Visions of bloodshed flitted through Azura’s mind as pain surged through his entire body. Agonizing pain, but he was able to withstand it. He had been no stranger to pain lately after all. Now the place it was originating from on the other hand, that was a new kind of pain. A thin cut on his cheek, he was barely even grazed, but it appeared that was more than enough. The cut felt like all the pain he had ever experienced condensed in one incredibly small place. He fought to keep his mind clear in the deluge of pain and the visions that had changed from violence to him being in control, he’d say if nothing else evil him made good style choices, the majestic crown was primarily white with gold inlaid creating a swirling pattern with gems at the center of little spirals.
Trying to close his eyes didn’t stop the images, and no amount of magic eased the pain. In fact his connection to his magic felt unusually far away. Just like that voice he could faintly hear. He felt those should have some significance, but even with his best efforts it was hard to focus on anything but the pain. Worse, something was making an assault on his very soul, or rather than an assault it was more accurate to say it was trying to merge with it and take dominance. He refused it with all his might. He would kneel when he had to, but he’d never submit. Not to anyone, not to anything. He was nobody’s pawn.
The images started flashing faster, and the pain began to slowly intensify, making it even harder for him to focus. The visions were everything he had ever wanted, but he knew better than to believe in the promises of whatever was doing this to him. Even while his mind was fuzzy and unable to think clearly he knew that this whole situation was wrong.
Memories came to the forefront of his mind. Memories of what they had done together, the assault on the princess, and the elf looking at them with fear as she slinked away no longer intent to fight. The flood of magic and power the dagger had offered his copy. His resolve strengthened once more. Perhaps life would be easier if he was willing to control with fear, but if he was just going to live like his father anyway, he might as well just give up his dream of freedom.
He felt the rage and hatred of the existence trying to merge with his soul. It didn’t seem to have a consciousness, not really, but it really had some powerful magic going for it, and it seemed to have a will to some extent. Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. He tried to soothe the presence. Excluding calm while in agonizing pain was not an easy thing to do, but he did it nonetheless. The pain intensified, as he started to reach out to the presence, and the hate and rage started to unravel unveiling… fear?
***
To say Katy was worried was an understatement. Her best friend's copy had apparently gone rogue, and was currently trying to kill him. They had all been trapped in their rooms until Cynthia had managed to get them out with Azura’s instructions, but they couldn’t find him anywhere. Even Luna couldn’t find him, and she had expanded her radius through the whole town. There was evidence that he had been there, but then he suddenly disappeared. “I can still feel him, but he’s not responding anymore, it’s like he can’t hear me.” Then there was that, Cynthia had suddenly lost contact with him, which was extra concerning.
“We know he’s alive, and somewhere nearby, so why can’t we find him?!” If it was any of them in this situation she had no doubt that Azura would know how to find them. Roran was probably the only one in the party that could compete with Azura in terms of intelligence, but his magic was too focused on destruction for him to be able to do the kind of spells Azura could to figure out these situations.
“Cynthia, you said you could only detect him with the help of Luna’s familiar right!” She whipped her head towards him. It seemed as if on cue Roran had figured something out, but if his panic was any indication it wasn’t good news.
“Yeah, she said his spiritual presence was so strong she’d be able to feel him regardless of what world he was in. She’s out of commission now though. It took too much energy for her to link me to him.” Cynthia had already told them all of that, what was Roran getting at.
“Right exactly, so he’s not in this world! We should have gotten that much right away, but we panicked. We need to calm down and think through this carefully or we’re going to end up carelessly skipping over obvious information again.” He was right. They had all heard what Luna’s familiar said, and yet they rushed around looking for him anyway. She took several deep breaths as they all did their best to calm down,
“Ok so we know he’s not in this world, so what do we do?” She could feel her familiar, so whatever dimension he was in it should still be connected to this one. Her eyes widened, that was it!. “Wait, I got it! He still has our familiars with him if we all set up the summoning ritual at the same time perhaps Azura will get teleported here with them since they would all be with him.
Roran’s eyes lit up as a smile grew on his face. “Right idea, wrong execution. I’ve actually been working on a way to reverse the summoning so we get moved to our familiar. Just in case Azura ended up in over his head. It will take me a few minutes to set up, but I’m fairly confident it will work.” She nodded, and got out of the way with the others to give Roren space to set up his magic circle.
“Man, that guy sure causes a lot of trouble doesn’t he?” They all laughed. Lily definitely had a point, trouble followed Azura around like a baby duckling, but he certainly had a way of getting himself out of it, which made her all the more concerned that he was still in whatever situation he was currently in. It was finally her turn to get him out of trouble, and she wasn’t going to let him down.
***
Lily was just as worried as the others even if she didn’t show it as much as they did. She had known something was up with the copy, but hadn’t been able to place it. When her familiar had seen the dagger even he hesitated before its blade. It definitely wasn’t holy in nature, so a cursed blade so vile even a demon would shy away brought up some very obvious concerns. The copy's surprisingly aggressive attitude certainly didn’t help ease the concerns, especially not when the other copy seemed just as concerned as she was.
“Ok the ritual circle is done!” Roran shouted excitedly while having them all stand at a spot around the large circle. “Now I’m no Azura, slapdash rituals like this really aren’t my strong suit, usually any ritual I make would take several days to put together.” She cleared her throat. She knew better than to let Roran rant. They’d be there all day. “Right so to the point, this is going to drain a lot of magic, then it’s going to drain even more to fill in the gaps in the spell, so whatever trouble he’s in we’ll be on fumes to try and help him out of it. Just wanted to make sure everyone was prepared and willing.”
She rolled her eyes, who would back out now? They were a team. None among them would deny it, they looked after their own. It warmed her heart to have friends like this after so long of living in fear, but she could get the warm fuzzies later, now they had a friend to save. “Skip the theatrics already, let’s get this done.” The others nodded at her and Roran smiled. Roran began chanting as the circle began to glow brighter and brighter.
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The breath was quickly sucked out of her as she began to realize Roran wasn’t kidding about how much mana the spell would drain. Even spreading the burden among all 6 of them, she felt as if mana was just flooding out of her. It didn’t take long before some of them ran out of mana they could surrender. Katy fell to her knees, probably having given more than she probably should, but she wasn’t the only one spent, Luna had probably ran out before her, and Siara ran out not much later. With 3 of them out the burden on her Roran and Cynthia became even greater.
It took a little bit longer before Cynthia and Roran finally tapped out, leaving her to supply the entirety of the ritual's mana, but that was fine she had the mana to burn. Still her circuits weren’t designed to have this much mana going through them at once. It felt like she was being torn in half, but she didn’t stop, even as she fell to her knees. The ritual had to be almost done right? Thankfully just as she started to worry she wasn’t going to have enough mana the ritualy finally stopped as a bright glow took hold of them and they disappeared.
***
When the light faded, and they were able to see again the sight wasn’t exactly what Luna was expecting. Instead of a raging battle between Azura’s she was greeted with the sight of a catatonic Azura with glazed over eyes. And the copy’s dagger in his hand. “A-are you ok?!” She hadn’t stuttered around them in a long while, but she felt she could be forgiven for it given the circumstances.
If she was being honest she hadn’t really expected him to react, but part of her was disappointed that he didn’t all the same. She desperately thought about what they could do to help him, but she was almost completely empty. She had given almost everything she had to the ritual, and continued to send what little mana she managed to recover, as such she didn’t even have enough mana left to enhance her weapon, much less her body.
“Maybe if we take the dagger fr-”
“Nooo!” Lily cut Katy off. Everyone looked at their fire wielder in surprise. “That dagger is all kinds of messed up, there is no telling what would happen if we messed with it, we could end up permanently damaging his psyche or worse his very soul. Well that was definitely not good. She knew they were technically even now, but she didn’t really feel good about repaying him saving her life, by leaving him to go off on his own, and she certainly wouldn’t repay it by damaging him in any way.
Before any of them had a chance to respond their familiars all appeared from around Azura, and jumped to the master who they hadn’t seen in months. She was happy for her friends to have their familiars back, but she was still more focused on their currently unresponsive friend. She knew they had only even gotten this far because her familiar had helped open up a connection with Azura, but she couldn’t help but wish her familiar was here at full power so the hatchling phoenix could give healing Azura a try. Cynthia was a fairly good healer, but only really handled physical wounds. Not whatever was going on now.
***
Roran was glad to see Caelum again, and the bird nuzzling his cheek made it pretty clear his familiar felt the same. The familiar quickly realized how low on mana he was, and he felt a soft light filling his reserves somewhat. “Thanks buddy.” He gently rubbed the sunbird’s head in appreciation. The bird cawed gently at him. Vague impressions of what had gone down on his familiar’s journey with Azura didn’t give him a very clear picture, but he at least had a general idea of what happened. He was a little concerned about the part where Axura dissolved, but since their friend was right there he was going to assume he misinterpreted that bit.
“Thanks for keeping him safe, I really owe you one.” As much as he’d love to keep catching up with Caelum though they had more important things to worry about. “Did anyone get any information from their familiars we can use to help Azura right now?!” He doubted any of their familiars were any more in tune with this kind of problem than Caelum was, but it was worth a shot.”
“Actually, yes, but you guys really aren’t going to like it.” He already didn’t. Nothing against Lily, but her familiar was a little concerning, he wasn’t exactly willing to put Azura’s life in the hands of a literal demon.
“What is it?” Katy’s tone was an equal mix of cautiousness and hope. She clearly wasn’t any happier about the source than he was, but she seemed to be willing to hear the demon out. He wasn’t so sure he was, whatever the demon said couldn’t be trusted, and if they heard it, they would just be in the same position deciding whether to implement it.
“He says I might be able to absorb the curse, something about my unique magic devouring it. If I’m careful, I should be able to do it without injuring him.” Nope, not a chance. He trusted Lily, but they had all seen what happened when she lost control of her unique magic. They wanted to save Azura, not reduce him to ashes.
“Maybe we should look into alternate solutions before we try that one.” If anything Lily looked relieved to have been shot down. He couldn’t blame her, that was a lot of pressure, even if it was with a power he was super familiar with he’d still feel uncomfortable trying a procedure like that here with so many variables. “He still can’t seem to hear me, or at the very least he isn’t responding at all.” He could tell that message was just to him, and he understood why. Panic was starting to set in with the group, and Cynthia certainly didn’t want to fan those flames. To be honest he wasn’t really sure what else there was to do.
***
Azura was confident he had finally found the solution to his current issue. The dagger didn’t have any emotions per se, but he had figured out why it seemed to. It was actually pretty similar to his copies in a way. The maker had imprinted their feelings into the dagger when it was made. If he had to guess he’d say they were forced to make the dagger, and the spite and fear were what ended up inside the blade itself. The blade itself was of spectacular craftsmanship, and aside from the curse had some pretty powerful magic stored in it.
He could probably destroy the dagger and free himself from his current mental prison, but if he could find a way to purify it instead it would become a very valuable tool going forward. As such it was very convenient that spirit magic happened to be his specialty. He focused deeply on his connection to the dagger, being very careful not to let the dagger's influence affect him too much he in turn started spreading his influence into the dagger.
As violence and bloodshed was sent to him, he sent calmness and serenity to the dagger. As dreams of himself as king were shared with him, he shared his dreams of freedom. As the dagger's malicious power flowed through him, he in turn shared his mana with the dagger. It was a battle of attrition. A game of corruption and purification, would he fall, or would the dagger be cleansed? There was only one acceptable answer to that, and he had no intention of letting it end with any other result.
Power surged around him as his spirit clashed with the grudge held within the dagger, not to damage it, but to purify it, to end the fear that had been imprinted into its very blade. His copies memories were coming at him in droves now, trying to overload him no doubt, but he had grown a lot from the him of 2 months ago, and would not be so easily swayed. His silver enchantments turned into molten gold, as white scales formed over his skin.
The swirling mana in the air clashing between red and blue, as his mana combated the cursed mana of the dagger. He could feel it, a power he hadn’t held before his journey, perhaps a new title that would serve him well. This time for sure, he wouldn’t just seal it away, but cleanse it altogether. He was strong enough now, he knew enough about curses now, he had grown enough now.
With the magic he had found in himself after his purification in Avalon he would actually be able to call himself a curse breaker. The red began giving way, as the blue swirled around the dagger turning the black miasma into a golden light. The dagger began to emit particles of life as the red gem turned a brilliant blue, and the hilt shafted to white. The silver blade, and a golden line go along the side until it intertwines with the line from the other side to form a beautiful blade pattern at the point.
He had done it. The curse was broken, and all that was left was for him to take the blade. The dagger had been used for a lot of bad things, but he swore that it wouldn’t be used to kill anymore, it was a tool to protect now, and with that resolve he took the dagger from the air, and was enveloped by a brilliant light.