Chapter 462: Chapter 446 – Rising Unto Unlife

“Honestly, if at all possible, it would be best to have some fellow unliving around to calm down someone who had just risen unto unlife. The main reason for that was because death tends to be a traumatic experience for most, and as such, those who found themselves suddenly aware once more *after* they knew they already died were prone to panicking, which was part of the reason why many unliving were mistaken for undead early on.

 

Having someone around who could relate to the experience and couldn’t be harmed in any real sense was just a good safety precaution to have, but alas, that was not always the case.” - Research notes of Eilonwy Fiachna, famed researcher of unlife and the unliving, circa 402 FP.

After the incident with the assailants, Aideen and Celia picked up the pace as they headed further westwards, forgoing sleep at night – not that they needed to sleep much since they were unliving anyway – in order to put more distance between them and the Barony of Deyos. They traveled through the night and day for several days before they were certain that there were either no more pursuers, or more likely, that they had lost them.

 

Four days after the incident, they stopped to rest for the night, not because they needed to do so, but because Aideen detected a change in the remains they carried with them. It was a change of mana that felt familiar to her, and she was certain that their unlucky evidence was about to rise unto unlife within a few hours.

 

As such, they stopped and camped in a clearing a bit away from the road, where Aideen emptied the contents of the sack – arranging the severed limbs so that they would be in their proper positions – and sat vigil as they waited. 

 

“Curious, aren’t you?” asked Aideen to Celia when she noticed the girl paying close attention to the remains.

 

“Well, sort of, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another of our kind rise unto unlife,” replied the younger woman with a nod of her head.

 

“I guess your own rise wouldn’t count, especially given the distressed state you were in at the time,” said Aideen in agreement. “My own was a bit more interesting, mostly for my family. I woke up in my own coffin during my funeral service at that time. They even thought I was turned undead by someone at first. Can’t blame them, though. I was the first, or at least one of the very first ones we knew of.”

 

“That must’ve been both amusing and stressful.”

 

“A bit of both, yeah,” replied Aideen somewhat melancholically as she was reminded of her long departed family members. “If I was a soulweaver I’d probably be able to tell more specifically on when our friend here would reanimate, but I don’t have that capability, so we’ll just wait a bit longer instead.”

 

“I don’t mind.”

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In the end, they waited for a couple hours before Aideen noticed a greater change in the mana she detected in the remains. Where the mana used to simply be contained in the limbs, they now seem to be “anchored” – for the lack of a better word – towards a point around where the heart would be if the body was whole, and she noticed how the mana in the air was slowly absorbed by said remains as it regenerated at a painstakingly slow pace.

 

Left to its own devices, it would probably take a week or so before the body reformed itself.

 

Aideen did not feel like wasting time, and instead, she channeled her own mana into the remains, though without controlling it. Instead, she simply fed the soul tied to the remains with her mana and allowed it to freely use the mana to reform its physical form. The effect was immediate, as within ten minutes – mostly because the soul was working on instinct and had no idea how to reform itself efficiently – the rest of the body that the remains belonged to had formed.

 

As Aideen had guessed previously, the body belonged to a young woman of distant therian heritage, which on her took the curious form of fox-like ears and tail, as well as the claws at the tip of her fingers and toes. Otherwise the woman looked mostly human, with slightly tan skin and hair that was the color of red wine at its roots, lightening to a pale purplish-pink shade at its tips.

 

Celia took some distance from the newly reformed body on Aideen’s signal, as people might sometimes react in unexpected or violent ways when they were fresh to unlife, especially if their death was a traumatic event. Her prudence proved wise, as the moment the woman shot up to a sitting position in surprise, several orbs of void magic started to devour parts of the vicinity, including the Aideen’s and the woman’s own body.

 

Instead of flinching from the sudden onslaught, Aideen instead embraced the panicking woman and pulled her into a warm hug, all while she ran her healing to undo the damage the woman’s panicky outburst had done to the two of them. Even then, it took a while before the woman finally calmed down and the bursts of void stopped indiscriminately consuming the surroundings.

 

By that point what clothes Aideen had left on her body was in tatters, while many parts of the ground and the trees near them had smooth, circular craters where the void magic had gouged out parts and annihilated them. The woman herself was hugging Aideen with all her strength while whimpering and crying into her chest, and Aideen patted her back in a reassuring gesture.

 

She waited until the woman had finally cried herself to sleep before covering her with some blankets and switching to some fresh, undamaged clothes. As for what tale the woman had to tell, they could wait until she woke up before they would listen to it.

 

After all, time was now the one thing they would never run out of.

 

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