B1 | Chapter 41: Detainment and Discourse_Reclaimer Redux [LitRPG Portal Fantasy]

Suraiya watched Lycinia walk with a mix of consternation, fear, and overriding confusion. It had been over three hours since their convoy had been taken captive, and even after they had been reunited with the rest of their people; the Elyseans’ pace had not wavered. Suraiya had expected some measure of caution or wariness from the Desolation natives, but instead they appeared to prefer speed above all else, and answered her concerns about the blightspawn with polite indifference at best, and hostile dismissal at worst.

The latter was the most common, she’d found.

The Princess had learned quickly that Lycinia was the best person to stay near, after she’d attempted to wander off and interrogate a different one of their captors, all in the vain hopes of extracting some measure of knowledge out of them. She could recall it vividly, like a bad memory of personal clumsiness she wished she could erase.

Valour had cantered some small distance away from Lycinia, toward the more interior parts of their new convoy arrangement, which had the Stormharrow natives sequestered between a surrounding perimeter of Elyseans twice their number.

The few attempts at resistance, or tries for freedom, had resulted in a thrashing that had ensured the souls attempting it would not make the same mistake twice. It had been all Suraiya could do to convince the Elyseans—specifically Lycinia, who seemed to lead them—to spare their lives.

She had exchanged firm nods and reassuring smiles with those who had met her eyes when she ventured Valour into the convoy’s ranks, and though few returned more than a grim stare or look of worry; she did see straighter backs and firmer footsteps among those that received her attention. Her perceived lack of concern was, in some measure, enough to embolden their spirits.

For the moment.

When Valour finally crossed the distance to her target location, Suraiya had guided the courser up beside an Elysean striding across the desiccated earth with an almost jovial, loping stride. He was attired in the same manner as the rest of them, with white linen reminiscent of bandages obscuring every inch of his visible skin, a scarf wound tightly over his face and head to leave only his hair and eyes visible, and an obfuscating black-brown cloak that covered his body with only his arms, legs, and head visible.

He’d carried three short spears and a chitinous buckler as armament, with a curved shortbow and quiver for good measure.

She had wondered momentarily if he also possessed a sheathed scimitar on his hip, as she had seen so many of the others carrying in the infrequent moments their cloaks had been brushed back, or tousled by the stop-and-start dry breeze.

“Hello,” she had greeted him in her most charming voice, after properly entering his proximity atop Valour. “Might I ask for a moment of your time, Ser?”

Suraiya had injected every ounce of charisma and ‘princess charm’ she possessed.

His response had been less than optimal.

“I have little enough time for you Godsworn bastards without being nattered at by a propped up doll, girl.” the warrior had replied in a voice so venomous it had made her reel back as if he’d actually slapped her. “Take your untempered backside away from me, before I decide to discover whether your pale peach of an arse turns red or blue when beaten.”

Suraiya had opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again… and then to her shame, she’d chosen discretion over boldness and had promptly heeled Valour away and back towards Lycinia.

If she had returned to the woman’s proximity a little faster than she’d left, and closer than she had originally been, that was simply something the princess had chosen to poignantly not notice.

Lycinia had of course laughed at her return, and addressed her with the same mirth colouring her regal voice. “I take it Voranis had no interest in enlightening you as to what our purpose is?”

“How did—?” Suraiya had sighed and given up before even finishing the question. “No he did not. He was quite… direct about the consequence of continuing to disturb him.”

“I’d tell you not to take it personally, your highness, but unfortunately I would be lying.” Lycinia had shrugged at her in a disconcertingly casual manner. “For all that you may not understand or even comprehend, the reality is that you are as much the enemy as the rest of your gods-licking sycophants.”

“I cannot correct some perceived wrong if I do not even know the charge!” She had retorted with a flare of frustration and perhaps some residual anger from the embarrassing conversation with Voranis.

“Perhaps not,” Lycinia had conceded, “but are thieves not condemned regardless of whether or not they knew that theft was illegal? Are traitors not hanged regardless of their motivations for the treason? You may plead ignorance, Suraiya Karelian, but ignorance does not exonerate a criminal in your homeland—and it does not exonerate one here, either.”

Suraiya had not been able to formulate a response to that, and the conversation had ended there.

So they continued on, and what few attacks by belligerent blightbeasts that emerged were crushed by the hardened warriors that had taken their convoy captive. Suraiya had taken to watching Lycinia as time went on, largely because the blighted and black-brown landscape around them—even with the occasional hill or noxious pond thrown in to ‘spice’ things up—was uninspiring at best and existentially terrifying at worst, reminding her of how far and out of reach they were from any chance of rescue.

Watching Lycinia was, by comparison, downright cathartic.

A perplexing desire to try to bridge the cavernous divide between her and the strange, charismatic woman had gripped Suraiya ceaselessly despite her best attempts at shaking it. Since the moment they’d first been corralled and led off she’d developed a growing fascination for how easily Lycinia controlled the Elyseans around her, and how respectfully deferential they were to her every word.

The woman had only to offer a glance or alter her tone, and it was the same effect as a general bellowing at the top of his lungs, or a king lavishing riches and praise upon a victorious knight after a tourney. Lycinia was the fulcrum around which the entire group revolved. Even Titus—who Suraiya had noticed refused to do more than glare at her and the rest of her people like they had kicked his pet hound—deferred to Lycinia, though it was almost akin to a grudging sort of acceptance.

Not unlike the interactions between family members.

It was an observation she’d filed away for later review.

No matter how much Suraiya observed Lycinia and her interactions however, there was an air of enigmatic mystery to the woman that no amount of passive observation—even after being trained in it for the Royal Court—could properly pierce.

It hung over Lycinia thicker than the cloak that obfuscated her body, and with greater saturation than the damnable heat of the accursed blightlands that they travelled through.

As much to distract herself as to see if their recent misadventures had netted her further improvements, Suraiya pulled up her personal information on a whim.

Name: Suraiya Vasilia Augusta Tollarius Karelian

Temper: Untempered Novice

Core: Radiance Core (Ignition Stage)

Level: 24 | Race: Human (C) | Origin: Highborn (E) | Gender: Female | Zodiac: Lion (E)

Health: 250 | Mana: 136 | Stamina: 130

STR: 43 (47) | AGI: 31 | DEX: 31 | VIT: 25 | END: 35 | INT: 34 | PER: 22 (24) | WIL: 34 | CHA: 55

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Spirit Skills: Mana Channelling (UC) 23 | Inspiring Presence (R) 21 | Empathic Link (E) 21 | Radiant Strike (R) 20 | Sacred Flame (R) 23

Traits: Royal Scion (E) | Fast Learner (E) | Blightbane (R)

Titles: Princess (E) | Knight (R) | Blight Hunter (R)

Languages: Common

34% to Level 25

You have 2 Skill Points Available!

You have 1 Skill Upgrade Point Available!

Her time in the Desolation had been, if nothing else, incredible for her advancement. Between the bonus Strength from her new Blightbane Trait and Blight Hunter Title, and the new levels across her Skills as well as the three Attribute Points she invested in Vitality, Suraiya was far stronger than she’d been when she’d departed Stormharrow.

The silly girl in silks and a crown had been left behind to die under the claws of Skarnids days ago.

Only the warrior-princess of Stormharrow remained.

Well, for as much as that was worth at any rate.

She dismissed the data at the same time as her eyes swept the forces surrounding her and her people, and her momentarily buoyed spirit dampened once more; as readily as if she had been thrown under one of those massive, oppressive-looking cloaks covering each of the Elyseans. She was fairly certain she’d have cooked if she’d been forced to wear one.

An idea for discourse occurred to her in that instant, and she pounced on it.

“Lycinia, may I ask you a question?” Suraiya said while heeling Valour forward.

“I don’t see why not.” the Elysean woman replied accommodatingly.

“The cloaks you all wear seem rather heavily stitched for the land you travel. I already know you all to be far more capable than my own retinue, but I must confess to some level of bewilderment. Are you not near to melting beneath those layers?”

Lycinia had turned to look at her when she’d started speaking, and by time Suraiya finished, the Elysean woman had fixed an impressed look on her.

“Well well, princess. You are sharp. What a fantastic way of disarming me.”

“I was not—!”

“Very well.” Lycinia cut in as if Suraiya had not spoken. “I will play your game. To answer your question: no, the cloaks are neither oppressive nor restrictive. They are stitched with runic choirs that repel the heat, maintain a stable interior temperature, and allow for greater blending in with the landscape. It is why even the scouts that weren’t working for us never found those we sent to observe you.”

Political Intrigue is now Level 23!

“I see…” Suraiya said with genuine surprise at the wealth of offered knowledge. “And the, ah, bandages?” she ventured hopefully.

“Tch. You’re too greedy, Suraiya. Too greedy by half…” despite her words Lycinia’s tone was amused, and perhaps even just a little approving. “The wraps are called sarvellum. They protect us from the contagion and purify our bodies of its clinging taint.”

“The what?!” Suraiya asked with sudden, and genuine alarm.

“You have not noticed your poison resistance gradually increasing?” Lycinia asked with an amused tone. “It is because of these lands. Absolum and Eidania took advantage of things to corrode Elysea, following the Fall.”

Lycinia spread her arms and Suraiya could hear the sarcasm in her voice when she continued, though it was spoken without overt malice. “Witness the glory of your gods, princess. Their great work stretches all around you, in blatant defiance of all of Solarius’ supposed teachings of righteousness and beatific protection.”

Suraiya stared around them with a hollow feeling in her gut. “That… that can’t be true, surely. I know you have queer ideas about the gods, Lycinia, but this… everyone knows the Desolation was caused by the—”

“Elyseans?” Lycinia asked with mirthless laughter. “Saying ‘everyone knows’ is no different to saying ‘the lies we are fed’, princess. You have lived under the thumb and thrall of the Grand Ascendancy all of your life, and yet somehow you have managed to completely miss the rot that extends out from its foundations, and infects everything.”

Suraiya licked her lips at the disdain in Lycinia’s voice. “There are always a few rotten—”

“Solarius is a lying piece of shit, Suraiya.” Lycinia cut in flatly. “Your vaunted ‘King of Kings’ stole that title from the true one, much like he stole the narrative of the Prime Material. I do not blame you, per se, for your utter lack of understanding. After all, you are a victim of their dogmatic influence perhaps more than many others, given your—” she sighed abruptly and shook her head.

“Given my what?” Suraiya prodded immediately with an interrogative tone.

“It does not matter right now,” Lycinia said with a dismissive wave. “All will be revealed to you in time, and there are some things that are not my place to unveil. Fear not. You’ll have your chance to rail against the injustice of it all in short order. We are getting close.”

“I…” Suraiya sighed and gave up the argument before she began.

Lycinia was not a woman easily budged, she knew, and if she was under orders to obfuscate then it was very likely she’d be as likely to violate the command as Ser Gilbert.

A pang of deep concern, and fear, struck her at the thought of her bodyguard, and shame flushed her cheeks a dark red. She had been so caught up in observing Lycinia that she had barely spared a thought for her valiant protector, spirited away like so much refuse by the mysterious ‘Nicoli’ Lycinia had refused to elaborate on.

The man had to be Fourth Temper, but the implications of that were…

Suraiya shook her head. Ser Gilbert would be okay. The man was built from adamantite.

Instead, she focused again on her surroundings and the announcement that they were ‘close’.

“I see nothing but more accursed blight for miles.” Suraiya said finally. “The land here is flat enough that I can see to the horizon. Unless your mysterious Sanctuary is underground somehow, I don’t see how we could be any closer now than we were three hours past.”

“Underground? You have some odd notions, Suraiya.” Lycinia replied with amusement, and a seeming return to casual cordiality.

“My notions are sound, thank you.” Suraiya replied with a habitual sniff of regal disapproval. “I may be out of my element in this forsaken hellscape, but I’ll have you know that I am quite capable of seeing a settlement on a flat plane, and there is nothing here!”

“Patience, princess.” Lycinia said with the same amused tone. “You’ll see soon.”

Suraiya held her tongue at the other woman’s words, but her mind raced. The only logical alternative to a settlement on the Desolation’s craggy expanse would be some sort of underground safe haven, or far less likely one of the legendary soaring cities rumoured to exist through the Realmgates. Suraiya had never had reason or permission to venture to the other Realms, especially without a single Tempering to her name; but she had heard stories.

Supposedly there were entire cities in Aevum or Hellistrom that soared through the clouds on pieces of earth torn up by the power of ancient mages, but she found it unlikely—no matter what she’d been told by supposed first-hand sources.

The other Realms were already miniscule compared to the Prime Material, and their only real purpose was to delve into the myriad dungeons and Worldshards that appeared in their domains.

Even then it was often safer, and far less expensive, to simply partake in one of the many Dungeons that formed in the Prime Material. Travelling the Realms was made out to be glamorous, but in truth it was little more than an exercise in thrill-seeking.

The only known exceptions to such were the Faewyld, the Void, and of course; the Highest. Mortals were not meant to enter such places, and even the Faewyld—the most accessible of the three Higher Realms—was at best only mostly guaranteed to kill you.

If its denizens and creatures didn’t drive you mad, or enslave you first.

Even thinking about visiting any of the Realms in too large of a group was reckless bordering on suicidal, however, and so she ruled out the idea of a Realmgate housing the Sanctuary that Lycinia had spoken of. It was well-documented that taking too many souls through a Realmgate attracted… unwanted attention. Nightmare attention. The kind that kept little princesses up at all hours of the night shivering in remembered terror.

She bit her lip at the thought, and divested herself of the images that arose.

Her eyes swept across the Desolation once more, and Suraiya tightened her armoured hands on the reins of her horse.

Some things were best left unknown.

B1 | Chapter 41: Detainment and Discourse

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