The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 502 - The Organization That Failed To Protect A Single Cold Shield, pt3
The stairwell luckily hadn’t changed any from the memories she’d buried. Same worn stone steps, same narrow gray walls. Corde’s hand found the hidden groove in the glassframe and pushed without much thought, for it had been hundreds of times over those years that she had performed this action. The mechanism resisted for a moment, like a small proof of disuse but a big proof of ’things really happened’, as dust billowed when part of the wall slid aside with a scraping sound.
’Sigils that kept this quiet must be broken... or whatever she used to power them are missing.’
The plunging passage spiraling beyond was a bit narrower than she remembered. Everything was smaller when you returned to childhood places, sometimes because of physical changes in height that altered perspective. However, in this case, it was caused by experiencing the fullness of the world and comparing it to the tiny part of it which had once seemed like everything. The Frozen Duskblade’s scope of things now took up more room than a mere frightened teenager bouncing off the walls to get out and away from there ever had.
Frost crept along the walls as she moved slowly down the sharp spiral and into the hidden workshop. She could suppress it and maintain control - her emotions had evened out after the rush from the archive - but she didn’t particularly want to. The Elementalist wanted every bit of humidity that was already helpfully condensed on the surfaces to come under her power. She didn’t know what she would find, but a battle wasn’t out of the question... and preparing the field was in her nature.
The workshop door hung ajar, not properly latched after the last person had left from inside. This detail saved her from needing to break in, as she no longer held the key that she dropped into the ocean from over the side of the ship she escaped in seven decades ago. Velauyn had trusted her with a lot of things which a manipulative person perhaps should not have... but confidence in the method of control tended to let decisions get looser and looser.
One particular illusionist, in her past life, would have been the first to admit that overconfidence in a scheme had ruined the whole thing for her far too often. Elua had been forced to adapt with improvisations to survive too many times to ever think she was infallible. However, even in her hard gathered wisdom, it was still easy to fall into the mental trap of ’worked fine once, should work again’... which is why even the improvisations were eventually done with a layer of contingencies mixed in - as offramps toward acceptable outcomes.
To Corde, all of that would only sound like someone who was extra untrustworthy. An individual unable to commit to a course of action and always looking for the way out. A particularly martial cultivator mindset of being the firm rock - or iceberg - on which the waves of others break against. Rather than being the flowing river that changes course if the environment happened to suit that whimsical bend in another direction.
Just like the way down, the workshop’s former location was somehow different than it was within the swordswoman’s memories and nightmares. Totalling perhaps six lunging steps across and seven or eight deep, it was much emptier than she had the mental picture of. Reaching out and activating the essence lantern, she saw that a single mirror pane remained embedded in one wall, but the shelves held none of the books or objects that once filled the space.
Tomes on elemental theory, a few on spiritual cultivation, and advanced physical energy techniques which Initial and Enchanter ranked students (most of the Youth Guild) were not given leave to practice. Jars and wooden boxes of specimens, both flora and fauna parts. She remembered thinking it looked a bit like a treasure hoard, but now it looked like decades old Dust had taken over in thick layers. Only a long table against the far wall held anything.
Essence-measuring instruments with tarnished metal sat around an extra sharp and pointy artifact once recovered from a relatively nearby ruin. Slow steps took Corde hez Iralev toward the murder weapon. Toward the same spot she’d been standing that night when she’d come for her usual evening lesson and had climbed down the spiral like always. She had pushed open the door expecting to find her mentor reviewing texts or preparing sigils.
Instead, Velauyn stood facing the Mirror, speaking into a device held in her hand.
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"You see? The pattern of ruins connects to the essence convergence in the caldera. If we can access the main archive there properly, we can purify a lot more important things than we’ve been doing."
"Sounds promising. But we need the right tools."
"No need. I have the right... vessels."
The teenager stopped in the doorway while looking at the back of the older woman, who always kept her blonde hair in ringlets despite the trouble of hot irons. Velauyn didn’t turn and didn’t acknowledge her entry. Just continued speaking to no one, with a voice coming out of the empty mirror. For a few seconds, she almost turned away herself and waited outside. But a small, growing part of her told herself to speak up and take charge - to be a bit more ruthless in her dealings with people.
After all, that was the sort of behavior that her mentor kept telling her was okay.
"Instructor? Who are you talking to?"
A small headache began behind Corde’s eyes as she realized that the reflective surface really *was* empty - it didn’t even display the person who was supposed to be standing right in front of it. A feeling began to take hold, like mist wrapping around herself as an image - an Illusion - came to life. Her Shield Astralism resisted this time, but barely, leaving a flickering and hazy result of what the other cultivator was trying to force her to see.
One of the twins she had been working with a lot lately as a squad was saluting and then leaving from the workshop. Except she was partially see-through and while there was this Intent telling her that the other girl *belonged* there, Corde was certain they had never overlapped lessons or meetings. If anything, it made her start to question whether anyone other than herself *ever* came into the workshop with Velauyn. The few instances in mind were all like this. With sudden exits... and funny feelings.
The young new member of the Featherbound Frost felt it more and more than just in this place, ever since she started training her spirit. Small moments of wrongness from the quick adjustments of perceived reality by the person she trusted. But it was always so subtle she’d dismissed them as just feeling ’off’ for a second. However, this time it had an edge of ... ’frantic’ and ’insistent’ to it. For the other cultivator was pushing harder than usual, trying to force something into place in the senses of the young Enchanter who had almost matched her energy accumulation.
"There’s no one actually there. What is going on?"
The way Velauyn’s face had twisted when she realized her illusions were failing had been utterly telling. A blank confusion shifted into chilling calculation, followed by a deep, almost vindicated cackle. All the times she’d heard the woman laugh had been assured and bright. This one still held all the same confidence, but it was madly, desperately dark.
"You actually see through it now. Well, that explains a few the questions you’ve been asking lately. How long have you been training yourself in secret, I wonder? When did your Shield grow strong enough to... well, it doesn’t matter. The timing is unfortunate, but there are other options."
"What... what is going on. Why have you been doing this to me?"
Trying to be firm, but finding little ground to stand on, the teenager circled away from the step forward that the other woman took... without leaving the room. Treading deeper inside for answers instead of running would be a long time regret in the future. Because she would never know if there had actually been other ways of dealing with the situation she was put in.
"I’ve been helping you, by breaking you - same thing, really. You were so rigid when I found you, Corde. So bound by concepts of right and wrong. I’ve spent six years creating situations that taught you to be... flexible as long as it benefits yourself. To understand that gaining real power requires ignoring the outreaching arms of others. That the strong deserve to rise and the weak deserve to be stepped on."
"So... all of it. The lessons and the praise has been you tricking me and lying?"
"No. You really do have remarkable potential. That’s why I chose you."
The woman took another step, while flicking the ringlets on one side proudly with her fingers. A haughtiness that looked down on others far more than Corde had ever seen... and she had been dealing with mean nobles all her young life. Which is why she also knew to hasten her pace and gain distance. This was usually when they demanded you kneel and apologize for being born.
"The Anti-Essence Physique is a great asset. Your common birth made you grateful for any attention. Mortal parents couldn’t sense what I was doing and the other instructors barely care... you were perfect. Or you would have been, if your Shield hadn’t developed quite so inconveniently quick."
Corde’s calf hit the corner of the worktable as spiritual pressure built on both sides. Velauyn hadn’t moved forward again, but her stance made it clear she would attack if she had a reason to choose to. Newfound resistance versus practiced technique - at least, as practiced as anyone with less than a century of cultivation. Or anyone on the intentionally spiritually starved world could ever be.
"We could still salvage this, Corde. You already question whether people deserve help if they’re weak. You already prioritize your own advancement. A few more months of working together, and-"
"Stay away from me."
Chuckling while biting her own fingertip, hands spread out before she once more drove in the pride she had in controlling the situation. Even now, the teenager’s Astralism felt like it would be breached. Like her defenses would be overcome. Like-
"Or what?"
Fear crystallized in Corde’s chest. It felt like there was no good way out. Even her choice to stay suddenly felt wrong. How much of her thinking had been adjusted to lead to this? How many of her choices hadn’t been entirely or at all her own? Her hand reached out blindly to the table behind her, because there had always been a rule about not bringing her weapon into this sanctuary that she followed. However, the artifact they’d just recovered was close enough and held a wicked point.
Her body moved, pure instinct overriding everything else. She needed to clear a path, it was the only thought. The uncategorized cultivator tool punched through fabric, through flesh, and stuck straight into the chest of Velauyn. Corde felt the sense of physical impedance. Felt the rivulet of hot blood on her hand. The moment the point seemed to have found the vital heart... as the woman let out a startled, choked cry.
The student pulled away, stumbled back to an unintended seated position on the table, and watched the bloom of red for what felt like minutes. But truthfully, she ran away in only two seconds from the look of betrayal and accusation. That haunting look that suggested she was in the wrong for what she just did... because she sure felt that way.
Up the passage, out of the building, she never stopped to confirm the death. She never saw the body fall. But everything in her life experience told her that it was not something people just came back from. Especially when the blood remained on her hands until she scrubbed it off, dockside. Before she stole that boat and spent her first Descent period traveling the seas alone. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮
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"Turns out what I thought I knew then is the same that I know now. Nothing. What was going on? What really happened that day?"
