The Great Core's Paradox

Elara hadn’t thought about how difficult it would be to tie her own hand behind her back, especially considering that she only had one hand to do it with. There was no careful twisting or grabbing at the rope with her soon-to-be-captive fingers to help cut out some of the awkwardness of the maneuver. Instead, there was what there always was these days - an arm that just plain didn’t work, and fingers that had no hope of wrapping themselves around the rope she was using, let alone of doing anything nimble with it.

Despite that, she managed. Enough twists and turns and frustrated frowns, and eventually anything is possible. Apparently.

It still took longer than she’d have liked. Elara couldn’t even ask for help; she felt like that would go entirely against the image she was trying to conform to.

Though at this point she questioned what exactly it was that she was trying to conform to. The problem was that, even if things went well and Erandur cumulatively decided to side against Virtun, it was possible that Elara’d eventually be revealed to not be the member of Virtun that she was posing as - and then any actions that she had taken during her stay would be her own, rather than Virtun’s. Which meant that, while she had to play her part in order to more easily gather information and find out what in the Skies was going on between Virtun and their allied set of Erandur’s Towers, she couldn’t lean into it too hard. Or, at least, not as hard as the constant whispers that she had picked up suggested that a real member of Virtun’s shadowguard might have.

It seemed that, for the last long while, the members of Virtun that had visited had played little pretense at politeness. Threw their weight around, acted belligerently. Threateningly. Not like they had tried to do in their time in Verdant Grove. There, they had at least pretended to be a friendly delegation for a while, even if a little pushy and…off-kilter. Skies, they had even talked to Elara herself every once in a while when she gained the courage to approach the strange group. It was only in questioning one or two of the more talkative ones that she had learned enough information on mana infusions that she later committed the stupid, near-suicidal gamble that had led to her current status as a Seeker. The crucible, they’d called it when she’d asked, where those with the greatest promise were found and their highest potential reached. The test that, she’d been told, any citizen of Virtun that wanted true power was made to undergo - because, while dangerous enough that not all lived through the experience, such large and sudden influxes of mana were effective. Created Seekers that could survive in the dangerous world where the inner cities resided, even as it left them…different.

Which was part of the reason that she felt so Skies-damned angry after she had learned what they had done to her city.

Because Elara had talked to them, and she hadn’t realized what they would do. What they were planning if her city refused to hand over their Core. That fact burned. Made the anger run hotter - both at them, and at herself. Thinking logically, there’d been little Elara could have done. Back then, she had been weak. Not like now, after she had gone through her own stupid, reckless crucible.

She sometimes wondered if, had she survived something like that naturally rather than through the healing of the Little Guardian, Elara would have ended up more like them. Off-kilter. Especially since, Elara was willing to admit, she already sort of was. Her time as a human puppet with no control over her own body had made sure of that, even if she was recovering from the ordeal. But maybe it could be worse; the extreme body awareness that her mana infusion had given her made Elara more understanding of what could have happened, had things gone worse. Had the Little Guardian not been there to ease the way.

Because as her own ability to affect her mind and emotions through control over her body showed - when the body changed, the mind followed. When the body was injured or twisted in just the right way, the mind twisted with it. Changed how you felt, or even how you thought.

Changed who you were, turned you into someone new. And not necessarily for the better, though Elara had been careful to keep her own changes temporary and under control. Her power let her do that; others wouldn’t. And without the healing of the Little Guardian, they’d stay twisted.

Though, as Elara’s struggles with healing her arm showed, even the Little Guardian’s healing wasn’t always a cure-all. Some injuries were more resilient. For all she knew, even with the Little Guardian’s healing, someone who had gone too far - become Mana-Touched, that oh-so-polite term for someone who the touch of mana had turned both extremely powerful and at least slightly unstable - and stayed that way for too long could be beyond recovery.

But even that knowledge, the knowledge of how some of Virtun’s horrible actions might be due to their culture of accepting stupid and reckless risks in attaining their mana enhancements - and Elara was well aware that she was just as guilty of that stupid recklessness - muddling their minds was probably at least partly to blame for their actions, wasn’t enough for Elara to forgive them. Not even close. Addled or not - Mana-Touched or not - they didn’t reach that state on accident. They chose to take that risk as a people in the pursuit of power. And then, to make things worse, they turned around and used the power that they gained to ruin others - including Elara’s own collapsed home. Sure, they had apparently used a softer touch in Erandur than in Verdant Grove, but she was fairly certain that because they had both more easily gotten what they wanted and they likely didn’t want to harvest the tithes of xenlite the whispers Elara had heard told her they’d supposedly traded the Core for themselves. With the particulars of Erandur, where little bits of null-water could potentially be hiding behind every thin layer of stone, the area was likely uncomfortable for the more mana-concentrated people of Virtun. More dangerous than it was for most, enough that they certainly wouldn’t risk mining for the gems themselves.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Elara wouldn’t want to, either. Not without a Guardian Statue nearby to heal the injuries it caused - and probably not then, either. Even if she was healed, the permanent loss of power that the null-water caused - at least until she spent the time to replace the mana concentration that was lost - would be painful.

Elara shook her head, banishing the thoughts and bringing herself back to the beginning. She wasn’t sure how she should be acting. Not really. The things that she’d heard - the fear of being unjustly imprisoned and sent to the mines, along with the rumors of that exact situation occurring to more than one person - made her rather unsympathetic towards the Tower’s leadership, even with the agreements they had made with Virtun breathing down their neck.

There was no excuse for that sort of corruption.

But that didn’t mean that everyone in the White Towers was guilty. Most likely weren’t, and that made Elara hesitant to step too deeply into the role of a Virtun shadowguard. Some of the people here wouldn’t be deserving of that sort of treatment, and they’d rightly have a problem with everything if they later decided to ally with Orken against Virtun and realized that the most recent ‘shadowguard’ to terrorize them hadn’t actually been one at all. And more importantly, that Elara herself had been a member of their new alliance. With that in mind, Elara couldn’t do something like sour the relationship between the White Towers and Virtun through terrible treatment even if she’d been willing to. Though apparently that wasn’t necessary anyway; the relationship between the two was already soured, even if it was holding strong through a combination of fear, greed, and corruption.

No, instead Elara would have to take a different tact. Which was the entire reason she had agreed to a duel in the first place. Honestly, she didn’t care about winning or losing to get what she wanted, though she’d greatly prefer to win for her pride alone. But either way, it would give her an easy opportunity to learn more about what was going on within the White Towers.

If she won, she’d just have her opponent answer any question she could think of - and maybe do a few other things, assuming he kept to his word. If she lost, Elara would end up on a date - which she really didn’t want to do - but would probably still be able to get her questions answered.

People loved to talk about themselves, and especially brag. Among the things that she wanted to know was one that was particularly important. She didn’t think it’d be too hard to get him to tell her - or maybe even show, if she was lucky - where they were keeping their Core. Because, just in case the White Tower decided to keep their alliance with Virtun rather than turn against them, Elara wanted to know where it was.

If they ended up as an enemy, she wouldn’t allow them to keep it. It would just vanish, never to be found.

Because a certain Ascended’s stomach would be the perfect hiding place.

Elara squared her shoulders, wiggling her crippled arm against its bindings, and stepped out towards the dueling ring, where her opponent was already waiting. There was a surprising number of people that had gathered to watch in the time she’d readied herself, removing her armor and tying her arm to the side. They filled the edges of the ring, either eager to see a Virtun shadowguard beaten in a duel, if the boy’s inane claims of his sword prowess were true, or - possibly, if he’d been lying - eager to see him get beat down.

And without a working Guardian Statue to link to and heal any injuries, Elara wasn’t particularly willing to have the first happen. So she’d be aiming for the second. The way that her opponent slowly looked her now-armorless form up and down as she walked was admittedly more than a little help in making that decision.

Despite her current supposed status as a dangerous shadowguard, he wasn’t taking her seriously enough. Which meant that he was either as good as he had claimed to be, or just really stupid. Could go either way, though she was leaning towards stupid.

Regardless, Elara decided to take things seriously. Without a Guardian Statue to heal her, she would be limited in the ways that she could move and fight; that meant there’d be no use of the type of strength that would tear her muscles or damage her bones. No bending in ways that threatened her joints. It largely took away the ways of fighting that her [Little Guardian’s Totem] and the Guardian Statues it had been linked to had caused her to be accustomed to.

But that didn’t mean that Elara had lost all of the advantages that her mana-enhancement brought to her. Only some.

She still had more than a few tricks up her sleeve.

As Elara stepped into position, her death-imbued sword gone and changed out for a less dangerous, blunted replacement, she started to pull at her body’s strings. Her adrenaline spiked in response, surging to unnatural levels, and the world began to slow.