Agnisotra: Origin Tails

Ignis did his best to descend slowly but despite that, we were picking up speed. Oddly enough it didn't seem we got closer to our destination. We were descending a good 15 minutes and by now we reached terminal velocity and were basically falling but we still weren't getting closer. Hey, something weird is going on. You only noticed now? What is going on Agnis? I think we got stuck in a spatial lock.

Can you get us out of it? I don’t know, we kept speeding up but that's not supposed to happen in a spatial lock. So, what is going on then?

Something weird. It's like we hit a barrier that doesn't let us pass but continues our action of falling. This might be some sort of time magic. Can you fix it?

I’m not that great at the spatio part in spatiotemporal and I’m absolutely garbage in the temporal part. I’m not even sure if I understand what is going on here. So basically, we’re stuck? Maybe I can manipulate the mana in this barrier. Hmm, it is a mix of the prison, some barrier that we normally find around the roots, and something else. I will need 10 minutes and your help Agnis, to dispel this. We might need to get a bit forceful here and there with your frost magic.

Ok.

We messed around with the barriers. We needed to be careful because we know that the prison barrier has some defense mechanisms. Right, Raishin get ready to slow down our fall after this barrier breaks. Agnis, can you use your frost magic here? Here?

Yes, freeze those runes. I need to refresh myself on mana runes, here it goes! I froze some runes that were responsible for the structure of the barrier, which caused it to lift temporarily. That was enough for us to fall through. Raishin threw around [wind blasts] and created air currents that helped us slow down. Well, it wasn't really needed for me because I fell way slower than my buddies. Ignis though... He crashed into the floor.

Ignis! My buddies landed while I was still falling. I inspected this area. It wasn't big but it also wasn't small. There seemed no magma here besides the magma walls on the side. It even seemed like it was room temperature down here. There seemed to be 3 more barriers surrounding the root. I saw traces of multiple of the same type of barriers being lifted in the past and there was something in the innermost barrier. I think it is a person or a spirit and it's sleeping. I saw Isi trying to persuade some spirit with red flaming hair. This spirit was doing something on the barrier and it seemed to piss her off. There is no mistake that must be Ira. I gracefully landed and removed the frost cloaks.

Whud? It’s not hot here. This place is weird, hey who is that hot chick! Raishin dashed full speed at Ira. He said something to her and she fire-punched him in the face. He flew back to us and Ted caught him.

I guess this chick is too spicy for you! Idiot. I went to the spot Ignis crashed on the floor. It didn't seem like he was reforming. I paid my respects to Ignis and decided that I will never take a real pet. Bunai got smashed into pieces, Cee Horze disappeared due to exhausting its spirit energy and Ignis crashed into pieces. I’m a terrible pet owner.

He is not reforming, is he? I’m a terrible pet owner…

I don't think this was your fault… Does it matter? Ignis is still dead… Gregory patted me on my shoulder and we paid our respects to Ignis. We turned around and Isi and Ira were still arguing.

I wonder if they have been arguing since yesterday. I noticed that Isi’s outfit seemed different than I remember.

“I am not going back until I get that device over there!” She points at some cube that seems to be made out of multiple smaller cubes and every small cube in it had a different color.

“You have been away for over 500 years! The magma is going out of control! The spirits at the temple need you!”

“Well too bad! I need that device to take over the corporeal world!”

“That creature that is sleeping next to it will wake up and defend it!”

“Ha! I will blow it away! Now scram! I’ve had my fill of you! Unless you came to apologize, I would love for you to fuck off!”

“Apologize for what? You know I can not travel down here every day to visit you! This place is so hostile!”

“Oh, but if something goes wrong you can come for a visit? Get out of here! I’m busy!”

“I got help this time! You know I can not stand the heat that well!”

“Not my problem! Now scram!” It seems like their conversation is going well… Hey, guys we need to talk. Sup Greg? What’s up

So those curses we got, eh? They were stronger than I’ve ever seen, I offset some of their effects but the well ‘deadly’ part was hard to get rid of so I directed that part to myself. Wait so…

Yeah, it dropped my available lives by 3 but I still have enough left. How many do you have left? 12. I got some liquid shadow vodka out of my dimensional pocket.

Ooh, nice thanks! Back off alcoholic! It's for Greg! How many bottles did you need last time to get 1 life added? I love my Shadow liquid vodka but 5 bottles is way too much!

You have a high alcohol tolerance, right? Gregory backed away. Hey, guys, 12 is more than enough… Raishin help me let's try to at least get him 1 life back! Aye, sir! Hey, guys really, I’m fine! Gregory started running.

Hehe, you’re way too slow to escape for me! We captured Gregory easily and forced liquid shadow vodka through his throat.

Hey, can I have some too? I’m sorry but it's a bad idea to have both our defensive fighters drunk. I’ll give you a bottle if you help with keeping Greg down and he sobered up.

Right! Sorry, Greg but it's for my liquid shadow vodka! Glub… wait… I… can’t breathe… Artificial breathing incoming!

That's… glub not glub... What I mean… Since it was hard already to force 5 bottles down Gregory’s throat, we decided to keep it at that. Gregory was lying on the floor passed out.

We never heard the rest of the story. His lives are more important, for now.

What if you guys will die to the curse while he's passed out? He is not that careless; he knows how reckless Raishin is so he wouldn't risk something like that.

Hey, you are reckless too! Fair point.

I just wished all of you were more careful, you guys just seem to be throwing away lives like it’s nothing. And it's not like you guys don't need them, being in the god's crosshairs doesn't seem like something you can get away with easily. Hmm, that is a good point, I need to find something to deal with that. I took out 3 tails and made them find a way to avoid dealing with gods and stuff after we break free.

They are still arguing. Isi and Ira still seemed to be arguing about who knows what. Isi was staying calm but Ira seemed fired up and was being quite aggressive with her words. It didn't help that she was trying to lift the barrier at the same time by trying to solve a puzzle. Rather her than me, I have no interest in obnoxious puzzles.

So, what do we do now? We are supposed to destroy the root in 2 days. We are almost 2 full days too early. Well, we could kill some time down here, moreover, those 3 barriers still needed to be lifted, which doesn't seem like an easy task, and then there is that guardian that is sleeping there. At least we have better control over the events now. I suggest that we just relax for today. Gregory is passed out and we need him to dispel the barrier. This timeline so far has been quite kind to us I wonder how things are going to go downhill from here…

Such pessimism, but I understand the feeling. The best we can do is just rest up and prepare for whatever will be coming. Right since the frost marbles are useful down here, take these. I don't think that guardian is a spirit but who knows when Ira snaps and attacks us.

Good call. Anyways so far it looks like they will continue arguing, let's wait a day and hope they work it out. Here take this bottle.

Ooh thanks, I have missed you my sweet vodka! Eww, Ted is being gross. I took some food out of my dimensional pocket and we all ate a complete fish meal. I still had a mountain of fish that needs to be consumed. Maybe I should sell some fish next timeline. I didn't sell my rubies this timeline but I have to make sure I do that the next timeline, I could add some fish with it, the problem is… Who is going to buy 2 tons of fish… I’m getting close to being able to run my own department store with all the stuff I've stored, weapons, random items, plants and herbs, rocks and ores, mountains of rubies and sapphires, food, and much more. I even stored quite a volume of magma.

Am I a hoarder? Most of the stuff I randomly stored has been useful in one way or another. Maybe I should also store large volumes of water so that I could use [Tsunami] even in a place full of magma. Hey, that is a good idea! I started running different simulations and decided to sleep.

Are you going to sleep already? Wait how late is it? It is almost 4 but I feel like sleeping. I put some simulations to run, I might have some cool stuff ready for tomorrow.

What about us? I froze a pinball machine with frost magic.

Hehe Ted I will kick your ass! Never have you beat me; I will destroy you! Have fun. I curled my tails into a ball and went to sleep.

Day 4: I woke up after the best sleep I've ever had I saw some earth tents so I assume Gregory woke up at one point. My ball was hidden by illusions so he made a tent at a random spot thinking that I might be there. I appreciate it but he missed. I look over and it seemed like the argument between Isi and Ira turned into a full-blown battle. It seemed my buddies are still asleep so I just took some snacks out of my dimensional pocket and spectated. I don’t have any popcorn stocked sadly. Ira seemed really angry and was swinging a big fiery great sword around and shooting fireballs. Isi seemed to not dodge them but dodge them? What kind of skills is she using?

Ira seemed to get more frustrated because she was unable to hit Isi. I tried to analyze the fight and it seems Isi was using some funky time magic. It reminds me that she told us that she was something like a chrono spirit. I wonder how this battle would go because both of them were far from their power spot. Although Isi had a vessel so she should have the upper hand. They were throwing some fancy spirit magic around. It didn't seem to have any element. Is this the arcane version of spirit magic? I only knew how to use an element-less spirit bolt. I wonder what element I would be associated with.

So far Isi only seemed to be able to use time and Ira magma and fire. Ira used something that looked like a magma wave but Isi didn't move. She used some time-related stuff to make some of it turn into rock stopping it in its tracks. I don't know much about time magic but it doesn't seem that useful offensively. It is overpowered in defense but I don't see how she is going to win this without attacking. Oh, never mind she reversed the flow of magma and sent it back to Ira, she should be immune to it though. Yup Ira tanked it and is completely fine. Suddenly some element less spirit attacks appear out of nowhere and hit Ira. I’m just as confused as Ira. Maybe Isi does have some tricks up her sleeve. Ira suddenly teleports to a random spot and gets hit by more element less attacks. Wait is this random though? I continued watching the fight and paying close attention and memorizing every detail of this fight.

I found out what was happening. She is basically doing something similar to the echoes we had to deal with. It doesn't matter if she misses her attacks, she can make it echo whenever Ira is in a spot where she can get hit, she can also return Ira in time to where she stood on a spot that will get her hit. Oof this is nasty, the longer this fight goes on the more time is on Isi’s side. I looked around, Ted is still sleeping, good. Isi also does this to herself; she moves herself to a time when she was in a different spot making attacks miss her. I guess she needs a good memory to pull this off. This pisses Ira off to no end, understandably. From this exchange, I can't tell how strong Isi is but that doesn't seem to matter, as long as she doesn't make any mistakes, I can't imagine her losing. Ira uses a wide-range fire attack. I guess just hitting the whole area can counter that but… Isi disappeared and the attack passed. And she appeared again. I don't know to what spot she went back to but since she quite recently got down here, I assume she went out of range and got back.

Ira exploded in rage and dashed at Isi with breakneck speed. Isi moved to a different spot but Ira was fast enough to reach her new location almost at the same time. Isi moved to spots that had bigger distances between them and Ira seemed to be able to somehow match those teleports. Isi was too busy moving away to counter but Ira was torching the whole area while dashing. I paid close attention because maybe we don’t need to fight Isi in the future but there is bound to be some annoying person out there in the world that fights like this. It seems Ira caught Isi but it seemed Isi just turned back time to before Ira used that technique. It seems Ira's fatigue was still intact though.

Right, unless Ira has some crazy skill that is super-fast and can one shot Isi, I don't see how Ira can win this. Ira summoned some fire and magma lesser spirits and sent them to attack Isi. She seemed to be paying close attention to how Isi is moving. Isi is slowly starting to get her hands full with the spirits and Ira did her super-fast dash again and landed a hit on Isi! Because she has a vessel the vessel got damaged a bit but it seemed Isi was still fine. She ported away and sent a barrage of attacks at Ira. Why isn't she moving? I ran some more filters. Oh, her time is frozen. Well, I guess the fight is over. Ira got hit by the barrage and passed out. This is the first time I've seen a spirit pass out.

“That did not go as I had planned…” It seems that the argument escalated, what happened?

“She got annoyed when I kept trying to persuade her to stop the idea of taking over the corporeal world and to return to her power spot. She has weakened considerably, If she was in top condition that blow, she landed on me, would have taken this vessel's arm, maybe more. And I would have to surrender.” I hope you can fix that; I know it's a vessel but if that happened to me, I would have to put the bones in my arm straight and make sure it healed properly with nature energy or instantly blast it with regenerative flames.

“I know the ins and outs of basic maintenance, do not worry, I have had worse ‘Injuries’ before.” I might remember incorrectly but didn't you use spatial magic when we first met? Why didn't you use it in this fight?

“I am not that good at it, if it is helping fix the dimensional fabric, I can do that a bit since I joined Rignef in it a couple of times but I can only do simple stuff and I do not understand much about it, I prefer to stick to skills I know how to use especially against an opponent like Ira.” Hmm, that makes sense. We look at Ira who is still passed out on the floor.

So, what is that device that is going to help her to take over the corporeal world?

“Hmm, It seems to grant power equal to a God but it seems to have some requirements.” How does she know about this thing anyways?

“She encountered some humans 508 years ago and she learned it from them.” Huh? Don't spirits in general avoid interaction with humans?

“Well, you are not wrong, she found them by chance and they told her that communing with a root would allow her to get the power of a god. They were also talking about some item that was supposed to be at the root they encountered but they could not find it. And it seems Ira remembered that there was a root close to her power spot.” Wait, did that village have cultists that only ate potatoes?

“I am not sure about this cultist thing but they seemed to have offered her potatoes yes.” Ugh, stupid potato village always causing problems! So, we just destroy that item and we don't have to deal with gods?

“Although it is the cause of various problems its power could come in useful. Although given our experiences with gods it might be a good idea to destroy it yes, I do not want to see another nine-tailed spirit fox get slaughtered right before my eyes…” Yeah, I prefer myself not slaughtered.

“I will have to say I am impressed though, Ira managed to brute force her way through 12 of the 15 barrier layers. I know it is possible to brute force some barriers but doing this to 12 layers and still having enough power to fight me as explosively as she did is impressive…” Yeah, if you don't have frost magic, breaking barriers with force is a huge pain in the ass. I have a feeling she might be angrier when she wakes up. Maybe we should restrain her.

“No need, I will take her back to her power spot and scold her. While breaking these barriers she has been venting and melting the whole area, this much magma is uncommon down here. At this rate, the mountains on the surface might sink and even push magma upward in the process. I do not know what is up there but I do not think they will appreciate the appearance of several volcanoes.” Yeah, it would suck if you were living on a mountain which then sinks and turns into a volcano…

“I will take Ira up and make sure she does not disturb any of you, she eventually managed to finish the puzzle in that barrier. You just have to put some energy in it and the layer will lift.” Thank her for me when she wakes up.

“I will, thank you.” She took Ira and vanished. I decided that the first thing I will do next timeline is turning potato village to ash again. Talking about potatoes it might be time to give Gregory another round of liquid shadow vodka. It was almost 08:00 so it was time for these slackers to wake up. Not that I knew what to do after they woke up.

I woke up my buddies and told them what happened. What! She is gone? But I wanted to talk to her… You would just take another fire punch to the face. So, before we dump more vodka in your system what was it that you still needed to tell us about those curses? Ugh, you guys want to do that again?

Well, we need to minimize as many risks as possible. Yeah, and you might have to solo that shadow dragon depending on the situation because I will probably have my hands full on an even yuckier dimensional fabric, I'm not looking forward to it. Ugh, yuckier than what we saw in this timeline? I don't know which of us has it worse. Can’t we help?

Hmm I think it is tricky, that dimensional thing is something only Agnis can deal with and if that dragon only interacts with shadows only Greg and Agnis can deal with it but Agnis is busy with the yucky fabric. So basically, it's up to us 2 to deal with the shades and stuff. Ooh, so I can go loose? No idiot! We need to do things as safely as possible; we might have to set up another teleport. I’m not helping those jerks again.

But the town… I’ll do it…

Thanks. Do you have an idea how to defeat that dragon? I have no clue; do you have an idea how to fix that fabric without sabotaging yourself?

Nope, no clue. Hey guys, you're not going to die, are you?

We will figure something out… probably. This timeline wasn't so bad maybe the next one is similar. We all look at Raishin.

You do know that we have no clue where the last root is right? Oh, shit, that's true! Guys, what do we do? I guess we’ll die…

Hey nobody is dying! But Greg died 3 times to make sure we didn't die to curses! Ah right so about those curses, I couldn't lift them but we shouldn't have any issues with them, I think.

You think? I feel fine so all is well! Yup, no problems here.

Ugh, don't tell me that I’m the only one who is going to survive this… I think I should address the curses we got on us by destroying the roots. I took a look at them yesterday for the first time and eh… Currently, we have over 500 different curses on us. I don't know how much this passive of mine will help you guys so I will start lifting them. I would like to start now. Sounds good but first… I took 5 bottles of shadow liquid vodka out of my dimensional pocket.

Oh no… Raishin get him! We caught Gregory and made him ingest 5 bottles of liquid shadow vodka.

Ugh, you guys might kill me by alcohol poisoning… Stop being such a baby! You have a high alcohol tolerance! See and you didn't even pass out this time! Go rest in that corner I will start dispelling these barriers.

Can you link my vision with yours? Dispelling curses is quite boring and the majority seem to be easy, I can assist a bit. Sure. I guess there is nothing we can do, Ted let's continue using pinball! I will destroy you today! You didn't even come close to my lowest score yesterday!