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Before we begin....
Hello, it's been another 100 chapters and three months you've been with me, so, It's time for me to put things out there again!
I can use the help!
Crazy as it may seem, writing is actually one of my methods of support, and perhaps unsurprisingly, COVID hit it pretty hard. A year and a half ago when I started, I had plans for including fan art by being able to pay decent artists for work here, as well as paying my rent on time.
But people have been having at least as tough of times as I have, so there's that, and life has gone on.
I've had some very good, very serious supporters on my Patreon, and I thank them loads for it. They've really been a help to me.
But I want to do more with my stories, and for that I simply need more support.
I post a chapter every day. On top of that, I'm 144 days AHEAD of the public chapters on the writing, meaning that if I'm laid up or can't write, there's still five months of chapters there waiting to be uploaded.
Every chapter is about 2000 words, or 7-8 pages, which works out to about 240 pages a month, or a complete novel.
I am consistent, reliable, dependable, and if you've been here for 300 chapters, hopefully you like my stories! :)
So, I can use some support and help. Writing takes time and effort, and I'd like to do more with the story so I can afford to pay people what they are worth and add to it. My Patreon links are up above, and even if you only want to send a one-off my way for publishing 2 million words of content... I'm not proud, I'll buy gas with it.
Also, send more readers my way! In the top forty stories on Royal Road, I have the lowest number of followers! I would like to see more readers enjoying the stories, how they interlink, and the metaworld behind them. More readers is more supporters!
The original stories still need to get out there, another thing taking time. With more support, more things become possible, and I'd love to do it all.
So, be it the first time you've supported someone, or adding me to your short list, I can use all the support you give me. It's not extra money... I'll use it all.
Thanks for your help, and now we continue with the story, and Traveler's conversation with her acquired half-sister!
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-She’s here, My Lady.-
“Come, Azaia.”
I had no need to stay inside to be protected from the climate, and, like so many others, this was not a day to stay inside.
The sun was out, and it was shining down.
People had been warned over and over and over again that staring at the sun would burn out their eyes without glasses. A LOT of sunglasses had mysteriously come into existence and been ready for sale, simple flexible wraparound things snatched up by the literal millions, and people were outside, not bothering to sit inside at computers or books under artificial lighting.
The sun was out! The sun was out!
Over a thousand people who had been children when they last saw the sun had died today with smiles on their faces. There were people coming here from all over the country, driving day and night to get here while the sun was out, the stars were out, and they could see the moon.
There were no places to stay, but a lot of parking lots and parking spaces were full for dozens of miles around, cars parked along sides of the road, and fields bearing nothing but snow had snow tents and clusters of people in them, farmers opening barns for shelter, and similar things.
The sun was out...
This was what the world should look like, full of life and light and color. There was no doubt whatsoever that North Americans would do whatever it took to bring back the sun forever.
Those at the edge of the effect could see the Haze writhing, black and swirling, hate lightning crackling here and there in red-black anger, but held back by gentle whorls of holy light and power. For now, it could do nothing.
I didn’t tell them that I could probably Cast a similar spell every day, and keep this hole in the sky constant. The Shroud would eventually work up resistance and start pushing it back, cutting the duration down to a mere twelve hours tops... but that would just mean Casting twice a day, which I totally could do.
No, this was just to give them and the world a taste of what it meant to be under the sun once more, which so few humans, only the older Powered and the dwarves, elves, and gnomes, remembered clearly.
It was time more of them did so. It was time the children pointed at the screen and not cartoons, and said, “I want to see the sun!” when they saw others playing now, in real time, real color, and their parents looked at it and wanted the same thing.
I Have Seen the Sun was the music of the day. Everybody listened to country music today.
There would be no chance of stopping the deaths of the Shroudzones. It might be tempered and paced, but it would not be stopped. The people would once again see the sky that was their birthright, and even if it meant things from outside the world would be coming down, they would fight for it.
They would never take the sky for granted again. Maybe in a couple generations, those would be born who had always seen the sun... but then, there would be a place they could go to fight that which had sought to take this world, and was still out there... and could come back.
Thus, I was outside, under the sun; the meditative park behind the temple to Sylune was washed in color like it had never been, even if those were mostly whites, creams, and blues, given the nature of things.
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Azaia Morningwind came into the clear area, saw me floating there, and hesitated only a moment before coming over. I rose to meet her calmly.
She was a classic halvyri beauty: pale of skin, Morning-gold of eye, and pale, silken cerulean of hair. Her Bloodline was Empyreal, although she’d not chosen to make Sorcerer Primary, and only had a Level in it... and gained recently, I guessed. She resembled her sisters and her mother... and would resemble me, if we were next to one another, although I was a shadow to her sky, by any comparison.
Her attire was whites and blues, silks in patterns of clouds and ribbons, moving with the grace of a dancer and the ease of someone who had been the focus of attention all her life. She seemed to prefer sapphires, hardly unexpected, and with some little magical surprises in them, too. From her file and proven by that wooden horse, she preferred working on exquisite small things that delighted those who had them, instead of big grandiose projects, and was very good at determining what the recipients of said Toys liked.
I naturally knew her personal file front to back. I could name all her teachers and masters, where she had lived, most of her childhood friends, what pets she’d had, what grades she’d gotten, her first and favorite spells, her essays and reviews and assessments, and more importantly some of the minor but enlightened contributions she’d made to magic, proving that she was indeed one of the most gifted spellcasters in the world.
Of course, she’d gone about it all wrong, and was now slamming into the Nine cap that had once meant halvyr were the elite of the elite. That she’d made Nine before turning twenty-five was impressive enough on its own.
The modifications to her Aura were naturally gone now. I watched her calmly as she stopped a couple steps away, soundly tongue-tied and not knowing what to say. The fact she could actually stand in front of me was actually taking some effort, as she was instinctively expecting a kind of impetus or force from the Lesser Geas discouraging her from ever contacting me in any way.
I sighed calmly, and gestured her to the table. “I think you need to have some coffee and sit down, Azaia. I have some bad news for you.”
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She stared at me in a mixture of disbelief and comprehension. She didn’t want to believe that she was here too late, that she couldn’t finally meet and talk to her little sister, who had finally gotten her magic and become someone so important.
She understood that it explained everything, and took refuge in more coffee, swallowing urgently as her thoughts raced, wondering what to do.
“Let me say that I don’t have a very good impression of your family, especially your mother, Azaia,” I went on calmly. “However, that little horse... thank you for doing that. Elrii knew it was you, but also knew enough to never tell anyone.”
She started to cry then, tears of frustration welling up and spilling down her face. Unable to reach out, unable to do anything for her own little half-sister for her whole life, only watch the train wreck continue on, and finally, at the end, the miracle that had happened... had not.
She was too late!
I reached out to take her hands, and she clutched them, then almost jumped at the feel of my Aura. I was severely tamping things down, and she hadn’t been in the Ritual to feel me doing anything, but even in her grief, it was not something she could ignore.
“How, how powerful are you?” she had to ask, staring at my hands, her sorrow arrested by the sensation of holding onto something of such overwhelming might. Her voice held foreign accents, the product of living in a dozen countries, all overlaid with the precision of a spellcaster’s voice, and a halvyr’s natural way with words.
“I am a Faux Wizard Fourteen, using the Helix Method. However, I have constant Spell Power boosts that enhance my Caster Level significantly, and it is that you are sensing.” I peeled back my Aura slightly, moving my Masteries and the like out of harmony with my Base for a moment, shocking her even more at how easily I parsed it.
“This...” she stared at my hands. “Would... would Elrii have been this powerful?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “I AM using her Bloodline as the foundation for all of this, Azaia. But, no. She would not have had the knowledge base that I possess. She would, however, have been at least as talented and powerful as you.”
Her eyes dimmed again. “Is there any way you can bring her back?” she asked me quickly, urgently. She glanced at the sky tellingly. “I saw that you can return people from the dead!”
“That is something I also considered. What do you think the answer is?” I asked softly.
She stared at me, and slumped again, another hope cruelly dashed. “May I, may I ask why?” she asked hesitantly.
“The first rule is that if you want to Raise someone from the dead, you need to have a largely intact body in good condition to do so. There is a problem there.” She blinked as she looked me up and down. “Yes. This is not her body anymore, it is mine. Trying to bring her back to this body simply would not work, as the spell would look for me.
“The second reason is that the Shroud directly interferes with magical attempts to subvert its hold on souls. Effects like trying to power Reincarnation or longer-term Resurrection, which basically concern the cycle of life, are completely interdicted by the Shroud. It won’t let you take a soul that long gone from life, nor will it let it pass to another life. You can yank it back if the string is short enough, but you cannot send it forward.
“Once the Shroud is gone, perhaps she can be Reincarnated. But until then, she, like every soul who has died beneath it, is trapped in the Shroud.”
Azaia grit her teeth. “You can help her reincarnate?” she asked quickly.
I shook my head. “I will not be here. There is something I can do ahead of time, yes, and I aim to do so... but it will involve true reincarnation, not a spell.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be here?” she gasped, clutching my hands. “Those... I saw the stars! There are... things out there! We, we need you!”
“The process which brought me into this world tied me to the Shroud. I am Shroudborn, and very strongly, at that. When the Shroud is broken here, I will be drawn away, to another world, with another Shroud, to free the souls trapped there.” I tilted my head slightly. “So, this world doesn’t need someone like me, Azaia Morningwind. It needs someone like you.”
“I, I don’t understand...” she sniffed a bit, her eyes wide.
“You are a Mystic Theurge of Sylune, with an Empyreal Bloodline. You literally embody all that is best about magic.” I smiled in approval. “I, on the other hand, have been given Ur-Priest Levels, so even on a world totally cut off from the gods, I can steal Divine magic and use it. I have been given Blighter Levels so that I can tear power from the Land for Druidic power, even if the Land is constrained and suppressed by the Shroud.
“I am definitely not the ideal person to lead the world to a new age of Silver Magic.”
She gaped at me, at the silver crescent and sword around my throat. “But, but,” she strove to say, and couldn’t find the words as I flicked up a trio of Darts, and Holy magic gathered around them. “Are you, are you... a bad person?” she asked weakly, not daring to believe her eyes.
“No, I am not, and that is Truth,” I replied softly. She quavered and gawked as the Word coursed across her, eliminating her suspicions and fears. She understood that I had not pretended to be her sister because I simply could not lie about such a thing, and I was not showing anything false to her now.
I knew Truth. If I engaged in falsehood like that, I wouldn’t even understand the Word, let alone be able to speak it. There were things I might not speak to her, and if her own conclusions were false, that was on her, not me. But I would not lie to her.
She let out a long breath, and I found myself smiling. Despite her Levels, she wasn’t very worldly, and certainly not the combat type. She had gained her Levels on an academic and public services level, doing research and breaking new ground in spell variation and cross-school combination magicks that would eventually lead to the Arcane Fusion spell if she kept at it along the right course.
That alone would secure her place in history. It was one of the best spells that existed, regardless of Valence. I hadn’t shared it with Heavenbound Hall yet, and, if I gave her some encouragement on the right road, I wouldn’t have to.
“Are you interested in being my apprentice?” I asked her directly.