Artorian's Archives Omnibus

by Dennis Vanderkerken

  If the duo became weaker, such as in the areas of suddenly being a Mage rank… why, then it would no longer be vastly overpowered by either of them. Oh, the games they would play! It didn’t have time to consider further. The dimension it occupied—the one considered ‘reality’—froze in a world made entirely of greyscale.

  It could not hear, but it could see. It saw the agony of the wailing figures. They held themselves and fell to the ground. Roiling. Writhing. Twisting in unnatural, incomprehensible ways as their bodies seemed to turn in on themselves, collapsing onto a single point in space while simultaneously having a form spat out from the other direction of the spin.

  The judging had concluded. Their Law had found them wanting.

  It restructured the proper order of the world within the field in which it had dominion. The gavel had struck: the Law had judged. Mana made bodies coated in a shell of Incarnate energy lay twitching on the glassed desert floor. The greyscale effect bled out of reality; neither of the fallen beings would be able to make it happen ever again. They were no longer Incarnates; they were Ascended. They were Mages. Both Ancient Elves sat up with a displeased groan when the pain stopped.

  Karakum could tell they were happy to be alive, but just who were these geezers that looked a thousand years old? These methuselahs didn’t remotely look like the two playthings it had expected. Karakum was so startled, it didn’t know what to do as it shifted viewpoints to look between the two; experiencing the emotion known as ‘flabbergasted’.

  The two ancient geezers got to their feet. Wobbly and uncertain, but to their feet nonetheless. “Ha! Look at you! Your beard reaches the ground!”

  Pagacco was having none of Duke’s banter. “Says the hunched over corpse with bent ears!”

  Duke felt his ears. Oh abyss, they were actually bent. He waggled his bony finger at his old friend, a hand pressing to his lower back to get used to a body of… Mana. *Ugh*. How awful. He had to deal with bodily functions again. He didn’t want to~o~o! It didn’t matter. He smiled as Pagacco had trouble walking.

  They quipped back and forth until Karakum the dungeon Core got the gist of it: these were the creatures that had tormented him! For the first time in centuries… Karakum smiled. The mana around its core cracked like glass. Reforming to create the expression as it was trapped as an orb no longer. Finally free to form its own body, Karakum grew. A ruby-armored crystal scorpion once more.

  Es-illian-Yaran held her head and howled. Not with her voice, but as an emanation of power to the endless void. Ember’s lament was filled with memories of her little girl. Of her body crumpling into a single point in space, directed at the very middle of her cultivation’s center. She shifted to and through a small, indistinguishable pinprick as her mind and body were moved into her Soul Space, as her Soul Space inverted. Her center spilled out into the real world using Mana as an intermediary. The energy of her soul became manifest, and the first thing it demanded in order to exist was shape and personality.

  Over the eons, Ember had encountered many theories of the soul. Many were suspect; most were flat-out wrong. Her favorite was that the soul served as a mirror image of the traits one had as a person. If one was a good person, then it was to be said they had a good soul. The theory was named HunPo, after the scholar who came up with it in the Golden Age. She passed before her time could truly shine, but by the age of thirty was said to have grasped the will of the Heavens and Earth.

  Hun’s peerless mind divided her writing into conjoining segments. Yin: vital force expressed in consciousness and intelligence. Yang: physical nature expressed in bodily strength and movements. When the Yin and Yang move in unity and harmony, they express themselves as the nature of the soul.

  A person is how they carry themselves, think, react, and act. These reflections are carved into their soul, and the soul reflects it on the endless lengths of a still ocean; silent and unmoving for all to see.

  Ember’s soul was no lake. It was a twisting helix of rampant fire. Her pyre. The Soul energy needed immediate information on what she was. She realized… the old man hadn’t been wrong, even if his words had been the epitome of recollected pain. It wasn’t who she was at this moment that needed to be actualized; it was who she wanted to be. The person about to come anew into the world did not need to be broken, and didn’t need to be a war torn Yaran. It did not need to be a Zaran, for that was a title afforded to only one… one who had passed.

  The shoes of her daughter—however tiny they were—were a pair too big for her to fill. Still, the words of the wise resonated to a soul that needed them most. The person going back out into the world did not need to be her. It did not need to be her grief, her loss, her damage. It could be… Hope. A new perspective and horizon.

  Yet, how could she do this? She couldn’t just-

  A memory played before her. It was small, and it was weak. It was haphazard and frail. It wasn’t… hers? Her mind latched to it, absorbing the information in less than a moment as she experienced the Wood Elf technique of memory giving in a fashion so direct and profound that she was assured her Incarnation energy was somehow involved.

  In the space between worlds that Ember currently occupied, the Law of Time snapped its fingers and acted in accordance with the rules. An Incarnate would have all the time in the world to Actualize. So it was written, so it was agreed, so it would be.

  Yaran blinked. The pain was gone? No. It was not diminished, it didn’t disappear. The ticking time bomb that was her Mana-made body simply no longer applied as the first droplet of Soul energy blossomed into the real world. Cracks still coated her body, and while she was unable to move, this was her soul space. She looked at herself from outside her own perspective, and found everything frozen in a landscape of grey.

  Her eyes closed, and she absorbed the gifted memory. A footfall on a bridge that didn’t exist stepped into her vision. A walkway of darkness without borders or walls squeezed into being, and at the end of it… there was a bonfire. There, she saw her friend. Then a younger version, and younger still. All were seated on stumps around the fire, versions of personality that were partially discarded.

  She watched and listened as the Elder of the Fringe sat and surrendered. He could go no more; he could live no longer. The task ahead required someone… not better. Different. Traits and choices that would lead him to a path his current self could not walk. As that Elder looked to an empty stump, Yaran saw a new man appear from nothing. Perhaps… not from nothing, but from the traits needed. The traits wanted. This person, she recognized: this was Artorian. Her Artorian. The version she knew. The nosy, distractible, excitable, gabby, foxy, playful old man.

  There had been… something else. Beneath it all, that veneer of personality was hiding core traits. The required curriculum. She looked deeper, and the memory allowed her to see; where she expected resistance, she found only welcoming warmth. Where people would ordinarily wish to hide the truth of their being from all others, Artorian trusted her to see the truth. The awful truth of who he really was beneath it all; what he sacrificed to become ‘him’. Ember had to see. She needed to see.

  Peeling away the coat of paint, there was wrath, rage, fury… and there was war. These aspects, she knew ever so well. Dropping a layer deeper, she found something unexpected. She found that the previous layer of action was built upon a layer of reason. She couldn’t believe her eyes when three moving pictures played over, and over.

  In the first, it was the old man. The Elder of the Fringe, holding his adoptive children from families not his own. He smiled, and they beamed back. How he loved them! They had bright minds with bright futures, if only he could give them the opportunity.

  The second, a youthful, spry warrior decked in the imperial regalia of a commander. A practice before he ever needed to go to war, the first preparation before the first battle, a young woman smiled at him and held a tiny baby in her arms. His baby. He’d never spoken of his child, nor the woman. How he loved them! Even when they were gone forever.r />
  In the third, and last, he was a youngster himself. He was playing around with… some kind of animal? It pounced on him, and he held it tight. It licked his face, and his childish hands rubbed down the bristled mane of what by all rights should have been a dangerous beast. That didn’t matter to the little boy. How he loved it! How sad he’d been when he’d buried the creature under the cover of rain.

  A layer deeper. Ember fell. She understood now, that his wrath, his rage, his war… they were not the driving force of his being. They were the tools to accomplish his means to an end. A willingness to do what had to be done. The Incarnation of a good man, going to war to protect that which he loved; even when it was gone from this world.

  Her feet hit the floor. A hard, unforgiving floor. There wasn’t a moving image here. Instead she found two replicas of her friend. Yet they were scarred, bleeding, dying. Falling to the ground once again, their broken forms stirred. She tried to step closer to help, but found herself unable. The sheer force of the absolute core of his personality rebuked even her.

  Even broken. Even battered. Even pushed to the brink of losing all that was worth living for in the world. A single, shining trait did not quit. It did not stop. It did not surrender. It would get up, get up, and get up again.

  Ember was moved beyond words. He’d said it to her before. A hint, perhaps? Never had she taken it to mean anything with such incredible willpower. At the very basis of her friend’s psyche, the bottom most fundamental core of his being, the truth he wanted to show her. The truth he needed her to see was that through endless trial and tribulation, there was a trait he wanted her to have. The only gift he could grant her that could possibly have some meaning. There, at the very basis of a little human’s mind, Ember discovered what it meant to be unyielding.

  She looked up, and saw that the figures had stopped falling. The bloodied, broken, tired, and identical exhausted men looked over their shoulders at her. It made her freeze, or feel the sensation of frost. It passed when they smiled at her, the second core trait with an arm around the first showing itself. It was the truth: that he could not do it alone. The figures mouthed words at her, and while unspoken, she heard them loud and clear.

  “I believe in you.”

  A strength filled her. A knowledge that, while this was the most difficult tribulation of her life, she wasn’t alone. The core personality traits watched her go, keeping fists to the air in solidarity of her journey as she moved back up the layers. The three stilled images moved no more, they only regarded her. All three versions of her friend smiled at her, a companion in all walks of life as they raised their hands to wish her well. The tools of strife did not quarrel or shout when she ascended to their layer. They saluted her proudly, as a fellow compatriot of endless trials.

  She opened her eyes, seated at an empty stump at the bonfire. The pleasant, foxy, playful personality smiled at her. It took her hand, kissed it, and gave her a playful wink just to be coy. It was nothing serious. A pleasantry designed just to serve as a reminder that she was lovely, and had not a shred of judgement to fear from her friend. He mouthed words at her, and she could hear him clearly.

  “I leave this place to you. May you find yourself in the exact place you need to be.” With those parting words, she was alone in the bonfire construct. The mental room where an old philosopher came when he’d failed and needed to try again. She took the idea, and left the memory.

  Back in her soul space, she squeezed her metaphorical hand into a fist. Ember imagined and built her own bonfire. Hers was the helix of her cultivation technique, but it functioned all the same. Opening her eyes, old versions of herself littered the camp by the hundreds. She was, after all, much older than her human friend. Feeling far less alone, relief washed over her at seeing how far she had come. She smiled, and they all smiled back.

  Taking a few steps, Ember exhaled deeply and seated herself on an available stump. The others around her said nothing as she turned to the empty stump next to her, and spoke from her heart. “I can’t do this anymore. Can you?”

  A copy of her current self manifested slowly, and smiled as it regarded her. The new self looked younger. More vibrant. Full of life. “I can.”

  The new version reached over and grasped Ember’s shoulder. “It has been an honor, and a privilege, to have been you, Es-illian-Yaran.”

  Yaran swallowed her worry, and shuddered as the next words trembled out. She knew the answer to her question, but she needed to hear it. Just to be certain before she passed her torch. “Thank you. What is your name?”

  The new version steadily gained the perspective that the old one lost. It beamed at Ember, and took her hands into theirs. “I am the one that will finish what you have started. I will be who you wanted me to be, with the lessons you wanted me to know. With the memories and sights you wanted me to see. With the actions you would have wanted me to take. I am the life you wished you would have had, and I can’t wait to show it to you. I am the hope you always wanted everyone to see. My name, mother, is Dawn.”

  Ember’s viewpoint dimmed as her personality came to an end. She let it go willingly. Made anew, Dawn Aran rose from the stump…

  And became certain of herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Artorian could have sworn he’d heard the snapping of fingers as his connection to Ember closed. He didn’t have the luxury to ruminate the fact that his last-ditch effort to give Ember information was cut short before he felt he had gotten it across. Abyss! He had hoped that if words failed, a memory dump of a key memory that could help might be of some use.

  Alas, he didn’t know if it had gotten anywhere. Artorian watched the flaming orb that was their protective dome fade and thin. On the other side, Blight hungered; it beat against the shield now and again like an animal testing for weaknesses. It lost some darkness in the process, but it had plenty to spare.

  Worse still, the moss effect was either in the end stages of fading, or had fully expired. The academic couldn’t tell while the shield was up. Though, in truth, he didn’t really want it to go down. His core had cooled since he’d stopped the influx of Essence gathering, but he’d accrued more fire corruption than he’d liked. He’d need to be careful in the short-term future as he now had more of it than any other. Artorian knew he could be quick to anger now. Even if it was contained, corruption wasn’t that easy to just stop.

  When her shield flickered and showed an obvious gap, Artorian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could flicker on his starlight Aura, but that was only good if the personality present wasn’t Cataphron’s. From the look of it that wasn’t the case, but he’d still be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of infernal energy. That would be the end of the story. He didn't have the Essence to go toe-to-toe with an elemental. He might as well be challenging a Mage to fisticuffs while in his skivvies.

  To his surprise, no flood of infernal came. Peeking open an eye; he saw all of Ember finish collapsing into a single point in space. She was gone, and only a black dot remained at chest level. Her shield followed suit in the next instant. Artorian’s arms fell limp to his side as a figure he didn’t know made its way forward; some Ancient Elf with long ears clapped as it approached him. He could hear the claps, so it was a fully physical manifestation.

  It was here to gloat, no doubt. *Clap. Clap. Clap.* “So close! Yet no victory…”

  Artorian dejectedly dropped his eyes down to admire the black hole. At least he had something he’d never seen before to look at before he got… eaten. His words carried that dejection in his defeated, insulting tone. “What’s with that ridiculous body? Who are you supposed to be now, someone exceptionally good at gloating?”

  The phantom laughed to itself, and that Artorian could hear even more clearly. It was a cruel, clever laugh. “Oh, this body? Well, since you aren’t exactly a threat, I had to reconfigure against that which was. You see, just in case I heard right, and that person was a Yaran, I have to uphold the land-vow that protects me from attack by that pa
rticular lineage. After all, it never hurts to be too careful when it was Es-Arcturus-Aran that knocked me from the moon using a mountain as a club, then trapped me beneath it.”

  This was a part of history that Artorian did not know, and it… countered some prior information. A flicker of an idea played behind his eyes. Ember was gone, but he didn’t know the details of S-ranking. Just some… hearsay, by a possibly disreputable source. “Too bad… I hope that hurt.”

  The Blight reached its clawed hand for Artorian’s neck at the speed of darkness. Still, before it ever touched his throat… the world stilled. None could move, and Artorian couldn’t even slide his eyes sideways. He could, however, see that the new color of the world… was grey.

  The black hole ripped open, and just as a body had been sucked in. A new, advanced form slowly manifested and came out. A bright mocha-skinned beauty freed herself as Soul energy constructed her desired body. Black and burgundy cloth clad itself over her young features, and metal rings that appeared to be gold fastened about her upper arms, sealing the cloth in place while exposing her shoulders. A matching ring on her middle finger kept the material across her fiber taut as it vacuum-sealed into place.

  Lush lips matched burning orange eyeshadow as a flock of fluent, wavy locks spilled from her head. The coloration began as bright yellow, and with ombre smoothness turned orange, then red, until the tips showed a soft, deep-dark tyrian purple. The hair ends had no color. They were dark as the void, and sparkled like the depths of space. Shorter than expected ears grew into being, still elven in design… but, dare he say… cute? Two cuffs sealed themselves on the top lip of her ear, and a thin halo of burning white circled into place around her head.

  The crux came when the woman before them opened her eyes. Accented by long, thick, dark lashes, her sclera were the black of endless space. Her irises shining as mighty supernovas that spun in the void. The difference was that Artorian believed with certainty that was what he was actually looking at. Only then did he notice her perfectly done dark eyebrows. He’d never pegged Ember as the overly aesthetic sort, yet this body was the textbook definition of sexy style. She flexed her hands, showing off bright orange stiletto nails that shifted to match her most prominent ombre hair color.