Path of Stars, Ch 38: Ancient Memories (Patreon)

The world in front of Sam became a starscape that stretched outward to an endless distance, marked only by the brilliant light of the stars as they sparkled in the dark. It was a thousand colors and none as the stars flowed away into the Void, joining together into a river that stretched beyond the limits of sight.

He was tossed on the current, rolling from star to star as waves of energy crashed around him, but compared to the vastness of the river, it felt like he was barely moving. The distance in front of him never shrank. It only extended farther, flowing into a distance that was so great it felt eternal, as if there were nothing but the river and the flow of stars.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent there. All he could tell was that he was flowing along with the current and time felt like it was passing. Days, weeks...perhaps years of the same endless and ever varying flow of energy.

Then it stopped.

The river continued to flow onward, but something plucked him out of the current and pulled him away. The starscape changed around him, reassembling into a grassy meadow with mountains looming in the distance. The sky above wasn’t covered by clouds or sun. Instead, it was a rainbow of coruscating light and shining points of stars, dark and bright at the same time.

As he turned to look around, he found that he was standing upright again. Beside him, there was a massive stone gate. It was very similar to the one that had trapped the Outsiders, but now that he was here, it also reminded him of the gate he’d walked through for his evolutions in the past, the one that Asenya’s memory had guarded. He turned around to look for her, searching through the meadow.

At first, he didn’t find anything. There was only the sky and the flow of a distant wind that howled through the meadow. The green sigil on his arm flared, brightening to an emerald star, and then suddenly she was there, a slender form of emerald and silver-blue hair falling to her feet. She looked almost the same as the last time he’d seen her, her eyes as bright green as ever with their vertical pupils that were so much like his, and her slight smile that hinted at mischief, but there were a few things that were notably different.

She still looked youthful, but her expression was wiser than the form he’d seen before, and her eyes were lined with seriousness. Her clothing was close-fitting, better for movement and battle, and her posture was commanding. Essence radiated from her in nearly invisible waves, twisting the space around her, but at the same time it flowed up into the sky, merging with the river of stars into the Void. He knew now that was the power of the tree.

Her power and the strength of this place.

What he didn’t expect was the old scars and burns across her arms that had left dark ridges behind, nor the frown she gave him as she studied him in return. At first, she seemed forbidding, obviously displeased to see him, but after a moment, her expression turned to puzzlement. Her eyes cleared as her wariness faded.

“You are not of my line,” she said slowly, “but you bear my sigil. It called to me and so I came. I do not recall granting that to anyone, not like that. More importantly, you’re an Astral Titan, but so young. How is it possible that you are here? Did your people succeed in their goals? Our goals?”

Unlike her younger self, she got straight to the point, asking him questions instead of waiting. There was none of the same restraint the younger memory had shown, the questions she had been unable to answer without the World Core’s approval.

That one had been limited by the World Core and her task, which was to only help with his Evolution. This one felt different, like he was really speaking to Asenya herself. The power of the Wild Tree flowed around her, rather than pressing down on the world around them. It made it clear that she was the one in charge here.

“I am from Aster Fall,” he said simply. “I met your earlier self from the memory you recorded in the World Core, as part of the inheritance for the Battlefield Reclaimer class that you created. That was my first class. You granted me your sigil in the hopes that I could find your real body.” He paused for a moment as he studied her reaction, and then he added what was really important, pouring it all forth in as condensed a description as he could.

“The World Seal is failing. It only has a few years left. Outsider forces are pressing through the gaps, tearing dimensional holes as they come through the Nexus. The auras of the world are being torn away in the process. Will you help me repair the seal and save Aster Fall?”

“I see...” Asenya waited until he finished, her attention fixed on him, and then she shook her head. “But how are you an Astral Titan? That makes no sense. No Astral Titan would receive that class from the World Core.”
“I was a human before,” he said simply. “Cerei’s hope and and the energy left in the Moonlight Relic bore fruit, changing me into a Titan. It wouldn’t have been possible except for a spark of astral chaos that was in the Void outside of Aster Fall. Many things came together to make it possible.”

Briefly, he explained the Outsider outpost he’d encountered, his first racial transformation, the discovery of the relic and the key it had given him, and then his work to repair it, where he’d been caught up in the flow of astral energy and transformed again.

“Astral chaos?” Asenya asked as her eyes widened. At the same time, her posture finally relaxed and she looked at him clearly, without the suspicion that had been there at first. “That should be impossible unless....”

“The Outsiders brought it somehow,” Sam agreed, nodding at her guess. “I think you know more about their capabilities than I do. The Will of the Path told me some things, but not much.”

Now that he thought about it, although the Will had been forthright in answering his questions, there were critical areas that it hadn’t covered, including the true capabilities of the Outsiders and the end of the First War. He had to wonder why. Perhaps it had just thought he wasn’t strong enough to know yet, not until he could do something about it.

At the same time, it had dropped him off here, fairly close to Asenya’s home, so it had definitely left the doors open for him to find out for himself. There was no way that was a coincidence.

“I see,” Asenya said again as she studied him, looking more closely this time. Eventually, she shook her head. “And so, you’ve come here for your Evolution and for answers?”

“For your help with the World Seal,” Sam said as he focused on the most critical part. “The rest is important, but that is the main thing. How can I repair it?”

“You can’t,” she said directly as she shook her head. “It’s not that simple. The World Seal is a twisting of dimensional space that relies on the flow of energy from the Nexus. It’s focused by the World Core into a vortex that slows time and creates a wall of dimensional pressure. If it’s failing, it means that either the World Core is too damaged to sustain it or the Nexus itself is losing power.” She paused then, still studying him. When she spoke again, her words were a straightforward explanation. “The first one is more likely. The damage at the end of the First War caused massive instabilities in its core structure, which I only managed to barely stabilize. If that’s true, then the Nexus would be growing in power at the same time, which could cause some of the problems you described.”

“Can you fix it?” Sam asked. The need to have a direct answer was driving him to be blunt. All of his attention was hanging on her answer. He’d looked for her for a long time and seeing her now, despite how difficult he knew the job was, he was still hoping for a simple solution. “Or show me how?”

“This form is only a memory imprint here,” Asenya said slowly as she shook her head. She looked conflicted, but her answer was quick. “Even with all the power of the Wild Tree, it isn’t possible to cross the distance and connect with the World Core like that. If I’ve gone missing, and if the World Core is still damaged from the war, it’s likely that I tried and failed to repair it already.”

“What happened to you?” Sam asked instantly. “How did the First War end and where did you go? Why couldn’t the damage be repaired?”

“You are a strange Titan,” Asenya answered, redirecting the question as a smile flitted across her lips. A hint of the playfulness of her earlier years was there now. “So impatient to have answers. Your elders were always the ones who thought I was impatient and young, and now to see you asking me questions instead, it feels like our roles are reversed.

“I should do my best to explain, and I will, but first tell me more about yourself and about Aster Fall. It has been a very long time since I was last there. This is the second home I created for my descendants, but Aster Fall is the home where I was born, and I’ve never forgotten her. Tell me what the world looked like as you were growing up, while you lived there. Don’t worry about the time it takes. Things happen here more quickly than outside, if I want them to.”

Sam hesitated, since the desire for the answers was boiling in his mind, but Asenya’s eagerness to hear about Aster Fall resonated with him and his own desire to return. He let out a deep breath as he forced himself to be patient and then he began to speak. It took a few moments for the words to flow, but once they did, they started to pour forth.

It was the first time since he’d left that he’d had a chance to talk about Aster Fall with someone else who was from there. For him, it had only been a few decades, but for Asenya, it had been millions of years. Her attention hung on his every word.

He told her about growing up in Cliff’s End, about the elemental storms that built up in the distant mountains and rolled across the Storm Plains, about the danger of monster attacks and bandits, and more. Bit by bit, he went through all of the years he’d spent on Aster Fall. It wasn’t very many compared to the history of the woman in front of him, but its importance to him was no less.

By the time he spoke about the Moonlight Relic, the mana that gathered on the peaks of the Western Reaches, and the alignment of the three moons, the words tumbled forth easily and his mind was as calm as a deep river. He’d already spent longer on the Path of Stars than he had at home, and telling her about it was a chance to recenter himself in those memories.

Here and there, Asenya laughed and added her own words, but she didn’t interrupt the retelling. Eventually, Sam went on to tell about myths and versions of history he’d learned, as well as about the World Spirits he’d seen and more. For a long while, the two of them just enjoyed the stories of Aster Fall. Throughout it all, Asenya’s smile was bright, like a reflection of her earlier years. Now and then, she made little jokes, telling him about ways the world had once been.

In her day, there were very few people on the world. It was mostly a vast expanse of mountains and seas that stretched between golden plains. Beasts had been prevalent, however, since she’d made an effort to cover the world with life, as well as a few cities where humans and other races had established a foothold. Aster Fall was deep into the Chaos Wild, so those who came there were intrepid sorts, ones who wanted an adventure or who were looking for trade through the Nexus.

Here and there, he asked questions whenever they came to mind. The early form of the World Core’s notifications was one of them, since he’d always wondered about the ornate silver and gold-bordered notifications he’d received for his first class.

“I was copying you Titans when I made those,” Asenya said with a laugh as she waved her hand lightly. “They were always so formal and structured in their works. Everything needed to be both beautiful and purposeful, as if anything less was an insult to their creations. They’d lived so long that for them art was just another aspect of creation. To not make something beautiful would be like leaving a blade unsharpened.”

That made him chuckle, but it fit with the early memories of the Titans that he’d inherited. To him, they were warriors and smiths, pressing forward to create a path for survival, but he had to admit there was no reason to make something ugly when you could do better.

It was strange to speak to her like this, without the pressure of the World Core telling them to hurry up, but eventually he brought the conversation back to what he needed to know. He described his family and the difficulty that inheriting the Battlefield Reclaimer class had brought them, and the way he’d managed to unlock it, to their new home at the relic, and his hopes for his sister to grow up well.

Eventually, he finished by explaining how he’d been pulled away from the world onto the Path of Stars, and he told her about the great scar on the World Core that he’d seen when he left, as well as his travels up to this point. As he did, Asenya closed her eyes with a smile and nodded.

“Thank you for sharing your memories,” she said peacefully. “It has been too long since I was back.” Then she let out a sigh as her attitude shifted back to practicality. “Alright now, let’s see what I can do to help you. I am only a memory preserved by the Wild Tree, but if things have reached this point, then I have to try. And we can also see about your Evolution, which is what you came here for.”

Her attitude with him was much more relaxed now and a hint of her old self had brought a smile to her face that stayed there. It was at that point he knew her questions had been as much a test for him as they were a desire to know about Aster Fall. By sharing his memories with her, he’d proved his origins.

“How did the First War end?” he asked as she seemed to be gathering her thoughts. “You haven’t told me yet.”

“Badly,” she said simply. “You’ve seen some of the strength of the Outsiders, and you know the heritage of the Astral Titans, so you should be able to imagine the difficulty of it. I was created by both sides, and my perspective was a bit different because of it, but I was raised by the Titans. The Outsiders come from a galaxy ruled by warlike races. Those who did not want that were long ago conquered and forced to become servants to those who do. Their skills in battle are far greater than we knew at the beginning of the war. They have elders that rival the Titans in strength, and some who might even be stronger.” Asenya paused for a moment as she looked up at the rainbow Void above them where the tree’s energies were flowing into the distance.

“It is hard to say if we were losing the war, but we were not winning it either,” she said at last. “Most importantly, they were willing to go further than we were in sacrificing their people to make a long-term gain. By the end, I became convinced that we needed to do something else or a defeat would be inevitable, regardless of how long we managed to hold on.”

“They tried to ambush the Titans and lured the Vos’Rekan to Aster Fall?” Sam asked. “I’ve heard bits of that story before.”

“Yes, among many other efforts to eliminate us,” Asenya agreed. “If the Titans had not been there, it would have been a disaster, but they were strong enough to endure. They kept things stable. Some of the other powerful races joined the war as well, the High Nine as they called themselves, and a few younger races as well, but Aster Fall’s location was always difficult to reach. Few under the Fifth Evolution could make the journey without assistance. It was primarily the Titans and a few allies who fought. Most of the galaxy didn’t even know it was happening, despite the danger.

“Over time, many of the Outsiders spread into regions of the Chaos Wild, building bases and hiding away. Much of our effort after the war was to find them and deal with them. Most were sent back through the Nexus.”

“Is that where the ones here came from?” Sam asked. “The ones locked behind the gate in the grove?”

“Yes,” Asenya said with a nod. “They were too far from the Nexus and one of the last groups captured. I also knew some of them, or really their ancestors. When they were captured, I couldn’t let them go again, but I tried to show them mercy by giving them a place to live where they could thrive. From what I’ve seen however, they treated it as a prison instead.”

Sam nodded as some of his questions about the ancient gate in the grove were answered. If the area was what Asenya had intended, then Alora’s family inside should be fine.

“So the seal,” he said eventually, “that was your method to bring an end to the war? How did you make it and can you fix it now?”

“It was the best solution at the time,” Asenya said. “Creating it was time consuming, but the principle is not too complex. The Nexus is a vortex that cuts through dimensions, including ones where space doesn’t exist in the same way as it does here. Eventually, it reaches the Outsiders’ home galaxy, bringing it together with ours. When it’s functioning properly, stepping into the Nexus allows you to bridge the gap.

“To create the Seal, I changed the order of the dimensions that the Nexus accesses, so that instead of compressing space, it elongates it, blending it into an area where time doesn’t pass. Rather than assisting with travel, it prevents it.”

“And that is what’s breaking down?” Sam asked with a frown. “The structure of the dimensions?”

“No, probably not.” Much to his surprise, Asenya shook her head. “The Nexus is a tear through those dimensions. It is designed to flow naturally from one side to the other. In order to stay stable, the World Seal has to carefully balance that energy. Most likely, the repeated small incursions have created dimensional bubbles that are like a pressure wave, and that is what is causing it to erode. It was one of the things I was concerned about. It was supposed to shunt that energy to the World Core to be dealt with, but if the World Core remains damaged, it probably can’t maintain it well enough.”

“What about the Moonlight Relic?” Sam asked as he shifted tacks. “Can it be used to help?”

“I don’t know as much about that relic,” Asenya replied with a shake of her head, “but it would probably be a temporary solution. The best way to deal with the World Seal would be to remove it completely, so that the pressure on it is released, and then to rebuild it once the Nexus restabilizes. But that will also restart the First War.”

“It will cause a Breaking,” Sam said seriously. “The world will be overrun by portals. The Outsiders have not given up interest in Aster Fall or our galaxy. They only keep coming. That can’t be the only solution.”

“No,” Asenya nodded to him. “It is also not that easy to simply drop the seal and restart it. It would require my real self. So, it seems you will still need to find me. At the same time, since you have the Moonlight Relic, I recommend you restore it to working order and then use it to create a dimensional seal across the vortex while I work. Using the two together should give my real self enough time to recreate the seal while still protecting Aster Fall.”

Sam let out a slow breath as the answer he’d been looking for was presented to him. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was a workable plan if he could find Asenya and finish the repairs on the relic. Unfortunately, it was also optimistic.

“I don’t think Aster Fall has the time to wait for that,” he said. There wasn’t long before the seal would fail, and he doubted he could get the repairs finished before then, even if he was just working on the relic. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his hands. “I’ll try it, but there has to be another way. Do you know where your real self is now? And can you teach me a way to fix the seal if you’re not there?”

“If you were at the Sixth Star, as your people call it,” Asenya said slowly, “you might be able to take control of the World Core without my help. Your people helped to build it and it will recognize the authority of an Astral Titan and the Path of Stars, but it looks like you have a long way to go before you reach that level.

“As for the location of my real body, I imagine the Will of the Path has searched for me to fix the problem. If it hasn’t found me yet, then I am either deep in the Chaos Wild or I have gone into the seal. The seal is more likely, given how long it has been since I went missing. I might even be on the other side of the Nexus. It’s possible I joined up with the Titans for their exploration, perhaps to find a better way of balancing the power in the Nexus and repairing the World Core. I have always been drawn to both galaxies.

“As for another way to fix the World Seal....” Asenya shook her head. “I don’t know of any other way. If I were at the World Core and could see the exact situation, I might be able to help more, but I cannot leave the tree or truly interact with the world. I am just a memory left here to guide my descendants.”

“The Wild Tree can’t be moved or something?” Sam asked determinedly. It was a bit desperate, but if he had to carry the tree back to Aster Fall somehow and plop it down on top of the World Core, he’d figure out a way.

“No,” Asenya shook her head. “You can take a sapling, if you like, but the tree itself is aligned to the Void here. It has basically grown into the dimensions of this location and its roots stretch through the heart of the world and more. It would shatter if you tried to move it, as would this region of the Void, and everything here would be destroyed, including my memory and my descendants’ homeland.”

“Right,” Sam muttered as he checked the possibility off his list. “Would a sapling help then, if I planted it on Aster Fall or on the World Core?”

“You could try combining it with your Moonlight Relic,” Asenya agreed. “I can show you a way to link it into the dimensions around Aster Fall. The Wild Tree is a later effort, one I built after the seal was complete, and it uses some of the same principles. As it grows, it might be able to stabilize the dimensions and create a natural barrier. It could also channel the essence that comes through the Nexus and help the World Seal in balancing the flow of energy there.”

“Is that why you built it?” Sam asked. “To balance the flow of energy here for your descendants in the Chaos Wild?”

“Partly,” Asenya agreed with a nod. “It was also because I never felt completely comfortable in the Chaos Wild. I understand the Titans are different, but I come from a mix of both this galaxy and the other one. The wild elements here are distracting to me, and I have to constantly rebalance my essence against them. I created the tree to bring all of those energies together and create a more pleasant place to live. My descendants inherited that ability as a result of their bond with the tree, which was part of my intention.”

“So, you really are the original Wild Spirit, the ancestor of the entire race?” Sam asked as he raised his eyebrows.

“Yes and no,” Asenya said with a smile. “My original race was called the Wild Spirits too, a race highly attuned to essence and the elements. That was where my parents were originally born. They looked somewhat different from me, more elemental and fierce. They had the ability to change into different forms based on elemental attunements. They volunteered to help blend the power of the two galaxies, and only asked the Titans to save their race from extinction. I was the result.

“After the end of the First War, when things were peaceful again, I brought the remaining few Wild Spirits here, and with them I founded this world. The Wild Spirits now living are a mix of my descendants and theirs, although I suppose by this point, they might all be my descendants in truth. There were only a few thousand of us left back then.”

“So,” Sam said as he let out a long breath and settled his thoughts on what he needed to do. “You’ll give me a sapling of the tree and teach me how to use it to stabilize Aster Fall? And show me what you can about the World Core and the seal?”

“By taking a sapling and planting it properly, you will also be helping me.” Asenya inclined her head to him in agreement. “Not only are you planning to use it to protect my original home, but if you can find my real self, the sapling will be important. If I am injured, place me near it and it will help me to heal.” She gestured to the black scars across her arms that looked like burns. “That is one of the reasons I created it.”

“Thank you,” Sam said as he inclined his head. This memory fragment was both more and less than he’d hoped for, but at least there was a path to the future. He stood up from where he was seated and looked into the sky where the energy of the tree was flowing away into the Void. When he spoke again, there was a level of formality in his tone that hadn’t been there before. “Then it’s time to decide on my next class.”

Asenya lightly brushed at the edges of her dress as she stood up and moved to his side, looking into the sky with him. “I was wondering when you would ask,” she said with a smile. “Would you like to see your options?”

The way she was standing now was almost exactly the same as when her younger memory had helped him before. Some things changed, but others stayed the same.

“Show me,” he said confidently as he looked upward, waiting for the options to appear.