She coughed violently, catching herself only when the attendant offered a cup of water. “W-what? What is this?”
The attendant signed again. “A reward for your struggles. A great gift, for your struggles. With it, you will without a doubt be an ascender, a candidate fit to climb far, far above.”
“Huh. So, being awesome comes with a title?” She rubbed the last tear from her eye, then steadied herself once more. There was no need to think things through, Elia already knew the optimal path ahead. “Put Emily’s soul into my Sense and fill it up first, then put Rhuna’s soul into my spirit.”
The attendant grasped inside her and pulled out her old souls, that of the crystallized conjurer, and that of the Fane Eater. Before she could feel the loss, two new ones nestled themselves into her bosom and like a dry sponge drank greedily from the power within.
Elia felt herself shift, Elia felt herself change. More Body, more Mind, more Spirit, more everything. And when she opened her eyes, for the first time in a long while, she felt in control.
Name: Elia (& Rye)
Age: 221 & 22
Soul count: x4,306
Bone shards: [Common] x64, [Uncommon] x36, [Rare] x13, [Epic] x2
Undead cursemark: Overflowing
Slightly diminishes sense and mind.
Vessels:
[Body] Soul of Partlight [Rare] (Warded)
Your Body is very strong, like an ascender. You have the constitution of a very athletic adult. You have the strength of a strong giant. You have the finesse of a world-renowned juggler. You have the tenacity of a giant.
[Sense/Spirit] Soul of Emily Watson [Rare]
Your Sense is slightly better than the average human. Your sense of smell, touch, and hearing is better than humans. Your sight is great, like an owl-eagle. Your instinct is razor-sharp, like a wild tomcat.
[Body/Sense/Mind/Spirit] Soul of the 41st Rhuna [Epic]
Your mind is slightly better than the average human in all aspects.
[Mind/Spirit] Soul of Yolon the Lunatic [Rare] (Warded)
Your Spirit is great, like a magus of old. Your reservoir is massive, like a veteran magus. Your flow is incredibly strong like the greatest magus. Your Channel is as nimble as a post-graduate academy student. Your Subtelty is as great as the average conjurer.
Boons Elia:
1 – [Spirit] Psychometry [Uncommon] [Ego]
2 – [Body] Left Gauntlet of the Viper [Uncommon]
3 – [Body] Cutting Cutlery [Common] [Keenness] [Rending] [Challenge]
4 – [Body] Frog leap [Uncommon] [Endurance] [Control] [Iron] [Socket x2]
5 –
Boons Rye:
1 – [Mind/Soul] Dream-haze projection [Rare] [Travel] [Possession]
2 – [Sense] Threat music [Uncommon] [Empty socket]
3 –