A Soul Reaping Lightbearer
I don't own anything. Bulk of work belongs to Shirtaloon and ideas/lore taken from Tite Kubo's Bleach, Destiny and Will Wight.
Chapter 4: Quest Complete & The Mise-en-scene
They left the chamber through the huge stone doors of grotesque imagery and down the surprisingly long tunnel, carved directly out of the stone. They emerged from a gap that, at a distance, would have looked like a natural crevice. They were on the gentle slope of the lower portion of a mountain that tapered up to a towering height. The upper reaches were black and lifeless, while the lower portions turned to yellow stone and red earth, with patchy coverage of dry yellow grass. There were wagons outside the tunnel, wheels chocked to stop them from rolling down the slope. They had yokes for what Jason would describe as lizard monsters.
They had four legs, hooves, long bodies, scales instead of fur, and horns in the center of their two heads. Creepy two-headed lizard creatures the size of horses. Like someone put two unicorns and a lizard in 'The Fly's teleporter and this was the mixed monstrosity that came out.
"What the bloody hell are those things? Some type of creepy, mutated horses?" Jason exclaimed in shock.
"What are horses?" Gary asked.
"You've never heard of horses?"
The other three shook their heads.
"Then what are they?" Jason gestured towards the two-headed monstrosities.
"Heidels," Gary answered as if it was an obvious answer.
"Heidel?" Jason let out in confusion.
"It's a work animal, the kind you see everywhere," Gary explained. "They pull wagons, carry packs. You can ride them. I can too, but you can tell they don't like it."
"So, horses, but not horses. This worlds version of them, maybe?" Jason muttered to himself quietly.
{Most likely, Guardian,} Gordon responded just in his head. {Creation is vast and varied but there are certain base similarities in how sapient beings develop civilization. Including the usage of base animals for varying tasks.}
{You don't know about heidels?} Jason asked his Ghost mentally.
{My knowledge base is limited to what you know, the Abidan, Vroshir and the underpinnings of creation. But I don't have access to the Abidan's database on the cultures of other worlds and the species that live on them. Not until you ascend and join the Abidan, giving me access to their vast information network.}
{You never went through them before being sent here to me?}
{I was recently created, shortly before you summoned me. I only have what the Court of Seven and the Creator decided to gift me.}
Jason figured it had something to do with the Abidan's restrictions on interfering with physical realities and let it go. Though, it certainly tickled his paranoia. He then looked down the slope, getting a panoramic view of the land below. It was flat, dry landscape of sandy yellow and sober reds, punctuated by withering grass or spiky scrub. Every so often, a low tree with sparse foliage would jute reluctantly up from the barren earth. The sun hammered relentlessly down over all of it, but the arid air was almost pleasant after the cloying humidity of the sacrifice chamber.
His mind going back to the heidels, Jason gave a shrug as he commented, "Well, creepy or not, I'm glad they're here to give us a lift."
Gary nodded his agreement, "I wasn't looking forward to crossing the desert on foot myself. You might not have noticed, but I'm covered in fur," talking as he moved to take the reins, sitting at the front of the closest wagon.
"I've never noticed," Farrah stated dryly.
"Come on," Kaname cut in. "The cult has most likely been warned about our escape and are preparing for our return. I want to hit them before they can fully ready themselves for our counterattack. Hopefully saving Anisa before they decide to use her as a hostage or kill her in spite."
Jason and Farrah followed Kaname into the back of the cloth covered back, shading them from the harsh sunlight. Gary didn't have that cover, but he was wearing loose clothing to let air flow through, along with a hood to shield him from the sun. The others were wearing more fitted clothes but didn't appear discomforted.
Looking out the flap, Jason watched the scenery as the heidels pulled their wagon towards the Vane Estate. The climate bore no resemblance to moderate warmth and lush greenery he had experienced in the hedge maze. Even the heat had felt different there, more pleasantly warm than this unforgiven desert air. He remembered looking at the world map, warped, but not entirely different globe to the one with which he was familiar. It marked his position as being in the Kalahari Desert, which matched the terrain now before him.
"They brought us here while I was unconscious, right?" Jason asked.
"That's right," Kaname confirmed.
"How long was I knocked out for? This is very different from the place we were before."
Kaname and Farrah turned to look at him with curiosity, even Gary turned his head to gaze at Jason with one eye.
"The Vane Estate uses climate magic," Farrah replied. "Didn't you notice when you went there in the first place?"
"Actually, how did you get involved in all this?" Kaname asked. "Now that we have some time talk."
"Um, I was summoned," Jason answered. "Not on purpose, obviously. I went to bed last night, as far as I know, and woke up in the middle of the Vane family hedge maze. I sort of stumbled around for a bit until I found Landemere. He seemed pissed to have found out that I'm what he summoned, apparently trying for something else. He called me something that sounded specific. I don't remember what, exactly. 'Other-worlder,' maybe?"
"Outworlder?" Kaname suggested.
"Sounds right," Jason agreed. "Based on all the..."
Jason thought about the malicious hedgehog and leech monsters, people throwing around magic shields and streams of lava. Healing potions, reading languages he'd never seen before. The magic powers he'd used himself and the two-headed lizards pulling their wagon right now. All of it should be impossible.
"...differences here from my world and Gordon's explanation, this is a whole different world than mine."
"You're from another world?" Gary asked. "Is it really that different from our world?"
"It's definitely different enough," Jason replied firmly. "My world has its share of strangeness, but this is a whole different kind of strange. Some things are weirdly the same, though. Like hedge mazes, and people named Gary. I have a cousin named Gary. Not as tall as you, Gary, but almost as hairy," he said, turned towards Gary at the reins.
"He's a lykonid?" Gary asked, not looking from the rough trail leading back to the manor.
"I think it's a glandular thing. We don't have lykonids on my world. The continents are different too, but not completely. The fundamental physical laws here have some interesting addenda. My world doesn't have magic, not real magic. Or a second moon. I did see a second moon, right?"
"Your world only has one moon? That's weird," Gary commented.
"I'm not well versed in astral magic," Farrah added to the conversation. "I've heard of outworlders, but it isn't my field of expertise."
{It's a separate iteration,} Gordon informed through the chat function to them all. {In the grand expanse of creation, there are many universes with worlds inhabited by sapient beings like yourselves.}
From there, Gordon proceeded to explain to the adventurers about the multiple iterations, the Creator, Abidan and Vroshir.
"So, this Creator seems like a super-god," Gary commented.
"You should be careful who you say that around," Kaname cautioned. "Certain gods could take offense and you'll have to deal with their worshipers."
"Hold up; you guys have gods here?" Jason asked in disbelief. "I can believe that anything can happen here, but real-life Gods?"
"Of course," Gary stated. "You don't have gods in your world?"
"We have religions," Jason said.
"Isn't that the same thing?" Gary asked.
"No," Jason answered. "No, it is not. Do your gods turn up and do things? Where people can see them?"
"Of course they do," Farrah replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Anisa's a priestess. We've seen her god show up in person. Spend some time in the worship square of any good-sized city. You'll see one sooner or later."
"That must forestall a lot of theological debate," Jason commented.
"You might not want to tell Anisa about your connection to an otherworldly god," Gary warned.
"Why not?" Jason asked.
"She's the priestess of the God of Purity," Farrah explained.
"That's not good," Jason stated.
"You have a problem with purity?" Gary asked.
"In my world, you have to keep an eye on the ones who talk about purity all the time. Leave them be and they start rounding people up into camps, getting all enthusiastic about purging the unclean."
"That does sound like something Anisa would get behind," Farrah agreed. "Her church has this idea that the essences we use change who we are, so they only like the ones they see as holy or pure. They claim other essences taint the soul."
"You say that like you think she's wrong," Jason pointed out.
"She is," Kaname insisted. "Essence abilities aren't inherently good or bad. Like a sword, they can be used to oppress or protect, deliver justice or commit crimes. The accountability isn't with the tool, but the one wielding it. The only people who advocate that essences guide our actions, instead of the other way around, are religious zealots and people looking to abdicate the responsibility for their actions."
It was clear Kaname was speaking from experience, and not a good one.
"There are rare and extreme cases where essence change people," Kaname clarified. "That's why there is the restricted list. But people try and claim that extends to all essences, when it simply doesn't."
"Not that Anisa would agree," Farrah added.
"Anisa is wrong," Kaname stated firmly.
They continued traveling through the stony desert, back towards the Vane Estate. Jason's map ability had apparently been plotting locations, even when he was unconscious. The hard ground was uneven, making the ride on the back of the wagon bumpy, but easy for the heidels to pull them along on.
Jason was grateful they were traversing over dry, hard earth instead of roving through endless sand dunes. He could easily imagine the wheels getting stuck in the sand, with them having to get out to push it free. His knowledge of African geography was limited, having never been deployed there, but he'd seen a documentary about Namibia's Skeleton Coast once. From what he could remember, things got very sandy there. Of course, it could be completely different in another world.
The others helped introduce him to their world as they drove along the hard, dry path.
"What I don't understand," Jason wondered, "is why I was given abilities that I never had before. Is it because my world doesn't have magic, but this one does?"
Jason knew he didn't need to ask them; Gordon could probably answer the question with greater detail. But he wanted secondary verification and test the truthful nature of his new allies.
"I'm not sure," Farrah replied. "As I've said before, I don't know much about outworlders."
"I'd never heard of them before this," Gary comments, "so don't look at me."
"I've met some before," Kaname added, prompting groans from Gary and Farrah.
"What?" Kaname asked indignantly.
"Of course you have," Gary complained.
"What's wrong with that?" Kaname asked incredulously.
"Your childhood friend is the Crown Princess of Vitesse," Farrah answered pointedly.
"This again?" Kaname asked in exasperation. "It's not my fault who my parents chose to socialize with."
"So, Kaname is a big deal?" Jason asked.
"Yes." Gary and Farrah answered at the same time as Kaname's "No."
The white eyed man glared at the other two before changing the subject, "I do know a little bit about outworlders. They've been pulled into our world from another one through some magical accident. Usually a summoning spell that's gone awry."
"The evil cult lady's son, Landemere," Jason supplied. "His summoning went wrong, and I ended up being drawn into this world... butt-ass naked in a hedge maze."
"That's how it usually works," Kaname responded. "Well, the drawn through worlds part, not so sure about the naked hedge maze part. As far as I'm aware. I'm no expert."
"Though it happens enough that there's a name for it," Jason pointed out.
"My understanding is that it's something that happens in high-magic worlds like ours," Kaname offered up. "I really don't know any more than that."
{That's roughly accurate,} Gordon responded into all their heads. {There are other factors that can come into pay on such things. Sometimes sort lived bridges can bring large numbers of people from one world to another. The larger the magic involved the greater the area effected. The one that brought the Guardian here was small.}
"So, just him then?" Farrah asked.
{Yes.}
"Is there a way to get back home?" Jason asked.
{Yes.}
Jason waited on bated breath for nearly a minute before he asked with twitching brow, "And that would be?"
{The Phoenix Token in your possession,} Gordon had sent only to Jason's mind. {It will revive you at the place of your birth, Guardian. Even if that place is on another world.}
Jason was about to speak when Gordon stopped him, {I highly recommend keeping such a fact to yourself. Items that can revive the dead are very rare in mortal iterations. Even a diamond ranker would kill you for it.}
Jason understood as he eyed the three bronze rank adventurers around him. They seemed like good people, and they owed him their lives, but you never know what someone would do for something as valuable as a second life. Seeing Farrah and Kaname's expressions, waiting on an answer on how he could get home, he made something up.
"It's complicated and won't be feasible until I reach diamond rank," he gave a weak smile and sagged his shoulders. "I take it's a powerful rank and a long way off."
The three adventurers chuckled before Farrah answered, "Yes, it is. Diamond rank is the height of mortal power. You are at just the beginning stages of essence powers called Iron. But you became partially resistance to attacks that don't have any magic behind them. You live on magic instead of food and water."
"You can, of course, but it's just for pleasure," Gary added.
"To actually sustain ourselves we need a concentrated source of raw magic," Kaname continued while holding up a bronze spirit coin. "There are various ways to get it, but spirit coins are the easiest, by far."
"But my world doesn't have any magic," Jason reminded them. "Doesn't that mean if I go back home, I'd eventually run out of coins and starve?"
"You can get by on food and water," Farrah answered. "It just takes more of it, depending on how powerful you are. Some foods are better than others. Meat, sugar, anything with magical ingredients, obviously."
Jason was relieved. He could handle living on protein bars and cake. Would he be immune to getting fat?
"Though," she added while pondering for a moment, "if you reach Diamond rank before heading home, you'd eventually die as your body ran out of magic. Slowly losing access to your magic. Getting weaker and weaker until you withered away into ambient magic."
Jason just gave her a horrified look, unable to respond.
"It's a terrible way to go," Gary commented grimly.
"Of course, you could make sure to bring a lot of diamond rank coins," Farrah kept going. "Not that I'd even know where to find them... Maybe an enormous amount of gold coins to compensate?"
{It could work,} Gordon agreed. {Even so, the Guardian should keep the trip short and ascend before the gold coins stop being enough to sustain him.}
"Can we please stop talking about how I'd die a miserable death?" Jason pleaded with a groan.
"Bronze is one rank above iron," Kaname blessedly changed the subject and got back on topic. "It's the stage we're at, though, we're not too far off from the next stage known as silver. That was Cressida's rank. From there is gold and then finally diamond. Each rank is exponentially stronger then the last and can take even longer to go from one rank to the next."
"A competent adventurer can go from iron to bronze in a year," Gary added to the conversation. "Bronze to silver can take three to four and silver to gold can take decades. Diamond rank... well I'm not sure as few reach diamond rank. They're practically myths. You don't see them often."
"Or at all, if you're most people," Farrah added. "I've only met one because of Mr. Fancy Britches, here."
"I don't wear britches," Kaname stated.
"Kaname's grandparents are diamond rank," Farrah informed. "His grandfather is chancellor of the academy his family operates."
"His grandmother though," Gary added, "is one of the deadliest essence users in the world. The best sword master, hands down, and equally bloodthirsty. There are legends of her slaughtering armies of essence users in her pursuit of challenging combat."
Jason whistled out, "Damn. That's one lady you don't want to be on the wrong side of."
"Understatement of the highest order," Farrah stated. "Even War... as in the God of War is wary of her."
"Note to self," Jason said seriously, "don't anger Kaname's nanna."
"Wise choice," Kaname agreed. "But, for reference, my grandmother was justified in slaughtering those armies. They were pillaging, kidnaping, raping and raising the dead across several isolated regions like this one. She was bringing the twisted Church of Undeath to justice. Thanks to her efforts, the illegal Church is practically extinct with just a few hidden followers left spread through the world."
Kaname's back straightened and spoke as if reciting a fact of existence, "Justice without a great cause begets nothing more than slaughter. However, that same slaughter in the name of a great cause is justice."*
"That's fair," Jason agreed. "Still a frightening display of power and slaughter."
"Yup," Gary agreed.
"Anyways, diamond rank essence users are the peak of mortal power," Rufus explained, moving the conversation away from his extremely lethal grandmother. "The Adventure Society likes to keep two or three in the biggest cities, in case a diamond rank monster shows up. That rarely happens, though, so they largely go unseen. When you're that powerful, the idea of a higher authority is laughable. Mostly, diamond rank adventurers are mysterious figures pursuing goals known only to them and the few known rule entire nations."
"And there aren't that many diamond rankers in any case," Farrah continued. "The only reason they exist in the numbers they do is because they live so long."
"They live longer?" Jason asked.
"All essence users age slower," Kaname informed. "At iron rank you wouldn't notice the difference, but bronze rankers can live well past a hundred. Silver rankers can double that; reach silver rank young enough and you'll look young for decades. Gold rankers live for centuries, and I'm not even sure diamond rankers can die of old age."
"They're immortal?" Jason asked.
"It's a rumor," Kaname clarified, "but a persistent one. There's kind of an unwritten rule that diamond rankers don't tell the rest of us the limits of their abilities."
"So, am I going to live for a very long time now?"
"Keep raising your rank, and yes," Kaname replied simply. As if he wasn't talking about eternal youth.
"Wow, that's quite the bombshell," Jason exclaimed.
"What's a bombshell?" Farrah asked.
"It's a weapon that causes a great big explosion. Imagine shooting Farrah at people."
"We kind of do that already," Gary chortled.
"So how do I raise my rank?" Jason asked. "I want some of that sweet immortality action."
"How about we walk before we run," Kaname suggested with wry smile. "You can't even properly progress towards bronze rank until you awaken every essence ability you have. That's all twenty. We're getting off topic. Jason, you have this guide that helps you interact with our world. Something that doesn't fit in our world but does in yours, I presume. Maybe something you've heard of from a legend, or a part of your world's mythic traditions. Something that exists in your world as a story, but here has become real."
Jason nodded, "Yeah it is."
"That's something all outworlders have," Kaname explained. "It works differently for every outworlder, but whatever magic that brought them here changes them. It gives them abilities to help them adapt and survive."
"Is that why I can read languages I've never seen before?"
"And speak languages you've never spoken," Kaname added.
Jason frowned out, "Someone say something."
"You didn't even realize it, did you?" Kaname asked.
Jason focused on the sounds, rather than the words. It wasn't English or any of the many languages he'd heard and even learned. He didn't know if it was more disturbing that he could speak some unknown language or that he didn't notice he was doing it.
"I have an ability," he replied, listening to the sounds he was making. "One of the effects is called language adaptation. Is that how I can speak any language and not even notice?"
"Most likely," Kaname nodded at the same time Gordon said, {Yes.}
"That's why you sound like you learned the language from a skill book," Gary comments aloud.
"I do?"
"You do," Farrah confirmed. "There's a recognizable neutral accent and things sometimes come across as odd because of the difference in language structure. It's a giveaway, if you've seen it enough. Colloquialisms can translate very strangely."
"So, you might want to stick to plain language," Kaname suggested.
"Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of slang doesn't translate properly through the languages of my world. It's most likely worse between different worlds," Jason commented.
They continued on, answering more of Jason's questions as they traversed the desert. All the more agreeable to the two-headed horror horses for pulling them along the arid, dry and hot terrain. The occasional bump being the only real discomfort of the ride thus far.
"Outworlders like you might have their advantages," Farrah explained, "but we natives have advantages of our own. Take Gary, here. Members of his lykonid race are stronger and faster than us, and that's only the beginning of what lykonids can do. Elves are powerful spell casters and their skill with healing magic is unparalleled."
"I forgot there are elves," Jason replied. "Some guy said he wanted to eat one."
"That's not good," Garry grimly responded.
"They're cannibals, Gary," Farrah stated dryly. "Of course, it's not good."
"What about dwarves?" Jason asked. "Gnomes? Small people who live inside hillocks?"
"I don't know what any of those things are," Gary replied in confusion. "Except for hillocks."
Kaname cut in, "We have elves, lykonids like Gary, obviously, and several other races. We'll eventually be heading for a port city, so while this region is human dominated, you'll see all kinds of people."
"Each of which have their own special gifts," Farrah took over the explanation. "Some are there from birth, while others only show themselves once they get essences. Humans like Kaname and I are kind of like you, in a way. Our abilities differ from person to person, based on our essences. Most start out dormant, only awakening as we absorb essences."
"That's not the only things humans get, though," Gary chimed in. "Humans have hereditary racial abilities. Kaname's family, the Remores, are born with the Sword Affinity racial ability, making them naturally inclined to swordsmanship. They learn it faster, and any sword essence abilities are stronger, cost less and advance faster."
"Hereditary lines like mine only happen when they are descended from human diamond rank essence users," Kaname clarified.
"I don't have one as my parents didn't have a single essence amongst them when they gave birth to me," Farrah added.
"Some of the most famous bloodline abilities are the Kurosaki clan's Blut that allows them to channel mana through their bodies to either give them enormous strength or remarkable durability. The Akura clan's Amethyst Armor that is an absolute defense that can block nearly everything and who rule the Ashwind continent. The Silentborn family's Dream Crowns that allow them to take control of the minds of others and rules this continent: Everwood. Then there's the Volaire family's Celestial Radiance that allows them to take control of others mana and rules the Ninecloud continent," Kaname informed.
"Wait, the rulers of these lands can control minds?" Jason asked with evident concern.
"Yes, but it's obvious as a purple white halo surrounds their target's heads and can be broken to free them," Farrah explained. "Also, it can be resisted with proper aura control and willpower. Plus, their diamond rank matriarch Emriss Silentborn has strict rules with using their inherited gift and severely punishes those that abuse it."
"One nasty piece of work in a remote area had ensnared the minds of dozens of beautiful women as his sex slaves," Gary informed grimly. "When Emriss had discovered what her great, great, great, great, great grandson had done, she'd erased his mind and turned him into a slave for his victims to use as they saw fit. Along with full essence sets and enough monster cores to reach silver for their entire families."
"A just punishment and proper reparations," Kaname nodded.
"That's something," Jason replied uncertainly, "but still disconcerting."
"That's fair," Gary agreed.
"If I become diamond rank, will I leave behind a hereditary racial ability now that I'm a Lightbearer?" Jason asked curiously, and moving away from being mind controlled.
"Well," Kaname replied, "you might as you're still kind of human."
"How can I be, 'kind of human'?" Jason demanded.
Kaname explained, "I met an elf outworlder before. She retained some of her race's abilities, while others were replaced by her outworlder gifts. It's possible you might still have some human abilities."
"Every race gets exactly six gifts," Farrah added. "There are ways of examining them with magic."
"I can do that myself," Jason informed.
"You can?" Farrah asked.
"Yup," Jason replied. "And so can you."
"Really?" Farrah sounded excited. "How?"
"Just will it to appear," Jason told her while pulling up his abilities.
Racial Abilities (Lightbearer)
[Siva Integration]
[Mana Engine]
[Shinigami Soul Vault]
[Tactical Map]
[Nirvanic Transfiguration]
[Protection of the Titan]
"I have all six racial abilities already," he said. "These might all be Lightbearer abilities now, but they were different before." Jason thought about how his nirvanic transfiguration was something else before, then the image of the old screen flashed through his mind like was being replayed from his memories. "Do humans normally get astral affinity?"
Farrah was extremely focused on nothing, most likely her own racial abilities, and Kaname had to nudge her while Jason repeated himself.
"Sorry, but this interface ability of yours is amazing," she gushed. "Everyone has an instinctual feel for their abilities but they're not very good at articulating them. This ability could greatly improve the cataloging of essence powers. You should-"
Kaname coughed and gave her a pointed look as he answered Jason's question, "No, that's something celestines get."
Farrah blushed lightly before apologizing and how she should wait for a better time to broach the subject.
"Celestines?" Jason uttered in confusion. "That's not something we have in my world."
"They're similar to elves and humans," Farrah explains. "One of the many new kinds of people you'll get to meet."
"As long as none of them try to eat me," Jason replied.
As they drove along Jason noticed Kaname and Farrah pull out bronze spirit coins while he sagged into the bench seat in the wagon. Looking at Gary, the enormous lykonid covered in fur with nothing but a hood protecting him from the desert heat.
"You're not even sweating," Jason pointedly stated at Gary. Who was now pulling out a bronze coin as well.
"Gary's people require a lot more exertion than the rest of us to get tired," Kaname explained. "Another one of his racial gifts."
As Kaname and the others popped their spirit coin into their mouths, Jason pulled out his own iron spirit coin. It'd been explained to him that he should only use coins of his own level to sustain his body. He hesitantly popped the coin into his mouth, and it immediately dissolved with an intense fizzing sensation. It tasted like he'd touched his tongue to a battery, tangy and energetic. He felt power flood through his body, washing away the hunger and thirst of moments before. Kaname and Farrah laughed as they watched his expressions, wide-eyed and panting.
"What's wrong with him?" Gary asked, having looked back over his shoulder upon hearing the laughter.
"He just ate his first spirit coin," Kaname informed, causing Gary to chortle.
Jason shook his head to clear it. "I don't think I've ever been this awake."
"It can be exhilarating the first few times," Kaname agreed.
After a few moments of silence, Jason chose to bring up something that was on his mind.
"Here's a thought, what's an adventurer? Is that where you guys hang around in a tavern until someone hires you to kill forty gnolls in a dungeon?"
"What's a gnoll?" Gary asked, turning his head back to give Jason a raised eyebrow look.
"And why would there be forty of them in a dungeon?" Farrah added. "Is gnoll a kind of criminal?"
"There's an organization," Kaname cut in, forestalling more unhelpful questions. "It's called the Adventure Society. They give out jobs to people like us, mostly to deal with monsters that are threatening towns, villages or whatever."
"But sometimes to investigate a cult full of bloodthirsty cannibals," Garry added with a grin.
"Should you be taking your eyes off the road so often?" Jason asked.
"It's fine. There's only one path and these heidels are well trained. They won't deviate too far if left unattended for a bit." Gary said as if it was obvious and that he wasn't doing anything wrong.
"I could always take the reins, so you can enjoy having a conversation," Farrah offered.
"Nah. I'm good up here," Gary replied, turning back towards the road.
"We owe you for getting us out of that mess," Kaname said, turning the conversation back on track. "We'll help you become an adventurer, if that's what you want?"
"It sounds like something I could get into," Jason responded thoughtfully, "but it has been a long, crazy day that hasn't ended yet. I'm going to sleep on it first."
Kaname chuckled, "That's fair."
"Hey look," Farrah pointed out ahead of them. "I can see it."
As the wagon crested a rise, they could see in the distance, a strange patch of green in the middle of the desert.
"We're making good time," Kaname commented. "But I'd still prefer if we picked up the pace."
"Sure, the heidels are holding up well," Gary responded with a flick of his wrists, getting the heidels to run faster. A dust cloud picking up behind the wagon as it sped towards the green patch of what must be the Vane Estate.
The edge of the estate grounds was startling apparent; a green line of grass and trees cut across the barren browns and yellow of the desert. Like stepping into a different world, a single step took them from scorched air and unyielding earth to cool grass and a welcoming breeze.
Gary brought the wagon to a stop once passing across the line, pulling on the reins. Jason was the last one to hop out of the wagon, where he conjured his armor and pulled out Seitoshi Okami-tachi's sealed form of a combat knife. As he was regulated to the rear and going in quiet, he'd wait until they got closer to the manner to release its Shikai form.
As the others readied for combat, Jason took a closer look at the startling border between desert and garden. It was a straight line, like a border between worlds. A single step went from scorched, desert earth to springtime in an English country garden. Looking along the border, Jason spotted pillars placed periodically along the edge, white stone columns with magic symbols carved into the surface.
"Are those things making it like this in the middle of the desert?" Jason asked.
Farrah was the one to explain, "They're only part of it. It takes a large and sophisticated system to make something like this work."
"What now?" Gary asked.
"Now we sneak into the manor house," Kaname ordered, back in his Shihakusho and purple goggles. "We find Anisa and we kill everyone else."
"I like this plan," Gary said with a predatory grin. Grey light started sparkling around him, growing thicker until it formed his full set of rune-coated metal armor.
"I hadn't noticed before due to the cultists and world ending blood leeches, but that's impressive. Not as awesome as my armor but still impressive," Jason admired the smoldering, rune covered armor.
Gary eyed Jason's own futuristic armor with the odd visored helmet that had a red diamond symbol covering most of the face and asked, "Yours isn't half bad, but how do you see out of it?"
"Magic, I guess."
Gary chuckled, "Sounds about right."
"Isn't it hot in yours?"
"Heat I can handle," Gary chortled.
After seeing him, a fur covered lykonid, just lounge comfortably in the desert sun without breaking a sweat, Jason believed it.
"You're going with a knife?" Gary asked with a raised brow. "Where are those loud banging weapons? Those are impressive... Then again, that little knife is giving off an impressive aura. Where'd you get it?"
"This knife is the sealed form of my soul-bound Asauchi called Seitoshi Okami-tachi," Jason informed. "The guns are its Shikai... first released state and it constantly eats a small amount of my mana in that form. I got it along with the token that made me a Lightbearer and gave me my essences."
Kaname froze and gave Jason a serious look as he asked, "Asauchi. Are you sure that's its name."
Farrah had conjured the obsidian stone armor and matching sword that was wide and crude looking, added, "As in like yours Kaname?"
"Yes," Kaname answered firmly. "Jason?"
"Yup, Asauchi is what my interface ability identifies it as and Gordon confirmed that it's a creation of the current Reaper," Jason informed. "Though, he did say he created it before ascending his homeworld."
{This world to be exact,} Gordon chimed into all their heads.
"The Reaper," Kaname intoned seriously. He had his suspicions with his Shinigami Affinity, Asauchi and the teachings from his grandmother. She had hinted at being a part of a larger organization but wouldn't induct him until he saw more of the world for himself. To see if he was fit to join. Then with Emir's contract into the Order of the Reaper and all the similarities with his own martial arts -that they just so happened to find a skill book of while researching them- and powers he was certain that it was the group his grandmother was a member of. Even so, there were inconsistences.
Like how it was supposedly eradicated centuries ago.
"You think it's the same Reaper as the Order-" Gary started.
"We're not supposed to talk about that," Kaname cut the large lykonid in a chastising tone. "Keeping quiet is part of Emir's contract."
"Sorry," Gary apologized.
"It is quite the coincidence if true," Farrah agreed but held up a hand to signal that she wouldn't say another word about it.
"If what's true?" Jason asked.
"Something we are contracted not to discuss with others unless given permission from our contractor," Kaname answered professionally and firmly. "It's actually why we're in this region in the first place and that's all I'm going say on the matter."
Jason just shrugged as he had plenty of his own secrets. It was actually a relief that they weren't being completely honest with him. He'd have gotten suspicious and paranoid.
Farrah than summoned the stone chest again and pulled out two belts with heavy pouches before sending it away. One was grey, which she handed to Gary, the other red, which she kept for herself.
"What are those?" Jason asked. He watched Farrah and Gary tie their bags around the outside of their respective armors. The heavy suits barely seemed to impede either of them. Jason could understand the bulky dog man not bothered by the armor but not Farrah. She was lithe and normal sized. It was a conundrum.
"Summoning materials," Farrah answered.
"Summoning?" Jason asked.
"You'll see soon enough. Let's stay focused on the task at hand, shall we," Kaname interjected. "We need to find a way to sneak into the manor and retrieve Anisa."
They set off through the ground. The outer areas were manicured woodlands, shaded gravel trails making their way through artfully placed trees and shrubbery. Somewhere he could hear the babbling of a stream.
"This is nice," Jason commented while appreciating the scenery, his father would have loved it.
"Indulgent," Kaname criticized. "They should be working with the surroundings instead of against them. The cost of building and maintaining all this in the middle of the desert is beyond extravagant."
"I know what you're talking about," Gary chimed in. "There's a desert city not too far from where I grew up. It has a subterranean river, and half the city is built underground around it. They use the natural landscape to their advantage. Hardly any core infrastructure requires magical upkeep."
"Is that Zartos you're talking about?" Kaname asked.
"Yes, have you been to Zartos, Kaname?" Gary asked.
"No, my brother told me about it," Kaname explained. "He said it was definitely worth seeing."
"Knowing your brother," Farrah commented, "he probably meant the women."
"He's not that bad," Kaname defended, prompting looks from Gary and Farrah. "He's not."
"Zartos has a large celestine community," Gary stated pointedly. "But I suppose your brother didn't tell you about that."
"He may have mentioned it," Kaname said evasively. "In passing."
"Celestines," Jason wondered. "That's another one of the races in this world, right?"
"That's right," Kaname answered. "Like elves they're famous for being attractive to human sensibilities."
"We only have humans in my world," Jason stated. "The idea of meeting whole new races is exciting."
He slapped Gary on the back, which was currently encased in metal.
"But you'll always be my first, Gary," Jason added.
"I like your attitude," Gary responded. "Humans have something of a bad reputation when it comes to other races."
"I can believe it," Jason replied. "My world only has humans and we're still awful to one another. My dad's parents came from a different country than where I grew up, so I look different from most of the people I know. People in my own country look at me like I'm a foreigner. Even the people who do look like me call me a banana."
"A banana?" Farrah asked in confusion.
"Yellow on the outside, white on the inside," Jason clarified. "Ah... its slang meaning that I might look like one race but act like another. A way for people to be racist within their own race."
"That sounds terrible," Farrah replied.
"Yup," Jason agreed. "Ignorant people always look towards hate first and never consider another option. No matter how illogical it may be."
"Yeah, I'm familiar with that," Gary darkly replied.
The cultivated woodlands were small, soon giving way to gardens of colorful flowers. The pathway continued out from the woods weaving its way through the garden beds. Beyond lay the manor house, which Jason hadn't yet seen from the outside. Like the grounds, it was in the vein of a sprawling English country house. Three stories of old stone and dozens of windows, in the old money style.
"I think that's the hedge maze over there," Jason pointed out as they made their way through the garden. "I woke up in there with no idea of where I was or what was going on."
"Quiet," Kaname ordered. "We could meet enemies at any point. We have no idea how many were left behind or if the cultist that ran came back from the sacrifice chamber."
They moved out from among the flowerbeds and onto the lawn in front of the manor and Jason released his Asauchi.
"Reap our prey and protect the pack, Seitoshi Okami-tachi."
The combat knife glowed and shifted into two dual pistols with curved black coated green energy blades.
"That's remarkable," Gary gapped enthusiastically. "I've never seen a forged magical weapon change so drastically without an ascension ritual and I'm a smith experienced in crafting magical gear. Would you let me examine it later? Kaname's stingy and never lets me examine his Asauchi."
"I don't know," Jason replied. "It's a part of my soul... so... I'm not comfortable with letting you get a peak at my innermost self."
"Yeah.." Gary grumped, "...that's what Kaname always says."
"Shush," Kaname commanded, on edge. "I don't like how quiet it is."
"Use our summons now?" Farrah asked.
"We go as quiet as we can until we find Anisa," Kaname replied. "We don't want someone deciding to make her a hostage."
Jason was about to bring up the idea to use the well to sneak into the manner, but was stopped from growling mewls and rumbling as a carriage hurled from around a bend. It had four heidels pulling the luxurious carriage with gaudy/expensive covering, bedded bench for the rider and was roughly three times the size of the wagon Jason had rode to the estate.
Clearly, it was the lord of the Vane family fleeing as despite the iron rank driver, there was a bronze ranker in the covered back. At least from what his tactical map showed him -Gordon informing him directly into his mind.
Despite the bronze rank adventurers being faster than him, Jason was the first to react -long since having been used to quickly reacting to fast moving targets on the run. He fired his right pistol, the black coated vibrant green round punctured the man's forehead, blood and brain matter exploding out the back of his skull. The pieces of what used to be a person's... well, everything, was splattered back into the carriage.
You have defeated [Blood Cultist]
The combination of the driver's body jerking back, pulling on the reins in the process and the loud explosion of sound, the heidels swerved to the side. The poor creatures panicked and crashed into the massive stone stairway leading to the large double doors of the manor.
The carriage was overturned onto its side, random goods flying out of the back and the disgruntled screams of the people inside shouting out. Their ruckus was a minor noise compared to the pained, fearful neighing of the heidels.
This time, Kaname, Gary and Farrah moved before he could and pounced on the overturned carriage. Kaname's sword arms were shrouded in silvery energy and they effortlessly sunk into the carriage's wooden bottom along with a gurgling, choking noise. At that exact moment Gary's metal covered fist slammed through the underside and yanked back, ripping a man out in an explosion of wooden planks and splinters.
Before the dazed man could even process what was happening, Gary's other fist pulped his head in one mighty punch.
Farrah's obsidian sword parted into segments, held together by a cord of lava, sawed down and through the carriage. Halfway through, she ripped it to the side, tearing out a significant portion of the wagon's underside. That revealed two more bisected cultists, stuffed bags with items flowing out of some of them and one of Kaname's bladed arms buried into the bronze ranker's throat, the other five imbedded in five other cultists' heads, right between the eyes.
He looked like Landemere Vane but with a few features off: Nose a little larger, chin squared, and slightly higher cheek bones. Though, those minor details were lost to the manic fear twisting his face, blood gurgling out of his mouth and hands grasping the glowing silver blade. He didn't even register that his hands were being shredded.
With an upward jerk, Kaname coldly sliced the blade through the man's head, splitting his face in two. As Lord Vane's head slid apart, Farrah ended the agonizing screams of the two cultists with a thrust each.
Quest: [Moved to Action]
Objective: Save the adventurers 3/4.
[Awakening Stone of the Warlock] has been added to your inventory.
[Awakening Stone of the Phoenix] has been added to your inventory.
[Awakening Stone of the Builder] has been added to your inventory.
Bonus Objective complete: Destroy the local Blood Cult.
[Awakening Stone of the Reaper] has been added to your inventory.
Primary quest objective still available.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Jason muttered as he joined the others by the shattered carriage and screeching lizard-horses.
Seeing the twisted limbs and bone protrusions sticking out, Jason raised his guns and put them both out of their misery with eight shots: one for each of their two heads.
Kaname had bent down and picked up a sheathed katana that was lying beside the dead Lord Vane. It had an orange hilt, the tsuba was teardrop shaped, with the base of the drop arcing over the top of the blade, and the point of the drop pointing below the cutting edge. A row of several tiny teardrop-shaped holes decorated the bottom of the curve, and a small ring, approximately two inches in diameter dangled off the tip of the teardrop.
"Sorry, Suzumushi for letting you get taken from me," Kaname stated solemnly before slipping it into the sash on his left hip, hand staying on the hilt.
"Seems we caught the rest of the cult on its way out," Gary chortled. "Good thing we got here so fast, otherwise, they might have gotten away."
"And warn the prick that betrayed us," Farrah added.
"We can leave catching him for another day," Kaname replied crisply. "For now, we need to free Anisa before-"
Kaname was cut off when glass suddenly shattered as a person crashed through a second story window opposite of where the wagon had crashed. He landed hard on the ground but immediately scrambled up. He was taken aback to find four people looking at him, surrounded by an overturned, shattered carriage and dead bodies, but didn't pause as he sprinted off.
"You think you can run from me?" a woman's voice roared from the broken window, prompting a laugh from Gary.
"I don't think we have to worry about someone taking her hostage," he chuckled out.
Three spheres of bright light erupted from the broken window, spinning around each other as they pursued the fleeing man. He was bleeding from the broken glass and limping from the fall, but still moving as fast as Jason could at full sprint -at least before he'd use the Creator's token and gained magic powers. It still wasn't enough to escape the accelerating spheres of light, flashing white and gold as they unerringly pursued him.
When they caught up, the spheres started spinning around the man, firing beams of light into his body. He let out a painful cry with every beam that lanced his flesh, but he kept moving in the drive to escape. The orbs tenaciously followed his every movement, firing over and over until he dropped. His screams gave way to dead silence and the spheres vanished.
The group looked back to the broken window, in which a pretty blonde woman was now standing. She stepped out into the air, light glowing under her feet as she delicately drifted to the ground. Jason wondered if she had similar ability as his own that lets him walk on the air.
Quest: [Moved to Action]
Objective complete: Save the adventurers 4/4.
[Awakening Stone of the Builder] has been added to your inventory.
Quest complete.
100 [Silver Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
1,000 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
Anisa started walking down the stone path to meet them.
"Didn't you all say she was the healer?" Jason asked.
"That's right," Kaname answered.
"This lady here?" Jason reiterated. "The one with the death orbs."
"That's her," Farrah confirmed.
"I guess she's more a combat medic than healer," Jason muttered to himself.
Anisa was slender, almost frail-looking, with platinum-blonde hair and pale skin. She was wearing a practical outfit of fitted pants and top, all in spotless white. Sturdy-looking cloth covered her from neck to boots, with thicker panels over vital areas. There was a belt, also white, with many small pouches and a sword at her hip. Even her boots were white, without so much as a blemishing smear of dirt. Her hair was cinched severely back into a ponytail, revealing ears that gently tapered to a point. She walked with lithe grace and absolute confidence, nodding her head in greeting.
"You got free as well," she stated, as if expecting no less and then eyed the corpses, "And finished off the rest of the impure filth infesting this wretched place."
"That was our mission," Kaname replied professionally, "to prove the Vane family's guilt, which is without doubt, and are now carrying out what justice demands."
Anisa nodded before giving Jason a disgusted glance, "Aren't you the tainted person that tried to get us out of the cages but got punished for the filth spewing from your mouth?"
"That's me," Jason answered simply, though felt as if Anisa agreed with what Cressida had done to him. He recalled she hadn't thought much of him, even then.
She looked him over, her expression suggesting her opinion hadn't improved.
"He's lucky you were there," she commented to the others. "I hope you didn't let him slow you down."
"Actually, he rescued us," Kaname corrected.
"I find that hard to believe," Anisa responded incredulously.
"It was something to see, but it seems you found our gear, then," Gary commented, looking at Anisa.
Kaname, Farrah and Gary had changed clothes, but were still varying degrees of sweaty and dirty, while Anisa wasn't just geared up but also clean.
"They have a storeroom in the cellar complex under the manor," Anisa explained. "Most of our equipment was there, but they'd already taken some of it away. Including the dimensional bags, which is why I didn't bring it with me."
"Yeah, here they are," Farrah pointed out, holding what looked like leather sling bags.
"Summoning time?" Gary asked.
"Go ahead," Kaname replied, taking his dimensional bag from Farrah.
"No," Anisa countermanded. "Your summons are both too destructive. My church is seizing this estate, so I won't let you destroy it."
"Let the summons search the grounds," Kaname offered. "If that doesn't flush out any hiding cultists, nothing will."
"They'll ruin the grounds," Anisa argued.
"Priestess," Kaname leveled an unyielding gaze at Anisa that could be felt even unseen behind his Moon's Eye Lens, "you brought this contract to us, so I'm willing to accommodate you, but only to a degree. After what we've already gone through, I am not going to compromise the capabilities of this team to save your church from hiring a landscaper. Is that understood?"
Anisa's face was a picture of unwillingness, but she nodded acquiescence.
"My dad's a landscape architect," Jason chimed in. "I don't think we could get him out here, though."
"Alright," Gary rejoiced. "We'll just whip out the old summons and then pillage the manor."
"You will not," Anisa commanded. "You can take the spoils from the wagon and be happy to get that much."
"Come on, Kaname," Gary haggled, not bothering to appeal to the elf. "What's the point of being an Adventurer if we can't do a little looting?"
"And this might be the higher quality materials," Farrah chimed in, "but the bulk will most likely still be in the storeroom. The contract did stipulate we could claim all magical items and material found on the estate grounds upon confirming that the Vane family is a part of the Blood Cult."
Kaname became contemplative for a few silent moments.
"Any personal possessions you find, you can take," Kaname relented. "Anything that is part of the manor stays where it is. That's furniture, decorations, art, whatever. And no unnecessary damage."
He waved a finger between Gary and Farrah.
"This means you two," he clarified.
Anisa still looked like she had bitten into a lemon but didn't protest further.
"Fine," Gary yielded. "It'll be a conservative pillage."
"Not helping," Kaname grunted through clenched teeth. "Gary, Farrah, you're staying out here. Use your summons to flush out any loose cultists."
"But the loot," Gary whined.
"You'll have to manage with what's here. Maybe think about that next time you open your big mouth," Kaname chided.
"My mouth was closed," Farrah complained, drawing a scolding look from Kaname.
"Fine," she said in defeat.
"Just find any cultists still on the grounds and pick up any who make a run for it," Kaname commanded. "Anisa and I will sweep the manor, so you might get some people running out."
"Fine," Gary grumped as he took his bag from Farrah and started rummaging through it.
Gary's chagrin seemed to mollify Anisa somewhat.
Gary proceeded to pull out a large metal hammer that radiated a powerful aura. "Ah, much better. I feel naked without my gear."
The lykonid stepped away from the group and untied from his belt the pouch Farrah had given him earlier. Opening a small flap that served as a nozzle, he started pouring a grey powder from the pouch onto the ground in a circle.
"Are those iron filings?" Jason asked.
"They are," Farrah confirmed. "Summonses are a little more involved than most essence abilities and require something to act as a medium. Salt circles are the most common, but plenty use other things. For Gary's ability, it's iron filings."
She patted the pouch on her own waist. "For me it's obsidian powder. We keep a good supply of both in my magic chest."
Gary finished pouring out the iron filings into a circle and returned the pouch to his belt. Then he crouched down and held his hand out, which startled Jason by spontaneously bursting into flame. Unconcerned, Gary reached out and touched the circle. The iron where his finger touched almost immediately turned red and started to melt, smoke coming off the ground where the grass met the burning iron. The flame spread like burning a fuse, making its way around the circle.
Once it was a complete ring of glowing metal, complex magical patterns started appearing inside the circle. From those patterns something rose up as if emerging from the ground, but the ground remained unbroken. It was a humanoid figure, crudely hewn from ugly black iron. With it came a strong smell of ozone.
It was huge, around three meters tall. It looked ungainly and menacing, like something hammered together from leftover slabs of pig iron. In between the joints, the glow of molten metal could be seen shining from within. The head was flat and blank. The center of the torso looked to be two separate pieces of metal pushed together, the edges ridged like interlocking teeth. As he watched, its torso opened like a hideous mouth, revealing a pool of molten metal inside, radiating heat over the group before closing shut again.
"Impressed?" Gary asked Jason, having already cheered up.
"Very," Jason honestly answered. "What is it?"
"It's a foundry golem," Gary said proudly. A droplet of molten metal dripped from it, sizzling when it hit the ground.
"I understand why Anisa doesn't want it in the house," Jason muttered.
"You too?" Gary whined.
Anisa gave Jason an unhappy glare. "You," she sneered, making it sound like a swear word, "may address me as Priestess."
Jason didn't care for being talked to like he was something scraped off the bottom of a boot.
"Well, you," he replied with an angry growl, "should learn not to address people like they're scum beneath your feet. Otherwise, someone might be inclined to shut your mouth for you."
"Excuse me?" Anisa choked out, barely believing what she just heard.
Jason had his helmet disappear so he could level her with a glare. "If you keep talking to me in such a condescending way, I'll stuff my fist down your throat."
Anisa's eyes went wide at the audacity of his statement before rage took over. Kaname stepped into her path as she took an angry step forward and suggested, "Jason, you should probably stick with Gary and Farrah."
Farrah took her turn to summon a creature. She poured out her own circle next to the ring of scorched earth that had been Gary's. Farrah's process was the same, right down to the powder melting into a red-hot ring. Instead of a golem like Gary, Farrah's summon was a pile of black and red magma with arms.
"Lava that can punch you with a fist bigger than my head," Jason mused. "How'd she get that?"
"Well, she got the volcano essence, so there you go," Gary informed.
"There's a volcano essence? That definitely sounds better than mine."
"That depends," Gary responded. "Farrah's not great when it comes to sneaking."
"That's because she has volcano powers," Jason pointed out. "Everyone else has to do the sneaking."
Gary considered that for a moment.
"That's a pretty good point," he acknowledged.
Kaname and Anisa made for the house as Gary, Jason and Farrah collected all the valuables from the wagon. There were essences, a lot of bronze rank quintessence, monster cores and various bronze ranked items. Once splitting the fortune into four even amounts for the adventurers and their savior, they set out through the grounds.
"I can't believe they made us wait outside," Gary complained. As they walked, the two monstrous figures ranged ahead. Both emanated searing heat, so Gary and Farrah didn't keep them close.
"I can believe they made you wait outside," Farrah told Gary.
"Maybe we'll catch some cultists," Jason offered in the hopes to soothe Gary's feelings.
"That'd be nice," Gary said wistfully.
"How long do these summonses last?" Jason asked.
"Depends on your power level," Farrah explained. "A few hours for me and Gary."
It was around an hour later when Kaname came out to find them. He looked down the row of scorched archways cutting a straight line through the hedge maze.
"You said flush them out," Gary said defensively.
"You were unspecific as to how," Farrah added.
"Well," Jason pointed out, "he did point at you and say, 'no unnecessary damage, this means you,'"
"Whose side are you on?" Gary asked.
"Justice."
Farrah snorted a laugh.
Kaname shook his head at the damage caused only to run across a single cultist. Through Jason's party chat they'd explained that when they had cornered the cultist in a storeroom, they'd burned it down with said cultist inside.
"We found a carriage shed missing a carriage," Jason spoke up helpfully adding what they'd left out when reporting in with Kaname. "Obviously the one we intercepted as they'd left in such a hurry that they left all sorts of stuff that'd fallen out."
"Cowards got what was coming to them," Gary stated.
"I don't know," Jason chimed in with his opinion. "Is it really cowardice to flee from an opponent you know you can't beat. Their very best were killed at the sacrifice chamber by collared adventures, who uncollared themselves and made their way here. I'd have been shocked to find them bunkering down instead of fleeing."
"That's a good point," Kaname conceded.
Gary just grunted out, "Still seems cowardly to me."
"You just wanted to kill a few more cultists," Farrah replied.
"And you didn't?" Gary asked.
Farrah nodded her head in acknowledgement, "I was hoping to burn off some more steam by melting the pricks that captured us, but no point wasting our frustrations when no one is here to take them."
"You guys did kill them," Jason pointed out.
"And we'll get another chance once we catch the man that sold us out," Kaname added coolly. "But after I get some answers."
"Easy for you to say," Gary grumbled under his breath, "You got to kill off the entire house staff while we only got one guy."
Kaname had reported to them that they'd questioned and killed the manner's staff, the lord having not concerned himself with them when fleeing for his life. Jason wondered to himself if this world made people more bloodthirsty. But the images of the nightmare larder he'd run across flashed through his mind and figured it was the reasonable response when dealing with cannibal cultists.
Detective Sergeant Adam Cosgrove was a thirty-one-year-old man in the middle of an apartment building, standing next to a uniformed officer. An older woman, the officer had the air of having seen it all -in her case, that meant all the horrible things people do to one another.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Adam asked her.
"Nope. I've seen all sorts if weird business, but this is new to me."
The apartment building was ordinary, on the upper end of lower class. Melbourne, like most large cities, had an enormity of them. This one, on the other hand, had developed an unusual feature. Despite the exterior structure being intact, a large chunk of the interior was missing.
It hadn't been destroyed in an explosion or collapsed in some kind of structural disaster. There was no debris or collateral damage to be found. It was just gone; an empty space inside a building where an entire apartment should have been. The exterior wall was intact, but the rest of the apartment was gone, along with portions of the apartments around, above and below it.
What truly made the space remarkable was that it took the form of a perfect sphere. The walls, floor, carpet and furniture were cut with the smooth precision of a laser. Pipes just ended, requiring the building's plumbing to be shut off due to spillage.
"It mostly affected the one apartment?" Adam asked.
"Yep," the officer answered, looking at the clipboard notes she was holding. "It touched on the surrounding apartments but centered on this one. The guy above got banged up pretty bad when the floor under his bed vanished and he dropped two apartments down. It was a lucky thing he and his bed didn't land on someone."
"That's how it was described?" Adam asked for clarification. "Just vanished? No explosion or anything?"
"Some of the neighbors described a sucking air sound. Like in movies when someone shoots out an aeroplane window and the air goes rushing out."
"What about the apartment's occupants? Any other significant injuries?"
"Just the one man who dropped two floors was hurt badly. There were some minor injuries amongst the other occupants, but not many. We've been tracking down residents, making sure they're either here or otherwise accounted for. The only one we couldn't find was the sole resident of the apartment that had occupied the center of the missing space."
"It happened in the middle of the night," Adam stated what he knew. "The poor sod is probably in the same place as the rest of his apartment. Do we have a name?"
"Yeah, it's..."
She checked her clipboard again.
"Jason Asano."
With their sweep through the manor house, the group completed their mission. The cultists were dead, and they found plenty of documentation pointing to the main cult.
"So, these people were only a local branch?" Jason asked as he rifled through a closet.
"That's right," Kaname answered, opening a chest of drawers. "It's called the Red Table. They're only weak in remote areas like this. Core membership takes higher-ranked adventures than us to deal with. And if we'd known Cressida Vane had hit Silver rank, we'd have prepared better, if not outright turned down the contract."
Farrah added, "If the Adventure Society had known it would have been included in the contract. Possibly bumped up to a silver rank contract. We had no way to know."
"Still, I made a mistake that nearly cost us our lives. If not for Jason here," Kaname chided himself.
"You can't plan for everything Kaname. Besides, we proved that the three of us could have taken her if we hadn't been sold out like that," Gary commented with mix cheer and anger.
They decided to remain at the manor overnight before leaving. Jason was able to explore -leaving Kaname, Farrah and Gary to talk alone- and was surprised at what he found. Rather than the medieval technology he was expecting, magic had been used to replicate amenities from indoor plumbing to lighting to refrigerators. The horrors found in the cannibals' kitchen were as bad as the larder.
Jason was looking for clothes better suited for the desert than his combat fatigues and would help him blend in with the locals. The local fashion was big on loose fits, letting airflow combat the desert heat.
Once getting a feel for the clothing he'd conjured a suitable set, he took a hot shower, the water flow and temperature controlled by a pair of crystals. After he stepped out feeling refreshed, he put on the new clothes. The top was lightweight and breathable, fully covering the arms and with a wrap-around hood to shield the head and face from the sun. Gary had worn something similar for their previous trek across the desert. The rest of the outfit was loose pants and practical desert boots. Underneath were the silkiest pair of boxer shorts he had ever encountered.
He loved how perfectly his clothing created by his omnificence ability fit. Like they were professionally tailored for him. Plus, the savings he'd make in never having to buy clothes again.
As for his old clothes, he just willed them off using the outfit tab. Jason played around with it, creating several outfits from the clothes he had created. He put together a few extra outfits, creating more sets for them.
The most interesting part was when he changed outfits. Switching gear-sets shrouded his body in dark mist for a brief moment, during which the old gear was returned to the inventory and the new gear appeared on his person. He switched rapidly back and forth between outfits to try it out. The dark smoke lightly tingled his skin.
Night-time found Jason laying on a bed, staring at the ceiling. He was exhausted after the strangest day of his entire life, but his mind refused to retreat into sleep. That was nothing new to him, having many sleepless nights where he just drank and screwed his way into unconsciousness early in his career. Desperate attempts to forget the horrors of his greatest failure that got several good men and innocent children killed.
He eventually got past that terror and adjusted to life as a soldier, the killing and horrors that came with it. Though, he still had his bad moments over the years. Every time he'd lost a soldier under his command or saw something truly inhumane... like what he'd seen and experienced today.
There was an added level with what Cressida had done to him. The torture alone was enough, but the display of overwhelming power was what really crushed him. It'd brought back the helplessness of the -at the time- love of his life cheating on him with his older brother and the magnificent disaster of his first deployment. But those moments he found a way to overcome that helplessness through training, discipline and experience offered by the military.
Jason knew that he could do that here, in another world filled with superhuman magicians and gods. But it was leagues beyond what he could comprehend and that wasn't taking in the Astral entities of the Abidan and Vroshir. One that he was now bound to and another that had an agent already here. The very one that had accidently summoned him from Earth to the hedge maze.
His instincts were screaming at him that he'd just been pulled into a shadow war between the two most powerful organizations in the multiverse. Which sounded like a preposterous plot from a Marvel or DC comic. Those pieces of fiction didn't end well for the pawns used at the lower levels, like himself.
More realistically, pawns in black ops were often cut loose, ending up imprisoned or outright slaughtered once their usefulness came to an end. For all he knew, the Abidan was using him for a specific task and would dispose of him once he completed it or failed in doing so. Hell, they could very well be the bad guys working in disguise for all that he knew.
Jason couldn't simply trust the information Gordon had dumped into his mind -painfully at that. His newly minted soul parasite had even admitted that he only knew what the Court of Seven had bestowed him.
The only thing he knew for sure, was that Gordon was loyal to him and him alone. They were connected in a way that couldn't be undone. His death would mean the Ghost's death and Jason could feel the piece of the Creator. Its feelings, concerns and even how at this very moment it was distressed at Jason's worries and doubts.
Gordon wanted to try and dissuade him of his distrust of the Abidan and the Creator but could feel how much he needed to process it on his own.
It was all too easy to push those concerns aside when having to survive man-eating magical cultists and monsters. With the danger dealt with and left alone with his thoughts, Jason couldn't help but crawl down the well of twisted plots and manipulations. The danger he was thrown into, the convenient powers and soul weapon offered to help him survive said dangers and the repeated awakening stone from divisions of the Abidan.
The only solace he could find -beside the magic powers and dual pistols- was that when he felt Gordon inside him, he felt warmth like the light of a benevolent God. A piece of an unimaginable power that swelled with rightness and order that fought back the foul corruption of chaos. A power with so many elements of existence that sung in harmony with his soul: Protection, understanding, life and even death.
Gordon and what he came from was good.
So, it could have been worse and now he would have to focus on getting stronger. Strong enough that he wouldn't be helpless to the next Cressida to come along. To handle whatever mess he'd just been sucked into and had willingly gone along with out of necessity.
Despite his hatred of being used and manipulated, Jason had signed up for it -although, the scales were heavily weighed against him. He was here, this was real, and he had to move forward while dealing with all the headaches that were bound to follow.
Shoving off the covers, he opened his inventory to throw on one of his new outfits.
The group had claimed bedrooms in a row on the top floor. A shared balcony connected all the rooms, each accessible through French doors. Jason opened his set of doors and wandered out. He rested his hands on the balustrade and looked up at the sky. In a massive field of stars, a pair of moons shone bright, one half-moon and one crescent.
"I'm adrift in a sea of unknown powers," Jason muttered out, "with no sense of where solid ground awaits."
"A poetically accurate assessment of your situation," Kaname's voice came from behind.
Jason turned to see the fully geared Kaname emerging from his own room. He walked over and joined Jason in leaning on the balustrade.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Jason asked.
"I'm on watch," Kaname responded. "We're certain we got all the cultists, but they've surprised us before. We're rotating turns through the night."
"Didn't want me to take a turn?" Jason inquired.
"Honestly? No."
"Understandable," Jason chuckled as he wouldn't trust a random stranger either. Even if he did save him and his team. More so after having been caught due to a betrayal from what was supposed to be a trusted source.
He turned his gaze back to the sky to see a massive black cloud, darker than the night obscuring the stars, "Rain clouds?" He dismissed that possibility as he felt as if something was staring down at him with a judgmental gaze. With sudden realization, Jason turned and faced Kaname with a raised brow as it felt like his aura.
"It's my familiar's ability to strengthen and extend my aura," Kaname answered as a pitch-black koi fish appeared over his shoulder.* He then petted it fondly as he continued, "Kurohime's physical form was destroyed when I was captured but I always carry the materials to resummon her. With my dimensional bag back, I performed the ritual as soon as I could."
The skill book knowledge in his head informed Jason that summoned familiars required a ritual to summon astral creatures to serve as a familiar. Gordon confirming that, so he just nodded his head at Kaname.
"So why aren't you sleeping?" Kaname asked, his floating fish familiar seeming to splash into thin air, disappearing from his senses. "I would have thought you'd be out the moment you hit the sheets."
"Everything that happened today just keeps running through my head," Jason explained. "It brought back painful memories and a part of my life I thought I left behind me. Once more ending peoples' lives and bathing these hands red." Jason looked at his own two hands contemplatively.
"You were impressive today. We'd be dead if it wasn't for you."
"It's not really the killing that bothers me," Jason replied while lowering his hands and looking back out at the scenery. "I saw their larder and kitchen, killing them wasn't just a good deed but a necessity. We did the world a favor getting rid of them."
"Then what's the problem?"
"I... I enjoyed it. I missed the action, the exhilaration and the satisfaction in saving people. Putting down evil pricks like the Vane family."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Kaname replied. "Most adventurers, including me, feel exactly the same way. It's part of why we're adventurers. I've seen a lot of adventurers. Most you can teach, but some will never have what it takes. Others..."
He patted Jason on the shoulder.
"...others take to it like it's what they were born for. I don't know who you were before, but you've got the stuff, Jason."
Jason sighed. "It doesn't feel like I've got the stuff you're talking about anymore. When I first woke up here, I had no idea of what was happening or where I was. I didn't think any of this was real. The best explanation was that I'd finally gone mad, and it was all in my head."
"You thought I was imaginary?" Kaname asked.
"By the time I met you," Jason informed, "I was past stopping to contemplate. I fell back into my honed instincts and skills to survive one deadly situation to the next."
"You certainly arrived in rough circumstances."
"Impossible circumstances, from my perspective," Jason clarified. "The fighting and killing to stay alive wasn't anything new. Even finding myself in a strange place surrounded by people wanting to kill me is something I'm used to. But everything in this place is impossible. Where I come from, there's no magic, no elves. Definitely no awesome dog-men named Gary. Monsters are just myths and metaphors. Stories we tell ourselves about the dark corners of our own nature."
"But now you believe it? That all this is real?"
Jason nodded. "It's all real. This experience has been too long and too coherent, even with the concussion. Any explanation that makes sense in my world doesn't fit. At least, none that I know of; Hallucinations, madness, dreams. The ability to muster even a little bit of logical detachment implies that they aren't the answer."
Jason sighed again.
"If nothing else," he continued, "there's just too much going on for me to have come up with all of it. I don't have the imagination to have thought up all this. I mean, broad strokes, maybe, but not all the little details."
"Well," Kaname replied, "now that you've accepted it, what comes next?"
"I need to get solid ground underneath me," Jason answered firmly.
Kaname raised a brow at him.
"I'm going to join the Adventure Society you told me about," Jason said with a frown.
"That would be for best, and you have what it takes," Kaname whole-heartedly agreed. "But I'm sensing some doubts from you. What is it?"
"I was trained to be a solider of my country, to defend it from threats both foreign and domestic. It's my world's equivalent of adventurers, I guess. Shortly after my first deployment... uh, seeing real combat in unfamiliar lands and messing it up in spectacular fashion..."
Jason stopped as he reflexively rubbed the scar over his eye as the painful experience flashed through his mind. "'The best learned lessons are the ones you can't forget,'" Jason somberly stated.
"I've found that to be too true," Kaname agreed with a tone that matched Jason's. Most likely going over his recent failure leading to capture and near slaughter of him and his team.
"After that eye-opening tragedy, I put my name forward for the SASR... an elite warriors' training program. I was eventually accepted and passed, even getting additional training to be an officer, a leader in charge of other Snake Eaters."
"Snake eaters?" Kaname asked with a sidelong glance.
"A nickname for my country's most elite combatants," Jason explained with a chuckle. "We don't actually eat snakes... though, there was this one time when Jobo got a little too far into the plonk..."
Jason smiled and shook off the memory of his corporal nearly choking to death when he tried eating a raw snake's head whole. He ended up vomiting on Sergeant Khan when given the Heimlich. Nick had torn into his hide nonstop over the next month as she assigned him the worst tasks, like latrine duty.
A smile mixed with various emotions crawled up Jason's face. "I lead a special unit that excelled in hostage rescue and often dealt with situations that were off the books."
"Off the books?" Kaname said in confusion.
"Uh? Unofficial missions that our government could deny they had any part of. So that if we got captured, we'd take full responsibility for our actions. Usually being marked as a mercenary group or criminals instead of loyal soldiers carrying out our orders."
"Why'd they do that?"
"There are evil individuals and organizations that are too connected to the powers of my world to be taken care of openly. The type of people that arm terrorist organizations and sell people like a commodity. Even dictators that slaughter their own people to keep them in line. Truly, the worst of the worst that made sure they couldn't be targeted by countries strong enough to destroy them through blackmail and bribes."
Jason looked over the scenery as he contemplated on those times. "On those missions we ended a lot of bad people and their organizations. Becoming close, like a second family along the way... losing a few over the years. Then..."
Jason's entire demeanor became grim as went silent and leaned onto his forearms on the balustrade, looking down at the ground.
"Then what happened?" Kaname asked.
"I lost someone very important to me. Family back home. One I regret not spending more time with, putting my career before them."
A few minutes of silence stretched before Jason continued, "I left the ADF -the military. I felt like they were taken from me for all the lives I've taken over the years and I suppose guilt. I'd seen enough death. So, I tried living a normal civilian life, but I only fell into a deeper depression, drinking a lot more and taking random ladies to bed to drown it all out."
Jason straightened up as the grim pain of his past mostly fell away, a bit still lingering in his eyes. "Eventually, my very persistent older sister slapped some sense into me and helped get my life together. Got a job and started living again but I still felt incomplete, muddling along."
"You missed what you left behind," Kaname stated with absolute certainty. "Being a... soldier? An adventurer was what you were meant to be. What gave you meaning... purpose."
"Yeah," Jason agreed with a pained smile. "But... I feel like a monster for missing that life more than the loss of Tyler."
"You fought not only to live but to save me, Farrah and Gary -people you didn't know or owed any loyalty to- despite your past suffering and all the madness you woke to in this world. That fire to do what's right is ingrained into your very being, Jason. You did the hard things that needed to be done to stop the bad people in your world. All to save the innocent people who didn't have the power to save themselves, right?"
Jason nodded his head in acknowledgement.
"And you didn't hesitate to do the exact same thing here in this world," Kaname pointed out. "You did the hard thing and killed those cultists and saved us. And who knows how many others. You saw what was in that larder downstairs. They've been doing this for a long time. If we hadn't stopped them, they'd have killed us too, and plenty more after. Whether or not you accept it, this is what you're meant to be."
Jason couldn't argue the point.
Kaname looked over at Jason, then back out at the dark clouds of his familiar and his aura. He could feel everything underneath it, even what was hidden. He could feel the magical arrays around the Vane Estate and even the underground chambers beneath the manner. Only gold rank and above entities or items could hide from this ability. It was how he could feel Jason's emotions and see the conflicting nature of the man. The guilt covering the bright beacon of a just warrior like a heavy, inky cloak.
"I'm an adventurer," Kaname stated. "Being an adventurer can open every door, give you everything you ever wanted. Power, money, respect. Travel the world, see amazing things. Nine days out of ten, being an adventurer is the best thing you could possibly be. But on that tenth day, that's the one when you earn all the others. When you make the hard choices, when you walk through fire so no one else has to."
Kaname turned to Jason, giving him a weary smile.
"Has it made me callous?" Kaname asked. "Yes, it has. Has it cost me sleep? Absolutely. But there's a whole lot of people sleeping safe and happy tonight because of me and people like me. I saw that you have already experienced this for yourself even before you told me about it. I wouldn't begrudge you for choosing to give up making those hard choices again to live a safe and happily life like them. But think about what you did today. How, even when you didn't have to, you chose to make those hard choices and took control of a horrifying situation. The safe and happy people don't get to do that. When fate comes for them, they need people like me to stand in its way. That's fine; it's what I'm here for. But I can tell you're the type of man that wants to control your own fate instead of people like me doing it for you."
Kaname took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before he continued, "I won't lie. In this world, the only way to do that is to become an adventurer like we are. Doing so will be just as hard, if not more so, than being a soldier in yours and give you more sleepless nights like this one."
Kaname's words struck such a cord because it was all true.
{You are a Guardian,} Gordon privately stated into Jason's mind with the surety of the rising sun.
"What do I need to do to become an adventurer?" Jason asked, his resolve firmed.
"We can teach you," he answered, "but you start by absorbing those awakening stones. Before everything else, adventurers are strong."
Kaname pushed off the balustrade, "I'm going to patrol around a little. Try and get some sleep, we can get into the details in the morning."
He walked off and disappeared back into the manor leaving a conflicted but happy Jason. For the first time since his son died, he felt whole again. There was a lot to do before he was back on stable ground and an assortment of unknown challenges awaiting him, but he was finally moving forward again.
Out in the vast Astral was Iteration 001: Sanctum.
The central planet of Sanctum was so covered by one city that every landmass shimmered silver and gold from orbit. Pockets of green here and there were carefully cultivated gardens designed to keep the planet in balance, though tourists tended to prefer visiting astral spaces or other Iterations if they wanted to explore wilderness.
Floating obelisks the size of skyscrapers hovered in orbit; dormant as orbital security hadn't detected any threats. Even so, they were tiny pebbles compared to the massive techno moon that orbited Sanctum. The Creator, ever present since the founding of the Abidan was a comforting presence for all those that inhabited the central world of all creation.
The most prominent structure was the Hall of Judgement complex, located so that it was always underneath the Creator. The Hall itself was a shining golden tower on an artificial hill, a palatial structure that existed to radiate confidence and security throughout the Iteration. In most worlds, it would be large enough to hold an entire city within it.
At the golden apex of the Hall of judgement there was a center room with seven tall silver-and-gold spires that loomed over a cage at the center -the Seat of the Accused. Each was a marked seat meant for each of the Judges.
Suriel's seat was marked with a spread-winged phoenix.
Ozriel's marked with a crescent-bladed scythe.
Adriel's marked with the Creator.
Durandiel's marked with a thick tome that had an ever-shifting pentagram on its cover.
Telariel's marked with eight stylized legs.
Zakariel's marked with an hourglass.
Gadrael's marked with a three-pointed shield.
The first seat to be filled was by Suriel, the Phoenix. She was a celestine that had transparent grey ghostlines coming from her head, twisting down her right arm to terminate in her fingers. She wore seamless white inch-thick liquid armor that coated her from neck down to her toes. There was a meter long blue steel bar clipped to her waist, the sealed form of her Asauchi Pajikamisori (Purging Razor) capable of erasing anything from existance, usually diseases and corruptive beings such as Fiends, Hollows and Arrancars. She has long luminescent emerald hair and matching expanded irises that took up most of the sclera.
The next seat was filled a nanosecond after the Phoenix by Durandiel, the Warlock. She was an ebony skinned human woman with strong features, full lips, extremely short black hair that just barely covering her head and brown eyes that had a complex pentagram in the pupils. She was dressed in purple battle robes with strategic armoring, flared collar, a pendent around her neck and an armband wrapped around her upper left arm made of enough void energy to tear apart a black hole.
Third to arrive was an elegant, high cheeked, platinum blond elf gentleman in a silver and black tailored three-piece suit, a cane with intricate webbing etched into it and glasses. Glasses that he adjusted upon taking his seat of Telariel even though he had no problems seeing. In fact, he could see nearly everything across every Iteration at once. The silver frame glasses held enough energy to outshine a hypernova in each lens, significantly boosting the Spider's sight.
Adriel had appeared at the same time as Telariel. He was an Eliksni but was unusual for his kind as he only had two arms with massive pauldrons, four large spider legs and his body was largely replaced with Siva nanites and tech. He was also the largest of the Judges, standing a solid six meters tall. He'd experimented on himself back when he was a lower-level Builder, taking the nano-machines from the underpinnings of reality and infusing them into himself. The results had been mixed but ultimately successful, leading to the addition of Siva Nanites into Builders becoming their racial ability, enhancing their abilities to build physical reality. The mutations being much less severe than Aksis's own.
Gadrael was lounging comfortably in her chair, most likely having arrived in the space between the Spider and Builder's arrival. The female lykonid had fiery fur, rune covered heavy armor that contoured perfectly with her lithe body and seemed to shimmer through multiple phases. There was a buckler attached to her left forearm, her sealed form of her Asauchi Kyukyoku Tate (Ultimate Shield) and was the absolute means of protection in all of existence. Nothing, not even Aizen the Darkness has been able to even scratch its Bankai form. Not to say anything against the durability of the Titan on her own as her cartilage was denser than most stars and she could effortlessly create defenses that could shrug off world scouring attacks.
Ozriel's appearance was ushered by a cleansing breeze that erased the tiniest speck of dust from the entire Iteration. He was an olive-skinned human in his shihakusho that was somehow more flamboyant with the mantle of the Reaper streaming behind him like a boiling cape of shadow, and white hair running down his back in great contrast to the darkness he wore. His face was held in perpetual smirk and his blues eyes twinkled with humor. His Asauchi: Horoukingu Kama (Hollow King's Scythe) that could wholly erase an entire Iteration in a single swing, sealed form was a broom of all things.
The last to arrive was Zakariel, the Keeper, the fastest being in existence and manipulator of time. Though, in the Exo's defense, he had a passenger that he dropped into the cage of the accused. Exo were a rare self-aware humanoid machine race that require a world that was both magically dense and technologically advanced. An extraordinary combination as most worlds that were high in magic didn't see the need to advance their technology.
He had light aqua blue eyes, a horn poking out of the top of his cloak and his light armor had spade motifs that matched his signature hand cannon Asauchi Supedo no Esu (Ace of Spades). He also had various hidden blades all over his person.
He currently held the gun that could one-shot a world into an asteroid field and warp probability to always land, the barrel smoking. Zakariel blew the smoke away and declared grandly, "One Vroshir lacky, only slightly burned. No substitutions and I will not take it back to the kitchen."
Durandiel pinched the bridge between her nose as she chided, "Can you please, for once, be serious, Zakariel. This is an official judication."
"Oh, come on, Ikora-"
"Durandiel," she corrected the exo man.
The Keeper sighed and shook his head, "You need to relax a little. Those wrinkles are getting bad."
Ozriel cut off a snort as the rest either rolled their eyes or groaned at Zakariel's typical behavior.
"I don't have wrinkles," Durandiel harshly refuted. "It's not even possible for beings such as us to get wrinkles."
Telariel cleared his throat in annoyance, "Enough of the prattle. We have a job to do, and I have more pressing business needing my attention. Take your seat Zakariel."
The Keeper huffed, turned his back towards the court and fell back like into a chair, giving the accused a wink. He disappeared mid fall in a flash, reappearing in his seat, hands folded behind his head and feet crossed.
"Let this court procession begin," Adriel stated, clicking noises following his words.
"Shako, the Defiler of Iteration 407," Durandiel started, "You stand accused of aiding the Vroshir in pillaging worlds."
In the cell was a pale freckled skin man with red hair and glowing green eye that were stabbing daggers at the Judges. He was currently bruised and bloody, bound by script and his mouth sealed with a rune carved metal band.
Gadrael waved a hand and the clasp holding the metal band over his mouth unsnapped, with a subtle release of power that echoed silently through the courtroom. The artifact was capable of keeping even a Judge from speaking. Most beings once reaching silver rank didn't necessarily need to move their mouth to speak, or even air, but the band worked on a conceptual level. It bent reality itself to make speech of any kind impossible. The lines of shifting rune script worked in a similar manner but sealing off all magical powers; racial, essence and transcendent items such as an Entropic Seed all while having enough force behind them to fuse multiple universes together.
As the seal was undone, Durandiel continued, "How do you stand?"
Shako spat, "Shut your blighted tongues, tyrants! I refuse to be judged by the likes-"
The diamond rank Vroshir's rant was cut off as the band was resealed over his mouth.
"I knew letting him speak would be pointless," Ozriel idly commented while brushing his hair and looking into a hand mirror. "They always just rant and curse. Let's just execute him and be done with this."
"I don't even know why I bothered bringing him in alive," Zakariel agreed, eyes closed and humming to himself.
"There are procedures that must be followed," Telariel cuttingly rebuked, glaring at the Reaper and Keeper.
"Peace," Suriel spoke, a calming aura of restoration filling the courtroom, healing the wounded Shako in passing. "Let's proceed on the contingent that the accused is uncooperative and hostile."
Their respective Ghosts -Presence: mental spirit/construct all non Lightbearing Abidan used, in Ozriel case as he never bonded a Ghost- flooded their minds with a report that was a mix of images, impressions and data. They saw Shako's entire life's transgressions, minus the pillaging of his homeworld's astral spaces as that was within the bounds of the Eledari pact. The crimes that caught the attention of the Abidan was when he started traveling to other iterations and started building and guiding Vroshir on worlds whose population hadn't accepted Entropic Seeds. Most often with force or manipulation until they were a world-spanning organization dedicated to tearing away physical realities for the Darkness.
"All those for Guilty," Durandiel raised her hand despite the fact that they could mentally express their thoughts to one another, but tradition held sway.
It was a unanimous decision as they all rose their hands alongside the Warlock.
In a millisecond they conversed with each other telepathically, arguing over the mid-level Vroshir's punishment.
"We find you guilty. You are sentenced to Intrinsic Suppression and two million years in the eighty-fourth level of Haven," Durandiel declared, reality shivering with her words.
Shako went even paler, shivering in fear and if he could have, would've killed himself but the bindings holding him were too powerful. Intrinsic suppression would strip him of all his essences, racial abilities and power gained from his Entropic Seed. An excruciating and permanent act that would leave him crippled forever, damaging his very soul as the Entropic Seed was fused to it.
The accused was hopelessly trying to scream as a portal of multiple textures of blue appeared under him and teleported him away for his punishment in Haven.
"This proceeding has come to end," Durandiel finished. "You're all dismissed."
Despite the Judges' oath complete and were able to go none left the room.
"Let's skip the formalities and just get to the point, shall we?" Ozriel started.
Seeing his contemporaries just nodding their heads, the Reaper continued, "Iteration 111 is quickly reaching its tipping point. It won't be long before its destroyed and the backlash shreds Iteration 110."
"The place of your birth," Telariel pointed out accusatorily.
"Yes, 110, Pallimustus is my homeworld," Ozriel conceded. "So, yes, I am more motivated to save it than the rest of you, but I've stayed within the bounds of the Eledari Pact."
"You're suggesting that the first outworlder to end up there from Iteration 111 in centuries just so happened to end up near a Vroshir acolyte?" Telariel scoffed. "And happens to be conveniently placed to save individuals researching your old Order of the Reaper organization. One of which has your blessing, an Asauchi and is related to one of your order's strongest members."
"That's currently working to open up an astral space you stole from the Vroshir," Durandiel added.
"Sheer chance and he hasn't even been approached yet," Ozriel defended. "He was also blessed with your racial gift as well."
"And the other members of your order that just 'happen' to be nearby," the Spider added with a scowl, ignoring that Kaname Remore had received a blessing from him too.
"The family there is an outlier that branched off out of love," the Reaper waved off. "One guy who hasn't even inducted his children into the order. He's not even a real member anymore. The young woman actually has no knowledge of her family's severed ties to the Order. As for the astral space... a coincidence."
"Like the hidden remnants of said organization suddenly, out of nowhere, recruiting in mass again," Gadrael snarked with a razor-fanged grin.
"Exactly," Ozriel replied innocently. "I mean, it's not like someone gave a certain death goddess a hint about a certain secret allied organization needing to increase their numbers for what was coming. That would be unethical." His eyes were twinkling with mirth. "But still not a violation of the Eledari Pact as interacting with our respective Gods is within the bounds and they weren't told why or what was happening to warrant such an increase."
Zakariel chuckled at the disgruntled looks on most of the other judges' faces, "Good one."
"It's pressing on the very limits of the pact," the Warlock scowled at Ozriel.
"No more so than giving a mortal a Ghost," Suriel added helpfully, "And all those racial gift evolutions, awakening stones, an Asauchi and my own tablet."
"We all agreed to the racial gifts, essences, the awakening stones, the Phoenix's token and even the inclusion of an Asauchi as they were made on Iteration 110," Telariel replied before turning a disapproving look at the Builder. "But we never agreed to a piece of the Creator entering a mortal reality."
"That was the Creator," Adriel replied defensively with some clicking. "It changed the token we crafted to include a Ghost." He paused to let out a few more clicks before continuing, "It was a freshly created one and I made sure it didn't have any prohibited knowledge or access to our archives."
The courtroom went deadly silent as they couldn't believe that the Creator took direct action in well... anything. It made world seeds and Ghosts for the Abidan but the only times it directly acted was in forming the Eledari Pact with the Abidan and Aizen's betrayal. The Great Astral Being only involved itself in truly important matters.
"That... changes things," Zakariel said in an oldy serious tone.
"It does," Durandiel agreed. "The fate of these two intertwined worlds must be more important than we ever predicted. What can you see Telariel?"
The Spider's glasses were shining brightly as he delved deeply into the Fate of both Iterations and Jason Asano.
After a few more second, which was an enormity of time for Telariel in checking fate, he answered, "Not much I'm afraid. The chaos of the Darkness has always been strong in those Iterations, confounding my sight. He made them, the very action that broke the tenants of the Builder and gave away his underhanded schemes. We honestly should have had the Reaper destroy them as soon as we discovered what Aizen did to them."
"We've been through this before, we are not destroying them," Suriel scolded the Spider. "I will not allow the deaths of billions just because you don't like having your vision obscured."
The elegant elf huffed before replying, "They're abominations that should have never been created. The Darkness tried sculpting life in his designs and for all that we know, every being that comes from them are parts of his overreaching plans."
He didn't hide the accusation at the current Reaper's addition to the Court of Seven. The only one in the entire history of the Abidan to not have bonded with a Ghost. The Spider distrusted and hated Ozmanthus so much that he was one of the very few that refused to bond an Asauchi.
"If you have a problem with me, then try and remove me," Ozriel grinned coldly.
"Don't tempt me you overgrown man-child," the Spider sneered.
"You're just jealous that your predecessor chose me over you when looking for his successor," Ozriel mocked. "If I hadn't chosen the Mantle of the Reaper, you wouldn't even be here."
"You-"
"Enough," Gadrael snarled. "Stop antagonizing the Spider, Ozriel. And Telariel, your accusations are unwarranted and unprofessional. He was, as we all were, thoroughly examined by the entire Court of Seven. Now tells us what you saw."
Telariel looked like he'd swallowed a lemon while Ozriel grinned triumphally, but he still answered, "All I can see through the chaos of those mistakes, is 111's destruction and a decimated 110 being their likely fate. There are a few dime fates of 111's survival but even then, 110 is caught up in a prolonged war."
"What of the first mortal Lightbearer, Jason Asano?" Zakariel asked, still somber with the serious nature of the discussion.
"He's at the center of their respective fates but I can't entirely see how," the Spider reluctantly admitted, muttering about chaos and the Darkness's foul experiments.
"Due to the unexpected intervention by the Creator, the unique circumstances surrounding the creation of the two Iterations and their uncertain fates, I suggest we be more proactive in monitoring the situation," Durandiel proposed. "We won't break the Eledari Pact," she added, forestalling Telariel's retort.
"Then what exactly are you proposing, Durandiel?" Suriel asked in her melodic voice.
"That we aid Asano however we can within the bounds of the pact," the Warlock explained. "Racial gifts, awakening stones and even essences to him or any allies he makes. I leave the judgement of what and when to each of you."
"That's... acceptable," the Spider replied.
"I don't want to agree with snooty pants," the Reaper chimed in, "but I'm more than willing to be more active in helping the mortal. He's very skeptical, analytical and takes to death like a fish to water. He'll make a great reaper one day."
"I change my mind," Telariel groused. "We should just wash our hands of the whole thing. We've done enough. The crisis was instigated by beings of those worlds and isn't our responsibility to fix."
"A god given knowledge and tools from Aizen the Darkness is outside intervention," the Keeper argued. "We should have done more."
"The Reaper often works with Death gods from various worlds to help maintain the balance of souls," Adriel reminded Zakariel. "So, the Darkness was within the bounds of the Eledari Pact by contacting Purity."
"A god that shouldn't exist," the Spider pointed out in disgust. "That mistake of an Iteration is crawling with Transcendent beings that should never have been. Only the ones that touch on the fundamental aspects of reality are the only proper gods."
They all nodded their agreement as only Death, Life, Knowledge, Hero -an alternate version of protection, Time, Fate and Healer were designed deities of physical realities that had enough magic for them to manifest. Nearly all high magic worlds had a version of them. The rest, often nonsensical gods and goddesses existed only on Pallimustus due to Aizen's experimental adjustments to the Iteration.
"Yes, but they're part of the underpinnings of 110's existence and thus falls under the Eledari pact. And the tools used were already there," Suriel added. "Back when he was the Builder, Aizen left them there clearly for this purpose. By choosing not to destroy both Iterations upon finding out what he'd done to them, we left such an opportunity open for the Darkness. I even fortified 111's dimensional membrane to prevent its destruction, further allowing the modification to their connection to be made by mortal hands."
"We all played a hand in 110 and 111's current predicament," Durandiel clarified. "Whether from direct action or inaction we are responsible. Even if some of those decisions were made by our predecessors," she directed towards Telariel and Gadrael.
"In your face, Spider," Ozriel gloated.
The Spider glared daggers at the Reaper, reality rippling in response to their hostility.
"But we can't let the Reaper flood his home with power at his own discretion," the Warlock added, greatly cheering up the Spider at Ozriel's afront.
"I'd never," the Reaper unconvincingly refuted, a hand held to his chest as if struck.
"That's why I propose Suriel oversees this endeavor," Durandiel stated. "We can all put as much effort as we each feel is necessary, but the Phoenix has to approve any actions taken."
"Seconded," Adriel agreed.
"All in favor?"
Everyone but the Spider rose their hands.
"Then it's decided," the Warlock declared with the authority of her mantle. "Suriel, the Court of Seven gives you the authority to dictate the terms of how each division intervenes in Iterations 110 and 111."
Are you serious?" Detective Adam asked incredulously.
"Detective Sergeant, this matter is not a concern for the Victoria police. It's a federal issue," a federal police woman replied. She had a nicer suit than him and with her stern features and short-cropped hair she radiated professionalism.
"It's an apartment building where you claimed there was a simple accident. How is that a federal crime?"
"It will go better for everyone if you don't go around asking questions like that, Detective Sergeant."
The apartment building had been evacuated of people, on the basis of structural instability from the damage. Now, a small army of forensics people had claimed a number of the apartments as set-up areas and were crawling over the interior like ants.
Adam was in a ground-floor apartment where the federal police had set up a command post. Their goal seemed to be to create as small a visible footprint as possible, although they were having little success. The displaced residents and rumors spreading were all made worse by the media, which had already been present. The military had been conducting one of its unannounced terrorism readiness exercises nearby through the night, part of a new program that was starting to draw press attention.
The local police had been directly and explicitly instructed to completely remove themselves, outside of the uniformed officers being used to secure the exterior of the building. Adam might have left it at that, if the explanation hadn't been so absurd.
"You're seriously going with a gas explosion?" he asked flabbergasted. "A gas explosion in a building with no gas service, blowing a perfectly spherical hole with no debris and a blast area that completely annihilated everything up to a point and then completely stopping dead. An explosion that no one heard, despite being in a building full of people."
"Detective Sergeant, we have already asked you nicely to leave this matter be. We highly recommend that you move on and do not give this incident any further thought. Otherwise, we will have to move on from asking, the ramifications of which will fall directly on you and be unambiguously negative."
Adam glared at the woman, "Are you threatening me?"
"Yes, Detective Sergeant. You need to forget all about this incident, or you will find the weight that drops down on you from a very great height sufficient to squash you and your career like a bug."
Adam glowered. In addition to the feds, there were military personnel and some less conventional people busying themselves. There was a group talking quietly amongst themselves that Adam's trained eye picked out as not being law enforcement or military. There suits were too expensive for a state job outside politics, and everyone gave them a wide birth. From the look of things, their presence was wholly unchallenged, unlike his own.
He turned to leave when the federal agent called out, "Detective Sergeant."
"What?"
"I need to know that you won't interfere further."
"I'm leaving, aren't I?"
"You need to tell me that you understand. I want to hear you say it."
"And I'd prefer not to have smoke blown up my arse," Adam retorted. "We don't always get everything we want in life."
"Detective Sergeant, I'd better not hear that you've been talking to the media. And if you do, I will hear about it."
He left, not bothering to respond.
*Yes, the words by Kaname Tosen in Immanent God Blues.
*Kurohime, Masamori's familiar from Kekkasishi.