Shadowbane

"𝔦 𝔤r҉𝔬w҉ w҉𝔢a҉𝔯y҉ o҉𝔣 𝔴a҉𝔦t҉𝔦n҉𝔤." The newcomer said.

I could feel something gnawing at my head as he spoke, and surprisingly, I actually understood what was being said this time. An Abyssal creature in human form...? Then that means Victoria is one too.

Feeling like I learned more than enough, I headed for the window as Victoria responded to the newcomer. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word she was saying.

I was reaching for the window when something called out to me. A longing I couldn't shake off. I could feel that the place I truly belonged was through that mirror. At first I thought it was just the Abyssal part of me connecting with the realm beyond the mirror, but no, it was much deeper than that. The very foundation of my core was resonating with the higher being it served under.

Whether it was a good idea or a bad idea didn't even enter my conscious. I stood up and walked through the mirror without a single ounce of hesitation. Immediately I found myself in an area that was almost blindingly yellow. Looking around, I could see why. There were fires burning everywhere in the ruined city around me. But despite the fact that I had only given them a cursory glance, I could tell that these fires weren't actually burning anything. The city had long since been destroyed, and yet the fires continued.

About a half mile away from where I was there were six monstrosities slumbering. While they normally would have caught my interest and been highly scrutinized by me, I was more focused on the pull I was feeling from another mirror. As a result, I only glanced at them long enough to notice just how unbelievably large they were. If they stood up, even their toes would be elevated above the top of my head.

Victoria, or whatever the hell she was, had setup dozens of mirrors in this burning hell. Unlike the one in her room, these ones I could see the scenery beyond them so I knew what I was jumping into. But regardless of whether the scenery looked inviting or not, I walked right into the one calling out to me and found myself on a moon completely devoid of an atmosphere. All I could see was a rocky environment and another moon shining in the distance that was brightening up the world around me. Not by much, but more than enough to see everything around me.

Even without it calling out to me, I would have known where I was supposed to be going. There was a tall black tower in the valley in front of me. It clearly stood out inside this lifeless world.

I began to run toward the tower and found myself almost stumbling onto the ground. Never thought I'd be in a low gravity environment before... This is wild.

I was tempted to just jump into the valley, but I wasn't quite sure how gravity worked in environments like these. Would I float helplessly into space if I jumped too high? I didn't want to find out. If I ended up stuck in space my core would force me into hibernation, which means I'd be trapped in my soul realm for god knows how many centuries until I landed on a planet or burned up in a sun.

Instead of running, I kicked myself forward over and over, as if I was skipping toward the tower. I was honestly shocked at how much fun it was. And since it was so entertaining, the time it took for me to reach the tower passed in the blink of an eye. The front gates were closed, but the second I approached them I felt my something ping my core, and soon after that the gates opened up, allowing me entry.

Again, not a single ounce of hesitation rested inside my soul as I walked into the citadel. The reason it felt like 'home' for me was twofold it seems. Whatever was waiting for me at the top was reason number one. And the second reason was what the citadel was made of. It was the same hardened substance that Petey was currently wearing, except this was on a level that I wasn't sure I could reproduce at this point. Making heavy armor out of my blood is one thing, but an entire structure...

As I walked up the large winding staircase I felt a burning desire in my core to build a structure just like this one. I ran my hands alone the walls as I walked, scrutinizing every single detail, pouring my mana into the structure and feeling it respond in kind, giving me an idea of just how much skill would be required to build this citadel myself.

I don't know how long it took, but eventually I reached the top floor, and it was quite different from all of the rooms I had passed by. The other rooms ranged from normal looking rooms that humans would live or relax in which was extremely odd to me considering where we were, and other rooms that were hard to discern at a mere glance. The top room however, was really basic in design, and yet I loved it. It was shaped like a long rectangle, with one part of the wall being completely absent. It almost looked like a room designed for ships to land in.

In the back of the room was a tall creature draped in black, resting on top of a seat made from its own blood. I slowly walked up to it, allowing myself to take in everything around me. Despite the beauty of this scene, of finally finding her, there was a dread creeping up inside of me, because I already knew what I was going to find thanks to my core connecting to the creature.

I finally reached the robed abomination. Without pause, I placed my hand upon its calf, and immediately I knew I was right. The monster that had created me was dead, and had been dead for a very long time. The reason all of the Abyssal creatures were so surprised to see 'darkness' was made evident to me in this moment. It's because I shouldn't exist. The monster itself had disappeared from history ages ago, which meant two things. Any questions related to me would need to be answered by other Abyssal creatures. And the second part, while it wasn't all that surprising given what I was, it was still making me feel a sadness that I couldn't fully comprehend. It was the simple yet sad fact that I was the last of my kind.

I rested with my back against my 'Mother's' legs for a while, probing her and the building underneath me with my core. Even if she had died ages ago, I could still glean bits of information from her remnants. It was only small pieces of memories and concepts that I had to piece together myself, which meant most of what I got from her was without context and useless, but I was able to understand how she created such a beautiful structure from our blood. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to figure out why she was on this lifeless moon or why she built her own tomb here.

From my point of view I loved this place and would happily make this my home world as well, but that's me. Why she did it will most likely always remain a mystery.

And one other thing I picked up from her memories was... Odd. Several people had told me up to this point that the black and red halo didn't mesh well with my overall theme, and on some level I agreed with them. But I found something in her memories that, well... Far from adding context, it only added more questions. There was a ten foot tall Lord from another God there. It closely resembled a black Human, and what really stood out about him was the black halo with a red rim above his head, and a set of wings behind him that had the same color scheme as the halo.

None of the other Lords or skeletons in that memory, or any of her memories I was able to siphon from her, had wings or a halo. And I don't remember any illustrations of wings in that museum book. But it's not like I could read any of the text, so there could have been something written down related to the wings and I would've had no way of knowing. Viktor might know something by now. He's been dealing with the Abyss for more than thirty years, so surely he's invaded their realm by now. Not that I could ask him about it, nor would he answer me anyway.

I stood up and walked to the exposed side of the room. Looking out over the expanse I was in awe. I really do love this place... It's a shame I don't know how to create portals. I could live here if I did, but since I don't, this is going to be goodbye for me.

I looked at the dead God one last time and bowed. Feeling a weird kind of melancholy, I began my descent down the citadel. It wasn't long before I reached the base of the citadel. As I walked through the gates I realized something else. None of the memories my creator had of her summons had red eyes. But that Lord with the wings and halo, he had red eyes. I must be a mix of two different Abyss Gods. I didn't see anything in the museum books about a God with halos and wings, but again, not everything had illustrations. In fact a large portion of the end of the book was nothing but text.

I found the mirror and walked through it, finding myself in the yellow pit of fire from before. I was then walking toward the mirror leading to Victoria's home when the landscape through another mirror caught my eye. It was reminiscent of where I was a moment ago, but this one looked vaguely familiar. As if I had seen it somewhere before. It would only take a moment and the feeling that I knew the landscape in the mirror bothered me, so I walked through it and found myself in yet another world without an atmosphere, or so I thought.

I could feel my lungs fill up again, albeit at a much slower rate than they normally would. Back when I exited to my creator's moon they had deflated and been crushed. It didn't take long for my body to repair them after I re-entered that strange yellow fire realm, so they were ready for use by the time I stepped through the mirror behind me.

The world looked barren just like the last one, except this one was filled with snow, and there was a large circular building below me and three towers next to it. They had some lights on inside of them, suggesting some level of technology. And that's when it hit me, why all of this looked so familiar.

The Elves and other delvers have never been able to make it west past a certain point on the Elven continent of Caedrus. You eventually reach a point where you begin to run into different types of machines. Far more powerful ones than the ones the Elves are used to dealing with. There is only one way to go that far west, and anyone can do it. You board the train that circles around the entire continent, and you never leave it. Or at the very least you need to stay very close to the train when it stops at random intervals. Wandering away from it is the same as allowing the machines to kill you.

The train is named 'Leviathan' because of how enormous it is, but nobody knows who built it. It's been there on Caedrus and running loops around it as far back as anyone can remember. Nothing seems to damage it, and if it does need repairs, then something else must be repairing it, because it's certainly not the Elves or machines repairing it.

Anyway, the point is, that the machines don't attack the train, because they know it's pointless. But they also aren't able to board it because the second they come within one hundred yards of the Leviathan it blasts them with weapons powerful enough to melt them down to nothing in less than a few seconds.

That is the only way to reach the western side of Caedrus. But it takes two months for it to make a full lap around Caedrus, so nearly everyone uses it just to disembark at one of the outposts delvers stay in near the capital. However, one man had supposedly disembarked the train and made it back alive with photographs of what he found on the far western side of Caedrus; an area no man has ever been known to tread.

The western side of Caedrus is part of the darklands, so logically it should be dark, but in Aetheria's case that just means Mother and the Sun don't reach those lands. And weirdly enough, the atmosphere is very thin there, but that's all things anyone can figure out by analyzing the area around any abandoned stations that the train stops at on the western side of Caedrus.

But the man's photographs were from an area much further west than that, so the sky itself was pretty much non-existent. All you could see was another planet in the distance and several moons above you. And one other thing of course, the strange technological buildings that were in the man's photographs.

The area is charged with something that makes it hard to communicate with electronics, and it's literally impossible for anything or anyone to fly past the middle of Caedrus because of all the anti-air weapons the machines possess, so even if someone wanted to do a suicide mission to the west and collect information for the Elves, there was just no way to make it happen. But somehow the man was able to send the photos he had taken far west of the Leviathan's last disembark point. Nothing else was ever heard from him, but everyone knew what had happened since his last photo showed a machine running through the snow toward him. It was over a mile away at minimum, but he was done for no matter how you looked at it.

Looking around, I noticed a slight shimmer surrounding me and the mirror. When I tried reaching my hand out I could feel it go through something translucent. This is the type of invisibility field I've seen monsters use in the past. So does this mean that the Abyss is keeping tabs on the machines...?

I was dying to go down into the buildings below and see what was inside of them, but I managed to keep myself in check. Who better than me could unearth the secrets of the western side of Caedrus? Alas, that's a journey I plan to take and earn the trust of the clans after I'm done with Telebron. Unless we really do kill Viktor during the summit, then I'm actually not sure of what I'll do afterward. I really did mean it when I said I'd join Shana and Ishar in the afterlife, but now that Shana can be brought back, I guess I'd leave for Gaia with Kai's people? If possible I'd love to visit Ishar's family beforehand but I'll need Alicia's help with that.

As painful as it was, I turned around and walked through the mirror. Back inside the superheated hellhole, I entered the mirror to my left that led to Victoria's room. Once inside, I saw something quite disturbing. Victoria was on her knees crying as a blackened mass full of golden eyes sneered at her. It was coming out of her ears and hanging down in front of her face. The 'man' I thought had entered earlier was audibly laughing, but his face was shaped like that of a harlequin mask.

...............

I removed my aura and walked up to the harlequin. The blackened mass turned to look at me at the same time the 'man' did. His head changed from a laughing harlequin to a new mask entirely, a man with thick lips and brows quirked in clear confusion.

"𝔡a҉𝔯k҉𝔫e҉𝔰s҉?"

I brought up my halo which made the man's face turn into one of surprise moments before I punched him in his teeth, sending him through the bedroom wall. Victoria screamed as the blackened mass retreated into her skull. I grabbed onto her and jumped through the window, landing in the streets below.

There were a few people nearby who ran away screaming as I landed, but I ignored them and ran as fast as I could toward the temple. The black mass had taken control of Victoria again and was attempting to remove itself from my grip, but it seems Victoria wasn't much of a combatant, because the strength of its attacks were like mosquito bites against my enhancements.

When we reached the temple there were already ten knights lined up waiting for me. Whether they were plants by the Initiative or not, I was impressed by how fast they had prepared to meet what they believed to be an incoming threat.

"WAIT!!!" Xi yelled as she ran up to the men from behind. Behind her I could see Kai running out of the temple as well, "Rei! What is going on here?!"

I lifted Victoria up. She was acting like a wild animal at this point, scratching and clawing at me, doing everything she could to get out of my grip.

"I brought Victoria. She's possessed by a creature from the Abyss that's using her ability to create warp points for other Abyssal creature's. I figured you'd want to deal with her now before this gets out of hand."

The knights had erected a barrier around the entrance, so I would need to break it to get inside if they didn't let me through, which I was more than prepared to do if they became a problem. Xi and Kai were talking to their captain as I saw the tall Asian knight from before step out of the temple. He walked up to Kai and had a quick discussion with him that I couldn't hear over the knights yelling at me. Once we was done talking to Kai he slapped the captain on the shoulder and told him something, which resulted in the captain putting his head down and shaking it before telling his men to release the barrier.

Once the barrier was gone, Xi walked over to me and cupped her hands in front of her while closing her eyes. I could feel mana building up inside of her as Victoria attempted to attack her instead, but that proved pointless as well.

About a minute later Xi opened her eyes and pressed her right pointer finger against Victoria's chest. "Rei, let go. Don't worry, it'll be fine."

Even if something did go wrong I knew I could stop her from fleeing, so I let go of her and immediately Victoria was encased in a thick layer of crystal. A large clinking sound emitted as it hit the ground, but it didn't chip even a little.

Kai walked over and lifted up the crystallized crystal before looking at me, "Follow us. Aresa just returned and she'll want to be a part of this."

"So that's what your ability is, Xi? A stasis of some sort?" I asked her as we followed behind her brother.

"It is. Normally the channel time required to crystallize someone is much higher than that and I'd usually need them to be knocked out, but her soul is a complete mess right now. It's destabilized and was easy to lock down."

We walked through a large set of double doors that reminded me of the gates leading into Veca's underground city. After that, Kai and the tall Asian knight led us through the massive entrance hall into a hallway on the left side that was wide enough to fit six heavily armored men side by side. There were tapestries, rugs, chandeliers, and all other manner of expensive looking items everywhere I looked as we walked.

After passing through several more hallways the knight opened a lone door nesting in a much smaller hallway that wasn't furnished at all. He ushered the rest of us inside before closing and locking the door behind us.

The room itself was circular, made entirely of stone, and kind of on the small side. The expensive decorations from before were nowhere to be seen. Instead all I could see were weird symbols drawn all over the walls and the only form of lighting were basic torches. Not even magical or crystal ones.

It was also windowless, which was putting me on edge even if I was positive the people here didn't intend to harm me. Having only one way in or out of a room always made me feel sick. I was tempted to punch the wall to see if it would crumble. Knowing that the building wasn't enhanced definitely would've made me feel better, but then I noticed Aresa was already in the room. She's still small enough that she was hidden behind the knight until he moved.

"Aresa, can these walls be destroyed?"

"Not as easily as most stone walls, but you don't need to worry about those knights breaking into here. They may be here to keep tabs on me, but they still do their job. Just like this lazy guy here." Aresa said as she pointed at the tall Asian knight.

For his part, the knight was placing pieces of paper or something akin to it in a circle around the crystallized Victoria that Kai had dropped in the middle of the room.

"And what are those paper things? Is that his ability?"

Xi chuckled, "Talismans! They're from my culture, and necessary for the next part of my ability. Benny here is just used to placing them for me."

Aresa walked over to me and sighed, "Okay, the fairy inside of you is still telling Lunaria what happened to you inside the mirror, but I'd rather hear it straight from you anyway."

"Sure, but after you tell me why it was important that you had me sneak around in that girl's home when you could've easily had your knights here kick the door in and investigate her yourself. And don't tell me you were worried about political repercussions or something of that sort."

"I..." Aresa looked over at Victoria. Xi was sitting down in front of her now while placing her palms on top of the crystal. Soon after that I could see the 'talismans' begin to light up.

"Victoria, she was my best friend when I first came here to Telebron. She had inherited her families fortune after they had died. With no friends or family around her, she ended up coming to church a lot, and I was there because Lunaria wanted me to be seen as much as possible back then. One thing led to another, and we quickly became friends. But about three years ago she suddenly changed almost overnight. There was obviously something wrong, but even after we searched her house or followed her for weeks, we ended up finding nothing that could explain why she had changed so suddenly."

"And that's when you noticed her soul was corrupted in some way?"

"That only happened one time, and it was barely perceptible. I even began to wonder if I had imagined it... But regardless, I still told people about it and acted like I always felt something dark inside her soul, because I wanted to figure out what was wrong with her damnit! And everyone had lost interest soon after she changed. They just shrugged it off, even Lunaria. After the first week had gone by, I was the only one who still cared that she had changed like that. Lunaria only cares about whether I'm channeling onto the wellspring or not, and I couldn't stop doing it just to spite her because my level of synchronization to the wellspring would drop by a massive amount if I suddenly cut myself off from it."

"You could've asked me for help when we were looking at my memories. Why didn't you?"

"Because I planned on asking you after you came back from your Xerath soul-feasting journey you're about to go on. Kai or someone else must've decided all on their own to ask you before you left." Aresa said.

'Benny' the knight walked over to us, "I'm going to keep an eye on the men and make sure they don't do anything stupid. There is going to be people asking why it looked like someone had attacked the chapel just now, so it's best that that I personally handle it instead of leaving it to those tools."

"Please do." Aresa replied without looking at him.

After Benny left the room and locked it from the other side I looked at Aresa and said, "Is he trustworthy?"

"Ben? Definitely. He's just annoyingly lazy and complains all the time. Only at serious times like these does he actually do his job without whining. But that's a major reason I appreciate having him around..."

Aresa continued, "This is going to take a long time by the way. So you might as well have Kai drive you to wherever you want to be. But only after you tell me what happened! I've answered your questions, so come on now."

"One last question."

"Ugh! You're just playing with me now, I remember how you are!"

"No, it's a serious one that I forgot to ask you before. I'd like to know why you're suddenly able to talk."

"... Oh."

Aresa's eyes went distant as if she was remembering memories from ages ago.

"I um, I can't remember if I told you why I refused to heal my throat back on Urza."

"You did. You said it's because you felt bad for taking that girl's body. Your mother Shiva had offered to heal the girl's throat but she refused, and then she ended up giving her body to you, so out of respect you left her throat as is, right?"

"Hehe, yes, that's correct. It makes me happy knowing you remembered something like that from so long ago... Oh, it probably wasn't all that long ago for you, was it?"

"It was uh, maybe six months ago for me? I'd have to really think about it to figure out how long it's actually been. But it's somewhere around there I bet."

"Only six months... Unbelievable. It was a lifetime ago for me. There was even a time that I---" Aresa cut herself off and looked at me with a sad expression. But I had an inkling of what she was going to say.

"You forgot about me, didn't you?"

"... I did. I'm sorry, Rei. I don't know how long it was, but after Victoria changed I remember thinking 'Only Rei or Shana would believe me and help me figure out what's wrong with her...', and that's when I realized I hadn't thought of either of you in years. You've been gone for so long Rei... It felt so weird seeing you again when you finally showed up. It felt like I was looking at a stranger and someone I dearly missed at the same time."

"It's fine, and I really mean that. Honestly, the amount of time we've been apart is higher than my actual age. And without my soul realm, I'd have long forgotten most of what happened to me when I was a kid in the Xerath's realm. So I don't blame you in the least for forgetting me for a little while. Plus, it sounds like it happened well over thirty years after you had last seen me."

Aresa looked down at the ground awkwardly and said nothing. She stayed like that for a while until I began to pat her hair.

"Even this, feels so nostalgic..." She said.

"Seriously, don't feel bad about---Oh, not to derail this again, but we should talk about Hyun real quick before I leave. Or has Cera already told you about the meeting?"

"Lunaria did! The gall of that three-headed asshole to tell you he'd reveal his location after Viktor's visit. And then he had Hyun throw you out of his office! While I'm positive that Rai'ga and Viktor would never work together, I'm sure there's another reason he's holding off until after the summit. Maybe he's the reason the Nei'lah's God is underneath Telebron right now?"

"Wait, what? Their God is down there? Are the Crotia down there as well?"

Kai who had been listening in from where he was sitting(next to his sister) began to laugh as he said, "And they're all trapped too. I don't know how they found those old caverns, but it was very stupid of them to assume they weren't being monitored. Although it is true that they weren't actually being monitored before the Yulia refugees arrived here..."

"And they're being monitored now because of the refugees? I don't see the correlation."

Kai shrugged, "The underground is massive. I hear you have some experience down there, so you should know that most cities hate having to deal with it. It costs a large amount of money and mana to make sure the area beneath your city is entirely safe, and most cities almost never face any sort of threats from the underground, so they usually just pretend to patrol the underground so the citizens will feel safe and then they get to keep the funds for themselves. It usually devolves from there into the city leaders relying on a small subset of Dwarven runes to protect the city. And even then, they don't always charge them. I've seen this problem crop up in my own lands many times, so I'm sure it's a problem here too."

Kai continued, "Except this time they had no choice but to monitor as much of the underground as they could. For starters, refugees from my land were going down there and harvesting crystals for themselves, which annoyed the officials. They immediately demanded to know where the mine was at that they had found, which led to the caverns where the Crotians are now trapped. A cavern that just so happens to have access to the wellspring."

Aresa giggled, "So stupid~. They really thought the Nei'lah God could tap into the wellspring and overpower a lowly abandoned Lord like me. Looks like the jokes on them! The Nei'lah God is trapped next to the wellspring, he's unable to detach himself from it thanks to me. The Initiative will hear about it today, but there are major plans being laid to go down there and kill all of the Crotians and their stupid God after the Summit. For now we have all of exits guarded and monitored, with multiple layers of Dwarven runes charged along the paths, so there's no way they can possibly disrupt the Summit. All they can do is wait for us to go down there and finish them off."

"Either that or they can leave their God to die alone. The path they came in through is the only one not monitored. Lunaria did that on purpose of course." Kai added.

Aresa slapped my shoulder, "Enough delaying! Tell me what happened inside her mirrors. So far Lunaria has only told me about the black mass inside Victoria's head and what you found in her home."

"Well, the mirror in her home exited to a realm of eternal fire. It was blindingly yellow everywhere as the fires raged on, and there were multiple massive Gods slumbering off in the distance. At least I think they were in the distance. Even with my eyes it was hard to tell considering how smoky it was and how large they were."

{Normal Humans won't survive in there. It's too hot for them, so only people who can protect themselves against extreme heat.}

"And Luna says it's too hot inside there for normal humans, so don't send anyone in through the mirror who can't protect themselves against extreme heat."

"It was that hot? We need to check that realm out though, there's no way around it. I need to know what was monitoring us. We can't just smash the mirror and pray they never come back. And I refuse to let them get away with hijacking my friend's body! Can you believe she was telling people that she was going to violate me? Wouldn't the smart option be to pretend everything is fine while using her ability to create gateways for them? Why make her out to be crazy like that?!"

"Well, about that... I think it was another way of tormenting her. You're not going to like this, but I think she was conscious the whole time. When I came back through the mirror she was crying as the black mass and the other Abyss creature were mocking her."

Aresa paled and looked like she wanted to cry as she glanced over at her crystallized friend. I waited a bit before continuing my tale of what I found through the mirror, but Aresa was looking more and more distraught as time went on. Seeing that she was in no condition to continue the conversation, I put my hand on her shoulder and guided her over to Xi and Victoria before looking at Kai and motioning toward the door.

He got the hint and unlocked the door, allowing both of us to exit the weird ritual room. Once we were back in the hallway he locked the door behind us and began to backtrack toward the entrance.

"Is that limo ready to go?"

"So long as Lady Aresa isn't using it, it's always ready to go. And it's been waiting for you at the pickup spot for a while now anyway. You really don't know how long you've been gone, do you?"

"I don't, but the way you're wording that has me worried. Was it longer than a day?"

Kai chuckled, "Not that long. It was around six hours. So during the trip I'd love to hear about what else you found after walking through her gateways."