Side Story – Neria 4: The Fight At Hand

GamingWolf

Neria breathed heavily as she sheathed her sword again, the thing in front of her no longer alive. She closed her eyes, folding her hands in front of her chest and bowing slightly as she felt the influx of mana from the System, rewarding her for killing the Demon at her feet and finally putting the tortured soul to rest.

Kemeria did the same, another of the shadowy creatures at her feet. Neria could sense something else in the woman, a change in her mana that she could not quite place. It was only after a smile slowly formed on her mentor’s face that she realised what might have happened.

“Level five-hundred?” she asked, closing the small distance between them in a few steps.

Kemeria nodded. “Yes. No new titles though,” she added with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “The System just said that classes are still banned by the Creator and that an evolution will take place once that ban is lifted.”

“What does it mean by evolution?” Neria asked, looking through her own notifications to see if any of the Demons she had killed had given her anything beyond just experience. They had not.

The other woman shrugged in response. “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to finally get a class. Have you read some of the scrolls about what they are like? It’s ridiculous.”

“I have not,” Neria replied, looking back at the slowly dissolving remains of the Demons. “And I probably won’t. What I can do now is already beyond what I ever thought possible; becoming even stronger? The thought scares me.” A single person could take out a country… That strength should be reserved for the Gods alone.

“It has only been a few months, just wait a while longer to get used to your power and you will think differently.”

Neria shook her head in reply. She did not think she would ever enjoy a single person being able to decide the fate of a country, but she could not deny that using her strength — and levelling up — felt intoxicating in a way. “Maybe,” she replied with a small sigh. “Still a scary thought, however.”

Her mentor nodded at that, the motion perceived through her aura. “Definitely, but you also have to consider that the Gods would not take kindly to a mortal killing their followers.”

Neria’s mind wandered to the All-Mother, the woman not striking her as someone who would take the death of her followers lightly. But then, she did nothing when Chellien died… Or did I not see what she did?

“Do we know what happened after Chellien died,” she asked suddenly, turning to face Kemeria. “I only saw how the All-Mother did something during his last moments.”

Her question was met with a silence that lasted for a few moments before a long sigh interrupted it. “No, not really. The texts we have mention the creation of the Heslmel Mountains as a response; that the Creator cut off the desert that spawns these”—she gestured at the Demons—”things, so that Chellien's people might live in peace, but other texts are claiming she did nothing.

“The deities that are prominent now don’t provide answers either,” she continued, motioning for Neria to follow as she turned to leave. “They either don’t want to answer questions about the All-Mother or cannot do so.”

“Or maybe she stops them from doing that,” Neria mumbled as she walked with her mentor. She did not necessarily believe her own words, her mind wandering back to the rather bizarre first encounter she had with the woman. Being nearly crushed in a hug by the All-Mother was probably not something people would have believed happened to her if it wasn’t for the old [Guide] confirming the story.

“I doubt that,” Kemeria replied, ducking through the small opening that led outside.

Neria followed suit, taking a deep breath of the fresh air. “I hate caves,” she said, trying to shift the topic away from the All-Mother. “Why are they always in caves?”

“Because outside of dungeons, they have the highest chance of being full of ambient mana,” her mentor replied. “Why do you keep forgetting that?”

Neria rubbed the base of her ear at the question, pointedly not looking at Kemeria. “I am still new to this, okay? The lessons all just jumble up in my head.”

“Then don’t take them all at once. Just because your initiation was expedited does not mean you have to cram years of studying into a few months.”

A sharp crack interrupted her mentor’s speech, and a bolt of lightning flew from her opened hand to strike the stone above the small passageway they had used to enter the cave. Neria could feel Kemeria’s magic run through the stone, collapsing the entrance and a large part of the ceiling of the cave.

“I wish falling rocks could kill Demons,” Neria said as a touch of her own — newly gained — magic cleared the smoke her mentor had created. “Or I could just suffocate them.”

“Sadly,” Kemeria began, her spear appearing in her hand, “those creatures aren’t exactly alive or even completely in this realm. At least, that is how it has been explained to me. A Demon is born when a soul cannot pass on from the realm of the living, gaining a hatred for those that get to live while it’s forced to exist in a limbo.”

“And they are beings of mana and will,” Neria finished for her, repeating the words many of her teachers had drilled in her head as her hand rested against the dimly glowing hilt of her falchion. “Only a weapon imbued with the power of the divine may banish the Demon and put the soul to rest.”

She sighed before she continued. “Who is blessing our weapons, anyway? I assume it says it right on the blade, but I can’t read those runes.”

“They forge our weapons with a piece of Chellien’s armour,” Kemeria explained, pausing briefly to signal the third member of their team with a sharp whistle. “You would learn it eventually, so I doubt it hurts to tell you now.

“Much like in the titles we receive — a blessing of a sort, really — Chellien also lives on through the weapons and armour we wield. We carry out the duty to protect our kind in his stead. He has given peace to us in life; we will give peace to him in death.”

The shrill cry of a bird cut further talk short, an enormous shadow flowing over them. Neria looked up to see the large Dustwing Falcon lazily gliding above them. While it was Kemeria’s mount, the giant brown-feathered bird could easily carry both of them where they needed to go.

Her mentor produced a raw Jellien from her [Dimensional Storage], throwing it into the open beak of her Falcon after it had landed in front of them. “Spotted anything, Yel’dah?” she asked, gently brushing its neck as it rubbed against its owner.

The bird cawed quietly in response; Neria was unsure if it understood its owner or not. it was reply enough for Kemeria, however, as she nodded curtly and mounted the bird in a graceful leap. Neria followed shortly after, not easily as her mentor but still far beyond what she could have done just a few months before.

Yel’dah lifted her long neck, giving both of her riders a view of the mountainous expanse they found themselves in. A sharp wind blew past them, ruffling Neria’s fur and bringing the smell of death and decay that was so prominent here to the forefront of her mind.

“Why are we letting a necromancer live in the desert, exactly?” she asked, her eyes focused on a more distant set of mountains that split the Deserts of Solito from the rest of the continent. “His… people leave their stench wherever they go for weeks.”

“The Deremkyir have a mining outpost close by,” Kemeria said, an unspoken command causing the Dustwing Falcon to propel itself into the air. “That’s where the smell is coming from.”

Neria groaned at that. “Can’t we just let ourselves be teleported back? They managed to dump us all the way out here, after all.”

“No,” her mentor replied, spurring on her mount. “They can target the magical signature of a Demon, but not anyone else. As far as I know, the gate was also built by a divine as a gift to us after Chellien’s death. I doubt the Archivars know how it works.”

“Would’ve been nice if they told me that,” Neria mumbled as she looked at the mountains passing below them.

A sigh came from Kemeria. “As much as I hate to admit it, the Guard can be a bit elitist and your skipping to level four hundred and getting a very rare title after such a short time does not sit right with quite a few people. I might trust you, but your expedited induction did not do you any favours.”

“So they are withholding information because they are spiteful?” She shook her head. “I expected better.”

“Strength might change some things, but we are still of the Kin. We all make mistakes.”

Neria just huffed in response. She had not not planned on meeting the Creator, nor had she picked her title. Fate had handed her these cards and she would be a fool not to play them.

As they continued to fly, Neria’s mind wandered. What class will I get? she asked herself. If her title was this rare already, she hesitated to think what an equally rare class would do to her. I don’t want to be a one woman army…

The thought was only partially true, however; she enjoyed what she could do now. Enjoyed the feeling of using her magic; of fighting. Is this why mother did not want me to join the guard… Did she know?

She would have loved to ask her mother, but there had been no progress in finding her. Moria was alive, the [Keeper of Voices] had confirmed it. He had not been willing to tell her how he knew, however.

Maybe they are not doing their best because of me? Neria shook her head at the thought. Her mother was too important for the Council, and they would try all they could to find her. Sadly, the Gods did not really see it as their duty to offer any sort of help. Following a dead one was seen as heresy in the eyes of many of the pantheon.

Luckily, descending onto the mortal plane was costly for the divine and they would rather not throw the lives of their followers away for something that was, in the end, inconsequential. Not that it stops them from raiding us for slaves…

That, however, was more an action of various countries than their Gods. Raiding parties from Geshwen were hated all over Verenier for a reason. The Eternal Empire of Zeltar controlled most of the continent, and was of the stark opinion that anyone not born on their continent should be a slave. Why did Vetus get burned down, and not that one?

A shake of her head forced the line of thinking from her mind. Instead, she entertained the idea of asking the Creator for help in finding her mother. Finding Aperio again was a mission they would soon send her on — once Kemeria decided she was ready to hold her own against anything she might encounter. All-powerful Creation deity excluded.

Her mentor’s voice sounding out in front of her pulled Neria fully from her thoughts. “Looks like the Deremkyir also had a run in with some Demons.”

Directing her eyes at the ground below, Neria saw tens of zombies in matching armour holding two Demons at bay as a skeleton in an ornate robe raised its hands up high. Its skeletal jaw moved, the Lich chanting an incantation.

A pillar of light fell upon the skeletal mage a moment later, Neria squinting against the barrage of holy magic. “Isn’t that suicide?” she thought aloud. “Holy magic is poison to the undead.”

“Not to the Deremkyir,” her mentor replied, directing Yel’dah lower as she prepared herself to throw her spear.

“What?” Neria asked, not truly expecting an answer as she readied herself for battle. Kemeria did not have to tell her what her intention was. As part of the Ancestral Guard, it was their duty to help any and all that may find themselves at the mercy of Demons, or others of their ilk.

As the Dustwing Falcon reached a few meters from the ground, Kemeria and Neria jumped, the latter slowing their fall with her magic. The zombies did not seem to care about their arrival, busy keeping the Demons occupied as the Lich mumbled another incantation.

With a flare of her own magic, Kemeria kicked off of the ground, leaving slight cracks in the stone that glowed red with the blood she had just sacrificed.

Neria followed suit, the winds following her bidding and carrying her silently into battle as she pulled her weapon free of its sheath. The runes on the blade shining brightly in anticipation for the coming fight.

GamingWolf

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