Legacy of the Fallen (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  Shelia looked down for a moment as she collected her thoughts, then glanced back up towards us.

  “When a soul’s vessel, their body, dies,” she began, “there are several things that may happen, depending on their soul’s temperament and the life that it led before its death.”

  “Should it have been a Faithful soul, one that actively worshiped and devoted itself to a god, then it will find itself called to join that god’s host and pass out of this plane of existence, where it will be judged, and then find whatever paradise that their particular faith exalts if they are found to be worthy,” Shelia explained, slowly making eye contact with each of us as she spoke. “Out of all the paths a soul may take, this is the most common.”

  “Yet in the cases where a soul was Faithless or did not profess any strong belief in a single deity, or…” Shelia paused for a moment as her lips tightened. “…died in the grip of strong emotional upheaval, then things… tend to get a bit more complicated.”

  It looks like I wasn’t too far off with one of my earlier guesses, after all, I thought as I listened to Shelia speak.

  “When a Faithless or Divided soul passes, they are judged by the gods on the virtues that they possessed in life, such as valor, altruism, kindness, or any of the countless others that can define a person’s existence,” the priestess continued. “And depending on the conviction behind those virtues, the soul may find itself called by a particular deity who personifies that virtue the strongest, even if they weren’t adherents to the faith it represents.”

  “And those that aren’t called?” Sierra asked.

  “Then they are Lost,” Shelia answered with a sad note in her voice. “They remain forever trapped in a state between life and death until their soul fades away into oblivion. However, as we all saw today, there are some souls that somehow manage to keep their essences from fading, often returning as a mockery of life in the form of undead. This is also where we most commonly find the last kind of soul that I mentioned.”

  “The ones who died with strong emotions,” Freya stated.

  “Indeed,” Shelia acknowledged. “Those who die in such a state often have their souls consumed with whatever emotion they passed with, often making it difficult for them to hear the call of their god, or in some cases deafening them from it entirely. In every case, they return as an undead creature in some way, shape, or form, seeking some sort of revenge against the living or those they believe that have wronged them.”

  “And from the looks of it,” Lazarus said. “We have an entire cavern of that exact kind to deal with.”

  “It certainly seems that way,” Shelia agreed in a small voice. “I heard their mental chant as they attacked the camp. Even after all this time, they are incredibly angry. Defiant even.”

  “They think that they are still at war,” I said, recalling their voices all too well.

  “And they think that we are the invading Irovians,” Freya added, turning to look towards me as she spoke. “The Specters we fought at the ruin’s entrance said as much before they attacked.”

  “I’m sure it didn’t help that we were wearing Irovian armor at the time,” I noted, looking down at my new set of armor, then back towards the others, who all still wore the blackened chainmail sets that I had repaired from the scraps found in the fallen Irovian Tower.

  “Maybe not,” Shelia agreed. “But such a traumatized spirit may not have been able to make that distinction; they would have likely treated anyone as invaders.”

  “I suppose,” I said, offering the priestess a small shrug as I thought back to our encounter at the ruin entrance. “I’m reminded about what the Specters said when they died…they threatened to destroy this place if their defense failed.”

  “I remember that too,” Lazarus commented thoughtfully. “Do you think that’s what actually happened here centuries ago? That the Nafarr destroyed their own city to keep the Irovians from capturing it?”

  “I don’t know…” I replied, shaking my head at the thought. “To sacrifice an entire city just because you’re losing…that seems a bit extreme.”

  “Not when the option is death anyway,” Lazarus said. “We have no idea of what the war being fought was like, and given that none of the Nafarr that lived in Eberia survived the city’s fall…”

  Lazarus let his words hang in the air, everyone understanding what was left unsaid. If the war between the Irovians and the Nafarr was so brutal that they’d willingly destroy their own city, with themselves still in it, then they must have felt like they had no other option.

  “They could have wanted to go out on their own terms,” Sierra offered, breaking the silence. “If they knew they were going to die no matter what.”

  “It is a good theory,” Shelia said. “That would certainly explain the spirits anger and desire for vengeance. Such a vicious and genocidal conflict would make our war with the orcs look like a schoolyard fight between children…”

  “That’s for sure,” I agreed as I reached up to scratch the side of my head, working through everything that Shelia had just told us. I now had a vague sense of how the spirits might have ended up here, though I couldn’t be completely sure. We were working with precious little in terms of real information, and our guesses, were just that, guesses, based on what we thought made sense in the moment.

  “I suppose that answers my question, Shelia,” I said with a frustrated sigh as I leaned back in my chair. “Though I am afraid it only brings up several more.”

  “Good questions often have a tendency to do that,” the priestess replied with a faint smile. “Are perhaps any of those questions ones that I can help answer?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, putting both of my hands behind my head and lacing my fingers together as I collected my thoughts. “The last time that we fought the spirits, in the ruins above, they had managed to corrupt a single Æther Crystal and were constantly pouring from it to attack us. We only survived because we were able to use the Nafarrian security system to purge the Æther stored in the crystal, thereby starving the spirits and causing them to vanish.”

  “But you can’t do that so easily to the spirits that are in the Grove,” Shelia observed, nodding at me in understanding. “There is simply too much Æther.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “At best, we can seal the Ley Line to keep more from coming in. But that won’t do anything to what has already leaked from the rupture.”

  “So then, if I don’t miss my guess, you want to know if there is any other way that you can get these spirits to move on of their own accord,” Shelia stated.

  “That’s right,” I answered with a nod, not at all surprised by Shelia’s insight.

  “Then I’m afraid to tell you that there is no easy answer to that question either, Lyrian,” Shelia said in a consoling manner. “Vengeful souls can anchor themselves to anything. From the most innocuous of objects to buildings, to huge swaths of land, to even insubstantial ideals. I recall an incident I read about, set during the early days of The War where an Eberian battalion was killed to a man defending The Bulwark from a particularly determined orc assault that sought to breach the walls. Despite their desperate defense succeeding in driving the orcs back, their spirits clung to their fallen bodies, and they all rose up the following morning as Revenants, not unlike the ones I heard you face in the ruins, attacking anything and everything that came near them.”

  “It took the better part of a regiment to regain control of that section of the wall,” Shelia continued. “Not by destroying all of the risen undead, but by reclaiming the battalion’s standard, which despite all the battles that had raged around it, still stood where it had been planted. It is said that the moment that it was touched, whatever was holding those souls in place vanished, and the remaining undead all fell in unison.”

  “So, there could be something like that holding the Nafarrian spirits here?” Freya asked with a hopeful sound in her voice. “Something we could just do, or find, and they’ll all just fade away?”
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br />   “Possibly,” Shelia replied, stressing the word very carefully. “Spirits can fixate on anything that resonates with them, and it is almost impossible to determine what that is until after it was discovered. They may very well be anchored to the very concept of defending this place from any interloper, and there is nothing that we can do, short of starving them of Æther, to defeat them.”

  “Well if that’s the case,” Constantine said, reaching out from his seat to clap me on the shoulder. “Thankfully we have Lyrian here. We can just toss him into all of the Æther that the spirits are coming from and have him absorb it all.”

  “Yeah, and then have me end up even more Ætherwarped,” I grunted, reaching up to bat his arm off my shoulder. “Or, god forbid, end up possessed by an angry Nafarrian ghost like Graves was.”

  “There is that,” Constantine admitted. “But do you think that’d work? You just absorbing all the Æther?”

  “Not in any reasonable timeframe,” I replied, shaking my head. “I have a limit of how fast I can absorb mana in general, and I’ve been hesitant to try draining Æther. I don’t want to accidentally warp myself any more than I am already.”

  “Bah,” Constantine grunted. “I’m sure you’d be fine…”

  “I’m sorry that I don’t have more specific answers to give you all,” Shelia said, causing us all to focus our attention back towards her. “But you are all going to go back into the Grove, right? Maybe you’ll be able to observe what the spirits are doing, and perhaps something will stand out.”

  “Hopefully,” I replied with a sigh, appreciating Shelia’s optimism, even if it did ring a bit hollow to me. We’d managed to get a few bits of information with regards to the world’s lore that we didn’t know before, but nothing concrete. It would be up to us to find a solution on our own, rather than have it spelled out for us.

  Which I guess is why this quest is considered ‘Legendary’ in difficulty, I mused, recalling the Ley Line’s quest details, which I had been annoyed to note hadn’t updated with the latest world event.

  “Thanks for answering our questions, Shelia,” I said, unlacing my hands and leaning forward in my chair. “You’ve definitely given us a better understanding than we had before.”

  “I am always happy to help,” the priestess replied as she stood up, sensing that our impromptu meeting was coming to a close. “Hopefully we will be able to find a way to put these spirits to rest and seal the Ley Line. It may seem a bit unusual to say, but I’m starting to look back on the days where we only had goblins and giant spiders to worry about with fondness.”

  “Everything did seem simpler back then, didn’t it?” Constantine asked as everyone chuckled.

  “Maybe just a little bit,” I said, sharing a smile with everyone as we stood up and moved to exit the healing ward. “We’ll just need to see if we can make it through this latest trial.”

  “I have faith that we will, Lyrian,” Shelia stated confidently. “The gods are not so cruel to have us endure so much with no possibility for victory. It just up to us to find it.”

  “I hope so,” I affirmed as we came to the entrance of the healing ward and turned to bid farewell to the priestess, everyone replying in kind after me. “Have a good night, Shelia; thanks again.”

  “So, is there anything else on our agenda?” Constantine asked as we turned back towards the heart of the camp. “Because if there isn’t, I’m going to go crash. I want to get a group out in the jungle first thing in the morning to see what the spirits have done to the place, and I’d rather not be dead tired while out there.”

  “That sounds like a good plan, and count me in for the group,” Lazarus said to the rogue. “I’m sure Ransom and Sawyer will be up for it too.”

  “I’ll second that,” Sierra said in a tired voice. “Especially the sleep part. I don’t even know what time it is anymore. I was already out when the spirits attacked.”

  “It’s late enough to be considered early,” Freya answered, before looking over towards me. “And I don’t think we have anything else that needs to be done? Right, Lyr?”

  “Nothing for you all,” I replied. “Though I was planning on staying up and crafting a bit. If you all don’t mind dropping your armor off at the crafting area, along with any of the golem metal, hide, or leather you have, I should be able to get a new set made up by the time you wake up.”

  “Sleep and new gear when I wake up?” Constantine exclaimed, reaching up to undo a strap of his armor as we walked. “Sign me right up!”

  “And when exactly were you planning on resting yourself, Lyrian?” Freya asked me pointedly. “We don’t need you burning out.”

  “Soon as I’m done,” I promised, having learned my lesson in how far I could push myself the other week. “And I think I’m going to have to pass on going to the Grove at all with you until later. I need to head back up to Aldford and devote a day to upgrading everyone’s, including the guild’s gear. Lazarus and I really noticed it when we were out in the Grove this evening, with most of us having hit level eighteen and approaching nineteen, we’ve really started to out-level our gear.”

  “Fair enough,” Freya replied, her eyes drifting down towards my armor. “Though I’ll admit that having some new armor would be nice…”

  “Just armor?” I teased as we all shifted our direction to walk towards the crafting area. “What about a weapon?”

  “You think you can make me a new spear too?” Freya asked excitedly, her earlier reservations suddenly vanishing.

  “Oooh, that’s smooth, Lyr,” Constantine quipped, prompting a laugh from everyone in the group.

  “Maybe you should spend some time learning to craft your way into a girl’s heart, Constantine,” Freya replied as she reached out to grab my arm. “So, Lyr, tell me more about this new spear of mine.”

  “Well,” I began, breaking into a wide smile. “Earlier today Lazarus and I fought a rare boss called a Deathstalker…”

  Chapter 49

  Friday, March 29th, 2047 - 8:01 pm

  Aldford – The Crafting Hall

  “Shit!” Léandre shouted in a sudden panic as the ground beneath our feet began to rumble, the intensity of the earthquake climbing sharply until it was strong enough to knock the two of us off our feet. “This is a bad one!”

  “Sure feels like it!” I called back as I rolled myself onto all fours and then attempted to pull myself under the crafting table that I had just been standing in front of.

  Barely managing to avoid a falling set of tools as they shook themselves off the table, I managed to scramble under the sturdy object and instinctively grabbed hold of one of its legs, having had far too much practice in earthquake survival in the last day.

  This makes for number four, I thought as I waited for the shaking to stop, my eyes scanning the room as the building shook around us to see that both Léandre and Amaranth had managed to take cover under a pair of tables in the room. In the seconds before this latest earthquake had started, Amaranth had managed to growl out a warning, giving Léandre and me just enough time to set our tools down before it hit. Which might have been the only thing that saved me from accidentally stabbing myself with the knife I’d been holding.

  Maintaining my death grip on the table as the vicious shaking persisted, I saw several more tools and equipment fall off the nearby tables and clatter onto the floor, skittering around wildly. A large crate filled with finished armor then decided that it couldn’t hold itself together any longer and gave up, one of its sides coming free and spilling its contents everywhere. Mentally wincing at the growing mess, I looked down at the floor below me, and closed my eyes, waiting for the event to pass. Eventually, after nearly a half a minute of constant movement, the shaking began to diminish, lasting for several more seconds until it finally came to a stop.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked from my position under the table as I opened my eyes and looked out at the chaos, deciding to stay put for a moment in case there was a follow-up quake.

  �
�Battered,” Léandre replied in a shaky voice. “But still whole.”

  Amaranth answered angrily, letting out a low growl as he did so. The earthquakes had been a brand-new experience for him, in that he had never even comprehended that that ground could shake, let alone as often as it had been over the last day, and it had left him incredibly anxious and on edge.

  “That was the worse quake yet,” Léandre commented, as we both spared a glance over at my familiar, who had coiled himself up under a table with his ears flat and teeth bared as if to warn away an invisible enemy that was shaking the earth. “Yet, thankfully, I didn’t hear any buildings coming down, so it must have not been too bad.”

  “Small victories,” I agreed, feeling my heart still hammering in my chest from the excitement. “But that still means we’re one step closer to running out of time.”

  “I know, Lyrian, but we are almost ready,” Léandre said, straining to inject some of his usual optimism into the conversation as he poked his head free from under his table and began to survey the room. “Looks like that’s all we’re going to get from this quake, might as well start cleaning up and see where this has left us.”

  “Yeah…” I replied, struggling to push down the newest wave of anxiety that was dangerously close to overwhelming me as I looked at the mess before me.

  The last twenty hours since the attack had been nothing but a blur to my mind and I couldn’t help but feel as if it had taken place days ago. The memory of me talking to Freya and hurriedly crafting a set of armor for my friends while they slept was broken up with disjointed images of me logging out into Reality and staggering into a bed in our suite just as the sun began to rise. I vaguely recalled getting some sleep at that point, if only for a few hours, which was then followed by the memory of me practically inhaling an entire pot of coffee and reentering the game world.