NOVEL NEXT Book 3 Chapter 14
"That was fucked up," Summer said, once we had left Tomairu behind us. We'd been thanked for our help with a loot chest and an exit door, and despite getting some very good loot from it- a few spellbooks, a description of this Hall of Demons thing we were warned about (apparently a very personal 'face your inner demons' thing that everyone faced alone), and a magic crossbow that fired bolts of solid flame- nobody had been terribly enthusiastic about the experience.
"More than a bit," I admitted. "Fucking hell, that was... I mean, okay, I knew that killing a whole bunch of guys with a vicious trap so that we didn't have to fight them was the whole point, but... Uh... I don't think any amount of necessity can prepare you for human-shaped lumps of charcoal."
"Oh, good, so you aren't completely desensitized to death," Summer muttered darkly.
"It's less that we don't care about death, and more that we cared more about protecting the innocent," Faith said. "Those villagers didn't deserve to be killed and robbed and raped just because the bandits were hungry. And if the bandits couldn't be convinced to go away and not feed themselves by violence, well... If the only way to stop them is to kill them? Then that's our only real option, isn't it? Doesn't matter whether we like that option, we still have to do it, because it's the right thing to do."
"Mmph. Still don't like it," Summer said.
"Well, of course not," Talia said. "If you did like it, there'd be something wrong with you."
"Whatever," Summer huffed. "Let's just... get some sleep, alright?"
We were in a safe room, now, with stairs leading down to Floor 6- the siege of Tomairu had been the entirety of Floor 5. Now was as good a place as any to make camp for the night, and it was pretty late, so nobody really objected.
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"So how does this whole thing work?" Talia asked, as we sat down for breakfast. "Y'know, the Abyss, and how it's... real but not real?" I loved Talia for asking that, because I also wanted to know, and it was an excellent way to divert everyone's attention away from the horrifying atrocity I'd wrought last night.
"Oh, that's easy," Volex said. "It's made of ectoplasm, which is the closest thing the Essential Planes have to 'substance.' So it's really made of ideas that are pretending to be material."
"...I have several questions now," I began.
"Can we start with the questions from people who don't know what half those words mean?" Summer asked.
"Right, you have barely any magical training," Volex said. "Well... Hrm. Right, well, first we need to understand the difference between the Arcane and Occult, between a Wizard and a Bard."
I kept my mouth shut, because this I knew pretty well, but that was because my mom was an archmage who'd taught me all this stuff when I was in high school.
"Both Arcane and Occult magics draw upon the power of the mind," Volex explained. "As opposed to Primal and Divine magics, which draw upon the power of vital essence, but they aren't strictly relevant right now. The relevant point is that the Arcane primarily exerts its influence on the Material, while the Occult primarily exerts its influence on the Spiritual. With me so far?"
"Kinda?" Summer said, wobbling her hand. "I'll... I'll figure it out."
"The Material and Spiritual are two ends of a linear scale," Volex said. "The Mortal Plane, the world we live in, is a roughly even mixture of Material and Spiritual. At the Material end of the axis, we have the Elemental Planes, which are nearly pure Material, and from which Wizards tend to conjure all sorts of raw substances like stone and water; at the Spiritual end of the axis, we have the Essential Planes, which are nearly pure Spiritual, and from which Bards can draw all sorts of concepts, as well as ectoplasm- ideas given a semblance of material form. Also, I should note: 'Essential' does not mean necessary, it means pertaining to Essence, which is the metaphysical opposite of Element."
"Oooh," Faith said, nodding. "So, this place is made of souls?"
"That's like saying trees are made of rocks," Volex said. "They're of a similar substance, but ectoplasm and souls aren't made from each other, and don't really behave the same way."
"Souls and ectoplasm are both made of ideas and concepts," I added. "Souls are made of ideas like a person's memory and personality and whatnot, while ectoplasm is made of ideas like weight, hardness, shape, et cetera."
"More or less," Volex said, nodding. "The soul is a bit more complex than that, but... Well, we'll get there."
"Does this mean those bandits weren't real?" Summer asked.
"More or less," Volex said, nodding. "They had enough complexity, enough raw idea that they could convincingly act like humans, but... Very, very narrowly. They were created whole-cloth for the fight, and dispersed back into loose magicka once we were done there."
Summer grunted, chewing on that.
"Now, what were your questions, Joseph?" Volex asked, turning to face me.
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"If Summer's duster is made of ectoplasm, how durable is it going to be?" I asked. "I've read a few books on Occult magic, and in one of 'em, ectoplasm was described as fragile- unusually solid and durable for an illusion, but ultimately still an illusion, and therefore less substantial than, y'know, actual substance. How long until an anti-magic spell destroys it?"
"And now you understand why The Abyss is not actually a source of infinite wealth," Volex said sagely. "While a powerful spellcaster could disintegrate the duster more easily than if it was made of real canvas, the fact that it is Summer's duster that she earned in The Abyss will make it more resilient than a normal ectoplasmic item, and it should last for as long as she still values it. Obviously, upon her death, it's very likely to simply unravel in its entirety, but until then? Well, it might as well be real."
"And... if I were to cast an anti-illusion spell on the dungeon around us?" I asked.
"It would basically be a disintegration spell," Volex said. "If you used enough magicka, you'd destroy the dungeon we're in, and The Abyss would spit us back out into the basement we were in, but I sincerely doubt you'll have anywhere near that magicka before you're a hundred."
"Oh yeah, that reminds me, how long do elves live for around here?" Summer asked.
"Until something kills us, just like humans," Talia said. "The difference is, age can't hurt us."
"So..." Summer hummed. "...Like, hypothetically, an elf could live for a million years, as long as they didn't get in any fights or anything?"
"Maybe?" Talia hazarded. "I'm gonna be honest, nobody knows for sure, but it's generally agreed that the oldest elf in recorded history was five thousand years old when he died, and that's about how long elves have existed on the Mortal Plane- before that, we were prisoners and slaves in Annwn, so... I don't know. Maybe at ten thousand years old, we start feeling our age. Nobody knows, elves just don't live that long."
Mentally, I asked The Father to weigh in on this. "Father, as the God of Death and Time, is it true that age alone cannot kill elves?"
The response was quick, and not very encouraging:
"It is true that this one specific thing cannot kill you. Don't let it go to your head."
I decided to not share this with the class.
"So how long do humans live around here, then?" Summer asked.
"Median life expectancy for humans in the Hikaano Imperium is 76 years," Emily said. "With good healthcare, living to 90 is perfectly doable, and the oldest human in credibly recorded history was Cassandra Pendleton, who died at 131 years of age about thirty years ago."
"...Huh," Summer said, blinking. "And, uh... How common is it for humans to achieve immortality through magical means?"
"Not very," I said. "There's a lot of humans who try for it, and while some methods are more common and successful than others, the common thread is... if it works, you don't stay human. There's the Living Gods of the Hikaano Pantheon, who were nearly all human in life, but ascended to immortal divinity. Then there's vampires, who use blood magic to steal the lifespans of others and graft it to their own- they're almost universally hated, and held up as an argument for why we need the Adventurer's Guild, because Adventurers are usually the ones who hunt vampires."
"Ah," Summer said, dryly.
"There's also liches, who transform themselves so that their mind and soul are no longer held captive by a mortal body that can fail them," I continued. "This tends to only work for a little while, and they usually end up losing their minds by the time they're 200; powerful spellcasters tend to lose their minds in ways that make them a serious danger to others, and so liches are also typically hunted like vampires are, and the methods of lichdom are considered forbidden knowledge." My mother, of course, knew precisely how liches were made, and even had some theories on the mechanisms that drove liches to insanity in the first place- if anyone could make a lich that wouldn't go insane after a few centuries, it'd be her. Still, this was something I knew better than to say out loud, even surrounded by friends.
"Uh huh?" Summer said.
"There's... I think something about reincarnation?" I said. "Where, y'know, your body dies, but your soul is reborn in a new body? I'm going to be honest, I don't know much about this one- it's my understanding that it's an old folk belief from the Sunset Kingdoms and some other places, but it might actually be that they never believed in that specifically, and we just misunderstood their actual beliefs and religious practices? It's something to look up later; maybe Professor Takeda knows something."
"Is that all?" Summer asked.
"Hell no," I said. "There's, like, thousands of legends about how humans can attain immortality. Those are just the ones that're coming to mind right now. Now, personally, I'd like to point out that half of those legends are about coming to terms with your own mortality, and how accepting that you're only here for a limited time is an important step in making the most of that time, rather than wasting it in pursuit of a pipe dream."
"Mmn." Summer grunted. She then sighed, and leaned back in her chair, wearily.
"Sorry, hon," Talia said. "The Elixir of Life isn't real."
"It should be," Summer grumbled. "Considering the bullshit I'm supposed to do, I feel like living a long, healthy life afterwards isn't too big an ask."
"Huh?" Faith asked.
"Helen didn't take Summer as her apprentice for no reason," Volex said. "Helen had something in mind for you, didn't she? Something hard, something that couldn't be done by a normal Adventurer, or even a whole party of normal Adventurers."
"She did," Summer said, quietly. "That's the price I paid for this power, y'know? You don't get to have your name written in the Book of Heroes for doing nothing."
"Wait, Helen has the Book of Heroes?!" I demanded. "What the fuck, she categorically should not have that!"
"Huh?" Summer said.
"Yeah, I'm not really that fussed about most High Elf stuff, but Helen really shouldn't have the Book of Heroes," Talia said. "That's the sort of ancient, sacred relic that shouldn't belong to anyone, and should probably be kept in a temple watched over by priests of The Mother who see themselves as custodians rather than owners, but like... Of all the people who could own the Book of Heroes, Helen Rosewood is one of the worst. God, she probably looted it during the War of the Roses, didn't she?"
"It's..." I sighed. "...Okay, look, we can deal with that later. Great grandpa asked me to play nice with Helen for purely strategic reasons, and yelling at her for looting a temple isn't going to help matters. More importantly, though, Summer is having a real rough time of it, so... Let's maybe be supportive instead, yeah?"
"Can I get a hug?" Summer asked.
Three seconds later, she was buried under a pile of affectionate teenagers and one very old sex demon.
It took a while for her to start complaining.