Barringstone [Westibule mountain chain], local time [1793.11.08]
“It was a pleasure to trade with you,” Zeph said his goodbyes, smiling honestly.
“Likewise,” answered Loma Asta, the woman they visited on the first day of the spiritual check-up.
After he returned to her home that evening, she warmed up to him. He did a full medical interview with her, listening to everything she had to say and asking for details, showing an honest interest in the case. Something the local Doctors have never done. He even gave her a few simple recipes for decreasing nausea, his ‘Corora herbarium’ paying dividends once more.
He also promised to come back as soon as he found the cure. The swiftness of fulfilling that promise would be quite surprising, assuming everything would go according to the plan.
“We will be waiting for good news, be safe,” added the father of the blinded girl, patting him on the back. After that, other people started to give their own goodbyes one after another, wishing them luck and easy travel.
Most of the families they visited came today to bid them farewell. Yesterday, Zeph and Aisha visited the families again, in search of useful seeds and information about rare plants in this region. They were received with hospitality, and no one saw a problem with the trade as everyone wanted to barter for more potent medicinal herbs from their collection in hopes of helping the sick.
The duo even managed to squeeze out some goods from the local specialists, thanks to the Council-signed prescription. Nothing groundbreaking, but Zeph was happy nonetheless. It was just a cover, but he planned to experiment with the plants at a later date, either way. But the deal was too good, deepening their suspicions. Especially Aisha’s – she was sure the attack would come, but she was unable to directly explain why. It definitely had to do with the Classes of people in the Barringstone.
After the heartwarming farewell, they sat in their cart and started traveling west. The small crowd behind started to slowly disperse, their hopes and fears clearly written on their faces.
Soon, the forest returned to its usual dense self, the visibility decreasing drastically.
They expected an attack right before the night, when their awareness would be waning, but the possible wards not yet applied. But Zeph was ready to receive an attack at any time.
He was fully geared, a new spear included. Sadly, he had to craft one himself, the villagers in these regions didn’t have any for selling – in the forest, it was better to use other weapons, after all.
The enchanted metal beads were at the ready in the sacks strapped to his belt.
The Stabilizing Spell was a very interesting construct. Instead of using the standard ‘element’-changing Spell-modules to create Magicules, a.k.a. the cantrips, the quality change of the Mana happened inside the caster’s body. The Mana was dragged through the caster’s brain in intricate patterns for a few moments, then traveled through the spinal column and to other bones in an even more complex, lace-like pattern, before being ejected from palm bones to the outside. The whole process was supplemented by the Soul, but the details eluded him. He could say only one thing for sure – it had to do with his residue Soul contamination, mostly the Neural and Bone groups, but also some Blood and Tissue. After all, he could recognize those groups by the feel in the Mana that came out as the finished product.
Outside, those new Magicules behaved differently than normal ones. A Magicule, no matter the kind, was always similar to the pure Mana – gaseous, easily dispersed, and easily manipulated by Will. But also, and most importantly, they were unstable.
But the strange Magicule conglomeration, that was coming out of him after the Stabilize Spell machinations, was compact, thick, and resistant. It responded sluggishly to Will or Willpower but fluctuated slightly when he moved his body.
Those Magicules were not only connected to his Soul, like all of his Mana was. They were also connected to his body in some unfathomable way. The mass was curiously conductive to Mana-Z, but resisted Mana-O, similarly to his own body. All this brought about a lot of questions he had no way of answering. He decided to call this type of Magicules a Mana-L for simplicity, naming it after the word ‘Living’.
The final part of the Matrix Stabilization Spell was easy to imitate. He just had to move the small parts of the conglomeration in a triple-spiral pattern around the active Spell’s Manaways. The Mana-L would then start to slowly sip away from the spirals and cling to itself, conglomerating around the Mana flow and encasing it. In the process it was becoming even more cohesive, feeling almost gelatinoid to him.
After filling the whole Spell that way, he had a kind of mold for an active Spell, and he just had to keep the spirals around the whole construct to keep it stable. The gelatinous encasement was resistant to deformation, ‘remembering’ the shape and returning to it every time.
It protected the shape of a Spell and limited the interactions with Mana-O and matter.
But what it had done to his enchanting was just stunning. The Mana-L didn’t like matter, going into contact with atoms much more frequently than normal Magicules. But if he seeped enough into, for example, an enchanted metal bead, very slowly filling the space between molecules with Mana-L Magicules, the enchantment would not only become almost immune to movement, the Mana-L would guide the Spell-produced Mana or Magicules through itself, instead of allowing them to interact with the metal.
He could place the whole enchantment deep in the material, and its efficiency was better than the surface-placed one.
Life detection beads, Sound detection beads, Mana highlight beads, cantrip beads, he had them all. The last type he used to power his Spells, drastically decreasing construction times. It was especially useful for ‘Lesser telekinesis’, as it allowed him to concentrate on shaping the ‘pipes’ surrounding the Force-Mana.
And the final one, his latest invention and the pride of his craft – an explosive bead. It was a new Spell construct. Sadly, because it wasn’t working without enchanting, he didn’t get the Matrix version.
He successfully combined ‘Space lens’ and Scrubbing cantrips with ‘Lesser Harden’ Spell. The cantrips provided the stretching force, the Magicules circulating along the ‘Space lens’ vortex inside the bead, while the ‘Lesser Harden’, or rather the Metal-Mana, was circulated around them in a similar manner.
Combining three Mana-guiding constructs from a modified Space lens was hard, without them the Force-Mana from Scrubbing and Metal-Mana from Harden would just travel outside through the line of the least resistance – the Mana-L. Instead, the Magicules were circulating inside the bead. He managed to find a proper ratio that only broke the bead at a very high concentration of accumulated Magicules.
Firstly, after enough Magicules were circulating, the conductive properties of Mana-L would saturate. The Magicules would start to interact more and more with the atoms. The whole structure only kept together by Metal-Mana from Harden, as it created a shell.
But Harden was set to fall behind the other two Magicule-producing Spells. So finally, a crack inside the bead would be formed, and a chain reaction would start. Along with the crack, the Spell constructs would be destroyed, the Metal-Mana from Hardening would disperse first, flowing outside through Mana-L. Following closely behind would be a wave of Force-Mana and Space-Mana.
The bead would explode as a result. The force was stronger than even the strongest grenades he knew of, thanks to the escaping Mana interacting with the surrounding matter, too. He planned to test other materials and the size of the bead. What he had now was a metal ball 4 centimeters in diameter with engraved mesh on the outside. Too small to really harm with the metal fragments, but enough in close proximity.
Luckily, because he could feel his own Mana, he knew which bead was enchanted with which Spell.
And so, for hours they traveled, in silence. Nothing was out of the ordinary, the green and yellow forest as relaxing and monotonous as always. The sun shining through the canopy was painting the underwood in smudges of light, while the forest’s critters could be heard from all around.
But, as time passed, the oppressive feeling of being watched only strengthened in Zeph’s mind. He wasn’t nervous, but the inability to locate the potential observer made him uneasy. Gru was trying to comfort him, but he was also unable to find anything out of the ordinary. Be it ‘Life detect’ or Mana feelers, he could find nothing.
He described it all to Aisha through Gru, but she just made a knowing smile and shrugged. He interpreted it as “just get used to it”, which didn’t help his mood at all.
Finally, the evening came. It was time to use some stealthy Telekinesis.
=========== Xim PoV ===========
Finally, the time is right, she thought, preparing her bow.
The distance from the village was perfect, no one would know what happened here. The pair started to set the camp, distracted. Her companions were ready, five people at each side of the road, ways away from any possible detection. She was following from behind, hidden in the trees canopy.
It’s time, she decided, sending her spying Soul-bond bird to the team on the right, and informing the one on the left through her Soul-bond wolf.
She concentrated. Through her bonds, she could indistinctly see as two Manacasters started constructing their Matrix Spells, the fighters waiting. After all the Spells took effect, they started to move slowly in the direction of the road. They produced no sound, no smell, and were partially camouflaged.
She observed, through her animal companions, as the teams came closer and closer to their prey. She was smiling viciously, expecting a quick and brutal fight. A poisoned arrow was nocked and she took aim, activating her Skills.
But life was never that easy.
Her people were 15 meters away and ready to charge, when the Warrior Priestess suddenly reached into the cart and one-handedly heaved her warhaxammer, slamming it right into the ground with incredible speed.
A flash of blue and golden light illuminated the surroundings for a second. Traces of lightning burned themselves into Xim’s retina before she managed to close her eyes.
A distant thunder reverberated through the forest as every being close enough to hear it felt an enormous presence emerging from above and among them. Everything and everyone stopped moving, paralyzed in fear, as they felt an eye of a titan glance at the area, all-seeing and evaluating.
Xim’s opened her eyes wide when she felt the gaze glaze over her Soul-bond, before settling on her. Her Soul stirred before something heavy imposed itself over it.
She recognized the feeling.
The presence disappeared not even a second after it appeared, but the damage was already done.
She marked us! She thought in disbelief, indignation, and fear. She had prepared the ritual?! They were expecting us from the very beginning! Alarm bells started ringing in her head. But how was our ambush detected? she thought, scanning the vicinity of the campsite briefly.
There was nothing of interest besides the duo.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The Priestess charged to the right, straight at their team. She was fast, much faster than she should have been. Her maniacal, predatory grin sent shivers down her spine.
She quickly glanced at the guy. He was throwing something in the opposite direction, at the charging warriors. But what can they do against ten veter—
She wasn’t able to finish the thought before a bright flash left her, her bonds, and probably everyone else blind for a few seconds.
Then, she heard explosions, followed shortly by screams. She was far, so she recovered quickly from the flash of light. She took aim again, assessing the state of the battle at the same time. She sucked her breath when she noticed one of the bonds disappearing, but forced herself to concentrate, activating her Skills in order.
She was furious.
Her wolf died, the Manacaster died, one warrior was incapacitated and another one wounded. Whatever the guy just used, halved their left team potential.
She would not allow this to continue.
On the other side, the Warrior Priestess was playing with her companions. Playing was a proper word for what she saw, the Priestess used her weapon with grace and speed dedicated for short swords, not glaive sized weaponry. Not to mention, she was able to easily use its full reach. One of the warriors was already down, the deep cut in his torso almost separating his whole left side.
On the other hand, the Manacaster on that side was struggling with something, his spells backfiring again and again. What is this idiot doing?! You will die, get a hold of yourself! she hollered furiously in her mind.
Her last Skill took effect, and she returned to the problem at hand.
Arrow after arrow, she sent them all at the glowing buffoon, timing the first arrow perfectly with the thrust the leading warrior was making.
Before the first arrow found its target, four more she sent trailing behind.
She paused from shock when the warrior spasmed mid-step, his body arching back, only to skewer himself on the spear that was ready to receive him. At the same time, her first arrow suddenly changed directions, missing the target. The same happened to the second. Third and fourth skimming off of his armor, until the last one lodged itself firmly in his chest, just under the left arm.
What is going on?! she exclaimed internally, restarting the shooting.
With his spear lodged in the body of the first warrior, and with a grievous wound, the guy abandoned his weapon and threw himself back and out of the cart, reaching for his belt.
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That fucking hurts! he screamed internally, landing on his back. His pistol was already in his right hand, the left one was unusable because of the pain and the arrow’s shaft sticking from his side.
His Telekinetic spherical barriers worked good enough at the beginning, transferring the force of the first arrow to the ground, and forcing it to skim aside because of the uneven force distribution on the arrowhead. But he wasn’t able to fill the construct with Force-Mana fast enough after the Space-Mana enclosing it was disrupted, even with the beads. The barrier was shredded by the barrage.
He abandoned the construct and moved the right shield to replace the first one.
Now, he was on the timer before becoming a pincushion. He already abandoned the Mana-L tendril he used to disrupt the mage on Aisha’s side, focusing solely on constructing his own Spells.
He took aim at the first man chasing him, the guy was already on the cart. Zeph fired two times, at his torso and face. The first shot only staggered the man, slowed or stopped by his armor, but allowed for a precise aim of the second shot.
The lifeless body fell over the cart’s low wall, flipping halfway and collapsing to the ground, not far from Zeph’s feet.
The already wounded warrior behind the cart hesitated – Zeph could see his legs under the cart from his position. So, he shot at one, making the guy fall to the side, screaming into the heavens.
Unable to shoot cleanly at the head, partially hidden behind the spokes of the wheels, he instead rolled into a low crouch, continuing the movement to turn back in the direction of the cart. In that brief moment, he got a glance at the fight on the other side. Aisha was dealing with the last two warriors while a mage was standing further behind.
But the mage was looking in his direction.
Cold shivers run down his spine. After finishing the turn, Zeph immediately lunged forward, clenching his jaw from the pain and closing his eyes. Just as he started to move, several things happened simultaneously.
The arrows started to rain down again, like a volley from a machine gun. The fourth one lodged itself in his shoulder before his body left the line of fire.
The freshly constructed quadruple-Flash triggered in a dense pocket of Mana, blinding everyone around.
A beam of Mana cut through Zeph’s Veil, hitting him in the leg. Before he could even feel the heat, an explosion of air violently catapulted him forward. He flipped midair, his scream cut short when his head and shoulders slammed into the top of the cart.
He spun wildly in the air, before landing on the other side of the wagon. Right on the blinded warrior, who was struggling to rise from the ground.
His helmet and pistol flew away somewhere, and he was disoriented. His vision was doubled and swimming as he looked at the sky. He could feel pain in his arm and chest, but a dull numbness took over most of his body.
Something moved under him. He opened his eyes wide as years of training kicked in. He blindly kicked down and used his one working hand to take out the combat knife from his belt. He could feel his kicks land on a head of a person, so he changed tactics and put a chokehold with one leg, locking it on the other one and sitting up. Fortunately, those guys didn’t wear full-body armor, their helmets were of the open type. He violently punched in the general direction of the enemy’s head with a fist, holding the knife sideways. He couldn’t see what he was doing, but after the fifth punch landed on flesh, he changed his grip on the knife mid-swing and plunged it in the same place.
He stabbed viciously, over and over again, until the dulled screams stopped and the body under him stopped resisting.
He didn’t check if the person was dead, the archer was still there. He crawled under the cart as fast as he could. He was able to distinguish it in his blurry vision, but moved mostly by touch.
He lay down on his back right there, feeling weak and vulnerable. To remedy at least one of those problems, he sent a few Mana tendrils to power up the ‘Life detection’ beads scattered around. He still could feel the connection to Mana-L lingering in them, so the enchantments should be functional.
After scanning the battlefield that way, he finally relaxed. Fuck it, next time we will follow my battle plan! he promised to himself. She is just a fucking musclehead fool!
=========== Xim PoV ===========
Impossible… she thought weakly, observing as the Priestess made quick work of the two last warriors. She had an eyesight protecting Skill active this time but even with it, she was blinded by the flash for a short moment.
By the time she recovered, it was too late.
A moment was enough for the battle to conclude. The Manacaster, or whatever the hell he was, managed to crawl under the cart. The Priestess didn’t need her eyesight at all, her smile was even more terrifying as she ruthlessly killed off her blind opponents while keeping her eyes tightly closed.
Xim wouldn’t be able to hit this monster either way – her movements were unpredictable when she twirled about with that heavy weapon of hers.
What level is she even? Or rather, both of them? Priestesses can’t fall under Nether, right? she thought worriedly. The fact that Whiff, her wolf, didn’t send her any soul fragments after death astounded her. She realized that only later, but her initial assumption, that both of them were Nether-infected, was improbable at best. She was confused and lost, nothing here worked like it should.
It’s useless. I won’t be able to finish them by myself… It’s time to bail, she decided, securing her bow. She told Tali, her bird, to fly ahead. I didn’t want any more surprises today.
She wasn’t overly worried about the mark. It wasn’t the first time she had to escape while under one of those, she just needed to outrun her pursuer and be on the move after that, the mark would fade with time.
She glanced at the battlefield for the last time.
And paled immediately.
Before the cut-off head of the Specialist Malrik hit the ground, the Priestess was already running. The woman left her heavy weapon behind and bolted in Xim’s direction. Her already impressive speed increasing with every step, accompanied by swathes of knocked-back forest fleece.
The white, almost glowing eyes were looking straight into hers, the grin never leaving the woman’s face.
A cold shiver ran down her body. She turned away and activated all her movement-enhancing Skills at once.
Concentrate, Xim, concentrate! It’s just the same as always! she thought, trying to convince herself. She fought off the urge to look back, instead using her full attention on the path ahead.
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It is a shame, he thought slowly, to die like this.
He was taken out at the very beginning of the battle, unable to exchange even one attack with their target. It was unfair, in too many ways for him to even consider. His emotions were running wild with the thought.
His eyes failed him a moment ago – he couldn’t even tell what happened to the fight.
The explosion took away his leg and broke his bones. The blood loss was finally kicking in.
The end was nearing.
He sobbed weakly, forcing his body to take yet another breath despite feeling his heartbeat slowing down.
Xim, Daium, he forced the last thoughts to form, avenge… me… I beseech you.
With that last internal scream, the Links cracked. His heart stopped. His brain started to shut down.
The ethereal fluctuations, flickering between the matter of his brain, his body, the reality itself, heeded his last call. Abandoning the dying vessel and the physical world, they moved through the existing Links like waves on a river’s surface, clinging to their collective existence for as long as possible, to fulfill the last dream, the last will. They contained all of his past feelings, were the case and result of his choices, were his driving force.
His rapidly dissipating Will was naturally transferring to his Soul, vibrating strongly inside and shaking the very structure of its form.
His brain was dead, but the Soul still exited. The Soul strengthened by the System. His perception slowly shifted, the unmoving perceptive structures constructed by the System during his life were still feeding the eternal memory – his Soul.
If he were be able to think, this would be the moment of epiphany. He could finally see, even as everything started to slow down, the time itself losing its grip on him.
The reality he knew was left behind.
He could see an infinite monochromatic world, without scale, without matter… static in its existence, forever unchanging. Planet-size recurrent patterns, small as dust. Self-replicating forests of shapes, containing whole universes deep within. The landscape changing as his Soul moved, the scale ever altering. Every shape infinitely deep, infinitely complex.
A void filled to the brim, but empty all the same, as in the moment of its creation.
He already existed there. He always was existing here. He forevermore will exist, in this unreal place.
As the last vestiges of time started to fade away, alongside the breaking Links, the Will fluctuations started to reverberate around certain parts of his Soul, connecting and gathering them together. The memories of his companions, of his fights, of his goals, of companionship and purpose. The very memories that created them.
The Soul cracked.
A big part, still vibrating with Will, fell off.
The remnants of the flickering Will in the Soul clung to their own Soul memories, spending the rest of their energy helplessly vibrating around them. In places where those fluctuations interfered with each other, the Soul become strained. As time progressed, small parts started to fall away in places where the chaotic fluctuations conglomerated in clusters.
The stronger was the emotion, the deeper was the wound and the stronger the fluctuation was.
Those parts lost all energy immediately after separating, the last remnants of Will dissipating altogether in the timeless space, forever forgotten.
Those Soul fragments were immediately transported away by an overwhelming force. The System, indefinitely scanning this strange world, indifferently executing its authority.
At the same time, the big Soul fragment filled with Will started to drift away, directed by the conglomeration of Will inside of it and moving along the weak bond created during the man’s lifetime – in the direction of Xim. That bond was the only thing allowing it a smudge of Time, but it was enough to move through this space. Or at least, this is how it should have gone.
Before the last Link broke and the Time became irrelevant, the Soul registered one last scene.
Tentacles. Pure white tentacles, thousands of them, lazily moved through the space, reaching from a place unknown. After a moment, they wrapped greedily around the fragment, and a gigantic abomination of shapes rose from below, alien to the rest of the strange world. The size was enormous enough to create waves in the space, but empty enough to float freely. Its eyes scanned the vicinity, before it moved along, pushing away every other shape in its path, no matter the size or density, slowly submerging in the same darkness it came from and dragging the fragment away against all that was natural and possible.
The bond was broken, the space distorted. The monster moved in seconds, recreating eons of change in the Soul landscape.
The Soul perception structures were unable to pierce deeper into the alien being – its Soul wiggling in ever-changing patterns.
As the Time left the Soul alone, alongside the last fading Link, the stolen fragment made a contact with the main body of the giant entity.
The Will immediately fluctuated down the newly created Link, searching for purchase, as it was in its nature.
It found nothing.
The crystal structure of its brain was impossible to influence. The Will dissipated shortly after, losing all of its energy by crashing with the crystal walls of Mana and physicality. The giant didn’t even register its existence.
The Soul fragment was quickly integrated, the memories it contained lost all coherency after being exposed to the alien Soul. The giant didn’t even understand what it had just done.
“Gruuuum,” the content vibrations reverberated heavily in the vicinity as it sent the newly integrated fragment to Zeph.
Meanwhile, the very same Zeph was bombarded by System notifications.
Congratulations! Resetting process…
Congratulations! You leveled…
Congratulations! [Skill] diverging…
Congratulations! New [Skills]…
[Shaman] is…
A shame he was preoccupied with 'quickly losing consciousness' affair at the moment…
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Interface:
It's a clifff, you know?
But seriously, this list is long and this chapter is on the verge of breaking 4,5k words. I need to place a line somewhere :P.