NOVEL NEXT Book 3 chapter 19
Wolf groaned as he fought to sit up, a dull throb in his head piercing his thoughts as he tried to look around. Thankfully the sun appeared to be on its way down sparing him from the blinding light, though that did bring up the question of what had happened. He was talking to Hecatolite then suddenly everything… hurt?
Did I collapse? Was it an attack? And why did they not move me off the deck? He held his head, feeling the dry blood on his face raising more questions as he looked around. Finally finding Eryl standing over Hecatolite and Amethyst who were both sitting on the floor as the tall Elven woman… is she lecturing them?
“I do not have the time to explain exactly why what you just said is wrong.” Eryl seemed to sigh as her ears drooped.
“If you don’t explain it then how am I supposed to know what I did wrong?” Hecatolite growled, her tail slapping the deck in annoyance.
Eryl took a deep breath, “Hecatolite, I would need to teach you magical theorem to explain why magic is not simply pushing power into things and hoping for a certain outcome. A task that I am sure I will need to take up sooner rather than later but at this exact moment we don’t have the time.”
“We were already taught magic though, right Amethyst?”
“I was,” Amethyst replied with a smirk. “One of us slept through all of Alexa’s lectures.”
Before Hecatolite could retort, Eryl cut in. “Amethyst is not the one who almost destroyed another soul!” Eryl did not yell but even Wolf could feel the annoyance in her voice as she pointed out that this was not the first time Hecatolite had done this.
“Another? I only ate that one guy! And maybe a bunny or two…”
“And what about Orkthal? Or the two dozen souls he housed in his realm?” Himari gained a glare from Hecatolite.
“You are not helping.” She growled, “Besides that was an accident because Inutil gave me a faulty healing spell, if your friends in the church hadn’t ripped my wife’s arms off, I would never have needed to do that.”
Himari shook her head as she stood, “They are not, and never have been, my friends.” Wolf was surprised by the cold bite in the woman’s voice. Himari had always seemed like such a caring soft-spoken woman but now, she stood matching Hecatolite’s glare with one of her own.
“Enough you two.” Eryl stepped between them. “Hecatolite, this is about why you can’t go flooding people with aether. If Amethyst hadn’t been here, Wolf would have died. Even with her intervention it was still risky. Even looking it over with a terminal I am not certain how she managed to stabilize him.”
A terminal appeared behind Hecatolite, not that it helped as her tail slammed into it launching it into the sky before another appeared. “By fusing the two blessings together Amethyst was able to take the excess aether into herself and break it down into mana. She was then able to use that mana to power the blessing like normal to keep the power from bleeding into Wolf’s mana pool.”
“I understand the principle, Overseer. What I don’t understand is how? A blessing is a doorway between a divine and a mortal, how was it that she was able to fuse her blessing to Hecatolite’s; even ignoring her breaking aether down into mana, it should be impossible to “block” a blessing without destroying that link. Yet Amethyst left the path between Wolf and Hecatolite intact while diverting the entirety of Hecatolite’s blessing into herself. The current link between the three makes no sense, it’s a completely redundant loop that has no right working without collapsing in on itself or exploding the moment its activated.”
Wolf was unable to hold back the gasp when he noticed the strange interlocking tattoo on his arm, realizing then that he was the one at risk of exploding.
“Don’t worry, it's completely stable now.” Amethyst tried to calm him as he stared at the mark.
“Its… it’s a blessing mark… from a god…”
“None of that god stuff.” Hecatolite corrected, flicking her tail towards him.
Wolf did not know where to start, it was obvious that the two of them were powerful but this. If he didn’t know better he would think it all a very elaborate lie, but the mark on his arm was… “How?” he managed to ask as he looked up at them.
Wolf did not know a lot about the gods, barely even believing in the “god touched” before the arrival of the Heros in Algamir. He knew of blessings, not that he believed the stories, that a god would take notice of a person and bestow them with a gift; a mark that would separate them from the rest of their following as a champion.
The only time in his life he had ever even heard of it outside of stories was a fake priest with a decently done tattoo, but this… he swallowed hard looking between the two girls as Hecatolite’s bright red eyes flashed an inky black.
Hecatolite inspected Wolf’s soul with interest, where it seemed so dull before it was now brimming with power. Bathing the area around him in the sickly green glow, his arm where their marks sat now covered in silver chains covered in what looked like black vines that pulsed in rhythm with her own heart. Though his soul still looked humanoid the glowing green eyes flared with a bright green flame, the feeling of fear still present like a cold chill around him but now, now she also felt trust.
Hecatolite nodded to herself, feeling she could now trust Wolf to not simply run away. She could forgive being scared, even running when you needed to. But now she was certain that he would stand his ground if push came to shove. “Good, stronger. Still needs confidence but better.” She shrugged.
“What did you do to me?” He stammered as he stepped back away from them. “What are you two?”
“We are Hecatolite and Amethyst,” Hecatolite glared at Himari, “Did he bonk his head when he fell? I thought you checked him, or are you really lying about being a doctor?”
“I did “check” him,” Himari sighed, the hostility from earlier fading as she shook her head. “His body is perfectly fine, minus a little bit of blood loss, but I can’t do anything for soul damage. If he is suffering from amnesia, I cannot help him, though I doubt that is what he meant with his question.”
Wolf yelped as Amethyst appeared beside him, stopping him from bumping into the railing of the ship. “It’s ok, Wolf.” She smiled as she slowly guided him to the small table they had been using.
“Are… are you gods?” He couldn’t help the tremor in his voice. He had known the two were strange, but he also knew only a god can bless people.
“No.” Hecatolite hissed, Wolf jumped when she lifted her hand to slap the table only for Eryl to catch her by the arm before she could finish the motion.
“Hecatolite, you’re frighting him.” She guided Hecatolite to the side as she continued to speak. “It is a perfectly reasonable question when someone uses a divine skill, and if you are going to insist on utilizing such skills, you will need to get use to people asking it.”
“I’m no god.” Hecatolite huffed, “I don’t want it, dumb box pushed it on me.”
“The system simply added a label to the skills you already had.” Eryl tried to explain as Amethyst turned to Wolf.
“No, we are not gods per-say.” She bit her lip as she sat across from him. “I think it would be more appropriate to say half, maybe, but not gods. We are Deities, we get prayers and stuff like gods, but we also have a few devil traits too…” Watching him carefully she tried to answer his question but quickly realized she was just confusing him more. “Really, it’s not that important. Hecatolite was right though, we are just us.” She tried to smile as the man shivered before her.
He was quiet for a long moment, Amethyst seeing the distant look of someone checking their soul page flashing across his face. She ignored the fact it’s rude to do so while talking to other people not that she could blame him; that it took him this long to do so was more shocking than him doing it now. She would have taken this time to check her own but ever since Hecatolite had awakened... She sighed, focusing on it in her mind.
*Error* soul not registered in any system. *Error* Soul is a divine already in the Babylon Overseer system. *Error* attempting soul page recovery… partial recovery *Error*Please contact the administrator.
NaME; AmetTHySt LaPidAry
Age; !5
RAcE; HUmAn *Error* HoMUncUlUs
TiTlEs; *Singularity, the lucidity of Bedlam*
Amethyst could see Himari twitch out of the corner of her eye before sighing, “another error.” Himari muttered to herself before summoning a terminal before realizing it was only someone viewing Amethyst's “corrupted” soul page. She was not sure how or why but apparently the only way to turn Babylon back on was too “corrupt” their soul pages so the system could not recognize them but still registered them as being part of the system… thinking about it too much hurt her head.
“The Twins of Twilight?” Wolf finally blinked, raising an eyebrow as he focused on Amethyst. “What is the “Gates of Pandemonium”?”
“A skill I would like to ask you to refrain from using.” Eryl snapped her attention to him, a laughing Hecatolite hanging from her hand clearly ignoring the lecture she was just receiving. “It's a skill that pulls souls that opens the gates to the cycle of reincarnation, pulling souls back to the world for a short time to haunt people around you. Thankfully Amethyst’s contribution to that skill was the added effect of “Judgment” meaning it will only pull souls relevant to the person back. A killer will see the souls of those they killed and such.”
“Wait, the system of reincarnation is called pandemonium?” Hecatolite asked, looking up at the elven woman.
“If you ever looked into a hall of reincarnation, you would understand why.” Everyone froze looking at her as she let out the faintest of giggles, her ears wiggling slightly as she did. And then just as quickly her face snapped back to its normal emotionless mask. “Yes, and that skill you two managed to create is… could be very dangerous. An unbound soul on the mortal realm could suffer any number of injuries, not to mention the mental strain on anyone who looks into the afterlife could be… detrimental.”
Hecatolite’s entire being was focused on Eryl as the hypnotic musical laugh rang in her ears, the way Eryl’s lips curved slightly as she laughed, the wiggling of her ears… she fell to the floor with a thud as Eryl let go of her arm, her long ears turning a cute shade of red as the bands on Hecatolite’s arms flashed pink.
“Hold on, reincarnation?” Wolf asked, causing Himari and Amethyst to sigh.
“This… is going to be a long explanation.” Amethyst looked at Himari who just shook her head.
“If you had shared anything that the system disagreed with, it would have stopped you.” Though she said that Amethyst was unsure if Babylon would or could given their “connection” to the system being what it is. “But do keep in mind we only have a few hours until we reach shore, we may want to make it the “short” version.”
Himari was not wrong; it had only taken them 2 hours to reach the shores of Felnnor; however, they had a lot more time to calm Wolf down since the moment land came into view their “escorts” blocked their path. Signaling them to drop anchor in a small cove, no one missed that they were placed just far enough for their cannons to not reach the tiny town where they could see the small docks.
A tall elven man in long regal robes stood at the docks next to the man with Hecatolite had dubbed “clipped”. “You best not be wasting my time.”
“I am positive that she is a Chekutanga, Uncle.” The clipped eared man replied with a slight bow. “I wished to bring her here faster, but I underestimated how slow the human ship is. By the time we were able to guide it here the final chime had already sounded.”
“This Chekutanga you claim to have found refused to leave the human ship?” The man narrowed his eyes looking at his nephew, “If this is some sort of game Muzukuru, I will have words with Mukoma.” He had no intention of sending word to his brother over such trivial matters, but his nephew always did have an “overactive” imagination. He will humor him this time, not that he believed for a moment that ship contained an ancestral elf on it. However, even if it isn’t a Chekutanga, as long as whoever it is of Elven blood they will be welcomed; not that there won’t be repercussions for bringing a human ship into port. “And you are sure this Chekutanga isn’t just a high born that lost its way?
Clipped ear stiffened as his uncle threatened to contact his father. “Once you see her Sekuru you will understand, she can’t be anything but a Chekutanga.”
The man sighed, sure there were lots of stories of the Chekutanga, the ancestral elves. But they are only that, stories of a long dead race. Before the great unification when the Elven race became one under the banner of the great tree; even before the divide that segregated their race into the clans, there was the “Vadziviriri Vesango”, or the Chekutanga as the young call them. The ancestors that preceded the entire race, the first elves. Near immortal beings with unrivaled beauty and mana so potent it bleeds though their very skin. Birthed from the tree of life to protect itself from the machinations of the other races that seek to abuse its power.
But those are just fairy-tales, told to youngsters to quell them at night. Sure, there is no denying that the Vadziviriri Vesango existed, given that is just the old name of their race. It was lost when the clans divided into the various sub races before the great unification, then they simply became Elves. They could have returned to being Vadziviriri Vesango, but it had been so long that it was simpler to just adopt the name the rest of the world used for their race. Now a Chekutanga would just be a “pure blooded” elf, if you asked him. Given the physical manifestation of one’s mana channels is impossible, the only thing that would stand out would be an abnormal beauty with exceptionally long ears. Gods know several people in the past have even tried to claim the title to no avail.
He looked disappointedly at his nephew, his eyes lingering on the younger man’s single ear. It was shorter than his own but still just long enough to be considered a pure blood; it’s a shame he went the way of the warrior and refused to have his other ear healed fully. To an elf their ears are their pride; given what they represent. One's ears are directly correlated to their status, not for something so shallow as aesthetics like humans mind you; no, their ears are a physical representation of the purity of their own blood, the purer the blood the more powerful the magic.
His thoughts wandered as they waited for the arrival of this "Chekutanga", trying to decide on a proper punishment for his Muzukuru for endangering their entire town with this human ship. No matter once this woman he seems so enamored with is secured we can deal with this ship. If she's of high birth maybe she can be of use to me, he turned his eyes back to his Nephew. If not maybe I can use her to straighten this boy out a little.
