Chapter 13

Farewell for Now

~<(0)>~

The Head of the Leyline Management Team bowed deeply before the Elven Lord. He was shaking, not from having essentially failed his goal, but from the memory of HER face.

“You may rise. I believe you have a report to give me.” It was not a suggestion, but a command.

“Of course, my lord. My deepest apologies for failing to send you a proper report on the situation before leaving.” He swallowed nervously, “I had vital information I needed to relay to you directly, in person.” It was a minor lie, but one that flowed effortlessly from his lips. He had needed away from her, anywhere but around her, even if that meant facing the possible wrath of his Lord.

Almar Veiedon waved a hand as if to say it was of no import.

“The Chimeric Abomination you ordered us to track is no more.” At that, Almar’s eyes widened in surprise, before quickly returning to their more stoic gaze. “What’s more, it was defeated by one individual.”

If Almar’s eyes had shown surprise before, they showed it all the more greatly this time. “That is impossible.”

“Please, hear me out My Lord. I was unsure on the identity of the individual who defeated the Abomination beyond them being an elf, so I flew a gryphon down to intercept them after their victory. My lord… it was…” he swallowed again nervously, “Her, L-Lady Araphine.”

Surely this poor elf had been severely psychologically damaged by the events in the cavern. He had seemed sleep deprived when he had called him for this mission, but the Lord had assumed that was simply assumed that was due to overwork caused by the aftermath of the previous mission, and the overhaul of the Leyline Management Team that had been underway to hopefully prevent such a thing from ever happening again. He was about to tell him that he was dismissed, and that he should get some rest, when the other elf spoke again.

“She called me useless, said that she had defeated the Chimeric Abomination all by herself. She threatened me. I told her that I had seen her die and… she considered it. M-my Lord, I think that she is somehow the slime. Whatever happened, I don’t think she died, at least not really. That’s really her inside that body. It looks like her, it acts like her, and… do you think anyone else in the world would have even had a chance to defeat a Chimeric Abomination alone?”

Impossible as it might be, the Head of the Leyline Management Team believed in it completely. “Was there anything else that happened involving this individual you think to be Lyrei Araphine?”

“She threatened me, you, all of us.” The words had been seared into his very mind, just as her face had been in his nightmares, “You will leave this town alone. You will leave the Chimeric Abomination on the other side of the town alone. As far as you are concerned, the townsfolk killed the monster and have laid claim to all of its various remains. You will not return to this town with any sort of military force, as your presence ALONE here violates the border laws to allied nations have established. You will consider these townspeople under my protection until I have told you otherwise. You will Not attempt to harm any of these townspeople to draw me out, because if you do, I will come to the capitol and I will find you, ALL of you, and I do not know when I will stop killing.” He swallowed again, mouth feeling dry, as he felt the urge to vomit rising. “O-oh, and she said one final thing as I was getting ready to leave. She wanted me to tell you to stop trying to find her, and to ask if anything good had ever come from finding her.” He shuddered at the memory.

Almar Veiedon thought on this for a moment, before speaking again. “There are two possibilities, it seems. One is that the Anomalous slime you encountered in the caverns somehow absorbed all of Lyrei’s memories, as well as her form and abilities, but is acting on its own agenda. The other is that for whatever reason, Lyrei Araphine somehow survived, either absorbing this slime’s power, or taking over it. Either one of these situations is dire, as both involve a being of incredible power being loose in the world.” He motioned to the other elf, who was still shaking, “You are dismissed. Get rest. Remember that memory purge spells exist, should past events be bothering you. I won’t be calling on you again for this situation.” He didn’t think the poor elf could handle it even if he did, “You are to refrain from your duties to the Leyline Management Team until you are feeling more fit to work.”

As Aleon exited the courtroom, Almar mused to himself, wondering just how he was going to deal with what he considered the greatest threat Elvenkind had ever known.

~<(0)>~

It was morning and Lyrei awoke, feeling rested for the first time in quite a while, going over to the window and looking at the town below, seeing the destruction and the slow actions that were being taken to clean up the rubble. She idly hoped the town would be able to recover from the attack. She shifted away from the window and gathered the various things she had bought over the course of her stay in Fairpost, before heading downstairs. The innkeeper was busy as always, cooking meals for everyone staying in the inn. As soon as she saw Lyrei, she started to pour her a bowl of stew, and though Lyrei wasn’t in the mood to eat, she decided to do so nonetheless so as to not make the woman feel bad.

“Wasn’t sure I’d catch you this morning. I half expected you to leave before I got up for some reason. I’m glad to see you though, Miss Araphine.”

“I suppose I appreciated my sleep. I’ve gathered my things from my room, so you can use it to house more townspeople.” Replied Lyrei as she paused for a few moments from eating.

“I think everyone except workaholics can appreciate sleep.” The Innkeeper chuckled softly, a rosy tint landing on her cheeks, “Much appreciated about the room. I’ll make sure it’s ready for more people tonight. I know I’m just an innkeeper, but is there anything more I can do for you before you leave?”

Lyrei hardly felt like she could trouble her any more than she already had, and she honestly couldn’t think of anything more that she needed. “I don’t think so, though I appreciate your offer. After I’m done here, I’m just going to go out and analyse the Abomination and take something from it, and then I’ll be heading in the opposite direction.” She took another bite, chewing the chunks of potato and carrot in it before swallowing, and then spoke again, almost as an afterthought, “I have always taken something from the previous Abominations… I guess to remember that I helped take them down.”

The Innkeeper nodded and gained a thoughtful look, excusing herself and heading into her living quarters, returning a few minutes later and sitting down across from Lyrei. “My late husband gave this to me before we got married.” She placed a pendant on the table, “It’s hard for me to wear it much anymore, reminds me too much of him. It’s a poor fit for what I’m trying to do but… I want you to take this, remember Fairpost.”

Lyrei was horrified, “I-I can’t take this. It means so much to you, and I’m just a passing elf.”

“Nonsense” she stood firm, sliding the pendant further towards Lyrei. “It does mean a lot to me, and I think I’ll lose a part of me if I give it away, but that’s a part of me that’ll be with you. I could go down to the smithy and get something custom made or buy something from one of the shops or stalls… but it wouldn’t be right. This has weight to it, far more than its physical weight, if you understand. You saved the town. But even before that, you proved yourself more than what everyone first judged you as. I don’t ultimately know who you are, but you’ve been a right lovely person, and… the town won’t forget you, I don’t want you to forget the first town I imagine accepted you. Well, since whatever happened with the elves.”

Lyrei remained silent, at a loss for words. The innkeeper took up the silence, “I don’t care if you toss it aside the instant you leave the town, or whatever you decide to do. But I’m not taking no for an answer. At least take it with you.”

“Alright. I’ll take it, and I won’t forget Fairpost.” Was Lyrei’s final reply, conceding.

“Good. Now finish up your meal. I’m sure you want to make good time towards the next town, and daylight is burning.”

Lyrei did so in silence. Internally she examined the consciousness that was Ophelia, and found her in a dormant state, but nothing so severe as the last time, and assumed it was just the way she was sleeping. She finished her bowl and brought it up to the counter, going back to gather her things before heading to the door.

“Well, I assume this is goodbye, Miss Araphine?” asked the Innkeeper, coming over to collect the bowl.

“I think so, yes, save for the minor detour I previously mentioned. Goodbye, and thank you for a few lovely nights in your inn.”

“Don’t mention it. And remember, you’re always welcome to stay here free of charge should you ever be in Fairpost again for whatever reason.”

Lyrei smiled softly. She couldn’t imagine ever coming by again, at least not for the need of travelling. Maybe though, sometime in the future, she’d visit just to check up on everyone. “Thank you.”

~<(0)>~

The journey out of town was uneventful. The ruined half of town looked much the same, though the debris and ruined structures had settled somewhat. She climbed over the solidified lava flow that used to be the wall and made her way at a moderate pace toward the remains of the Abomination. The temperature had normalized, and things were relatively normal. The landscape looked alien, with sheets of mottled glass and blackened things that likely had been trees at one point. It was a wasteland and would take decades to properly recover. Lyrei formed a few small spells and started pumping life magic into the ground beneath her feet. She didn’t expect much, but it was a small effort on her part, and if it would slash the recovery time it was worth it to her. She reached the Abomination and climbed onto it, taking mental notes, and examining things with the eye of a researcher.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

When she was satisfied with what she had gathered from gargantuan corpse of the monster, she walked over to the remains of the mining machine and pried open some of the panels where she had spatially sheared it, finding what she hoped to find. Inside the machine were the shattered remains of the crystalline core that held the bulk of the machine’s enchantments and acted as the power system. It looked to have originally been a large, single chunk of crystal, as big as her if she had curled into a fetal position. Now, it was a hundred different pieces, none bigger than her fist. Lyrei fished out a few pieces, making sure to choose one of the bigger ones, examining it carefully before putting them all in her pack. The rest she would leave to the town.

She hopped off of the Abomination but didn’t head towards the town. She instead set off toward the debris that made up the limb that had been blown off earlier in the fight. She walked around the ruined limb and approached the ballista, taking a closer look at it. Without a doubt, it was elven made, and looked fairly new and well maintained, save for the damage it had sustained during the fight. That was odd… she imagined that if an elven town had been hit the Empire would have responded appropriately and worked to take care of the Abomination as swiftly as possible. Instead, it had been a surprise discovery upon tracking the main goal, which was her.

This realization planted in her mind, she began her walk back toward the town, and took a small joy in watching shoots start to break through the ruined soil. The land would heal, and with luck, so would the town.

The townspeople of Fairpost made little effort to hide their gazes as they watched her leave. However, where they had originally been that of animosity, she was hard pressed to find any sort of unpleasant expression as she left the town.

~<(0)>~

The road was as it had been yesterday, the destruction on either side of where she had blocked the flame waves slowly moving away from the road, where they were quickly blocked by trees. Once she was out of sight of the town, she pulled out the pendant and looked at it. It was a simple thing, made of bronze, with a triquetra cast into the center, threaded on a leather cord. She could have easily remade the thing a dozen times over, made better versions of it even. The thought didn’t even cross her mind. Instead, she put it around her neck, feeling the weight against her chest. She would not forget.

“(Oh, are we on the road again?)” asked a somewhat sleepy sounding voice in her head.

“Indeed, we are. Did you sleep well?”

“(If that was sleep, that was far better than when the Abomination put me into dormancy. I think I… dreamed while I slept? They seemed like your memories, but all jumbled up and nonsensical.)” replied the slime.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. That can happen during dreams, though normally you aren’t experiencing someone else’s memories. We are far from the normal situation, though.”

“(Oh, I think that makes sense. Honestly, when we’re between towns like this, I’d like it if you told me more about your past. If that’s okay of course. By the way, where are we headed?)”

The request surprised Lyrei, though she supposed it really shouldn’t. Ophelia wanted to know more about her, and that seemed surprisingly normal. “I wouldn’t mind telling you about my past. I won’t remember everything straight off, but we can pore through my memories. As for our destination, we are currently just trying to get some distance between us and Fairpost. That way as far as anyone knows, we journeyed off this direction. At some point we’re going to duck under the treeline and I’m going to prepare teleport coordinates. I know the elven expedition team left the area, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Empire has surveillance spells on the area to track my movements now that they know I’m here. We’re going to juke them and head towards our real target.”

“(Oh, I didn’t exactly think of that. It’s probably a good idea to keep out of the Elves’ eyes. Where is our real target?)”

“Ultimately, I’d like to find the origin point for the Chimeric Abomination. There are a few inconsistencies I’d like to investigate with the Abomination’s makeup, and I think that following its path will help to clear things up. Besides, it will probably be a good idea to clear up the fires it almost certainly started during its trek.”

“(Oh, that makes sense. I don’t really know that I can help you set up the teleport.)” Ophelia sounded a bit sheepish, embarrassed she couldn’t really help like Lyrei had with her.

“It’s fine, I can manage on my own. However, once we teleport, I’d like to see if we can transfer control of your body back to you, if you think you’re up to it.”

“(Oh, that would be nice. As much as it was important for you to be able to handle everything It would be nice to feel like I’m myself in my own body again. I’m not exactly used to floating within my consciousness without any direct ability to act on anything happening outside my mind.)”

“I can understand that feeling quite well. I think here is good. Let’s teleport see about switching places, and I’ll start telling you about my past in more detail.” She stepped off the road and into the trees, finding a spot that had good cover from the sky, and started to calculate entry and exit coordinates, before pushing through space and appearing a few feet above the ground in another forested area. At first it seemed as though Lyrei had fumbled the spell, but then the smell of smoke hit her nostrils. She turned toward the source and saw the forest merrily burning a mile away through the trees.

With a thought, she sent a wave of icy cold outward that extinguished a good chunk of the burning forest and emerged into the scorched path the Abomination had clearly taken. “Alright, here seems fine. I’m sure you can handle the array I’m using to extinguish the forest on your own, and even if not, I can just make a thaumic construct that you’ll just need to provide power for. I think the part of this I’m not 100 percent sure about is how we’re going to perform the change. I mean, last time it happened with the disruption of your consciousness, which I don’t exactly want to repeat for obvious reasons.”

The mental equivalent of a nod came from Ophelia, “(Yeah, while that wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience either. Do you have anything in mind for how we might do the switch?)”

“Well, it seems as though this was an automatic thing that happened. You ceased to be a viable mind, and a replacement was found in the core part of me. This makes me think that if I somehow disqualify myself from being a suitable mind, we may be able to perform a switch. If we can disrupt the… ‘controlling consciousness’, for lack of a better term, for just a moment we should be able to perform the switch.”

“(Do you think that will really work?)” Ophelia sounded unsure about the plan, “(I don’t really want to end up with you sealed away like happened before.)”

“I think in the end, there is really nothing we can do other than try it. This isn’t exactly something that has ever come up before, at least not in my realm of knowledge, so we have to take risks. And honestly, I’d much rather take the chance with me at the helm, than to have anything unfortunate happen to you.”

“(Don’t say stuff like that!)” exclaimed the slime suddenly, “(I don’t want anything bad to happen to you!)”

“Well,” answered the elf smugly, “We’ll just have to make sure it works properly then, won’t we? Listen dear, I even have an idea for the spell, I’ll just need to refine it a little and we should be able to try it out. As much as I like being in what is more or less my body, we both need to figure out if I can give you the reigns again. Besides, not being at the helm will help me dig through my memories better.”

It was a minute or so before Ophelia answered, somewhat reluctantly, “(Alright, I’ll go along with this. But… you have to promise you’ll do your best to make sure everything goes properly, okay?)”

Lyrei nodded “Of course, dear. I don’t want anything to go wrong either.” She didn’t mention the fact that ultimately, since she was in control of the body, she could have just used the spell and disrupted her consciousness regardless of what Ophelia said, but she wanted Ophelia to be as open to this idea as possible for things to go smoothly overall. “First, I’m going to make sure you can handle the spell just in case I am out for longer than a moment, okay?”

It was odd teaching magic like this, able to demonstrate and have her daughter be able to feel the shapes she was making thaumically. It was sort of backwards to how she had taught her the basics of magic when Lyrei was just the passenger. The only downside was that she could only trust Ophelia’s judgement that she had gotten the spell array correct, instead of being able to see the state of the spell and offer suggestions for tweaks. Ophelia seemed to get it relatively quickly, however, and she reached a point where she was going to have to be satisfied.

Next came the actual spell that would do the switch. She had something else she wanted to try too. Part of the issue previously had been related to the fact that the actual version of Lyrei that had been absorbed, the original Auxiliary Process 3, hadn’t actually been altered by Ophelia’s mind at all. All the new memories she had made were apparently hosted in a portion of Ophelia’s mind. However, as was clear by Lyrei’s actions during the fight with the Chimeric Abomination and afterwards, that part of her was capable of making new memories, thoughts, and experiences. She just needed to make this happen somehow.

Spells for manipulating memories existed, though they were heavily restricted. Of course, there hadn’t been a single restriction she had ever had issues getting past. Her name became practically synonymous with ‘Authorized’ when it came to restricted materials. Nothing like this existed exactly, but there were things that were rather close to what she was looking for. A few tweaks to a couple spells and Lyrei had something that should copy the mental information that belonged to her that was part of Ophelia’s mind and add it to that core part of her.

Next came the refining of the spell that would actually perform the disruption. While she didn’t exactly have a spell that could do this directly, she had an idea of the kind of wild magic that Chimeric Abominations put off, as well as her analysis of the wave of magic that hit them. It wasn’t a perfect solution, by any means, but it was what she had to work with. She merged the spells into a single array and held it in her mind.

“Alright Ophelia. I’m going to sit down for a moment, just in case we topple over when the disruption happens.” She did so, kneeling on the scorched ground. “I am ready to cast the spell though. Are you ready to take control again?”

“(As ready as I think I am going to be for this. Please… don’t mess anything up.)”

Lyrei pushed thaumic energy into the spell, pushing it into reality, and the world went dark suddenly, like a sleep but somehow far deeper.

~<(0)>~

It was as though she had been doused with water. One moment she was sitting in her own mental space, floating in an impossible void, and the next she was in control of all the complicated mechanics of her body again. She was reeling and was quite glad that Lyrei had sat down before casting the spell. It was several seconds before she felt things start to return to normal, making sure to set all those little automatic systems running so her body operated properly.

Then an important thought struck her, “Mother? A-are you there?”

There was silence for several seconds, “{I am. That… wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been. I’m glad you weren’t put through worse the first time. Sorry for the delay, I forgot that I can’t exactly vocalize in this space the same way I can when I have a body. How did you adjust to it so quickly when we switched places?}”

Relief flooded Ophelia at Lyrei’s response, and after a moment of thought she answered. “Decades of keeping all communication inside my mind outweighing the short time I’ve had a body capable of verbal-based communication.” It made sense to her at least.

Lyrei gave the mental equivalent of a shrug, “{I suppose that makes about as much sense as anything. I’ve been used to my body for centuries, so I am far more used to saying things vocally.}” she paused for a moment to switch the track of the conversation. “{If you think you can do it, you should start casting the extinguishing spell now and keep moving.}”

“I suppose you are right,” came the response as the slime girl stood up, getting used to balance again. Once she was stable, she called up the runic spell array she had reviewed mere minutes before and pushed power into it, directing the focus back and forth so it swept over the burning trees. “Everything seems to be working properly. I’ll start moving along the path of the Chimeric Abomination, I’m ready to experience your memories whenever you are ready.”