Years Since Creation: 3993

Location: Significance Plane, Elemental System, Eno

A slight breeze filled the night air, the sky shining a dull white as they flew over the snow section of the elemental planes. Below them spread a field of thousands of battling elementals, most in the shape of white hares and lumbering polar bears who drifted along with the snow fall. Yet calm as the beautiful scene looked, the constant ring of battle echoing from below shattered any naive delusion of natural harmony Darvon could form, as each elemental was locked in a never-ending struggle against their brethren.

“You know, even though I’ve lived here for the last two years of my life, this is still the first time I have done an aerial exploration of Eno.” Darvon said as he absentmindedly rubbed in a small bit of ointment that Maroc had squirrelled away onto his wounds. “It is an amazing sight.”

“There is a reason most don’t come up here.” Maroc said as he waved a whip to slash through the body of an approaching slush eagle, which exploded into its composite parts to rain down below. “It’s dangerous.”

“Well luckily for us we have one of the most powerful Paragons on the plane on our side.” Saria said with a cheeky grin while staring in awe at the sight below her.

“Only in combat, not yet in laws.” Maroc said casually to her while checking on the cocoon holding Pyra.

Darvon copied him and grew worried at the slight sight of foam visible from the slightly transparent cocoon even though he knew there was nothing they could do about it. They could only hope they reached a town before Maroc ran out of blood to hold the poison back. He knew he should have insisted Pyra upgrade her physique to match him and Maroc’s scout body, with that she would have never had to worry about some basic poison of that caliber.

“How many laws have you mastered?” Saria asked, stopping Darvon’s spiraling thoughts as he focused back in on the conversation.

“I have only mastered seven branches of laws and have made little headway on the eighth.” Maroc said as he destroyed another nearby elemental.

A light laugh escaped Darvon at that, which only grew louder as he felt it give him a slight measure of relief from the panic in his heart due to his aunt’s state.

“Most normal people haven’t even mastered a branch. In fact, most paragons haven’t even mastered five, and here you are complaining about being on the edge of sovereign.” Darvon laughed harder, and only stopped when he began to cough out some blood due to the shifting of his shattered ribs.

The instant the sanguine liquid came out of him, Maroc turned and with a slight wince summoned some blood which shone with the light of healing and bone, which he then poured into Darvon’s wounds who tried to stop the flow once he stopped coughing.

“Don’t waste Vortex’s mass on me, save some for Pyra and Saria.” Darvon said, though Maroc completely ignored him and continued pouring blood in, which rapidly shifted Darvon’s ribs back into position and slightly fused them into a more stable form.

“I don’t need any, my nanites are fixing me up. Though I would appreciate some food if we got any around here.” Saria said showing her injuries being fixed by a black swarm.

“We don’t.” Maroc said before stopping his healing at the constant complaints of Darvon who felt beyond guilty at potentially ruining Pyra’s chance at healing.

“Maybe check in that box that Busari sent.” Saria suggested while looking at Darvon who was rubbing his now healed chest. “Maybe he foresaw this coming and prepared some emergency rations or something.”

Nodding to that, and hopeful that it might have some antidote within it, Darvon reached into his robe and took out the foot long square box which glowed with black runes. Before opening it he inspected its surface, tracing the runes to attempt to understand their logic for a few minutes with a frown, before smiling once he reached a certain section.

“It’s a masterfully made spatially expanded box, and seeing the amount of power it holds, likely made by Busari himself.” Darvon said as he traced the engravings on the box with some awe.

“How do you know that?” Saria asked while staring intently at the box, her eyes flashing gold.

“Come over here and I’ll show you.” Darvon said while shifting a little with a wince. “It should prove to be fairly easy to understand once you get the basics.”

Saria quickly clambered over to him and took the box from him to spend a few moments looking at it to no avail, her brows furrowed in confusion even after opening her third eye.

“I thought you already transferred all of your spatial knowledge to me, but none of what’s in my head is helping me here.” Saria complained while twisting the box in different angles.

“Well for starters while this box does use a spatial branch, it is more foundationally connected to the Magitech law.” Darvon said, going into lecture mode. “This is likely a combination of the two through Busari’s path, which allows for the latter to imitate the former through a series of complex logic gates.”

“You mean to tell me you know what logic gates are and still don’t have cellphones?” Saria asked with a look of shock on her face, to which Darvon laughed at while pulling up the memories he had in his head of that word.

“We have sentient creations that match their capability, so there is no need for them. The only area we are inferior in is communication, but that’s mainly because it’s impossible to lay a wire that wouldn’t be altered by passive impact contamination.” Darvon said while waving his hands. “But that’s a separate topic, let’s get back to the box. The way I could figure out its purpose is because I spent a few weeks learning how to create logic gates with space essence in order to stabilize an Extranar summoning ritual I created.”

“I see.” Saria said, nodding along, her eyes glowing golden. “It seems there is a lot more to magitech than I thought.”

“There are no weak laws, only weak users.” Maroc said and then shot a look at Darvon to stop him from opening his mouth. “You can have Darvon teach you more later, open up the box.”

Slightly miffed at having the wind taken out of his sails but conceding to his still raw wounds, Darvon did as he was told. He opened the box, and inside saw a stable rift which led to a small stone cubby which held some treasures. A pair of Neutronium level Space crystals, a thick tome with Old One written on it, a crystal with the words Spatial laws carved into it, and a slip of paper.

“Well, there are no medical supplies or food in here, but there are plenty of useful things.” Darvon said and explained what was inside, before reaching inside to grab the piece of paper which he then read out loud.

Darvon,

Thank you for accepting my proposal to compete in the planar conquering, know that there are several reasons to sending you out beyond my personal greed for more laws. For one you will likely be targeted by Inspiration and several internal factions who would prefer to see you dead and gone once they figure out your power. The moment you acquired the law it was only a matter of time before you had to escape the plane, all that this competition is doing is speeding the process up by a few months.

In terms of the competition itself, know that you have until the end of the year to strengthen yourself enough to reach the requirements to be able to join the treasure exploration of Themin. This means that you must push Saria to Doyen and forge an Extranar weapon. To aid you in this I have given you a tome containing everything we know about Qrumin’s law, a copy of my Spatial path from my Doyen years, and the pair of Spatial crystals you need to pay in order to participate in the Themin treasure hunt. I have also created this box which is capable of taking a square meter of space to other planes, which should serve useful to you even beyond the competition.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Trust no one,

Busari

P.S: Please ask Saria to teach you some diplomacy, I promise it will help you tremendously.

Everyone aside from him cracked a small smile at the final words, though Maroc remained a little subdued. Likely because he had had to kill three flying elementals during the reading, each of a different type. The elemental plains were massive, but there were equally as many zones within them, and rarely was there a single type larger than a kilometer in size.

“He read me like a book.” Saria said with a look of grudging admiration on her face. “Though I guess it isn’t that hard to guess that an Extranar familiar would focus on space.”

Darvon nodded to that, though he was unable to focus on anything aside from the Old One tome in front of him. It called to him, its vellum bound cover enticing him with secrets beyond ken, his mind whispering words of incomprehensible power into his mind. Before he knew it he found himself reaching out towards it, only to be stopped by Maroc’s hand.

“Now’s not the time to read Darvon, you can do that when we get to safety.” Maroc said.

“Where exactly is safety though?” Saria asked with a frown. “If they can get into your compound the only place I can think of would be a sovereign’s home.”

“Safety is on another planet. More specifically in Furin within the Space system.” Maroc said, as he turned back to focusing on the sky, as they were now flying over a vast grassland filled with wood elementals. “In order to get there, we will have to take a teleporter to Woe and then another to Furin. We will have to be careful and infiltrate a towns teleporter in order to not be caught by the enemy, which should be easy enough. I doubt they will discover us out of the thousands who travel through portal every day.”

“Unless Qrumin tells someone.” Darvon interjected, to which Maroc nodded to.

“That will always remain a threat, which we should keep in mind, but we must be careful to not obsess over what we cannot control.” Maroc said as he glanced down at Pyra. “For now, its best that we simply keep our eyes peeled for any sign of civilization nearby and rest on the bird.”

“How about opening the box you gave me?” Darvon said while eyeing it within his robes. “Could be you put some stuff in there by accident.”

“There are no resources there.” Maroc responded quickly. “Leave it alone until we reach town, only than would it maybe be safe to open.”

“Which town exactly are we going towards?” Saria asked.

“I don’t know.” Maroc said. “I have been far enough to reach the towns a couple kilometers away from our own during a few of my explorations, but we have well surpassed that. At this point we can only fly blind and just hold hope that we will encounter civilization before Vortex runs out of mass.”

Darvon nodded at that, and together with Saria looked out into the fields while trying to move as little as he could.

Hours passed before they saw a sign of intelligent life, and that was only with the help of the rising sun outlining the aberration on the elemental fields. A small mountain top capped by a reflective silver dome. The landmark itself was placed in the center of a flat valley which shone a faint piss yellow. It should have been a wonderful sight, but the rather large problem consisting of the thousands of flying elementals revolving around the peak tamped down their excitement. Most of them the same disgusting yellow as those below, their presence around the mountain’s airspace ubiquitous. They would have to climb it.

Walking through a forest of black stone pillars filled with cracks that glowed a urine yellow was perhaps the most annoying experience of Darvon’s life. There was a constant stream of elementals attacking him, the air itself was filled with the low hum of submission, and he was wrapped in an uncomfortable grey headdress torn from his already ragged clothes.

“This sucks.” Darvon complained as he wielded Vigil like a whip to clear out a protege submission elemental that got near him with a single crack, its pale-yellow body collapsing in a burst of light. “I can feel myself being constantly battered by the shitty emotions nearby, it’s awful.”

“At least you have Vigil to occasionally help you, I got to deal with it on my own.” Saria said as she did her best to avoid any exploding lights near Darvon or Maroc, though she consistently failing. “It’s incredibly draining.”

“You must focus your mind and clear it of any distracting thoughts in order to achieve a void like state of emotion.” Maroc said as he casually snapped Vortex in order destroy an approaching Doyen elemental. Floating along behind him was a shrunk form of the bone elemental, with Pyra still sleeping in a cocoon on its back. “While the emotions are artificial, stilling your mind makes it easy to recognize foreign influences.”

Purposefully tuning out the lesson he had learnt years ago, Darvon instead focused on scratching at the deeply uncomfortable headpiece he was wearing. He hated it. While intellectually he knew that it was important that they stay hidden, that didn’t stop him from detesting the method used. The only reason he wasn’t complaining was because the other two were each wearing their own torn robes over their head. And also, Maroc might yell at him. Mainly the second if he was being honest with himself.

“Who would ever set up a town here?” Darvon mumbled to himself as he clambered up a steep stone cliff which the other two jumped with ease. He then walked into a tight pathway lined with dozens of stone pillars so close the bone elemental could barely squeeze through. “It’s dangerous, submission essence is next to worthless, and there are no natural resources aside from stone to extract. There is no way that the council would ever agree to having someone build here. It doesn’t make sense!”

“It’s simple. They don’t have permission.” Maroc replied calmly as he maneuvered the bone elemental to go diagonal through the path ahead. “This is likely a criminal hideout.”

“WHAT!” Saria yelled at the same time she pulled her knife out, with Darvon shifting into a combat ready stance as well. “We are walking into a criminal den?!”

“Quiet down.” Maroc snapped with an intense look. “There is no need to worry, no matter how strong they are there is no way they have a sovereign. At most they will have a powerful paragon, which I doubt could compare to me.”

They both relaxed at that, though Darvon’s wariness went up a few notches, so he decided to focus a bit more on his third eyes sensing ability to see through objects.

At first all he saw was a constant wave of pale yellow of varying intensities, it was only by using his enhanced processing power he was able to parse through the overwhelming ocean of color to get some actually useful information. Like the fact that there was a sovereign level elemental a couple dozen meters away.

“Stop.” Darvon hissed, then crouched down to sneak behind a tall black stone pillar, the two following behind him without question. “There’s a Sovereign Elemental a hundred meters ahead.”

“Shit, do we fight it?” Saria murmured back whipping her around in all directions.

“That would waste too much energy and could attract the ones flying above.” Maroc said as his own eye shone a deep red to look ahead, before glancing at the maze around him to see the same thing that was making Darvon’s heart pound. The only path up was straight through. “We will need to distract it in a material way so that it can’t trace it back to us. Darvon you will have to do it, I don’t have any non-essence-based abilities useful enough for this situation..”

Darvon cursed at that, taking rapid breaths in attempt to calm his racing heart, and failing. He had just been in a brutal fight a couple hours ago and was not ready for the prospect of having to fight again. He may have been convincingly putting up a confident front to the others, but that was all it was. A front.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He murmured to himself, as he started cycling through all the bolt options he had with him with an increasing level of anxiety. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Calm down Darvon.” Maroc said as he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Remember your training, this is a simple shoot and forget.”

“Against a sovereign!” Darvon hissed out. “This is completely different levels of danger! If I mess up we could all die.”

“Relax Darvon, Maroc has already fought a sentient sovereign before, this guy is nothing in comparison.” Saria said with a forced smile which disappeared at the shaking heads from both Darvon and Maroc.

“That was a paragon wearing sovereign level armor, a completely different level of power to a real one.” Darvon said with increasing levels of anxiety. “Maroc may be strong, but he cannot handle a full sovereign, least of all one backed by dozens of flying paragons.”

“Darvon, it doesn’t matter if I can handle it or not, because I won’t have to.” Maroc said in a calm voice before switching to commander mode which he accompanied with a light slap to Darvon’s face. “Now snap out of this pathetic anxiety trap of yours and tell me whether you have something to distract it or not.”

Darvon rubbed his cheek, and finally actually considered whether he could do this. He had one mental gas bolt, two basic steel, one acid shot, one cracker, two homing shots, and two poison. Looking through his arsenal he again felt a wave of annoyance for not expanding it, but luckily he didn’t have to immediately give up hope, for once he started thinking straight a couple different potential plans quickly formed in his head.

“I can do it.” Darvon said after thinking for a minute. “Maybe.”

“Then do it.” Maroc said with a confident nod, before turning to check on Pyra with blind trust in his eyes. Saria on the other hand stared at Darvon for a few seconds with a frown on her face, only to stop and smile at what she saw before nodding him away as well.

Darvon stared at the two for a second with his heart hammering in his chest as he pumped himself up. After another moment of reviewing the plan he called Vigil into his mind and began to sneak up the stone pillar path, making sure to avoid any glowing cracks and walking around instead of dispatching the few nearby elementals. He passed through a few slim sections that could potentially lead towards a new path forward but ignored them, knowing that the sovereign would for sure hear them if they attempted to expand them. Soon enough the path before him widened, with the glows from the cracks dimming as he neared a wide archway leading into a small open space radiating intense piss yellow light.

He slowed his approach down even further and crouched down into a crawl towards a small waist high stone sticking out from the side of the doorway. He then ever so slowly peeked around the side of it and stared at the sovereign level creature.

The elemental was shaped like a ten-foot-tall faceless Gos made out of pale-yellow light, with chains covering every inch of the creature. It was condensed down to the point that Darvon could see the indents it left in the ground below it, which was incredible for an ethereal elemental to do casually. It wasn’t moving or twitching, instead it was simply kneeling, its figure likely frozen in the same position that some poor adventurer had taken when they were overwhelmed by the submission mist all around. It was terrifying, it was overwhelming, it was powerful beyond any figure he had faced before, but most importantly it was facing away. The missions was still a go.

Taking his eyes off the threat Darvon glanced around at the stone walls near the sovereign and saw three different pathways leading up, each a viable target, but one of them specifically attracted his attention for he saw writing on it. Zooming in using his nanites he saw that carved into the side of the door was a simple symbol of a circle lined with spikes. He had found the direction to the town above.