"Tears are no longer enough for me. I believe today will be the saddest day of my entire life. How could it get worse than this?"
-The Siege of Tears Last Wills Report, Page 2
Daniel and Gulliver returned to their usual lesson spot a couple days after the soul link, giving the artless boy ample time to rest. A little ways away was where they conducted the soul link itself, the ground around the area charred and burnt. Daniel didn't know if that was normal or not, but decided it best not to ask right now; Gulliver's mood looked foul. Even if Gulliver told Daniel that he was content after the interrogation - only after dragging every little piece of information out of him about the formation of the soul room in the process - the man looked the opposite.
"Sit." Gulliver said, gesturing towards the usual place, with a particularly grim expression. Daniel didn't feel the need to say a thing as he sat down, directly facing the platinum as he did much the same. "What do you know about the Node Ceremony?"
"Uhmm... You mean the ceremony you go at when you're seven?" Daniel asked, and Gulliver confirmed with a shallow nod. "Well, you go and meet with a person who is a specialist on things about souls, and they perform the Node Awakening process on you; if you have no Node, they'll confirm, and if you do they will attempt to identify which type. If that fails, then they'll go through advanced testing which, I believe, happens at Alandriel. Any new Arts and new Nodes are then inscribed into the Guild's Grimoires of the respective Arts, and new ones may be created if required."
"That is a very good description, Daniel, especially about the process beyond the normal one. I imagine your father told you about that just in case you inherited his Arts. Except you're wrong about one thing. These so-called 'specialists' are often just silver or low gold ranked Guild members who are taught the process then sent out. And the process isn't the Node Awakening process at all, it's just a simple detection."
"What do you mean? I thought Nodes are supposed to be activated or else they can't be used?"
"Daniel, have you ever thought about why the first wielders of Nodes could display their abilities without an awakening ceremony? They simply picked up their Nodes off of the dead corpses of the gods, and flaunted their power as they wished. And children born with Nodes don't need to go through the ceremony either, as many children inherited Nodes, children younger than you were during the ceremony. The actual Node Awakening process is for Nodes that don't work properly, Nodes that don't form a connection with their holder's soul. The ceremony you went through as a child is merely a way to detect that connection and inform the child of their Arts." Gulliver droned, face still solemn but growing lighter with a strange emotion, something hard to place. Yes, that's what it was: determination.
"Have you ever thought about the civilisations and tribes not a part of the Guild's influence? They don't have people going out to conduct the ceremony for them and their children. I doubt they even have a concept of such a ceremony in the first place. People who were lucky enough to be graced with a Node simply, one day, find out."
Like Nyn, Daniel thought, nostalgia and loneliness coming in like a flood. I wish she was here.
"Now, this all seems like a novel topic, irrelevant to you completely with no use for your studies on the soul. However, I want to bring your attention to this. To be artless is to be cursed. In the minds of some, they view you as weaker and something to play with, like a toy. In the minds of those still religious, they view you as shunned by the gods, deemed as unworthy of their last graces and not strong enough to inherit their wishes of vengeance. In the minds of most, you are nothing. You are seen as a rarity among those with Arts, something that should not exist, and, in spite of the abundance of Nodes available to you, you were chosen by no Node.
"So why do so many artless people exist?" Gulliver paused, leaving a long enough gap of silence to make Daniel realise it was a question.
"Because... maybe... the Nodes are running out?" Daniel said, a look of surprise coming across Gulliver's face. "I know you're about to refute me, but hear me out, okay?"
Gulliver, giving a silent nod and a smile, urged the boy along.
"Nodes are the fragments of god souls, right? The souls were smashed into pieces after they were all killed by Galem, yet they held too much power to simply dissipate. They stayed around and were taken by mortals. That was over a millennium ago now, and there were only so many gods, only so many fragments, to go around, right? So, what if artless people are supposed to be rare, but due to a lack of Nodes still floating around, more people don't have them?"
"You would be correct." Gulliver grinned uncharacteristically, "However, the Nodes are still bountiful in number. We are predicted to have another hundred or so years until the number of Nodes really starts becoming an issue. Not to say you aren't wrong, but I must say I'm surprised you came to that realisation first, rather than the one I essentially led you to. That proposition is the sort of thing modern philosophers ponder about, so nothing for you to worry about now. The thing I was trying to lead you to was this:
"What if, the reason there are more artless around than expected, is that the ceremony itself is flawed?"
"Wouldn't the Guild have found out about that flaw and corrected it then? The ceremony has been in place for centuries, someone must've discovered it?!"
"Ah, still naïve to the world even after all that's happened to you. To put it bluntly, Daniel, the Guild doesn't care if it is flawed. The ceremony's sole goal is to find people who already have access to the Arts so they can be tricked into joining the Guild from a young age. Not only do they not have the resources to, but they don't have the time to properly search every child's spiritual space - the place where a person's soul resides - for a Node. Therefore, they go the easy route; searching only for the connection. Anyone without the initial connection, they are labelled as artless and forgotten about. The Guild only cares about those who they can easily train, someone they can do the bare minimum with, and then send off into the war to fight.
"Occasionally, children falsely deemed artless do end up earning a connection whether that be through pure effort, or assistance from an actually trained specialist."
No, he can't be saying what I think he's...
"Sometimes, children and adults alike realise they do have a Node, but have not the skill or resources to form a connection with it."
It can't be-
"More often than not, though, they never find out that they're not artless. And they live their life in misery for it."
How can it-?
"Daniel, this is a very roundabout way of saying this, but I wanted you to know the full picture before I said it."
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Why-?
"You aren't artless."
"..."
"I know you may be surprised-"
"Can I be on my own, please?" Daniel muttered, eyes empty and expressionless.
"I will leave you be then. Take the day off, Daniel. I am happy to talk whenever." Gulliver finished before standing up and walking away. Daniel knew all the questions he would have asked would've already been answered, completely encompassed by the prior talk; still, he never expected him to walk out like that. Without a snarky comment or lecture, the platinum left him alone.
Alone.
Oh so alone.
He wasn't artless.
Daniel wasn't artless.
Daniel...
* * *
Looming over her, Nynae stood in front of the Precipice. It was a large marble gateway as high as the Guild cathedral itself, towering over anything the girl could have imagined before coming to Alandriel, even the Guild entrance itself. Embossed with a green vine motif, cracks in the frame of the Precipice were hidden behind its patterning, and occasionally actual moss and vines. Lanyon had told everyone beforehand that they were going to the Voidlands on this day, but it had never really sunk in until they were standing in front of the portal to those very wastes. If there was at least one thing she would've never guessed about the Precipice, was that it looked so majestic in spite of its dreadful destination.
"Class 1-B, over here!" Lanyon called out, waving in front of one of the smaller portal frames in the large portal room that housed the Precipice. Every porcelain in the Academy was assembled here today, no matter what class they were in. It took a while to navigate through the crowd of her fellow porcelains, all congregated in the middle of the room, all unsure of where to go, what to do. Eventually Nynae found her way out, but her friends were not as fortunate; from where she was she could see Connor directly in the middle unable to move at all, and Sid's head was peaking out around the edges of the crowd but mostly unmoving. The brothers were already with Lanyon, alongside a few others from her class.
"Class 4-A, over here!" Nynae heard another teacher call from across the room. With that a large majority of people in the crowd started to move, allowing others from her class to escape to Lanyon. It seemed the vast majority of porcelains were in that bracket.
"Ah, Nynae, are you ready for the expedition?" Lanyon grinned at her, his smile giving the impression of 'knowing' something.
"As much as I can be, Sir."
"Better than nothing I suppose. Kurai said he wasn't ready at all!"
"Sir, don't say that!" The slouching boy called out from behind, with the other brother trying to hide his chuckling the best he could, shut down with an uncharacteristic glare from Kurai.
"Sid, Connor, are you ready too?" Lanyon asked, looking towards the two who had just come out of the crowd and were walking towards him and Nynae.
"I'd say the same as Nynae said, Sir." Sid answered for both her and Connor, the boy nodding along.
"That's fantastic to hear! Come, join your friends, it'll be a long wait after all." Lanyon said, before marching forward a bit and resuming his shouting. "Class 1-B, over here!"
Shuffling over to the brothers, she and her friends huddled together near the back of the sparse class crowd trying not to attract any of the lecturers' attentions.
"Gulliver, how's the weapon business going?" Sid whispered, as she began to chant an art. "Scholar Arts: Manifest Concept, Dagger"
With a flourish of soul energy, hopefully concealed, a dagger spun itself into reality in the girl's hand from a bouquet of colours, impossibly sharp and beautifully crafted.
"Well, we know we have you sorted. I used the reliable noble's excuse to pack more things in my bag than was allowed, not used to being on my own after all." Gulliver smirked, adding a little wink at the end. "You two then?"
"We've got our side sorted." Kurai spoke for himself and Seiichi, revealing a couple blades under the woolly jackets they brought, "And have some spare for Nyn."
"Thanks a bunch, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't inconspicuously buy anything major, just a knife in my bag from the dorm kitchen." Nynae confessed, patting the small backpack on her back. "So, what's the plan?"
"As we discussed last night. Be on the defensive, always. Take alternating sleeping shifts, and keep a weapon on you at all times, no matter what the lecturers say." Sid rehearsed, a nervously curled smile on her face, "But, I am surprised. I thought it was only us and 1-A who were on the expedition?"
"I believe the proper expedition is only for Class 1s. The others are barely going to go more than a 10 minute walk from the other side of the Precipice. I don't even think they're going to stay for the night either." Connor revealed, peering over at the slowly dispersing central crowd he was once stuck in.
"Doesn't that harm our chances of this being a trick then?" Seiichi asked, peering out from his brother's side.
"I don't know at this point. Better safe than sorry though." Sid half shrugged, while giving Seiichi her best impression of a reassuring look.
"Lanyon didn't seem suspicious when he talked to me yesterday," Nynae said, "He seemed just... normal."
"Lanyon spoke with you?" Connor asked, concerned.
"I'll tell you about it la-"
"Everyone, go to your lecturers! We are preparing for transit!" The class 1-A teacher announced, standing up on the steps to the Precipice, before stepping down and ushering his class over. He looked rough when compared to how he was when Nynae first saw him, during the first training exercise everyone had. I guess that's what happens when one of our students is snatched away from you without being able to do a thing, Nynae surmised.
"Alright, come over here then!" Lanyon called over, taking a place nearer the front of the Precipice as Nynae and the others in her class followed. "Try not to soil yourselves, everyone, this'll be a doozy."
With a chuckle or two from Lanyon's comment, the room began to fall quiet, smothering the laughs in an instant. Although Nynae had only a beginner's introduction in sensing soul energy, tapping into her sight and seeing through the material realm and into the spiritual, the sight was mesmerising. Pure unaltered soul energy coursed through the cracks of the massive gateway like arteries pumping blood, undulating and shifting in incomprehensible ways befitting that of an artifact dating back to the time of the gods. Finishing with a shaking of the Precipice, soul energy exited the frame and entered the empty space that the gateway outlined, solidifying slightly. Wait, it can't be...? Nynae thought before being cut off by exactly what she had imagined she saw. Soul energy was manifesting itself in the physical realm as well. Forming into an arrangement of spikes, the materialised soul energy stood still for but a moment, before stabbing into the space in the middle of the Precipice. At least, that was what she initially thought. The spikes dissipated as they stabbed into seemingly thin air, until fractures in reality itself began to form, before bursting into a great nothingness that swallowed the entire gateway, many a gasp and exclamation escaping the porcelain's throats. Nynae imagined that she was among those who gasped too.
The great nothingness contracted slightly, compared to the great flood it was when it first fractured, shaping itself to fit the form of the Precipice. When the last gap in the gateway was sealed by the nothingness, it settled a bit more, taking on more of a colour than before, almost like a dull grey.
"Precipice is engaged; porcelains, follow your lecturers through!" The class 1-A teacher announced again, out of sight this time, with the rest of his class presumably.
Shaking away the sinking feeling in her stomach, and glancing at her friends' also nervous expressions, Nynae put on her bravest face and followed the group marching with Lanyon. Tentatively walking up the Precipice's steps, Nynae barely glimpsed Lanyon walking straight through into the portal and disappearing behind its great emptiness. It was more terrifying that it had initially looked, now that she was face to face with it, preparing to walk through it. It was only when Connor came up and put a trembling hand on her shoulder, that she unfroze. Noticing both of their apprehension, Nynae reached up and took his hand in hers, giving Connor a thin smile. Together, they took one step forwards, into the Voidlands itself.