Runt of the Litter - Tales from Alirast

"I'm shocked that you can even access the realm! I haven't seen you since I was a teen!"

Alliyah's voice was surprisingly jovial.

It still helped to calm Trillia's mind from spinning away from her. The orc wasn't entirely sure how long she had been in this forsaken bed, but she was getting sick of it. She'd have tiny pockets of being coherent and awake before passing out again.

Her status had no debuff to speak of, but her mana refused to crawl above zero. Even dumping mana potions down her gullet hadn't fixed the issue.

But the voice that followed the Queen's shocked her.

"You were all spit and fire back then. I had never seen Uncle so amused and infatuated." The deep rumbling was unmistakably Titan!

Trillia forced her eyes open and tried to move her arms to push her up. A hand that covered the entirety of her upper torso gently held her down. "Easy there, Fairtrade. Don't push yourself."

She now realized why he had the title of Titan. Her surroundings had changed from the common room, and despite the much higher ceilings, the Infernal God still towered over everything else in the space. Even Rubious only came up to his waist.

"Why are you so tall?" Trillia mumbled as her eyes felt the monumental task of climbing up her friend to find his face.

"A curse of my bloodline on my mother's side. This is about as small as I can make my form, I'm afraid. I would usually just possess a follower and operate through them, but Rubious asked me to come in person."

"It's good to see you." She wanted to ask him questions about how he and Tempest had been.

She wanted to ask if he had fought any of the Eldritch.

But she found herself fading away.

As her eyes drifted off, a jolt of energy sent fire through her veins, and her eyes popped back open. "Sorry, I need you awake. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Arlyss is here as well to learn from me."

Trillia wanted to scream in pain but bit her tongue instead and squeezed her hands.

"Did you go into the Aether inside the dungeon?" Titan leaned down closer as he inspected her.

"I did."

"Huh...whatever Mistress Dawn is doing seems to be warping dungeons pretty badly. It seems like going into the Aether there caused it to attach itself to your soul. Right now, the system is struggling to determine whether you are a dungeon creature or not. Your friends told me that you were pushing yourself quite hard and used up most of your mana."

Trillia managed a nod.

"Yeah...the dungeon probably tried to kill you so that it could spawn a new creature that was fresh. Some dungeons will do that to save on resources, depending on the type of dungeon it is."

The room went silent as the god continued to peer at her, slowly looking around the room as if following some invisible line.

"Alliyah, you're a far more gifted Aetherian Mage than I am. If I direct you, do you think you could sever a few of the ties attached to her soul?"

"I...maybe? I'll be honest, Titan, I am a rather destructive person. What you're asking me to do is tantamount to soul surgery. Stas might be a better option."

Trillia felt a massive weight in the room that passed as quickly as it had come.

"What the fuck was that?" Stas' voice sounded...off somehow.

"I yanked you here. I need you to assist Alliyah in what she is calling soul surgery."

"But...I'm not your pact-bound." The little goblin seemed defensive.

"And? You're a mortal, my father and Uncle have both given their blessing for me to operate on Alirast in this capacity. The Red Lady sees no issue with me helping. Come now, Stas, you've been alive long enough to know the difference in power. Can you do what I'm asking if Alliyah pulls you both into the Aether?"

Stas looked up at the infernal god with a profound sense of terror. "Explain exactly what you need me to do. I'll ask young Arlyss to join us as well since he knows her soul better than the rest of us."

"Do I get a say?" Trillia spoke softly as they talked about chopping off parts of her soul.

"Sure. Do you want to be bedridden for the rest of your mortal life?" Titan turned from looking at Stas to her, a vague sense of sarcasm in his tone.

"You're just as mean as Tempest."

"Far meaner at times. This is going to hurt, a lot. Want something to bite down on?"

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Trillia managed a nod. "Can I watch?"

"Alliyah, can you pull her and Stas in with you if you don't have to move?"

"Maybe?"

Rubious shook his head. "By all that is sacred, why are all of you so casual about this?"

Arlyss grabbed a hold of Trillia's hand and gave it a gentle pat. "It's just a byproduct of who we are, Lord Rubious. Caution serves us little purpose when we know what is ailing her."

Titan ensured that everyone was ready and explained in detail what exactly he wanted from Stas. The short version was that Stas was going to try and cut apart the thin threads of her soul that were attached to the dungeon. The hope was that the dungeon would take the lion's share of the damage, and she'd remain unharmed. She didn't fully grasp how that was done. That part of the explanation was beyond her.

"Ok. Rubious, do not follow us into the Aether and try to avoid directing your gaze in our direction from a deific standpoint."

"May I ask why?"

"A great deal of my power is settled here, and you are not a Darktone. My presence will be...deeply unsettling to someone who isn't attached to our family."

Trillia took a deep breath, one more ready check, and all of them were plunged into the Aether.

The first thing that Trillia was aware of was Titan himself.

It was like swimming in an ocean of crimson mana. Somewhere far off in the distance, she saw his glowing eyes peering down at Alirast. As if he was capable of scooping the entire realm up in a single hand to crush it.

Part of her mind told her to be terrified of the god, but the rest of her mind said that he was safe. That he'd protect her from everything.

His crimson energy was feeding into her to keep her awake and alert, her own mana prickled at his, trying to expel it and attack it to no avail.

She saw dozens of strands of her mana stretching out in all direction and looked at them curiously, she hadn't seen them on previous trips into the Aether.

"You're seeing your soul as I do. There are going to be things that look different, don't fret."

Trillia looked over as Alliyah shifted, and her breath caught in her throat in the physical world. The woman wasn't just radiant it felt...pure. As if the darkness of the void itself retreated at her presence. There was a warmth in seeing her that settled Trillia. Was this how all deities saw the Queen?

If so, she could see what Lord Darktone had fallen for.

Arlyss was the same familiar warm glow that she knew.

Stas, however, was also different. Of everyone, he was the most terrifying. It was like staring into the face of the Eldritch itself. His soul twisted and warped in on itself in impossible ways, like some stitched-together comedy of what a goblin should be.

"This one here is the first one I want to test."

The crimson mana wrapped around one of the strands of Trillia's mana and pulled it taut, she instinctively tried to pull away but was unable to do so.

Stas floated over to the thread and stared closely at it. "Is this even possible? I can barely see the difference between her mana and the dungeon's mana!"

"If you think it too much, I will do it myself, but I am a sledgehammer when we need a scalpel. I can separate the mana, but the damage I do to both Trillia and the dungeon may verge on breaking the little leeway I have been given to be here, but if you truly think yourself incapable, I will."

"No. I don't want you to shatter the poor thing." Stas looked back at Trillia. "Sorry, little one, I'll be as gentle as I can."

Trillia did her best to offer a smile despite the worry in her eyes.

"Wait!" Arlyss floated up beside Stas. "Let me form a connection with Titan. You can work on separating and severing that first. Titan and I can take the pain, and the chances of you doing real damage to either of us is impossible."

Stas looked at Titan who had already formed a thin strand of crimson and golden mana between the two gods. Slowly twirling it to look almost identical to the thread he had identified from Trillia.

"If you had told me three hundred years ago, that I'd be cutting the souls of two gods apart, I'd have laughed in your face." Stas mumbled as he floated closer to the veins and went to work.

As the little goblin did his best, Trillia was glad that Arlyss gave him some practice first. The precision needed to separate souls was something that all of them had underestimated.

Time ticked slowly by, and Trillia felt more gazes lingering on them in the Aether. But nothing dared to spend too much time staring.

Between Titan and Arlyss, most other Aether-bound creatures feared their family name enough to not want to cause problems.

-=====-

She gasped as if she hadn't been allowed to breathe in a week. Trillia bolted up in her bed. The last thing she remembered was Uncle Stas finally separating the two gods before turning to her.

Titan was nowhere to be seen, but Alliyah and Arlyss were sitting at a table playing a game of chess. "What happened?"

Neither of them looked over at her, but Alliyah spoke as Arlyss studied his next move. "Dawn fixed the problem, apparently."

Trillia sent off a silent little prayer to Dawn to thank her for fixing her up. "So we didn't need to do the surgery?"

Alliyah shook her head. "Stas spent enough time tinkering in the Aether that Dawn finally looked over to see what the disturbance was. My guess is that she just yanked the memories out of our minds, realized what happened, and fixed it. I think she's still angry at most of us, so she didn't explain herself. Not entirely sure why she would even let Titan come instead of just fixing it. Maybe she didn't realize what happened when Rubious and Arlyss asked her?"

"Titan says he hopes you feel better, and he also wanted to thank you for all the prayers." Arlyss spoke after moving his piece, finally looking over at her. "Whatever reason Lady Dawn had for fixing you, I'm glad she did. I admit, I was not eager to have you suffer the same pain that Titan and I had to endure."

Trillia brought up her status to see her mana slowly ticking up again. It certainly wasn't moving fast, but there were a few debuffs that explained away the lower rates for now.

"Thank you for going through that for me. Sorry that I messed up. I didn't think anything of going into the Aether to defend myself."

"Not your fault. That might also be why Dawn fixed things, maybe what happened to you isn't intended, and she was fixing her own mistake. For now, just get some rest. Once your debuffs have worn off, you can find another dungeon to get into trouble in.

With that, the two of them went back to their game of chess. Trillia closed her eyes and sent another prayer to Dawn. "Thank you for fixing me. Sorry if I messed something up in the dungeon, I hope the dungeon is ok as well."

Instead of being ignored, this time, she felt Dawn's presence in her mind. "It's quite alright, Trillia. That wasn't supposed to happen. If anything, I should be thanking you for finding the issue so quickly. I also want you to know that just because I am angry at Kain and his antics, I am not angry at you or your friends. I am doing my best to be hands-off and see how things play out so that I cannot be accused of being unfair in the wager that Kain and I have. I hope you and your friends do well and survive. Get some rest."

The conversation and Trillia's consciousness ended there as she was sent off into a peaceful slumber.