The loose, wayward Mana in the air was gorged on by Karakum. The dungeon Core swallowed the meal like a last-in-line starved orphan. The S-rankers made it difficult for it to get any Essence or Mana, so this free-flow buffet was a blessing. Karakum decided it liked the sun-lady. Though, when the scorpion Core shifted facets to look at her, she didn’t seem to be doing too well.
Ember’s mirth died as she held her stomach and chest. The vast drop in Essence and Mana? Expected. She’d only tried this effect on a smaller scale a few times, and even with Artorian’s Core design as a starting point, there was far too much to the sun for Mana to replicate. The Mana that comprised her body tightened.
Now that her Essence channel had… widened, and altered to a source of higher purity, the additional effects were crashing against her like waves on an artic beach. Duke, Pag, and Karakum—all being tied to the first tier Law of fire—were frozen in place. They felt an imaged breath exhale from something they could have sworn was right behind them, but nothing was there. The actual presence was merely a dull pressure on the mind. It regarded them, measured them, judged them, and found them wanting.
While it had no form, the four souls in the middle of the desert knew exactly what the presence was. They’d spoken to it once before, yet only on its home turf. The personal, direct consciousness of the Law of Fire… was here.
Ember shakily got to her feet, only to fall again. The intense mental pressure didn’t burden her shoulders. Mana converted from this new, stellar fire Essence shuddered her form. Ember was doing her best to literally keep herself together, and she focused on the mental image of her presence. Who she was. Her core traits. What she looked like. It was hard… it was so, so hard… Her image slipped, and her form fractured. Cracked lines of light appeared all over her Mana form as rainbow luminance bled out from within her.
B-rank one.
The mind was everything, and while Ember had made leaps and strides in her well-being, she simply lacked the mental fortitude to construct a stable enough self-image for what she was going through. Had she the Mana, she would be incarnating. Right. Now.
The ill-fated combination of her Mana-shortage and shaky self-image were preventing the change, but from what she remembered of this process… it was death or graduation.
She needed help. She needed to get away from whatever was forcing the change. Ember’s mind threw answers at the wall to questions she hadn’t asked. Was there anyone, anyone she could talk to that would reinforce her without lies on who she was, or what her traits were? Her thoughts scattered as the pressure shifted its attention towards her. The sudden added gravity that caused, crushed Ember into the ground. She was just barely able to keep herself up.
The consciousness of the Law measured. What a waste it would be if the discoverer of the opus failed passage across the threshold, due to these circumstances. It regarded the current S ranks. How… lacking they were. With but a consideration, the deadly cracks on Ember ceased spreading. The Mage gasped deep, heaving breaths as she fully collapsed against the smooth, reflective surface.
The cycle could not continue like this. Therefore, it would not. Judgement would be fair and impartial. The current Incarnations would be allotted their chance, and thus the scion hers. There could only be a single incarnate per S-rank for any given Law, and it would not brook those who shirked their promised tasks.
The S-rankers all fell to the ground the moment the consciousness melded through the between, returning to the Tower of Ascension. They sucked in a vulnerable, mortal breath. Four souls in the middle of the desert—silently seated in a palace of glass—held their tongues. Ember was the first to rise and wordlessly stumble her way away from the ancient epicenter of the capitol. She’d come. She’d seen. She’d come to terms.
There was nothing left for her here. This chapter of her life was done, and she could feel the page being turned to a close. She had been allotted a gift of time. With none left to waste, she gently toe-tapped off the glass surface and felt more of her mind fall free of shackles.
For the first time in over a century, Ember took to the air and flew.
She entered B-rank two, but for her that was nothing new.
Breaking through the cloud layer, she spread her arms to the sky and the rays of the sun welcomed her with an enveloping hug. She closed her eyes, and sank inwards as she floated. Ember descended deep into her soul space, past all the protections. She’d been going about this all wrong.
In her current soul space, a copy of her cultivation technique raged. A pillar of ebon-orange flame spiraled ceaselessly in place. The colors within flickered erratically as the new fire Essence gathered, refined, and purified for direct and immediate trade to her Law. She already had all the knowledge it could offer her at this stage, so instead she received all Mana.
Corruption? Ha!
Anything not fire Essence burned to a crisp within her ancient elemental cultivation technique. Air, water, earth, infernal… it all vaporized under the strain of oppressive heat that shared a deep identity with unrelenting war. She opened her eyes, and her sclera blackened as her irises swirled; matching the inherent color scheme of her cultivation technique. A patient old voice from a funny little man spoke to her, in the way she imagined it.
“You missed something!”
Missed something? Her form wavered. A reminder that she was on borrowed time. Ember’s mind retreated from her soul space, returning to the original location where her Mana-formed cultivation technique existed.
B-rank three.
Wait. Three? That was too fast. The words rang in her head again. Slower, calmer, accented with a foxy little smile as if he was poking fun at something. There was an ache in the space where Essence channels connected, like it had been prodded. “I have… an open celestial channel?”
Oh, that was bad. She was all about fire. Ember knew nothing about celestial cultivation, or what went into it. The Law wasn’t going to reject her because she had a second Essence channel, was it? No, she was still bound… she was fine. She was fine.
B-rank four.
Her timer was ticking. The connection clicked in Ember’s mind. She had until A-rank nine to form a stable self-image. Where she was getting all this Mana from, she still didn’t know… correction. Yes. Yes, she did, she just didn’t like what it meant. Her eyes glanced over her shoulder, down to where the S-rankers were diminishing in presence. Their greyscale effects had stopped entirely, and while she could see they’d gotten back to another game of Ur to try and get their mind off things… their power was already siphoning away.
They too were on a timer. A timer to prove to the Law that they were the correct choices to be the Incarnations of Fire. If they succeeded, she would fail by default. She couldn’t think about that right now.
B-rank five.
The air broke around her body with multiple concussive *booms*. Mach seven. Mach eight. Mach nine.
Ember felt the smile of her old friend, and she mentally saw him do a dance when he found out about her new Essence channel. A friend. Yes, a friend was exactly what she needed. A friend that wouldn’t judge her for her difficulties, regardless of her rank or her species. A friend that would even delight in helping her figure it out, hold her hand, and tell her right to her face everything he thought of her.
The self-image reinforcement. It was there, in the mind of her friend. She broke B-rank six, and immediately also broke Mach ten. The air around her was on fire. She was hot, hot, hot! The Mage-ranked being didn’t care, streaking through the sky like the abyssal meteor that had crashed into her civilization and left them all to wander a world that wasn’t theirs.
Ember tapped into tracking abilities she’d let lie dormant far too long, and adapted them. Adding fire and celestial Essences as the filter, she ignored everything that wasn’t… hmmm. C-rank. She nodded decisively. There was no way that wily philosopher hadn’t made it by now. She channeled a Mana pulse through her cultivation technique, and pinged it as a wave out into the
world.
Who’d think those cutesy echolocation calls they’d learned from the bats would have been used like this? Like would discover like. She’d find him… it was just a matter of time.
“Where are you, Artorian?”
Annex
Artorian’s Archives Book 3
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue
Prologue
Grandfather,
It was practically silent in the Fringe cloister without you around, until Ra became old enough to get around on her own. Now I am chasing the rambunctious little nugget around with my rolling pin daily. Somehow she figured out how to get at the cookies, but luckily she has not yet figured out how I find her no matter where she hides. Those lessons with you are paying off even years later, ha!
Keeper Jin indulges her, even going so far as to sweep her up and run when I am attempting to enact discipline! He always runs toward your massively oversized pillow, so oftentimes I am able to cut them off before they arrive.
As much as I want to continue my pretend complaints, things are well in the Fringe. Wuxius has gained some more... fatherly features, making me think that it is not only Ra who is making off with my cookies! On a stranger note, things have started washing up in the salt tides, not dangerous things, but odd things all the same. Ra has been gaining little dolls nearly every tide, and is making quite the collection. Frankly I find them somewhat creepy, but she adores them and I do not have the heart to take them away.
Ra asks after you frequently, which I suppose is our fault for telling her stories about you since she was born. I can only hope that Yvessa is correct when she says that you will be back. We are still getting letters from you, and we do treasure them.
I am sure that you will appear when we are least expecting it, likely with the rest of the family in tow. Or, who knows, perhaps you'll fall from the sky like a certain lovely song that has become popular in recent times.
Whichever it ends up being, I'm sure no one will be disappointed.
Your Granddaughter in love,
Elder Lunella.
Chapter One
“I’m… disappointed,” the smoggy voice full of hungry shadows mused to itself, failing to savor the culmination of what should have been a tantalizing and delicious plot. Instead, its palate was fouled.
Years of scheming, dark plots, utmost guile, well-executed strategies, quips and snappy retorts prepared and practiced en masse… all of this shouldn’t have resulted in anything other than a decadent downpour of exaltation and battling wits.
“Such time I spent snacking on scrumptious Sequoia. I savored every nibble torn from that mind, even as its final spices were denied. How he withered while I progressed, and your ilk scoured and ruined the landscape for my connoisseur canines and swallowing throats,” the voice drawled, monologuing to itself even as its target remained unapproachable.
“The fact that you and your deep-rooted entourage blasted, busted, and broke the landscape itself, merely to close my tunnels, was a treat. How I longed for challenge and cadaverous cacophony to expend my efforts against. Such inspiration you gave me! Now, at the closing of the curtains… here you lie at my feet. Yet I feel no satisfaction; in fact, I despise you for it!”
It was difficult to see in a cavern without natural lighting. When Artorian ever so barely opened his eyes, it wasn’t any different from the existing fugue states he was shifting between. Reality wasn’t yet on the schedule, and the academic remained caught up in his thoughts. Currently, he was thinking of a kitten. Soft, fluffy, will accept exactly three-point-one-four pets before mauling the living daylights out of your entire hand.
The cat sat sphinx-style on a square sheet of warm light while luminance streamed through an imaginary window. Within those exact confines, the kitten sat as if trapped within a box of its own making. The box could be inferred, but was it truly there? Could there be both a box around the kitten, yet not at the same time? It was a paradox box.
Such considerations had swamped his senses as they ebbed and flowed like great ocean waves. Both impossible conundrums and flippant conjecture screeched at him from opposite sides of a room that didn’t exist, with voices that weren’t there. All of this from one single event: his glimpse of the beyond.
The sight of the heavenly had been so jarring that even his mind was grasping at straws to find a way to reframe it into a way that made sense. It may have been one thing had he merely seen it with his normal eyes. Perhaps his mind would have simply turned away or ignored the being. But no, his foolish mind had experienced the event directly, thanks to his empowered eyes, which made the after-effects slap him harder than a Dwarven granny with an explosion-empowered slipper.
The voice awaiting him in the dark was malicious and full of smiling hunger. When the shapeless mass noticed its stirring companionship, its elation instantly grew. “Artorian…! You wordy, delicious thing. How are you?”
“S! Equals one-one-seven.”
The darkness blinked in bewilderment. All subtle movement in the area had ceased entirely as the mass of thought attempted to process the utterly ridiculous answer it had just been provided. Oozing charisma, it voiced its thought just in case. “Come again?”
“It’s the calculation for luck. I figured it out!”
One blink was an accomplishment. The flutter of eyelid flapping that followed, required this dark aspect to take on physical form purely so it could press hands together and reassess its priorities in existence. Something had clearly gone awry here. “Certainly, you meant ‘why can I not see’, followed by screaming, gasps of disbelief, a drama with a crestfallen collapse at the inevitability of defeat, culminating in begging to have your suffering swiftly ended.”
Artorian was used to being blind. He remembered it well enough that this temporary setback didn’t faze him one bit. Had the unhappily familiar voice not monologued its evil plan like a third-rate villain seeking desperate attention, he would have likely mentioned the fact. But no need to give an enemy more information than they had! He found that cycling Essence wasn’t improving his ability to see, and echolocation only outlined a vacant cave network.
The answers came easily enough. In comparison to the mysterious nature of the universe, this puzzle was only as difficult as figuring out who ate his evening pie in the Fringe longhouse; as if honey wasn’t sticky and children were clean eaters.
Creepy self-entitled voice. Check.
Dark underground conditions. Check.
Villainous idiot that was going to get beaten into the ground?
Check.
The old man touched his beard, only to find that he may have been the one who had eaten the pie. His otherwise groomed fluff was sticky and wet. It also smelled unpleasantly of… iron. Ah. Not pie
. Doesn’t take more than one battlefield to gain an innate knowledge of when you’re covered in blood, and he’d seen more than his share of battlefields.
This did not bode well for the people that had gone down here to hide. Down? …yes. Cavern aesthetic, musky wet air, cold, dark. Down. Why were people hiding? He was having a rough time recalling… it was all such a jarring blur. “How did I even get down here? I was on the mountain top.”
An attempt to brighten the area filled him with incredible dread. While the hum of the energy building in his Aura could be heard reverberating through the cavern, no light graced or filled his Aura. “*Tsk*. Oh, come now… you couldn’t have known about that. Surely a little clarity on your situation would be illuminating.”
The unpleasantly familiar voice bounced off the thick sheet of his presence, preventing a mental assault by sheer virtue of an Aura being present. The attack felt like nails screeching along a chalkboard, except that his Aura was the board.
Something about the tone gave Artorian pause. That sentence had not been in response to his question; rather, a response to what he’d almost done, and didn’t do thanks to his sudden discomfort. Unsettling as the situation was, it provided questions. Questions that pulled resources from his panicked mind still enraptured and terrified by the glimpses of the divine. His thoughts were diverted to the here and now, and the old man could feel himself relax as those extraneous considerations dimmed enough to be shelved for later.
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 78