Years Since Creation: 3993
Location: Significance Plane, Elemental System, Sanguine
Saria chewed on a skewer of mystery meat as she walked through Sanguine, enjoying how the architecture all around her was shaped to seem like marrow pooling into bone, with every building seeming to merge into the next in one huge skeleton. As she walked under the blood red sun she took the time to wave at the people she had gotten to know over the week; Gabby the young Gos tailor with purple scaled skin, Ukrin the Harvon whose pale-yellow oath skin was covered in swirling tattoos, Ojna the Golem who had sold her a piece of her steel body, and the dozens of Zhra she had met at bars and stores. She had made an active effort to meet as many people as she could over the last week, but even than hadn’t scratched the surface of the diverse cultures that made up the Significance plane. There were so many species within that she was constantly seeing new ones, each with their own independent view of the world. At first she had even thought there were hundreds of different peoples, but Darvon had assured her that there were only a total of ten official settlers and that everyone outside of them were either alchemically altered or Extranar immigrants like her. Though that knowledge had only made her double down on attempting to make more connections in this strange plane.
Weaving through the random splintered bones around town with a confidence gained after several days of aimless wandering she soon reached her target for the day: a square filled with dozens of food carts letting out delicious smells. There was every type of meal possible, from metal pieces for the Golems, mixed vegetable plates for the Yifos, small pieces of textured paper for the Horus and more. She would usually spend a whole hour just wandering the carts in search of a good meal, but she had been craving her friend’s food for a while and so made a beeline to a cart in the corner under a blood red awning. It was larger than the rest, with an exuberant Gos shopkeeper covered in dull red scales yelling out prices to the packed crowd filling the town. He only stopped his marketing once he saw her approaching, as his smile went from businesslike to genuine.
“Hello Miss Saria, are you here for another skewer of the daily odd meat? I can assure you that this time the meat is edible for all Zhra, I had the alchemist promise.” The kindly old Gos asked, his scarred hand holding out a skewer of perfectly meat covered in a wonderfully smelling dry rub. “I’ll even offer you a discount!”
“No need for a discount Zonas, you’ll always find a customer in me.” Saria chuckled as she handed over six metal essence crystals from her pocket. She had been given quite a hefty allowance by Maroc once she arrived, which she only accepted when Darvon pointed out that the man had more money than he knew what to do with. “Give me three.”
“Wonderful Miss.” Zonas said, and grabbed three fresh skewers from the grill, wrapped them in foil and handed them to Saria who put two in her bulging pocket and unwrapped her own. “Thank you for your continued support!”
“How has been business been?” Saria asked as she started chewing on her new skewer, softly moaning at the amazing flavor that burst in her mouth.
“It’s been a little slow today, but much better than last month. With a couple more weeks of this I may just be able to afford to buy a shop in the square!” Zonas said with a smile filled with pointy teeth that practically shone with pride. “People have been really enjoying the random nature of the daily meat.”
“That’s wonderful Zonas, I hope you can succeed.” Saria said before taking out and handing Zonas two Doyen metal essence crystals. “Take this as a small angel investment from me, and please don’t refuse. It’s the least I can do after yesterday’s tour.”
“Oh, thank you ever so much Miss Saria.” Zonas said as he clutched onto the crystals with a look of awe on his face. “This is more than enough to cover the rest of the investment!”
“It’s no issue at all, and thanks once more for the wonderful food.” Saria said with a large smile as she waved at the shocked Gos and walked away with a happy feeling rising from her heart. After all of the hopelessness she had had to deal with in her home plane, it was a nice change of pace to be able to actually help someone in a meaningful way.
As she wandered out of the square with her skewers in hand, Saria made a beeline towards the huge market district a block away. Once there she bought a magitech knife with a sharpness and durability enchantment from a smith, a hidden sheath from a leatherworker, and a beautiful gold and silver robe from a seamstress, all of which she put on immediately before she hopped onto the large bone white stone wall that wrapped around the town. The sight of the endless blood red dunes serving as the backdrop to her knife training, her body flashing along at a barely discernable speed as she absorbed what would have taken a regular person months within hours. She even had the spare mental capacity to consider her situation as she did so, with her golden eyes constantly wandering towards the hills outside as she trained.
She knew that Darvon and Maroc were out there training in combat as Darvon prepared to tell him some big news. She had asked to join Maroc on his daily expeditions the first day they returned but had been denied since he claimed to not take anyone under Doyen out, which she still thought was total bullshit. Her body was stronger than any soldier she had seen and had finer senses than doyen or paragon she had met. Even while fully focused on training she could hear the buzzing of a mosquito a hundred meters behind her, see dunes kilometers away, and feel the faint tremors of the people walking a block away. She was a beast when it came to senses, yet Maroc still claimed it wasn’t enough. Apparently no amount of physical power without a matching background of supernatural comprehension would help her survive the elemental fields, which she still thought was total bullshit, but she couldn’t really argue with Maroc. He was literally paying for all of her expenditure, so instead of arguing she had turned to Darvon for help on supernatural training, which he only agreed to after she promised to help him with his nanite swarm.
While at first opening her golden third eye to the sight of a world covered in the auras was overwhelming, once she spent a few hours just embracing the suck she was able to slowly grow her ability to tell the level of impact something held, as well as what type of essence an object would turn into. She personally thought she was a quick learner, but apparently this was something every Zhra learnt as a baby so Darvon could give her no feedback on her learning speed, not that she felt particularly like bragging to the monster. While it had taken her months to get used to her nanite swarm, Darvon had managed to accomplish almost full control within the short week she had helped train him. While it was stupid to compare her preteen self to Darvon, Saria was not used to being outshone by anyone, especially when it came to comprehension. Though she had to admit the slight competition like atmosphere their training held was a good drive for improvement, as it had her practicing using her new eye even as she flowed through knife katas for the couple hours as the blood red sun crawled down the sky. Her practice only stopped when she felt a resonate bell ring which vibrated her whole body and forced her to face the source.
In the center of town was a thin ‘command tower’ as the natives called it, which was covered in hooks which each held glowing navy-blue metal hoops. As the bell rang again the hoops glowed an even brighter blue and Saria knew in her bones that it was time to head in, and as she looked at the emptying streets below her she saw that everyone felt the same. Sanguine had no curfew per se, but the respect for the Zhaber government had most everyone packing up their stores anyway. The way Saria understood it, it was through this order that the tower was able to passively accumulate command significance without needing to rely on more evil methods. This was one of the thousands of small traditions Saria knew about whose sole purpose was to gather rare impact, most of which she had at first completely misunderstood. It was only once Zonas had taken the day to walk her around town and explain people’s actions that she was able to understand the logic. Since anything could become valuable, then why not turn everything into a treasure? That mindset is the reason that everyone had loads of distinct jewelry, dozens of clothing they only wore for specific events, and carried an insignia for every new job position. It was fascinating, and a constant source of wonder in her exploration of the town which she restarted by hopping off the wall to the emptying street and joining the flow of people heading towards the residential area.
The roads were still brightly lit even in the night, due to the chained-up fire elementals swinging on lanterns which covered the street. She passed by a couple of bumping clubs and bars who were catering to the essence laden shop keepers which she was tempted to enter but held back due to the fact that Darvon had asked to talk to her during dinner. She thus sped up her pace and purposefully ignored the loud music and bright lights emanating from them until she escaped into the dull domestic district filled with apartment buildings and only than slowed her walking to enjoy the sight of apartment buildings shaped like ribs which flowed into the next. It was only after passing by a couple dozen bloody skeleton buildings that she reached Maroc’s neighborhood, home of the rich and powerful.
She passed by dozens of different villas and mansions which she knew were nearly all filled with research Paragons interested in blood essence, most of whom were emulating Maroc’s path. Bunch of ‘copycats with no drive’ as Maroc had told her, though plenty powerful enough to kill her with ease, so she did keep her eyes open as she walked through the neighborhood, taking the long way around any affluent looking people.
It took her another ten minutes of walking through the dozens of extravagant buildings before she finally reached Maroc’s place, which was at the very border of the city. The compound was behind a wrought iron gate which merged seamlessly into an expanding stone wall which was manned by a pair of intense Doyen guards who were actively holding back a small crowd of screaming fans who were covered in fake blood and clutching onto small pictures of Maroc standing in heroic poses.
“Please let me in, I just want a small piece of his clothes I beg you!” A sobbing old Zhra woman yelled out while reaching towards the indifferent guards. “He’s the reason that my son survived the Mo culling, please just let me thank him!”
“NO LET ME IN!” A man yelled out, covered in a scholar’s robe, and gripping onto a glowing stone which Saria recognized as an illusion recorder. “I must get firsthand testimony for my thesis on Inspiration, it’s all I need to finish my dissertation please!”
Dozens of voices joined in and were completely ignored by the guards who had gone so far as to push back the old woman with a wave of summoned blood. Saria was well aware that this was not an uncommon occurrence and had in fact been a constant since she arrived. There was a price to fame, though seeing how Maroc was able to auction off pieces of worn clothing and various objects he interacted with for good impact money she couldn’t feel too bad. Though that didn’t stop her from sighing as she dove into the crowd, liberally using elbows in order to reach the eyesight of the guards.
Once they saw her the two guards immediately sent out a couple tendrils of blood to reach out toward her which pushed everyone back and instantly cleared a large enough space for her to stumble forward and pass through the gates which they respectfully held open. She completely ignored the screams of the crowd behind her, and quickly nodded thanks to the two bowing men as she walked into the property, the sound behind her dampened by the bone white trees’ blood red leaves rustling around her that covered the entire compound.
Once fully inside the forest Saria took a moment to take a breath as she finally felt the slight hint of unease from being in the town relax. Darvon had assured her they wouldn’t be tracked down for at least a week, but she could never know, and even though she hadn’t let it stop her from experiencing a new culture the worry remained. The only place she had grown to feel safe in was Maroc’s compound which she had been told was covered in enough defenses that even a Sovereign would take a couple minutes to get into. It also helped that it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever had the privilege to be in.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The whole compound was made up of white artificial trees whose blood red leaves turned the light which passed through them into a ruby glow which made the small flowing streams of blood look mystical instead of ominous. Accompanying the effect were black and red shrubs heavy with berries dotting the ground, paired with slightly glowing sanguine crawling vines which wrapped around the trees. Every section of the forest was carefully maintained by Maroc and his army of gardeners, who made sure that the whole place maintained its naturalistic feel. The only artificial object which Saria saw from the entrance was the gravel path stretching out into the distance, which led to fountains, hidden meeting areas, sparring rings, stone gardens, and even a clear water bathing pond. The whole area was designed for someone craving peace and tranquility such as Maroc who almost never leaved his compound except when dragged out by the two people he loved. His pseudo son Darvon and his traumatized little sister Pyra who Saria saw wandering along the gravel path in front of her.
Pyra Anglia Zhaber was a plain woman, with dry blonde hair which fell limply onto her unadorned beige dress, and the only remarkable thing about her were her brown eyes which shone with such loss that it overwhelmed any who looked at her. She was currently gone to the world as she wandered along the gravel path while petting a small brown bundle, which Saria knew was her Extranar familiar Joven. Weak as she looked Saria knew that she would do well to be careful around the thin woman, she was one of the few things which would make Maroc blow up. Saria thus slowed her steps once she was near, her palms up as Joven hissed and turned his scales a bright brown which prompted Pyra to turn to stare at her in a panic.
“Hello Pyra. It’s me Saria, Darvon’s friend. Do you remember me?” Saria asked as gently as she could, slowing her approach even further. “We talked just yesterday.”
The fear in Pyra’s eyes dissipated at the words, her face filled with recognition.
“I… I do remember you.” Pyra whispered quietly while looking down and to the side, calming Joven down with a few pets from her hand. “Sorry for startling, I’m still not used to seeing new faces so close to home.”
“That’s quite alright, I know how easy it is to get lost in this wonderous forest.” Saria said and slowly walked closer to Pyra who was standing in the middle of the pathway completely frozen. “On that note, I don’t suppose you could help lead me towards the hosting hearth? I am quite ashamed to admit I am a little lost.”
A complete lie of course, Saria had memorized the path there on her first day, but the words served their purpose as Pyra relaxed enough to unfreeze and start slowly walking deeper into the compound. Saria sidled up alongside her and took the chance to get a closer look at Pyra’s Extranar familiar.
Joven was a small foot long pangolin with dirt brown scales which were covered in faint earthen runes, it’s small beady eyes constantly looked around for any danger to his master. While it didn’t look it, the beast was quite fearsome and from what Darvon had told her was well capable of growing to the size of three men.
“You have an amazing familiar Pyra.” Saria broke the ice after a couple of minutes of slow walking.
“He is quite beautiful isn’t he? And he’s so well behaved.” Pyra said as she cooed at the pangolin who snuggled deeper into her embrace. “I must say I was a little disappointed when Darvy didn’t come back with a little buddy of his own for Joven to play with.”
“That is a shame.” Saria said and laughed, unable to stop herself from picturing a tiny version of herself getting knocked about by a huge Joven. “Though I hope I am a good enough replacement.”
“Little Darvon is a wonderous boy who will go on to do amazing things, but he is a little too hotheaded for his own good.” Pyra said with a wide smile now covering her features. “I’m quite happy that he found someone like you to help him along his path. Once you two form a partnership the very world will be your oyster.”
Saria hummed noncommittally at that, still slightly annoyed at the Alchemist for effectively kidnapping her from her home and then essentially demanding they form a permanent bond. Sure, she had been in the middle of almost certain death, but those were just details.
“You don’t agree?” Pyra asked with a small frown, to Saria’s small panic. Maroc may be forgiving about many things, but she knew he would destroy her in an instant if he stressed out his sister.
“Of course I do, I’m just a little hesitant about the contract itself.” Saria said, stumbling over her own words. “Tying myself to someone so permanently is honestly rather terrifying.”
“Who said it had to be permanent?” Pyra asked with a small tilt of her head and a frown. “Most partners get a weak bond whose only purpose is a proof of loyalty and trust. No one would willingly chain themselves down like that forever.”
“But Darvon said that it was a strict bond which often leads to close friendships–“
“Strict yes, strong no.” Pyra said with a small shake of her head while looking at her with some fire in her eyes. “My little boy would never do something as dumb as forcing anyone to do his bidding, not after all that we’ve been through.”
Saria’s thoughts stuttered at that, her perspective undergoing a massive shift. Of course Darvon wouldn’t force her into a disadvantageous partnership. He didn’t need some lackey who would do his bidding, he wanted a partner of equal talent.
“I may have been overthinking this.” Saria admitted to herself, and to a grinning Pyra who looked a little too pleased with herself. “I thought this was your version of a weirdly abrupt magical marriage thing.”
Pyra’s face split with the smile that formed on her face as a small chuckle escaped her, which Saria rather amazed at. According to Maroc it was only recently that she had even been able to meet with new people, to be able to laugh with her was a whole new step, yet before she could say anything further they arrived at the hosting house of the compound, where she could hear a pair of arguing voices echoing from its center.
The hosting area was a small gazebo like building made out of the same pale white wood as the forest, with four snake like statues holding up the blood red tiled roof. At the center of the open structure was a circular table covered in delicious food which was being constantly refilled by a pair of artificial flesh servants covered in blood red armor. Eating the food were Darvon and Maroc who had stopped their conversation in shock at the sight of the smile covering Pyra’s face.
“Roc and Little Darvon!” Pyra said with a small little chuckle which turned their shocked looks into slack jaws. “I was just having the silliest conversation with Saria!”
At that the two turned to stare at her with looks of intense curiosity which made her silver ears burn as a flush covered her cheeks.
“It was nothing, she was just explaining something I didn’t understand.” Saria said with a small mumble to Pyra’s laughter.
“What were you two talking about Aunt Pyra?” Darvon asked as he rushed over, his grey robes swishing behind him, which Saria noticed were covered in red dust and blood stains.
“If she doesn’t want to say, I of course won’t.” Pyra said with a small smile which turned wider as she hugged Darvon. “Now how about we eat something, me and Joven are quite hungry.”
Saria quickly nodded at that and dragged a complaining Darvon to the table, while Pyra floated after her and sat down at the table next to Maroc who was looking at the three with a wide smile covering his pale white face. Before anyone else could ask her to elaborate on the story, Saria quickly started asking some questions she had about the plane but was soon derailed by a bomb that Darvon casually dropped.
“You want to compete in a competition to conquer an unexplored plane in a mere seven years?!” Saria asked exasperated, while glancing at Pyra who was frowning as well. “Are you crazy?”
“Well, it wouldn’t necessarily be seven years, it could be as many as a hundred if we’re lucky.” Darvon said while stuffing down a couple iron heavy meats into his mouth, which Saria knew was his dumb attempt at having his nanites reproduce quicker. “Different planes have different time dilations. The bigger the mass of the plane, the slower time moves within it.”
Saria did a quick bit of mental math on how big her own plane was in comparison to Significance and quickly grew shocked. Significance had a mere nine-star systems, a single black hole, along with eight smaller Extranar additions to the millions of star systems and dozen black holes within Sanity.
“So, you’re telling me that next to no time has passed in my plane since I have left? That if a thousand years pass here, seconds could have passed in theirs?” Saria asked, unable to hide the excitement from her voice. “My plane is at least a couple billion times larger than yours!”
“Yes and no, again it is mass. So, if you have some underlying huge things which you didn’t notice than its different. Plus, you can’t know how big your plane is compared to ours, since we don’t know the size of our own. Nyx is too huge to calculate with any accuracy, and the astral and hollow realms haven’t been completely mapped yet.” Darvon said while waving his fork around. “But from what my mom told Maroc during the mission, and what he himself experienced we can know for a fact that their plane is likely around twice as big as our own, which makes sense considering that they have been using spatial laws to devour planes for much longer than we have.”
Saria nodded along at that; her introductory codex had included the information of plane devouring. The Horus, the first species to come in contact with Space, had within a century devoured of discovering Spatial magic absorbed a plane of their own. The invading plane had had millennia.
“But why would they go after the Significance plane? It seems like a needless risk to go after another Spatial plane.”
“Because we can absorb laws and they can’t.” Maroc said with a tense note in his voice as he looked at Darvon with a deep frown marring their face. “They want the ability to do so themselves, which they know they can only acquire through the Old One law.”
Darvon’s fork stopped waving at that, his eyes flashing silver for a brief moment which Saria recognized as a sign of overclocking his nanites.
“They will come after me.” Darvon said with a whisper. “They will send everything they can, they have enough Sovereigns to overwhelm any resistance we can set up.”
“It seems that Busari’s plan went further than acquiring a new law.” Maroc said his eyes distant. “He is sending you to the only place that they wouldn’t be able to access.”
“All this means is that we will have to be even more careful and speed up our plan by a lot.” Darvon said with a certain tone before turning to Saria. “On that topic, have you considered what path you are going to take Saria?”
“Yes, I have.” Saria said and pulled out a black crystal from her pocket. “I want to focus on Spatial laws, and not just because you gave me a near Doyen understanding of a branch, but also because I feel that there is a ton of potential for law combinations outside of it. I am not sure what I will merge it with yet, but I can figure that out as we go along.”
All three of them nodded at her, clearly glad she had finally decided on her future, only for the tension covering the table to break due to Darvon suddenly standing from the table to face her with his face contracting into the awkward look he got whenever he was attempting diplomacy.
“Yes I will sign an oath with you Darvon.” Saria said before he could open his mouth. “You don’t have to try to convince me again, Pyra already worked her magic on me.”
At that Pyra gave a little chuckle, which grew louder at the shocked looks the two gave her.
“I merely had to tell her that it wasn’t permanent nor forever binding. I don’t know what weird thoughts you were putting in her head Darvy, but I set her straight.” Pyra said with a small laugh, to Darvon’s red-faced embarrassment.
“Fantastic, that means that we can finally move onto the next step of the pr– “
A flash of black light appeared in front of them accompanied by a loud crash and a splash of bloody pus, as a deeply injured Brob clutching onto a black steel box covered in shining inscriptions fell through the table. Before Saria could even think to react to the blood that was covering her, Maroc had already sprung up and sent a gush of blood to grasp onto the figure, and another to form a shield in front of a coughing Pyra.
“Who are you? How did you get through my barrier?!”
“I am Sovereign Busari’s servant, I come bearing a gift and a message.” The Brob spat out in a chittering voice before violently coughing out more black blood as he tossed out an already activated Illusion stone which let out the noise of battle along with a single calm voice.
“Inspiration intercepted my teleport to Sanguine and are using two sovereigns to tie me down as they send more after you.” Busari voice echoed over the noise of battle. “They have managed to acquire information of Darvon’s power and are now desperate to acquire him. The lot of you must escape and do your best to complete the requirements for the competition. Good luck.”
With that the message ended, the table quiet as the messenger coughed out blood a few more times before falling limp.
“We need to lea–“ Maroc said with a tense voice that was interrupted by a massive boom coming from the south of the compound near the wall. A massive wave of pressure spread from behind them only to be blocked by a huge wave of blood which formed from the autonomous defenses near them. They were here.