She finished the water, and gave the bowl back to Sequoia for more. She was incredibly thirsty and didn’t quite know why. Artorian remained calm and patient. He didn’t dare to interrupt this beauty of a lecture. Something Rosewood vastly appreciated since it also stopped him from moving.
“Eventually the climb became known as ‘The Tower’, based on how it spanned the space it occupied. Each floor of The Tower was catalogued as a higher ‘tier’. The nodes of the concepts inhabiting each floor became considered the fixed rules of the universe, and so each node became known as a Law. Common knowledge spread that the higher ‘tier’ of a Law an ascended had, the more powerful that Ascended was. This is only… partially true. Successfully binding oneself to a concept in The Tower completes the process of what makes one an ‘Ascended’.
“Doing so completely reforms the individual with a type of energy that ‘Essence’ cannot compete with in raw might. It is the mortar between the bricks of the universe, and referred to as ‘Mana’. It is a poor acronym of mercurial apex-neutral asset and—like a bad joke—it stuck. Not much better than the initial names for Essence. That started as ‘the stuff of the thing’, followed by ‘the stuff of everything’, finalized by ‘the Essence of the thing’ and ‘let’s call it Essence and stop arguing before a matron stomps out the cookery with a rolling pin and hits you’.”
Ember downed the entire bowl, handing it back to Sequoia again for more as she began to sweat. Artorian had never seen her sweat before. What was she…? The history lesson continued. “The entire build up we are currently doing, for you, may be leaps and bounds of improvements in your ability. When finished, the time comes for you to attempt Ascension. Then, you will need to climb The Tower and assert yourself to bind with a suitable concept. I know of none who have become the soul of a Law without this intermediary. Those without requisite Essence also could not breach the fifth tier alone.”
She regarded him sternly. “I warn you, Artorian. Breaching the fifth tier requires another cultivator to provide you with Essence to climb while you climb, or you will not make it. Above the tenth requires an additional two, and every five levels thereafter another two C-rankers more. Essence deprivation is the most common cause of climb-failure. Knowing you as I do, I expect you to try something… ridiculous. The amount of Essence a cultivator can carry in human ‘C-ranks’ is insufficient to push past the fourth tier. This is all given my calculations from the last time I was in a position to check. That was a long time ago, so do math accordingly.”
She was handed a piece of spare woven-lentil cloth to wipe her forehead off. Ember was really getting puffy as night fell. “The preparation of an Ascended usually follows the same pattern. People of the last few ages have added their own variations, but no method is ‘the one true method’. It begins with awareness of Essence, which can happen either on its own or through guidance. Most skip this step when an Essence-refinement technique is grown, built, or implanted within them.”
Ember hooked the towel against the back of her neck. She wasn’t feeling the best. “The other way around, is something like the case of Wood Elves. They place themselves into an existing refinement technique. Then it is the long process of gathering and refining enough Essence to go through the painstaking and labor-intensive process of replacing oneself with the gathered, refined power.
“Usually, one solidifies their cultivator Core to pearlescence before completion. Rather than a creature of flesh, you will become a creature of energy. Flesh will remain only because your imprint on the universe demands it to be so. It is for this same reason beasts remain beasts, even as they grow in might.” Ember quivered and fell into waiting Elven hands. The act brought them all to their senses, and they scanned the area for threats. It was nightfall, so…
“It’s late noon at best. Sun should be out.” Artorian made the snappy comment, and they all huddled up. A dollop of snow gently touched his nose.
“That’s odd. Wasn’t Ember’s Presence nullifying the cold?” A windchill tore through his spring-collection clothes, and the shiver made him tense. It no longer felt warm in the grove, and more flakes of snow fell all around them as Ember stopped making sound altogether.
“So. Many. Words.” The throaty tone bubbled like an open sewer and spoke from a place the group couldn’t discern. Mostly because the words happened directly in their heads. The tone was dark, malicious, and full of smiling hunger.
“Let’s have a mid-lecture snack.”
Chapter Twelve
“Sequoia, you tall, delicious thing. How are you?” One of Sequoia’s Elves dropped dead on the spot while the others cringed and clutched their heads. A scream went through their collective consciousness, but it went unheard. Physically they’d been unable to make the outcry.
A gasp brought them to the real as they looked at Rosewood with mutual terror. “Run, it’s in my grove! R…”
Another of Sequoia’s Elves dropped to the ground just as the cracking of a tree reached them. The subsequent calamitous *thud* of it falling attacked their ears.
“Scrumptious is how you are… if you were wondering.” This was new. This voice was nothing like the discordant, uncoordinated masses and blobs of malicious blight he’d encountered so far. This deeper darkness was ever present—it didn’t just blot some rays of his sun, it blotted the whole celestial sky. “Oh, how I’ve waited for that firecracker to be so distracted. I nearly had that candle a few times, but ah… her laconic nature. How it thwarted me. I must truly thank you for this opportunity to… talk.”
Artorian bit his lower lip. It may have been a year but he still didn’t have the power to do more than hold off a mindless blight. This intelligent one that didn’t even have a noticeable source… he had been firmly outplayed.
“We have nothing to speak of… you… thing.”
An affronted gasp rang through his head. “We do not? How truly unfortunate. Onto consuming, then. I shall find succor therein.”
Sequoia squealed as a third and fourth body dropped. The remaining Elf had heavy, ugly tears run down his cheeks. Shivering as he wordlessly mouthed ‘it’s touching me’.
“Wait! What… why? Why this? Why any of this?” Even outmatched, the old man was trying hard to find some sort of foothold. He couldn’t debate something like this, and he didn’t understand what it might want. Aside to have a distraction during its meal as Sequoia helplessly fell to his knees. The caliginous presence regarded a frozen Rosewood and trying-to-keep-it-together Artorian.
“Why, for sating. Why else? No, the conversation I wish to have is that of your… departure. How such an act might save a grove of your choosing. I can’t be stopped, but I can find it within me to be… persuaded… to not be a complete glutton.”
Artorian swallowed hard, his hands forming fists as he tried to think of a way out of this. He was already improvise-altering the compositional content of his Aura, even if he had no confidence to edit the structure like his mentor could. Drat! How had it gotten Ember? There must have been something they had overlooked. “Oh, you overlooked something alright! Such surging surface thoughts. If you’d hoped I’d tell you, you’re mightily mistaken. Now, about your departure. Mmmmmm… how about…”
Sequoia screamed, his left arm tearing and snapping in a variety of places as it twisted in on itself. The Elf was breathing heavily. Unable to escape the body it currently inhabited, its grove under dire threat as mind and cultivation were consumed. “Immediately.”
Artorian closed his eyes a moment, feeling they were wet before looking to see a fallen, dull-grey body in the shape of Ember. She really had no spark in her when she wasn’t awake. Her form appeared as ash after a fire, a body outlined in the brittle material. Surely, she wasn’t defeated? Merely napping? Of course. Yes. Just napping. He locked eyes with the Elf in agony.
“Sequoia… my poor boy.” Sequoia regarded him blearily, gritting his teeth with all he had. “Make the choice.”
The shaking Elf silently allowed tears to flow. H
is cracked expression a pained mixture of fear, and wrath. Defiant to the end, and without trying to think, Sequoia’s eyes glimmered in a moment of decisive clarity. He mouthed: ‘Lance me’.
“Ohohoho! None of that! I won’t be spoken down to by a snack. You… argh!” Sequoia’s vision went hazy. As the last light in his grove perished by blight, a reflection in Sequoia’s eyes saw the last act it had so desperately desired.
A piece of payback against this formless misery that had haunted him since his days as a sapling. The edges of Sequoia’s mouth barely managed to lift when they saw a lance of starlight erupt in Artorian’s grip, his form hurling forwards. With a powerful Essence-accelerated jump and spartan spear thrust, the Aura-formed weapon bore down and freed him. That is, freed him from this life, as the blade pierced his skull.
Artorian fulfilled the spirit’s dying wish as he stepped into the role that had been requested of him. It had been an effort he’d considered himself unable to do. The intricate and intrinsic detail work he thought required was not something he’d been able to practice. He didn’t know if he could, only that he should.
Lesson one. Try anyway.
As Ember had done with the manifested broadsword. So had Artorian copied her form and shaped the Essence in the being of a familiar warglaive, one of which he knew every detail. It was a weapon he had spent a decade sharpening, using, honing, and in the end, abandoning when it fractured for the final time. He felt naked and exposed as his external Aura did what he’d told himself he could not do. It was a fool that lied to himself, and a great fool he indeed was.
His Presence was shaped in the form he saw himself. One of ages past. Something Ember still saw herself as to this day. A weapon of war. While the lance did… well… nothing to the physical form of the Elf, the identity-imbued light frame did what Ember had told him starlight could do.
Erase.
It hadn’t even been a gamble. Even if there had been no damage to the blight-creature tearing away the inside of Sequoia’s mind, he would have sacrificed his defenses to launch this strike. With the blight thing’s mind present in the Elven Core tree as it consumed Sequoia, it was vulnerable. As the last tree fell, a popping implosion could be heard in the distance. The sound was followed by a bubbly, physical screech that sounded eerily similar to thousands of metal saw plates careening into one another.
“Remember…” The voice throatily spoke with significantly less strength and cohesion. “I… will… remember.”
The fake night broke apart alongside the disappearing phantom voice.
Rays of sunlight pierced right back through the liberated landscape, coming to rest on the bodies of the fallen. Artorian’s lance evaporated moments after the strike, and all the Auric shaping globbed back around him as he lost the willpower to continue upholding the mental image of the weapon.
An identity erasing weapon. It wasn’t perfect, and the entire latter half of the hilt had been a wispy ghost of the true thing. Still, it was a proof of concept. Proof that he could do the thing! He hurriedly fell to his knees next to Ember, almost afraid to touch her as his palms brushed across her shoulder. He was so afraid she would cave inwards like a pile of hollow ash, but to his heavy and deep relief… she stirred.
Ember’s color returned as her Mana-made body woke, the mind asserting itself and invigorating ‘the correct way to be’. She sat up, sneering at something in the distance. “I have a killer headache, and I hate the cold. How am I cold?”
With a wave of her hand, nothing happened as she groaned and let her forehead fall into her palm. “Son of a spark…”
The academic had heard many insults in his day. That was a new one, was everything about fire for her? Ember continued grumbling. “I feel like a fat salamander just laid on my consciousness, and it smothered me slowly.”
Artorian pulled her thin arm around his neck, and found that attempting to pull Ember to her feet had been a useless effort. He couldn’t budge her an inch. Abyss if he was going to die from making a comment on that subject. He took a lesson from… ah. Erm. He kept his mouth shut, let her arm go, and joined Rosewood in taking care of the casualties.
Ember got herself up, which is how she wanted it. She was furious. “What did I miss?”
Rosewood wiped a tear off her cheek, taking a deep breath before: “The blight ate… It ate Sequoia. Then…”
Artorian held the Wood Elf that was breaking cohesion with the rest of her unit and half-embraced her, applying therapy pats on the back. The Elf buried itself into the human’s side and sobbed as the old man picked up where she’d left off. “It gave me an ‘offer’. An ultimatum, in truth. It ordered me to leave, and it was eating Sequoia while it made its demands.”
He tapped the side of his head to explain it wasn’t a physical conversation. “So, I asked the lad to make the final call. What did he want to do with the last vestiges of his life? Did he want me to leave and keep him alive, or should I put everything against this foe no matter the cost to him?”
The old warrior closed his eyes. Inhaling as he recounted that last, decisive glimmer. “He told me to fight. To get my undecided butt in the war. He told me to lance him… I don’t even think he knew what he was asking, aside from making his mind go blank so he didn’t suffer.”
Artorian shook his head at the thought of the Elven’s contorted face. “He was… trapped in that body. So, I did the thing you told me not to do, and I copied you. I pulled the ideas together and slapped my whole being into it, and then… there it was. In my hand. The lance. I leapt, and split the boy’s unseen skull. In the distance the blight roared, and then with significantly less intelligence… it confirmed that I have been added to the menu.”
He continued soothing Rosewood as best he could while Ember took the debriefing in stride. She kneaded her temples with her thumbs, still grumbling. “I understand. I greatly dislike how it managed to get me. It completely disrupted my concentration, and my protections fell like a burned-out building. I’m… I’m so tired.”
She sat down a moment and held her head, eyes locked on the fallen group of Wood Elves. Her voice cracked as she tried not to join Rosewood’s emotional state. “I’m… sorry.”
“Go.” Rosewood released the human, her tears freezing and adding to the heavy snowfall. “Go. I must tend to the fallen.”
She began to gather up Sequoia's deadwood forms, and spoke to the Ancient and the human no further. Ember squeezed Artorian’s shoulders, which made him start walking. They parted without any further words; not even a silent goodbye was noted as they gave Rosewood her wish, leaving her with the remains of her best friend. They walked in silence until they were long out of sight, entering another region and type of trees that weren’t slowly dying like all the sequoias were.
When the snow stopped reaching them, dissolving above their heads, Artorian lifted a palm. He noticed that the effect was spreading around them in a growing radius as they went. The old man had a look at the Mage. Ember was returning to proper colors, and the deep yellow attire they had been trying on was… actually very pretty. Ginkgo leaves provided sharp contrast for her natural coloring. He inspected his own pink rhododendron, and found that he had no complaints. Not that he would prod Rosewood to make changes even if he found flaws. Not after that loss. While this wasn’t the warmest garment, it sure was comfortable… and he looked pretty.
Artorian pulled his satchel around to his hip, popping it open and pulling a flank-sized chunk of jerky free. There was nothing else to do, so he was going to eat his worries away. This meant that he had a full mouth when Ember asked him a question. “You created a shaped Aura and filled it with intent?”
Artorian choked on his snack and hit himself on the chest, spitting it out rather than getting the food stuck in his throat. Choking was not a pleasant way to go, though compared to recent experiences, it would have been positively delightful. “Mmm. Yes. A little on the spot, but I applied the theorems you’ve been explaining. I didn’t think it was going to strip
the entirety of my external Aura, but it did. I actually don’t think I was fully present in the moment either… I seem to remember things from the perspective of the spearpoint.”
A soft hand harmlessly slapped him across the back of the head. “Don’t do that again. You’re not suited for it.”
He rubbed the back of his head, and shrugged, “I will do it if I have to. It’s not like I had better options. The ranged options I learned from Cherry and Spruce would have drained all the Essence out of me, and I would have had no chance to retrieve it. If anything, I believe I should be practicing the skill.”
Ember stared him down. “No.”
Artorian threw his arms up. “Why!”
The stare didn’t end, but the walking pace had. “It will consume you. Becoming the weapon is something a Blade of War does only after they have understood the principles of the self. There is a chance to lose yourself entirely as you form the weapon. This is vastly dangerous, and ‘winking out’ was a common problem for Blades of War even in my day.”
She was stalwart. “You become that weapon, and if you can’t pull yourself back, then when the weapon winks out from concentration loss… then so do you. The technique is great for conservation of energy, but it requires a century of careful preparation. We’re not focusing on your external Aura first because it can reform into a weapon, we are focusing on it because external Aura is exempt from needing techniques or practical skills to be useful. It already has the form of a weapon.”
She stomped off, making a show of it rather than zipping away at the Mage-speed she easily had at her disposal. She was frustrated, but wasn’t about to leave him. Not after the loss of an entire grove.
Artorian kneaded the back of his head, seemingly unaware of how on-edge she was feeling. “But it’s just… how can an external Aura be a weapon without being reshaped into…”
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 47