5 - Defeated (Patreon)

It was only about an hour later that Kara reappeared before Phoenix who had joined the rest of her party on the rooftop garden while waiting for word. The Obsidian Caster gave an exaggerated swish of her blonde hair and bowed as she announced dramatically, “I have defeated the enemy and rid the city of the threat imposed against the Chosen of the Champion. As my Lady has decreed, I will remain by your side until the Soul Reapers no longer endanger you, Regent Phoenix Wayland.”

The Wayfarer rose to her feet as she tried to figure out how best to respond within her new position as the temporary leader of her House until she could have another chat with Pati to sign some kind of abdication paper, “Thank you, Paladin Fairweather. As you said before, you have saved the day.”

The blonde voxen glanced down at her with a questioning look before breaking out into a feral-looking grin, “I am a champion, after all.” 

She jumped slightly as the taller woman clapped her gauntleted hands together and said with more excitement, “Now, onto that story. Is this where you made your deal with my goddess? I can still sense her presence around here.”

Phoenix glanced towards her party but they all seemed just as surprised by the statement as she was. None of their senses could detect anything but it was yet another reminder of the gulf in power between them and the Obsidian Caster. Phoenix nodded as she gestured towards one of the remaining open stools in the garden pavilion her party had been waiting in.

Kara and she both took a seat as the redhead began recounting the story of the night before. As she finished the brief conversation, the Paladin looked unsatisfied as she said, “That doesn’t really explain why Champion chose you. I’ve been her Paladin for over two hundred years now and even I don’t bear one of those marks,” she said with a gesture towards Phoenix’s still exposed Soul Mark. The voxen gave a childish pout with her bottom lip pushed outward as she asked, “Why don’t you tell me the rest of your story?”

The Wayfarer couldn’t stop the small laugh that escaped as she stared back at large red puppy eyes but replied apologetically, “That’s a much longer story that I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell anyone. I promised Paul to keep it a secret and despite having my gratitude for saving everyone, if Champion didn’t tell you then I’m really not sure it’s my place to.”

The Paladin gave a sigh and then said, “I guess that’s a fair point. At least I can tell Champion I tried asking you first before I go asking her. You don’t mind if I crash here while I’m stuck babysitting, yeah? I doubt the temple here in this tiny city will be as nice as a noble’s estate.”

Phoenix rolled her eyes at the Obsidian Caster, just as she would at Paul, and said, “I know you just said you’re over two hundred but I’m not exactly a baby. I don’t need you to hover over my shoulder.”

Kara mocked offense as she dramatically placed a hand over her heart, “And risk failing the command of my goddess when a random monster gobbles you up? No, thank you! I’ll be just fine following you around the city for the rest of the war.”

Her heart sank slightly as she looked at the golden voxen who was giving her a much more evil-looking grin now, and she asked cautiously, “When you say ‘follow me around the city’, you don’t mean literally, do you?”

“Oh, I mean very literally. You and I are going to become the best of friends, my little bird. So don’t go trying to fly off on me,” the woman leaned forward slightly and said still smiling a bit too brightly to match her words, “I hope you like two things that we are going to be doing a lot of while I’m assigned here.”

Phoenix could feel the bait but she obligingly asked, “What would those be?”

The blonde held up two fingers as she listed them off, “Training those auras and looking absolutely fabulous for the masses.”

Phoenix led Kara to an empty room that Pualani had directed her to use for the woman’s temporary abode, making sure to apologize for any lack of luxury it held for the Obsidian Caster who was likely accustomed to much better.

The Paladin, for her part, seemed completely unbothered by it all but Phoenix found herself wondering how much of what she was seeing was real or a carefully constructed mask. Aside from the stranger’s dedication to the Champion who had struck a deal with the Wayfarer, she had no idea what the woman thought about her or the city that she was now stuck in. Did she actually resent the assignment? Or did she like the chance to see new things even if they couldn’t compare to wherever it was she came from?

“Can I ask you some questions?” Phoenix said hesitantly while the voxen was busy exploring the room.

“Can I ask some in return?” the Paladin retorted without looking towards her.

“Sure, but I might not be able to answer all of them,” she countered.

“Same goes for me then.”

The Wayfarer nodded, “Fair enough. Where are you from?”

“Originally, my clan is from the Great Plains of Alkupera, across the Tidalstream from here. More recently, I’ve been helping out in the Republic of Kinarg near the southern center of the continent. Not sure how much of our planet’s geography you’ve managed to learn.”

“Not as much as I probably should,” she admitted, “Mostly just the tundra while stuck here for the blood moon.”

Kara did look at her then and gave a simple, “Huh,” that felt way more judgy than it probably should have to her. Then the Paladin began searching the room again, opening the bathroom door as she asked, “Did you arrive here on the tundra or were you brought here?”

“A bit of both?” she said thoughtfully, “Technically, I landed in the Blue Ridge mountains to the southwest, and a combination of my book and meeting Paul led me here specifically.”

“Book?” the voxen asked, peeking her head back out from the bathroom.

“Ah, one of my Talents that gives me information like a Knowledge Tablet. I can show you later.” At the woman’s simple nod and disappearance back into the washroom, she asked, “How long did it take you to reach Ruby and what’s the fastest you’ve ever heard of someone reaching it?”

“Asking two at once seems like cheating but I’ll let it slide as related,” the voxen said and she felt a slightly involuntary shiver run down her spine at the memories of the last time she had asked too many questions when playing this type of game. She hadn’t thought of that crazy Magi for so long and she didn’t want to dwell on him now, so she refocused on Kara’s answer, “I was forty-one when I reached Ruby so it was about twenty years. The fastest I’ve heard of ever is eight years but I’m not entirely sure how accurate that book was.”

As the blonde reentered the main room she added, “As a bonus, I’ll tell you that reaching Obsidian only took me another fifty years after that.”

Phoenix arched an eyebrow, “I’m not sure if that’s impressive or not. You’re the first Obsidian I’ve even heard of let alone met.”

Kara chuckled, “It’s a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to that, actually. Do you even know how getting to Obsidian works? Most Crystals don’t since they’re more focused on learning the basics to even ponder on something decades or centuries away.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered, “My world didn’t even have magic so it’s been a lot to learn in the last half year.”

The voxen gave a little hum and said teasingly, “Okay, I’ll give you more of a pass on the lack of geography lessons then.”

“Thanks,” she replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, back to reaching Obsidian since it’s not like some huge secret or anything, just not really something to worry about before getting to Ruby,” Kara began, opening yet another door that led into a huge closet space, “Cultivating through the Ruby levels is much the same as the other Castes, finding suitable challenges is the hardest part. Hitting max Ruby with everything takes even the most active Casters a couple of decades usually. Once you max everything out though, you’re stuck there until you have an Epiphany for each of your Aspects.”

“Epiphany?”

“Yeah. This is usually what makes the time to Obsidian so variable, and most never manage to reach it at all.”

“So what exactly are they?”

Kara exited the closet with a grin as she said, “The simplest explanation is that they are insights you have about your own soul but nobody can tell you what those insights might be.”

“Now, my next question,” the Paladin said, placing both hands on her hips in an uncanny replica of the traditional superhero pose that Phoenix was familiar with from back on Earth.

She held back a laugh as she gestured for the woman to continue, then was completely dumbfounded, with no answer to give, when the Obsidian Caster asked, “Where do you people keep the barrel for each room?”

Roimeldor looked up at his second in disbelief as he ordered, “Say that again. I must have misheard you.”

The elven woman grimaced at him as she stood across his desk from him but repeated, “We’ve lost all communications with Water Two Squad and failed to reap the Rose Caste enemy but did manage to retrieve Haldambar’s and Bahamut’s souls along with many others from the battle, ally and foe alike.”

“Were any a match for Naira?”

“No, sir.”

“So we lost an entire squad and a Rose Caste assassin and dragon, whom I assume are now being reconstructed –meaning even more resource loss and a Rose restarting their cultivation at Daisy– and we have nothing to show for it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The glass in his hand shattered as he stood angrily and began pacing. He rarely resorted to the action anymore but he didn’t want to throw something next. Such a waste. An inexplicable one too. Their forces should have been plenty.

“What do we know about what went wrong?” he asked, still sorting through possibilities and potential next steps in his mind.

“Haldambar was defeated by the Rose Caster we sent him to solo reap.”

“That was the man who should have been dead on his feet from soul exhaustion after pushing off a rushed ascension?” he clarified.

Asyamil frowned again but nodded, “Yes, sir. Though some of the information we got before the ship went completely silent doesn’t make much sense.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, the ship seemed very upset that Bahamut ran into it after trying to eat the father of its mother and decided to fight the dragon. Then it got confused about why its grandfather was punishing it and tried to show it was on the man’s side by fighting his enemy as well –who was identified as Haldambar– before it finally went silent.”

Roimeldor stopped and stared at Asyamil for a long while before finally clarifying, “The ship said that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our ships are not sentient.”

“Not that we have observed before, sir, no,” she agreed.

He blinked at the elf another moment longer before asking, “Who exactly did it think its mother was?”

“The Wayfarer, sir.”

“Of course, it was the bloody Wayfarer,” he said, throwing his hands up into the air, and began pacing once more, “Of all the absurd things–”

“Our best guess from the data we gathered is that the magic went very wild and resulted in some very unpredictable and unexplainable things.”

“No shit our best guess is that wild magic is to blame for a ship to suddenly begin having thoughts and fighting for the wrong side!” he retorted with a glare at his second who simply raised her hands slightly in surrender. He was never one to kill the messenger but sometimes it was really really hard not to and just deal with eating the resource cost and apologizing later.

“Wait, the Rose Caster still fought Haldambar. I thought he was the only Rose enemy in that area, did he have cleansing capabilities? Haldambar is known to win even when he loses. It’s kinda his whole thing.”

“Well, that’s the other odd occurrence some of our nearby ships sensed after the, um, sentient ship went silent,” the elf began, nervously tucking her orange hair behind a long tapered ear, “They felt the Rose aura start to disperse like we expected upon death but then it… well…”

“What?” he asked in annoyance at the unusual display of nerves the woman was showing.

“It just stopped?”

“Stopped?”

“Well, there was a huge surge of divine energy and then the Rose aura stabilized shortly after,” she clarified, “Best guess there is that the Wayfarer got some kind of divine intervention from the local gods to save her adoptive father, especially considering the levels of divinity we detected within her earlier.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he muttered, “These cheating Wayfarers are going to be the end of me. I can almost feel it coming. Like the cosmos trying to orchestrate some sort of climactic duel to make my journey end in tragedy right before I reach my goal.”

“We do appear to be the bad guys here to these Wayfarers, don’t we, sir?” Asyamil said softly.

He glared at her, “You know we’re not but it’s not like it’s ever gone over well with the locals when we’ve tried to explain ourselves to them,” he said before continuing to pace while he thought about their current setback.

After another moment’s thought, he asked, “If all of the squad’s ships were destroyed and most of the Caster souls are accounted for, do we know the status of the Reality Seeds? You sent three along with them in the extremely rare event that this occurred, correct?”

“Yes, sir. All three have successfully been planted according to the planetary readings. Though…” she hesitantly trailed off until he gave her a pointed look that plainly showed his patience was wearing thin, “One seems to have gone… a bit odd.”

“I swear if you keep leading the conversation like this, I’m having you take the next solo reaping mission even if it’s a Hollyhock,” he threatened. It wasn’t a completely empty threat –since they could reconstruct her just as well– but they normally didn’t waste resources like that as a punishment. If there was a Hollyhock, or what the locals called an Obsidian Caster, then it would likely be Metyadur that got sent out. He was one of their more battle-hungry Hollyhocks who liked taking solo reaping missions just to “spice up” his immortality.

“It seems the Reality Seed merged with the sentient ship it was aboard.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

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