Chapter 22: Chapter 19: Building a Foundation 1

Through the inevitable passage of time, the darkest events of the past are gnawed at, year by year, generation by generation, from living memory. In the passing of many centuries, millenia, and eons, they end up residing in the unreachable bowels of history, and are forgotten by the world. 

Until their remnants choose to reveal themselves. 

“How troubling…”

High Priest Maxwell rubbed his temples and massaged his gnarled shoulders, feeling the weight of his burden and age catching up to him. The bustling streets of Lorien’s capitol city could be seen from the utilitarian windows of his Temple quarters. Housewives shouted themselves hoarse through calling their rambunctious children inside for dinner, and berating their husbands for coming home smelling of alcohol and unwashed work. 

The old priest stroked his long white beard while lost in thought. He drank in the sight with aging eyes, for there was nothing more beautiful than when the colors of day faded into dusk and families gathered at their hearths in merrymaking. But there was also the unnerving thought of when –and not if– this peace will be shattered. 

How was it possible for all of humanity to conveniently forget the existence of demons? Why is it that scholars were only now seeing a connection between mankind’s summoned spirits and the long gone races that once dominated the Ancient Era? And then there was the most important and disturbing question of all: What caused all these beings of old to disappear off the face of the world? 

So many questions of profound consequence to their survival, and yet so little answers. People were living in blissful ignorance, unaware of what horrors lay beyond the mortal plane.

Maxwell grimaced at the wrinkles on his arms and hands. The iron law of nature was a merciless and cruel one. With every passing day, he could feel life being drained from his old bones, the grooves and lines drawn into his visage as a daily reminder that his time was running out.

“I’ll make sure we’re ready, before it’s too late.” he sunk into his chair, almost merging with the hard leather in his fatigue.

The shrill cry of a bird called out to him. Startled, he threw open a window to his personal chambers. In a flurry of ruffled brown feathers, his eagle spirit decelerated from its flight and landed on the windowsill, the massive avian just barely fitting through the frame. He stroked the bird’s feathers in greeting, and its head sought out for his hand.

Chuckling, he fed it a morsel of his holy mana through his fingertips. The eagle gave a satisfied trill, waddling happily on its regal taloned feet before grooming its feathers with its beak.

“Aquila, you’re back already?” He smiled. “How was your journey? The summer air was suitable for flight, I hope?”

A chirp in response, followed by multiple squawks and high pitched warbling. 

“So Belrhast’s king is planning to personally head to Silvine at the start of Aesir’s school year? Perhaps the students this year are an outstanding batch. I imagine that their poor governor will be hard pressed to prepare adequate hospitality. What about Fernan’s emperor?”

A shrill cry of agitation.

“Still not leaving his castle? Hmm…” He tapped his head while pondering. “It’s worrying that we haven’t caught sight of him for so long.” Men like him were most dangerous when left unchecked.

“According to rumor, one of his sons had insulted the princess during her birthday banquet.” 

There was a chirp of disbelief, and the eagle’s sharp gaze prodded him for more answers.

“It’s true, it’s true! I wasn’t there myself, of course, but one of the patrons of our temple who attended had given the story.” Maxwell stroked the bird’s golden-brown feathers. “The girl is remarkably strong for her age. She showed quite a bit of short tempered ruthlessness, young Lysander must have a lot on his hands.” He let out a mirthful chuckle, scratching Aquila under her chin. 

“Speaking of which, have the other temples begun to mobilize their paladin forces?” he asked. 

The eagle shook its head. 

“Well, that’s not all too surprising.” he sighed. “They must be hesitating from the lack of definitive evidence. But by the time such a thing arises, we would already be too late to act.” He leaned back in his chair. “Hopeless old fools.” he muttered under his breath. Even now, bureaucracy remains the greatest obstacle towards salvation. The only saving grace to this situation was that the Templar forces of Lorien had already gathered enough forces for further investigation.

He perked up, remembering another important duty.

“Oh, I should send my well wishes to the princess.” He produced another set of stationary before wrinkling his brows in concentration, careful to skim over anything that would alarm the girl about her situation. Despite being short and colloquial, the message held well meaning sentiments.

He set his pen down.

“I can’t imagine that just a letter will suffice…” he looked around his quarters, rummaging through various knickknacks before spotting the perfect gift. Expression brightening, Maxwell picked up a simple painted wood figurine of one of Belrhast’s heroic dragon knights. He’d bought it at the horribly inflated price tag of one gold coin during his travels just the year before.

“This will be fine, surely?” Young Lysander had informed him of the princess’s habit of training with recruits of the royal knight regiment, and of her newfound obsession for novels of a particular genre. Perhaps the girl would appreciate the gesture. He rolled up the letter parchment along with the figurine, stamped the package, and tied it to one of  Aquila’s talons. She pecked at him, disgruntled.

“Haha, I’m sorry, friend. But I must ask you to make one more trip for today.” He spoonfed more of his mana into his spirit’s open beak. Satisfied with this payment, the eagle let out one more shrill cry, before lifting off into the air with a flap of its wings, flying into the horizon where the royal palace awaited.

Seeing his friend disappear into the distance, Maxwell shrunk back into his previous state of exhaustion. He warily left his quarters, plodding along the grand hallway into the Temple’s inner sanctuary. However old and brittle his bones were, he could still carry himself to pray with dignity.

Most of the other priests had gone back to their own homes for the day. The fleeting and warm light of the departing sun, filtered through tall stained glass windows, remained his sole companion. He knelt in front of a large altar, complete with a grand statue of the head god of their pantheon, as well as mythril steel decorations to house the idol. He channeled mana into the altar in offering. A dim ghostly flower, formed from wisps of his essence, floated into the area where the statue’s heart was.

He closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to pray. 

“Deura, lord of the heavens, I ask for your guidance.” He bowed his head in reverence, and entreated his god. “An ancient evil preys upon this land, and I alone am powerless to purge it.”

“What must I do with my remaining life, to best serve humanity?” Out of the multitudes of questions swarming his mind, he chose to ask only one. 

For a long and strange moment of silence, the world seemed to watch and wait for its master’s response. Without warning, the room surged with divine aura, its eyes brimming with an otherworldly glow. 

A voice echoed down with all the gentle affection of a parent speaking to their child.

I thank you for your tireless dedication, Maxwell. Years have gone by, and yet you remain forever faithful. 

You are not alone in your worry. In the future, I see that great strife will fall upon this realm. The Usurpers awaken from their millennia of slumber, and the Emerald Devil’s descendants move unhindered. Their legions grow by the day, and the Abyss feeds their lust for power. But all is not lost.

The worst future has already been averted. Your task now is to usher in the light of a new generation. Stoke the flames for hope to burn brightly in this coming dark.

Push forward, as you’ve always done, high priest.

The voice faded away, and the divinity withdrew. The chamber returned to a dark pallor, for the sun had long since set. 

Maxwell rose, as he’d always done. In his open eyes, a greater sense of purpose was ignited in golden fervor.

“By your Will.”

_______________________________________

In the center of her soulscape, Chris was made to face Amphitrite Rex lounging on her makeshift throne, formed from risen rock and forged earth. 

“Foolish girl, trying to accomplish things beyond your mortal ken. Are you trying to destroy yourself? Look.” She pointed at the horizon.

A storm awaited on the edge of her sanctum, shrouding her sun and threatening to ravage her cliffside haven with wind, rain, and lightning.

“Through your actions, you bring chaos to my kingdom.” She admonished the girl with a stern face.

“It’s a pile of rock in the middle of the open ocean.” Chris deadpanned.

“Honey, let me have my fun time, ok? See what being dead for close to a thousand years does to you.” Amphitrite coughed awkwardly. “What I mean is that we —and by that I mean you, specifically— have a big problem here.” She pointed again towards the gathering storm. “That thing over there, pulsing ominously? That’s because of you.”

“Huh?”

“The others are investigating whatever that storm on the horizon is, but this whole situation is just ridiculous.” Lorien’s old queen continued to ramble.

“Oi, What others? And can you at least tell me what’s wrong?” Chris’s interjection went ignored.

“To begin with, whose soulscape is a literal island in the middle of the ocean? Even mine's at least a flower garden.” A vein popped on her temple. This lady really liked to ignore people!

“Isn’t that your Domain?” 

“Hmm? Haven’t you been taught already that when your soul and Will reach a certain level of strength, you can expand your soulscape into the world around you? It’s termed as a Domain then. And it’s a permanent action, so I only did it when I was about to die…” Amphitrite stopped her explanation when she saw the blank look on the girl’s face.

“Good gods, you don’t know about those things?” The older woman looked incredulous.

Finally got her attention. Chris mused.

At that moment, Raisendel floated in from the sky above, looking more disheveled since the last time she saw her. She held a violet, lizard-like animal in her hands, which turned out to be the dragon that had also contracted with her. Loch was unconscious, and held within the elf’s hands, Chris didn’t connect him with the rampaging beast she’d met him as.

The silver spirit looked to the sky above with a look of concern on her face.

“The dragon is in a weakened state. I don’t know how to get him back to normal.”

“Perfect timing, I was getting tired of this. Take a seat, we’re going to teach the girl about the basics.”

“Hmm?” The elf first looked into Amphitrite’s stubborn green eyes, before surveying the ground around them. “This is an urgent matter, we should earnestly try to address this—”

Amphitrite’s leg cleaved into the earth below, sending a cloud of dust and dirt flying, while displacing a clean chunk of rock fit for sitting on.

“The beast can wait. Right now, we have to talk with the source of the problem.”

A look of understanding passed on the ancient elf’s face. 

“How much should we go over?” She asked.

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Amphitrite gave one look at her ignorant descendant, who was busy fiddling with a stray lock of hair, and snorted. 

“Everything.”

_______________________________________

The inhabitants of the soulscape became situated, one by one, in seated positions on the grassy plain. They ignored the storm in the background. Raisendel coughed into her hand, and began to speak. 

“Let’s start from the beginning, Christiana.” The elder spirit breathed in, imbuing her voice with richness and vibrance. She was a storyteller, and her words carried with them remnant memories of a history she herself had lived through.

“Before all things had a name, the world as we knew it existed as a mass of primordial mana, a cloud of chaos and ether. But the mana was alive, for it carried a Will.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked.

“A Will is the sum total of a being’s desires, dreams, experiences, and purpose in existence. Sentient beings that strive towards a goal, who will spare nothing in their single minded pursuit of their destiny –those are the ones with the strongest of Wills. And just as how water flows downstream to join the larger sea, and how life persists in the most hostile of environments, nature itself contains a Will.” Raisendel explained. She clasped her student’s shoulder. “However abstract this concept is, it is important for you to understand later on, so bear with me.” She carried on with her story of the world’s creation. 

“Slowly, but surely, out of whatever primitive consciousness the nameless aether 

had, it was driven to seek out the parts of itself. And so it gathered, coalesced and took form. The infant world gained sentience and soul. We elves called it Gran Terre, but it went by a myriad of identities across time, place, and culture. To the werebeasts it was Sri’Ma, the Heart of the Universe, and to the ancient dwarves it was Velkhana, the Great Forge.” 

“The merfolk called it the Mother Ocean, because well… we lived in the water and all that.” Amphitrite added.”I’m half merfolk by the way, just so you know.”

“Thank you, but please don’t interrupt.” The elf curtly replied. She continued her lesson after giving Lorien’s past queen a disapproving glance.  

“The current pantheon of gods mandated to the races that it be called Irudeia, of a meaning now lost to time. That has been its one true name ever since.”

“Enough of the history lesson, just tell her about what’s important to our situation now.” The other woman interjected. She flinched when Raisendel turned a scathing gaze towards her. “Alright, alright, I won’t butt in. Happy?”

The wind spirit released a tired breath.

“Basically, all the phenomena in this world we call Irudeia happen because of mana and Will, the two of which have been fundamentally linked since their creation.” She looked towards the princess to see if she was getting through. However baffled Chris was, given the foundation of her Earthly knowledge on molecules and whatnot, she nodded in understanding nonetheless. Still, her elven teacher caught on.

“It seems that you’re a little confused. Fret not, allow me to elaborate.”

“Since most individual souls produce some form of their own mana, and are able to conduct this mana to influence the world around them, we speculate that Irudeia has its own soul, which we call the Will of the World.” 

“Hurry up.” Amphitrite interrupted, breaking her previous promise. Raisendel’s mien flashed with annoyance, but she continued,

“While most of the old races are naturally attuned to the nature of mana, humans are less so. Their souls are too weak to produce mana independently. Magic is the result of temporarily overpowering the world’s Will with one’s own. Thus they are inherently unable to perform magic by themselves.” The elf’s expression brightened, as she saw her student listening in rapt attention.

“However, to say that mana is a gift and that humanity is ‘deprived’ of it is wrong. Rather, unlike the races of old, humans are unique in that they aren’t influenced by the Will of the World. They do not have to strictly bypass it in order to perform magic, and they don’t have to nurture their Will over the course of their lives to gain strength. That’s why humans are able to use magic as soon as they acquire a contract with a spirit –one of us. It’s also why they are able to perform various types of elementary magic with ease, for this freedom is inherent in their nature.”

“You, on the other hand, are different.” She pointed towards Chris’s forehead. Amphitrite nodded while crossing her arms.

“Your soul, by some curse or miracle, happens to be strong enough to produce mana independently. This makes you more identical in a physiological sense to beings such as us elves.”

Raisendel’s silver eyes narrowed.

“That’s where the problem starts. I’ve already guessed as such from the two soul fragments that I’ve seen wandering your soulscape –the girl and the man. Each has their own Will, formed from whatever memories they have of their previous lives. Normally, this shouldn’t be a cause for worry. But they are slowly affecting even your soul. They are hindering you, and polluting the energy that courses through your veins. 

Chris held a hand to her mouth in shock. It couldn’t be… that the reason why these shades of Christiana and Larry existed in her soulscape was because… because of the promise she made to take on both of their regrets in her current life? On the same day she resolved to live in Irudeia as Chris in the Lorien royal palace garden, she’d felt a tremor in her very soul, one that sent her mana surging into the surroundings.

It was a silent oath, uttered only in her mind. Should she be careful about what she says even in her own head?!

“The problem becomes even bigger when you channel your mana to use us in combat.” Raisendel frowned. “As a spirit, I am a being of almost pure mana, meaning that I’m more sensitive to the Will that my contractor holds. And I’m most closely aligned with the concepts of chivalry, nobility, and other such values.”

“I can pose two possibilities as of now: one, that either of the two soul fragments within you is clashing with me.” Chris gulped, thinking back to the kind of lazy, self absorbed, sorry excuse of a human being Larry was back on Earth. “...and two,” Raisendel’s stare bore into the sleeping lizard on the ground in front of them. “That this arrogant dragon, who I assume to be obsessed with destruction and glory, is the cause behind this.”

Or both. Chris wanted to blurt out, but quickly rethought her decision seeing her teacher’s grave expression. Unfortunately, Amphitrite was more impulsive than her.

“Simply put, you’re a hot mess right now.” the woman bluntly said. 

“...In summary, yes, exactly that.” Raisendel looked down and sighed, not bothering to complain about being interjected.

“So what should I do now?” Chris asked.” 

“Right now? Nothing. We shouldn’t rush this. It’s incredibly rare for someone to have contracted two spirits, let alone have a soul as strong as yours in this day and age, not to mention the two fragments…” The elf facepalmed. “By the gods and stars above, why is my contractor such an anomaly?”

“If there’s one thing that you can do at the moment, you should try to perfect your martial talents without the aid of both mana and spirit.” Amphitrite said. “Your current strength is already decent, honing it further will serve you well in the long run. And so long as you don’t abuse it, using your mana to strengthen your body as you have already should be fine.”

“For once, I think she said something useful.” Raisendel added. “We are both well skilled in the blade, and apparently so are your mother and maid. I know an adept warrior when I see one. With this wealth of knowledge at your fingertips, you should be able to reach proficiency, if not total mastery, by the next year.”

“Isn’t this only a temporary solution? When can I do something to safely use mana again?” Chris asked.

“We don’t really know… just stick with the plan for now, and we’ll figure something out.” Amphitrite replied. “Oh, and about that thing that I wanted you to do–”

“Yeah, it’s still on my mind, don’t worry.” Chris nodded. She would definitely pay another visit to Ilias, just hopefully without Bertram to sour things up the next time. The two fit together about as well as cats and dogs, hissing and growling out of an inherent hatred for one another.

“And sorry for what’s been done to the place.” The winds were picking up now, and in place of the lush cliffside paradise she’d visited in her dreams before, howling winds and flailing grass were the only things she noticed. And the lightning in the sky, that too.

“Meh, don’t worry. A change of scenery is welcome.” The two women stood up to face the churning sea. Raisendel nodded in agreement.

“A true voyage rarely takes place on only calm waters.” She said cryptically. Amphitrite clapped her on the back.

“Well what do you know, looks like you can speak my language after all!” Lorien’s ancient queen laughed boisterously. 

Chris smiled. It made her happy to know that she would now have these two with her.

Having their company, even on a small island isolated in her soul, somehow made everything feel less lonely. 

_______________________________________

She woke up with the sun on her face, meaning that she’d overslept. Chris crawled out of bed with aching limbs, a stuffy nose, and itchy eyes. 

Seriously overslept.

After padding around the room barefoot, and looking outside in the hallway, she realized that there was no one there. Odd, since Griselda was normally waiting from out her door the moment she woke up. But it made sense that the maid wouldn’t always be there, given how grievously long she’d stayed in bed.

Thinking about everything that worried her could wait. Right now she needed a bath. 

A short walk took her to the bathroom, where polished marble tiles awaited her. After turning the faucet, hot water gushed out in a powerful stream. She took the liberty of sticking her head under it, and immediately regretted the decision.

Steam rose out invitingly from the tub, and she didn’t know when she’d gotten undressed.

The water was perfectly hot and welcoming. Dunking herself in, she raised an arm to inspect the lithe, smooth skin that had become part of everyday life. Part of her. Even now, it brought out warring feelings of giddiness and anxiety, especially in moments like this when she came face to face with her new reality. 

Pulling the drain, and leaving the water for cold air, she walked in front of the foggy mirror, which she cleared with a few swipes of her hand. 

Some parts had developed, mostly in the places that one could expect on a growing adolescent girl. Her hair stuck together from the water, and she recalled how it had gotten in the way when she’d fought Matthias. Maybe she should get it cut sometime.

The prospect of going to a stylist, if this world even had one, sent a shock and a thrill through her. Seeing the toned muscle from all her training, she did what every normal person would do and flexed in front of the mirror.

And then immediately cringed and looked away in embarrassment. 

As Griselda wasn’t present, she toweled herself off in a messy hurry and slid back into her pajamas. The trek down to the dining room was long, but one that her rumbling stomach demanded.

The smell of food tickled her nose even from beyond the room. Taking a deep breath, she opened the heavy wooden doors with both hands, and noticed how it took far less effort than the first time she entered barely more than a month ago.

“““Surprise! Happy Birthday!”””

The first thing Chris saw was a towering cake, one that almost reached the ceiling in its multiple tiers. Ahead of it was an entire fleet of dishes, all arrayed to look equal degrees awe inspiring and pleasing to the eye. Her family sat around the dining table as the sole occupants of the room, and their expressions were in various forms of expectation and joy. 

“Come, sister. I’m sure after being asleep for an entire day that your body must be crying out for nourishment!” Edward laughed.

“There’s a lot of gifts to be opened later, but for now, you should enjoy the food.” Griselda pulled a seat open for her. 

Chris smiled.

Yes, so many changes have happened in so little time since the day she transmigrated from Earth. But she wouldn’t go back for anything in the world now. Remembering the two wishes she had yet to complete –to fall in love, and to live to the end of her natural lifespan– she felt more motivated to live her current life to the absolute fullest.

For now, she could start by savoring these moments with her family.