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CH 70: Ghosts
🕑 Added 2024-12-30 15:00:00 +0000 UTC^+ Nyx +^
Nyx screamed as pieces of herself tore and intertwined themselves with Reid. They melted and melded in an agonizing and beautiful display of high magic and soul alchemy that would've made the pinnacle mages at Zoenuth Academy sing and cry in revelry.
This was the single most difficult thing she'd ever done - in all her years. She forced herself to stay aware and focused throughout the torturous task. Hours blended to days, and days to months. Time was an old friend - and she endured its passing. The pain, she could do without. Her work was slow, and methodical, and permanent.
If she failed at this, it might still wake up Reid - and would just consume her in the process of doing so.
She would rather get it right.
#
#
It was fun - the things that stayed with you long after your corporeal form was gone. Nyx took deep - imaginary - breaths at the culmination of her efforts. All told, it had taken nearly a century to complete. A hundred years of pain and progress, working and reworking herself and her connections to make things as seamless as she thought they should be.
At the precipice of her efforts, she paused.
This next part could fail in a number of ways. Some of them would end up with Reid just as dead as he was now - and she'd be in the same trapped position as before, with fewer options and the permanent loss of parts of herself to keep her company for the rest of time - or until she chose to stop absorbing energy and let herself fade.
If the system didn't recognize what she'd done as legitimate, there would be difficulties in trying anything else. And, if it did recognize things the way she wanted, but she hadn't re-worked Reid's pathways perfectly, the influx of energy could make his body explode - or violently and unpredictably transform. She could die in the process of trying to control the influx of energies, or lose focus and get herself killed through a lack of talent.
The worst possibility was that the collective could still be looking for her - or rather, for the dog that had gotten off of its leash. She didn't want that sort of attention, and neither did Reid.
Nyx made a mental note. If this worked, she would need to slow-roll a massive amount of information to the man. What little of the outside messages she'd been able to decode let her understand that she and Reid had powerful enemies that would see them both destroyed if they got an opportunity to do so. There was also the minor issue of the amount of time that had passed, and the new rules of planet Earth that had doubtlessly come to the fore as it went through post-awakening milestones.
Nyx took an imaginary sigh. She was over-planning. Delaying. She let the sparks resume their mission, and called out to the system with her request. 'Hey, person owed their experience energy here, fork it over!'
She felt the pinch of analysis for only a moment, then the rush. The massive amount of energy that abruptly forced its way in was like an ocean shooting through a straw. It flash-filled the connections and passageways she'd designed and slammed against the barriers. Everything happened all at once, and there was so much to do. She stopped the flow from burning out Reid's skills, then corralled it away from trying to enter his control stat. It wanted to find a home, to settle and be absorbed. Nyx restrained and guided it with her will, to act against its very nature. She let it pool, and circulate.
Nodes of her design lit up as pools accumulated, and energy swirled through circuits and over old passageways.
Reid's mana pathways had never been robust - and neither had his mana pool. Nyx's work had all but replaced each millimeter of his internal system specifically for this moment. The energy flowed and filled the pathways, but it still didn't bridge the gap.
It had to be so close - so what could stop this? She flitted attention over and through every section of Reid. There wasn't much time to waste or the same energy that promised a new beginning would burn both of them.
The answer was her - or, rather, through her. One more loop that she could make to force the design to activate.
It would require a band of the volatile experience energy to route itself directly through Nyx.
She'd been ready for death. This might kill her, or it might not. It would definitely suck.
Nyx grabbed the river of energy and pulled a band of it into her, and out the other side.
Her consciousness exploded and reformed continuously as the burning torrent scattered her very essence.
She pushed the band further down towards its destination, in the moments of clarity between her self reforming and disintegrating.
The band connected, and the loop hummed. Sparks were absorbed and flowed and circulated. Energy raced along newly-invigorated channels, and moved in sync with the body they occupied.
Nyx's feat was perfect, and transcendent.
She let herself rest as the transformation took hold.
+ Reid +
A grand forest stretched into the wilderness. Thick trees rose high into the air and blocked out most light. The only sounds there were wind and moving water. No birds nested there, no monsters roamed or burrowed, and no insects flitted through. They had long learned to steer clear of the area, and the instinct to avoid it was now passed down between generations. Nestled at the center of this quiet zone was a graveyard that hadn't seen a visitor in centuries.
Stone statues depicted the end of a grand battle, monsters and defenders preserved in a somber, final dance. The monster statues stood pitted, often crumbling, dirty and stained. The human statues were far fewer, but they were clean and whole – free of the discoloration, stains, and most of the pitting present on the monsters. The disintegrated remains of flowers surrounded a stone vehicle, and pieces of a broken vase were strewn around a central human form, forever locked in a half-grin.
Even the ground here was a layer of stone – petrified in a wide circle that held all the statues within. Weeds poked through cracks at the circle’s outer edges, and the rocky surface was heaved in multiple places where the earth underneath had shifted.
In this abandoned place, under a bright waxing moon, there were no witnesses to history.
A new sound joined nature's chorus of blowing wind and running water - the noise of stone grating against stone.
At the center of the circle, an arm locked in its final strike slowly moved. Flakes of stone broke free and dangled off it like a boiled egg’s shell coming free. One arm hung loose and rested, then the other.
Hands tensed and opened slowly, fingers flexing individually before balling themselves into fists. Toes wiggled, scraping themselves on the hard stone ground. Feet flexed, and legs buckled as the rocky shell around them cracked free, leaving the statue sprawled out on its back.
The statue turned his head and let out a hissing breath before violently coughing up more bits of stone. Its chest heaved as the coughing stopped, and it raised both hands to tear away the stone shell still covering the top half of its face. The shell there was still partly attached, and only with great effort did it start to lift. It breathed deeply and paused when another coughing fit took it, spewing out more small chunks of stone.
Hands returned to the painful task, reddened skin revealed as the shell peeled and crumbled away. The man in the shell shivered. He had no hair, no clothes – no protection from the night air on his raw and exposed skin. He let out a long breath, scrunched up his face, and rolled his jaw.
Then, for the first time in a thousand years, Reid opened his eyes.
#
Awareness blossomed in Reid like waking up from a good nap. He could wiggle his toes and his fingers, felt the scrape of something beneath his feet, and vaguely sensed himself falling on his back. Every muscle was sore like it was both overworked and deadened. His bones ached. He couldn’t open his eyes, and when he tried to groan, it turned into a hacking cough. He laid there for a while before – painfully – prying something hard off his face.
When he looked out, he saw a well lit moon in the night sky above. The air was chilly and crisp like early autumn, and as he stirred, Reid realized he was buck naked. He covered himself as he stood, and glanced around for a good ten seconds to ensure no one was looking at him, then spun in a half-danced circle and let out a pitifully weak "yes!".
His petrification gamble had worked! The salamanders all around him were completely stone, as was the ground, the campers, and all the defenders that had stayed behind with him. But - most importantly - Reid had managed to overcome his skill. He was fairly certain he did it himself, or Susan would've been waiting for him when he woke back up.
Curiously, there wasn't anyone around. Reid expected at least one guard to keep watch over things and make sure he was retrieved once he woke up. At least to get him to a beacon so he could potentially take part in the tutorial... Odd.
Reid didn't see the tutorial's timer in his vision. He didn't see any notifications or messages at all.
He looked around to get his bearings, and became more unsettled with every passing second.
Many of the salamanders were pitted and stained like they’d been out in the rain too long. Some weeds were poking through cracks in the rocky ground, and some of the ground itself had shifted. There was evidence of flowers left in mourning – around the RV with the volunteers, and around him.
Fixing himself - throwing the last bit of energy into his skill to heal against the petrification - must have taken some time. By the looks of things and the wear on the salamanders, at least a year or two had gone by since he turned everything there to stone. If it had been that long, would Sara and Susan still be around this area, or would they already have gone to the Tutorial?
#
Reid slowly wandered over broken stone. He really needed water, or some food. His muscles were weak and aching. Rest was on his mind - but he wanted answers first. His feet carried him towards the beacon. If he was right, touching the thing would add him to Sanctuary's members, and that would hopefully alert Sara, or Marlene, or someone else that was watching.
#
Past the end of the stone was... nothing at all. No remains of the wooden walls. No campers, tables, nor chairs. Only grass, and a small structure that poked out of the ground. Where the beacon should have been, waist-high weeds filled a crater as large as a VW beetle. A polished black obelisk rose out of marble tiles near the crater’s far edge, surrounded by a trio of granite benches. When Reid got closer, he noticed dark bronze lettering stamped into the surface of the obelisk.
His breath shuttered as he read.
This monument and heritage site are dedicated here on the 100th anniversary of Sanctuary’s great sacrifice. May the brave defenders rest undisturbed, knowing they paved a safe path for the future of humanity on Earth.
A long list of names followed, but Reid’s eyes shot to the bottom line.
Sponsored by the Blasdej Interplanetary Consortium. Endorsed by The Great Pathfinder Progenitor, First City Lord of Sanctuary, First Planetary Lord of Earth, her excellency Sara Calderwall.
Reid heaved and braced himself on the obelisk as a wave of nausea hit him.
A hundred years. At least a hundred years.
The information broke his brain. How? Why? What had-?
A new round of nausea saw Reid vomit bile onto the black surface and over the stamped lettering. He tried to wipe it off with his hand.
He stumbled back, and sat on the granite bench. The shock of his... exposed bits touching the cold stone brought some clarity back to his thoughts.
Time had passed - too much time. But he had evidence in front of him that Sara had survived well past the fight with the salamanders. She'd excelled and grown and gotten the title she'd wanted.
With the power - and stats - that implied, lifespans should be longer. Long enough for Sara, and Susan, and anyone else he cared about to maybe still be here on Earth.
Reid shoved down his growing pain and guilt and loss. Feeling sorry for himself did nothing. He was here, now.
He needed to find water, and civilization.
Reid's feet carried him away from the obelisk, and into the forest.
