The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 478 - So What You Are Saying Is Nothing I Do Matters? Somehow That Is Refreshing… Pt2
Dima felt the pulse of spiritual feedback that blasted out like a warning signal when the two spirit fragments came into close proximity. Feeling like this was going to get her in trouble, she still couldn’t help herself but get close and look. And she was quickly stumped.
"But the essence... how?"
"I suspect she’s somehow making them siphon ambient energy from the environment itself, but if so... she is obscuring the sigils. A shame, as I would have loved to experiment with how quickly that could grow dangerous in this Astral Exclaves higher density."
Ignoring the concerning nature of his experiment methodology, she continued staring at the patterns etched into its stone surface. They felt like they shouldn’t work based on conventional wisdom and part of her knew it was because of what she was not seeing inside - what she could not because the man was right... her Clarity Astralism was giving her the same sense of wrongness she had always felt about the heiress. Things were hidden underneath the surface using some sort of Illusion technique to keep anyone from stealing the design.
"Interesting, isn’t it? I spent the first month just trying to understand her system of micro-sigils with her pointers. Just like I spent last week in that devilish maze... without them. If it hadn’t been turned off when you three arrived, I’d probably still be circling the area. A shame, I felt close to an epiphany... or maybe I was just starving."
The branch manager suddenly felt smaller than ever next to the young girl chosen by Wohjat himself to have an apprenticeship during her training. Comparing directly, he would see her work these years and find it wanting next to all of this. She’d been proud of stabilizing the defensive arrays at the Coiled Serpent branch this last year, reducing consumption of essence stones by fifteen percent per annum... and potentially making them more resistant to the sigil breaking artifact that she was granted special dispensation to study.
Meanwhile, *all* Elua er Goltbred had done was create a giant autonomous workforce that could take over tons of both menial and fairly skilled jobs all while in dimensional isolation. There had never been a comparison, she realized. Dima’s feet moved along the pathway, even more mechanically than the few remaining leg-using labor forces of this Exclave.
Only because she knew that she would catch up to them if she just put one foot in front of the other - and that there were sweet treats in the things carried by Aleck. Whether Elua would ’allow’ her to have any or not was unknown, but she really needed that sugar to combat the bitter, salty sea her head currently floated on. The former liaison might even be willing to throw her shame aside and beg, today!
’I’ve done that with her servant, why not the Lady herself?’
"You bear some similarity to that woman who was here originally. Some kind of ill-fate with the little monster of sigils that now rules this place."
"So you think she is a monster too? That’s comforting to know."
"Well, I imagine five thousand years of living back then would turn anyone into one."
Turning and barely flinching this time from how ’in her face’ his positioning was, Dima blinked rapidly.
"What... do you mean?"
His explanation that followed about reincarnation and some of the stories he overheard the heiress telling Sevra suddenly realigned every interaction she had ever had with Elua er Goltbred. All the contradictory fear other people did not seem to have, every miraculous improvement in their sigils that came out of nowhere, all of the unsettling competence of a girl barely into her teens that Dima tried excusing as genius raised in affluence... became brutally clear.
"Ancient cultivators were batshit killers! Why would one of them be allowed to keep their memories if such a thing is even possible?!"
She hissed the words as she stopped walking and the noble had to avoid bumping into her, still walking much too close. If she wasn’t well used to dealing with the quirks of others as she was sent to work with Guilds of all kinds on projects, her reaction might have been stronger. But as it was, she was confident that the strange man wasn’t the one going to hurt her or do something untoward. Even if it was menacing looking on the surface of it.
"I’m surprised everyone being transported here does not get told the basics. The girl’s... husband-wife must be just a little sadistic. But did that develop from proximity to her or was it always there? Curious, indeed. Do you think my exposure is increasing-"
"Who gives any damn hells about that, you literally told me she blew up a planet!"
"Claimed to. It is not as though I saw it happen myself. Assuming you do not count the very realistic geological catastrophe of an Illusion she showed us while detailing the endeavor..."
"I’ve read the historical accounts. The wastelands on the central continents were Guild vendettas pursued to reckless ends. Cities vaporized in wars over perceived slights... and she’s-"
"Someone who has not killed you yet, correct? She’s had ample opportunity and motive to eliminate anyone she found entirely inconvenient. The fact that you and I are standing here, breathing, is rather definitive proof of your safety."
"Huh."
It was an almost inadequate response to having her worldview restructured for the fourth or fifth time in less than fifteen minutes. But somehow, inexplicably, Dima felt the knot of terror in her chest begin to loosen at the thought of the danger having already glanced her way and essentially shrugged once the terrifying little cultivator decided that lines would not be stepped over again.
Instead, she gifted heading up a Guild branch in a nice city. Had prodded the woman’s sigil work with casual corrections or showed off just enough to set her sigilist tendencies toward rivalry. Knowing she was capable of things like that construct the whole time was kind of concerning, but somehow it was a ’what if’ that actually made her instead wonder ’why not’.
Overall, Elua had gone out of her way to be kind despite her secrets. She could acknowledge that much... thanks to prodding from a roommate. Even if Dima couldn’t forget that very first meeting, when jealous mint-green eyes had all but promised violence if she ever flirted with Qat again. Which is why the question she released still emerged sounding like genuine confusion.
"Why does that make me feel better?"
"Because any kind of certainty is often preferable to any kind of anxiety. Humans are designed funny that way. Even though the fears of other creatures are what makes them survive the wilds, we allow ourselves time to do nothing but fear."
Even further buoyed by his words, both of them began walking again. Madrigil had found a companion that could talk modern sigil theory without any preconceptions of their ultimate possibilities. And Dima had found someone else resigned to the danger that was a mint-eyed little snake, though she was still a bit less ambivalent regarding the outcome.
’Klaytei. The person you love is frightening. How am I supposed to make sure someone like that doesn’t hurt you? I wonder if there a way to quietly steal you into my service instead...?’
Because she was still quite unclear on one very important point in her life, no matter how much had just unclogged in her heart.
