Augmented Aspects: Chapter 258 Not In Kansas, Most Likely... (Patreon)

Chapter 258

Not In Kansas, Most Likely…

Dust.

Rolling winds of dust that caused pain almost immediately upon entering. Not searing pain. Not debilitating pain.

Rather this was the slow gradual pain that you eventually build up an immunity to once all your sensitive parts of skin are covered. The face and mouth with a handy Thieves Guild Mask. The eyes with a handy set of EGGs with multiple lenses that would normally help improve the way the world was viewed by the wielder.

Yet, despite all of this, the raging storm around me. The feeling of my tiny body being picked up and hurled wildly about by the winds, only to stop inches away from being pummeled into the ground. Everything was so odd.

The minute I entered here, trying to take an inadvertent shortcut to get to Timult, the Capital city of the Legrand Empire, something went wrong.

It took me a moment to realize exactly what had happened.

I don’t know if it was the excessive amounts of ephemeral energy that were used to house my three sleeping captives in near permanent Time Stasis pods. Or the way I theoretically tried to break the connections between different realms, to the real world. Well the real game world, but I think I might have accidentally either found a new hidden realm, found a glitch in the matrix, or something else entirely.

SHRRRRR!

Even now the wind blew around wildly.

Where was I?

Honestly, I didn’t know.

The reason I thought it was a glitch in the matrix was the fact that I was still here. Still able to feel my connection to magic, but it was fading.

As soon as that happened, I remembered my new racial flaw that lowered my skills and abilities.

Magical Biome: You are now yourself a being of change. Simply by existing within a given area, you increase the amount of ambient energy, life, and abundance. Warning: Your skills and abilities will be reduced in areas of low magical ability, until an equilibrium can be met.

The only problem was, I thought it would be halved at best, maybe a bit more, but this was worse.

I remember the sensation of changing the Legrand Mining area into a magical biome, where my skills and abilities were in fact halved.

Yet, being here was somehow worse.

Of course, this didn’t stop me.

For now, I was intrigued.

How could a separate realm exist, one that was apparently anti magic?

At least, being a realm of anti-magic was the only thing that seemed to make sense. But even still, I could see and feel everything almost perfectly fine. Despite feeling my attributes drop by more than half.

Fortunately for me, even down to just a tenth of my base attributes meant I would be well over a hundred for each attribute.

Mentally I check on my attributes to see where they are now that I am clearly being debuffed, but something is wrong.

Nothing.

Yes, nothing comes up despite my wanting to see my current skill and attribute ratings.

This is odd, but I realize that even flying is becoming a bit more cumbersome, as find myself having to fight harder to get through what should by all accounts be a normal sandstorm.

Unfortunately for me, my body feels like it is being drained down easily.

Most would see this as a warning, a sign to leave the dangerous zone. But my mind can’t accept that.

I need to know if I can in fact die here, just by staying. Or will my attributes and skills finally stop dropping?

Focusing my will, I feel the thrill of death coming and I wonder if I am truly crazy for wanting to stay.

There is a purpose to my madness here.

The longer I stay, the more of my diminishing magical energy I can feel getting peeled off of me and added to the surrounding glitch of a zone.

Whirr.

I focus on being in one precise spot, as I do, I feel a surge of control go to this one tiny spot below me.

The process is tough, for mana just blows away in the wind. Qi just splashes away, while ephemeral energy is too rigid and brittle, much like rock candy.

Instead, I work on a three-part fusion technique.

Qi and mana threads weave together and eventually get coated by thick layers of ephemeral energy.

I of course have to do this on the ground as Ephemeral energy requires direct contact.

In fact, I am still flying, flapping my wings violently to fight against the storm.

But rather than using my wings to fly vertically, I use them to keep myself pressed to the ground. Finally after five different tries, I manage to keep my profile low enough to avoid being ripped away from the ground. While creating a small tiny tether of tri-woven energy that connects me to the ground.

Tingle.

The minute I manage to get a single strand of all three energy types touching the ground. There is a surge of energy that courses directly into me.

“GAHH!”

There is push back, as the planet itself seems to fight back, and I feel like I have suddenly grabbed hold of an electric fence.

Just as I want to rip my body away, I can’t.

Instead, all I can do is feel more and more of my energy being sucked out of my body by the ground. Ground that is sucking me dry like some vampiric mana junkie.

In this moment, I wonder if my curiosity will finally kill me.

I do have my other Simulacrums. Logically, I should be able to re-meld my consciousness with one of them, but to my surprise I can’t feel them.

I even try to do a Positional Switch, nothing.

Another Positional Gate, nothing.

I even try to reconnect with the Legrand capital, despite having kicked up the hornets nest right there, but nothing.

Actually, looking around, I see a few micro tears in the realm around me.

Odd that it took me this long to notice them.

But each place that I went through looking for the Legrand Capital are there.

There is of course the larger one that I first came here through, carrying all three fully charged Time Stasis eggs carrying Cthulhus. Well two Cthuluhus and one person that I need to change to a Cthulhu, but I didn’t have it in me.

Yeah, odd how being in the ultimate pixie trap, having your magic forcefully sucked away causes a wave of what could you have done better with your life.

I know I could have done a few things better.

First and foremost, not trying to test out my limits all the time would be a good one.

Though that honestly seems boring.

In a way, I’d almost say that I’d rather die getting drained in the ultimate pixie trap than one of the many other ways I am likely to suffer.

We are going to war after all.

Oh, that’s right, the Legrand master plan.

I don’t know if it was amateur hour, or not. On the one hand the entire idea sounded absurd.

But yet, the more I think about it, the more I can’t help but stop and give the Legrand people credit for devising a way to kill off Mallory and myself in one swift movement.

I don’t know if it was inspired, or what, but they were going to have a grouping of thirty level 1s join the delegation with First Kill Daggers.

Legendary Item (7): First Kill dagger. You have in your possession a legendary dagger meant to help you level quickly and gain your first kill bonus quickly. Can only be used once. Can only be used in first 24 hours upon entering server. (2) Two additional charges have been purchased for this item; additional charges are only good for first 24 hours. Note: after first 24 hours, or when charge(s) have been used, dagger will revert to being a normal dagger. (Only available at character creation)

The moment I think of that item, my own memories of the dagger come to mind. Again, not through the use of the system, but through memory of how many times I read and reread that message.

To make matters worse, there was a lot of planning that went along into this.

First and foremost, the planning happened a while ago, at least twenty-eight days. Almost exactly when we started our A Permanent Treaty quest, something we thought would be impossible.

Normally this would be, other than the fact that Legrand has had a system in place for years now of having two or more people be reincarnated into their empire with First Kill Daggers.

Once I heard the plan, it all made sense.

Everything, from how quickly the Legrand Empire was able to topple governments to how they were always able to take out key individuals in decisive battles.

With a near constant supply of users buying cheat powers like First Kill Daggers, the outcome was simple to understand.

Honestly, I was surprised that I had never heard of such tactics beforehand, but now that I have I can’t help but appreciate the ruthlessness of the actions.

Also, apparently due to the heightened awareness, Legrand Empire officials managed to pay an expedited transfer fee that made it so key individuals would be pushed ahead in the upload line. Cutting their transfer time in half from thirty days to fifteen days. Meaning the Legrand Empire apparently found out about our political marriage and decided not only to crash it, but to use the confusion of the event to mask their presence.

There was something else, of course there was, this was Legrand after all.

Namely the fact that the way these would be assassins would pay for their three use First Kill Daggers would be from having all the new transfers also purchase the Child (Flaw). Of course there is just one problem with that scenario.

All the children start off at seven years old, which yes would likely have passed our normal scrutiny. Particularly with the way we have been accepting children right and left into our empire. But the one thing that everyone forgot was that all children start with attributes at 1 point each and no skills.

They are blank canvases.

Just thinking about that reminds me of my doing deep knee bends to try to get enough attribute points to move around and not die.

Still, it was a good plan. Ruthless, and makes me absolutely hate the enemy, but also lets me know just how far they are willing to go to win.

It also helped shed light on just how the Legrand Empire had been able to win so easily.

To no real surprise, Mallory was apparently already aware of the Legrand Empire’s tactic of accepting two people a day who had First Kill Daggers into their empire and quickly Teleporting them to where they were most needed.

We were all offended when it was noted how the normally notoriously cheap Legrand Empire had funded a mass expedited exodus of would be murderers who would come for the wedding.

Though now that we knew the issue, I already had a few plans in place to stop them.

Odd how being close to death, and having the very lifeforce of your energy pulled from your body makes you realize just how much you lack when compared to the enemies of your empire.

Slurrp.

Then just when I think I was sucked dry of every last ounce of energy I had, the sensation of energy being pulled from me suddenly and blessedly stopped.

Collapse.

I drop to the ground, unable to move or fight any more.

Then I wait for death to take me, as I am clearly bone dry. At least that was my thought, until I pause to realize that the world around me has settled down slightly.

There is still a storm that is raging on, but that is far away.

For the moment, I managed to calm the raging tempest around me.

“You are rather foolish for being here.” A wizened female voice calls out.

“Huh?” I ask, turning my head to face the speaker. Only to realize that for whatever reason the range of my Angel’s Sight has been reduced.

I am frightened, before I realize that it isn’t reduced, but gone entirely.

This is the first time in years, I am using my actual eyes.

Eyes that have a very blurred vision in front of them as the EGGs I am wearing are covered in dust and scratches.

I have to take off my EGGs in order to actually see.

With that, my eyes take in the form of a spirit.

I’m trying to understand the importance of this realm. Some form of anti-magic realm, which would make sense as to why my Angel’s Sight no longer works here. But how am I not blind?

Then I remember that I never actually took the flaw Blind, but rather it was a condition that was forced upon me due to my Angel’s Sight. Did this mean that this realm could negate merits and flaws? Clearly that seemed to be the case, for here I was able to see.

“You are not from her are you little one?” The old voice calls out.

Blinking a few times I take in the form of a perfect elf before me. Well a perfect form of a spiritual elf before me.

“Is this a realm of the dead and anti-magic?” I ask, saying the two things that come to mind.

This is the only thing that makes sense. I first got here from going from the Arcanarus Tower which is in the spirit realm. Then rather than going to the normal mortal realm, I tried to cut out a step and go straight to Legrand. But rather than going directly to Legrand, I somehow ended up here.

Tinkling bells.

The old elf laughs in a majestic way that reminds me of wind chimes lightly fluttering in the wind.

“This realm as you call it is not dead, at least not anymore.” She says turning her full gaze and attention towards me.

Hearing that, I let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh good,” I say, then feel my body collapse slightly as I try to take in everything.

“You need to go, this place is not meant for you. At least not right now. Give me time, and I will take what you have provided to see if we can go about bringing peace to this place.” The lady said.

Hearing that, I could only nod in agreement. Even now, I was finding it hard to focus on much. While my attributes and skills had dropped in efficiency a lot, I still could focus enough to realize this place was dangerous. Particularly with how drained I was.

Yet, despite everything going on, I could feel my spark, my inner flames of energy slowly increasing.

Pausing, the spirit elf hesitated and seemed to stare straight into my flames of energy and cultivation.

For a moment, I could almost feel the physical want radiating off of her in waves.

I stare up at her, and wonder if she is somehow going to kill me, despite being somewhat peaceful looking in nature and appearance.

Licking her lips once, she seems to reign in her attention before forcing out a long slow breath and regaining her composure.

“You should probably go.” The lady says locking gazes with me again, but this time that mad look for power is missing from her eyes.

“Yeah, probably.” I say, dusting myself off as I look around for the exit.

By now most of the spatial tears I used to get here are closed. Only a thin line of magical scar tissue remains, showing a faint sheen in the air, leaving only two tears that have not fully healed. The one where I first came from, and the one where I went through to find Timult.

Seeing the two, I clearly go towards the one in the Arcanarus Tower, mainly because I know on the other end is a library full of now sentient books and Fae that are helpful and would likely provide assistance.

Moving over, I find myself stumbling a bit, ephemerally coated dust from my where the dust came in contact with my wings forms and then falls off in clumps as I move forward.

Seeing how the clumps of energy fall to the ground, only to land and then be absorbed quickly by an excessively greedy ground.

Going to the portal exit, I hesitate and nearly panic for a moment. This is the same way anyone would panic when they are suddenly locked out of their car in a deserted parking lot with someone you think is a serial killer waiting right behind you.

My magic doesn’t work, initially.

Then after an intense moment of focus, I feel my fingers begin to slide into the sealed wound between realms and I am instantly flooded with a surge of blessedly cool spirit energy. This is the same way one might feel when struggling in hundred-degree summer heat, only to then find an air-conditioned building that instantly lets you know you are safe from heat stroke.

This is the same, I was safe. So long as my fingers didn’t slip, I could quickly recuperate my energy and open the spatial tear more easily.

With the opening, I also feel a deep connection to my magic and my Simulacrums once again reform. Followed by just the sheer calm of having access to a realm I created, or at least nurtured with my Arcane Geomancy.

Another oddity is that beyond the tear, I can feel my sight picking up with my sonar effect of my Angel’s Sight, while on this side of the tear, I can only see that I am looking forward into the tear.

Pausing, I turn to look for the old elven spirit. Logically I expect her to be the few feet away, where she seemed perfectly content to stand and watch me stumble and crawl my way to freedom.

Yet, when I turn, I do a jump scare as I realize she is but inches away. Apparently, she too felt the residual breeze of cool energy flowing from my spatial tear and looked calm.

I wonder if this is one of those moments when you awaken an ancient horror that was purposefully left sealed in an energy less void hoping to keep the ancient being in a coma, only to inadvertently stumble across said eldritch horror, awaken them from their slumber and then show them the fastest route to an all you can eat buffet?

Seeing her, and the intense stare she is now giving me, I quickly pull my hand out from the rift and decide to instead use part of my regenerated energy to seal the hole completely shut.

“Right, I forgot I parked my car over here…” I say, fully sealing up the entrance to the Arcanarus Tower, and then going across the creepy parking lot, to find the last remaining exit, the one to Timult, and quickly tear open that closing rift and enter the place that looks like an explosion of dust landed in it.

With the seal open, I decide to leave instantly.

Not taking time to pause and seal the open void shut behind me, I go. Expecting the creepy elven spirit to follow me through to the land of Timult.

Then the moment I am through and feel full access to my full range of powers I instantly cast my new Quintessence Ethereal Simulacrum power Arcane Geomancy Teleportation.

Poof.

Instantly, I am in my realm, not just in my realm, but in my classroom, where I feel the most safe.

For a second I pause, wondering why I didn’t go to my office to rest, but then realize that is relatively new to me and not the first place I envisioned for safety.

“Your back?” A surprise Jhonny asks.

Startle.

“Holy goodness, do not do that!” I all but scream as I clutch my chest wondering just how much I missed by being in that odd realm. Even now, I realize I’m having a hard time focusing, as my mind, body, and soul all feel like they are finally able to expand and recover from that near death experience I had.

“What happened to you? Trouble with your delivery?” Jhonny asked.

I looked at him, I realized that was the plan I had given before I left. “No, the delivery went well. Well as well as could be expected.”

Then pausing, I realize that meeting that odd eldritch horror of an elf spirit might not be as well as could be expected. In fact, I am pretty sure that was not expected at all.

“You know what, I think it is safe to say that there might have been a few problems with the delivery.” I reply nodding to myself and trying to be honest.

“Anything that we should be worried about?” Jhonny pressed, clearly trying to talk around the subject of Legrand invading.

“From them, no.” I say and actually mean it, and for a moment I wonder if that eldritch horror did in fact follow me. That creature sent shivers down my own spine.

“So, your talk went well then?” He asked.

I wait, trying to get what he was talking about. Then I realized he was talking about my quip about talking to a manager.

“No, I didn’t even talk to them,” then feeling slightly defeated, I try to take a moment to see everything that was happening, and realize I just needed a nap. A nice long nap, where I could rest and hopefully fully recover from whatever it was that the odd anti-magic realm did to me. “Though if you will excuse me and tell the others, I am going to take a nap.”

“A nap?”

“Yeah, I’m allowed one right?” I ask, suddenly feeling tired and a bit angry that my nap might be denied.

“Oh, no, you are. In fact, I think we all would feel much better if you did.” Jhonny said.

“Going to throw a party?” I ask, a bit sarcastically.

Only to be surprised to see Jhonny mostly nod in agreement.

“Something like that. You know what, you take the time off and take as much time as you need.” He quips.

I try to realize what is happening. Then I realize where he is, and I realize it is almost time for day five of the Qi Manifestation’s mid-term exam.

“This is so you don’t have to take the final day of my Qi Manifestation exam?” I ask.

“I mean, it’s just a happy coincidence.” Jhonny says, trying to sound placating.

“Fine, tell the others that today’s Qi Manifestation exam is cancelled. Though let others know I will be up and ready for my remaining classes.” I pause, then sighing remember my promise to Mallory. “I’ll even be there for the Legendary Bloodline Awakening midterm exam.”

Hearing that, Jhonny just exhales and looks like he dodged a bullet.

“Yeah, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of everything.” Jhonny says, more than excited, but I am currently too exhausted.

“Thanks,” I manage to say as I focus on the safest most comfortable place to nap. Casting Arcane Geomancy Teleportation one more time, I find myself in the lair of a very pregnant Ms. Kujo.

There on her thick and fluffy soft pregnancy fur is my other simulacrum just resting and sleeping with a contented smile on her face.

As I arrive, I can see the moment she looks momentarily flustered at my sudden and abrupt appearance. It is clear she is about to give me one of my own excuses for why she was sleeping.

“Move over,” is all I manage before I too am there on Ms. Kujo’s thick fur and letting my multiple overlapping healing auras instantly delve into Ms. Kujo’s body and relieve her pains.

Slurp.

I get one thank you lick from Ms. Kujo.

That or maybe she is trying to get high off of my wing dust, regardless of her reason, I pat her back. Then drift off to a much deserved sleep.