Luca DR
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Edge 146
🕑 Added 2023-11-27 17:21:37 +0000 UTC146 – Ritual
With the important talks out of the way, it was finally time to proceed with giving Lina back some semblance of power. It didn’t sit well with Albert to see her so diminished, and even though she was hiding her emotions on the matter it was evident that she was very uncomfortable.
“Lina, it’s your turn.” He said without preamble. For a moment the woman in question looked like a deer caught in the headlights, a confused-frightened expression on her face.
In moments she schooled her face, and understanding dawned on her features. She got up and gingerly walked to him, looking frail and timid as opposed to the strong, independent and stubborn adventurer he had seen when he first met her. To the side, Scrappy loudly encouraged her. Albert’s heart melted a little at seeing the little girl cheer for Lina, and he resolved himself to doing anything in his power to make sure the ritual went right.
Hopefully Lina would be back to her old self, perhaps even stronger, very soon.
“What do I need to do?” She asked.
Albert tapped his chin. “Nothing much,” he said. He had come up with a sort of ritual to perform to make sure he could extract as much power as possible from the various cores he was going to use. “Just stand here.”
***
Lina was led to a new area of the clearing that wasn’t there before. It was like it had appeared out of nowhere and nothing. One moment there were hedges all around, the next moment a new protrusion had formed, the hedges had moved and a new circular space had appeared. In the center of this space was a ring of stones with runes carved on them. She couldn’t read them, but they looked very intricate and accurate, although dull in the early morning light.
“They are ideograms,” Albert explained, then continued in a mutter. “From that one time I decided to study Mandarin Chinese. Thought I would put them to use.”
He directed her towards the first of the runes, and she noticed that they were carved in the stone in a manner that would allow some sort of liquid to fill them, like in a ritual. For a moment she feared she would have to draw blood, but Albert only smiled at her.
Abruptly he sliced open his palm and his blood flowed into the rune. Not guided by gravity, but floating neatly and precisely into the carving, without a single drop being spilled or wasted. Lina gasped at the suddenness of the movement, so fast as to almost appear as a blur. She must have jumped back without noticing because Albert looked at her with an amused expression.
“Yours, mine… it doesn’t really matter in the end. All that matters is that we make a sacrifice.” He said meaningfully. “Remember, the bigger the sacrifice, the better the result.”
Once he was done filling all the runes, which took less time but more blood than Lina had initially thought, he moved onto the next part. She was still kind of dazed by the first part of the procedure, stunned at seeing so much blood fill up the runestones and the stoic expression of the half-elf who must have emptied a good portion of his lifeforce for her like it was no big deal. Without a word, as was his usual, he gestured and several pedestals appeared.
They were all evenly spaced around the center of the ring of runes, creating a sort of outer ring of shimmering forces. Upon these force pedestals Albert placed many cores he pulled from his tattered clothes, more than he should have been able to fit. Lina shook her head at the thought. Impossibilities were the norm with him.
There were eleven cores in total. Ten of them were a deep, rich blue that glowed with the inner power of mana. The eleventh one was red, the deep crimson of the dream from which Lina was rescued by Albert not two days ago back in the cave. She shuddered. The sole thought of that dream, or rather nightmare, was enough to make her want to curl up and cry.
Albert, however, seemed completely oblivious to her suffering. Behind him, however, she Scrappy was cheering her on.
Lina thought back about the speech Albert gave her back in the mind realm, and gradually the way she looked at his focused face changed. He was still oblivious and uncaring of her suffering, but she was seeing it in a different light. Puzzle pieces fell into place. The talk he gave her this morning also came to mind.
He was a man guided by the desire to save a world that was no more. She thought about it. About his loneliness. About Scrappy, and why he might have saved her. Perhaps he was searching for companionship, perhaps it was pity.
Then Lina thought about what happened in the cave. There, he had saved her from herself, even when she didn’t want to be saved.
Where once she would have been disgusted, annoyed, angered at seeing someone disregard her emotions and feeling so thoroughly, especially after showing just how empathetic he could be if he chose to, now she found solace in the icon of strength and reliability that was Albert. An enigma, an unknown, a force more powerful and unpredictable than should be possible even with magic and yet…
“We are ready.” His voice brought her out of her musings.
He handed her the final core, the Doom one, deep and crimson and bloody. It was heavy and ominous in the palm her hand, the dark energies spilling our like a fog and calling to her, nurturing her fears and speaking unspeakable things in the deepest recesses of her mind.
I must resist. She thought to herself, steeling her mind against the incursion. She wondered, briefly, if Albert was even aware it was happening. He had been handling the core just fine all this time, unperturbed. Did he know? Was the power of the core so beneath him that he didn’t even notice?
Lina decided she would not be any less herself. She owed this to him.
The voices grew dimmer as if in response to her steeling of her will.
“Now for the more… holistic part of the process.” Albert spoke. Lina found herself standing in the middle of a field of colored forces, a vortex of crimson and blues.
“Ten parts Mana, one part Doom.” Albert said, and his voice deepened until it was like the chanting of a priest channeling holy magics. “You will nurture them, grow them within yourself.” He paced, keeping himself outside the vortex yet directing the energies with his voice. The magic trembled with each syllable. “Three icons we found in your mindscape. Three pillars of your identity.”
Lina didn’t know what was happening, nor did she know what he was talking about. Yet, she found herself entranced.
“A winged ruby emblazoned with gold, swinging a sword and a spear of crystalline power. The symbol of royal strength, the desire for righteousness, the willingness to spill blood. The weapons are a tool, the wings are a bestowal.”
Solemnly, he stopped. The energies responded.
Then he paced again.
“An octagon of ice. The geometric representation of order, of absolute cold, of structure. Pulled from my memories as much as yours, the desire for what is right made manifest. A statue of imperfect blue ice is called in the moment of need, to protect and to attack.”
“And finally, a crimson throne surrounded by a forest of impassive statues of blood. The meaning is clear. Wherever you call your domain, your servants shall appear. Servants made of the blood of your enemies, of their lifeforce, retaining their skills but with their wills broken.”
He raised his hands, his voice echoing. “Oh Lina, you walk the path of pain and war. Your pursuit of valor and justice is absolute, yet hypocritical. You break men and beasts alike to see your will done. You stop at nothing. Compromise nothing. There is only one path: yours.”
The wind, which had picked up sometime during the speech, stopped. The vortex dissipated, and a rush of power like nothing she had ever felt before entered her. She gasped, but in the sudden silence only Albert’s words had any presence in the world.
“And so be it.”
With a snap of his fingers, it was done. Lina collapsed. The last thing she saw before she fell into unconsciousness was Scrappy’s proud face hovering above her like she wanted to lick her or something. That, and something she had never seen before in her life. A message window.
Pseudo-system interface active.
One-time message: skill description. Courtesy of Jeff.
Skysworn Justice. You are the embodiment of your own sense of justice. With a partial activation, you can summon ethereal wings to dash at your foes and to aid your movements, and you can wield crystalline weapons in the form of a sword and a spear. A total activation will grant you flight, armor of gold and ruby, and 500% increased speed and reflexes.
Frozen Order. You summon a construct of ice that follows you, shooting enemies with shards of ice. If you are about to receive debilitating damage while the skill is active, the construct will enter desperation mode while you will turn into a statue of ice and gain immense strength, defense and damage reduction at the cost of 90% of your speed.
Crimson Throne. After gathering sufficient life-force through any means, you can summon a throne to sit upon. While sitting you are invulnerable but cannot move. You will gain the ability to create and control statues of blood that echo anyone whose life-force you used to summon them.
