AbyssalRoadTrip
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Abyssal Road Trip - 174 - The Unforgiven II
🕑 Added 2022-03-10 07:09:41 +0000 UTCAmdirlain’s PoV - Limbo - Monastery of Will’s Hand
After lunch, the training hall looked quite different, cluttered with various sized stone cylinders laying on sloped ramps set around the hall. Master Duurth took in the curious reactions as they entered the hall with an almost amused expression.
He motioned them to spread out among the ramps when the entire class was present. “Know you will each pick a weight to use for this training.”
Amdirlain moved to a mid-sized cylinder and looked the setup over curiously. The ramp had a forked base with a hooked lip that let them see the mid-point of the cylinder positioned on its side. There were guide rails at either side, apparently intended to prevent the weight from being twisted as it moved up the ramp that grew exponentially steeper.
“Know that since all your path plans have variations on Telekinetic Force and you’ve displayed consistency in telekinetic manipulation of smaller objects, it’s time to progress,” stated Duurth. “Know those whose plans include the thrust variation the ramp’s curve will keep it from flying off the end; the rest shall endeavour to control the cylinder and keep it at the curve’s mid-point for as long as possible. Does anyone have questions?”
He gestured when no one answered, and the Novices turned their focus to the cylinders. Shortly after they began, he stood by Amdirlain’s side and looked at the cylinder she had caught.
“Know that I hope that wasn’t from you attempting the Telekinetic Force technique,” offered Duurth, with a glance at the shattered wood at the top of the ramp.
“Maybe you should introduce these as should instead of will,“ Amdirlain replied and shifted the cylinder through Inventory and caused it to reappear on the ramp. “I have Telekinetic Thrust in my plan as well.”
Duurth harrumphed at her before the ramp’s broken lip, and the battered cylinder reformed.
“Know you should rest and meditate to restore your reserves as required,” instructed Duurth, raising his voice to be heard over the stones being shifted. “Know that anyone fainting from overextending themselves has a fertiliser bucket awaiting them in the gardens.”
He’d been about to step away when he pointed Amdirlain to the largest cylinder still available. Amdirlain shifted spots with a sigh and caught the airborne cylinder a few attempts later. Before Duurth could look her way, she restored the cylinder and ramp, but that didn’t prevent Lezekus snickering away from her own spot.
“The baby’s fingers not working?”
“I’m pushing it, not holding it,” grumbled Amdirlain, trying different image that just caused the cylinder to rock.
“Know you should start with force to get familiarity with its weight,” suggested Lezekus. “Why did you start with the thrust variation?”
“Because I’m a brute, obviously.”
Her light-hearted response had some of the Mantle’s strands swaying in the breeze of amusement wafting from Lezekus.
“What did you try to use first?”
“An unpleasant memory.”
Setting aside the recollection of pushing against the Sisterhood’s summons to report, Amdirlain shifted to a different image. Giving a snicker of her own, she tried a more light-hearted image of her teenaged self trying to push Mal—faking sleep—off the lounge room couch. This time, the cylinder merely rocked in place, and she set about trying again. Amdirlain fought back laughter as memories of her brother’s larrikin antics rose unbeckoned.
* * *
“Amdirlain,” Sarith said and nodded in greeting. Awkwardly extending a hand back to keep Elliyna’s door from closing, she shifted out of the way.
“You don’t have to hold the door, Sarith, but thank you,” replied Amdirlain. “Gemiya mentioned you started studying to become a Healer.”
“Know that is right, I have a lesson this evening,” replied Sarith and headed off the moment Amdirlain moved forward to keep the door ajar herself.
Amdirlain let the door close before giving Elliyna a shrug, sat down in an armchair, and curled her feet underneath her.
“Know that looks an awkward way to sit, but your continued attempt to talk to her is more uncomfortable still to listen to,” Elliyna observed.
“Then don’t listen,” teased Amdirlain and laced her fingers behind her neck. “What is the plan for tonight, oh venerable Healer?”
“Have you been able to transform the spire yet?”
The question wiped the calm look from Amdirlain’s face. Dropping her hands, she crossed her arms and hunched inwards. “No.”
“Know that this would be easier if you’d trust me enough to let me enter your Mind Palace,” chided Elliyna.
A sigh escaped her lips from reflex and at Elliyna’s curious expression, Amdirlain grimaced. “No, I’m sorry, but you’re a comprised resource you could say.”
“Because of my faith? Even though I’m only a follower, not a Priest? Isn’t that hypocritical, given that some would regard your own Priests as compromised?” asked Elliyna.
“Please leave it be. You can choose whoever you want to worship, and I’ll never try to talk you out of it. While I really appreciate your help, I can also make my own choices, so you don’t get invited in,” stated Amdirlain. “As far as my Priests being considered compromised, to some they are; anyone who gets off on being a tyrant or a slaver will not be happy if one of their members started following my tenets.”
“Don’t be foolish,” grumbled Elliyna, the frustration clear in her tone.
“Please, I’ve done lots of foolish things, and I’m sure I’ll do plenty more. I’ve trusted the wrong entities before, but I’ll try not to make the same mistake again. You worship an aspect of a Goddess who was working with two of my enemies. Whether she was playing them like she implied or she’s playing me now doesn’t matter. I simply want no part of the next game she’s playing and giving you access to my memories means that long term she’ll see them as well,” retorted Amdirlain. “I don’t just have to plan for the now, but decades and centuries into the future.”
Elliyna stared at Amdirlain before a crystal floated across to land on the table near her. “Know since you can now separate your memories from those you’ve absorbed, this will help with processing the rest.”
“No, that’s fine. You can keep that. Just keep giving me advice on how I can deal with the mess, but it has to be things I can do myself,” replied Amdirlain.
“So you can check the advice against your Psionic Lore, or with another Master?” asked Elliyna, in a dry tone that seemed edged with dissatisfaction.
Oops, did I screw up?
“Know that Master Duurth had wondered if everything was alright because of questions you’ve continued asking after your Psionic classes.”
“There is a saying: ‘Trust but verify’. I’ve discussed things with you I’ve never mentioned to anyone else. Though that wasn’t my only reason, I’ve asked many questions to get my understanding of Psionic Lore in order. I have all this knowledge, but I’m still working on comprehending it,” replied Amdirlain and shifted position on the couch. “If I have a question on Psionic Lore, I can recall what knowledge I have on it, but I don’t have the experience to know what questions to even ask.”
Elliyna tilted her head in consideration for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Know that sheds a different light on your questioning. Know that the perception Master Duurth gained was things had soured between us, and it raised concerns.”
“I have no questions about your integrity, but your Goddess has many facets to her nature. I’m sharing information with you in these discussions, but I’m not content with giving her potentially unsecured access to memories I don’t even realise you’ve seen. Even if she doesn’t pass it along, it gives her material to plan against me, and even these discussions will give her a lot once your Soul moves on,” stated Amdirlain.
“Know that I will see nothing that crystal helps you with,” insisted Elliyna.
“I once stuck myself with a dagger a Demon Lady provided and that didn’t work out so well. While you’re not a Demon Lady, using objects where I don’t know one hundred percent what they do won’t happen.”
Her admission had Elliyna looking at her like she’d grown a second head, and Amdirlain mentally sighed when Elliyna sputtered out a question. “Why would you ever take such an action?”
“I’ve mentioned holding the Souls of those I’ve killed for a time. I had destroyed some undead with energy from an evil and chaotic god enfolded in their Souls. Not the Chaos of this place that’s possible to manipulate; it was wilfully destructive and wanted to shred everything it touched.”
“What does a dagger have to do with this?” asked Elliyna, as Amdirlain rose to pace about, unsure what details to provide.
“I had destroyed thousands of undead capturing their Souls, and when I did so the energy separated into me. I had stolen power from them with the potential to destroy me, and I had no way of controlling it. The item was supposed to condense the energy into my blood and had a hollow core to let it then drain out. While I felt a channel open when I used it and could feel the energy leaving, she tipped her hand soon after that. It did more, it let her see through my protection as a Hidden. While it didn’t let her see everything, she learnt my nature,” explained Amdirlain and gestured to the crystal. “Even if it that crystal only does what you say, I’ll have let an object that interacts with my mind bypass my defences. What happens if there is a way for someone to leverage that to learn things I don’t want to share?”
“Are you perhaps being paranoid?”
“It’s only being paranoid if there isn’t someone out to get you,” countered Amdirlain.
Elliyna gave a long sigh and waved her to sit down again. “Know the crystal allows an untrained individual to use a variation of a Telepathy technique called Psychic Chirurgery, its safe and limited to themselves. Know that while Duurth can train you in it, the technique is not currently in your plan.”
“I’ll speak to him about what adjustments I need to make then,” asserted Amdirlain
“Know that it’s a technique only Healers normally look to learn. Know also there are techniques you’ll need to master first and it will stretch most anyone’s Telepathy Skill,” argued Elliyna.
“How strong does it need to be?” asked Amdirlain, deliberately ignoring the crystal. “I have Advanced Telepathy at Adept rank, though it’s only at level nineteen presently.”
The crystal returned to Elliyna’s hand with a painful sounding slap. “Do you know how vexing you are?”
“I’m sure if that was a Skill I’d have Grand Master Rank, assuming I hadn’t evolved it further,” quipped Amdirlain.
“Know I would like you to tell me about your progress clearing the obsidian, and what approaches have given the best results for you. Have you had any insights into removing the spire at all?”
* * *
Amdirlain sat down in the cleared training hall and closed her eyes while she waited for Liranë. The Mind Palace formed around her with the spire’s surface dramatically changed. Instead of black rock beneath her, demonic blood bubbled at a roiling boil, separated from her by a thin crystalline barrier.
Staying aloft, she floated to the spire’s edge and looked down a crystalline tube to the giant below. The ground over long weeks had taken on the appearance of an archaeological dig site, with channels and retaining walls along its edges. She’d structured the entire setup to prevent anything from spilling into the pit she’d carved, for all that it should be under her control. The fractured obsidian cleared away from the figure’s unblinking eyes to just below her collarbones.
Last night the spire that had looked an oversized obsidian poniard speared into pale exposed flesh at the hollow of the throat. Its crystalline surface made it an obscenely large needle, and Amdirlain was unsure if it was injecting the demonic blood or showing what it drew from the form.
Her position shifted and Amdirlain stood at the wound’s bloodless edge. The impression in the flesh made it unclear if the needle had broken the skin or not.
“I’m not a Demon.”
The memory of the damned Souls of the Dretches’ blood plain flickered around her and Amdirlain considered the way the spikes held them aloft while this one pressed her down.
“The Abyss presents them, holding their form aloft so they can bleed out their vileness and spawn Demons. Is that why these forms are pinned down and being smothered under tar and rock? All the pain threatening to drown me, and this is what my Mind Palace turned into. A twisted mirror image of that first Abyssal horror show with spikes pinning me in place instead of holding me in torment above the mess.”
Amdirlain stretched out a hand to tap the spire’s side. Despite the delicacy of its appearance, a dull noise resounded from its unyielding surface.
“This place should be under my control. It helped me get rid of Viper. Why is it so stubborn now? Why did I bury myself and my past lives if that’s what they are? Elliyna’s right, whatever the reason, I need to rid myself of this spire.”
Trying to find the means to shift it, image after image battered at the spire’s presence. It didn’t budge. As bubbles increased their tempo and the needle shifted downwards, Amdirlain didn’t stand she was simply upright. Her punch plunged deep into the crystal and boiling blood wrapped around her arm. In a moment of suspended time, cracks spider-webbed outwards in slow motion until they reached far overhead. Then time returned to full speed. The pressure behind the material exploded outwards in a flood of fiery blood and grief that crashed down upon her.
Instead of drowning, Amdirlain knelt beneath the rotting body of a child’s impaled corpse. The species details trampled her awareness amid the memory of rain streaming across her. Rain that mingled with her tears as the nearby Royal Champions kept vigil on her—their prisoner—massed power combined with her feelings of grief and guilt to hold Song out of her reach.
The local raptors cawed across the killing fields surrounding the dead city, their discordant notes speaking of sated hunger, and the endless food at hand. Beneath their living caws, the slaughtering army’s merciless Song mocked a faded echo of the dead’s torment. A Song that overflowed with arrogance, pride, and contempt for the lesser, short-lived beings they’d purged from their world.
Mournful notes laid the dead bodies out in neat rows when the choruses on guard ceased to suppress her Song. The child’s broken body bled water and rotting flesh across the pyre she created. Reaching out a trembling hand out to close the child’s empty eyes was a futile gesture as no lids remained. The thorns of judgment pointed at her accusingly from her branded flesh, and the Songs of departed Souls cried of her failure to protect.
The weight of the guilt crushed her down, and her Song gave life to the sorrow that burned within. The flames fury unable to touch her golden skin, she stayed amid them while the bodies of gentle Souls who’d paid for her failure burned. Across a purged city, the pyres’ tongues reached skywards, and the raptors fled the flames. Their black wings mingling with the smoke and clouds above whose tears couldn’t put out the fires that raged for weeks.
The vision jumped about as hundreds of thousands—and more—died to her blade, Song, and Spell. Finally, she stood upon a barren plain beneath a much younger jagged black cliff, and black clouds seeded with poisoned power blocked the blazing sky overhead. Looking across the thousands of Souls standing bond before her, finally only disgust remained, and her Song alone set an equally terrible judgement in place.
Souls of golden-haired Elves screamed and begged for mercy at the grim music, but their bonds held them in place until the music died away. Thorns set into the image of the spikes they’d used erupted upwards through anuses and out mouths to hold each a body-length or more aloft—now free to flail in their misery. The blood they’d spilled in life flowed from each, along with fragments of their twisted Souls.
With a start, Amdirlain opened her eyes and found the training hall thick with the smell of blood and death rising from her pores. Grief that she’d turned into a killing rage in that life ripped around inside her before folding her in two, and tears dripped across blood-soaked robes.
How long she stayed there crying, she had no clue. Awareness clawed at her the instant the gore-filled air cleared, and she spied the figure that crouched nearby through her concealed eyes.
“Novice Amdirlain, do you need me to wake Master Elliyna?” asked Tenzin.
The Master knelt not far away, but still clear of her reach. Tenzin’s typically composed expression was wide-eyed, and her complexion faded to the colour of yellowed parchment. The movement of Tenzin’s gaze tracking over the Amdirlain’s body made her aware of the spikes and thorns jutting from her flesh. The clawing pain she’d automatically dulled showed Chaos Shaping, not Protean, had grown them inside her, and the flesh rapidly sealed closed as she removed each. She still stank of death and needed repeated attempts to reshape her clothes and clean everything from her flesh.
“Sorry.”
The single word was all Amdirlain managed as fresh tears burst forth. Music, like none she’d ever heard before the spire exploded, rang remembered within her mind. The notes crying with pain and agony given to others, set forth to be experienced tenfold and more by those Souls she’d judged. As she punished them, guilt burned the Song within her. She had failed to condemn earlier, to protect them from the poison she’d discovered, but done too little against. All because concern for her cousin’s Royal pride and their mandates had stayed her from purging them all, despite the horrors she’d found present in their creation.
Sociopaths, one and all, their society was only functional through the fear that those above might delight in your agony next. Even their children had taken delight in tormenting those lesser instead of playing innocent games. Their beautiful bodies could only give rise to brutally twisted Souls, somehow unable to see those that looked different as having any worth or understanding another’s pain at all.
“Know I will organise a separate space for your evening meditations and training in case there are further such incidents.”
The doorway pushed open to allow Master Liranë to enter, and she saw Cyrus and others beyond their calm presence, providing reassurance to a corridor of Novices.
Sarith’s PoV - Limbo - Monastery of Will’s Hand
Sarith shifted uncomfortably on the end of Gemiya’s pallet, her gaze locked on her fingers instead of meeting Gemiya’s own. “Know I no longer hate her, but I don’t like her. Can we talk about something else?”
“Will you explain why you were so angry? Know that I’ve been trying to be patient and wait to speak about it. Didn’t you say you’d spoken to Master Elliyna about it?”
“Know that you will not understand.”
Gemiya leaned in close and pushed Sarith’s knee flat against the bed to stop her attempt to squirm away. “Isn’t that self-fulfilling? Know that I absolutely will not understand if you don’t explain, Sari.”
A moment of wresting freed Sarith from Gemiya’s light pin, and she glared at her sister. “Know that I wanted everything to be like father’s and mother’s stories. Know for me everything started fine: nothing was out of place, it looked the same, even the important Masters were still here. Does it make sense that I hated her for changing it so much? Know when she kept saying I had choices it just made me so furious. What choice did I have about her being here?”
“Know since that hasn’t changed, why don’t you hate her anymore?”
“Know it was some questions Master Elliyna asked me. Please, will you let me leave it at that?”
Gemiya leaned forward again to press her forehead to Sarith’s even as she tried to squirm away. “Know I need you to tell me.”
“Know that you do not.”
“Tell me,” insisted Gemiya, and Sarith shot her a frown for the oddity of her speech.
“Why don’t you hate your sister and parents for deciding that you’d come here? Why don’t you hate them for never asking if you wanted to become a Monk?”
The questions had Gemiya sitting back in shock, and in distress she whispered around a hand she held before her mouth. “Why did those questions change things for you?”
“Know that everything we did together I enjoyed, but you were always the one that made the important choices. Know I felt Amdirlain shouldn’t have been here and hated her for choosing to stay,” replied Sarith and pushed Gemiya aside to pace momentarily beside the pallet. Moving to the door, she seized the handle in a white-knuckled grip before she pulled it open and looked back at Gemiya sadly. “Know I wanted a choice that wasn’t yours, and yet I let you pushed me into going to the courtyard. Do you want to know who I hate now?”
“Me?”
“No! Know that I hate my weakness in having allowed you to make every choice that mattered. Know I should have left the courtyard when I couldn’t calm down, but even there, I failed to make the choice I should have,” replied Sarith. With that said, she stepped out into the corridor and didn’t look back, but Gemiya heard her. “Know it’s not your fault, and I don’t blame you; it’s my fault, but now I have to figure out who I want to be, and it’s a choice I alone will make.”
With that, Sarith strode away, and Gemiya watched the door slowly close between them.
Her footsteps carried her to the end of the hall, and the smell of blood caught her attention. The corridor’s light showed dark streams reaching from beneath the training hall’s door, and she mentally called for Master Tenzin even as she forced herself to push the door open.
Squat multi-limbed bodies, the like of which she’d never seen, sat amid pooling blood and viscera. A strangely intact face looked up at her from a tiny, crushed skull, the child-like innocence of its clouded gaze catching her own. Whether it was the stench or the child’s face, the first spike of nausea dropped her, kneeling and vomiting amid the mess.
The splattering noise of bile mingled with the tormented sobs of a figure further within the hall. The thousands of bleeding thorns blooming through Amdirlain’s flesh and shredded robes alike had her finding what else she had to purge.
She didn’t feel the touch locking her into a dreamless slumber before they teleported her from the Hall.
Comments
Glenn Wright
That's weird - could always share it via the discord server
buca117
Oi. I post a link to the piano cover of The Unforgiven from Lucifer and it gets removed?
Glenn Wright
She created a punishment spot on the Abyssal Plane Culerzic that later attracted similar Souls. As more arrived it spread further along the Cliffs of Lust
StormyAngel
Well then. I will now be eternally wary of any chapter titled "Unforgiven". Does this mean that Amdirlain's previous incarnation instituted this particular form of punishment or something? Like...did she originally make Culerzic?
