"One of your slain entourage is stirring for a rebirth." The masculine voice was soft and even, coming from the canopy beyond where the fire blasted it apart. It held no stitch of threatening posture and felt too weak to really be a threat.
Axl turned to the small bird, a lower half made grey stone, wings and head of darker tree bark. "And who are you?"
The bird made a bowing motion, wings splayed to the side. "An emissary of the Vale. Here to facilitate your communication with the subsystem administrator. I am Tem-evin the Cliff Swallow, but you may call me Tem, regal Pebblar of Irialith."
Axl grunted, but turned to the dead orcs behind him. "So what did you mean about my party?"
The bird flew slowly to the corpse-pile, landing a respectable distance away and pointing at Alifren with an unfurled wing. "This one, the female orc, has been touched by the bountiful curse of Undeath, and might rise again."
Axl approached, trying to avoid looking at Alifren's body, and most of all trying not to hope. "Might? So it's not a guarantee?"
"I fear not, my lord," the bird shook his head. "But there are steps one can take in the next few days to help assist the process. Such information has been approved by the heavens to be given to you from my master."
Axl nodded. "Alright, what can I do?"
The swallow paused, head down. "If I may, my lord, there is no urgency in this matter. Perhaps you may want to… Refresh yourself before pursuing this matter further?"
Axl looked down at the hole in his chest, which was now freely bleeding again, the triage talismans disrupted by his fight. Stilling his impatience to help Alifren, he drank a healing potion and focused on [Mana Shroud]. Unfortunately, the healing potion simply idly circulated in his body, doing nothing, his ability to heal with it well into a full resistance, so he simply redirected it to his alchemical organ's orbital flask, and went into the arena building to get Moxlin. She'd need to hear what this bird said as well, anyhow.
When he reached the corner she should be hiding in, he noticed the arrays were disrupted, and she was no longer there.
"Moxlin? That slitting elf is taken care of. It's safe to come out," he said, turning around the empty building.
A pause, and just as Axl was starting to worry, an echoey reproduction of her voice came from a talisman on the wall. "You sure? You're not… Like that anymore?"
Axl’s eyes widened, his pulse raced. Was she afraid? Of him?
"Yes," he said, eyes down, the exhaustion suddenly unbearable. "The fire is gone. I won't do that again."
Slowly, she crawled out of a talisman circle near an opposite wall, her movement slow and careful. "Okay, sit down, I'll reapply the triage array and salve."
Axl nodded and sat cross-legged, and for the next hour tried to focus his will and the entirety of [Mana Shroud]'s boosting on Vitality. Even that was barely enough, and he was shocked at how extensive his wounds were. It was a real danger that Brillhit was too weak to really survive fighting him, it made Axl self-indulgent in his rage, made him forget this entire world was a threat, no matter how strong he could get.
Soon, he started pairing his self-healing with deep, deliberate breaths, starting with the simplest techniques taught to him when he was first born and living on the edge of the Pit. Focus on the body, focus on the present, focus on the problems at hand, mind clear. Recenter, recenter, recenter.
Another hour passed, and he got up, his body stable and slowly recovering on its own, even if the hole in his chest had reopened. But the damage from the lightning coursing his body was largely recovered, as well as the deeper burns from the fire he triggered.
Outside, Moxlin was standing near to the bird, gear in front of her neatly organized in piles.
"Oh!" she flinched as he came out. "I was sorting the stuff from Brillhit's rings. They were weirdly unlocked, maybe from dying to fire. Unfortunately, they had nothing so great. Only a few wind-based natural treasures, but no sets. There are some weird potions in that pile over there that you may want to take a look at. I'm not sure what they are for."
Axl took a look at the stuff, quickly realizing he didn't really need or want any of it, so he just took the potions. "Keep the rest, we'll unload what you don’t want next time we can trade."
Moxlin nodded. "Maybe we can put it all in one of his rings and give it to Alifren when she's back?"
"Yes." Axl smiled at the idea. "That seems right. Let's also put everything from the other orcs there as well."
Moxlin skittered around, holding up one of Brillhit's rings as she put it all inside. "You should take the other ring, I think it's even better than the one from the… The last one you found."
"Thanks," he picked it up from the grass, glad that she was being careful about talking openly with the bird nearby. Just in case.
"I suggest," Tem said, "that you both only minimally disturb the fallen bodies. It may negatively affect the condensing Undeath around your comrade. If it pleases my lord."
"Fine, fine," Moxlin rolled her eyes. "Whatever's good for the lord."
Tem turned to Moxlin with a small jump, then bowed, a wing splayed out to the side, the gesture smooth and practiced. "I mean no disrespect, fair lady, I am merely bequeathed into service to the Pebblar, as much as I would yearn to serve such a rotund beauty as yourself."
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Oho, why thank you, pretty little bird!" Moxlin's eyes positively gleamed as she tried to mimic the bow, tumbling slightly with the gesture. "Finally, we meet somebody with good taste! These naked bipeds are just the worst."
Tem chuckled, one wing to his chest, the other politely covering his beak. "Indeed, my lady, such kin's taste can be quite peculiar. The various elves and kobolds I have had to deal with were quite puzzling in their predilections."
Axl had at first been relieved by Tem's ability to placate Moxlin's weird pang of jealousy, the sliver of random banter a welcome distraction from thinking about the dead orcs behind him.
"Regarding the task at hand," Tem started, deftly changing topic. "Undeath is pooling in the one at the top, my lord. It is being assisted by the strong nature-attuned Mana in this rift, and the lingering deathly aura of both her passing and that of her comrades. You may either help condense the deathly aura, the natural Mana, or heal her body of corpse-tar, to facilitate the process."
"Wait," Axl interrupted. "How does more natural Mana help? Wouldn't death be the opposite of that sort of thing?"
"Not at all, my lord. Undeath, in fact, is more likely to spring in areas rich with life, nature, or order-attuned Mana. Death feeds off bountiful life, after all. Most undead also gain attunements aligned to such concepts as well, and I believe the path of Alifren will be altered to include some form of Nature attunement, perhaps in her lineage or, if she is very lucky, an attuned Cultivator's Core."
Axl nodded, glad the environment of this rift would help, not hurt. "What is corpse-tar? And how can a dead body be healed?"
"A wise inquiry, my lord. Corpse-tar is a condensation of impurities left in most bodies that concentrate from the dead mind and passing soul, an amplification of the usual impurities Cultivators need to abolish in the course of their progression. It will be readily obvious, some of it even seeping from her pores, as you may see and smell. Healing the body is not as difficult as for the living, since the dead body has no active will, so it will not hinder attempts for external Mana, Intent, Skills, or even naked will to impugn upon it. I have noticed my lord has substantial self-healing capabilities, and such should be readily applicable to this task, if slightly harder than one's own body or than dedicated healing capabilities."
Axl turned to Moxlin. "You make a talisman array to concentrate the Mana, and I try the healing?"
Moxlin gave him a thumbs-up. "Try not to burn everything to bits if you get annoyed!"
"Indeed, my lord," Tem bowed, voice fully formal. "I suggest refraining from using fire-based techniques, Undeath of any form being unusually frail in the face of such an element. Even more so than most of, well, everything else."
Axl took a deep, recentering breath. Indeed, he hadn't imagined it. Moxlin had been standing quite a bit further from him than before, and not once went up his shoulder. He had to take another pair of breaths before he felt ready to approach Alifren.
He put one hand on her forehead and another at the pit of her stomach, closing his eyes, activating [Mana Shroud] to its fullest, first trying to simply glimpse inside. Indeed, it was easy, like looking at the air, almost no resistance like he normally felt, even with mundane plants or stones. Immediately, he could see the buildup of corpse-tar, a detritus that felt like it was slowly corroding the body, both its material and the Mana that was pooling in.
The Mana told a more confusing story, with an odd kind accumulating across the body, something that felt grey yet vibrant, what he guessed was the Undeath, and at the same time nature-attuned Mana was also coming in, fueling both the undeath Mana and pooling in a spiritual space where the Cultivator's Core would be.
Deciding to observe the Mana first before doing anything there, Axl started to use his will and Bilesong to remove the corpse-tar. At first, he tried to get it to leave her body through her skin or mouth, but soon he realized it was far faster and more efficient if he absorbed it, letting his poison-absorbing organ clear it from him, concentrating it into its storage gland.
Three times Axl had to place the corpse-tar concentrate into empty potion flasks, his gland's storage filled up, and soon he had gotten rid of most of the stuff. There were still some tiny bits accumulating, but they were getting harder and harder to clear, so Axl figured there would be diminishing returns with him trying to keep doing that.
Next, he tried to use his potions, starting with small amounts of his better G-Grade healing potions. He guided the liquid through the body, helping it to fix damaged tissue, mostly where the corpse-rot had been densest, and quickly used up four bottles. Interestingly, there seemed to be no resistance building up, and Axl could simply use the healing as much as he needed. He then did another round of clearing the corpse-rot that had built up, because now there wasn't any more accumulating, at least that he could detect with [Mana Shroud] and putting as much will into Perception as he could.
However, one injury was acting oddly, where she was hit in the heart, clearly the killing blow. The heart itself was fully healed, but there was a strange pressure in the Mana from where Brillhit's arrow pierced through, from the center of her sternum into the heart. The undeath Mana was the culprit here, doing something odd with it.
Rather than fighting it, Axl had the idea to try to enhance what was going on and used one of his G-Grade empowerment potions. He fed it to Alifren and willed its effects to the chest-wound, finding that the undeath Mana and flesh reacted strongly to it, the Mana concentrating and becoming complex, but in a way that seemed somehow more attuned to the body. Without hesitation, Axl used the rest of the empowerment potions he had on him, only the last two seeming to have little effect, so he let the potion simply diffuse into the body, to hopefully give her an Attribute boost, if nothing else.
The body finally in some decent state, Axl stepped back and focused on the Mana, both the undeath and the nature-attuned kind. He had paid attention to it while he was doing the rest of his work, and now he felt he had some sense of what was going on. But he had been at this for several hours, and his injured body needed a break.
He rose from his crouched position and turned away, not wanting to look at Alifren's body. Moxlin had set up a large circle of thirty-three talismans around the corpse pile, and Tem was still to the side, on a small rock peeking out of the clearing grass.
"An impressive effort, my lord." The bird bowed. "Even with my menial skills, I can see the remarkable purity of lady Alifren's vessel. And lady Moxlin's superb construct has more than tripled the density of nature-attuned Mana, a fine array as well!"
Axl sighed in relief that the bird included Moxlin in his ass-kissing, the spider beaming with pride as she pretended to examine one of the talismans for leakage.
"I think I also feel that we can refine the Mana a bit more," Axl said, stretching beyond the array circle. "Remember those acorns we got on the way, Moxlin?"
Moxlin turned, forelimbs flailing in excitement. "Oh, mommy yes! I thought about it, since they are so high in purity, but was afraid they could do more harm than good if they were a bad fit to whatever is going on in there."
Axl nodded. "It's quite the good fit, of all the components of nature attunement I could detect with my Skill. Go ahead and slot them in."
Moxlin positively vibrated with excitement as she took out the bunch of acorns from Brillhit's storage ring, having removed all the stuff from the orcs and the leader's much smaller ring and put it all in that one place. She then quickly started slotting them into the existing talismans, making minor modifications in the glyphs to accommodate the new source.
Almost immediately, the nature-attuned Mana within the corpse pile started to become enriched with denseroot, a dark, heavy grey subset of Mana quite visible to Axl's [Mana Shroud]. He needed to wait until the new Mana stabilized and gained its peak density before he did any more work, so instead, Axl turned to the other changes in his body that he'd overlooked, focusing on one he was very ambivalent about receiving.
>> New Level Obtained: Level 18
>> Class: Usurpation of Balance (Rare): +3 to all Attributes, +0 Free Points, +0 Free Boons
>> Title: Oocile's Chosen (Oocile, updated): All Attributes +18 (scales with level)