Chapter 28 Clone rights (1567)
--- FORA ---
My weight collapsed beneath me again. This place went much deeper than I’d envisioned. We would have known that fact if we hadn’t attacked the base immediately, but the faults of the past couldn’t be helped.
I glared at my leg, contemplating the benefits of sawing it off. At least then the throbbing pain would be somewhere else.
I’d already attempted healing spells, and they’d helped a bit, but in the end I didn’t have much energy left. My soul was processing it as fast as it could, but I was burning it all just to keep on my feet. It certainly didn’t help that the between in this area was thick as sludge, it was hard to get anything out of it.
The shifter cringed, glancing back the way we’d come where one could hear the shouts of the defenders, trying to regroup. I had no idea where Netun was, we’d run out of the convenient trail of bodies, and it wasn’t like that had been all that reliable in the first place. My companion shook his head and finally looked back at me. “Just get us out of here, alright? We aren’t going to find anything.”
I sighed and sat down, glancing back the way we’d come as well. They were probably closing in. “I’m going to need to make a gate, and honestly I don’t expect to have enough energy to get through it. If that happens, just leave me.”
He paused, blinking at me. “Why would I do that?”
I gestured toward my leg, and finally rolled up my leggings to help explain. The flesh was turning dark and brittle, and it had traveled much farther than it should have, nearly covering my whole leg at this point. “I think I was hit by some kind of curse. It didn’t take effect till later.” Which was why I hadn’t seen the nasty black rune hovering over my leg until a few minutes ago.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I sighed, feeling myself bleed into more of an Eliax perspective. “In all likelihood I’m going to somehow die from this, and with my luck and the fact that I’ve never seen a rune that… moldy before, it would be a miracle if I live another hour. In that light, it’s a waste of time to get me out of here.” I scowled, annoyed at the prospect of dying… again. But well that would be much easier than trying to figure out how to walk properly all the way back while people were trying to kill and capture me.
Honestly it would be more frustrating to be eight again and to lose a whole decade just for rebirth to take effect than the dying itself. Though… perhaps I could finally get a chance to figure out how to mess with whatever function of the affinity had decided I had to be eight.
At that thought, I felt my heart pick up pace as the Eliax in me faded away. This was… Sparks I didn’t want to die, why was I trying to convince myself that it was a good idea?!
I glanced down at my leg, glaring at the black rune, I closed my eyes, “I don’t want to die though, so let’s try and get out of here in one piece, alright?”
The shifter seemed to like this plan better. He nodded, drawing his sword and looking down the hall again. “Get that gate started then, how long will it take?”
“Five minutes!” I responded, pulling a nub of chalk from my dimensional storage and drawing up a magic circle as fast as I could, sketching a simple version of the double triangle in the center. Time and space. This particular version of the portal spell was meant to last as little time as possible, just to make sure nothing could follow us through.
By the time I was nearly done with the circle, there was… blood being spilt all over it.
I studiously didn’t glance upward, knowing far too well that I would either vomit—further hampering the circle—or that I might even try to stop the fighting.
A body fell beside me, and it took an iron will not to look at its eyes. It was different somehow whenever I wasn’t there during the actual death. Taasen’s brutality from before had affected me, but not nearly this strongly. Perhaps because I’d known there was no way to stop it, I’d been less conflicted.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I closed my eyes and drew the last stroke, “Done!” I shouted, finally looking up and regretting it. The shifter was covered in blood, but none of it was his own. I immediately glanced down again, finishing the spell as I took a step away from him by instinct.
The portal opened, I felt my energy drain and trickle to a stop, barely enough to rip the tear in space.
My leg gave out again.
The Shifter hurried through, glancing back at me as he did.
The portal closed.
It was such a simple chain of events, and yet I found myself staring at the empty space with wide eyes, wondering what exactly the gods had against me.
I really should have switched roles with my clone it seemed, and I found myself mourning that fact more than anything else that had happened today. Well, that and my weak stomach. Why had I taken a step back? If I hadn’t done that I probably would have fallen through the portal instead!
One of the surviving attackers stabbed me in the back.
The world went dark.
--- FORA - CLONE ---
Fora gasped as a tearing sensation rippled across her soul, falling to her knees as a sensation similar to whenever I recalled a clone enveloped her. The only difference was that this time she was the clone.
Fora stared down at her hands, half expecting to see them evaporate as she went to rejoin her true self in the between realm for rebirth.
Except…
Nothing happened.
Fora stared at them for a moment longer, slowly lifting her head to stare at Netun, who was giving her curious looks over the jar he held that contained the entirety of Aymiae’s mass. And the second jar that contained someone else’s mass. Fora wasn’t paying attention to that fact anymore though.
The clone felt her throat go dry, which was interesting because it was an entirely mental construct when she was a clone. “I… Netun I died! The real me died! What the sparks?! How am I still here?!”
He blinked at her, glancing at Taasen, who was inexplicably clean of the earlier blood. The artist raised his hands in a placating gesture, “I didn’t do anything this time!”
Netun frowned slightly, apparently doubting him, before focusing back on the panicking clone, “You’re sure? Maybe she did something to her soul?”
Fora shook her head, feeling her hands begin to shake, “No no no! I’m sure, I can’t sense the dismissal switch anymore and I used to be able to, I guess… dimly sense the fact that there was another me somewhere, but she’s gone!”
Netun frowned, “And we’re absolutely certain that you’re not actually the real Fora? It’s possible you got mixed up.”
Fora stared at her hands for a moment longer before shaking her head again, “No no, I’d be able to tell, my soul looks a bit different like this, it used to always confuse me when I made clones but… Netun what do I do?! I died!”
“When will rebirth finish?”
Fora blinked at him, “How am I supposed to know that?”
“You can always tell us exactly how long all your other spells will take.”
Fora put her head in her hands, “I’ve only used it two or maybe three times, the first time that I remember dying it took twelve years, last time it took ten. It could take eight now, or it could randomly decide to take twenty! It’s an instinctual bit of magic, I don’t exactly have control over it.”
Taasen patted her on the back, “I am certain that you can get control over it, just keep attempting it.”
Fora glared at him, all prior experience now telling her that that’s exactly how it would be. She wasn’t sure if Taasen was secretly a genius with magic or if the world actually did reshape itself based on his perceptions. “Great. Well I’ll get right on that then, right after I figure out how exactly I died, and find the precise rebirth point, and find my body in the between realm so I can figure out how that works… and…” The clone that was Fora paused, realizing that if she could observe it as an outsider then she could answer a lot of questions she’d had regarding the process itself. “This might actually be perfect now that I think about it. Spark you Taasen.”
He smiled, it still felt unpracticed but the clone got the sense that he was getting better at it. “I did nothing.”
“I still have no idea if you’re somehow lying to yourself about that.”
“I assure you, Fora, I do not deceive myself.”
Maybe that was what was doing it… he refused to deceive himself so hard that his deceptions literally became reality… Fora relaxed marginally, deciding that perhaps this wasn’t such a bad outcome after all. It was strange how this had made things feel better.
Netun had gone back to frowning at the little jars. He had the lids off and he was fussing over them like a mother hen, which was honestly kind of cute if it wasn’t for his red eyes and the literal mushrooms that were beginning to sprout from the two masses.
Fora shook her head slightly, deciding that things would be alright.