Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

“Well, now we know why the virindi are worried,” Kris mused, looking at the pile of unwhite, misty ash leaving a white spot on the floor.

“At least one NPC here was used to forge a Simulacrum not tied to the Singularity. Kind of an immortality, if you will,” I nodded. “They want to know how it was done, and the idea that Martine is still alive is probably not too reassuring, either.”

“You note the blue in the energies, right?” We’d killed a lot of simulacrums on Summons points, so the way they talked and their ‘perfect’ appearance were all too familiar. They also leaked a slightly paler version of the true virindi energies when slain, probably an imperfect set more adaptive to their humanoid shells.

“Yes. This fellow was definitely not tied to their Singularity. Anchored to the human soul inside instead, and suffused with their energies. I wouldn’t be surprised if several virindi weren’t sacrificed in the making of them, too,” I noted, glancing around as I heard something move in the next chamber we had not entered. “I believe they have links to one another, and just felt Josef die.”

“Well, let’s see what kind of reaction that earns from them, then?” Kris asked, unconcerned, and headed over into the next domed chamber, which seemed to be set up as a dining area. There was a square formation of tables all set up and ready for guests to sit down on, with a humming blue crystal formation in the middle of them that bore an uncomfortable likeness to the shards of the deathstones. A fellow in the apron of food service workers all over Aluvia was there, eyes fixed on us the moment we came into view.

To the right, a man bearing a bow was standing next to a stand loaded down with archery equipment. To the left, a woman in the blue robes of a Caster was in her own alcove, trays and racks of magical components behind her. Both of them had slightly glowing eyes locked on us as we stepped into the dining area.

“Greetings, fellow humans!” the waiter, such as he was, called out to us, a plainly artificial smile firmly in place on a tanned face that hadn’t seen the sun in fifteen years. “Would you be seeking some refreshments today?”

I noted that, like the rest of the place, there was not a speck of dust on anything, nor any mildew or cobwebs anywhere. Either they were fanatical about cleaning, or the place cleaned itself.

More to the point, I looked at the formation of crystals in the middle of the table, and didn’t like them at all. There was a resonance between them and the simulacra in here, and if they weren’t the center of whatever force was animating them, they at least tied them all together.

Kris put her sunbeam smile firmly in place and walked directly over to him. “No, we’re not looking for refreshments today, fellow human. We’re wondering if our fellow Isparians want to be free of this place. Do you want to be free of here, fellow Isparian?”

His programming interrupted by her Null field messing with his connection to the crystal, the waiter seemed frozen in place for a moment, staring at her, jaw working but nothing coming out.

Kris waited patiently, her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly, and I could feel her Null hardening as it did.

“Yes, fellow human, I would like to be free of this place,” the waiter murmured, and for a second harsh spasms, edged and rigid and very unlike what would happen with an organic body, twitched and convulsed across his face and neck, like glitches in a program going off-track.

“Give me your name, fellow Isparian, that I may inform your kin,” Kris said serenely.

“Fellow human, this one’s name is Julian Bartok!” he exclaimed, somehow a fevered excitement escaping him as his eyes lit up around the edges with leaking internal illumination.

“Julian Bartok, you are free,” Kris nodded, and between blinks of the eye, a swath of vivus was cutting through his neck. Bluish-purple virindi energies gouted forth, were devoured by vivus, and the shell of the simulacrum split apart and fell away, its integrity destroyed as the vivus devoured it all.

The spirit of the server smiled at us, closed its eyes, and faded away into the arms of the vivus that was sending him onward.

Kris eyed the cluster of clothes remaining as the shell was devoured, then looked back up, left and right, and made her decision. She turned, put on the same honey butter smile, and marched on up to the archer watching us with unblinking eyes.

Notably, the fellow didn’t even raise the bow in his hands.

“Fellow Isparian!” she called out cheerfully. “I was wondering if I might not get your name, and if you wanted to be free of this place!?”

------

The supplies the archer and mage had were actually perfectly viable, although some of the arrowheads had been destroyed, whatever intrinsic magic was on them destablized by the Fall. The Mick /said they were probably prismatic arrowheads, which changed their elemental damage depending on the bias of the magical Bow they were shot from, if such applied.

The discovery of the prismatic alchemical treatment had been a big step up for archers, no longer needing to carry around multiple types of arrows for use against appropriate foes. They could just get one set of arrows and swap their Bows around with impunity.

Said treatment had burned out and corroded away all such arrows when the Fall changed the nature of magic, and the archers had been forced to scramble to re-equip themselves, especially since most of them had lost their powerful magical Bows, too.

“What do you think?” Kris asked me, standing there as I surveyed the internal energy fields of the crystal formation. It didn’t have any visible emanations, all of those being below floor level, if visible at all, but the internal stuff was quite intense.

“I can see, huh, let’s call it the Empyrean style, similar to the residues in the Deathstone crystals, mixed up with the virindi style of magic, and some crazy Elementalish stuff that nobody sane came up with.

“It’s also post-Fall. There’s nothing here that is disrupted or failing with the change in magic. It was set up after the Fall.”

“Elemental influence? Is that important?” Kris asked archly.

“Gaerlan was a typical Empyrean mage who bargained with more powerful entities for power. He preferred dealing with Elemental creatures, and was responsible for bringing the Harbinger here to Dereth,” I informed her.

“Ah, yes, the Mick mentioned that thing. Yet another Mythos creature to add to your collection of Aberrant entities messing around here.”

I sat back against the table, looking at the crystal with a frown. “The creature was never truly dispelled or abjured. Remnants of it still lingered around the town of old Yanshi, and its presence was responsible for the evolution of those unnatural mixed-element Elementals we’ve run into of the spawn points. It may be an Elemental entity, but it’s also clearly Aberrant and not above twisting natural laws.”

“Always the best kind of stuff to bargain with in mad plans for personal power,” Kris nodded knowingly, and I had to smirk.

“Well, either the mosswarts managed to get rid of them, we didn’t investigate some holes we should have, or the Fall sent it away… but how likely is that?” I remarked to no one, shaking my head. “The twisted Elementals are still here. Its influence is still present.”

“Just what we all want to know,” Kris shrugged fatalistically. “Shall we go see if the Prismatic Stones are still there?” She held up the deep blue key we’d received from Josef.

“Sure.”

------

South, to the right of the throne room, and down ramps… and off to the left side, a brightly lit room with full potion bottles lined up and gleaming on the tables, with another simulacrum in the form of a young woman there, clad in the working robes of an alchemist.

I glanced at Kris, she looked back, and she shrugged. The first door to Gaerlan’s apartment was right across the way, so this wouldn’t be much of a distraction.

Her name was Leandra. Once, she had been an alchemist, an enthusiastic researcher of magical phenomena and processes. She was even famous for inventing a certain chorozite formula that was used in making new Aegis shields, yet another reason we’d come to Rithwic.

She smiled upon seeing us, so automatic it was unnerving. "Ah, a visitor! It is so nice to see a new face around here, especially now that my spirits have been lifted. I must tell you of my newest findings."

She continued, "I have been working on a distillation process that transforms chorizite ore into a viscous formula capable of absorbing magical damage!

"If you have the inclination, bring me a small amount of the highest quality refined chorizite available, and I will reward you with one application of the formula, and my notes."

We looked at one another, noting this was pretty much exactly as the Mick remembered it. Kris shrugged and pulled out a purse hanging at her side. “You mean this kind of high-grade chorozite, miss?” she asked chirpily.

Getting hold of some hadn’t really been that hard, given we knew a lot of lugians. Getting to the mines might have been a little harder, because they were some of the most heavily-guarded and worked holdings of the Gotrok clans, but it hadn’t been hard to gain some of the refined powder for this stopover.

“Oh, thank you! One moment please. The success of chorozite distillation relies on steady hands and a clear mind.”

I was watching very intently as she turned back to her workbench and started working. The Mick had described the process as ‘quick’, which was not really something you associated with refined materials… unless there was magic involved. Furthermore, the formula for the compound she was making up should have been duplicated a long time ago… and yet, she was always the only one who had it available, and nobody else could even remember using the formula that she did.

There was definitely Crafting magic going on in the process, and I had to Assay several of the reagents there which were not standard, applied with magical speed and surety to the process she had no doubt done thousands of times in the past… and was doomed to repeat in the future.

I noted the times, places, temperatures, ratios, and magic used to blend them all together, leaching out the chorozite even further, and then distilling it into a thick and viscous liquid she poured into a glass container for us with open satisfaction.

She turned and presented it to Kris. “All done! Here is one copy of my compound, as promised, and my notes. Be sure to read the notes, and remember, the formula is new and largely untested. More research will be needed to fully understand its properties.”

Kris accepted it with a glance at me as the compound which had been proven effective for something close to twenty-five years was passed to her. I calmly stepped forward and flickered up a Holo before her. “This is the formula for making your compound as we understand it, Leandra. Your fellow alchemists would like to know if there have been any improvements made to it after all this time?”

Her expression glitched, as had the others. This was her only purpose in being. If her formula was known elsewhere, did she actually have a purpose?

Moreover, the woman imprisoned inside this thing had once been an enthusiastic researcher, if very reclusive, and only Martine’s dictates had stopped her from sharing the process with others. Now that it was out, was not her purpose fulfilled, and her name immortalized?

Leandra’s Chorozite Compound for treatment of Aegis Shields, read the header at the top of the Holo.

“Yes!” Her voice was glitching, too, part reverb and part with real emotion. “There are some modifications if you attempt the process without using magic as an accelerant!”

“Please delineate them, Master Alchemist,” I acknowledged her formally, my hand raised as if writing something.

With levels of energy that bordered on the manic, the simulacrum burst into a litany of alchemical jargon and instructions, all completely from memory. As fast as she spoke, I wrote them out in words of light, which only seemed to make her more and more agitated and excited, the glitches distorting her entire face as the energy inside her destabilized.

“Yes! That is the entire formula in its most complete original form!” she confirmed to me. “Please see to it that my fellow alchemists receive it in its entirety!”

“I will. You will become immortal for this, Leandra Comenshire.”

Her grin was far too wide to be human, splitting and glitching across her face, and it remained there as Quaver quietly cut across and sent her on to her reward. The gratitude in her eyes as her spirit’s gaze met mine was unfeigned, and I inclined my head to her, one student of the Lore to another, and she half-bowed herself as she faded away, sent away by the vivus to the reward she deserved.

“Comenshire, eh? Lowland clan back home. Had a reputation as glassworkers, as I recall,” Kris mused sympathetically.

“Her name was on the ledger of the Alchemist’s Guild as an associate member in good standing. Someone’s been paying her dues for years, but nobody can remember who.” And she’d never been ranked as a Master, despite this chorozite compound’s profound ability.

I decided I was going to change that. It was integral to the development of new Aegis effects, after all, and a dazzling piece of work showing true alchemical insight.

“Huh. Shades of mysterious.” Kris turned her attention to the main passageway down and out of this room. “Well, pack up her stuff and let’s go get our Prismatic Stones, if they are there...”