330 - There for you (Patreon)

Amdirlain’s PoV - Material Plane - Qil Tris - Year 4370 (Local calendar)

Kadaklan was by the apartment’s link unit when the pair appeared in the living room. “I’m fine. Am and Sarah, I’m sure, passed my messages along. It was sudden, but I promise I’ll catch up with you later.”

As Amdirlain waved, he disconnected and crossed a name off a list. Turning to her, Kadaklan put his palms together before his chest. “I would like to apologise.”

“For what?” asked Amdirlain. “I’ve been worried for months that Judge Po was mad at you for helping me.”

“But I didn’t help you. I failed you, and I’ll make sure not to make this mistake again,” insisted Kadaklan.

“You can stay. We’ll disappear suddenly this time and leave you to answer the questions,” replied Sarah.

Kadaklan frowned incredulously, and Amdirlain’s True Sight showed his feathers rustling within his form. “I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. Master Cyrus said he told you the importance of the sigil, and you’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you? You burned yourself alive solely to provide me so much Ki in a rush,” stated Amdirlain.

“My hurried words and Ki were not enough, or you’d have reached the steps of enlightenment, not be here still,” blurted Kadaklan, and he bowed his head over his raised hands. “I’m sorry for my grievous failure. I should have harboured more of the Ki you provided me and not squandered it making potions and elixirs. Since I had neither the spare Ki nor preparation in place, I had to hurry to make an elixir instead of imparting useful knowledge.”

Amdirlain stepped forward and put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder. “I completed my sigil solely because of the Ki you gave me and your instructions.”

Exhaling sharply, Kadaklan froze and took a ragged breath. “What?!”

“Jumped to conclusions with her,” quipped Sarah, and she headed for the kitchen. “Drink?”

Amdirlain nodded to Sarah. “What Sarah said, I finished the sigil. There was no failure on your part.”

Kadaklan’s left ear ticked rapidly. “What?! If that happened, you should have appeared on the steps of enlightenment, not stayed here.”

“You burnt yourself into ash to give me a chance at becoming a Shen?” asked Amdirlain.

“How could I not? It was your chance to become a Shen and free yourself of whatever bound you in your false form,” insisted Kadaklan. “My Way, my Dao, is about healing. I would not ignore the chance to help someone who has proved themselves worthy of sacrifice.”

“Let’s not go that route again,” suggested Amdirlain, and she lay the currently blazing spire on the living room floor. “I’ve got a curse keeping me in this state, and I learnt I’m blocked from becoming a Shen.”

Could it cause the same issue as becoming a Celestial?

Kadaklan’s shoulders slumped. “You have so many scars covering your Soul, yet it has a beauty that would have graced any of the courts.”

“I’m not an ethereal beauty,” laughed Amdirlain.

“You are a well-crafted weapon, yet can sing finely enough to make a soured cynic weep,” countered Kadaklan.

“That’s the first time you’ve mentioned seeing my Soul,” noted Amdirlain as she steered the subject. “What else did you see?”

“You’re older than I can fathom. There are puckered scars like thorns and serrated edges cut into your Soul,” replied Kadaklan, and his ears twitched nervously before he continued. “Should I speak of more in front of anyone?”

“Sarah likely knows all of whatever you’ve seen. I’m curious about what your Third Eye showed you while I was cycling for so long in front of you,” responded Amdirlain. “It was a long time to avoid even thinking about it.”

“It was your secrets and not mine to dwell upon. The way it shone contrasted with the gaping depressions with scar tissue following the injuries. The brutality of the old wounds highlighted its beauty, and I realised I wasn’t looking at a complete Soul but a piece torn from something greater. Do you wish me to cease speaking of it?”

“Sarah pointed out you’d likely got an eyeful, so what you saw doesn’t surprise me,” quipped Amdirlain as Sarah handed out bottles of drink.

“Even with your spiritual net requiring most of my attention, I did indeed see much,” admitted Kadaklan

“Anyone say anything about your run-in?” asked Sarah.

“What do you mean by anything?”

“Did Judge Po say why he kept you so long?” asked Amdirlain, and she created a medallion to protect his thoughts with his constellation sigil emblazoned on it.

When she tossed it to him, Kadaklan smiled and offered her a seated bow.

“Initially, I was told I’d have to wait a week to speak with him, which is not a good sign,” sighed Kadaklan. “Then the messages started coming in, and the disturbances didn’t impress him, so he kept putting off my court date.”

Sarah laughed. “That will teach you not to share your real name with the locals.”

“Just because your real name is some unpronounceable thing,” grumbled Kadaklan.

“It's pronounceable just fine, thank you very much,” retorted Sarah

“As long as your jaw can dislocate, and you’ve got a forked tongue for the extended hard sound of the consonants,” countered Kadaklan. “Aside from Judge Po, the Jade Emperor’s courier gave me a message upon my release, though I’ve not yet any insight into its meaning. Hopefully, I can start to decipher it by working with you. Might I ask how you got your sigil to activate?”

More riddles from the Jade Emperor to someone I know. Why don’t you tell us how you feel?

At the change in topic, Amdirlain simply smiled. “Phoenix’s Immolation got upgraded to an offer of Phoenix’s Rapture. When I took it, abyssal sludge started to leak out of me. I was going to move a distance from any population centre, but then my sigil lit up.”

“Your Soul’s nature gives you access to powers within the reach of Shen,” groaned Kadaklan. “Might I ask a question?”

“Of course, bird boy,” chirped Amdirlain.

Rubbing an ear, Kadaklan sighed. “Why do you have to be so impossible?”

Amdirlail's lips curled, and she gave an exaggerated shrug. “A natural talent. I wouldn’t have thought you needed a question to figure that out.”

“Judge Po said releasing me would be a harsher punishment; now I truly know what he means,” muttered Kadaklan.

Sarah started laughing, and the look of mock frustration Kadaklan sent her way set off Amdirlain's laughter as well. Kadaklan's ears drooped, and his tail tapped the couch slowly.

“Poor Kadaklan, did you think he meant the thin environment here?” laughed Sarah.

“Nevermind us, Kadaklan, ‌ask your question,” prompted Amdirlain, and she sipped from her drink.

Kadaklan tapped on the bottle’s seal as he considered his words. “You’ve told me why you are here, but never why you took on the work.”

“Because I’m selfish,” replied Amdirlain.

Grunting in exasperation, Sarah reached over and tugged on her ear. “Brat!”

“Why did you teach the use of Ki to so many alchemists and healers?” asked Amdirlain.

“I feel like I’m nurturing the early stages of a bamboo forest, and the roots will spread worldwide,” replied Kadaklan.

“Just like me; I wanted to do something that would make a difference,” responded Amdirlain. “I keep planting seeds of change, hoping it will bring people happiness and that I can know I made a difference. I’m completely selfish because of my insecurities; while I can be nice, I can also be a bitch.”

“You are a Phoenix. Our flames can give warmth, but they can also burn. The key is to burn the right people,” proposed Kadaklan.

“I try to do that, though sometimes I fry people that don’t deserve it.”

“We are all works in progress towards reaching the Dao,” stated Kadaklan.

“Speaking of works in progress. What will you do if we no longer maintain these identities?” asked Amdirlain.

“Sarah said you likely had another twenty or thirty years' worth of work with all the training complexes,” responded Kadaklan, fixing Sarah with a confused look. “Did I misunderstand?”

“I don’t have to do them all from the Material Plane, and you wouldn’t have to hang around,” explained Amdirlain. “I considered setting up the first levels in each location and extending their reach from within the demi-planes.”

“I’ve been enjoying teaching alchemists and healers without preconceptions of Ki,” commented Kadaklan sadly.

“You could stick around and continue to teach them,” proposed Amdirlain.

Kadaklan shrugged. “Where you find problems to tend to, I find people who need healing. I’ll contact all the people concerned about me and ensure they have advance notice before we leave.”

Amdirlain waved her tail towards the list. “Sarah gave you all the names?”

“Yes, I started with those who would be easiest to reassure. I haven’t contacted the law keepers, since I intend to talk with them in person,” said Kadaklan.

“I won’t always be going to places it's safe for you to travel,” advised Amdirlain.

“At those times, I can help teach the use of Ki at Nolmar,” proposed Kadaklan.

Amdirlain held back her sigh. “Why?”

Kadaklan smiled. “I’m not your warrior of justice. I’m a healer, a creator of potions and elixirs. At home, I’m one healer among many, regardless of my talent. My challenges involve illnesses, pus, and seeping wounds when not concocting brews with strange materials. I cannot kill your enemies for you, but I can support you.”

“That’s not necessary,” argued Amdirlain.

“Perhaps it is not, but still, it is my choice and my time that I offer,” responded Kadaklan. “The challenge of working with you might help me find a breakthrough to the next step of enlightenment. There, perhaps, is what Judge Po meant.”

“Care to fill us in?” enquired Amdirlain.

“What worse punishment can I have? If I move from Immortal to Shen, I cannot assist you in your travels. The very thing I seek might shorten the time I’ll be in your company,” replied Kadaklan, and he gave a helpless shrug before continuing. “How did the projects at the lab go without me?”

As Sarah started to brief Kadaklan on the state of his lab projects, Amdirlain turned her attention towards the campus to the north.

Scanning through the tunnels, the void spawns had grown in number, and she found not one but two effigies that hadn’t been present previously. The silence in the centre remained impervious to determination of what was happening, the Eldritch presence smothering anything in its proximity. A large burst of void spawns racing out of the silence caught Amdirlain’s attention; their distortion's aggravation helped Resonance to increase.

“I’m pretty sure I know where they are,” grumbled Amdirlain.

Still updating Kadaklan about his student’s work, Sarah stopped mid-sentence. “Did you find your missing skinwalkers?”

“No, but I found two new effigies in the tunnels, and one is the plinth from earlier today that disappeared,” reported Amdirlain. “A group of void spawn just came out from under the umbrella of its presence.”

“You planning something crazy?” asked Sarah warily.

Amdirlain gave a tight smile. “I’m going to have to go in and see if they’ve got a summoning circle near it.”

“You're kidding,” hissed Sarah. “What if you wake it up?”

Shrugging helplessly, Amdirlain continued with what she’d learnt. “There are tonnes more void spawns in the tunnels. I’ll try to keep out of the main chamber and see about whittling them away. They might have spent their lives summoning them, or already-”

A blocky canister that vaguely resembled a quad rocket launcher appeared on the table, Gravity and Primordial energy seethed inside it.

“You’ve been feeling nostalgic about action movies?”

“The skinwalkers have a minimal physical defence. I used the appearance of the M202 Flash, but where each tube would be a single rocket, you have 50 canisters of flechette swarms. You focus it on a target and touch the trigger rune. It throws the next canister forward, fragments, and then the flechettes ignite with Primordial fire and home in on the target from different angles,” explained Sarah. “I know you can duplicate it, so enjoy.”

“I brought some elixirs from home,” offered Kadaklan, and he started to set clay pots on the table, each with a different colour seal. “Don’t break any of these close to you. Each has a different effect, so pay attention to the colour of the seal.”

“Welcome to Q Division,” quipped Sarah, and she raised her bottle to toast Kadaklan.

“What?” asked Kadaklan, frowning in confusion.

Sarah grinned. “I’ll explain later.”

“Quartermaster, aka supplies,” explained Amdirlain.

“Spoilsport, I was going to have a movie night,” grumbled Sarah, her ears flattening out, and she gave Amdirlain a mock glare.

“You can still do that,” reassured Amdirlain.

Kadaklan nodded. “We can have another movie night, but no popcorn this time. I said I’d support you. I know you can duplicate all these, but if we make them, it lets you save your physical reserves for other endeavours.”

“What do these bad boys do?” enquired Amdirlain. The closest pot to her had an orange seal with a volcano impressed into the wax, while the blue sealed one beside it had a cloud shape.

“The first one will spray pellets of Yang-infused white phosphorus when ruptured, while the blue cloud is an incendiary fog bank that will drift with the prevailing wind,” explained Kadaklan before he went over the rest; flash-melting stone, persistent puddles of acid, and bursts of lightning.

“That’s quite a variety,” commented Amdirlain, and she stored them all in inventory.

Kadaklan’s whiskers lifted. “The materials they can source are the only limit an Alchemist faces.”

“Hence the variety of plants, animals, and fungi you wanted to be added to the training environments?” enquired Amdirlain. Creating duplicates of the ones she expected to be most useful, she stored them as well.

“You made them so vast it seemed only sensible to set up a useful ecosystem,” responded Kadaklan, his gaze taking in the pots that flickered in and out of existence. “How many are you creating?”

“There were hundreds of void spawns. There are easily over a thousand that I can detect now, and full-grown ones have millions in health,” replied Amdirlain. “Plus, the fuckers heal fast.”

When Amdirlain finished, the crafting summary offered her just over twenty thousand experience. “I’m going to get the ward keys and see how many I can cull from the herd.”

Amdirlain scried Mor’lmes, still at the observer base, and reappeared outside the building. Waiting until a scrying focal point had moved across her, Amdirlain headed inside.

While the trio she’d met earlier were updating reports and taking calls, Mor’lmes was reviewing an A0 film sheet with the updated details Amdirlain had provided.

As she cleared the inner door, he used a pen to make some notes and then looked her way. “You created the explosions out at the former manor?”

“An associate, she was playing with some toys she built to take out larger Eldritch if they came into the open. I’ve been avoiding asking for them, but I’ll need ward keys for the campus and the inner barrier,” said Amdirlain.

Mor’lmes nodded. “What did you find?”

Amdirlain shared the same details she’d given to the others, and Mor’lmes winced. “I hope you’ll provide the keys. While I can likely bypass the wards directly into the tunnels, it would be better to conserve my energy to cull their numbers.”

“The device to attune a key to you is within the public wards,” explained Mor’lmes. “Are you happy to accompany me onto the campus?”

“I’ll have to trust you,” replied Amdirlain, having already confirmed it was the truth from his thoughts.

Putting the pen aside, Mor’lmes motioned her to the door. “Should I drive? Or simply Teleport?”

“I’ll get us near the campus’ southern gates,” replied Amdirlain.

“Don’t trust me to do so?” enquired Mor’lmes.

“I prefer being in control,” responded Amdirlain.

Touching two fingers to his throat, Mor’lmes’ ears twitched. “So I had noticed.”

The pair reappeared on the sidewalk outside the campus’ iron fence line. Six Catfolk in rugged gear approached a clear Laen spire within a nearby grove of trees. When they touched it together, Amdirlain heard the spire’s enchantment send them to the training complex’s third stage.

“I wonder how many training levels there are,” murmured Mor’lmes.

“Guess someone will have to get past the latest stage boss and see if there are more,”

Mor’lmes rolled his eyes. “The waypoint beacons might help navigation, but they don’t speed up travel times.”

“That’s only because teams like to kill everything they come across and harvest,” rebuffed Amdirlain. “Nothing is blocking people from teleporting from the entrance to stage points.”

“Not all of us can safely teleport whole groups,” replied Mor’lmes.

Amdirlain shrugged. “Get good. I know of four Spell lists with fast transport options for entire groups. You think whoever is setting them up should let you hop from point A to B?”

“It would make things easier,” commented Mor’lmes. “You might know them, but I don’t.”

“Earn it,” rebuffed Amdirlain, but she tapped his nose with a memory crystal a few moments later. “One of the spell lists in here contains the means to set up a permanent Teleport Circle that only needs to be fed Mana. Where you set them is up to you, but I’d worry about people trying to jump ahead.”

Huffing in amusement, Mor’lmes headed for the entrance, and Amdirlain walked beside him. Though she’d never been inside even the outer wards that allowed anyone to pass, Amdirlain had observed the campus frequently enough to be unsurprised at the winding path they took towards their destination. The warm weather had students out sitting in scattered pockets across the campus’s parkland studying and talking; the topics of conversation reminded Amdirlain of her time at university.

The well-marked paths frequently took them through courtyards, some were nature spots while they’d fully paved others, with a stage off to the side that allowed various performers to put on a show. Appreciative claps and whistles greeted one singer as she wrapped up a cover of one of the more explicit pieces Jal’krin had written for Am. Though the performer wasn’t there to busk, Amdirlain flicked a high denomination coin into the harp case beside her chair.

“Scandalous lyrics,” grumbled Mor’lmes.

Amdirlain smiled. “Only if you have a dirty mind.”

“It’s clear enough what the ‘friend’ needs to compensate for,” argued Mor’lmes.

“Sparing with a small blade?” asked Amdirlain, blinking innocently.

Mor’lmes huffed. “I don’t think that's the type of exercise it means.”

“You’re the one with first-hand knowledge, I’ll give you that,” rejoined Amdirlain, and she picked up the pace.

Eventually, they entered a low administration building between the wizards' skyscraper and the shorter mathematics facility building. Over the top of the administration building, regularly spaced skywalks joined the two larger buildings between the fourth and tenth floors. From beneath the ground, the distortion screeched across Amdirlain’s senses and she restricted Resonance to barely an arm’s length. While she could handle the sound, Amdirlain wanted to save her energy for when she entered the tunnels.

“The mathematics facility has many large lecture halls,” noted Amdirlain.

Mor’lmes nodded. “It’s a subject that most other facilities on the campus need their students to receive at least some training in.”

The entrance area of the administration building was an open-plan office that occupied the front segment of the building. Among the wooden desks, columns supported the ceiling of the wedge that ran to the building’s centre. Though there was space for dozens of people to tend to the counters, only one had a clerk present and a line of students. Meanwhile, thirty-odd clerks were ‘busy’ focused on the displays, and Amdirlain caught that few of them related to their work.

The clerk at the front counter had a bandit’s mask in white fur around her eyes, and ‘tear drops’ of white fur splashed down her cheeks and throat among her dark brown fur. She gave Mor’lmes a polite nod of recognition and didn’t object when he moved through a gate in the counter with Amdirlain in tow. Once the gate closed behind Amdirlain, he directed her to a blocky device sitting on a desk behind the clerk.

“If you’d put your hand atop it,” directed Mor’lmes as he retrieved two discs from a storage device.

It blends the person’s aura with the ward key so they can’t be shared; very interesting. A step up from a wardstone that can be handed out.

Amdirlain followed his instructions, adjusting her concealments so the device would have a usable aura to read. Despite having read his mind, the detection Spell she cast before putting her hand on the device ignited Mor’lmes’ Mana Sight with its strength. Though the runes along it flashed repeatedly, it eventually spat out two discs without a complaint or anything strange. Mor’lmes handed the new discs to Amdirlain and led her to the Wizard tower’s closest entrance.

Beyond the entryway was a two-story foyer. From the ceiling hung aged banners of the original six patron families, now sealed inside stasis spells. A display against one wall listed the remaining twenty-seven families that had earned patron status in this city and others.

Instead of heading towards the lift shafts that ran up an outer wall, Mor’lmes directed Amdirlain’s attention to a door marked archives. The set of stairs beyond went down three landings before the first door showed, and they’d already crossed six sets of wards. Though each seemed breakable to Amdirlain, some would take longer to slice through, potentially alerting the staff to a breach.

After reaching the fourth landing with a door, Mor’lmes unlocked it. Detection spells registered their presence, and lighting flickered on. Segmented shelving, similar to a modern library, ran off in both directions. However, instead of each shelf being packed with books or boxes, only a single grimoire rested on each. The distance between each prevented the protective energies around each from interfering.

“This way,” offered Mor’lmes as he stepped off to the left.

“Are the upper levels all magical text?” asked Amdirlain, taking in the thousands of books she could hear above them as she stretched Resonance out.

“Texts related directly or at least mostly to wizardry. The upper levels are historical magical texts; some of them contain theories that have since been disproved or at least refined; others are journals,” replied Mor’lmes. “We’ve been spending much time scouring the archives' contents. On the upside, sometimes revisiting old theoretical texts whose contents seem no longer applicable reveals pearls of wisdom buried in the chaff.”

He led the way to the end for a good eighty metres before he opened a door to their left that led into a smaller room. The glass window in the door let her see more shelving and the illusion of a narrow stone pillar between shelving that tried to obscure an arcane shadow on the wall.

Amdirlain spoke up once the door closed behind her. “Did they have the illusion in place?”

“No, an observer team was just in time to see one of the cultists step between the shelving and vanish,” replied Mor’lmes. “The second ward key lets you step through the illusion.”

Stepping around Mor’lmes, Amdirlain nodded. “The shadow on the wall isn’t keyed to anything.”

Mor’lmes exhaled. “Shadow?”

I might need all the help I can get.

“Don’t come through; I’ll see myself out if I get back,” advised Amdirlain,

“Are you strong enough to take on what’s down there?”

Amdirlain’s blades appeared in her hands. “The lesser ones, yep, multiple skinwalkers together could be a problem. The one that disappeared from the basement was as tough as Alyolhe, and I had to take time to heal from fighting her.”

“Do you have a plan?” asked Mor’lmes, and his voice gained an edge of concern.

“Cull the void spawn along the edges and see if I can isolate the skinwalkers. I’ll see where this entry delivers me,” replied Amdirlain. “If things go especially wrong, a friend will contact you, she has a way to evacuate the city. Don’t argue, don’t let others argue. She will give orders and expect them to be followed. Don’t cross her, or she’ll make you regret it, especially if I’m dead.”

“What sort of regret?” asked Mor’lmes cautiously, his body going still.

“She has no loyalty to any of you, aside from a few that I’m sure would take her word and act. If you want to be left behind, then annoy her,” replied Amdirlain, and she nervously pulled all her clothing into Inventory and stilled the sympathetic twitch in her legs. “I had hoped we could leave these tunnels alone for another five hundred years. As the worst case is that the thing your revered Arch Wizard brought back wakes up.”

The dimensional energies in the shadow-marked space headed downwards via a twisting route. Walking towards it, Amdirlain tried to spend two points to see if she could stack the original skills.

[Mental Hardening Unlocked!

Mental Hardening (1)

Pain Eater Unlocked!

Pain Eater (1)]

The first notes of Protean’s song froze on her lips, fear still spiked through her Willpower and the Mental Hardening she’d developed.

That reaction was worse than I felt about re-creating my spiritual net, but my Mental Hardening is higher. Powers connect to the Soul. Does the fear come up because of Ori's damage to our Soul, or is there a risk I don’t know? I’ll have to keep trying to meditate on it.

A shadow shifted and engulfed her when Amdirlain was fully between the shelving units. The whirlwind of spinning shadows passed her through dimensional limits and back again before depositing her in a dimly lit chamber of black stone. Around Amdirlain was a churning mist flowing from a wide tunnel straight ahead, and there was no way out behind her. The only upside was that the main chamber and the oppressive silence at its core were over three hundred metres away.

Have any students just stumbled in here with no way back?

Resonance showed her the void spawn in the mist. Igniting her aura, Amdirlain blurred forward. Though the Eldritch energies in the stone didn’t threaten to warp her body, she still shifted into Orhêthurin’s form between steps. Before she reached the first enemy, a notification hinted at the pressure growing against her Willpower.

[Mental Hardening (1 -> 10)]