As the wolf worked against her armour, Val slid her sword out of its scabbard. Taking a blind swing, she bashed the pommel on the furry leech’s dome. It growled as her attack struck true and its maws released her from its grip.
She cradled her throbbing arm, brain hyper-focused on the next attack. The swish of liquid, the hum of sand, the banging against dirt, the baying beasts—Val blinked at the sensory overload.
“Guys, it’s not turning off!” Caro yelled.
Silann’s muttered curses floated across like a slight breeze to her ears. Air circulated, and the fringes of Val’s coat began to flap. Integrating into the Striker’s spell, a wind current hefted the brown grains up, revealing the battlefield.
At the Support’s flick of a hand, the sand carried on in its dance away. “Cut the channel to the spell.”
“I already did, for fuck’s sake!”
“Not just the aether—your thoughts, your attention, your will. Everything that manifested the spell needs to go for it to go,” Silann countered. “Stop wasting your mental capacity.”
Mouth opening and closing for some time, Caro settled at her reproach, lowering her head and focusing on within. Instructor Hawke would’ve yelled at the negligent action, demanding laps for the display of carelessness during an ongoing battle.
Good thing there wasn’t one anymore.
Eleven corpses stared at Val. She gaped, a slain wolf merely two meters away, throat slashed. All of the one-starred creatures were taken care of amid the chaos. When? She cast a glance at her teammates. How?
“A little help here!” Eyebrows pinched in concentration, sweat glistened Rick’s dark brow. His palms wavered each time the motherwolf lashed at his earthen shield. Cracks riddled its entirety and the sight of a furious parent peaked through the hole-strewn walls.
A pale grey took form in Silann’s eyes. “Can you hold it for half a minute more?”
“You’re going to have to rely on Ronny for the last five seconds,” he got out through gritted teeth.
“That’s fine,” Aeron said.
As one, the three got to work. Aeron closed his eyes and his arms rose, straying wide. At the motion, water surfaced from the ground. The yellow grass wilted as its nutrient-full liquid left its grasp. He consolidated water the size of a small pool, forming a ring around the crumbling barrier.
Meanwhile, Silann continued to mutter her spell. Weapons brandished, the two Strikers remained vigilant for any surprises. Earth Trap exploded at the motherwolf’s vigorous body slam and she came charging through.
“Water Fetters!”
Aeron’s ring of muddied water split into four smaller versions of itself, latching onto the aether creature’s ankles. The Anchor’s face turned red as he exerted his maximum will, his mental strength against its physical prowess.
A sensation of a thousand knives passed through and the three-starred creature ceased all protest.
“Wind Saw,” Silann muttered. True to her Path, a catalyst of destruction, a clear blade of sharp wind current spun past, sawing the Rick-sized wolf in half.
Val didn’t see the spell, she didn’t hear it and she sure as heck didn’t smell it.
The only evidence of its existence was the fine line of red evident on the motherwolf’s rich pelt. Gravity plied the two halves apart and a web of crimson strings stretched between the ends of the beast, permitting a slew of guts to spill out.
Promptly swiveling around, Val ejected her entire breakfast wrap.
“Damn,” Caro gagged at the smell.
Silann sighed, shaking her head. “And that’s why I prefer arrows.”
“Take what you can Si…” Aeron’s jab trickled off as the Captain turned around, a prominent vein jutting out the side of his skull.
“Bo, please deal with the sparklet leaves. Strikers.” Rick’s blue eyes contained fury. “A word.”
The pair glanced at each other, almond-brown to viridian green, before walking toward the Bulwark, steps dispirited.
“It was our first battle and I know it being a mob didn’t help. However, what you displayed was shameful. More than shameful. Novice Hayes, what on Spiravale was that spell? It’s the direct opposite of what a Striker would cast.”
“I thought it would help,” she answered.
“Strikers and Anchors utilize directive disciplines. Control is the literal essence of your Path.” He gestured to the battlefield behind. “Did you see control? I definitely didn’t.”
“At least her spell hit the target,” Silann joined in, her focus on Val. “We’ve been made aware of your minuscule ASC. It’s all the more reason to ensure you can aim what little you can cast. A miss in your case often spells death and it would have, should we not have been here.”
“You guys weren’t the same adventurers we tested back in A of A. Those girls had hunger in their eyes, the heat of magma in her swing and the cool collectiveness of Glaze in her stature.” He shook his head. “I’m talking to recent high school graduates right now, graduates that aren’t capable in the field.”
“Done,” Bo said, handing a wrapped container to Rick. He shouldered his way past Val and Caro and the leaders followed his lead, abandoning the girls in their disappointment.
“Well shit.” Caro kicked up dirt, head swerving as she watched Silann whisk away the corpses into her storage ring. “Those rift-runners make it look so easy on their streams.”
“My parents made it look like a walk in a park.” Val’s attention hitched on the pools of red staining the beautiful carpet of amber. “This was anything but.”
“I feel like I’ll get used to that,” Caro inched closer, displaying the molten ring adorning her digit. “Did your thing—” her gaze flitted to Silann and she quickly changed course, compensating for the wind mage’s otherworldly hearing “—I don’t know, wire a game system in your head too?”
“You got it also?”
Caro bobbed her head vigorously, like a baby duck. “Did you catch any of it?”
Val shook her head. “Heavens, they sped past my vision.”
“I managed to read the important parts,” she said, “I think I’ll tell you later, though.”
Nodding her approval at the deferred conversation, Val’s mind wandered to the mysterious runes engraved on the band of ink. She never would’ve thought it possible after the catastrophic fight she’d just shown, but the ring refreshed a heap of old struggles.
She’d memorized dozens upon dozens of runes, yet none of them fit together to create a semblance of anything able to work. Books stretching from amateur to advanced helped a total of nil. It was great that she could survey an enchantment and discern the order behind the placement of the characters. But if she didn't understand how it linked, then what was the point?
Master Winsford made it clear: memorization wouldn’t elevate her a level above the rest and plug the massive holes in her lacking knowledge—comprehension will. In the same way fortune favoured the brave, true knowledge belonged to those with insight.
Unfortunately, as Winsford mentioned, she either had it or she didn’t. There was no in-between, no halfway point. The more she struggled, the more she grew afraid that she might be of the group who couldn’t enchant.
And you couldn’t blame those who ended up in the latter half of the pile.
The same rune could act as a consonant, vowel and word in one go! With such a foundation, deciphering hidden nuances in a matter of weeks was near impossible—and she needed to achieve just that if she wanted to catch up with the competition.
“Not the time to be spacing, V,” Caro said, gloved hands on her hip.
“Sorry, sorry,” Val rubbed her forehead. “Enchanting’s been giving me problems and this—” she waved the ring “—brought it all back.”
“Maybe that’s the least of your worries.” She jabbed a thumb at the gathering team. “I think we should be prepared not to be called back.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Huh, like one of your exes?”
“Girl, is there always the need to joke?”
Val cracked a smile. Caro persisted a grand two seconds before one of her own split her lips.
“I was going to cheer you up,” Aeron strolled up to their party of two. “Yet you two look as if we’d suggested throwing you a party.”
Caro grinned. “I mean, you still can if you want.”
Aeron’s expression mirrored hers. “I have something else in mind. C’mon.”
The Anchor walked them to one of the last corpses left unpicked by Silann and crouched, gesturing for them to do so as well. “We talked about the most precious thing in rifts. A close second are the creatures themselves.”
He sifted the ends of the coat with two fingers. “The fur here could be used by artisans, crafted into clothes, accessories and furniture.” He prodded at the sharp canine teeth. “These could be used to create alchemic tonics, among other things. The whole carcass is a mine of money, including its energy core which many, including myself, believe to be of good value.
“Unlike those video games Caro likes to play,” he paused, twisting to face her. “Can I call you that? Caro?”
“Yeah, for sure.”
He beamed. “As I was saying, unlike in video games, they don’t dissipate into light particles and give you the energy core as a whole. We have to harvest it ourselves and that takes work.”
Val hummed. “Do we need any tools?”
“Just our skills. The first task in harvesting is to detect the energy core. To do this, we need to use one of the Five Aetherial Arts.” He pointed to his eyes. “It’s called View of the Vague.”
“Sounds like a skill in LIE,” Caro mused.
Lines filled the Anchor’s brow, confusion evident.
“Life in Erindale,” Val supplied. “It’s an RPG game that she—you know what, this isn’t important. Please continue.”
“Okay…” He chuckled. “Most just call it Vague View. Fewer words, easier to say. Its beginning is simple. Solely stream aether to your eye sockets.”
Val coaxed out the remaining energy lingering in her sternum, filtering it into veins and following its pathways. “What are the other levels?”
“The next is when you experience a jump in elemental affinity, then you'll see elemental traces,” he said. “Let’s focus on this, for now alright?”
“It never ends with her questions,” Caro remarked.
“Shush.”
“You know I’m right.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You sure?”
Aeron’s laughter cut across their bickering. “Focus Novices, focus.”
And focus she did. Veins were hard to maneuver, thin and easy to break. It seemed to be a mess to sift through the retinal area.
“Don’t think,” he said. “The system’s a little problematic. Command the aether to your eyes. It’ll reach there by its lonesome.”
Val exhaled, untensing her eyelids and simply falling into a relaxed state. Move, she thought and the energy obeyed her will. As the aether reached her retina, the reds and oranges of Ashless Forest traded out for blue.
So much blue.
It was as if an ocean swirled in, washing away the warmth of the rift and introducing her to myriad shades. She glimpsed at her forearm and witnessed rivers of energy circling her bone, free and yet restricted. These have to be my channels.
“Beautiful,” the artist in Caro spoke.
“Now I want you to take a look at the wolf’s corpse,” Aeron asked.
Val bowed her head to take a look. Signals fired across her neurons, working hard to convey the perceived information in varying tones of colour. A candescent orb resided in its underbelly. “Is that… its energy core?”
Aeron nodded. “The next step is to carve it out. This part is a lot trickier. First, layer your palm in energy like so.” Val deactivated Vague View, catching the pink in his open hand disappearing as a glove of aether wrapped around.
“My soul signature will repel the Wind-Pyro Wolf’s soul signature and naturally…” He edged closer and the dead body began to crumble, withering exponentially as seconds ticked away. “Its corpse will open up for you.”
Trying to get her aether to breach her skin felt like an insurmountable task. In the end, both she and Caro failed after a few attempts—and Val, long out of energy, could no longer try.
“It’ll come to you,” Aeron said, the voice of compassion.
“I think it’s about time we go.” Rick waited by the edge of the grass. “Who knows what this fight has attracted.”
With that, the team packed up, gathered the last of their things—arrows, corpses, thoughts—and filed out of the stone-overhang.
~
Val lost track of the time, spending the day slaying the aether creatures crossing their path and gathering the inquired herbs. Setting up tents at midnight turned out simple, the canopy of flames giving ample lightning.
Before long, two cloth homes stretched open, rain cover assembled above. As was apparently custom in dives, the newbies were in charge of nightwatch on the first day. Val, using her nightowl likeness due to numerous late shifts at work, convinced her friend she’d be on the first rotation.
Sitting on a felled log, she settled into a ruminative mood, the cracks of the flames above the perfect underline. The moving shadows, the golden forest floor, the fire-laden trees—it was something she’d want to spend with family.
With mom.
Life’s Hymn. The words rattled in her brain, near in her thoughts, far from her hands. She didn’t quite grasp the reason the world claimed Aether Abnormalities unhealable when a simple potion would do away with it in a second.
Searching for it in the days past, she found that it wasn’t the condition being unhealable at fault. Rather, it was the cure being unattainable. Struggling to obtain the whereabouts of the ingredients, she wondered why she couldn’t save up and buy the potion itself. Made and whole
A few seconds drained in the internet cafe and she learned that it wasn’t even up for sale. Worse off, no alchemist on Spiravale would go through the grief of getting the ingredients themselves.
That was her job.
Val sighed at the endless pattern she was falling into.
When would it end?
----------------------------------------
A being lingered, roots spread underneath the rift.
It had been waiting for the perfect specimen and the short human perched on one of its fallen brethren seemed to be a good pick. While the human’s metallic scent was icky, something lay beneath. Something so inexplicable it rivaled the oracular hum resounding from the south.
Something powerful.
As the Prophesied dictated, it was to eat and it was to grow.
The humanoid seemed the best choice.
Silently—not sneakily, for this one did not sneak—it curled its branch-like tendril around the humanoid’s ankles. Quick to act, it clamped its prey’s mouth. None shall defer its advancement.
Wallowing in the Ashless forest heated its branches and certainly, as shown by the squirming thing in its grasp, its extremities seared the human’s flesh where it touched.
Embracing its source of growth, it started to blanket the human in its arms, for assimilation had begun.
----------------------------------------
Val had been gazing at the sky, hoping to spot a star through the unreasonable amount of light pollution, when trouble sought her out.
A branch of an elemental snatched her leg, another one clamping her mouth shut before she could scream. Fire raced up her legs as its grasp aimed to cook her ankle. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—
Celeste’s Tear flared, its fluctuating radiance replicating Val’s panic. Heart hammering at her ribcage and arms shackled, she couldn’t shield her body from the damage accrued as she was hauled over an uneven tangle of roots.
It dragged her deeper inside the forest, further away from the squad’s cleaned-out space, and slammed her against its sweltering trunk.
A muffled scream joined along in the birds’ trilling song.
Val watched with wide eyes as branches grew from nowhere, wrapping around her limbs and holding her tight. A feeling soaked her bones, soaked her entire being.
Tiredness.
Her eyes closed, ready to embrace the darkness—
C’mon Valpal. Dad’s words sprung to the forefront of her mind, bringing her back to those desperate times within spars. Don’t you dare stop now.
“I won’t,” she whispered.
Unsheathing the knife strapped to her thigh, she struggled against the creature’s grasp with all her might. Aster echoed her fright and spurred its activation. One line of clear script raced across her blurry vision. Her head whipped down, as instructed. A core glowed within the wood-fire elemental, shedding light under her calves.
She jabbed her dagger straight into it.
Immediately, it let her go, and she collapsed into a heap of pain. Breathing in a heat-laden breath, she pushed herself to stand and limped on the balls of her feet. Fear burned away to reveal adrenaline, and adrenaline unveiled strength as she burst into the clearing. The team shuffled awake at the noise, crawling out of the tents’ safety.
Caro rubbed sleep away from her face. As the haze of slumber wore off, she took in Val’s condition and gasped. “Valory, what in the hell?”
Val shivered against her will, with no cause for it within the hot atmosphere except fear. “T-there’s an… An eleme—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Silann whisked away the tents into her storage ring. Her purple, high-end nightgown swapped into a ranger’s attire mid-stride, a pack of scrolls in her hand. “We need to move. Come.”
Hobbling over at a snail’s pace, the team raced to dress up. Rick hefted on his chest plate, snapping in the clasps to his minimalist armour. Fingers moving in a mysterious motion, Aeron drew water out of the ground.
Bo was nowhere to be seen.
Val winced as the wind mage applied the talisman to her burned skin. A soft golden light enveloping her ankle, she let out a relieved sigh as the pain abated.
“Sorry for the trouble,” she mumbled.
“Attacks like these happen every day in rifts,” Silann looped the Striker’s arm around her neck, supporting her as they trailed after the rest of the team. “It’s exactly why the death ratio is terrible. You did well escaping, okay?”
Val nodded, glancing over the shoulder towards the elemental.
----------------------------------------
The humanoid struck its one weakness—of all places! A failed endeavour, but one of minimal effect. There will always be others to follow suit.
The Prophesied demanded so.