Astral Threads, Ch 21: Ayala at Osera (Patreon)

Osera was a sprawling city several hundred miles north of Highfold, old and well built, that was nestled in the foothills of the Western Reaches. If you connected the major western cities in a line that ran close to the mountains, Osera was the farthest to the north. Ebonfar and then Highfold were in the middle, and Ceru was far to the south along the edge of the Inner Sea, a city called the Gem of the South.

Osera was one of the earlier cities built under the kingdom’s influence in the western province once they had crossed the mountains and it had never abandoned its original purpose as a defense against the unknown.

The walls were a hundred and fifty feet high, half again more than the kingdom standard. They were densely lined with enchantments and mana crystals that could rain fire and ice down on attackers, although the beasts of the Abyssinian Plains to the west were not powerful enough to warrant the need. Instead, they were designed for emergencies, in case war broke out or a Flaw appeared nearby, which had happened several times throughout the city’s history.

The Church of the World Law maintained a strong presence here as one of the original forces that supported the kingdom’s expansion and over time the city had become one of the church’s training centers in the west. During church celebrations and holy days, Paladins and Priests flooded through the city as distant forces were called in to assist with the preparations, and they were frequent visitors in the inns, particularly when they tired of the standard fare at the church barracks and sought out more interesting food or drink.

Therefore, when a young priestess walked down the street, her steps light and her white cloak’s hood pulled up around her face as she headed for the closest gate, no one thought it was worth mentioning, even if they noticed the presence of an anti-scrying spell around her. The sky was just brightening between grey clouds that promised rain as she slipped through the gate and onto the high road.

The guards at the gate only glanced at her, noted her affiliation within the church, and returned their attention to more interesting things. A priestess leaving the city on her own wasn’t common, since they typically traveled with a party, but it wasn’t their place to stop her. As far they knew, she was trying to catch up to one of the parties that left before dawn, which would explain her haste.

Beneath her hood, however, Ayala’s lips were set in a determined line as she forced herself to not look back. Over the last months, she’d left Osera a few times for training missions, usually teleported by the church to locations where she could learn more about being a priestess and gain some levels, but this was only the second time she had chosen to leave on her own.

The first time had been nearly a year before, when she’d decided to unlock her unique class. Krana had helped her then by locating the earth mana pool she needed and she’d used her father’s name to acquire an adventuring party as an escort. They had been weak, but they’d gotten the job done eventually, at least until she’d encountered that strange demon...Sam.

Well, he wasn’t really a demon, and the Guardian Star on his hand proved it, but she still couldn’t help but think of him that way sometimes. He had just looked too strange, even when he’d helped her to find the mana pool and then return home. She still had a hard time believing the vision that Krana had of him and that her best friend had left with him, but she had to admit there was something strange about him.

Based on the letters that Krana sent to her on a regular basis, he’d apparently become far more capable, even though the seer had been careful not to reveal exact details. It sounded like he’d come into his own near Highfold and things were going well.

The same couldn’t be said for her.

Ever since Krana had left, she’d felt abandoned and her father’s routine absences only made it worse. Now that she actually had the Priestess subclass, the church had shown far more interest in her and the training had taken up all of her time. She’d spent months doing nothing but studying to be a better Priestess. She had eventually reached Level 81, qualifying her to be a full Priestess.

She’d also practiced with how to use her unique Earthwalker Mage class, which gave her strong attributes, but compared to her role as a priestess, it had little impact on her life. It just meant that she was able to gain experience from combat easily, including if she healed those who were fighting.

If that had been all, she might have been able to content herself by staying in the church. Priestesses were always in demand and she could have just burrowed deeper into the responsibilities of her position, slowly growing in strength as she worked toward higher evolutions, like Bishop or Abbess. Unfortunately, she’d seen something that made that impossible.

Her father was a World Knight, one of the rarer evolutions of Paladin, at Level 243. His name was Helimar, a foreign one for this kingdom, and so he rarely used it. Two weeks before, he had returned from his latest mission to close a series of Flaws that were threatening the northern border of the kingdom. He’d traveled to some stretch of wild forest that extended from the Broken Lands halfway to Sabril, a smaller city a few hundred miles from Osera.

The Flaws there formed a network that must have grown for years. It extended across hundreds of miles of territory and the Outsiders pouring through reached the Second Evolution, which was why her father had been summoned. As was becoming increasingly common, some spell had shrouded the invaders’ presence from the World Law’s attention until they started slaughtering everything around them, a change that promised nothing good for Aster Fall.

It almost always preceded a war.

For some unknown reason, whether it was due to some cycle in the World Law’s influence or some fluctuation in their own dimension, the ability to obscure Flaws was the precursor to nearly every major incursion. Once they achieved a foothold, stronger Outsiders came through and established outposts where their real leaders took up residence.

In the face of that strength, entire kingdoms had been wiped from the map. It was why Aethra was just 3,000 years old. Many older kingdoms had existed on this same land before it.

Forces had been called in from all throughout the north to close the Flaws, but it was not the only battlefield that the kingdom had to deal with. Flaws had been appearing with increasing rapidity over the last decade. The experience from dealing with them had sent a small percentage of experts soaring in levels, her father among them, but the regular forces were tired and their numbers depleted.

Fewer recruits were joining the church and seeking out the kingdom’s army than in the past, scared away by the rumors of high casualties. They were all stretched thin. That was one of the reasons her father was always gone, moving from one emergency to the next.

She’d heard the report on the incursion before he’d left this time. The main Outsiders were some type of strange half-snake, half-humanoid demons. They were twenty to thirty feet long with a serpent body, a human torso and arms, and a broad snake’s head with a cobra-like hood and orange eyes. Their magic was some combination of venom, acid, and blood.

He had returned wounded, surrounded by three healing-focused priests as he was carried in on a stretcher. His blood was yellow with venom, pouring out of bite marks along his arms and neck, and his face was swollen past recognition. He’d been teleported away as a critical resource of the church and they were doing their best to save his life, but their efforts to purify him were failing.

She threw herself forward without even thinking, pouring her mana out in healing spells as she tried to help, but the magic sank into him and found no purchase, just a sizzling curse that ate through it like acid and produced more venom. If his Constitution hadn’t been so high and his body blessed with a resistance to corruption, he would have already been dead.

One of the attending healers screamed at her to leave him be, that she was only killing him faster, and shoved her away. She fell to the floor and sat there as they walked past, taking him to the healing ward. They hoped the enchantments on the room there would stabilize him when their spells couldn’t. It went unspoken that they must have already tried the same thing themselves, and no one had shoved them away.

As she watched them go, she was torn between tears, loss, and an unwelcome sense of relief, wondering if this would be the last time her father left, but then she brushed herself off and followed. She knew the healing room better than they did.

Their hopes weren’t unfounded. When they got him into the healing enchantment, the sigils for detoxifying venom and purifying curses lit up, as well as an isolation barrier that cut off a link to other sources of mana, which the venom was drawing on. They’d poured all the mana they could into the runes and stuffed the support circles with dozens of high-grade mana crystals, enough wealth to buy the room five times over.

It was enough to slow the venom down, but that was all. Whatever he’d been hit with, it was slowly destroying him. As she stayed in the room with him, watching over him and tending to the enchantment long after the other healers had left, she was forced to accept the inevitable, that he was cursed and bound to die, a Paladin who had met his end.

She’d never had much time with him, and looking at his swollen features, she didn’t know what to say. All she’d ever done in life was try to live up to his expectations, even when there was no one around. She had many times wished for a different father, but he was the one she’d received, and she couldn’t just abandon him.

One day dragged into another and the church healers came and went, their expressions growing darker by the hour. Her father was a valuable resource, one that was difficult to replace. Even if they thought of him as a hero instead, their expressions were all the same. They wanted what he had to offer.

Her mother had come to the healing room as well, but her expression was bleak, even as she stayed nearby. Now that Ayala was older, she was around less, often staying in her private wing of their mansion as she worked on her art, gaining experience for her Elemental Artist class. She’d never been good at expressing herself in speech and while her husband was asleep, she set up an easel to one side of the room and began to paint. The scene was a forest without a moon, the trees in shades of grey and crimson.

Ayala studied her father’s face, trying to find the man who had once spoiled her with candy from street vendors. She had been five at the time, walking through the city with him before the Flaws started to increase, but he had still been gone now and then. She hadn’t understood why, nor why the vendors treated him with both fear and respect.

But no matter how long she looked now, she couldn’t find him. Whoever was lying on the enchanted stone slab at the center of the healing circle, it was someone she barely knew. The father who had tossed her in the air and laughingly given her candy had left a long time before.

On the second day in the healing circle, his injuries had been suppressed as far as possible, but it was unlikely he’d live for more than another three or four days. There was something in the venom that the enchantments couldn’t deal with, some trace of Outsider energy that resisted them. All the ward could do was limit the amount of energy it received.

Outsiders were full of curses and the energy they used was like a poison itself, stripping away mana and life. It was one of the reasons they were so feared.

That night, however, things changed. A man who claimed to be her father’s old friend arrived at the mansion and came to the healing circle. His level was beyond her ability to analyze, but he was clearly more powerful than her father or anyone else Ayala had ever met.

He’d only glanced at her and her mother before ignoring them. He’d poured a potion down her father’s throat that woke him up, and then he’d made him an offer.

“Do you want to live or die?” His voice was rough and dry, like sand. “The Boundless Alliance requires a price to save you. I need you to test something for me. It will hurt.”

The name of the organization made Ayala go pale, and her mother jerked her paintbrush, leaving a jagged line across the canvas. She’d heard of the organization, as had nearly everyone with some power, but very few knew who they were.
“Hurt more...than this?” Her father coughed, barely able to turn his head to the side as he spit out a greenish wad. The weak charge of his mana field filled the air, crackling against the healing enchantment as he tried to move and failed. “What...is it?”

It was the first time he’d been awake since coming home, but his attention was locked on the man and not on her or her mother, even though he had to know they were there. His response proved that he was aware of what was going on around him, even when he’d been unable to move.

“You don’t need to know the full details,” the man replied as he pulled out a new vial from his pouch. This one glowed with orange runes inside, which floated in some type of crystal clear liquid. “The first potion I gave you will suppress the venom for a few hours and restore your stamina. This one will do more. You’ll be back on your feet within a day. You have ten minutes to decide.”

“Tell me...what it is.” Her father coughed again as his head fell back on the slab. He was barely able to move.

“It will give you a new source of strength,” the man replied. “The World Core is not the only way to gain new abilities. It’s just the easiest. Have you never imagined what the world would be like without it? Rumors say it didn’t always exist, and the Outsiders don’t have anything like it, which means there are other paths to power. This is one of them.”

His words were blasphemous in the eyes of the church, but no one in the room mentioned it.

“How?” Helimar coughed again, shuddering as he tried to move. “That shouldn’t be...possible.”

“Alchemy breaks the rules if you use a few things that aren’t from Aster Fall,” the man replied easily. It seemed he wanted to talk about his work even if he wasn’t going to share it all. “You’ve heard of bloodlines and Outsider curses. This will change your blood, making you more than you are right now. It will also add a resistance to poison. Probably. You are well aware of the Boundless Alliance’s desire to escape the Level 399 World Limit. This is one path to doing so without actually breaking the rules. It just needs a volunteer to test it.”

“Pri....price?” Her father coughed out the word.

“Hard to say.” The answer was immediate. “I said it was an experiment. You can either take it or die in about a day and a half at your current rate. You should have been better prepared to fight Nespati. Their venom is one of the most dangerous substances under the Third Evolution.”

“You could...heal me.” Helimar spat again as he tried to summon the energy for anger and failed. “If you’re part of the Alliance, you’re Level 399. And you obviously know what this venom is. So why...this?”

“I told you, I need a volunteer.” The man held the vial out where Helimar could see it as he tilted it from side to side. “Now choose. Your strength for speaking will run out soon and I won’t waste another potion on you.”

“Fine.” Her father’s voice held a trace of his conviction in it, that he would be able to overcome this too. He tried to reach for the vial, but his arm only twitched. “Give it to me.”

Ayala’s memories sped forward as she replayed the result, unwilling to dwell on the memory. The man had poured the potion down her father’s throat and he’d immediately gone into convulsions worse than anything she’d ever seen. His body had swelled up to twice its size, turning green and orange as his skin split and blood shot out in arcs. The mana crystals in the healing enchantment shattered one by one, drained as they tried to keep up with the damage.

It was barely enough to keep him alive.

Three hours later, his body shrank back to normal and his skin took on a healthier tone, but there was a tracery of green in his veins that was visible even through his skin. The sigils for venom and curses burned brighter than ever, until the last of the mana crystals shattered and they blinked out.

“I’ll be watching,” the man said. “Let’s see if you’re able to hide that from the World Core.” Then he was gone, either by teleporting or moving so quickly that she couldn’t see him.

Then her father stood up on his own, moving more easily than before he was injured. His movements held a strange fluidity, as if his bones were liquid. When he turned toward her, his eyes glowed orange instead of their old, familiar green. That was the first indication that drinking the potion had been a mistake.

It was hard for her to say, but it would have been better for him to die.

In the eleven days since then, it had become apparent that whatever he was, he was no longer the same person as before. She wasn’t sure he was even still human. His voice had turned to a rasp, like dry sand over bone, and he no longer ate regular food. The only things he wanted were mana crystals and blood, which he got from killing animals in the yard. Somehow, he ate them both, but his expression said they weren’t as satisfying as he hoped.

Every attempt to hold a conversation with him now, even to ask him simple questions about his health, fell on deaf ears as he looked away. He hadn’t spoken a complete sentence since waking up. His bone structure also seemed to be slowly changing. His cheekbones were sharper and his eyes more angular by the day.

When he’d begun to look at the servants like a snake watching its prey and then turned the same gaze on her and her mother, she’d known it was time to go. She didn’t know what the potion had done, but it seemed like it had converted him into something similar to the Nespati snake demons that he’d been fighting.

Whatever emotions he’d once had were dead.

Ayala shuddered as she pulled her attention back to the road ahead of her, darting down it as she headed for a nearby village that was close to the city. She could buy a horse there.

Somehow, though, he hadn’t lost his class. He was still a World Knight. It called into question everything she knew about the church and its role in the world. If he had become something evil, then shouldn’t the World Law know?

She’d shared a quick conversation with her mother and then the two of them had run in different directions. Her mother was heading east to her family in the capital, and she was heading south, looking for answers. She’d warned the servants to find new work if they could, without explaining why. She’d already seen a few of them disappear and she hoped that they had chosen to leave on their own rather than the other, much worse option.

She hadn’t told anyone else in Osera what she thought. Her father was one of the two strongest church powers in the city and good friends with the other one. The bishop had come to congratulate him on his recovery and ignored the changes as a minor obstacle, laughing them away as a change from a near-death experience that would fade with time. When he saw the predatory look in her father’s eye, he’d just asked if he felt like fighting already.

For most people, his class was proof enough to trust him. She didn’t even know if she was right in running away. Perhaps the changes would stop and he would return to normal. But the memory of his strange orange eyes watching her kept her moving. There was no familiarity in them, only hunger.

Whatever he’d been before, he died when he took that potion.

All she could do was try to find Krana, her oldest friend, and hope that she had an idea. The sturdy dwarf had always been her sounding board and voice of wisdom. She didn’t know what to do without her. 

So, she was heading to Highfold to find her.