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Chapter 233: Reporting Back
🕑 Added 2023-05-26 04:52:05 +0000 UTC-
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Next Chappy, a look into the Dwarven cities!
AN: Got some editing suggestions? Suggest it on the Google Docs here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qV2RPHozFzep-oUtp3HSq9-gdZJhkLUlwxU6-uUBbBI/edit?usp=sharing
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“Yrania?” I call out, and wait for her response. “I know you’re here.”
“The whole point of staying hidden is so my presence doesn’t interfere with my study!” Yrania complains, appearing out of nowhere. “You may have slight resistance, but Kayafe doesn’t yet. If you keep calling me right in front of her, though, she’ll become resistant.”
Kayafe isn’t reacting to my conversation as we explore Helikan on our own. The passersby are likewise oblivious to Yrania flying just overhead. She must be using her abilities to make our conversation unnoticed.
Yrania is still in her small form, and she lands on my head, her body pushing my ears down. I let her do her thing to appease her.
“Luckily, Kayafe doesn’t have strong mind resistance, and her Bond is underdeveloped. This is a perfect opportunity to study legendary beings while going unnoticed.”
“High Bonds can resist mental abilities?” I ask.
“Kind of,” Yrania shrinks even more and curls up between my ears. “It’s like resisting physical attacks with the Bond. You may not have needed that yet, but most Bonds are capable of damage reduction, which usually means that if one is strong enough, then simple tricks like going unnoticed just don't work,”
“Is it really that weak? No one is noticing us talking.”
“It’s not that it is weak, just easy to break. Noticing things out of place can clue people in, and it requires extra effort to make people not notice or not care to question. Anyway, what is it that you want?”
“I want your help with something. Some Humans asked me to spy on Dwarves, and they expect powerful resistance from mind mages. Just to be extra safe, I want your help.”
“I see. I think I know who you are talking about. Normally I’d say no, but I have several reasons to say yes. First is curiosity.” Yrania raises her index claw, “I want to see through your eyes; it would help my studies. Second, one of my friends tried to destroy a dwarven city and was repelled; I want to see just what the dwarves are capable of. And third, I can’t easily study dwarves since it’s pretty much impossible to get into their cities unnoticed, so this is a perfect opportunity.”
“So how does it work, anyway? We link minds, and then what? What does that even mean?”
“Linking minds is a much stronger and intimate version of telepathy. You can’t hide thoughts with the linked mind since they will be sent across the link, but your memories are your own, so long as you don’t actively think about them. You will be able to see what they see, and they can see what you see, but that comes with the benefit of protection. If anyone were to try to attack your mind, they’ll have to contend with not only yours but all others who are mentally linked at the same time. It’s very powerful with enough minds, especially against unsuspecting victims. This is very common when nations spy on each other, so both sides will have a group of mind mages ready to respond when they feel scrying attempts. You may be able to go unnoticed, unlike most others, but that means that if and when you are detected, the response will be greater since they will expect a tougher conflict.”
“But that’s only with the linked mind? So, I can keep things away from them with other minds?”
“Yes, although if I were you, I would dedicate as many minds as I can spare.”
I won’t have my main mind linked, especially since I am in the Lunaleyan lands. I also won’t let them see anything I am seeing other than the dwarves. But now that I know what to expect, I can set aside most of my minds for the task.
“Thank you for helping me. We will be spying on the dwarves in two days.”
“Alright.” Yrania teleports in the air and returns to her cat-sized form.
I confirmed who Alexander is while talking with Yrania, and now we are done talking, I should tell Kayafe I met one of her companions.
“Hey, Kayafe?”
“Yeah?”
“I met one of your old companions.”
Kayafe stops before turning toward me.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, four days ago, a human came to the Nexus looking for me; he wanted to hire my services to spy on their enemies. I sent a clone with him back to his country, where I met a very powerful human with a Justice Bond; his name is Alexander.”
“That does sound like him, but Bonds can be inherited. Are you sure he’s not just a descendant?”
“His subordinates say he’s the founder of the country and that the country dates back ten thousand years after killing some barbarian kings. I wasn’t certain at first, but after confirming he is who I suspected him to be, I decided now would be a good time to tell you about it.”
“I see…” Kayafe trails off in thought.
I leave her to her thoughts for a few minutes as we stroll through a market before speaking up.
“Do you want to see for yourself?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’m still getting used to everything, but at the same time, I do want to know what happened over all this time.”
“Well, nothing important is happening here right now. Safyr is at the Nexus, so nothing too terrible can happen while you are gone.”
“True… I guess now’s the best time. I suppose I’m just apprehensive. It’s been a long time, and I don’t know if he’s the person that I know.”
“Even if he has changed, I think the person you know will still be in him somewhere.”
“You’re right. Thank you, Alysara.”
Without waiting any longer, Kayafe teleports outside of the city and creates a small airship, one that is very similar to a motorbike but with wings.
Normally a small airship like that would be very hard to make since airships need a power source, but with inscriptions, the power can be gained from mana in the air; the only problem is the wings would need to be inconveniently large outside of the Nexus. Kayafe is getting around the issue with magically enhanced enchantments, so mass-producing airship cars won’t work since the magic has a limited lifespan.
However, maybe I can design some sort of mana collection net. If these small airships can be made cheaply, then I may complete my trial faster than I thought.
I’ll work on a design and see what I can come up with, but before I get started on that, I need to talk with Safyr.
I send a Clone over to her, where I see her munching on what looks to be a massive eel as long as she is, head to tail.
She looks at my clone and sighs.
“I’m not going to like what I am going to hear, am I? You seem to be getting into a lot of trouble recently.”
I suppose the last few times I came to her weren’t for good reasons either, but she’s right. I need to tell her about the Eldritch siege and the Calamity Egg.
“Do you want the bad news first or the worse news?” I ask her dryly.
“Give me the least relevant first.” She says, ripping a fin off the Eel.
“They are about equal, so I’ll give you the easier one to explain first. Those Eldritch beings have apparently set up a siege around the Nexus. They have teleportation anchors all around us, but it seems they don’t quite understand normal travel, so it’s easily bypassed.”
“Fools,” Safyr huffs. “I guess I can play with them later. You can remove their mana influence now, so there is nothing to worry about. What’s the worse news?”
“I found something called a Calamity Egg. It’s something made of Miasma, and we think it is a gestating Cursed Being of potentially Fabled Tier Equivalent,”
I explain what I saw and the reaction with my status as the Archive of Eternity while Safyr patiently snacks on her Eel.
“I see; that is troubling. We do not yet know how far along it is, so we don’t know if it’s defeatable if interrupted early, but it does explain strange cases of Cursed Beings. Keep studying it, but if the worst should happen, we can always seal it.”
“You can seal Cursed Beings?” I ask.
“Yes. You are only pushing the problem further into the future, so it’s not ideal, but it’s used in cases where one is simply too powerful. The hard part is finding a way to seal it since you need a proper vessel; plus, it’s akin to ritual magic, so it’s… finicky.”
“Finicky? You mean like how it needs several requirements like an eclipse?”
“Yes. It’s not worth the trouble if you can just slay the being. Regardless, there is nothing we can do about the Calamity Egg right now other than to study it. Is that all?” Safyr asks, ready to be left with her dinner alone.
“Actually, there is one more thing,” I say and tell her about Tk’Thalim’s dream.
“A Fate Bond, I must say that is only the second time I am hearing about one. The first was when I was still an adolescent. As for the dream, where you see a problem, I see a solution.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You seem to attribute the beautiful soul as Myrou, but it may be both you and her for different interpretations.”
“I know that it can refer to me, but which is it really trying to say?”
“Both. Myrou, to lead you to the Reality Eater, and you as the vessel to seal it. I do not see anything else that can potentially keep it contained. It can consume all the memories it wants, but your soul is Primordial, so, in theory, those memories will recover, and since it contains an unimaginably vast amount of memories, there is no way it can consume it all before they recover.”
I shudder. I do not like that idea. What if it doesn’t work? Even if it did, I’d be at ground zero when it breaks out. Can I survive it? However, what if Safyr is right? Somehow that’s even scarier, to have the most powerful cursed being in existence inside of me that might be able to break out at any time. Maybe it does work, but the memories don’t recover, or don’t recover fast enough. I’d be a ticking time bomb.
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Oathbound POV
Oathbound Lin and Ryan sit down at a lively tavern. The atmosphere is filled with drunken laughter and cheers as two men fist-fight in a ring, while the onlookers make bets. One fighter has managed to get the other in a head-lock and is giving him a noogie, much to the entertainment of the bystanders.
“Tomorrow, huh.” Ryan sighs, hunched over his drink. “What do you think our chances are? We’ve never been able to break past their defenses.”
The two Oathbound are dressed in simple clothes, but to make sure they go unnoticed, Lin is using his powers to make the civilians ignore them.
“I’d say it’s the best chance we’ll ever have,” Lin replies.
Ryan opens his mouth to say something more but stops as he overhears the table next to them.
“Hey, did you see that five-tailed Fylox around town?” A female Loprae with white hair says, gossiping with her brown-haired Fylox friend.
“I did, actually! The Emperor himself met her! I was there when she arrived in that airship.”
“Really? I wish I was there; I only got a glimpse of her yesterday,” The Loprae complains
“Apparently, she’s some big shot. There’s always at least two Oathbound around her.”
“I think she might be a queen or princess of a Fylox Kingdom, she’s dressed in foreign clothes, and she’s so pretty!”
“Oh! That might be! Even the way she walks is so elegant and refined; she must be royalty!” The Fylox says. Twirling her hair in her fingers.
“Do you think we should clear things up?” Ryan asks.
“I don’t know. Now that I think about it, I’ve never asked her what her status is, and she is very elegant; she may very well be nobility.”
“You don’t know?!”
“I was so focused on her abilities and the mission I neglected to think about more mundane things.” Lin defends himself with a shrug, “Besides, you never brought it up either,”
“I thought you knew something and reported it to the Emperor!”
“Well, she also doesn’t act like someone who has been raised in nobility. Yes, she’s very refined, but that could just be her culture, and she never said anything about being noble; if it were important to her, she’d have said something. Also, she introduced herself to me as just Alysara, and I did, in fact, ask if she had any other name, which she denied; I had to directly ask her if she was the Saintess of Mana and Magic,”
“Then let's report these rumors to the Emperor,” Ryan suggests, to which Lin nods.
“First, let us see if there are any more rumors going around.”
Lin and Ryan spend the next several hours going to various bars and taverns and listening to rumors. Alysara has certainly made an impression on the city with the most common rumor of her being a foreign member of royalty, but others include her being a rich airship merchant, an experiment of the Emperor, and a Legendary being hired by the Emperor.
Admittedly some people are correct, but there is also a risk of bad conspiracy theories going around, which the rumor of Alysara being the result of an experiment hits close to; so once the sun starts setting, Lin and Ryan reports back to the Emperor.
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” The Emperor says after listening to Lin and Ryan’s report. “Do not worry about it; I will deal with it. Get a good night’s rest; tomorrow is a big day,”
Comments
THE SAVAGE KITTY
Thank heavens for more chapters
Roombot
Ahhhhh, so that is how Aly can gain her Fabled point to upgrade her heirloom race to fabled. Sealing the Calamity. Then the Mythic Point from being the Archive, and BAM! A Mythic tier heirloom race. Imagine being the progenitor of a race of beings stronger than even the gods.
Andaconda Nation
Thanks for the Double Update. The rare opportunity is always appreciated.
ABsolute
I like this idea, but what about the societal frictions it could cause. Something like a mass exodus could happen because we all know how irrational humans can be.
Jeanean
Just had a thought, but there are two types of Rituals. One is the immediately powerful type, taking advantage of the symbolysm behind especially rare events, while the other is the weak type that gains power from consistency and cultural significance. Shouldn't it be pretty effective if Alexander were to spread knowledge of the Calamity Egg, and then start quasi-religious sealing rituals on a daily basis? From what we know, the ritual shouldn't be especially strong at the start, but if its performed by a lot of people on daily basis, the effects should quickly stack up. In addition, it should also introduce a cultural ritual that should burn away miasma and further slow down the growth of teh Clamity Egg. Just thought that that might be a effective "two birds with one stone" kind of way to delay the Reality Eater. I can only see two problems. First, magic doesn't like being controlled. But if Alysara designs the Ritual as a continuos one and is the one to kickstart it, that should get them around that issue, especially once she gained more experience with the whole matter. Second, the Ritual would be dependent on the Empires very existence, but that isn't really something that anything can be done about and much better than just doing nothing.
