Declan helped her make up her mind. “Sanctuary? Do you think that means a safe area? Someplace we can bring other survivors to?” His voice was full of hope. “I mean, if it is, that would be massive. It would mean we can save more people.”
After the last few days, it was good to see him excited about something. He sounded like his old self, and Char didn’t want that to go away again. The part of her that wanted the fight won her internal debate. Hope was a pretty powerful thing.
“I don’t know, but if you’re up for it, we can find out.” She watched his face as it shifted from excitement to determination.
He met her eye and nodded. His short sword appeared in his right hand, and his dagger in his left. Char pulled her sword into her hand. She checked in with Lulu and found the hellhound ready to prove that her pack was strong enough to overcome any foe. That confidence overflowed into her, and she couldn’t keep an eager smile from her own lips as they stepped forward together.
The shadows of the dome split around them like a curtain of cool water. It tingled across her skin as she passed through it. Inside the dome, the sun was again muted to the cool glow of a full moon. The silver-white light was just enough to show the terrain and create deep pools of shadow.
The massive tree dominated the sky. Its leaves caught the moonlight and seemed to almost shimmer as they moved in the light breeze. Something about the huge tree tugged at Char’s blood; ancient memories in her DNA resonated with the sight as both the Tuatha and Vanir parts of her sat up and took notice. She wanted to explore that connection, but there wasn’t time.
A shape moved in the shadows beneath the tree; a massive, sinuous form of darker blackness that undulated around the trunk. It lifted its titanic head to peer at them, flicking out a long tongue to taste the air. Its slit-pupiled eyes glowed green in the darkness, and the moonlight glinted from its scales.
Uncoiling from its place wrapped around the mighty tree, it surged toward them. Shadows streamed away from it, and its outline seemed to soften and blur. A great, black snake as big around as a city bus slithered toward them, intent on destroying the invaders in its domain. It covered the half-mile between the tree and where they stood with the speed and inevitability of a freight train.
“Break left, flank it. I’ll keep it focused on me. Try not to die.” She shot Declan a quick grin as she shaped her Arc spell in her left hand. She strafed to the right as she released the bolt of power, filling the gloom with a strobe of actinic blue white and the clean scent of ozone.
As she’d hoped, the snake turned its attention to her, letting Declan slip to the side, disregarded. Lulu burst into flames, running to circle the creature, instinctively slipping into the pack tactics of her lupine ancestors.
Char came to a stop, her knees flexed, ready to dodge the snake’s first strike. It barreled toward her, and her heart beat like a drum, anticipating the attack. She visualized how she would roll to the side and come up with a slash to its neck.
The snake declined to play along by doing what she expected. Its shadowy form blurred and split into six smaller snakes. Two came for Char, the others went for Lulu and Declan. The shadows around them seemed to come to life, writhing up to obscure the rushing snakes and undulating across the ground.
The moving shadows on the ground tricked the eye and made footing uncertain; what looked like a dip might be a rise, and pools of darkness hid rocks that could turn an ankle. The snakes themselves became harder to track as they blended with the shadows.
Char leaned hard on her bloodline gifts to see through the shadows and anticipate the attacks of the snakes. She was glad she’d spent some of her points on speed because she needed every bit of it to stay ahead of the flashing fangs and undulating coils.
Lulu had an advantage. The snakes couldn’t wrap around her to pin her down. Her touch burned them, and the glow of her flames seared through the shadows to reveal the reality beneath.
Declan, though, was having a harder time of it. With two weapons, he was able to hold off the strikes of one foe while slashing at the other, but he had no magic to cut through the shadows. It got worse when the snakes split again; two becoming four. He parried a striking snake with his dagger, only for the dagger to pass through the immaterial form of a snake made entirely of shadow. Two of the snakes were real, but two were only illusions made of darkness.
Char’s and Lulu’s opponents split as well, becoming harder to hold off as they had to judge which snakes to ignore and which ones were true threats. The split snakes were smaller than the original, but each one was still the size of a monstrous anaconda, as big around as a human waist.
Her Foresight and Truesight gave her a small advantage, but they were unreliable, flickering in and out and giving her only hints and the barest instant of warning. It was as if they interfered with one another, alternating which one was in effect at a time. She needed them to work together.
She dodged the lashing tail of one snake only for Foresight to warn her of a strike from another, but she didn’t have the time to recover from her movement enough to counter the new danger. The mouth of the snake latched onto her left arm, its fangs driving deep into the muscle of her shoulder. For an instant, ice ran down her spine as she expected the burn of venom, but instead, the snake tried to coil around her. That was one small mercy. They were constrictors, not vipers.
She brought her sword in close, forcing the snake to wrap around both it and her, then sawed outward before the coil of scale and muscle could tighten around her, cutting into the snake and forcing it to release its hold or be cut in half. Another of the serpents lunged at her legs, but a flicker of Truesight showed her the translucence of an illusion, letting her ignore the attack.
A cry from Declan pulled her eyes to his fight. One of the snakes was wrapping around his legs, its teeth were clamped down on his thigh, and he was struggling to stay upright as he slammed his dagger into it while fending off his other opponent with his sword. She needed to finish her fight and go to his aid.
The flickering of her powers was frustrating. She needed both of them to work together instead of the crazy strobe effect she was getting. Her connection to her Thunderbird bloodline had strengthened after she’d flooded herself with lightning mana, but she didn’t have a mana type that was bound as tightly to these bloodlines as lightning was to that one.
She wove in and out between the snakes, her blades flashing, and Primal Grace letting her flow through the fight like a dancer. She let herself fall into that flow, letting her body keep her alive while her mind sought a solution.
If these powers came from who she was, from her DNA, then maybe her Flesh mana was the answer. She pulled a strand of mana through her Flesh Affinity and started to force it through her body. Recalling the way the lightning mana had flowed through her, she pushed the Flesh mana into those pathways. It was easier than she expected, almost as if there were natural channels that the mana wanted to use.
As the mana flowed through her, starting to circulate through her body like a new set of veins and arteries made of magic, she willed it to press into her flesh, to find the parts of her that were Vanir and Tuatha and make them stronger.
She had to split her focus. Part of her had to stay in the fight. She was able to hold the snakes at bay, to prevent them from wrapping around her and pinning her down, but with her focus split, she couldn’t land a decisive blow. She could barely keep track of the illusions and reality. She took damage from lashing tails and flashing teeth, but she couldn’t do enough damage to end the fight.
Her mana flowed, and she felt it sinking into her flesh. Her body drank it up like parched soil, but that wasn’t what she wanted right now. She pulled an unshaped wad of power to her eyes and tried to force her powers to work together. She needed her Tuatha and Vanir bloodlines to stop competing.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She focused her will on that idea. She stopped fumbling to direct the power and put every ounce of her improved Spirit and Willpower attributes to work on demanding that her body and blood work the way she wanted it, needed it, to work.
Lulu yelped, but Char didn’t have the attention to spare to see how her fight was going. She heard grunts of pain and effort from Declan, and she desperately wanted to help her friends, but she couldn’t help anyone if she couldn’t help herself.
Her mana reacted to her Will. It dove into her DNA, and things started to change. She felt a burn move through her body like a wave. Her sight exploded into a coruscating rainbow, and a stabbing, icy pain shot through her mind. Her body felt like it was coming apart at the seams. She collapsed to her knees and lost all track of the fight around her.
The snakes took advantage of her moment of weakness and struck, one latching onto her right calf, and the other slithering around her torso as she screamed with the pain flowing through her. She had just enough focus to pull a strand of lightning mana and send it to flow through her and along her skin, shocking the snakes as they tried to wrap around her.
The lightning acted as a catalyst for the change, speeding it along. As the Lightning and Flesh mana coursed through her, change followed in its wake, directed by her need. Two strands of herself, so similar that they competed for the same space, began to twine together. The tearing, fraying feeling reversed as parts of her twisted tighter together, weaving themselves into a new pattern. The change settled into her flesh and bones, disparate parts fusing into a greater whole. Notification icons flashed at the corner of her vision, ignored for now.
As the pain receded and control of her limbs returned, she pushed her lightning outward, shocking the snakes and forcing them to twitch and convulse as electricity usurped the control of their nerves. She forced herself back to her feet, her sixty-something points of strength letting her lift the weight of the snakes that clung to her.
The snakes released her and dropped away, fleeing the shocking mana that jolted and sparked across her skin, but they didn’t flee the fight. Four shadowy forms circled her, lunging in and darting away. But she could see the truth of them now. Faint, ghostly threads led away from two of the snakes, leading their movements and showing her where they would move next.
The threads didn’t stretch far; they only gave her a tiny amount more warning than her Foresight had, maybe a full second where the Vanir’s gift had given her less than a second before. But it was enough. The illusory snakes had no threads. They weren’t real, so they had no futures, no fates. She knew, on a deep, intrinsic level, that’s what she was seeing. The threads of fate.
The ability was burning through her mana pool. That was the trade-off. The old abilities had come for free, but she had no control. This, she could control, but it didn’t come for free. She had to hurry. Declan was on the ground, a snake wrapped around him. Lulu had finished one of her foes, but the other was giving her problems. She was limping; one of her forelegs had been broken, but she was still fighting with fierce determination.
Able to ignore the illusory snakes, Char went on the offensive. She lashed out at one of the snakes, lunging at it and bringing her sword down at the place it would be when the sword arrived. The blade crunched down into the sinuous body, slicing through midnight scales and breaking its spine. She saw the thread of the second snake an instant before it arrived and swayed to the side, letting its lunge miss her by less than an inch.
It whipped around to lunge again, but her new sight let her see where the lunge would take it. It was simple to move her sword into the snake’s path so that it ran headlong into the blade. Wounded, it tried to retreat, but she followed it, ending it with a two-handed overhead strike to the top of its head.
Lulu was still dancing with her one remaining foe, but Declan was in dire straits. He was wrapped by one of the snakes, and his face was turning purple from the lack of breath. His arm still moved, still tried to stab at the snake, but it lacked the angle and strength to pierce the tough scales.
Char rushed to his side. She couldn’t hack down at the snake wrapped around his chest without risking hurting him, so she dropped the sword and grabbed the snake’s head. She pushed lightning mana through her hands. The charge rushed through the snake and made it convulse. The current jumped to Declan as well, making his muscles lock up, but it did what she needed it to do. When she cut the flow, the snake was stunned enough that she was able to pull it away from him, sending him rolling as the snake unwound. The second snake was still wrapped around his legs, but he was able to breathe now, and his strength and senses started to come back to him.
Her mana pool was down to its dregs, and she had to let her new ability go, but she had her hands on one of the real snakes now, and Declan could feel where the other one was. Lulu had her own way to pierce the shadows, and with only one snake to deal with, each, they were able to end the fight in short order. Char wrestled her snake to the ground and snatched up her sword, hacking into it until it stopped moving.
Declan got his dagger under the head of the snake that was wrapped around his legs and sawed upward into its brain. Char went to help Lulu by pinning the snake so the limping hellhound could sink her glowing teeth into it. When the last snake died, the dome vanished, popping like an evil soap bubble to let the bright light of day stream in.
More notifications stacked up at the corner of her vision, but she left them unread while she checked on Declan and Lulu. She had just enough mana left to set the bone in Lulu’s leg, but it wasn’t fully healed before the mana headache let her know she was empty. She let herself plop to the ground next to Lulu, and a moment later, Declan limped over to sit next to them.
His eyes took on the glazed look that meant he was checking notifications, so she took a moment to check hers.
You have combined two bloodlines.
Your Tuatha and Vanir bloodlines
have successfully merged.
New bloodline:
Seidrsidhe - 21%
———————————————————
Lesser Foresight and Lesser Truesight have merged.
You now possess the gift:
Lesser Wyrdsight
———————————————————
Your Seidrsidhe bloodline has crossed a threshold.
Your gift, Lesser Wyrdsight, has advanced to
Wyrdsight.
————————————————————
Congratulations!
You have defeated the Zone Boss
Greater Umbra Snake
Level 30
————————————————————
Congratulations!
You have completed a Special Challenge Zone.
Experience gained.
[Rune Domain Core] gained.
Title gained.
Sanctuary Access granted.
————————————————————
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 26.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
All of your stats have increased by 1.
You have gained +1 Strength, +2 Speed,
+1 Dexterity, +3 Endurance, +1 Intelligence
+2 Spirit
____________________
New Title gained:
Champion (Bronze)
You have overcome the first Challenge of many.
Continue to push yourself forward and face
more Challenges to upgrade this title.
+3% effectiveness to all stats.
“Huh, weird. It says I gained enough experience for another level, but it can’t award me the level until I form a Core,” Declan said.
“Did you get an Affinity Core?” Char started to pull her rewarded Core from her inventory, but stopped when Declan showed her a smoky black gemstone.
“Shadow.” He held the gem up to the light. It wasn’t completely opaque. The light streaming through it showed swirling shadows within its depths.
“Do you want to use that?” She pulled her Affinity Core from her inventory and held it up. It was a clear gem, but within its depths, glowing purple symbols flashed and swirled; an arcane alphabet tossed by unfelt winds. “I got a Rune Domain Core. Not what I would have picked, but it’s on my list of Domains that resonate with my bloodlines. If you don’t want shadow, we can swap.”
He shook his head, “No. Not sure why, but Shadow feels like a good choice. I kind of like the idea. How do I… Oh, never mind, there’s the option.”
Char started to tell him to wait, but she was too slow. The orb in his hand started to break apart into swirling motes of shadow that zipped into his chest. His eyes glazed over, and he slumped to the ground. Char watched over him while he changed.
While she waited, she ran her gaze over the area that had been covered by the dome, looking for some sign of the Sanctuary the System kept mentioning. She didn’t have to look too hard. With the shadows banished, she could see the tree in all its glory, including the staircase spiraling around its trunk, the structures in its branches, and the ornate set of double doors in its base, set between two large roots.
Thief of Echoes. It's the story of a thief who steals something magical and ends up running for her life through the world-behind-the-world, meeting myths and legends, and learning that there so much more to reality than she ever imagined. The strange Chakra-based system that's now in her head lets her relive past lives to learn new skills and magic. It's available to supporters on my .
