Luke Everhart
patreon
Chapter 230 - Well, That's A Surprise
🕑 Added 2025-04-01 10:33:17 +0000 UTC“Uh, Jamios? Can you come over here for a sec?” Senior Healer-Apprentice Tyjakis called, beckoning his companion over with one of his free hands.
Nar sat beside Kur, Cen, Jul and Viy, cross legged on the floor of the main sickbay room of the black ship, the same room where Gad, Rel, Tuk and Mul now slept in, on beds that almost touched each other in the cramped room that occupied a good second third of the ship, the first having been reserved for the ship’s impressive array of engines.
The ship that now housed them was called Speedy Recovery. It was a stealth, quintuple engine ship that the captain had somehow acquired for emergencies such as the one they now found themselves in, and according to the healers that had looked after them, the Speedy Recovery had saved more apprentices’ lives in the eleven years since the captain had acquired it, than they cared to count.
The Speedy Recovery had initially been fitted for a much more stealth and offensive type of role, but once she’d acquired it, the captain had stripped everything out from it, and basically turned it into a flying sickbay and quick emergency transport.
The black ship had been dispatched within minutes of the Scimitar receiving the corruption alert from Tsurmirel, who had in turn received it from the Church, and it had brought with it an extra contingent of healers with supplies to aid the apprentices who’d found themselves stuck in the corrupted dungeon cluster, alongside Tys and several extra squads of HOUNDs to ensure everything went smoothly.
Jamios, who looked like a beefy, thick, brown and green skinned human, and who was the other healer apprentice present, looked over towards where Tyjakis was scanning Mul with a dropped jaw, his eyebrows high up his forehead to disappear under his mop of bright blue hair.
The healer who had healed the worst of their injuries, and whose name Nar didn’t know, had apparently gone on to help out at the beetles, as it seemed like the Church had managed to rescue all of the other Scimitar apprentices. Although several of them were in pretty bad shape, it looked as though Tys was right, and Kur’s party had taken the brunt of the worst of the corruption effects.
“What… Don’t tell me the kid’s actually corrupted?” Jamios asked, sending a jolt of alarm across the room.
“What?” Nar said, pushing himself to stand up.
“No, no… It’s not that,” Tyjakis said, almost distracted. “But come look at this…”
Jamios rushed over and Nar followed suit, the others scrambling to get up behind him.
“What is… What the fuck?” Jamios muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Nar asked.
Instead of replying, Jamios snapped whatever scanner Tyjakis was using and pointed it straight down at Mul’s chest, tapping away at it furiously.
“I’ve already reset it three times!” Tyjakis protested.
“Yes, but I want to reset it!” Jamios said. “Fucking Abyss… Fire and ice? How in the fu…”
There was a sudden, bright pop of blue light, followed by a cheerful bark, and Nar and the two healers found themselves gawking at the wolf pup wagging its bright white tail from atop Mul’s chest.
“This is…” Jamios whispered. “But… But how?”
“It’s a wolf cub,” Nar said.
“Wait, you know this beast?” Jamios asked.
Nar shook his head. “No, but the illatrian and the ice goblins had these guys in cages. Mul set the last wolf free, and it fought with us.”
“It did?” Tyjakis asked.
“It did,” Kur said, joining them. “And I think I saw this little guy running around as well...”
Without a word, Tyjakis dangled the corruption detector above the wolf pup. The little, golden rainbow pearl at its end shone with a faint radiance, and its luster remained unchanged.
“No corruption…” Tyjakis said, his tone awed. “But there are no ice wolves in those dungeons, are there?”
“Not according to the brief,” Jamios said. “The dungeon guardian must have created them, but failed in corrupting them… Probably its first attempts! And that could explain the cages.”
“Wow, dude…That’s crazy,” Tyjakis said. “And then what? Did this little guy just decide to bond with the brawler?”
“I guess so… If Mul saved his parent, or sibling, it might have decided to trust him instead of staying behind. And even if it was an aether beast before… It was inside him, which means it’s been reborn as an aura beast. But how did it keep its ice affinity?” Jamios asked, frowning. “Shit, this is way above my pay grade.”
“What’s happening?” Cen asked, finally reaching them. “Is he… What is that?”
Jamios and Tyjakis exchanged a look.
“Uhmm… Soooo, what do you know about Bonded Beasts?” Jamios asked them.
“You’re joking…” Nar said, staring down at the white cub. “You mean like the illatrian and those wargs?”
“I think that’s exactly what they mean,” Kur whispered, staring wide eyed at the little beast atop Mul’s chest, and as if in reply, the wolf yapped at them, its tail wagging even faster.
“Oh, Mul,” Cen whispered. “What did you do now?”
“This is fucked,” Tyjakis said. “We can’t tell the COO!”
“What?” Kur asked. “Why not?”
Jamios groaned and rubbed the sides of his face.
“Because this beast, as cute as it looks, was created by a corrupted guardian,” he explained. “And even though it's not corrupted, the Church will want it dead, just to be on the safe side…”
Nar gaped at the little creature, sniffing the air curiously with its tiny, cute, pink nose.
“But… Look at it,” Nar said. “And you just said it’s not corrupted!”
“I don’t make the rules, man…”
“Wait!” Kur said, before anyone else could say anything. “Why can’t we just hand it over?”
“KUR!” Jul, Viy and Cen shouted at him.
“What? You know how dangerous corruption is!” Kur said, taken aback.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Tyjakis said, dangling the corruption detecting pendant above the pup, who followed it with curiosity. “These things can’t be fooled. They are literal, physical manifestations of the Radiant God Genahu, The Great Healer and Ever Warden of the Living. It’s infallible in detecting undeath, corruption or any other sort of contagious malady, disease or affliction within the body.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry,” Jamios said. “The problem is not with the wolf. Is with Mul. The two of them are now bonded at the soul level, and that means that whatever happens to Mul, will happen to the wolf, and vice-versa.”
“You mean… If the wolf dies, so does…” Cen covered her mouth.
“Yes. And not just that. Buffs, debuffs, they will now share nearly everything,” Jamios said. “Though on the flip side, any debuff targeting one of them can be resisted by both at the same time. Plus, the wolf is now a semi-sapient beast.”
Nar looked up from the little cub to the healer. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. This cub now satisfies two of the Three Fundamentals of Sapience,” Jamios said. “An aware Mind and a true Soul, meaning, this beast will never return to the System. It will end up wherever Mul goes after death.”
Cen gripped Mul’s foot, her expression fading to a very light gray.
“What does this mean, then?” Kur asked. “For his path, for his future… For-for him?”
Jamios shrugged.
“It’s just a different path,” he said. “There’s plenty of delvers with Bonded Beasts around, even in the berserker paths. It tends to be rarer amongst auramancers, since there aren’t any beasts in the B-Nex, but it's perfectly fine. If anything, when the cub grows, you’ll basically just have another and very strong party member.”
“So nothing bad will happen to him?” Cen asked.
“Not unless anyone ever finds out,” Tyjakis said, in a hushed tone.
“We’ll tell the COO once we leave here,” Jamios said. “If we tell her now, the Church folk might be able to detect the lying in her [Presence], and the only way we’re even being allowed this much leeway is because of her status, and because she’s been nothing but honest with them.”
“And will that be okay?” Kur asked, staring at the pup with a drained expression.
And what do we do if it’s not? Nar wondered, guessing at Kur’s thoughts. Fight the COO? The Church? Everyone here?
Then he paused. If he had to… He probably would. He would die, obviously, but he wouldn’t just let them kill Mul, and the realization was both shocking and relieving, and he was unable to not smile at the little cub chasing its own tail atop Mul’s sleeping chest.
Looks like we have a new member… He thought, shaking his head.
“Ah, it will be fine. I think,” Jamios said, looking drained. “It’s not like the COO wants him dead anyways. She’ll shout a little when she finds out, for appearances sake, and everything will be fine. And we can make up some records… Say we bought the wolf somewhere else.”
“But won’t she see it when she comes back?” Viy asked, reaching a finger to the little bundle of fur and joy, who paused in its antics to sniff at her with curiosity.
“I’ll keep her away if I have too,” Jamios said. “She’ll know something’s wrong, but she’ll be smart enough to guess she shouldn’t be asking any questions and we should be okay. Besides, I’m sure the little dude is going to run out of energy soon.”
“What’s that mean?” Cen asked.
“That…” Jamios said, motioning at the beast with his chin.
The little wolf cub had suddenly stopped sniffing Viy’s finger and yawned, showing a mouth full of little, white teeth.
“My Crystal, it’s so cute…” Jul breathed, her green-blue eyes looking even bigger than usual as she eyed the little fluff.
The cub looked at each one of them in turn, then stared at Cen. The tiny bundle of fur yapped at her, then yawned again.
“Can I hold it?” Viy whispered.
“Best not touch it until Mul gives the say so,” Jamios said. “Besides, look…”
The wolf sniffed around Mul’s chest, then did a full lap around himself, and curled up into a ball atop Mul. Then, it turned into bright blue light, and dissolved into Mul’s chest.
“What happened to it?” Viy shouted.
“Relax,” Tyjakis said. “It just went back into his core. That’s where it actually lives now, and where it heals itself and restores his own aura from, until it becomes old enough to use his own. For now, it can’t materialize for long, but the older and stronger it gets, the longer it can stay out and about. Pretty neat, isn’t it? And I’d say your friend here has hit the jackpot. Wolfs are some of the best Bonded Beasts around, and since this one even kept its own…”
“Hey!” Jamios said, elbowing him. “Leave that stuff for their masters!”
“Ah, right. Sorry,” Tyjakis said, not sounding particularly apologetic.
Jamios sighed. “Fuck’s sake… Let’s just keep quiet about this until we’re in the air.”
Nar, Kur, Cen, Jul and Viy gathered around Mul’s sleeping form as the healers returned to their duties, checking up and continuing to heal the other four.
“What do you think?” Cen whispered to Kur.
Their party leader sighed and shook his head.
“No idea. But I can tell you what Gad will say…” Kur said, his tone between apprehension and excitement. “It looks like our little family has just grown again.”
*********
Tyjakis asked them if they wanted to go sit in the passenger area, while they waited to depart, and Nar, Kur, Jul and Viy took him up on the offer, with Cen opting to stay with her brother.
The passenger area turned out to be several twin rows of three sitters, and Nar’s body groaned with relief as he finally let go of his weight, and allowed the comfortable black material to almost absorb him in. He was asleep in seconds.
He only woke up when the engines suddenly turned back on, and looked around with bleary eyes to find a bunch of people in healer and Scimitar’s uniforms taking seats around the cabin.
“We’re just going home,” one of them told him, as she took a seat next to him, her eyes sunken and her tone drained. “You can go back to sleep. It’s over.”
“Thank you,” Nar mumbled, intending on doing just that.
However, now that he was awake, and things were happening, sleep didn't immediately return to him. Instead, he looked past Jul into the small window as they took flight.
Crystal… The size of that thing, he thought, as they flew over the Church’s battlecruiser.
He still couldn’t see the full length of the elegant, heavily decorated, white and gold ship, but it was at least 300-feet wide, and as it got smaller in the distance, Nar estimated he had managed to glimpse at least 2000-feet of length, before the Speedy Recovery turned, blocking the rest of the battlecruiser from view.
Maybe I’ll try to go back to sleep, Nar thought, as the outside was replaced with empty, dark twilight.
However, just as he was about to look away from the window, he caught sight of a black and gold gleaming ship sailing past them, headed in the opposite direction. It was about the same size as theirs, except a lot thicker.
“Did you see that?” someone whispered behind him.
“The Order of Purity… Is that why we left in such a hurry?”
“I bet…”
Nar ignored their conversation and closed his eyes, but as he softly drifted off into sleep, a last stray thought popped into his mind.
That ship… There was something about it.
However, it was soon forgotten and lost, as Nar plunged back into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Comments
Faces The Wind
Puppy!
Lucas Onderwater
Damn, that would be a twist! And I imagine the Church would not be happy about that at all...
Tristan A
I wonder how that interaction will work. Will the ice aura stabilize him in some way.
Mojr
I KNEW the cub was going to be Mul's bonded beast AND that it'd give him an Ice affinity! I commented it on a previous chapter and you tried to GASLIGHT me Author! How DARE you😱 😛
CentaureHeart
Ah! Nar's affinity is about purity, which is really funny coming from an Unclean.
