Crimson Ascension

In this methodical excision of information lies the answers you seek, Primus. Many topics are not documented as they should be—the Beyond, for one. What exists outside the Haven? How was the Haven created in the first place? Those answers, no one seems to remember. It appears, at least to me, that this absence of information is intentional.

–Nerovian Orenn, Virien of the fallen House of Amethyst Dragons

The sound of other people's heartbeats was soothing. It was a rhythm that repeated itself endlessly until death joined its tune. Draven didn't know why, but attuning himself to that pulsating thrum gave him peace of mind much like the Heart Flame's effect.

The Az'Tenri Circlet… Fateless. He considered Korvax's revelations on the previous day with a grain of annoyance. He appreciated finally understanding the bigger picture, but it had been too late. Perhaps that was the point.

No one else could interfere with his fate anymore.

A knock on the door broke the silent rhythm of heartbeats, bringing Draven's attention back to the familiar Presence of the two who waited outside his room. It was Finn and Elevalein; he already knew it the same way he understood what they sought. Standing up from his bed, Draven pushed the door open and let the two guests in.

"Took you longer than I thought," Draven said with a knowing smile.

"Well, I had to recover. Not everybody has unlimited amounts of Hexion like you!" Finn threw his hands in the air, exasperated. "Tell your brother I'm not a family counselor, and I won't be summoning Echos just so he can argue with them."

"I'm right here, you know." Elevalein narrowed his eyes, arms crossed in front of his chest. "Were you to notice my presence, I'd thank you for what you did, Finn. It feels like ‌old wounds that have been open forever have finally started to close."

"I take it the conversation with our father went well." Draven nodded. It was good to finally see at least one of them coming to terms with the scars on their souls.

"It didn't." The Evoker suddenly shook his head. "He had his reasons, good reasons—the Haven depended on those choices. But I can never accept the path he walked… and that is alright. I'm not my father, and I refuse to blame myself for the sins he knowingly committed."

Now, Draven hadn't been expecting that. It was surprising to see that Elevalein spoke not in anger or hatred, but with a confidence and reassurance that hadn't been there before. He sorted it out, one way or another. One of them had.

"But that's not why you're here." Draven motioned to the ground, while he took a seat on the bed himself.

"No manners or hospitality." Finn clicked his tongue. "But I suppose that's how the geezers taught us both, back in those gnarly humid tunnels, abyss-knows where."

"Time for all of us to enter the Sixfold Corridor. Still, I thought you'd have invited that Transmuter lad." The Evoker sat cross-legged ‌on the ground. "The more people on our side, the better."

"Nerovian?" Draven asked. "No. I might have forgiven him, but I won't share this with him. He has been a great, if unexpected, help. But this is personal. I won't have just anyone go near my soul like that."

"That's for the best," Finn rasped. He never liked Nerovian. Even now, the young Dreamer still held a grudge about what had happened to Draven in those dark cells. "That lordling can go to the abyss for all I care."

"So… what's your plan, El?" Draven said. It was best not to dwell on old wounds. "I assume you got one this time."

"Of course. Who do you think I am?" The Evoker's eye shone with green light, the irises becoming like pure emerald. His Presence unveiled like a cold breeze in the night, gentle and pervasive.

It bounced right off Draven's shield.

"I… hm… If you don't lower that monster of a shield, we aren't going to accomplish much." Elevalein blushed and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh." Draven did as asked.

When his shield fell, the Evoker's influence entered Draven's soul with the tentative caution of someone who walked on their toes not to awaken a slumbering beast. As he should, for Morph was never fond of other people intruding.

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A giant red serpent coiled around the flaring astra that burned in the center of Draven's spirit, eyes narrowed—watching. It hissed with enough force to knock Elevalein's projection to its knees. Come on, Morph, Draven said in a way only the two of them could listen. Stop being difficult. This is the last time…

Morph gave one last hiss before diving into the flames and disappearing.

"I have to say, brother." Elevalein gritted his teeth, blocking his sight with one raised hand. The fires of Draven's astra covered the runic circuit, but the side effects of seeing a rune remained. "Your soul is bizarre. An astra the size of… well, hundreds of normal ones? Perhaps more. Another living soul sharing your spirit. Runes covering your shield and even the source of your Empyrean power. And what's that red lightning?"

"Nothing important."

"If you say so." Elevalein shrugged. "I'll be quick. Just remember not to erase my Trace, or I won't find you once you pass through the rift."

Emerald mist poured out of Elevalein, permeating Draven's soul with a sickening feeling. The source of an Evoker's power—their dominion over souls—stole one's balance upon contact, numbed their limbs, and even killed their function altogether. It depended on how powerful the attack was. Though Draven eclipsed Elevalein's strength by a magnitude difficult to put into words, he still felt vulnerable as the mist coursed inside his spirit.

At the four corners of his soul, green crystals materialized. They hovered with ‌peaceful intent, humming at a frequency that gave Draven the beginnings of a headache. "This should be enough." Elevalein looked around, then nodded. "If it isn't, there's nothing I can do. Well, brother, I'll see you in the Corridor."

Draven smiled as Elevalein's Presence receded away from his spirit. With a flicker of a thought, he sent the Crimson Aegis forming around his soul once again. It was a shield woven with both his and Morph's combined force of will and the Amplification runic circuit to keep the Hexion congealed in it, always in a state of enhanced power. Even if it broke, he could summon the Art back with the speed only the Az'Tenri Circlet could muster.

Another thought brought Draven inside his astra, near the gaping maw that was the rift that connected his soul to the Crimson Realm. He still didn't understand how that passage could also take him to the Corridor, but he'd take what he could get.

When you examine a gift with too much scrutiny, you only see the ugly.

He extended his hand forward, touching the rift. The mental image was solid in his mind. The room made of obsidian stone, the place where all Empyreans only tread once in their lives—his home. When the rift pulled, Draven rode its beckon, welcomed its pull.

When he opened his eyes, all he could see was the obsidian room of the Sixfold Corridor welcoming him like an old friend. The place was unchanged, the same as when he had left it, as if he had never entered it before. No marks of his years spent in training, the sweat and blood he spilt to gain the power he now had.

All of it was gone, but at the same time, none of it was. The memories remained. They made Draven's experience real, even though nothing else to verify its existence was left. He felt as if he were on the brink of understanding something important—an insight that might change who he was—but the thought escaped with the grace of a dream upon its dreamer's awakening. The more Draven tried to get a hold of it, the less successful he became.

Frustrated, Draven congealed a bed woven out of blood in the obsidian room. Finn would take some time to find him. After all, one hour outside the Corridor translated to hundreds inside it. Its ratio of conversion wasn't constant, changing with variables Draven had not even begun to understand, but the estimate was reliable. Somewhat.

With nothing else to do, he began congealing a replica of the room he had rented at the Elysian Inn. The constructs of blood in the ceiling gained its wooden grain; the bed was just as soft and luxurious; the door was indistinguishable, were it not for its color. A perfect, empty copy of the world he now lived in.

It felt empty.

Draven shattered the constructs with a wave of his hand. This was not his home. My home looked simpler, but it felt warmer. Blood poured out of him, forming rough bricks for walls. The ceiling was broken in a few places, where Torchlight would pour through if the Corridor had one over its obsidian room.

The portrait of his father, Will, hung on the wall next to Dan and… he couldn't remember his mother's name. Draven immersed himself in refining the details. A cook-pot stood over a hole in the ground where precious few shards of coal flickered with red smoke—a patchwork rug claimed front row to wait for the stew simmering over the fading fire.

A small room with two piles of rags for beds. Another one where his mother used to sleep. Draven's heartbeat sped up, its unnatural three beats per second bridging him a sense of mourning. It broke his heart to look at what he had lost, at the place he came from, but at the same time, it felt reassuring. Before he could stop, Draven found himself smiling with a joy he hadn't felt in ages.

Home. His home. The place he loved above all else. The place where good memories etched themselves deep within his soul. The Severer might have stolen the face, name, and voice of his mother, but Draven remembered her. All it took was one look at himself to see her reflection. The man he was today, filled with regrets but with a conscience that allowed for the questioning of his acts, was a testament to her love.

Tears streamed down Draven's face. He didn't need to remember her face, for he remembered her love. That is enough. Once he uttered those words, the weight he had been carrying on his shoulders lessened. His soul seemed to sigh as the peace he had been seeking spread over it like a tide.

The Corridor didn't allow for the presence of his physical body, yet Draven knew once he went back to the Haven, he'd no longer be a Lesser Ascendence.