Chapter 149. Ascendant Awakening (Patreon)

The environment astounds me with its monotony. I would have thought that after a few hours of travel there would be evidence of natural formations like mountains and valleys–perhaps even the scars of dried rivers or lakes–but all we encounter is the same flat sprawl of violet-tinged soot studded by black tree husks. The needle on Holiday’s gifted compass hangs limp, unable to detect anything.

“How much water do you have in your void storage?” Holiday asks. While Holiday and I are doing alright, Maria is sweating profusely, her legs and arms shaking from exertion. I could help her, give her a lift...but I don’t think her pride would accept it. Besides, I don’t think she’d even think of offering the same if our positions were reversed.

“Two gallons,” Maria huffs.

“Dunai?”

I turn to the side, surprised the question is also addressed at myself. Unlike Maria, if I die of thirst it’s not going to be permanent. “Not much, two water bottles.” I originally had more, but I emptied out space for shark teeth and cartilage before Eury and I stormed Selejo. Dying of thirst wasn’t a concern until now.

“You’re lucky Sezakuin is a peak End practitioner, else you might get lost and separated from her if you die.”

“How did you find us before?” The answer is probably some variant of Beginning, but we’ve nothing better to talk about: might as well ask.

“I was able to retrace the path we took.”

“So you...reformed, for lack of a better word, somewhere you’d been before?” Maria supposes.

“I reformed where I was ten minutes before my death. Ten minutes may not sound like much, but we cover a lot of ground in ten minutes. Thankfully I’m good at catching up.”

Holiday glances at the right pocket of his dress pants, then fetches what looks like a gold-encrusted pocket watch. He flips it open and reveals two instruments, one on each side; the bottom one is nearly identical to my compass.

“Do you feel your compass moving, Dunai?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

I’ve been holding the compass in my hand the entire time. “No.” I check it again just to be sure, but don’t see anything new.

He nods. “My planar compass is more sensitive, but yours should still start picking something up in the next minute. I’m surprised we found something so quickly: I expected the two of you to be wandering for at least another two days before detecting a weak point.”

The compass has a larger range than I initially thought: It takes five hours of flying before we finally arrive at the spot. Without Holiday’s compass, we would have never noticed anything exceptional. As I walk back and forth over an unremarkable patch of ground, the compass needle points to the same place.

Holiday motions for me to get out of the way and walks forward. He holds up a hand, then begins his instruction. “Try and tear through this plane. It might take you a while to figure it out, but don’t get discouraged.”

He demonstrates by slashing the air with a finger. The sky parts, revealing a world of lush green leaves shrouded in shade. The sweet scent of flowers and rotting fruit wafts through the air, while a single tree leaf dances through the portal and lands on the ground before us. A second later the rift disappears.

My stomach flutters. This is Eternity, I think to myself, the lush land beyond the threshold lingering in my mind’s eye. Maria bends down to pick up the leaf and holds it up. To my vital vision, it’s completely mundane, the same kind of leaf I’d expect to see on our old world. It's fan-shaped like a ginkgo leaf, though is big enough to fill Maria’s hand.

Did you expect this world to have completely different flora and fauna? Ari, Holiday, and presumably other ascendants look like...well, humans. Holiday compared Eternity to a dream. Perhaps the real question is, whose dream?

I avert my gaze to the barren wasteland of ashy soil and gray clouds. “How did this place end up like this?”

Holiday inclines his head in my direction. “A Death practitioner like yourself laid waste to Vizier’s Crown a long time ago; only a master of Death would leave it depleted of all energy. I don’t know what it used to look like, but one can imagine.”

His words stir something within me. The image of Soolemar’s school in its former glory fills my vision, waterfalls glistening before lush forests, the water’s whisper melding with bird song. In a flash it's gone, returned to its present state as a hollow canyon surrounded by desert.

So, destruction is a reality even in a land of immortality. It’s easy to think of Vizier’s Crown as the exception to the rule, a barren wasteland hand-picked to be a punishment...but if the world isn’t as immune to destruction as the ascendants themselves, I can imagine a small group ruining an entire plane over a disagreement.

Maria seemingly takes no notice of Holiday’s words, her eyes closed in concentration. She takes in a deep breath, then makes a rather constipated expression and extends her index finger. Nothing happens.

I take the hint to tune out of the surroundings and focus inward. Not sure what to think about, I begin to reflect on the fact that less than a day ago I was still in the rift with Eury. I crossed from there to here in the blink of an eye, a hundred steps through the Long Hall, and a plunge into the amber.

I’m not sure if the distance is unfathomable or simply undefined: Can ascendants literally fly from Eternity to other worlds, or...do they tear through reality itself? Given that descendants must fly at least part of the way, perhaps a combination of the two is necessary.

My eyes open. Holiday is walking a slow path around a skeletal tree husk to my right, his snake coiled in the tree boughs. “Crimson Teeth, ascendants tear through planes in Eternity. Can they do so on other worlds when they descend?”

He continues walking undisturbed. “If they’re strong enough, they can tear through anywhere.”

That statement seems to bring Maria out of her meditation. “How do ascendants gain power?” There’s a slightly desperate edge to her words.

He finally glances in our direction, gaze contemplative. “Our relationship with Eternity is...symbiotic. You help Eternity, and this place in turn will empower you to greater heights. I know you’re going to ask what ‘help’ means in this context, but I–and other Beginning practitioners–have tried and failed to characterize a complete set of actions that curry favor. That’s not to say it’s random.”

He jumps off the ground and shoots forward, landing before us with his knees slightly bent. He straightens up and grins, his teeth glowing an ominous red. “When you first start out you’ll barely be able to scratch the veil. But the more you use the energy and leave your mark on the eternal planes, the better off you’ll be. There are a few ways to use ascendant energy, one of which is making arrays.”

Holiday flicks the empty air over his shoulder and a heavy cloth cloak materializes on his back. “When I die, this is what keeps my clothes on me. For some reason it tends to grab everything except my boots. Drives me insane.” Holiday lowers his arm. When the cloak disappears a moment later, Holiday is already gesturing to his belt. He pulls at the buckle and suddenly large spectral wings fan out behind his back with glassy, ghostly feathers.

He extends them out, the wingtips glistening like diamonds and refracting rays of rainbow light onto the ground. “For the record, what you saw earlier wasn’t really flight. If I wanted to actually fly, I’d need to use these.”

“Where did you...?” Maria begins before trailing off in thought. “Did you make them yourself?”

Holiday chuckles. “Correct. I’m a Beginning ascendant–the least I can do is fashion my own belongings.” He claps his hands and the wings disappear. “It’s best I let you two return to seeking enlightenment.” He raises an eyebrow, then walks back over in the direction of his snake.

I take in a deep breath, then exhale out all my air, trying to quell my own excitement. With renewed vigor, I sink into my thoughts, determined to gain whatever insight necessary to tap into the energy of Eternity.

I return to the image of Yurusi Canyon through the ages.

My old world is big enough that I could spend my entire life exploring and never see and do everything. People and places are always changing. Y’jeni, even natural landmarks like deserts and forests change, the desert swallowing land year after year.

What does someone like Soolemar think as the world changes around him?

I realize that I already partially have the answer, Woeshiv’s fragmented memories studded into mine like rough-cut gems. Woeshiv lived for a long time before succumbing to death at over twice the age of most people. Even though he stayed in the same place–the necromancy school–for most of his days, he wasn’t bored: There were always new people to teach and the school was in constant conflict with outsiders. Woeshiv didn’t see most of the world; likewise, from my understanding...Soolemar never left the eastern continent, not even in the past hundred years when long distance transport arrays became a reality.

If Soolemar wanted, he could have left, abandoned whatever duty he felt towards his old friends and fossil of a school. I realize that for all that the necromancer spoke of the desire to leave behind our small globe and enter the ascendant world, he didn’t seek out new experiences.

But just experiencing new things doesn’t seem like an end in itself, not for someone immortal. Unless the world is static, you’ll never see or do everything, not even if the world is as small as the eastern continent.

For someone like Soolemar who is already effectively immortal and living in a world overflowing with new things to experience...there’s something more fundamentally interesting about a new place. A tantalizing unknown-ness, a mystery. The mystery itself is raw potential, and that’s what Soolemar and others look for: a spark of excitement.

For Soolemar, I’m the closest thing to a spark he had, I realize. Seeing Eternity itself has been a whirlwind of peeling back the covers on the mystery plaguing me ever since I left the Infinity Loop: my ascension. But like the leaf now discarded on the ground by Maria’s feet, Eternity isn’t as...different as I thought it would be. I intellectually know I’ve been sent across space, but the full reality of the situation hasn’t hit me yet.

It’s agitating: I feel like I should be enraptured by every speck of dirt and every lifeless tree just because they happen to be in a new, exclusive world...but they’re ultimately just dust and husks. A Death practitioner on my old world could have made their very own Vizier’s Crown–I could have made a Vizier’s Crown if nobody moved to stop me.

Even when Holiday tore a window into another world, it still felt like somewhere that wasn’t unique, somewhere I could have visited before ascending. I’m sure I’ll see interesting places eventually, but...

As I flick a hand in annoyance, I nearly miss the flash of blue brilliance in my peripheral vision. When I turn to look, my fingertips are glowing like hot coals.

I’m confused and relieved that I managed to wield ascendant energy, even if only for a few seconds: The blue glow quickly dissipates.

But what did I do to manifest it? I backtrack, trying to remember what I was thinking about a few seconds ago.

“Congratulations, Dunai. Only took you a few hours more than me. Commendable.”

I turn and see Maria standing with her arms to her sides. Her tone is completely polite, betraying none of the sarcasm implied by her words.

“It doesn’t count unless you can do it now,” I retort. Aside from her brief moment of insight earlier, I haven’t seen Maria wield a lick of ascendant energy.

Face impassive, she raises a hand and flicks her index finger. A blue fluorescence envelops her fingertip, disappearing after a moment.

Suddenly Holiday appears between us, his arrival inciting us both to step back. He clasps his hands together and grins. “Now that both of you can wield ascendant energy at will, it’s time to try piercing the veil.”

[ Based on feedback from patrons & Royal Road people, I'm tentatively deciding to make the posting schedule Monday and Friday. While we're still doing 3x a week on the patreon, I'm going to tentatively post on M/W/F (so Wednesday would be the "extra" day). This will go into effect this week, so expect a chapter on Monday. ]