Chapter 23: Sacrifice – Chapter 21: Roadside Revelations

GamingWolf

The blue-tinted window still hung in the air in front of Arden. The woman responsible for it was sitting on the ground with her eyes closed, seemingly uncaring for her surroundings while Roland was still fussing over the old [Guide]'s apprentice. He shifted his attention back to the notification, still not quite believing what it said. Or understanding what it said for that matter.

You have received a blessing from A̸̵p̴e̢͝r̶̸i̡͏͏̛͢o̧̕͝,̛ ͏̨͟ ̴͡ś̢͟͟͞ˈ̶͞á̷͠k̶̴̢ɹ͝͞i͞҉̛̀͡ː̶̡̢̛̕ ̵̵͞n̡͞͝j̷̷̡ˈ̸̢̧͟u̸̵̡̕͝ː̴̴̀́m̷͟ɛ̧͘͘͟͢n̴̨̕͡ ̴̡͟͠d̶̀͜͞͠ˈ̶̛͝͞͡i̴̧ː̴

Do not disappoint.

The blessing part was easy to figure out; from who it came was harder. The only readable part of it was 'Aperio'. Not that it meant much to him, as he knew of no God or Goddess with that name. Whose name is it, then? Hers? Maybe she is a priestess of some kind.

But why does it say 'Do not disappoint'?

He glanced back at the woman who was still sitting on the ground, ignoring what was happening around her. Arden tried to recall what had happened but could only remember approaching her together with Merius, and them talking in what he assumed to be some Elven language. Then, the woman had turned to him, and...his mind went blank. The last thing he knew before he woke back up was that the air around her seemed to be alive in some way.

Arden was taken from his thoughts by Perian. "You okay? Got some blood on your face." Despite the heavy breaths he took between the words, the Beastkin's rumbling voice sounded calm. In control. After he had received a nod from Arden he continued, "What did Merius say to make her do that?"

"I don't know. They spoke in some language – something Elven, maybe – and once she turned to face me I… I passed out?"

"You did." Perian said, nodding. "She asked if you wanted to fight her, but I think she might have overestimated your strength as well as ours. I didn't know it was possible for a person to do something like this with only their voice."

"Yeah, I don't think I can fight her. Jayren would probably try though, if she really did do that with just her voice."

Perian only gave a grunt in response, as for some reason he did not approve of the other mage of their group. Arden wanted to tell him about the blessing but was stopped when the hairs on his neck stood up and an inexplicable feeling of dread washed over him. When he tried to find the source he only found the Elven woman looking at him with narrowed eyes. She held his gaze for a second longer before going back to what Arden assumed to be a kind of meditation.

Do not disappoint. The message echoed through his mind. Arden did not know what was meant by that, but he was very sure that if he should somehow disappoint the God behind the blessing, the Elf would make short work of him. A thought surfaced on the fringes of his mind, almost lost in the swirl of contradictions it brought with it. What if she gave the blessing?

With a firm shake of his head, Arden dismissed the idea and the window that still hung in the air in front of him. "I need to talk to Roland."

"Something you want to tell me?" Perian asked.

"Once I know what it is, I will tell you."

The Beastkin simply grunted at that and moved back to Merius and the old [Guide], making sure they had what they needed. Arden was happy they had brought him on – the knight had saved them more than once already, and his calm and caring personality was something they needed. Too bad Enrya and Jayren aren't here. The surprisingly knowledgeable thief and enigmatic mage would be a nice reassurance should that Elf – Is she even one? – decide to do more than violently dispense blessings.

Wiping the bit of blood off of his face, Arden stood up. His legs did not feel shaky and neither did his head swim like it usually would after getting knocked out. Maybe getting a blessing heals you? Now I just have to figure out what else it does, if anything. A few quick steps brought him past the exhausted looking mages and behind Roland. The monk was sticking his needles into the young man that lay unconscious on the ground. Roland had once explained what the needles did, but Arden had already forgotten. Something about allowing mana to flow better?

"Roland, you have a minute?"

"Yes. As the Lady has decided to no longer drown the poor boy in mana, I can spare a moment." The man's voice was just loud enough that the woman in question had to have heard it. The Elf showed no reaction, still sitting on the ground, not a thought spared to the rather expensive-looking dress she wore.

Arden lowered his voice to a whisper he was sure none could hear, and also hoped that the sitting Elf could not speak Common. "You, uh, know a lot about the Gods right?"

"That I do my friend!" A delighted smile spread on the monk’s face as he answered. "What can I help you with?" The volume of his reply attracted the attention of everyone around, though only the [Guide] looked like he had an understanding of what was said.

"Please! Quiet!" he urged the man in a raised whisper.

"Something personal then?"

Arden nodded to the monk’s thankfully quiet question. "When I woke up, I got a notification that said I received a blessing, but it was all messed up and I could only make out a bit of the name."

The rhythm of needle-sticking abruptly ceased as Roland turned to face him more fully. "Messed up? How? And what could you make out?"

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He scratched the back of his head. "Scattered and messy. Like it tried to layer lots of different texts on top of each other," he finally said, unable to come up with a better explanation. "As for the name… the only part I could read properly seemed to spell 'Aperio', but I have never heard of a God or Goddess with that name. Can it be that the name of the priest that officiated the blessing shows up?"

Roland shook his head. "No. The System always shows the name of the God that gave the blessing. As for the messed up part... I cannot tell you much about it. I know that some [Appraisers Stones] can produce a garbled screen if they can't deal with the power of the person using them, but I have never heard of the System itself breaking in that way."

Arden turned to look at the woman he now assumed to be Aperio. "I'm certain it came from her. What is she? A Goddess that chose to come out of hiding?"

Roland followed his gaze and remained silent for a few breaths. "I don't know for sure, but I don't think that is the case. Word was given to all churches from their respective Gods the last time the pantheon grew. Even Roots had announced it. It would also not explain why the notification broke."

"Can you at least tell me what the blessing does?"

All he got in response to his question was a short laugh. "You'd have to ask her."

While it was nowhere near perfect, Aperio's control over her aura got better by the minute. At first she had always tried to think of a logical way to make things work, but it turned out that all she needed was to will the mana to do what she wanted. A simple flex of her mental muscles and it obeyed. No complicated formulas needed; to an extent, at least. She could not make it disappear, only move it, and neither could she figure out where it came from. Another thing of note was that, much like how the mana consistently changed her body, her aura was expanding ever so slowly with her as some kind of beacon at its centre.

The Human she had healed had caught her attention a couple of times. He had talked to the Beastkin, mentioning someone named Jayren that would potentially want to fight her. Please do. Her attention had been drawn again by her own mana, which was buzzing around the Human like a swarm of angry insects. She had tried to figure out the cause of such a reaction, but had come up short for the moment.

Then, when he had spoken to the needle-man, the delighted outburst was impossible to ignore. He was rather loud when expressing his eagerness. Better hearing is not always a blessing it seems. Not that it had hurt, but it was annoying nonetheless.

She tried to listen to their conversation, but they had switched back to the incomprehensible gibberish they called their language and the only thing she could understand was her own name. How does he know my name? Did I miss Ira telling him that? She had not been the best at paying attention recently, so it was a plausible enough answer for her liking. Who knows how long they talked before I noticed we had stopped.

Focusing back on her aura, she tried something she should have already done in the ruins. At the time she had not thought of it as she had thought herself limited to creating magic in close proximity to her own self, but with her new knowledge of her ever-expanding aura it was something she simply had to try. A small flame came into existence further down the road, out of sight of any living being that would care to notice. It wasn't as effortless as the times she had summoned one near her, but still easy enough that it required nothing more than a thought. Aperio had the urge to try something bigger, but the last time she had set something on fire she had not felt a thing while her clothes smouldered away. Probably not the best idea.

Snuffing out the small fire, Aperio returned her attention to the people surrounding her. Observing them through the aura and not her eyes was a fun exercise, though whenever she tried to focus on a person they would tense up and look around, as though they were trying to find something. Maybe they can feel it but don't know what it is? She had assumed the mage-looking people would be able to figure it out, but only the Human she had healed had looked directly at her.

Though, admittedly, at that time she was not personally focused on him. It was her mana that had tingled around the man like an alert of some sort, almost as if it was not pleased with whatever he had done. Is it alive? Aperio hoped that was not the case, as she had no desire to become what she had hated for her entire life. She nudged her mana closer to him in an effort to figure out what had caused it to behave like that before.

The man himself showed no reaction to her attempts and, instead of the wild buzzing she had observed before, she saw no change in the mana itself. What she did feel was a faint itch, located at the back of her mind. It clearly wanted to be grasped, to be understood, but it lingered out of reach, her mind only managing to brush past it without gleaning any information from the encounter. Aperio tried again and again, but did not manage to hold onto it.

With a sigh, she eased her mental grasp of her aura, letting the connection dim until it would only alert her if someone came too close. Coming to grips with all the information at her disposal was more mentally exhausting than she expected, and for now she needed a break. Even in this subdued state, the amount and detail of information coming her way was still something she needed to adjust to.

Aperio directed her attention inwards instead, trying to see how the purer mana enhanced her. Feeling her own body, even in a way she had not known to be possible in her days before the sacrifice, did not require anything close to the mental effort the aura needed. She instinctively understood what was going on. What was changing. What the outcome would be.

Not only was her body changing faster than before, but it was also more pronounced. If this continues for as long as I live, won't I break everything by simply touching it? Her concerns were allayed when she realized that the Pantheon was always on the watch. Why would the world make something that would break their creation?

Instead of worrying about the potential harm of her mere existence, she tried to focus on something else, and landed on the river that flowed as calmly as ever through her body. It was, indeed, a soothing thing to concentrate on, and as she observed the movements of her own mana something occurred to her. Is there more than before? She felt like there was, though apparently the increase had not affected her aura much. At least things did not look any worse than before. Is that why I could control it so easily?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt something enter her aura, farther away than she thought she would have noticed with the little control she had kept over it. It was rapidly approaching their group, pushing her mana aside as it moved. The displacement did not hurt, nor was it annoying; it simply told her that something was moving through it. Almost like the bubble.

Reasserting her control, she tried to figure out what it was. Laelia? No, wrong direction. Whatever it was, it was difficult to perceive clearly. Throwing her previous caution about her aura to the wind, Aperio focused, giving the approaching form her undivided attention.

She could feel stones breaking with every step they took. Their mana flowed through their body, reinforcing it as much as it could. Possibly due to her own inspection, she sensed the being slowing down for a moment before continuing on with newfound vigour. Aperio could not see much more, unable to detect anything past whatever the approaching person wore. It was not a matter of a lack of power – she was sure she could force her way in – but she did not know what the person's intent was. For all she knew, they could be a high-speed delivery service. Not that she saw any letters or parcels.

Standing up, she very lightly brushed a bit of dirt from her dress before turning to face in the direction of the newcomer. Ira was about to speak when he was cut off by Aperio's voice. "Someone is coming."

GamingWolf

Mystery blessings for everyone!

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