NOVEL WEB Ch.69 – Ascension (pt.1)
POV: Aradra
Lyndvrath was exactly as Aradra remembered her: elegant, beautiful, seemingly fragile but with that sense of unstoppable cosmic power that, had Aradra still possessed human skin, would have sent a cold shiver down her spine and raised goosebumps. The Goddess of Beauty and Dance rose from her throne and approached Aradra with light steps, the multiple gold and gemstone trinkets around her ankles jingling with each movement.
“How long has it been?? Okay, it hasn’t really been that long... but let me see you!” she exclaimed excitedly, closing the final distance between them with a few graceful jumps. She grabbed the lizard-monster under her arms and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather. “This reincarnation really did you dirty... oh well.”
'Don’t spit acid. Don’t spit acid. Don’t spit acid.'
Lyndvrath set Aradra back down, “Now that we’re in this dimension that’s all mine, we can talk freely! So, I imagine the first thing you want to know is how to become more beautiful...”
Aradra shook her head, “Velen. Tell me what happened to Velen.”
“Oh, that Guardian Spirit,” Lyndvrath murmured with a puzzled tone, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend the attachment between Aradra and that little entity now close to its end, “it was Slaarvin who reduced her to this state. The little one must have fought to the very last to protect you and Gornowayl.”
Aradra’s small claws began to itch, as if she needed to find something to tear apart, “Ssskkk...” a sort of reptilian growl escaped her black lips, “and how did this being got to her?”
“I believe Velen used her powers illicitly, and Slaarvin somehow noticed it. He probably knew that Gornowayl was onto him, so he took every possible measure to get rid of him,” Lyndvrath shrugged, “Now Gornowayl is in the Gray Zone; he’ll be out of action for quite a while.”
Aradra wasn’t really interested in what the Gray Zone was or what had become of Gornowayl; maybe she should have cared since the God of Heroes was on her side, but the truth was that beyond her closest friends, the rest of the world was becoming increasingly irrelevant... a weaker and weaker signal on her moral radar. “I imagine you want something in return for the help I suppose you’ll offer.”
“Not at all, I just want to stop Dyenna,” Lyndvrath chuckled and shook her head, “The Nightmare Tyrant’s prophecy was just a little game we of the Divine Court invented to see what the mortals of Tala would do; it was a pastime.”
Aradra was stunned, “You’re telling me the prophecy is fake??”
“It was at first; people made it true,” Lyndvrath corrected her, “the problem is that Slaarvin is working to turn it into something worse than just a story about a future tyrant who will conquer the continent, something that could threaten the system as we know it today.”
Aradra gave a small smile with her reptilian lips, “So you’re telling me you’re worried about your own safety and don’t want anything in return for your help.”
“Of course! It’s not certain that something bad could happen to me, but why take the risk? If this were Gornowayl’s doing, we wouldn’t be at this level of danger, so obviously someone needs to take his place and help you before it’s too late!”
“And I’m willing to accept your help, but first, I have to ask you something...” Aradra took a deep breath, “I need Velen. Is there a way to save her?”
Lyndvrath shook her head, “There isn’t. The vessel of her essence has been shattered. The only thing you can do if you care that much is go to her and stay by her side until all her essence has poured out, and she disappears.”
Aradra lowered her head and began to open and close her hands repeatedly. She had to fight; she couldn’t give up. If she gave up and threw in the towel after all the progress she had made, all the suffering she had endured would have been for nothing. She tried to think for herself since not even the gods wanted or could help her in this regard... Lyndvrath had mentioned an essence that was spilling out from a shattered vessel, could it be that...
“...a container?” Aradra muttered aloud, “If the problem is that Velen’s container is broken, isn’t it possible to place her essence into another container?”
“How absurd! As if you could find an empty manaquin and transport it all the way to your little friend to allow her to possess it!” Lyndvrath grumbled in exasperation, raising her head and arms toward the ceiling. “Listen: the world will undergo unpredictable changes if we don’t do something. Can you focus on the important things instead of wasting time trying to fix a broken toy?”
More pieces seemed to fall into place in the puzzle Aradra was assembling in her mind. She touched her chin, behaving as if she hadn’t even heard what the goddess said after a certain point, “Seething Forge, I bet those manaquins are there.”
Lyndvrath was taken aback, “Y-yes, but... how do you know that dungeon??”
Aradra vaguely remembered that Velen had told her something about the gods being able to see others’ sheets. However, during her time on Tala, she had realized that the gods had unlimited powers only in theory, while in practice, there were various limitations that prevented them from being comparable to the gods of Earth’s main religions... she couldn’t be sure, but it might be that if she didn’t draw Lyndvrath’s attention to her sheet, she could hide the fact that a dungeon had granted her a forbidden Feat.
“I was trapped in the Sleepy Swamp dungeon for some time, and after exploring it, I killed its core guardian and visited the core room,” Aradra replied, clasping her hands behind her back and puffing out her chest, “We didn’t talk much since it seemed incapable of staying awake and paying attention, but I managed to get it to tell me how I might be able to free Velen from her spatial limitations.”
“So that’s what Velen wanted when she saved you. How cunning of her...” Lyndvrath murmured, a mix of indignation and admiration, probably having a soft spot for creatures that dared to defy the impossible. “Yes, if you could retrieve a manaquin that hasn’t been possessed by Mana yet, you might be able to save Velen by transferring her into that manaquin... however...” Lyndvrath crossed her arms under her chest, “Seething Forge is at least ten days’ journey at a sustained march. Velen has at most three weeks left to live. You won’t make it in time.”
‘If only my wings were bigger and stronger...’ Aradra thought, finally realizing that fighting against time in this case was a lost cause.
The goddess then smiled at her and placed a hand on the lizard-monster’s shoulder, “But this is something I can help you with.” And when Aradra raised her head again, the Goddess of Beauty and Dance winked at her, “It’s time for these two halves of you, which are trying to merge so crudely, to receive a little help to become one with grace and without conflict.” She giggled, “Get ready, I’m about to make you ascend.”
“Really?? But I don’t think I’m powerful enough yet to do that!”
“We’ll use a method that no longer exists. Many millennia ago, it was the trend, but then it was abandoned by the system, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to perform though if you have the right access to the system and the required clearances,” Lyndvrath replied. “But be careful: if you fail, the result will be the same as with any other method, and if you succeed... you might gain enough levels to be able to run or fly to Seething Forge in time to return to Velen.”
“Then there’s no doubt; let’s do it right away!” Aradra responded, raising her fists and clenching them decisively.
“That’s the spirit!” Lyndvrath exclaimed with a laugh, lowering her hand from Aradra’s shoulder. “First of all, you need to get rid of these rags and return to your monstrous form.”
Aradra decided to comply: she removed the clothes she had used to pass herself off as a pilgrim and then returned to her quadruped form, a shape she no longer hated as she once did, as if it had become something as natural as being human. Lyndvrath knelt down and placed a hand on her head.
“I need you to lie down. For your body, this will be a bit like sleeping, but you must close your eyes and stop thinking about anything, stop thinking about Velen, stop thinking about your friends, stop thinking about your worries... free your mind of everything.”
Once again, Aradra did as she was asked, hoping that Lyndvrath wasn’t deceiving her.
“Good, now try to follow the trail of my Mana. I will guide you on the right path, but only you can follow it to the end.”
Aradra needed to take her time to succeed in this part of the ascension ritual; her mind kept being disturbed by thoughts and memories, worries about the future, and the fate of her friends. She took more deep breaths, and finally, she managed to maintain the black void in her mind long enough to somehow see the trail of Mana that Lyndvrath was leaving inside her.
She had no body at that moment; everything that constituted her was the simple amalgamation of her personality and nothing else. She walked with the feet of thought along the trail of Mana, which appeared as a faint strip of white light that grew stronger as she continued to follow it... at a certain point, it became so intense that she was forced to shield her face with a mental arm as she walked against the light, feeling its resistance.
Then the resistance vanished, and Aradra opened her eyes.
She found herself in a landscape that was very familiar to the Tamara side of her... it was the alley where her home was located in a world and a time that now seemed almost like an elusive dream. Everything around her varied in shades of gray and black, except for the sky, which was scarlet like blood, and almost a third of its space was occupied by a gigantic orange sun that towered over everything, casting long shadows on the ground.
“Lyndvrath? What is this place?” she asked, suddenly feeling too exposed for her liking.
No answer, after all, the path to ascension can be shown, but only the designated traveler can follow it to its end...
