The spiritual avatar of a certain scout drifted through crumbling, ancient stone walls. Her Aspect allowed her to ignore the hazard of the constant falling acid rain in the territory. The Saltfire Storm Alliance didn’t outright trust her because of her Guild ties, but they needed soone who could investigate deep sections of their territory without protective gear.
Sevra had taken this contract knowing full well that her Walk Astralism and history of ’unofficial’ tasks made her uniquely qualified and valuable. Still, their distrust made more sense than their desperation to hire her... but like with every sort of job offer she was sent - the money talked more loudly than anyone’s disgruntled whispers.
Her ethereal fingers traced along so peculiar grooves in a section of wall that should have long since eroded away. The ruins of this place spoke of a battle between cultivators who wielded powers beyond her comprehension. It seed like one wielder of Acid had fought soone who commanded Obsidian here... on a scale that terrified her.
’This was her, wasn’t it?’
She knew the tales of the Acid Tongued Villain very well - they were part of her family’s oral history. They’d been passed down alongside prophecies about reincarnators and preserved as one of the specific examples of the horrors that suprely powerful beings got up to in the past. Almost the sa ti she began to grow fully convinced, the avatar paused at a particular intact insignia that caught her eye.
’But this... this couldn’t have been her? Unless the estimates of the age of those texts are wrong. This place hadn’t existed during that ti!’
Sevra drifted higher to get a better look at the overall ruins again. The black volcanic glass remained one of the few things unmarred, proving that they must have been a match for their opponent. She made her best ntal sketch that ignored the additions of this material as her spirit shook.
’This place - if it really *is* this place - disappeared only three thousand years ago. Ugh. The fact that I can so easily think of that length as ’only’ compared to when that woman was alive hurts my head.’
Nonetheless, this ant all this was the work of a *different* Acid cultivator. Soone who ca later. Soone potentially *less* powerful at this ti than the one whom she already feared had been... the place they were having her look for had no imdiate connection to Elua er Goltbred.
Sevra didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
In the back of her mind, she was still looking for a way to get on the girl’s good side again. If that were even possible! Letting her know what these people were looking for might still have value. If she found anything more than the historical appeal of ruins too dangerous to tread on foot.
Her avatar twisted through several pockmocked chambers, noting how very selective the destruction caused by the Obsidian itself appeared. It made it seem as if this incredible cultivator had been the defender of the area. The one trying to avoid damaging certain sections.
But the years of the corrosive substance falling from the sky since then had ruined that effort.
’The records say this was a great city, but I doubt there is much left behind in this environnt. Though if there is, it must be sothing impressive...’
Movent drew her attention towards another scout - one physically present in so kind of protective gear. They carefully tested each step on the ground with a specialized inert glass pole to make sure no caverns were about to break and swallow them up. Their spirit rippled with fear despite the precautions that had been taken.
It reminded her that no Guild was all on the sa page. The Saltfire Alliance was clearly using multiple thods to try and map these ruins... and she was just the pawn of one particular faction inside them. She observed their search silently while they examined a floor covered in ssy crystalline formations.
’That’s not the Obsidian... sothing that grew up from whatever is in the Acid?’
The sickly yellow color looked incredibly uninviting. The scout on the ground gave it a wide berth. A similar area had been discovered and the tests on live creatures had proven it to be quite deadly. The crystals themselves could be removed and cleaned up so - and would stay inert for a ti.
But the essence that had infused them over millennia made them a dangerous catalyst that would start emitting a corrosive film that did not play nicely with mortal flesh. While it had yet to be completely tested, they even theorized that consumption just might behave like ingesting Negavigor for a weaker cultivator.
Dealing with fighting against the Acid inside their body would drain their reserves slowly, making it effectively a cunning poison. Especially with how it could be prepared to appear inoffensive long enough to be hidden in food. Most of the Guild was on the side of keeping this all very hidden.
Which is why no one told the Shadow Whisker Sorority scout a single thing about it.
Whether to hold onto it as a source of power or just to prevent the suspicion of what they may do with it, they were sure that this find alone would place a target on their backs in the continent. Which is why so factions had already started to destabilize so of the larger organizations.
The less they were looking into them and more at themselves, the more ti the Saltfire had to find whatever else of value remained in the ruins.
Sevra felt her spiritual form beginning to strain. She had pushed toward the limits of her Walk duration. But there was one last area she had seen that beckoned. The spot with the most spears of Obsidian driven into the ground and laying from her vantage point as if *knocked aside*.
A chamber was covered by a giant plate of smooth black glass that she couldn’t move too close to. Of course, that didn’t stop her from moving down into the ground and then inside. She found in that room a feeling of dread every bit as strong as when she found the twisted object in the forest near the Coiled Serpent..
Her family’s prophecies had warned about Reincarnation bringing ancient dangers back into the world. That the Acid Tongued Villain would absolutely be one of them. But now she wondered like a part of her had after she had been spared at the girl’s wedding - what if the real threat to worry about wasn’t *only* from that connection she had focused so tightly on?
’There were so many cultivators even up until this long ago that were monstrous...’
She let her spirit begin its return journey to her physical form. Eventually her eyes opened to find the acid rain still thumping against the Saltfire’s town scale barrier. A design that she *knew* was Elua’s, even if the Guild here just thought the girl only learned to make the keystones from so mysterious crone.
Recovering from the trance of ditation, the scout’s fingers clenched and unclenched as she considered what to include in her report. The Alliance would want to know about so of the safer looking paths she’d found. That was her first assigned duty, with anything else leading to potential bonuses.
’But the rest? Do I offer it knowing they might find it soon anyway? Or do I rely on the Descent taking their attention long enough...’
Dealing with knowledge that felt dangerous in ways that transcended Guild politics had been sothing she had grown up with in her family. Yet, it still made her stomach squirm. The prophecies warned them to watch for the signs and she had.
"Those that lived in the past are even more dood to repeat it than the usual cyclical nature of history."
The words of her missing elder had always seed to her that it had been talking about a single individual. But was that really Elua er Goltbred they spoke of? Or had her own bias and fear made it the only possibility...
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
The obsidian mirror floated above Elua’s tent table. Her fingers tapped on its black sleek surface while she examined the fragnt of spirit she’d hastily sealed away earlier today. The concentrated emotions within it, the hate and revenge fantasy held for *that face* remained as potent as when she’d first separated them.
’Just shoving it aside was sloppy, but necessary. Ti to do this properly.’
The brunette let it part from where she hid it well away from the fragnt in her heart. As if happy to have another companion connection, the warped spiritual energy inside the relic’s depths soaked in her ’offering’. While severing the connection to the Divinity on the other side had been her main goal when making this...
Now it would serve as a ditation aid of sorts.
The emotional energy resisted both her and the ’other’ that was like her at first. At this point, it was still trying to maintain its separation strongly because that was included in the intent that severed it from her feelings. She didn’t force it to comply.
Instead, the illusionist let her own spiritual pressure encompass it gradually while feeding it further into the carefully arranged channels she’d carved into the obsidian. Mint eyes dulled as she focused inward, to watch the fragnt’s progress through the mirror’s internal matrices.
The artifact itself didn’t try to change or cleanse the emotions, though the sort-of-entity inside did prod like crazy at it. But it would provide a safe space where they could slowly disperse back into her broader spiritual makeup. The place where they belonged.
Hatred of betrayal was part of who she was, after all. It had kept her alive for millennia. The problem wasn’t the feeling itself, but letting it concentrate around Leysah specifically to the point that it was coloring her priorities. Telling herself only in the etings that the woman might wear a traitor’s face, but that she wasn’t the sa soul... had not been effective enough.
The intensity of her feelings needed to be acknowledged even outside of being pressured. They needed to be rebalanced around this current life. The brunette slipped into ditation.
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