Chapter 543 - The bottom of the well (Patreon)

Hera's Status

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ooze gasped.

"What?" Hera opened her eyes.

"What are you going to do? We just talked about this!"

"Didn't I say?" Hera glanced to the side, and both Nimbus and Daskka shook their heads, "Oh. My bad. Just for starters, I wanted to see if I can send my mana through that web and then what it does. Then I would add one element to it. Maybe sleep?"

"Sleep?" Ooze asked.

"Yeah. I figured it was better to use a less aggressive type of mana. If I use fire or something, you might get hurt. Sleep, you would just, well... fall asleep," Hera explained.

"Oh… that makes sense. Ok, I'm ready," Ooze shook a bit as if he was pumping himself up.

"Are you sure you want to start with him?" Frost turned to Ooze, "Don't get me wrong, but you and Lurize are the weakest ones among us."

"I see your point, but he is also the one that already knows how it feels like when I touch this connection. And aside from Nimbus, he has the strongest link between us. Which I think would be related to the familiarity," Hera explained while letting go of the web.

"And you are not doing Nimbus first because he is a named blade," Frost nodded, understanding her reasoning.

"Actually, no. Nimbus' connection is different. It's much stronger but much bigger and more spread out. It looks very complicated, and I figured it would be better to start with something simple," Hera turned back to Ooze, "Can I start?"

The chakram nodded, "Yeah. I'm ready."

"Ok, guys, try not to call me unless it's about this. I don't know if sudden motions can cause problems," Hera closed her eyes and focused on the connection again. She still couldn't see it, but since the mana particles were so dense, she could perceive the parts where the mana seemed to be hitting something. She tried sending her mana towards Ooze, but she couldn't see anything happening, even if she could tell that the mana had reached her blade. With a frown, Hera let the mana go and tried again and again, but to no avail. She couldn't tell that the mana was passing through that web. The only thing she could tell was that the magic was leaving her body from the same spot she thought the link was connected to her, which meant that she was on the right path.

Thinking that maybe, the mana was just blending with the surroundings, she tried sending sleep mana toward Ooze. The only way to do that was to use a sleep mana reinforcement. For a brief moment, Hera could've sworn that she saw a small wave moving through the link, but that barely lasted a second. She deactivated the spell and triggered it again. The same thing happened. A pulse crossed the connection between Hera and Ooze, but like the link itself, it wasn't something she could see. It was just an invisible wave pushing the particles away. Hera tried that one more time, and the result was the same.

"Can any of you see what is going on here?" Hera asked without opening her eyes.

"I can't," Nimbus replied in a defeated voice.

"Me neither, just the same blip that you are seeing," Daskka thought for a moment, "What if I push my mist against the connection? Do you think it will help?"

"I think it's worth a shot," Hera replied.

Daskka made some mist and pushed against the link, but it just passed through as if the web wasn't even there.

"Right… Ok, let's keep trying. Do you mind Ooze?" Hera turned to her blade.

"Not at all. So far, I didn't feel anything weird, aside from you touching it," Ooze replied.

Hera just nodded and continued trying to figure something out. It was strange. Even when she was touching that connection directly, she couldn't feel the mana passing through. Still, the Empress pressed on for another hour, trying not just with Ooze but with all of her blades, including Nimbus. Daskka was the only one that didn't have that same link, despite being part of the court.

In the end, the frustration got to her, "Nothing works!" Hera gasped and slumped back, laying on the floor of the cave. It wasn't comfortable with all the bumps and loose rocks, but she didn't care.

"Empress… You can't expect something like this to be easy. It's already amazing that you managed to touch it," Nimbus lifted Hera's head and gave her a lap pillow. There was a pause as she rested her head on top of his tights before the Empress quickly got up, with Nimbus doing the same.

"Let's not do that again," Hera said without looking at him.

"I agree… it was…." Nimbus looked away, but Frost was the one who finished his sentence.

"Weird. Even we felt that."

"Yeah, it was like giving a lap dance to my brother," Daskka shivered.

"How do you know? None of us have siblings. Technically speaking," Armory scoffed.

"But I still know what it feels like! It's how Darni felt about Lantra. They were close, but doing something like this would just feel plain wrong," Daskka explained.

"Ok, ok, let's move on. I'm curious about what that hole is," Hera looked at the wall. She could see the particles evading that spot, and she couldn't tell why, "Daskka, do you think you would fit there?"

"I think so. Want me to take a look?" Daskka was already flying towards the hole, but Hera stopped her.

"No. I'm going to send the others," Hera shook her bracelet and sent out the 30 snakes inside the hole. She could feel them going through a wall and then going down a large hole. Wanting to understand what was going on, she saw through the eyes of the snake further behind the rest.

At first, she couldn't quite grasp what was in front of her. It was like she was staring directly into a multi-colored light that constantly changed intensity and color. Blinking a few times, Hera let her snake eyes adjust to the light. In front of her, or more precisely, below her, there was a deep pit with some odd sparkling water inside. Sending her snakes down, she kept that one she used to see behind, just to be sure of what would happen. What she saw next, however, took her breath away.

The snake that went further down landed in the middle of the sparkling water. At first, it had no effect, but it slowly turned transparent. It didn't lose its form but became more lifelike. Not that the snakes didn't feel real before, but now, it was something else. Then, suddenly, the water formed a giant bubble around the snake. The snake itself gained a new form, a giant crystal that was floating above the water. This was followed by an explosion of light, and the snake transformed into a human woman. A woman that looked exactly like Hera.

The woman looked up towards the snake at the top of the well. No, it was looking past that snake towards the Empress herself. The woman smiled and waved. Unsure what to do, Hera did the same, only to realize that she still could feel the snake now turned human. She told the other snakes to stop and asked one of them to go back up while changing her point of view to one closer to the woman.

She seemed harmless enough. She was just standing there, smiling at Hera. There was no hostility in her face, but she was still watching the Empress as if she knew everything about her. However, there was something off about that smile. Unsure how this being would react, Hera asked, "May I approach?"

The woman nodded, and Hera sent one of the snakes closer to her and swapped senses with it. Just as she had seen before, this woman was very similar to her. The same haircut, the same eyes, nose, and mouth. Even the missing part of her ear, everything was there. It was hard to tell if the colors were right since the woman kept shifting like the water below her. Almost as if her body was reflecting the light coming from the well. However, there were some differences as well. Her skin was different. It looked human, but on closer inspection, Hera could see small cracks and divisions as if it was made out of thousands of tiny scales. Those were more visible around the woman's eyes and behind the neck. Another thing Hera was able to notice was that there was a thin line going from the corner of her lips all the way to the side of her face, almost reaching her ears.

"What is going on?" Nimbus asked, but Hera just gestured for him to wait.

"Can you hear me?" the Empress asked, receiving a polite nod as a reply, "Can you speak?" the woman shook her head.

"Right... Do you live here?" the woman shook her head again.

"Where are you from?" the woman pointed directly at the snake that Hera was controlling.

"From the snake?" the woman shook her head.

"From that direction?" the woman shook her head.

Taking a deep breath, she asked the question she was worried about asking, "Are you... me?"

The woman shook her head, then stopped and nodded and pointed at one of the snakes while pointing at Hera.

"So you are one of the snakes I created?" the woman nodded.

"Ok… and what happened for you to get like that?" the woman pointed to the glowing water. Then to her head with both hands before pointing to Hera. She kept repeating that motion as if she was trying to say something.

It took a few tries, but eventually, Hera asked the right question, "Do you want me to look through you?"

The woman nodded vigorously and then gestured for Hera to wait. She sunk into the water until her body was completely submerged before putting an arm out and giving a thumbs up

"Ok, just a moment," Hera turned to Nimbus and explained everything that was going on, "I can still feel her, so I think we are ok, but if anything happens, try to make me snap out of that," she didn't have to tell Daskka since she was sharing everything with the herald through their connection.

"As you say, Hera," Nimbus nodded as the Empress connected to the woman at the bottom of the well.

The second she changed her senses, Hera felt the liquid, but it surprised her even more than seeing one of her snakes turning into a woman. What was in the bottom of that pit wasn't water but mana. Pure, liquid mana. That wasn't something that was supposed to exist. Mana wasn't something that could have a physical form. It wasn't like electricity or air. If one were to classify mana, it would be much more similar to sound waves and not particles. Yet, here it looked as if it was a pure liquid. Not the mana potions that one would drink, not the water created by magic, but the actual essence that made all of that possible.

When sensing through the snake-woman, Hera could feel an endless supply of mana around her. It felt like she had enough magic to do whatever she wanted. Create an island, cause a storm, raise an army of constructs, even bringing someone back from the dead seemed like something she could do right now. Her curiosity got the better of her, and the Empress tried to pull some of that mana for a spell. A simple light spell that wouldn't be a trickle in that massive pool. However, the moment she reached out for the mana, the well reached back. Hera felt something grabbing her own mana and trying to pull it back to the water. She tried to fight it, but suddenly, she felt like her mana was being sucked into a whirlpool leading to an endless abyss.

She tried to pull back, but the pull was too strong. Worried that this could cause problems, Hera snapped out of the snake-woman, returning her senses to her body. She took a moment to gather herself and make sure that nothing had happened to her mana. Everything seemed to be fine even if she had lost a few hundred points of mana, but she no longer could feel the snake woman. Going for another snake, Hera swapped her senses again. Just like she expected, her doppelganger was gone.

Hera sent another snake there, and just like the first, it changed and became another copy of the Empress herself. After waiting for a few moments to see if anything weird would happen, a splash in the water hit another of the snakes that were close to the mana, and now Hera only could see two versions of herself looking at each other. They smiled and started playing and playing around in the liquid mana. It was extremely weird, but aside from that, everything was fine. Taking a deep breath, she swapped her senses with her one of her new doppelgangers, hoping to find out more about this place.