Ruined City [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczO8FFTKq4H-wld8ljPH2B4BDnakYzftpbdIakqNNsYidPMPFj8JY8tA2d07UjhRZn4HJKy6rpFMcb-dFzSFdTFUy-6PnfVu8rp0j4dl0cwLEChZOYVK2IWE-kiyh8_5cnnk1DI0LuoyEkgUAziNHNeH=w613-h919-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Asyamil respectfully watched from a distance with a collection of her colleagues and friends back on their main command ship. The Ivy Caster that had agreed to go with Roimeldor in exchange for their withdrawal from Makera was going through a very special process that most realities hadn’t discovered a way to replicate yet. She wasn’t even certain where their ancient leader had discovered it, but the Hollyhock Caste ritual was capable of unlocking the memories of a soul’s past lives.
After using one of their soul analysis devices to verify the bond between Roimeldor and Naira’s newest host, the strange Caster had agreed to go with them and learn about their history across the greater cosmos.
Watching the uncertainty on the young face morph into recognition and then utter joy as they practically tackled Roimeldor in a hug, the onlookers couldn’t help but cheer for the reunited Soul Mates.
She knew their business wasn’t quite finished in this reality, but it was nice to be able to celebrate one more victory. The last of their people’s Lost Souls to reclaim and reunite.
The initial group of Soul Reapers had been formed long ago and had been relatively small from what she had been told. They had slowly grown over time as the members found more of their various Kindred Spirits, who, in turn, had more to find. It was especially exciting when they found a Soul Mate –which was a specific type of Kindred Spirit– but any type was always greatly appreciated.
Asyamil had only been with the group for about two thousand years, needing to be reconstructed a handful of times simply due to old age and never having quite gotten to Hollyhock despite her internal musings. However, within those two millennia, she had been reunited with both of her Soul Mates and three other Kindred Spirits: a Soul Sister, a Forever Friend, and even her Spirit Animal.
Roimeldor also had the bad habit of “adopting” souls, as the others teased. Similar to the recent Beloved Cultivator one he had shown her, he would find an interesting soul signature, reconstruct them as a Daisy Caster with the current memories of their time in the reality they had been found in, explain what exactly it was the Soul Reapers did, then give them a choice.
The choice was simple: join us, and we will help find your Kindred Spirits and keep you together forever –or until either request otherwise– or don’t join, and we will return you to your home before leaving the reality, along with any other soul we might have reaped during that time.
While they had taken on the organizational name of “Soul Reapers,” they never kept souls; they cataloged them. They temporarily housed those reaped souls in what they affectionately referred to as the Soul Garden. Then, they released them before leaving.
Besides, it was impossible to cross the Veil between realities with souls in their raw form.
They had tried to peacefully do this cataloging plenty of times before in other realities; this time was no different in that regard, but they were usually met with hostility when they explained to various world leaders that their goal was to collect certain souls and the long process that undertaking would be.
It cost them much more time and resources to completely check the planets that had souls on them. While they were willing to spend that time and cost, they were not as willing to bend to outlandish demands for otherworldly knowledge that could be used against them –or their own people becoming servants in turn to monarchs or gods.
Despite the fact that there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t miss a soul when the process took longer, and people kept introducing new souls into the reality, they always tried to avoid the violent route initially.
When they had sent their envoys to Erythros, they were met with vicious resistance from the disciples of the local gods that resulted in the death of their messengers and wasted resources to reconstruct them.
Their envoys to Makera didn’t fare much better, with the clergy spurning the outsiders who threatened to steal souls from their gods’ influence and many of the monarchs who demanded things they were not willing to offer.
The first group that had accepted their offer had been the ones that had initially made them aware of this reality: the ones called the “Renseres.” They followed one of the local deities, but apparently, the rest of the world saw that newly forged alliance as the Soul Reapers choosing a very specific side with a very specific goal.
Their initial scouting efforts had marked the group as followers of the Purifier, the god of cleansing, which in their experience, was usually looked upon favorably if kept within the Balance. They realized too late that promising to help them ‘cleanse the world of taint until they either finished cataloging or found the last of their Lost Souls’ would actually entail global war.
The Renseres’ definition of ‘taint’ was much broader than the Soul Reapers usually defined it. Most realities considered Corrupted magic to be the only real taint worth fighting against. When Roimeldor had made his vow, they had all thought he would be sending out their own Cleansers to help fight off the Corruption the local god kept spreading, along with what their Corrupted Reality Seeds unfortunately produced should the need arise to deploy them. They had strict procedures in place for cleaning up the land after those were used.
They would employ their Soul Cages against the monster infestation as well, which would halt any of the Corrupted ones from spreading it as long as a Caster remained in control. The last thing they wanted was for a soul to become Corrupted and remain trapped in a ghostly stasis until their Exorcists happened to locate it, which was a whole other deeply involved process.
Promising to fight off the taint of Corruption was something they were all more than willing to do.
They hadn’t ever encountered the universal magic of “Oathbonds” before, out of all the realities they had visited. While many realities had their various quirks and subtle differences in rules –instilled either at the time of their creation or after the arrival of their first Wayfarer– this particular magic had been unexpected.
It unfortunately turned out to put them at odds with the entire world, and there was no revoking the promise without risking their leader’s very soul. After all that Roimeldor had done for them, they weren’t about to turn on him in his hour of need.
Their deal with the Purifier’s Renseres turned out to expedite the process, however. After the Renseres had agreed to have their souls peacefully categorized, no other group took them up on the offer, and the rumors of the Soul Reaper’s desire to simply annihilate them all had spread.
Once met with any type of resistance, they had found the quickest and most efficient way to catalog was to simply reap all the souls before they passed through the Veil. The scouts they sent alongside their envoys were able to quickly gather information on the various zones and establish efficient plans of attack that would hopefully not cause the gods or Progenitors of the world to react too strongly to their presence.
The few times the Soul Reapers had almost been completely annihilated in their efforts were usually when very old and very powerful deities or Progenitors got involved. She still had nightmares once in a while about that planet they had visited that had been completely conquered by the local god of manipulation who had convinced the Progenitors to love them, creating an entire world that was enthralled to that god’s twisted bidding.
Roimeldor was the only one among the Soul Reapers who had never been reconstructed yet, and he was also the only reason most of them were still alive and intact. It was a weird kind of irony that he would be the first of them to lose his Soul Mate and also the last of them to be reunited.
Watching the man now, literally sobbing as he carefully clung to the love he had searched the cosmos across eons for, was the greatest reward any of their people could have asked for.
Haldambar stood beside her with his own Soul Mate, Runasu, beside him and leaned over to quietly ask, “Is it true that we’re retreating from Makera now?”
“It’s not a retreat if we got what we came here for,” she pointed out, “With the retrieval of Naira’s soul, the Commander has been relinquished from the Oathbond he made with the Renseres leader. We no longer have business with that planet anymore, though we’ll still be collecting and cataloging any souls that pass on naturally before leaving.”
“When will that be?” he asked anxiously, “I’m not the only one tired of fighting now.”
“We still need to free our people on Erythros, remember?”
“Right, sorry. I swear it’s this Daisy Caste Mind that is messing with my memory. It’s annoying to be able to forget things again.”
“You get the memories back eventually. You may have forgotten this fact, but no memory is truly ever lost. Once you reach Hollyhock again, you’ll remember everything once more.”
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“So how long till we rescue our people on the other planet?”
“No idea,” she replied solemnly, “The Abyssal Dragoon didn’t know how to, but she was searching for a solution. We gave her a way to contact us if she found a method and needed a ride back. In the meantime, we’ll continue our own research and hopefully be able to go to our new home soon.”
Asyamil smiled as she looked back at her Commander, “For now, let’s focus on celebrating the lives we’ve restored before we worry about what remains.”
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Phoenix awoke almost four days later to her annoyance, the best explanation being that the extra exhaustion was from using her Soul Mark to channel divine power that she probably shouldn’t have as only a Crystal Caster.
Eating a Sapphire Mana Bit helped immensely, but she still wanted some real food. She was disappointed to find that the Crystal Caste coffee equivalent she had fallen in love with didn’t have nearly enough kick anymore.
Phoenix was pleased to find Uriel in the kitchen, keeping busy with cooking meals for the locals who had been displaced by the damage to their homes or families that had lost members. He graciously informed her of what the others had been up to while she had been recovering.
“Daze has been mostly helping at the Temple of the Parent,” the Mage explained, pulling out another pan of bread from the oven, “Luckily, the temple and all the kids are fine. I think Daze would be in a very bad place mentally right now if he had lost them.”
He shook his head, then gave a slight smirk as he added, “You should have seen Jennica practically choke him to death in a hug before trying to punch him in the face.”
Phoenix snorted a laugh, stealing one of the still-cooling cookies from a rack on one of the counters, “I’m glad to hear everyone’s okay there.”
Uriel hesitated momentarily before telling her, “Not every temple was so lucky.”
She paused, uncertainty filling her as she asked, “Which ones fell?”
“Mender’s was the largest and probably the most vital for us to have lost, followed by the Mentor’s that holds the school in that district. There were also a handful of smaller ones that collapsed… Avenger’s temple fell too.”
She blinked at that, uncertain how to feel. On one hand, she had never cared for that particular deity, especially when she thought he was forcing Paul to do terrible things… on the other hand, it was Paul’s patron. Did he have people he knew there? Would he be devastated to learn of their loss decades from now? How many more people would he never see again because they would die before she ever hit Ruby?
“Hey,” Uriel said, placing a hand on her shoulder and snapping her attention back to him as he asked her with a concerned look, “Where did you go just now?”
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head, “I think I spiraled there for a moment… do you think we could go visit Paul soon? Maybe Orebela knows who he might have wanted to keep tabs on for when he wakes up?”
“Well, they’re just a portal away,” he pointed out, “We can probably all go together tonight if you want.”
“That’d be nice,” she said, taking a bite of her stolen cookie, “So Daze is in the temple district. Is Saiya there too with her clergy?”
“I think she’s actually been helping out the Crafter’s clergy and others in the Manufacturing District with repairing things whenever her ability is off cooldown,” he chuckled, “Already pushing that newly unlocked one towards Emerald.”
“Where’s Rayna then? I doubt she’s helping to fix things.”
Uriel laughed louder at that and said with a grin as he placed another pan of dough in the oven, “She’s been helping with clearing the rubble.”
“Let me guess, she’s punching it into more moveable pieces?”
“Got it in one,” the Mage replied, dusting his hands off as he asked, “Want to go to the roof for a bit? I could use a break between things right now, and you can catch a better view of the current aftermath.”
She nodded, snatching another cookie before heading towards the door with him. As they rode the lift up, Uriel informed her that both Kara and Everin had kept checking in on them but had mostly been handling a majority of the monster spawns while the city tried to focus on cleanup and upgrading the defenses.
Once they reached the rooftop and made their way toward the southeastern side of the building to gaze out toward the inner city, Phoenix was stunned at the sight. Massive scorch marks could be seen basically carving new streets through sections of the city from where the Ducal Palace sat in the center.
The Wayland Estate was one of the tallest buildings in this section of the city, only beaten by the Cultivator’s Citadel a few blocks away that seemed almost completely covered in some sort of iridescent crystal. It looked like it had been targeted by one of the destructive laser beams but had miraculously managed to survive the blast.
When she glanced down toward the street, Phoenix was confused at first by what she was seeing with her new Sapphire Caste eyes and asked, “Uriel, what’s all that stuff in front of the building?”
“Ah…” he looked uncomfortable for a long moment before saying, “I think the technical term is ‘offerings’? But basically, they’re gifts… for the city’s Saint and the gods you represent.”
She stared at him in return before replying, “You know that makes me feel super uncomfortable, right?”
“I know,” he said with a nod, then pointed out, “You know that’s not what they intended though, right?”
“I’m not sure what they intend with offerings,” she retorted, looking back out towards the partially destroyed city, “Do they expect me to somehow fix all of this?”
“No, Phoenix. They are just trying to show their gratitude for saving their lives. Which is something you did.”
They both fell silent, and Uriel offered her another of the cookies he had brought. They nibbled on them while contemplating the city before them. Two companions, both Chosen by gods, both not wanting the responsibility of it, and both stuck with people assuming things about them that they weren’t comfortable with.
Phoenix was the first to break the silence as she gave voice to a thought that had begun to plague her, “I’m starting to wonder if… well, maybe if the gods aren’t as good as I originally thought…” She turned to look at her friend and asked, “Why didn’t they stop the Soul Reapers? Why didn’t they give us a miracle months ago?”
Uriel met her gaze with contemplative ember eyes as he took his time to respond, “They did… You are our miracle, Phoenix.”
“What? No, I’m not,” she replied in confusion and a bit of anger, “Why do people keep insisting on praising me for things I didn’t actually accomplish? I barely did anything… And I definitely wasn’t the one to get them to pack up and leave.”
“Putting aside discovering and stopping House Ruwena months ago, you basically summoned an Obsidian Caster to save our city,” he pointed out with a slight smirk, “Then blessed her with even more power.”
“But not before we paid in blood,” she replied tartly, killing the levity Uriel had tried to turn the conversation towards. Phoenix looked back out towards the city as she asked bitterly, “How many could have been saved if the gods had just spent the power needed for it?”
He didn’t try to joke again as he spoke sincerely in his smooth bass, “After my family died, I was angry at the gods for a long time. They have so much power that we can barely comprehend yet wouldn’t save the people who meant the most to me.”
He joined her in looking out towards the skyscrapers as he continued, “Saving us would have been simple. Easy even. Yet they just watched. They are watching every time our loved ones die.”
Uriel smirked again as he recalled, “Despite the temper he can have sometimes, it was Daze that helped me stop being so angry at them all the time.
“He said that if I think the gods don’t care, then I shouldn’t give them the satisfaction of being important –that my anger was validation of their choices and authority over me. If I really wanted them to suffer for their inaction, then ignoring them would be a worse punishment. He seems to think that being hated by someone you were interested in is better than being nothing to them.”
“So you stopped hating them?”
He laughed aloud, shaking his head, “Not at all… I was angry a lot back then. I didn’t understand what Daze was saying at the time.”
Uriel’s laughter died, but his smile remained as he told her, “But those words always stuck with me. I’m still trying to learn to let go of my past, obviously, but Dazien and you and even Saiya and Rayna are all helping me move forward.”
“Me?” Phoenix exclaimed in confusion, “I’m like the worst example for letting go of my inner demons.” She crossed her arms in annoyance as she muttered, “My nightmares have made it fairly obvious, but even I’m self-aware enough to realize I have traumas to work through that probably shouldn’t involve soloing higher Caste enemies.”
“You’re a good example of what not to do then,” he teased, and she rolled her eyes at him, “Seriously though, I can see the parallels between us. Just like that great speech you gave me about my past atrocities not being my fault, I could say the same thing to you now, but we would both disagree with each other.”
Phoenix opened her mouth to argue but stopped as he gave her a pointed look. She surrendered the point with a bow of her head as Uriel continued, “I realized it’s easier to say what’s right rather than do what’s right… and that both of us are terrible at taking our own advice.”
She chuckled at the sad truth of the statement, “They call it ‘practicing what you preach’ back in my old world, but that’s a fair point, I guess,” she admitted as she turned her head up to look at the sky as it began to softly snow with big fluffy flakes, “So, what do we do now?”
Uriel followed her gaze upward to also watch the cloudy sky sprinkle them with snowflakes and then said resolutely, “We do what remains to be done. We move forward. We learn and grow and get better. Then someday, maybe you and I can become butterflies.”
“I remember Destroyer saying something like that,” she replied thoughtfully, glancing toward him curiously, “You’re gonna have to explain that one more. I’m either missing context, or my translation ability is going wonky again.”
He chuckled as he shook his head and said, “Ask Priest Jacob next time you see him. Tell him I wanted him to show off his butterflies for you.”
“Can’t you give me, like, a summarized bullet points version?” she pleaded with her best puppy eyes that seemed to work fairly well on the others.
Uriel gave another laugh, “I won’t be as good, but basically, we were caterpillars, went through some traumatic stuff, and built a cocoon of anxieties, insecurities, and defense mechanisms around us. We’re still trying to break out of that cocoon, and the butterfly is what we actually want to be someday.”
“Seems like a pretty good explanation to me,” she replied, then asked, “But how do we break through the cocoon and become those butterflies?”
Her best friend smiled at her, lifting a hand to brush away a cluster of snowflakes that landed on her cheek as he simply answered, “Together.”