"So, Nyssa, are you feeling up to heading out today? There's no rush if you think you need another day."
"I think I'm fine. All that I'm feeling is restless and sore — two problems I'll fix by getting back in motion." Confirming my intent, I move over to where my pile of gear has remained for the last few days. It feels strange, going so long without ever even wearing the undersuit, but I haven't felt much of the anxiety I normally do being without it. Irrespective, though, I will be happy to put it back on.
I pull on the two halves of the bodyglove on after removing the last of my other sleepwear and packing it away in my carryall alongside the other clothes Serafina bought me. All it takes a quick pulse of essence to the runes on the seams and it becomes the perfect, seamless seal, tightening up any slack and ensuring it hugs me tightly all over in a way I've always found very comforting, even without the additional plates.
"You?" I ask.
"Me? I was fine to get traveling the day after we got here. Thanks to you I didn't put much wear and tear on my leg and the doctors ministrations saw it recover quickly. I'm more than looking forward to getting back. Not least of which to follow up on this anomaly. With luck, by the time we're back, Garrick will have sent word along." She finishes her statement by sealing her own undersuit with a small spin and flourish as she looks herself over.
I find myself staring dumbly for a moment or two before busying myself with snapping my armor on piece by piece in a series of satisfying clicks and clacks as clamshell pieces close or solitary plates snap into place. I top it off with a heavier all-weather cloak that Serafina bought me — a very nice, if utilitarian, black furred thing that's been reinforced with some sort of large monster scales. It matches my armor fairly well — which I assume has to be a deliberate choice coming from someone who actually has fashion sense like Serafina.
"Good, then. We should make good time. Watcher Above knows that the roads will be safer and faster than all of the drek that we passed through to get here. No anglers by the roadside." I press my helmet to my hip to secure it with a quick pulse of essence. Looking up, Serafina has made her way through her lighter armor set and donned her armored robe. I look a bit closer and see that both the armor and robe have sealed the holes left from her redirected ray. The material is notably discolored from the rest, and directly inferior, but it serves well enough to prevent an obvious weak point in the armor. Monsters are generally clever enough to identify things like that like that little goblin finding a segment of my plate it could stick its knife into.
"I'll hold you to that. I don't think I could carry you the way you did me — my gear is given over to essence enhancement and Ignia certainly isn't my thing. Try to not almost die again, again." She give me a big smile before drawing her own carryall up to her back and grabbing her crystal-tipped stave. "Ready!"
"Need a few more moments. More killing implements to account for. Gotta make up for your lack of them" It's very true. As far as I've seen, Serafina doesn't even carry a secondary weapon of any kind. But then again, with such potent spellcasting, she can probably manage just fine in most circumstances.
But, I will stick to my methods. My ability to project magic has always been starkly limited compared to anyone with a similar level of development. Another biological concession to my birth “defect" that I've come to adapt to. Perfectly fine with hermetic magic or pushing my essence into things directly, but hecatic magic like throwing around rays and bolts? Basically a non-starter.
Pushing that thought aside, I look at my gear. Knives, some more knives, and even a couple knives have done quite well for me, all things considered. Setting aside situations like Serafina said were entirely out of my control, at least.
I snap my last brace of throwing knives on — the one with the odd-knife-out to replace my broken one — and bounce in place a couple times to stretch and make sure there's no inconsistencies in my fit. And, as always, everything settles just fine. The weight sits on me like a second skin, feeling more natural than most clothes. "Done. Let's get moving. The way to Kharbon will have waystops every day or so of travel, so we should be fine along the way."
We thank the innkeeper on the way out, and Serafina insists on paying for our stay after being told it was complimentary — and pays the man easily ten times what the room is worth for the trouble.
Which sees us set off on the road heading towards Kharbon — the only road leading out of the town that is reasonably well traveled. It's cobble and gravel paved and maintained by the crown, and makes for easy travel because of it, allowing us to spend the next few days unmolested by any sort of monsters — even the weather cooperates aside from generally being cold as sin with winter fully falling in the last couple days.
It snows somewhat regularly, ensuring a steady buildup of light, powdery, snow. Enough to make suspicious noises easy to pick up in the sound-dampened air. Irrespective of that, though, I keep my helmet on most hours of the day just to be sure, but the closest we ever get monsters for the first half of the journey are some vampire bats that Serafina kills by detonating one from a distance with a bolt of some esoteric essence or another. I don't think I've ever seen a spell turn something to stone before making it explode into shrapnel before. I've only heard of a particular type of monster — Gorgons — that are able to do that sort of thing. But I've given up on trying to identify what she has access to — her ability to condense and shape essence is hilariously beyond my own that it's not even worth questioning. And it will remain that way. I'm just glad she's capable enough to not need to worry about constantly.
We come upon a waystop on the penultimate week of travel — the same one I stopped at to rest when I got attacked by the creeper. It looks terribly damaged. The wall facing the road has been filled in as well as possible with rubble, but the damage is quite evident regardless. There's about a 6-foot-wide section that looks like it collapsed and scattered scorch marks on the building. All around there's signs of heavy fighting in general that I'd not really consciously noticed. A couple trees that look like the needles were all burnt off, sections of roadway that look like they were torn up by spell blasts. All around, there's signs of long-dried blood, as well.
All told, it paints a pretty clear picture of a serious battle. "What do you suppose happened here?"
"Well, if I had to guess, someone got the drek beaten out of them and apparently gave as good as they got. Too much varied damage to be a small scuffle between inexperienced fighters or simple monsters." She closes her eyes, extending her stave forward with both hands tightly gripping it. "One moment, I'll check the area."
I watch as a mixture of purple and gray essence starts to collect around the stave tip for a few moments while amplifying runes along its length ignite to focus ambient essence along with her channeling as she sweeps it through the air to gather as much as possible to fuel her spell. It leaves me staring, mesmerized. Actual dedicated hecatic magi, evokers, have always been wildly impressive to me.
I know full well that it's not inherently better than what I do, but I do long for the versatility of it, or at least for my own things to be a little more visually impressive.
She announces two words and taps her stave to the ground.
[Extrasensory Perception]
The end of her stave bursts, sending dense blobs of an almost periwinkle essence out in a geometric bubble away from her, each one feeding a wandering stream of essence back to her stave, which concentrates the streams and feeds it into her head as a denser flow. All around me, the pleasantly familiar scent of a newly opened book fills the air. Behind her closed eyelids I see her eyes darting around as small micromuscle movements appear at seemingly-random as her spell runs its course.
I look around, trying to take in the area for myself using my senses and the enhancements of my armor, but the wealth of essence in the air seems to be drowning out the filtering runes on my helmet, so I settle in to wait as the blobs move farther and farther away until they dissipate in a series of snaps and a rush of essence returning to Serafina.
She opens her eyes slowly as she exhales the light purple essence as an expended mist. I just give her a quizzical look, quirking a brow. I know the intent of the spell — that's fairly clear — I'm curious about the results and the methods.
"No Monstrum essence within a mile of here. And none lingering within that distance bonded to anything. Whatever happened here happened at least a couple weeks ago — elsewise there would be remnants."
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"That's very useful, I might need to learn how to do it. If possible."
"In time, anyone can learn anything and do almost anything. It's just a matter of practice and effort, but until you know how to compound Cognitio and Sonos to further compound those two into Sensus, you're going to have a hard time. You could accomplish a less involved effect with your Aero essence, though, with far less effort. We could work on it if you'd like."
"It would be a big boon, especially traveling alone — which makes me curious, what use do you have for it?" I gesture to the waystop and start to head towards its entrance. It's not insecure, just fairly ugly, and loads better than sleeping under the stars.
She follows, "I'm not always so lucky as to have such a devoted knight to follow me around. So I use that spell to track monsters wherever I plan to rest for the evening when I'm moving between cities for my duties or for tasks related to my family. Visiting other branches of the Vigil, that sort of thing."
I swing the gate open and let Serafina in before closing and locking it behind us. The sun is falling behind the distant mountains, and night is going to come on swiftly soon and I'd rather not have any monsters poke their heads in like last time I was here.
As soon as I step in, I find Serafina looking at a note on the wall, stuck in place with a glob of something green. Definitely allhesive. A common glue carried by freelancers that is strong enough to repair just about anything — even weapons — temporarily. But the repair aspect is only one of the countless uses for the stuff. Being able to bond anything to anything is something where the sky is very much the limit.
“What’s the note got to say?”
Serafina turns at me and gives me a weak smile. “What was the name of that girl you saved?”
The question catches me badly off guard, such that I momentarily forget her name and have to think about it. “Uh, I think it was Ayre. Why?”
“Well it seems that she's responsible for the damage to the way stop and left the note as an apology. They fought some nasty monster and, much like you, she apparently felt the need to apologize for the fact that she and her friends had to defend themselves.” She fixes me with a wry smile that quickly dissolves into thoughtfulness, an idea clearly coming to mind. “If she was traveling with people capable of causing this sort of damage, why did she need your intervention?”
I have to shrug, “I saw her companion only briefly and they didn't seem terribly impressive. That, and she said she just never fought people before — maybe she just wasn't sure because of that; it's not like killing people is anything anyone does lightly.”
“Makes sense. Well at any rate, she seems nice. Maybe we’ll run into them in Kharbon at some point. With how you made her sound, I would like to get a look at her to get an idea of what, exactly, she is.” Serafina trails off, settling into thought as we both set about unpacking for the evening.
Over the next hour, we both settle in, getting a fire started with some wood that's stored inside for travelers and setting up for the night.
I'm mostly sitting, watching the fire, since Serafina said she would take care of food, but after a while of quiet contemplation, I come to a decision. Serafina has been good to me. The least I can do is try to be open about things.
"So, can I explain that cultivation thing to you now?"
Serafina looks up from stirring a travel pot after tossing in some seasoning into the mixture. The seasoning sends up a small puff on contact that releases the smell of smoked meat and some sharp herb into the air. "You don't have to ask permission, but I'm more than happy to hear it." She makes a conscious decision to hold the eye contact between us for a few moments, making a show of paying attention until I start talking again.
"I guess the simplest way to say it is that I watched what happened to my Ekraas, my mother, because of it. She burned herself out pushing herself far above and beyond her limits to protect me." The word comes easily despite my having not said it in probably fifteen years, even falling back into long unpracticed vocal inflections to sound it out. "I…watched the aftermath. I had to to make sure the Sanctus could be transferred right. I needed to be the nearest person, otherwise it would have dissipated and probably been lost forever. Which…after the fall of the isles, would have been a total loss. My understanding is that she was the last wielder of it left. Everyone gave up their fragments of the power so it could survive after our peoples' death at the hands of those things. To concentrate the power as much as possible and prevent it being gained by the monsters."
I pause for a while to keep dredging up things I've tried to not think about for nearly two decades in order to shield myself from the pain. "The responsibility has been weighing on me since that day. Even setting aside the obvious trauma involved, I know that I have something that is irreplaceable and it's functionally all that I have left of them. I have her journal, his jewelry, but they're just things. I never had any attachment to them." I let out a shuddering breath. Trying to find the will to say the words. "Varaan, my father, always told me how important it was to practice with the Kings Will, Sanctus essence, but since I've always struggled to wield it at all, the idea of trying to consume it, or any other kind of essence, for power terrifies me. What if I do it and I go back to how I was before May helped me get my first breakthrough? What if I use the Sanctus wrong and it goes away? People train for their entire life to wield it — and they did it under experienced wielders of it. I haven't had any of that. I could do it wrong."
I just get very quiet, letting the rambling explanation fall off. I haven't thought of my parents this directly in a long time. I barely even remember what they looked like. My father had ashy-gray skin, I think, and my mothers was closer to pink. I don't remember what their horns looked like, even.
These memories have stopped making me cry or feel sad for a long time now. They just leave me feeling hollow. So I pin my eyes closed and try to push away the feelings — to shove them back where I've kept them. Behind a dozen-foot-thick wall of duty and a healthy dose of disassociation from those events. Hidden away in a locked cabinet with everything else.
After a while, Serafina seems to decide that I must not be planning to say more, "Yeah, I can definitely see why you reacted that way when I asked. Thank you for sharing, Nyssa, I know that opening up these past few days hasn't been easy, but I'm thrilled to be able to relieve you of some weight." I hear her stand and move over to sit next to me on the bench, so I open my eyes to see a bowl of stew wafting a delicious herby aroma my way. It makes me reconsider my norm of only ever bringing travel rations. But only for a moment.
"Here." I take the bowl and take a mouthful — it's divine. I can't help myself but let out a pleased sigh with each bite. Inbetween bites, Serafina just regards me with a thoughtful expression, clearly contemplating. "So, let me ask you this, Nyssa." I turn to look at her and see a deadly serious look on her face that's magnified by her eyes peering into mine. I nod for her to continue, "You've given me some ideas I want to explore, but I need to know if that's what you actually want. Because I don't want to force a "solution" on you if you're not interested in it."
It gives me pause, so I think for a minute before answering. "I need to be honest. Every fiber of my being says to say no. To…run from this."
"That's entirely fin-"
"But," I let the word hang and make an apologetic face for cutting her off, "I would be a fool to turn down guidance. I feel like there's a reason everything happened and I've wound up here for this discussion. I've always felt guided by the Watcher — not because I'm special, but because I've always been devoted my entire life and I've learned to embrace those moments. I think this is one of those moments. Or at least the consequences of one." I exhale some tension, "When I came back from that disaster of an expedition, it could have been any Blackthorn who received my report. Would anyone else have chased me down across the countryside to see me well?
"I guess what I'm saying is that I think this is the help I've been praying for for the better part of a decade. And turning it down would be spitting in the face of The Watcher for giving me exactly what I've asked for. Sorry for cutting you off." I pin it to the end, once I finally get to the point.
"Don't worry about it, I think it was important that you did. I know I can be a bit overzealous with backing down — as strange as that is as a concept. More?" She gestures to the still simmering pot before ladling some more for me. "So, my ideas, then. I need to do some research before I present them. I don't think I was ever made aware that what you have is inherited. And that gives me some theories I need to work on. In the interim, I want you to take a vacation."
"But the calamity is—"
She cuts me off with a stern look, "Still in the wind, with no sign of changing anytime soon. Unless we make it to the keep and hear that Garrick has both found and killed it, then practically speaking, the range of space it could be in at this point is approaching continental — larger, even, if it could negotiate with people to secure transport. Being weeks out of contact and no overt signs of regional essential instability, it could be most of the way into Kaymar, or making its way to the opposite side of fae territory, on a train to Asu, or any number of other places.
"That aside, though, I want you armed as best as possible if it comes down to you being the one who has to go toe-to-toe with it. In its last known state you could have beaten it forwards, back, left and right and walked circles around it if you had been in better condition. It's seemingly consumed two incredibly potent creatures, and I don't want to lose yo-" She pauses, looking away for a second and coughing once, politely. I opt to do the socially correct thing and pretend the flub didn't happen. It was just a slip of the tongue, no point embarrassing her about it.
"Your loss to the Vigil would be astronomical — the world losing access to Sanctus essence as a whole would similarly be huge blow — not to mention the singular loss it would be to your people. My research is going to take time, during which the Vigil is going to be on high alert for this creature as much as we can without starting a mass panic. So, whether you're at the keep, or operating abroad, you'll be of equal odds of running into the calamity — possibly even better, because I doubt it would come anywhere near Kharbon. Furthermore, do you want to fight a calamity when you are, self-admittedly, not in the best mindset recently? If I can figure out your essence problem and you can clear your head, there won't be any doubt in my mind what the outcome will be. Yes, you can talk now, sorry." She exhales performatively with a small smile.
"I cannot disagree with any of that."
"I'm well aware, I only try to pick fights that I know I'll win." The wink she gives me is the most playful thing I think I've ever seen her do and it leaves me questioning exactly how I feel about her again.
I do need a vacation, I guess.