Legacy of the M’Zee Chapter 10 (Patreon)

***AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

So, this week was horrible. Lots of stress at home and at work, combined with multiple migraines and a bad few days of depression, let me with only about 2k total words (so far, gonna get some more tonight I hope). it also made me completely forget that I was going to post on Wednesday. So here’s post one of two today. the other will come at the more normal time.

Sorry again y’all.

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

A voice rang out, “You have found the history of my people. Learn from our mistakes, and take these to assist you on your way.” I translated for Vaya while a pillar rose out of the center of the area. Just above it floated two pills roughly the size of a gum ball you’d get from a vending machine.

I reached forward and pulled them out of whatever field was holding them up. It didn’t react to my hand at all, and I handed one to Vaya. The voice spoke again, “Learn from my people’s mistakes. Do not let War and Death into the realm again. My brethren and I had to die to power the barrier that kept them away, but they will come again eventually. With the knowledge you can find in my inheritance zone, find their weaknesses and prepare to defeat them forever. Only you, those still in the second realm, can advance properly.”

“What are these pills?” I asked, but didn’t receive an answer. After a minute, I shrugged. “So we can either take these without knowing what they are, or we can wait, potentially leaving us weaker than we could be for the Tower of Trials.”

“This is supposed to be a reward,” Vaya said. “Though I kinda want to cut the pills in half and share with Jon and Bridget.”

“DO NOT!” That same voice said.

“So, you are listening. Huh, who are you?” I shouted.

“Take one pill each and focus on your cultivation method. You will gain a permanent benefit. Failure to take the entire pill will cause crippling damage to your dantian. One pill is all you can ever take. You must take it before leaving.”

“Can we get two more for our friends standing watch?” Vaya said after I translated for her.

I repeated her question. It didn’t respond. I shrugged then asked, “Can you answer any questions?” Again, silence. I turned to Vaya, “Well, I guess we just leave.”

“It did say to take them before leaving,” Vaya said.

I nodded, but started walking to the stairway leading up. She just gave me a look when I winked at her. I climbed the stairs, quickly getting in reach of the water. I stuck my hand into it. “Oh no, I’m leaving without taking the pill! I won’t take something I don’t know what it is!” I said, keeping the sarcasm out of my voice by dint of translation.

I very slowly stepped upwards, getting my left arm into the water up to my bicep before that same voice spoke up, “Wait! I am not supposed to speak to contestants before the trial except to prevent harm.”

“We don’t even know what the trial is,” I said. “Your nation was destroyed and forgotten, and I can only speak to you because of a gift from Darkness. The images below show the same Beasts we fought only two weeks ago. Can you tell us about them?”

“No. I am forbidden,” it said, and then a ghostly image of an elf appeared above the pillar. “Even stronger than my ban on speaking with you. Two weeks after the opening of the M’Zee Trial Grounds, the Tower of Trials will open. Climb as high as you can. Each level will test you in a different way.” She looked at both of us. “You will climb alone. Your strength, your intelligence, your talent, and your luck will all be required, and each level climbed will bring with it a reward. Reach the top to receive the legacy of the M’Zee, our elders and my creator.”

“And what is the pill and how do I get more?” I asked.

“You cannot get more. Your friends may attempt to discover the reward themselves, if you do not tell them what they seek or how to get it,” she looked sternly at me. “The pill is called Kipaji Uboreshaji Pill, and will increase your cultivation speed permanently.”

“Thank you,” I said, bowing to her. “Can any number of people seek pills from this location? There were three teams of four sent from my nation, and seven others from allied countries. Could I guide them here and simply say ‘you really need to explore the bottom of the pond?”

“After four pills, my rewards here will be spent for the next five years,” she answered, frowning. “Do not ask more, I cannot push against my limits much more. Now, cultivate, the Qi Array will fill this area once you have taken the pill.” She glowered at me, then vanished.

Vaya looked at me expectantly, “So, what did she say?”

“The pills will help us gather faster, though she called it cultivation,” I said, frowning. “Which is what it is called on Earth, at least in stories. Why? No, I’ll ask Darkness sometime, for now, no.”

Vaya took me in her arms, “So, let’s take the pill, process it properly, and then get back to the others.”

“Oh, if we don’t tell them what they’re looking for, they can get pills here too,” I said with my head on her shoulder. “But no one else, unfortunately.”

She pulled away from the hug slightly, then kissed me lightly on the lips. “Shall we gather?”

“Sure,” I said. We separated, moving about ten meters apart before I nodded at her and we both popped the pills into our mouths.

It burned on the way down, and seemed to explode in my stomach.

I dove into my center, focusing on controlling the explosion of energy in my stomach. “Move through the meridian,” I commanded it, forcing my will upon the energy. It’s like Aether, but not, I thought while pushing against the strange energy. “Cultivation technique, cultivation technique, gathering technique. Okay.”

I quickly built the Runic Spiral Gathering Technique, pulling in some of the Aether from around us. The density had increased yet again, allowing me to pull as quickly as I possibly could without disturbing it in the slightest. Well, that’s a big letdown on my capability, I laughed.

The Aether flowing in met the pill’s energy, but only slightly. Most of it was still sitting and burning in my gut, slowly getting more painful. The mixture seemed to explode, multiplying how much Aether was there and changing it slightly. The changed Aether mixed with what was in my pool, slowly spreading the delta throughout. This was fine until the first bit reached the edges of my pool.

It burned, my pool’s edge dissolving under the change. I gasped, in too much pain to do anything else, but I heard Vaya scream from the other side of the underwater room. “Aiden, what is happening?” Sia asked, panic in his mental voice.

“We found something, and got instructions to take the reward now. It is supposed to help,” I gasped.

“I am coming,” he said.

“Bring Lampart,” I told him, then focused back on my center. The burning in my stomach had spread, moving into the rest of my digestion tract, while growing in intensity. “Why isn’t the gathering technique working?” I shouted to the spirit, then turned and vomited everything in my stomach out. Well, except for the pill. It didn’t so much as twitch, slowly dissolving and exploding in energy every second.

No answer came, the spirit either unable or unwilling to answer. “Alright, it’s supposed to change me, to make me gather faster permanently,” I panted, scooting my way towards Vaya while trying to be loud enough that she could hear me. “That means it’s changing my center and body.” I looked in my center. The mixture had spread, filling my Aether pool with bubbles as the edges dissolved. “It needs to get everywhere. But I don’t want to.”

“Tempering,” Vaya wheezed, just loud enough that I heard it. “Tempering.”

“Okay.” I started the body tempering technique without specifying an Aether type, focused on my stomach to start. The energy burned but flowed slightly into the technique, and I felt the pain stabilize. It didn’t go away, but the flatlining of it almost felt that way.

The detente lasted all of thirty seconds, then the flow increased again, and I was behind again. The pain ramped upwards, slowly but steadily. Frantically, I built more tempering runes, using them to direct the flow out of my stomach into other organs, and put yet more on the edge of my pool. The technique pulled the changed Aether towards the sides, making a dip in the center, and on a whim he forced it to spin. The energy flowed higher, searing an area above his meridian line, but the damage to his pool lining slowed.

The tempering runes started to rebuild the surface, only to have it boiled away the next instant. Over and over again, and I kept building more runes, spreading the energy around my body. “Not enough,” I said, opening my eyes and seeing Vaya now lying on her side. “Vaya!?”

I reached out and grabbed her hands, trying to project my mental presence into her. The wall around a person’s body was thin for her, and I felt it part as she trusted me to help. Her system was a mess, and I went to her center to find her mental projection. In my mind’s eye, her avatar was sweating blood. “Vaya.”

“I cannot hold it,” she cried.

“Use the tempering runes to guide the energy,” I said. “Spread it out. Send some down your arms, and give it to me.”

I spasmed, my inattention losing my grip on some of the runes. “You cannot deal with more either,” she told me. “I will not kill you to save myself.”

“And I would rather die than lose you,” I said, “but I have no intention of either. Give some to me, and then I will pass it back. By bouncing it between us, we will gain time. Sia and Lampart are coming and can help.”

“Okay. I trust you,” she said, and I felt the spread of runes and Aether move through her arms. The energy in her gut and body spread down the meridians in her arms, flowing outward to damage and heal her muscles, tendons, and bones. I moved my point of view back into my body, setting up a double helping of the guiding runes.

Thirty seconds later, while I was reinforcing the tempering setup around my intestines and fighting through the upsurge of pain that threatened to overwhelm me at any time. A burst of the energy almost destroyed my hands, and I could hear the sizzling of my skin as it dissolved. I felt my teeth crack as I ground them against the pain. If I falter now, Vaya will fail too. I will not fail her.

I split my attention, forcing the previously drawn runes to stay while making more, deeper into my arms. The energy kept flowing, burning and rebuilding. I would have dropped her hands, my fingers physically unable to grip anymore, except that her hands were locked in a fist of pain, preventing my hands from dropping. I could feel the tendons in my fingers regrowing, slowly gaining the ability to deal with the energy flowing in, but then the flow slowed as Vaya reached her limit.

I couldn’t keep my hands reforming, and I pushed the energy from my center out to my hands. I was on the edge of losing control. Vaya appeared, “Send it back,” she told me. “I am ready.”

“Okay. Together, right?” I asked.

“Together,” her projection kissed mine, then vanished as she rushed back to her body. I brought the energy to my palm, my fingers flexing as hers loosened, and then it flowed back out of me into her. The pain in my body dropped, still excruciating but not overwhelming, and I was able to make some progress moving the energy away from my gut. I fought the urge to throw up again, forcing everything to stay down.

Vaya’s hands tightened, her face tight with pain. I gripped back, my hands feeling stronger. After a few minutes, I accepted the outflow back from her, trying to keep the grimace off my face. The energy flowed up my meridians, burning through all the layers of my skin up my arms to my biceps. My muscles dissolved, burning away and reforming each and every second. Every cycle hurt more, every reformation stronger than the previous but not strong enough.

The pill didn’t seem to be running out, and we kept passing every bit we could back and forth, overwhelming and recovering in turn. Slowly, though, we both were failing. Each round got shorter before one of us was overwhelmed and had to pass the majority of the energy back.

“Give me everything and then run,” Vaya said, her eyes wide as I tried to spread the Aether-like stuff through my bones.

“No,” I said. “I will not give up on you.” “Sia, really need you buddy.”

“There is a barrier. Lampart and I are attacking it, but it is not budging,” Sia answered me.

“Spirit, let my and Vaya’s Bond in please,” I pleaded, then coughed up a spattering of blood as the energy worked on my lungs.

With an explosion of steam, a burst of Fire Aether shot into the ground, followed by Lampart held in Sia’s clutches. The Bonds rushed over to us, with Sia landing on my shoulder while Lampart threw herself into the middle between us.

Immediately, I felt Sia’s presence pulling the energy away, and I was pulled from the brink of destruction. Sia absorbed some, Lampart the rest, and that left Vaya and I only dealing with the new waves flowing from the pills.

Sia’s wings burned all the colors of Aether, flipping between them almost too fast to see. Lampart’s fur seemed to join in, changing to an icy purple then a fiery red before returning to her dappled brown. Both Bond’s whined, pain slamming through the Bond between me and Sia and seemed to magnify the pain I was in.

“We will not fail!” I screamed to the others. “I will not lose any of you, and you will not lose any of us. Now push against it, temper your bodies and centers, just like we have beaten every enemy thus far. Fight!”

Lampart roared, and her aura flared. Her coat became spotted with every color, with the area in between the spots sinking into a white brighter than the sun. She flexed her paws, her claws popped out, and dug into the stone of the ground, easily cutting through the reinforced material. She kneaded her paws, ripping the stone around them into chunks.

The pressure we were under dropped during Lampart’s transformation, then dropped again as Sia shimmered, flashing through all the colors of the Elements before he formed a stronger form. He grew a meter in height, and his feathers changed to have a rainbow of all the Elements at the same time. A flash of the energy from the pills flowed through our Bonds, reinforcing and strengthening the runes in our centers, before enveloping my body.

I screamed as everything burned, and I barely held onto consciousness. After an indeterminate amount of time, the pain dropped to a dull roar, and I collapsed. “Vaya,” I panted, “are you okay?”

I felt her hands, still in mine, tighten. “Yes, you brave, stupid, loving man,” she whispered, then pulled towards me. My right hand found the back of her neck, and in seconds we were kissing. After a minute of holding tightly to each other, I collapsed backwards.

“I was scared I was going to lose you,” I said, panting.

“Me too,” she said. “Sia, thank you for bringing Lampart, and Lammy.” She pulled the leopard into a hug. “Whoa, you advanced and evolved!”

I felt the Bond’s aura. Sure enough, she’s level five now! Sia was stronger as well, though still level five. It felt deeper, almost. “Sia?”

“I am an Elemental Zarorzel,” I heard the awe in his voice. “The first in a long, long time. When we return, we must seek out the Fire Monarch.”

“Of course, my friend,” I smiled, reaching over with a shaking arm to stroke his head. “So, uh, I’m all for laying here and recovering for the next, um, six hours or so, but I’m sure Jon and Bridget might be freaking out right now.”

“Sia, can you speak with Zimnodlot and have him tell Jon we are okay? Or with Kami?” Vaya asked.

“Yes I can,” Sia told me, and I parroted his answer.

“Good, thanks Sia,” I said, then laid my head back on the ground. At some point, I fell asleep, my body and mind exhausted from the ordeal we’d just gone through.