Blue Core

She had forgotten how good it felt to be healthy. That was no exaggeration. It had been centuries since she was full on health or mana, and it had been even longer since she had been completely free from degradation in her Skills. She had still been The Silver Woe, still been able to bend mana to her whim, but she’d been crippled. All her limbs worked, but the mana within her had been stagnant, the flows stifled and sore.

It was like taking the first full breath after drowning. It was like spreading her wings for the very first time. It was like many things but not the same as any of them because she was her true self for the very first time in almost as long as she could remember. Even before her disastrous attempt to destroy the rift itself, depletion had eaten away at what she could do, as it did for everyone. Little bits here and there, but they added up.

The Silver Woe stretched out her aura to encompass the whole of the Caldera, sliding through the parallel expanded space that made it thousands of miles instead of tens, and reached out over all of Tarnil, too, as well as Nivir and Haerlish, Kinul and Orrelin. Not that she intended to do anything to anyone there, it was just out of sheer indulgence in the fact that she could.

“Jeez, what is that?” Blue said, voice ringing through the mana vibrations in the crystal pendant around her neck.

“Just taking a deep breath,” Ansae said, smiling as she held all the mana flows of the Caldera in her metaphorical claws for a moment before releasing them. Everything was so much easier now. She went through almost-forgotten spells that had been reflexive and nigh-permanent once upon a time. Kinetic soak, contingency speed, reactive scryward, mana siphon, the list went on. At the same time, she destroyed the static mana armor she’d put around herself for protection, from both from depletion and from being too noticeable; a bright light rather than a blazing beacon.

“Uhh. And here I thought you were scary before.”

“Oh, Blue. I was scary before. But now I am truly myself again.” She stretched her wings and flapped them once, shifting through tangled spatial mana into the Fortress, traversing the distance without Blue’s help. From there she flew through the portal, out into Chiuxatlan, watching the depletion mana simply slide right off her. “You have no idea how satisfying it is to be able to ignore all this,” she told him, casting her senses out over the country.

“Yeah, probably not, but I can imagine it’s— holy shit.” He interrupted himself as she flexed her will and every single blightbeast in Chiuxatlan crumpled and died. She didn’t even spare the plants, exterminating everything that was cycling the depletion-laden mana.

“Yes, I can’t actually purge the depletion like you can, but I can at least stop the generation of more,” Ansae said. Mostly, she was pleased by how easy it was, no longer something she needed to call upon her moon for.

“Yeah, damn. I suppose that’s going to make cleaning up the rift a lot easier.”

“It should,” Ansae said modestly, looking around at the suddenly silent landscape. Already the mana cycles were faltering, which under other circumstances would have demanded her intervention, but it was all poisoned. Blue would have to purge it, which simply required time. She flicked her tail and stepped, blurring through space again to the Fortress, wings stretched wide as she idly circled around the giant black chunk of rock hulking in the middle of a Chiuxatlan river valley.

“Speaking of which, when do you want to take it on?” She looked eastward, senses reaching out to touch the floating islands there. “I can ensure there will be no dungeonbane weapons, or anyone to man them.”

“So, uh, I was kind of hoping I could talk you out of killing absolutely everyone. Tor Kot and Yit Niv donated their cores to the cause, and they wanted me to make sure to do what I could when we took over. Which I think is fair enough, and behavior that ought to be rewarded.”

“Hm, that is true. It complicates things, though. It’s always simpler to just raze everything, and it works.” That said, she wasn’t going to impugn Blue’s honor by violating even an implicit agreement. She owed Blue a lot,

more than she could properly pay back, and she wasn’t going to start her reclaimed life by offending him.

“I bet it does, and I bet there will be an enormous number of blightbeasts to get rid of, but I don’t want to just nuke everything when we already know that the ring of red cores is containing it somehow. Even if you and I are depletion immune, I don’t want to spread it accidentally.”

“Take the Hedron in there,” she suggested. “I can ensure it’s safe, and you can throw as much mana at the source as we need.”

“Yeah, true. But. Hmm. You know, in two weeks I’ll have another two dungeon seeds. That way I don’t have to risk the Hedron — not that I’m saying you couldn’t protect it,” Blue said hastily. “It’s just that if I actually do have to pump out tons of mana I’m liable to break things. Plus I bet I’ll have to take over that entire central island, if not every single island, and having more dungeon seeds will make that easier.”

“I thought you’d be ready to jump on the chance,” Ansae said, a little amused.

“Yeah, well, I think we’ve all learned our lesson about going off half-cocked. I want to get a plan together with you and Iniri and Shayma that hedges as many bets as possible so I don’t have to clean up an even worse mess than I already do. As it stands I think I’m looking at years of just grinding away at everything.”

“Well. I’m certain that I can make things go faster now that I’m back to my old self, but your point is well-taken. I won’t be trying to simply blast it into oblivion, as tempting as that course of action is.” She wheeled around and dived back into the Hedron, looking around at the dragons that were temporarily housed there. “Now that I am properly whole again, I do have unfinished business I can attend to while we’re waiting.

“Just out of curiosity, what unfinished business is there after hundreds of years?”

“Oh, things I left behind. Artifacts and magic items to track down, agreements to follow up on. The Leviathans at the very least will still remember, and some of the older dragons.” Ansae waved a negligent claw. “It shouldn’t take me long to track down who or what I want. Not now that I’m at my full power again.”

“Sounds like you have a plan. I just hope you also plan to come back.” Blue sounded slightly worried, and Ansae chuckled.

“Not only do I want depletion gone, you forget I still want children from you. Not to mention my lair in the Caldera.” Ansae smiled. “I’m going to be with you for a good long time.”