Abyssal Road Trip - 315 - Baptism by Fire (Patreon)

Amdirlain’s PoV - Material Plane - Quil Tris

Dinner had proved easy to prepare between them, and afterwards, a still emotionally exhausted Jal’krin had gone to bed early. Once he fell into a deep slumber, Amdirlain set up the crystal to project an illusion of her sleeping on the living room bench and headed out.

Tracking some songs gathered from among the retreat’s staff, Amdirlain slipped into a city hospital’s side entrance. Wandering along the corridors, she listened to the enchanted devices that checked mundane vitals and Mana levels. The pulse of their pieces provided a strange echo of medical monitors and stirred memories of her teenage hospital visits.

Amdirlain drifted among the patients with that ancient history needling her. Though they weren’t those she sought, she used Universal Life to leave a wave of recoveries and confused medical staff in her wake. The assortment of their issues and unfamiliar physiology stretched her advancement in the Power. Though she skipped some, most Amdirlain simply ignored the flaws in their melodies.

The healing saw Universal Life progress twice through a hospital wing, and the second notification halted Amdirlain in her tracks. With healing easier and more immediately satisfying than dealing with her problems, she admitted its temptation was unlikely to fade. Amdirlain made a beeline for the unit that held those staff from the Lakeside Retreat present in this hospital. Outside, a temporary sign with a hazard symbol hung from its doors, and security had it cordoned off.

The magical wards around the medical unit were layered out from their rooms to stop diseases but not entities. Still, having only come this close to ensure there wasn’t the faintest residue of distortion, Amdirlain stayed outside. Touching their minds, she drew them into variations of a mindscape, each sitting in loose garments on their hospital bed. In those visions, each blinked at Amdirlain in confusion, drawn from dreams or into a stupor while talking with officials.

“Who are you?”

It was the first or second question from the many ‘teenagers’, and Amdirlain answered each of them the same.

“I’m with those trying to resolve this situation. I’ve just come to ask: do you wish to choose your classes again?”

There were many common questions, but some made her ache for their future.

‘I made Class selections? How can someone take classes away? They haven’t even told me what’s going on. I only know I got woken up by a security guard. How did I get there? What are my Classes? Who are you really with? They won’t tell me where my pride is or why they’ve not come to see me. Will you tell me what’s going on?’

The long conversations they wouldn’t remember seemed to go on for hours but lasted seconds in the mindscape. Though Amdirlain didn’t directly answer many questions, she provided enough information that most decided to purge their classes. Amdirlain waited long enough to hear them gasping in pain from years or decades of Class progression stripped away, and their attribute increases splitting off.

[Profile Mastery [M] (49->61)]

Amid the Forty-six songs that had painfully shifted and rung in her mind, the notification had appeared almost spitefully. After bearing witness, she moved to the next location.

Amdirlain continued through each isolation ward until all two hundred and thirty medical staff and one security guard had been given the same choice.

[Profile Mastery [M] (93->95)

Note: Current unpleasantness aside, their adult choices caused lots of suffering. You let them off easy, whether they were pulled into it or did the pulling.]

Amdirlain stopped to look at the last notification and sighed. Taking in the ringing song and the patients in the nearby hospital rooms, Amdirlain realised what about Professor Mor’lmes had her grinding her teeth.

I felt he was playing puppet master with his network of people. He doesn’t know enough about the danger he’s sending them into to keep them safe and only followed afterwards. The same could be said about me regarding Torm; I allowed him to face unknown dangers without me, despite our earlier promise, and came in later.

Sighing, Amdirlain scrubbed her fingers through her hair, contemplating the last days.

I took my pain out on him and Jal’krin, chewed Jal’krin out about screwing up. I could have been less confrontational with the kid since I set him up for the second bad bet.

“Valid or not, I was still a bitch, and added my pain and failures into the judgemental attitude,” murmured Amdirlain.

Scrying on the professor’s song, Amdirlain found him setting a dining table in a skyscraper near the city’s centre. A long table with enough space for fourteen or more bordered an open area. The rest of the room was filled with six large and soft backless couches set in a circle with throw rugs of bright hues covering the tiled floor between them. The suite had several bedrooms and other rooms branching off the area.

The professor was barefoot, wearing loose pants and a sleeveless shirt of a burnt amber hue that showed his scarred arms. Beside him in the domestic scene was a muscular dark blue female wearing a law keeper uniform, her left arm was a silver prosthetic that started high on her shoulder. Interestingly, the protection about their apartment contained a combination of their songs, though her theme wasn’t as strong in its contributions.

Along one wall were dozens of pictures, and a small table stood at their mid-point with a clean drinking glass in its centre. Most of the pictures were of individuals in various styles of black and purple military armour, some wore civilian clothing, and all were wreathed in ribbons of muted red.

When Mor’lmes finished setting their places, he filled the glass on the small table before the wall. Spotting their dinner was already away from the cooktops, Amdirlain called Mor’lmes’ direct unit.

Their ears flattened when a unit on a couch across the circle started chirping, and the female sighed. “At least it's not mine this time.”

“My poor love, not looking forward to running herd on your investigation teams?” laughed Mor’lmes as he weaved around the coaches to collect the offending unit.

“You weren’t there. You don’t get to laugh about that much rock imitating a bird,” the female grumbled. “I can’t even tell them what you shared about J.”

When Mor’lmes looked at the unit’s metal display plate, he frowned and pressed a button, but the unit kept chirping. “No unit signal code, and the call didn’t deny.”

“It might be from J,” suggested the female, not having moved from the table. “You don’t know what she is, but try to have manners and ensure you thank her for restoring Tulne’s life.”

Mor’lmes grumbled and touched fingertips to his throat before he pressed a rune. “Hello.”

Amdirlain cut the sound from the scrying before she replied. “Hello, Mor’lmes. Apologies for disturbing your dinner preparations. There is another gift for you at your front door—warded so only you can collect it. I didn’t want it accidentally picked up by someone while you interrogated me.”

The female still at the table laughed reflexively and moved to collect their dinner from the kitchen.

“What sort of gift?” huffed Mor’lmes curiously. “I already owe the girl’s life and my healing. Our tales warn of the prices extracted by beings of power.”

“Though we got off to a rocky start, I’m not looking to harm you. If I need payment for something, I’ll inform you in advance, and you can decline,” reassured Amdirlain. “But I’ve already told you what I’m after, and that’s to get help to stop the beachheads. The rest is either goodwill gestures or needful things. The staff is a gift and one of the tools I promised to provide to protect your world.”

“You’d rather fight on someone else’s lands?” questioned Mor’lmes.

“Such a cynical view. They’re already here. I didn’t lure them onto your world, nor did I tell the Arch-Wizard to bring what he did into your city,” reminded Amdirlain.

Mor’lmes went to the front door and hauled it open. In the empty corridor, a gnarled staff matching the one he brought to the cafe hovered upright before him, the breeze generated by the door causing it to rotate slowly. His nose twitched as he lifted the unit back to his ear and caught the gleam of crystal peeking from within the wood at the staff’s top.

He set a sound barrier and illusion in place before he spoke.

“What am I looking at?” asked Mor’lmes

“It's a close duplicate of your staff, though I made some upgrades. While it endures, anyone in an area you direct will have any Eldritch-infested memories cleansed. Mind you don’t use a bubble; keep it to flat circles or lines. You don’t want it impacting people on floors above or below you that you can’t see,” explained Amdirlain.

Mor’lmes reached out for it only to halt. “Why are you sending it to me?”

“While I know you had no infested memories, I’ve not met many of your observers. You can warn them about memory loss, but if others haven’t noticed odd behaviours, it's likely minimal,” explained Amdirlain.

With a tightening grip on the unit, Mor’lmes took the staff from the air with his free hand and stepped back to close the door. Setting the staff in a rack beside the door before he spoke again. “Why should they risk it?”

“Do your species have any degenerative illnesses? One that causes muscular strength to decay while leaving the mind hale, or vice versa?” asked Amdirlain, though she already knew the answer from her hospital visits.

“Yes, some can be costly or impossible to treat,” admitted Mor’lmes.

“Once someone’s mind has given in to the Eldritch influence, it's like the early onset of one of those diseases. If your people had seen the sigils or doodles, but the infestation didn’t get its hooks into their minds, they’ll lose nothing. Those infected whose state becomes advanced enough could compromise the rest of your observers.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got no operational security. Every observer whose mind I’ve listened to knows others, and they frequently meet,” explained Amdirlain. “Worse, the link unit can send visual traces. It would be easy for a compromised individual to spread their affliction.”

“Grave rot,” cursed Mor’lmes. “We never approach them, and we all know of their weirdness. We hadn’t considered one of us joining them. What will the effect be? Any obvious signs if they’re affected by purging memories?”

“Depending on how many memories someone loses, they might pass out; lesser infected become lightheaded within the area,” advised Amdirlain.

Mor’lmes’ posture tensed up. “Is there a problem on campus?”

“I’ll explain tomorrow. Enjoy your dinner, and maybe invite some friends over early to check on them,” replied Amdirlain, and she let the songs lapse to end the connection and scrying.

Amdirlain started to plan her next step when she heard a child nearby having trouble getting comfortable because of a badly broken leg. She took time to heal more patients while she thought about the rest of the evening.

Tracking the two eldritch sorcerers her crystal at the outreach centre had dealt with, Amdirlain found them in another hospital’s quarantine area. There she purged their classes, and while a staff member updated their records, she snaffled their home addresses from the gleaming metal displays.

Slicing apart the alarm wards on the first’s home, she flowed under the door and took in the disorderly couches and the packed bookcases. All their spines were pristine, and a faint layer of dust lay across the front of the shelves without interruption. The place was a four-room suite, fully furnished from the front door to the polished stones and trim around the washroom’s sink.

A full-height ice chest was laden with drinks and runes whose crafter was skilled enough to impress them rather than needing to engrave. Cupboards filled with cookware that showed as much dust as the shelves, only the utensils and plates had seen use. Nosing through his bedroom, she found the first evidence of reading habits. Dog-eared copies of texts stamped in the corners of the front and back cover with an inward-facing three, the local symbol looking like ridged teeth.

Within the well-thumbed stack that advised on ‘fortifying one’s inner self’ was one that was still new. Flicking through its pages, Amdirlain found a chapter on the Arch-Wizard, which started with an illustration of a broken wall and an eye-catching sigil atop it. The twisted shape looked like a weather-worn engraving of a polar worm eating itself, with serrated teeth digging into the edges. Nothing in the chapter remotely sounded like the individual in the early journals. Destroying the book, Amdirlain flicked through the others but found nothing remotely the same.

That mass reproduction of the sigils left a foul taste in Amdirlain's mouth, and it hadn’t faded by the time she finished tossing his bedroom for more. She only gained a few items of interest: well-creased, handwritten notes about attuning one’s inner heart to the stars and a palm-sized metal plate—the local version of an address book. Within it, she found the printing company’s details.

Checking on the second Sorcerer’s home, Amdirlin found a hazy two-bedroom apartment with a young family—a calico mother and three cubs under five. The littlest was asleep on a fuzzy rug, rolled blankets bracing him in place, while the other two pestered the mother for news between munching on cereal cakes. Their mother had a battered cookbook folded in two and the kitchen's ice chest open wide. As she rifled through the labelled parcels inside, repeatedly inscribed runes gleamed dully along its handle.

“Daddy never burns anything!” exclaimed the eldest.

Sighing, the mother scrubbed her hand with oil-stained fur across her muzzle and grit her teeth, determined to ignore her cub’s new mantra for the evening.

“When will he be home? Can I have something else? I hate cereal cakes,” the other child asked as they moved to put the half-chewed cake back in the box.

Catching the motion out of the corner of her eye, the mother protested in a stressed hiss. “You’ve slobbered all over it. Don’t put it back in there; leave it on your plate for now.”

Teleporting silently into the parents' bedroom, Amdirlain found a similar stack of books to the first Sorcerer, including the one with the sigil. Destroying them, Amdirlain left a cluster of nuggets composed of precious metals and moved on.

It was full night when Amdirlain appeared again on the estate grounds. The lop-sided Y with its maw towards the driveway seemed more ominous tonight. The building’s exterior had no lighting, and moonlight had the tree pointing accusing fingers towards the manor. The two strongest sources of distortion were in the upper three stories of the core structure, and another close to their strength was positioned two levels below ground level. In addition, there were lesser sources on the lower floors and in the adjoining buildings.

Amdirlain began to check the wards with a narrow focus to avoid the distortion’s interference. Through the hissing static, she confirmed they were the wards she’d seen in other places to prevent observation and undead intrusion. While stronger than she’d seen in other places, Amdirlain couldn’t find hidden tricks within them that would restrain her from leaving. The main problem was that, if they detected someone unauthorised inside, they’d kick up a racket.

She kept working around the two distortions that sometimes shifted location while her search progressed. Amdirlain checked most of the premises and found chambers of various types that seemed more suitable for larger gatherings than the number of bedrooms within. Among them, the basement had a large chamber of black stone with the third source of distortion.

A secured room outside that chamber had more of the robes with masks that aided mental resilience she’d found at the outreach centre. In that vestment room, on either side of the door toward the distortion, was a metal plate set with two runes. The jagged symbol they used for three faced a mirror of itself to present a vicious maw. Unlike the wards on the upper floors, those in the lowest level of the basement were rigged to kill.

Is there another sludge pool in there,  or something else?

Returning her attention above ground, she recounted and confirmed just over forty-eight individuals within the building. Eldritch manipulators possessed thirty-one, so she focused on the song of the two stronger distortions and tried Analysis.

[Name: Alyolhe, Spellclash pride

Species: Eldritch Skinwalker

Primordial Tier: 2

Health: 874,124

Defence: 728

Magic: 4,297

Details: The current head of the inner circle dedicated to the Delirium of Darkness is an Eldritch that now wears the face of Alyolhe, of the Spellclash pride.

Alyolhe was born into riches, a member of the main line of the Spellclash pride. Among its other ventures, it controls the manufacturing rights of the highest-rated energy projector in the allied territories. Military and security contracts have continued to bolster the family’s fortunes. They are patrons of note among the Triumvirate Campus and hold great influence within its halls due to ancestral ties.

She served in the military and survived an expedition. Afterwards, she mated the much poorer Cen’ki, which caused conflict with her immediate pride.

Chosen to take her mentor’s place on the inner council, Alyolhe looked forward to the control she’d gain. Yet the ‘ascension’ ceremony was also the last moment she as a person existed. The predecessors entered with the slumbering entity, and the ‘deaths’ were covered up as natural causes slowly revealed over months.

Note: What big teeth and eyes grandmother has today, positively brimming with energy. It’s what happens when a being focuses on channelling energy.]

I didn’t focus on classes to up my Magic rating, so I do not want to get into a Spell battle with her. She might slip mine aside while her spells or powers could hit home, and I’ve no idea the depth of her Mana pool.

[Name: Cen’ki, Spellclash pride

Species: Eldritch Skinwalker

Primordial Tier: 2

Health: 436,950

Defence: 596

Magic: 2,914

Details: Though talented, he opted to join Alyolhe’s pride for their greater wealth. Two years after their mating rites, he joined her in the cult to push for a promised greater strength.

After enduring decades of mental trials and progressing through the cult’s circles, he was always a fraction behind his mate. Only at the last step did Cen’ki advance to the next council simultaneously. They were both privileged to ‘ascend’ their ranks during the same inner council transition. Just to get his face taken by a weaker summoning than his wife, and most of the ‘food’ since has gone to her growth.

Note: Even the fake him can’t catch a break.]

Checking beyond the property, Amdirlain found two observers within a forested estate down the road. The small building they were staying in felt like a groundskeeper cottage to her, positioned on the forward edge of the grounds but out of sight from the road. The building they were monitoring was Alyolhe’s private estate.

‘Things might get loud tonight. Stay clear.’

The words in their mind caused both of the observers to grab for their link units. Hoping they’d stay out of it, Amdirlain set to work.

Tagging the infested but unpossessed mortals, Amdirlain set up a linked crystal to purge memories and teleport them away from any fighting. Creating groups of crystals to burst the eldritch manipulators' psychic energies netted her millions in experience, far more than killing these alone would reap.

Amdirlain was still working out if she could breach the basement’s wards when a trio of young adults arrived in a vehicle. From the straight course of the driveway, the vehicle’s path headed around the building’s far side and caused a covered area away from the building to light up. As their vehicle turned off, a glowing walkway came to life from the covered space and ran to the side building. Under an illusion, a pair exited the vehicle's front seats and lifted a female from the backseat, ignoring her drugged protests about needing to get home. Though Amdirlain was tempted to take direct action, with the pair’s songs relatively clear, she tagged all three to handle with the infected. When they opened the front door of the side building, Amdirlain was an unseen wind that rushed past the trio, and she cleared the drugs from the female and triggered the prepared crystals.

As she moved along the entry’s tile floor, Amdirlain took in the elaborate banners carefully spaced to maximise the illumination of the hexagon’s soft white light. Down the middle of the foyer was a polished table with mithril filigree. In an orderly line atop were racks that held holsters, an assortment of bags, and the short rune rods that acted as vehicle keys.

Before the new arrivals and other infected vanished away to hospitals, Amdirlain’s songs had already enfolded the possessed in silence. An effect that started just in time as a barrage of psionic assaults ripped the eldritch manipulators apart. Only Amdirlain should have heard the screams of distress from their hosts, but still, Alyolhe and Cen’ki acted.

As the first Eldritch Manipulator died, Alyolhe and Cen’ki moved, the pair in full stride before the Eldritch remains were whisked from the realm. With the shielding useless, Amdirlain dropped the barrier she’d held around the hosts and tracked the pair’s course.

From their first turn, it was clear the pair’s rush was heading towards each other. With Cen’ki being weaker, Amdirlain went after him. His path had started him into a multi-room library, giving Amdirlain plenty of room for her assault.

Teleporting beside Cen’ki, Amdirlain’s kick spun the black-furred male with silver age speckles into a bookcase. The shelving shattered with the impact and rained tomes down on them both. Amdirlain’s kick felt like it struck bone, but his burned body squelched and deformed around the edge of the shelves, only to expand again. As he scrambled to his feet, tendrils of inky blackness stabbed out through the fine red silken robes he wore and into the ground to support him.

With Alyolhe approaching fast, Amdirlain’s songs pressed hard to enclose his form in a crystal translation. He twisted through a spine-cracking turn and leapt towards the space books bouncing off Amdirlain had left. The golden energies slipped tighter to meet him without a sound of protest, he impacted hard into the thin crystal the glow had created all around him. Thickening layers ground inwards, pressing his stolen form into a tight column, more blackness oozing from skin and fur. His claws and spells scrambled for purchase until the crystal casket was completed, and its temporal lock snapped into place.

Before Amdirlain could send it away, Eldritch lances ripped through the ceiling at an angle she dropped to avoid. The spells tore onward through the wall and floor beside her. The casket and nearby bookshelves the projectiles hadn’t consumed groaned and plunged into the pit that the attack had torn through the multiple floors.

Even before the destruction finished, Alyolhe had leapt away, and her trail of distortion fled towards the nearest screaming infected. Not wanting her to have anything she sought, Amdirlain teleported them into a side building. Their movement caused Alyolhe to pause and turn for the nearest stairs down. Unsure if Alyolhe was detecting the energy of their lives or the distortion, Amdirlain set multiple phantasms loose. Each of them she wrapped in a song that echoed life’s energy and set them chasing Alyolhe.

Amdirlain didn’t shift the fallen Catfolk again but adjusted her own concealments to blend better with the stones. Even though they hadn’t attacked, Alyolhe unleashed spells towards the closest phantasm blowing through a wall to crush it. Making other phantasms move as if they were desperately chasing Alyolhe, Amdirlain repositioned herself to ambush her from above.

Blasts from Alyolhe ripped through one chasing phantasm after another, and in response, Amdirlain used songs to cause Primordial spells to strike, Alyolhe shielding in return. Flames destroyed corridors and rooms as the ‘casters’ tried to herd Alyolhe away from the former possessed, but Alyolhe persisted, and the barrier around her held strong. With the functional bait luring her in, Amdirlain didn’t activate the next link to send the manipulators’ victims away. More turns and attempted attacks confirmed that the Eldritch Skinwalker was sticking to her course.

Static surged and hissed from Alyolhe as she entered Amdirlain’s ambush corridor, intent on the door ahead. Its reflective surface only showed a bare ceiling instead of Amdirlain’s braced position. Black, oily tendrils extending from the yellows of Alyolhe's eyes, they stabbed erratically at the air. Despite the barrages Amdirlain had unleashed, the only damage Alyolhe showed was a light peppering of burns that marked her soaking-wet amber fur. The purple barrier that had shrugged off Amdirlain’s spells and songs still rose from her skin, aggravating the strong distortion Amdirlain had first heard.

As Alyolhe passed under her without reaction, Amdirlain attacked. Keeping Angelic Aura and Ki State's ignition to the last moment, she gave Alyolhe no chance to dodge. The barrier’s Eldritch energy ripped against the aura, Ki, and Primordial Mana alike, and savaged Amdirlain’s flesh, but the kick landed hard, splashing the walls with ichor. Smashed from behind, Alyolhe’s charred and broken body catapulted towards the ground. Yet before Alyolhe landed, she unleashed an expanding Eldritch blast towards the ceiling.

The reaction had come with a speed matching her own, and caught in its path, Amdirlain teleported along the corridor too late. The energy consumed her legs and flayed the flesh from her lower torso, and only Flight kept her upright. As the blast tore through the ceilings and rooms above, Alyolhe snapped upright, smoke climbing from her back. Her broken neck straightened, and her gaze fixed on Amdirlain’s Eldritch charred flesh despite the songs of concealment. Registering growing pain and Protean’s regeneration not grabbing hold, Amdirlain ejected the corrupted flesh around the wound to one side. Despite Amdirlain executing a twitch of movement before the flesh splattered on the wall, Alyolhe’s attention adjusted to Amdirlain’s position shift.

A rolling wave rushed towards Amdirlain, and starting an attack, she skipped to the other side of its approach. Hidden behind the Spell’s front, a purple flame wall filled the corridor at Alyolhe’s back.

Before Alyolhe could react to Amdirlain's appearance, the attack she’d started before teleporting landed. With a sound like burning jelly, a Primordial Kopis severed Alyolhe‘s head while one laced with Destruction scooped across her chest to pull out bellow-like lungs and black gunk. As Pain Eater’s threshold was breached, Amdirlain fought against her mauled body’s strange drowning pain. Decapitated and savaged, her foe staggered about, wavering on the spot, and the Primordial Kopis struck again. The blow’s force took the curved blade from crown to crotch, and the halves bowed outwards. Only gravity guided Alyolhe downwards as her corpse split further, already ablaze from the Primordial heat.

[Combat Summary:

Eldritch Skinwalker x1 (Imprisoned)

Eldritch Skinwalker x1

Total Experience gained: 2,743,896

Ostimë: +1,371,948

Ontãlin: +1,371,948

Death Strike [S] (18->20)

Protean [S] (83->84)

Note: That’s more than a flesh wound.]

Despite the ejection of the corrupted flesh, pain climbed higher, already having bypassed Pain Eater, and Protean groaned when Amdirlain tried to repeat the expulsion from the wound. Amid the pain and against the backdrop of the dead skinwalker on the ground, Amdirlain couldn’t make out the sounds of her flesh and teleported into the dark. In the still night, distortion twisted in the air where her legs and hips should be, moving higher like a slow fuse. The blast had warped inner strands of her body’s fibres beyond the normal dimensions, and along its incorporeal connection, the Eldritch rot crept.