Chapter 3: Sacrifice – Chapter 3: A Memorable Return

The sudden presence of light after having spent what felt like a lifetime in the darkness of the Void left Aperio blinking. She found herself looking into a small but plain stone room. The overly ornate iron reinforced door, lack of windows and otherwise bleak appearance reminded her all too much of the Empire’s cells, a place where she had come to feel distressingly familiar with over the years. She shuddered and shook off the rising tension of memories that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – allow herself to be drowned in these unpleasant emotions, especially when she didn’t even know where she was.

A faint glimmer caught her attention, and the memories fell away in the face of curiosity. Shifting to face the source of the disruption, she spotted a crystal almost as big as her head. It pulsed rhythmically – almost like a beating heart – bathing the smooth metallic surface of the pedestal it called home in dim, red light. With each pulse, its jagged edges briefly twinkled with a red lustre of something that Aperio did not know but still felt unnervingly familiar. 

Done with her preliminary inspection of the world beyond the rift, she pulled her head back into the Void. Her next actions would need some careful consideration, but none of the options were all that pleasing to her. She could either be trapped in the Void, try her luck in the cell-esque room or try and open a new rift. 

In the end, staying in the Void was the first idea to be discarded. Even if she enjoyed the sense of belonging that it gave her, she simply didn’t know if she would starve to death. While she wasn’t afraid to die again, she did want to take the opportunity the universe had so graciously given her and at least try to live a little.

Taking the chance to open another rift was also something she was not too keen on; the first two times had worked but there was no guarantee it would do so again. The obviously man-made room also implied that people lived nearby, or at least had at some point. Another rift could potentially dump her in the middle of an ocean or in a desert, far from any and all civilization.

Having made up her mind Aperio threw the sphere she still held in her hand as far as she could in the opposite direction, fearing that the portal would close once the ball passed through – like the last one. Wasting no time to see where it would end up, she instead turned and dove towards the rift. Unsure if it would widen enough to accommodate her wings – or if the room was even big enough for their size – she folded them as close to her body as she could before passing through the opening. 

After a brief moment of vertigo, gravity reasserted its control over her and Aperio crashed rather ungracefully. Much to her surprise, she was unharmed. Quite unlike the stone floor she collided with, which now sported a sizeable web of cracks that spread all around her. With a sigh she gave in to gravity and lay there, enjoying the softness of her feathers against her back while she stared at the ceiling.

Whatever happened to her was not something she had expected; death was always supposed to be the end, freedom from her torment. Peace. Instead, here she was freshly escaped from a black abyss of lights and nothing. An odd combination. The small memory of the little orbs brought another thought to the forefront of her mind. 

Where is the light here coming from? Maybe the crystal?

Sitting back up she twisted around but couldn’t find anything that would hint at being the source of illumination. Memories surfaced of restless nights spent in the Empire's cells, where there was no visible source of light and yet bright enough to make sleep elusive. She quickly discarded the theory of the glowing crystal; with its red light it was clearly not the source. Taking yet another look around the room, just to make sure that nothing had changed while she was distracted, her suspicions about where she was only grew.

This one seems more real than the others. It wouldn’t be the first cell with a broken floor she had to live in, or the first time she was used as a test subject for some very vivid illusion magic. Her hand slid across her neck in search for her dreadful ‘companion’, but she couldn’t find any trace of the metal collar. A look at her arms revealed them to be free of scars, just like they had been in the Void. Her hand moved on its own volition and, sure enough, her beloved eartips were present. Everything was as she remembered, even the feeling of boundless energy inside her. 

So it wasn’t a dream? 

With a small wave of her hand and a quietly muttered incantation, Aperio used one of the very few spells that she had been permitted to learn. One of the mages had called it [Reality Check], a very fitting name. All it did was perform a check to see if the target was under the influence of any illusion magic, and the only reason she had been allowed to learn this spell was a certain incident with some 'undesirables' and their disguised weapons. From that point on, someone had to make sure to check the new arrivals for anything out of the ordinary, and who better to do dangerous gruntwork than a slave? Better them than a prestigious mage.

A small smile graced her features as a faint green glow surrounded her, letting her know that no illusion was active on her. None that the spell could detect anyway. Standing up to better dust off her behind and surreptitiously check for her wings she caught sight of the rift and knew then for certain that her experiences had been no dream.

In contrast to the white tear she had seen from the Void, looking back through showed her countless lights dancing across a black nothing; a river of light in an endless darkness. The sight was short-lived as reality seemed to knit itself back together around the rift. A few seconds later all traces of its existence had vanished into thin air.

After a moment of silence, she tore her eyes from the now-empty space and took another look around the room. It had not changed since she had peeked through the rift; the door still looked as solid as ever and the crystal still glittered on its pedestal, undisturbed by her rather violent entry.

Crystal or door? Standing on the cracked floor her gaze shifted from one option to the other, then back again. The odd feeling of familiarity the crystal’s twinkling gave her was something that, in her mind, bore investigation. It was not something she had observed before – of that she was certain – and yet it felt so familiar; almost as if whatever it was had always been a part of her and was now just waiting to be reunited. 

If the door was anything like the ones the Empire had used then breaking out would be nigh impossible, but she felt that regardless of the difficulty she had to try. The real question was what would be behind the door, should she get it open, and if whatever waited there would let her examine the crystal. Nodding to herself Aperio ignored the door and slowly moved towards the crystal, careful not to step on the already broken parts of the floor. Each step she took towards the pedestal caused the pulse to quicken, each glimmer growing more intense than the last. 

If she didn't know any better she might think that the crystal was excited to see her.

But that wasn’t possible. She had seen many crystals doing their work – most of them used on her for some experiment she would never understand – but they all followed the same pattern. Either they served as a focus or a reservoir of mana for a mage. 

Once she was within arm’s reach of the crystal the rhythmic pulsing gave way to a constant, red glow. The edges no longer sparkled; they, like the rest of the crystal, shone consistently, albeit a bit duller. Taking another step forwards and leaning to get a better view of it revealed a thin mist inside the edges that struggled to break free from its crystalline prison. 

That looks an awful lot like what’s inside the little lights. Maybe that's why it feels so familiar? 

Intrigued by her newest discovery, and disregarding the innate sense of caution around anything even remotely magical that had engrained itself within her over years of difficult and often painful experiences, Aperio stretched her arm and brushed her fingers over the smooth surface of the crystal. 

A welcoming warmth spread from the crystal to her fingers, inviting her to hold on just a little longer. It didn’t take long, however, before an insistent nagging in the back of her mind made itself known. One that tried to force her to hold on, to never let go; to acknowledge her new master.

One that made the flesh crawl at her neck where she had previously been bound.

“No!”

The voice that spread throughout the chamber was not what she remembered. It was hoarse, as though she had not uttered a single word in years, but despite this, it carried with power and filled every corner of the room. Aperio wasted no time with idle contemplation. She tore her hands off the crystal, stumbling a few steps backwards in the process, and gave her inanimate assailant a glare that would have given her old guards pause.

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The faint presence in her mind had disappeared as soon as she had let go of the wretched thing; the disgust she felt, however, remained and did its best to remain at the forefront of her thoughts. Disgust soon turned into rage as the former slave was in no way willing to surrender her newly found freedom to some twinkling excuse for a crystal.

She unconsciously spread her wings as arcs of an intangible blue light, somehow perceived with a sense other than her own eyes, danced across her skin. They left glistening silver trails wherever they made contact with anything other than her own body, and Aperio unconsciously smiled a little as the stone beneath her feet cracked further. The air grew heavier as the blue arcs lashed out with erratic violence, throwing themselves against all that was within reach. There was nothing holding her back from showing how she felt about being toyed with. 

“I will not bow to anyone!”

With a cry of pure, unadulterated rage the mad Elf kicked off of the battered floor and charged at the offending evil. Once she had moved close enough to see a vague outline of her own reflection she threw a punch that – while it wouldn’t win any awards for form – had enough force to fracture the crystal. The smooth surface broke apart as the crack snaked its way across, letting the trapped mist escape into the open. Soon all that remained on the pedestal were transparent shards that reflected the red light of the escaped cloud above. No longer imprisoned, the red mist quickly made its way to the only other source of magic it could find.

Not wanting to come into contact with anything that came from the crystalline remains, she did the only thing she thought she could do: burn it until it only her memories of the encounter remained. With the same mental push she had used in the Void a small flame formed over her palm, but instead of making it dance she willed it to become a fire that would cleanse the world of her enemies. The errant discharges no longer lashed out against the immediate surroundings; instead, they all focused on the flame on her hand.

Spurred on by the sudden influx of energy it rapidly expanded and shifted its colour from gentle orange to a bright blue that illuminated the entirety of the stone chamber. After the last stray arc had joined with the rest, Aperio drew her arm back and threw the flaming mess right at the mist. It soared through the air leaving a trail of tiny sparks before it vanished into the red cloud.

The resulting explosion was not what she had expected. A deafening roar assaulted her ears and, reacting purely on instinct, she covered them with her hands while using her wings to ward off the fire and debris that came hurling her way. Fighting against the blast she dug her feet into the floor, further breaking it in the process. 

The roar was short-lived and after a few agonizing seconds, the only thing that remained was the heat she felt as half-molten rubble bounced off of her wings. As the force pressing her back lessened, an almost unnatural feeling of calmness settled over her mind and an assortment of smells began to make themselves known. Dust was dominant, but beneath that nose-tickling fragrance was something else. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but that reminded her of the chamber of the Empire's head alchemist. If she hadn’t spent countless hours cleaning that place she was sure that the contents of her stomach, however empty it might be, would join the rubble on the floor. Just like they had the first few times she had been sent to that disgusting place.

Once she was sure the worst was over she peeked through a small gap in her wings and was greeted with chaos. A part of the roof had caved in, revealing loose earth and a few stones with various runes etched on them, some of which had fallen on the broken floor. What remained of said floor was a collection of battered bricks that had spread themselves all over the chamber. Her violent outburst was, as far as she could tell, successful – she couldn’t find a single thing that resembled the crystal or the cloud of red mist.

Looking towards the door, hoping that her accidental onslaught opened the way, she was saddened to see a perfectly intact wall and door. The only difference was a set of runes that were now clearly visible on it. She recognized them as something she had glared at for her entire life. The [Ward of Confinement] was something she loathed with every fibre of her being, and its presence here just cemented her belief that she had indeed emerged back into the world in one of the Empire's cells.

Stay positive. Maybe I can kill a few of them before they get to me, she mentally reprimanded herself. Now how do I get that thing open? Fire doesn’t seem to work.

Carefully navigating through the rubble and holes that now made up most of the floor she slowly walked towards the door. The closer she got to the ward the more confused she became. The stone and wood groaned as the runes glowed brighter, their outlines became more defined and the usually barely visible lines connecting the formation crackled dangerously. Once she had crossed over the carnage her outburst had created she gave the unstable ward a glare and sat down. 

Aperio was at a loss; she knew the chant to activate the thing – some of the less able guards had needed to use it over the years – but she had never even heard the tiniest bit of the one you needed to turn it off. Brute force was probably still an option. The problem was that she didn’t know how many attempts would be needed and if there would still be a room to stand in once she was done.

I guess I expected too much. Stupid universe. 

Thoroughly annoyed with the situation at hand, old habits asserted themselves and Aperio kicked the ward. She knew, from the symbols used, that no harm would come to those who were imprisoned. A previous iteration had lacked this feature – it tended to zap people instead – and though many prisoners and slaves had managed to escape through death Aperio's own attempt had been cut short by the annoyingly timely appearance of the guards.

Once her foot crossed the threshold of the [Ward of Confinement] all she heard was the sound of breaking stone. What? Eyes wide with surprise she shifted her gaze between her foot and the now broken wall, not quite believing what had just transpired. 

To make sure what had just happened was not an illusion that escaped her previous check she stepped closer to the door and repeated what she had done before. A light tap later and her foot went through the ward and door effortlessly. 

This makes absolutely no sense. 

Deciding to postpone the discussion about what made sense and what did not to when she was actually free, she used her newfound skill in kicking wards to force the door out of its hinges and stepped through.

On the other side, a most peculiar scene was playing out right in front of her. A group of four people – humans if she had to guess – were fighting a large two-headed dog. She had seen one-headed versions of these beasts before, though they were usually accompanied by a handler of some sort. Why this one was guarding cells by itself and attacking a group of humans was something she didn’t know. 

The fight raged on, the participants still oblivious to Aperio's presence despite the noise her mist-removal must have made. Watching them, she concluded that if she had to fight, it would clearly be better to do so against just one of the groups. Not both at once. Despite her newfound ability to explode strange clouds of mist, as well as being able to kick wards into non-functionality, she was fairly certain that she would lose any actual fight. Her only experience came from watching the horribly one-sided matches the 'nobles' put on -- guards against unarmed slaves -- and those couldn't possibly prepare anyone for the real thing. Aperio contented herself to watch quietly, attempting to pick up some much needed, if she trusted her feelings, combat knowledge while awaiting the winner of the current battle.

It took a good while but the presumed humans had emerged victorious, if a little worse for wear. One of them, a man wearing a plain grey robe, was sitting against the wall pressing his hand against his stomach while a giant in blood-stained metal armour was frantically looking through a bag held by a slender woman wearing leather armour. The fourth member was inspecting the monster’s corpse and, after prying something out of its chest and dirtying his dark blue robe, stood back up to join his compatriots.

He froze when he spotted Aperio at the back of the room looking directly at him with a slightly tilted head. After a moment of hesitation, he shouted something in a language that she did not understand and the rest of his party, including the grey-robed man who gave a pained groan as he sat upright, turned their heads to look at her.

The giant quickly bent down, grabbing a big, heavy-looking sword from the floor and rushing to stand between Aperio and the other three. Inching closer the armoured giant said something, but just like the previous yell of the fourth member, she did not understand.

Tilting her head to the other side, and drawing upon the reflex borne out of the countless times she had to deal with drunken guests, she responded.

“I am sorry, but I do not understand what you are saying.”

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