by J. J. Lorden
However, in a few short strides, the skin on her fingers and hands was cut to ribbons. In a fortunate turn, the thorns found a bit less purchase in the bloody flesh.
The thin cloth covering her legs and forearms provided protection for only a few seconds before it was ripped apart, and the hundreds of tiny razorlike points began carving into both.
She was slowed considerably by the brush, despite her stubborn drive forward. It was taking a massive effort to push through the thick tangle. Glancing at her health, she saw it turn from green to yellow; she’d lost about a quarter of its total in just a hand full of seconds.
“Shit. Time to go.” With a burst of energy, she took one more good stride and leapt again. Val saw the end of the thorn bushes as soon as she was up–she was going to crash down in the last ten feet.
Without thinking about it, she slid her hands up the staff, grasping it at the end like a pole-vaulter. As she dropped down, she led with her staff while flattening her body to follow inline with it, legs straight behind.
The staff hit the briars first, slowing, and her legs began to rise. Then it planted. She gripped the weapon with all her might, arms slightly bent with muscles flexed.
Her grip started to slide, but her fingers found grooves and held. She tucked her head as her feet continued to sail forward. In a moment, she was fully vertical, feet straight up, body clear of the brush. The highest thorns bit into her already bloody arms, but that was small potatoes compared to having her whole body torn up.
As her body passed straight-up-and-down and angled forward, she pushed hard, extending her arms without releasing the staff. The staff pulled back, and she lost some of her speed, but it came free. As her roll brought the ground back into view, Val saw she was almost going to make it.
Her feet caught the very last bush. She tucked her head again, released the staff, and hit the ground shoulders first, clear of the wickedly thorned briar patch.
It wasn’t a pretty roll. She tumbled head over heels a couple times to absorb the speed before extending her legs and bouncing up to an awkward jog.
Val didn’t waste time recovering and immediately retrieved her staff. Picking it up, she caught a glimpse of her arms and hands and cringed internally. They looked like she’d just punched out a dozen plate glass windows.
She shelved the concern. Healing will handle it. And accelerated down a gentle grassy slope toward a broad stream. A glance at her mini-map found the fight, and she veered a bit to the left, aiming to come up behind the combatants.
As she closed on the water, Val saw that although the tributary was at least thirty feet across, it was pretty shallow. That was good; it meant she could ford the water without swimming.
Holding her staff low, Val pumped her legs full speed toward the stream. Just before her first stride plunged into the shallows, a ferocious roar split the night.
The noise was terrifying. It sent a wave along Val’s scalp and down her limbs–some part of her mind recognized a new icon appear, but she had no attention to check it.
Her whole body jerked, her stride stuttered, and her foot landed on a wide, flat stone that was covered with a thin, invisible layer of slime.
Perhaps she could have kept her footing without the interruption and mysterious debuff generated by the roar, or perhaps not. She’d never know, so it really didn’t matter.
As it was, she was helpless to react to the slick surface, and her foot kept right on going. She had a brief glance at the nighttime sky. Huh... two moons. Instinctively, she reached back to brace herself with her hands, totally forgetting that she was holding a staff.
Her right hand went back, and the butt end of the staff came up, catching her perfectly at the base of the skull just before she slammed into the shallow water. At just a couple inches deep, the water didn’t do much to absorb the impact.
For long moments Val’s world swam in disorientation while her lungs burned, and her mouth worked for air. From a third-party perspective, it was a remarkable fish-out-of-water impression. In the background, she was vaguely aware of a flash of light.
When her senses finally recovered, she was soaked through, laying on her back with her lower half in the water. The night around her was silent.
Apparently, the unlucky sap forced to deal with the death-cat was done fighting. In a moment of alarm, she checked the map. There was only the blue dot. Val relaxed–the cat was dead.
Her head and the space between her shoulder blades ached a bit, but a mental inventory of everything else didn’t reveal any other injuries.
Pushing to her feet, she gathered up her weapon and waded very carefully into the stream. Just beyond the first six feet, the water rapidly deepened, and the stony bottom lost its slickness.
The current was cold, which felt refreshing, and it pushed on her thighs with more force than she’d expected. This stream must have a decent slope, Val mused, her memory harkening back to a run of the Penobscot they’d done just last spring.
They, of course, meaning herself and the boys. They tried to ride one of the local rivers at least once a year; white water rafting was always a good time. And because they liked to keep the raft light, with just themselves and a guide, there was always tons of action.
The memories of blasting through colossal standing waves and working in unison to make sure the raft pointed nose-first into the most dangerous rapids made her smile. Within moments her feet began to ascend the upslope out of the little river.
Exiting on the far side, she caught the faintest whisper of… moaning? She stopped moving and strained to hear it again.
The only sounds were those of the night. The prairie had returned to the blissful symphony of chirping and buzzing. Still, she was pretty sure it had been moaning. Which wasn’t a good sound for someone to be making after a fight.
Val hurried up the hill, moving as quietly as she could. She wasn’t too worried about being attacked–even if the guy wasn’t friendly, he almost certainly wasn’t in any shape for another fight.
As she crested the top, what she found was a surprisingly bloody mess. Her eyes landed first on the dead cat collapsed in a large dark spot in the grass. Given the ground-up condition of its neck, she guessed the darkness was blood.
Then she saw the man. He was prone and unmoving on the other side of the trampled patch of grass that had been the impromptu arena.
She started toward him, and within a couple steps, realized he was also lying in a large dark spot–his blood. Her heart dropped, and she hurried.
What she found was confusing, more than confusing, it disturbed her. Now she could at least better understand how he’d won. She nearly backed away, content to leave this strange, black-scaled beast-man to his fate.
Then she saw the man’s features and froze.
She stepped over him–Val knew that face, even being covered by black scales. “What the hell did you do, Erramir?” she muttered quietly and bent to check on his vitals. She sighed with relief to find his pulse strong, then started figuring out how to get him back to Entiarch.
About an hour later, Valerie noted that the sky was showing the first signs of lightening–it would be dawn soon. Exhausted, she dumped her still unconscious friend on the ground and propped him against Entiarch.
His avatar was a wild mix–green hulk hair, bronzed skin on his face and chest but dark brown beyond his elbows and from his calves down, and midnight nails that curved slightly into wicked points.
The dark scales he’d initially been covered in had disappeared while she was clearing a path through the briar patch. When she’d returned and found him like this, the likeness had become even more apparent.
Yep, it’s definitely Aus.... no, Erramir. The game exerted a heavy influence on her mind to use only avatar names. So much so that even to think of him as someone other than Erramir felt wrong.
She realized the same was true for her self-perception–she just was Valerie. Thoughts for another time, she mused silently as she looked at him. She m
entally expressed her desire to see his info again. She’d already checked it once before dragging him back to Entiarch. A nearly full health bar appeared; above it read:
Erramir: level 3—Child of the Ancients, Honor Bound.
Damn! she thought again, reliving her initial shock. What the hell did you do, Err? She tested the nickname silently and liked it; Erramir was a bit of mouthful for her liking.
He’d gained two levels and two titles during his first day in-game. But that was her boy, always on the leading edge in games. She didn’t mind, really. He was an incredible gaming partner.
She also wouldn’t trade her own achievements for his. In her opinion, her single title was worth both of his–Soul Forger. And her first evolved skill, Wood Weaving, was literally the most amazing thing she’d ever been able to do.
And it was orgasmic! The best sex of her life had now officially been with a tree! Better yet, the memory was pristine, and even thinking of it filled her with joy.
“Trees are where it’s at,” Val said with a big smile, then laughed at herself, shaking her head at the sheer lunacy of it. Even if it was insane, she couldn’t help but feel that, at least for her, it was all too true.
There were precisely two guys in the world that she trusted. Well, maybe three if she included Bendik, but he was scarcely around.
Then there was Olli. She liked Olli, maybe even trusted him. But it was a different feeling than what she had for her boys and Bendik. Even thinking about them as anything more than friends felt like a violation.
With Olli, the feeling had a particular something more. The consideration made her queasy suddenly. Val scrunched her face in distaste–she didn’t feel anxious about men. They were nervous about her.
With a shake to clear the thought, she picked up her staff. “Humm, you need a name.” The weapon’s official name, VirginWood, would raise too many questions that she didn’t want to answer. “How about... Woody.” She supposed that was a decent name for a staff. “Nahhh... too corny.”
“What else? Maybe a nickname? Something based on your real name?” She mused, slowly turning it about in her mind. “So, Virgin Wood… maybe... Virg?” Her voice rose as she said the name.
She liked that a lot more. It was a bit mysterious, and it was also a real nickname based on the staff’s full name.
According to the system dialog, its name bar wasn’t visible to anyone else, so nobody should guess what the name was short for. She wasn’t ashamed of the full name, far from it. It was just profoundly personal, and she wasn’t ready to share that–Val wasn’t sure she’d ever be–and that was okay with her.
“Virg then.” She said with a nod.
She reached out to Entiarch and sent him, Watch. Warn.
The tree’s response resounded in her mind, Protect… Rest
That was good enough for her. She was tired as hell, and if Entiarch said she could rest while he stood guard, then she could rest easy. The tree was wise beyond measure and had a direct connection to the entire forest.
Her burden eased, weariness landed like a physical blow, and she felt herself start to fade.
Glancing at Erramir as she curled up next to him for warmth, she noticed, not for the first time, the man’s enormous feet. They were the size of damn snowshoes! Val smirked to herself as she closed her eyes and drifted away. Hehe. Big feet.
20
Elementalist
Nero didn’t lead him far, just down the passage to an opening with long cords pulled to one side instead of a door. Carson followed and he saw there was a matronly elf sitting behind a small desk, studying a parchment with her quill hovering above it.
He paused just beyond the doorway, then stepped back to look at the cords. It was actually a bundle of softly glowing blue vines. Something about the vines called to him. He wanted to touch them, study them, and understand what they were.
But he did not want to offend this Irrienna, whatever he needed to talk with her about had to happen before he could begin training. And he wanted the training.
Would fingering her door vines be offensive? Carson had no idea. It seemed unlikely, but he forced his attention off them and back into the room anyhow.
The seated Elven matron had a regal air about her. She was the first elf he’d seen that actually looked somewhat aged. He thought she resembled a very well-kept equivalent of 60ish in human terms. Distinctive locks of white in her nutty-brown hair and clear smile lines framing bright eyes were unmissable signs of the wisdom of years.
She smiled at Carson and inclined her head in the slightest nod. In the gesture he felt that something in her understood his curiosity and the look released him from his concern about offending her.
He turned back to the blue magic in the vines. Moving closer he saw a curling pattern that ran over their surface, and he could see faint wisps, like tiny waves of blue heat, curl off them.
What is that? he thought and slowly extended a hand, hovering it a breath from touching for a long moment. He could feel... a tingle, little currents ripple the very center of his palm and along the skin between his fingers.
Ever so gently, he slid his fingers beneath one, separating it slightly and drawing it forward.
The thin cord angled across the outside of his forefinger, draped into the cup of his palm, then bent toward the floor. Its energy began seeping through his skin, filling his muscles and tendons with a sense of... flight.
It felt like a suggestion of intention, and knowledge. It was so familiar. He suddenly knew this energy, felt himself resonant with it, and felt it vibrating sympathetically in his core.
Completely enthralled, Carson’s mind touched the point within his center that was resonating with the power in the vine. The vine brightened and the power within it sung of breath and bumblebees and blustering through bare winter branches.
He fell into the song and his spirit was riding the clouds far above. He swept down from the sky and danced between the leaves of towering trees, while blowing notes that joined with the wind-song.
He sought its source; sought clear resonance with the song of the air and he found it. Within his core the power of air aligned, and a sense of peace settled on Carson.
He was freedom and the boundless skies. He was the serenity of impartial love and unattachment, the flight of a million flecks of pollen drifting on a million breezes. And he knew, Carson knew, it was also deception.
The air was in him, part of him, and sustained him, but it was not all he was. He would be less without his body.
He exhaled deeply and felt his body solidify around him again. His feet seemed to crash into his awareness. The power of air flowed from the world around him into his core, then through his feet into the floor and out. The current of energy seemed to ground him and set him free at the same time. It was magnificent.
“Well. That is very interesting,” said a female voice.
Carson’s head turned slowly to find the speaker. It was the stately elf who’d been sitting behind the desk. She’d stood and come around her desk to stand just beside him.
“That is new, even to me,” she said, awe hinting in her tone. “Those braids are not of a weave any untrained air mage has ever even sensed, let alone used to awaken a soul essence.”
Carson didn’t reply, he was still held in the current of energy and he didn’t trust his voice.
She leaned in and stared into his eyes. Recognition flashed across her face and her eyes flared in surprise. Then, almost instantly, the surprise was gone, and it was replaced with cold steel.
“You will be powerful,” she said, and the words were a pronunciation. In Carson’s mind they rang like a hammer on that cold steel. “The core essences are already awakening within you. Come, young Gwarn’din. Now that it is begun, we must complete your awakening while the way is clear.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder and gently but assuredly pulled him into the room. As the cord dropped from his grasp, the current lessened, but it did not stop, and each step refre
shed the flow of awareness into his core.
The power swirled and moved about the space behind his breastbone and down into his navel as if it was wandering about within his body. It felt untamed, which was natural for wind Carson thought. Still, he wasn’t comfortable with how little control he had over it.
She guided him to another opening hung with the same type of vines. These were not pulled aside, and they obscured the space behind completely. So completely that Carson was certain they were joined together.
As they approached, he could feel power in them, more than just air, distinct but unknown to him. He moved to touch one–the Elven sorceress caught his hand and gently guided it back to his side.
“Not like that, Gwarn’din,” she said. “Despite your affinity for air, opening another soul essence that way would result in tremendous confusion and pain for you. Follow. Let me do what you’ve come to me for.”
Carson looked at her and blinked. He understood, words were extraneous.
“Good. Now please, into the heart chamber.” Irrienna gestured forward, and Carson sensed a touch of power move from her to the vines. They lifted to the side, revealing a passage through the considerable thickness of the tree. It seemed they were exiting the illusion-obscured area back into the tree proper.
Even at this height, they passed through three full paces of solid wood into a small, round chamber. Growth rings converged in the exact center where there was a glyphic circle a yard across. It radiated power, filling the space with a density of energy that made his head swim.
He could actually see the elemental energy as thick currents swirling chaotically.
Irrienna entered behind him; in a heartbeat, they slowed, and four distinct flows moved into Irrienna and began to pulse slowly with her breath. Her body seemed swollen by the elements and her presence organized it.
The chaos became steady flows that entered at her feet, twisted like licorice through her core, and arched out the crown of her head.
