novelraw Chapter 696: Tinted Memories
Chapter 696: Tinted Memories
“Hey, ease off the light,” Sorcha complained, squinting and waving at the bright white tendril that was floating in her face.
“Sorry,” Syd pulled her wings closer to her, “they have a mind of their own sometimes.”
“Hm,” Severina stared at Syd’s floating tendrils. “I do not have that issue with my wings. I have heard therions say they experience a lack of control over their tails, however. Lares as well, I believe.”
“Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Ammy piped up from the next table. “This thing just does what it wants unless I’m actively thinking about it. Super annoying sometimes, makes it so hard to bluff or keep secrets.”
“I know the feeling…” Maeve muttered as she stared daggers at her own hands.
Jadis would have asked Kerr about her opinion on the matter of uncontrollable tails, but considering her distraction, and how Jadis was the one doing the distracting, she decided to hold that question for later. The thought of her not-quite clandestine activities with the perverted archer did give Jadis an idea, though. Looking around at one of the other tables, Syd saw what she expected to find. Smirking, she quietly got up from her seat and moved next to the table with its two occupants. Crouching down next to them, she waited a few moments to see if either woman would notice her.
Thea and Noct sat side by side, facing the rear of the airship. Without Jay or Eir to block their view, the two were staring hard in the direction where the barely audible sounds of Dys fucking Kerr were coming from. Nothing could be seen, of course, not with the engine compartment door closed and the various crates and crafting supplies that Sabina had set up in the aft portion of the cabin, yet the temptation of voyeurism seemed too great for Thea to ignore. Jadis wasn’t entirely sure if Noct was as hardcore into watching as Thea was, but the Valravn couldn’t seem to keep her eyes away from lewd activities.
“Hey,” Syd said quietly after a minute of neither woman noticing her. When both silently turned their gazes onto her, she continued. “You know, with Eir’s ritual and all that, we’ll be here for at least another hour. There’s no rush for us to join the main army. If you want to watch, I promise you Kerr doesn’t mind. I know I don’t.”
The two stared at her with red and hazel eyes for a brief moment before turning a quick, wordless glance at each other. Then, without a word, the two quietly left their seats and headed for the rear of the cabin.
“Where are they going?” Severina asked distractedly as Syd reclaimed her chair.
“Observation duties,” Syd answered dismissively, hiding her amusement.
“What do you need me out here for again?”
“Observation duties,” Jay answered moments after her Syd self spoke. “Eir and I will be busy for the next hour. You just need to make sure no one disturbs us. Or attacks us.”
“Understood,” Ludger shrugged.
Settling into a comfortable stance, the blond man turned his attention to the landscape around them. He seemed content to silently watch the crumbled remains of the pit, eyes scanning for any signs of movement. However, as Jay removed her shirt, Ludger flinched and gave her and Eir an almost comically panicked look.
“You two are not about to do something… carnal, are you? I do not want to be involved if you are! If my heart was to find out—”
“Don’t freak out, Lud,” Jay waved away the Bulwark’s concern while adjusting the wrappings that covered her breasts. “We aren’t doing anything like you’re thinking, and you aren’t involved anyway. Elodie doesn’t need to worry about you getting corrupted by us.”
“Ah, that’s good,” Ludger calmed down before suddenly looking upset again. “Not that I believe you two to be corrupt! I wouldn’t—”
“Again, you’re cool,” Jay laughed. “Just keep watch on that side of the house, please. Tegwyn has the other side.”
After that, Jadis stopped paying attention to the Bulwark’s fumbling apologies. Ludger was a sweetheart, but also just a little slow at times. The ritual Eir was going to perform would take long enough; they needed to start right away so that their departure wasn’t further delayed.
Jay and Eir stood in the middle of the crumbled remains of the farmhouse that was located on the northern side of the field where the collapse had occurred. After Jadis’ treatment of the place, the structure was barely standing, with two walls having collapsed and the second floor caved in. There wasn’t much left of the place besides rubble, but for the purposes of the ritual, there didn’t need to be. Jadis had already cleared out enough of the debris to give them room to work with. All that was left was for Eir to perform the actual steps of the ritual.
“Are you sure you only need my shirt off?” Jay asked with a teasing smile as Eir stood before her, eyes closed in concentration.
“For the purposes of the ritual, yes,” the elf said without opening her eyes. “However, if you wish to remove more clothing, I do not object.”
“If I didn’t think Ludger would have a heart attack…” Jay murmured.
There were other reasons for Jadis to hesitate on the nudity as well. Besides the fact that the devastated farmhouse didn’t offer much privacy, the place wasn’t exactly a pleasant environment. The area stank of mud and death, with most of the Demon bodies having been piled into the nearby ambush pit. There wasn’t enough time to properly immolate so many dead, not while they were on the march, so the smell of old blood and decomposing Demons was heavy in the air. The only reason why Jadis wasn’t gagging was because of the efforts of Tiernan, Ammy, and the mages to keep the air clear around the campsite. Since the farmhouse was directly south of the alternate campsite that had been set up after the ambush, the location was receiving some of the benefits of the clean air spells and beneficial breezes.
With her shirt off and upper body bare, aside from her breast wrappings, Jay stood with her arms held casually at her sides. As per Eir’s instructions for the ritual, Jay didn’t need to do much to fulfill her part. Mostly, she just needed to stay still and be a canvas for Eir’s work. That, and endure the sensations of her lover’s fingers tracing over her body.
Eir stood before Jay, the prayer portion of her ritual taking no more than a few minutes. With utmost concentration, the elf carefully placed her hands on Jay’s bare stomach, then began to slowly trace the outlines of strange symbols with her fingertips. Jadis couldn’t tell what exactly Eir was trying to draw; the symbols didn’t seem like runes, and there were no visible markers being left on her pale skin, but after a while it became clear that Eir was repeating several motions in a regular pattern.
Jay wanted to ask questions about how the ritual was going, but she knew that Eir’s spells were not as lenient as her own rituals, so she held her tongue and kept quiet. Distractions wouldn’t help, and if Eir could speak during the process she would have said so. Instead, with nothing else to occupy the third of her mind that was dedicated to Jay, she mentally reviewed the description of Eir’s new ritual, as well as the saint’s overall progression.
Rose Tinted Memories
Ritual Spell. See the past events that have occurred in a specific area. Select a single hour within a number of days stretching back from the date of casting the ritual that is equal to 0.2 of your Divine attribute. The events of that hour will play out in an illusory image at the location you cast the ritual, encompassing an area with a radius of thirty feet. The living beings and their equipment, as well as any spells that are used, will be visible during the duration of the ritual. Changes in environment, terrain, and other surrounding objects will not carry over in the image. Illusions and other magic-based obscuring effects will appear in the image exactly as they did originally.
Rose Tinted Memories was a spell that Eir had been offered a while ago, but she had passed up in favor of better options. However, having gained two levels in her Oracle class, taking it from twenty-one to twenty-three, she had opened up a skill slot and had decided to take the ritual rather than the two new skills that had been offered. One was an attribute boosting ability that would give Eir fifty points in her Divine stat that would drain away point by point for every minute she spent healing, while the points would recharge point by point for every hour spent without performing any healing at all. The other was a typical split attribute booster for Vitality and Focus. While Eir had been interested in taking the Divine stat booster, Rose Tinted Memories had immediate applications that everyone was interested in exploring, so she had agreed to take the ritual.
Aside from her secondary class, Eir had gained one level in her primary, forty-two, and three levels in her tertiary class, going from three to six. While Eir’s primary class had done the bulk of the work, she had also been doing what Aila classified as basic, repetitive tasks. Eir wasn’t being challenged much with her healing, so her primary class had not gained as much experience as it could have. On the other hand, her secondary and tertiary classes were lower level, so they had benefited more from the bonus experience points being gained, especially during the couple of expeditions Eir had gone on with just a few of the others to clear the areas immediately surrounding the campsite.
All of those levels had earned Eir seven attribute points, three of which had gone into her Focus and the other four she had put into her Will. The only other new skill she had gained was for her saint class, and it was certainly practical, if not particularly glamorous.
Bonded Saint’s Lesser Reliquary
Ritual Spell. Designate an object as a receptacle of your Divine focus. Upon completion of the ritual, the reliquary will be filled with basic healing equal to 10 times your Divine attribute. This pool of healing remains inside the reliquary indefinitely until used. When an injured individual touches the reliquary and speaks the prayer of your choosing, they receive healing from the reservoir contained by the reliquary. Once the reliquary has been drained of all healing, the ritual can be repeated to restore its power. A new reliquary cannot be designated unless the previous has been destroyed.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
There really was no comparison between an object that could hold over six and a half thousand points of healing and the other level five skill option, which would add twelve points to Eir’s Will. The choice barely existed. Eir still needed to perform the ritual, delaying it only because there were certain ingredients she needed to complete it, but once it was completed they would have a second source of major healing that could be held for emergencies, or carried by someone when their group split up into teams.
With all of her selections made, Eir’s overall status sheet had not changed much, but it had improved.
Eir Aedraheill
Race: Elf
Primary Class: Beloved Cleric of Lyssandria (42)
Secondary Class: Lustful Oracle of D (23)
Tertiary Class: Bonded Saint of Jadis (6)
Combined Level Rating: 71
Health: 1160/1160
Magic: 4100/4100
Attributes
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 12
Agility: 11
Vitality: 71
Fortitude: 20
Endurance: 131
Arcane: 0
Divine: 654
Eldritch: 0
Focus: 410
Resilience: 47
Will: 140
“Ah, that tickles,” Jay said, her thoughts wrenched back to the present as Eir’s fingers continued to play across her skin.
Eir made no response to Jay’s words, her purple eyes focused wholly on the pale canvas before her. Interestingly, when Jay took a second look at her own stomach, she saw a faint glow emanating from her skin. The glow was too subtle for her to make out what had been traced in detail, but the general shape reminded Jadis of the way the system notifications looked like in her mind’s eye.
After a few more moments, Eir began to pray again, this time speaking her words aloud, though none of them were familiar to Jadis. The language the oracle spoke sounded ancient, each syllable hitting the air with the gravity of millennia. The prayer went on for minutes more, filling the air with a subtle yet omnipresent weight that made Jay’s whole body tingle with anticipation. With her other bodies occupied in other activities, Jadis could easily gauge the passing of time, yet when Jay didn’t focus, she felt her mind drift, minutes going by like seconds. Then, a full half an hour after the ritual had begun, the world around Jadis froze in place.
“It is ready,” Eir spoke in Imperial, her voice rasping slightly as she cleared her throat. “I can begin the retelling of what happened during the hour of the ambush three days ago, if you are also ready.”
“Go for it,” Jay nodded.
The feeling of being frozen in time went away, though a strange, filmy sort of effect remained around them. Of course, time had not literally stopped. Jadis could tell as much as her other two selves had continued what they were doing elsewhere while Jay spoke with Eir. When the effect went away, Jay realized that it had been an illusion holding the surrounding space in place, making it all appear unmoving, as the moment Eir began the replay, she saw Ludger jump from the position he had been to a different one, like a skipped record.
“The ritual is active?” Tegwyn’s voice called out from the other side of the unbroken farmhouse wall.
“Yes,” Jay answered as she put on her shirt. “Keep an eye out for anything appearing from the edges! The radius is thirty feet from where we were standing.”
“I can see the edge of the effect,” Tegwyn said. “A demarcation of… something.”
“It feels like fuzz in my eyes,” Ludger added from his side. “And the colors are... off. Ah! I cannot see it anymore if I move outside of the range of the spell!”
“Can you come back in?” Jay asked, turning towards the man.
“Yes,” Ludger said, crossing over the boundary that was not visible from Jay’s perspective. “It is like stepping into water. But nothing is wet. And it is also pink. Sort of pink.”
“Right…” Jay murmured as she gazed around her. “It’s like… pink static.”
“Static?” Eir asked as she also swept her eyes across the destroyed building. “What does that mean?”
“Sort of like that feeling you get when you lean on your leg for too long and it sort of prickles. But for your eyes.”
“Ah,” the elf nodded. “That is an apt description. I wonder—ah! Look!”
Eir’s exclamation was mirrored by a shout of warning from Ludger. Turning to look, Jay immediately spotted what had caught their attention.
Four Voltonian soldiers, three men and one woman, had just appeared on the southern side of the farmhouse. They had a strange, almost washed-out look to them, and it was immediately clear that they were illusions, not real people. It took Jadis a moment, but then a memory clicked and she realized what the illusions reminded her of. They were like images from an old TV, the sort that her grandfather had in his office, that played VHS tapes and had the metal antenna sticking out the top. Grainy and not as clear as they should have been if they were real people, rather than just illusions.
Jadis and Eir watched as the four soldiers walked around the farmhouse, their eyes scanning the building in a way that showed that they were seeing the structure as it once was, not in its current state. Eventually, two of them entered through the space where the front door had been, even going through the motion of opening the door when there was nothing for them to interact with. The other two followed only after the first floor was cleared by the first two scouts, then they went upstairs, walking on invisible stairs and standing on a floor that no longer existed.
“I can’t hear what they’re saying,” Jay pointed out when she saw two of the scouts speak with each other, their lips moving soundlessly.
“The description only speaks of images,” Eir replied as she watched one of the men poke around in a corner of the building, interacting with something that was not visible. “Perhaps I will gain improvements to the ritual later that will offer sound as well.”
The soldiers continued to check the building for a few more minutes before eventually exiting and leaving the area of the ritual, their forms disappearing the moment they went out of range. Jadis couldn’t see any fault in their scouting job; the four had clearly searched the house thoroughly, checking every corner, including the fireplace where Jadis knew the tunnel entrance she had found was located. That meant that the entrance had to have been hidden, as the scouts had shown no sign of seeing any sort of tunnel. That fact had not been clear before, as the four scouts seen in the ritual image were among those who had died during the ambush, and therefore could not be questioned.
Minutes passed with nothing happening as Jay and Eir kept on alert for any activity. Eventually, another figure appeared in the area, on the southern exterior side of the farmhouse. Jadis recognized the man immediately as Gallo the Seraphim. The winged scout passed around the front and side of the house, seeming to peer into the windows for a few moments, likely checking again for Demons, before he quickly left the range of the ritual. That matched up with what Gallo had said he had done, having been one of those who had been scouting the immediate area of the camp as the army arrived. A short while later, new movement appeared inside of the building.
From underneath the ruins of the farmhouse fireplace crawled the twisted, humanoid form of a scythe wight. The Demon moved slowly, stalking through the building with careful stealth. Even in the illusion, Jay had some trouble seeing the wight as its translucent body blended in with the shadows that fell across the area from the broken walls. Eventually, the Demon moved back to the fireplace and disappeared inside of it for a handful of seconds before reappearing, this time followed by several more wights as well as a dead head. The Demons spread throughout the structure, taking up different positions on both the first and second floors. There were more than Jadis remembered encountering with her Dys self, perhaps thirty in total.
At some unseen signal, twenty of the Demons rushed outside, quickly disappearing beyond the range of Rose Tinted Memories. Jay kept her eyes on the ones that remained on the second floor.
“That has to be the one,” Jay pointed at one of the Demons in particular. “Two eyes, one is golden.”
“Yes,” Eir agreed as she moved to look up at the Demon Jay had pointed out. “It must be acting soon.”
“The battle would have started by now,” Jay said as she examined the Demon, looking for any signs beyond the golden eye that might tell her how to identify similarly changed Demons at a glance.
There were no other outstanding differences that she could see, however. Not even in the way the Demon moved or behaved. In fact, the wight with the second eye seemed to shift restlessly, moving about the second floor the same as the other wights who had remained behind. Judging by their body language, Jadis got the impression that the Demons didn’t want to be there, likely agitated that they were left behind while their kin were sent into battle.
Suddenly, with no warning or change in the wight’s behavior, the gold-colored eye floated upwards in its transparent body, moving from its lower abdomen to the middle of its head. The eye seemed to act on its own focusing on something in the distance. The wall was gone, destroyed by Dys during the battle, but Jadis could easily estimate the location of the wight as being in front of a window. A bolt of golden light, wreathed in black energy, fired forth from the eye that floated within the scythe wight. Once the spell had been cast, Jay saw the eye float back down inside of the Demon’s body, returning to what she presumed was a dormant state.
Afterwards, as the Demons began to move with greater agitation inside of the building, Dys abruptly made her appearance, slicing through the Demon who had fired the bolt as well as all those who were nearby. Interestingly, the corpses of the wights that were slain did not disappear but instead continued to float in place where they fell, marking the spots where the creatures had died.
“Well, that’s it then,” Jay said as she watched her alter self destroy the collection of Demons. “The spell was definitely cast by that eye. Still not sure if it’s a one-shot spell or something that is controlled by the skull blob Demon, but at least we have confirmation of how the bitch is pulling off being in multiple places at the same time.”
“I sometimes forget how terrifyingly powerful you look while in battle,” Eir murmured as she watched Dys destroy the building, pulling the walls down so that they fell on top of the broken fireplace. “It is strange to see such devastation from a position of safety.”
“I guess so,” Jay shrugged. “I’m kind of used to seeing myself do things, so it’s not really weird for me.”
“Perhaps I should find a way to capture such moments,” Eir said, watching as Dys finished her destructive acts and left the farmhouse. “If these images could be carried with us, we could share them with the emperor and his court, so that they can better understand the efforts you make on the behalf of all Oros.”
“Maybe,” Jay shrugged, “but I don’t see that as a priority. Anyway, I don’t think there’s anything else we need to watch while we’re here. Will the image keep going if we leave early?”
“No, once I leave the radius of the spell focal point, the ritual will end,” the saint replied as she joined Jay at her side. “I can think of no reason to stay for longer, either.”
“Alright. The army is already moving and everyone else is ready to go. Do you want to go back to the Leviathan or do you want to join Jocelyn in the middle of the marching column?”
“I could come with you while you are helping Sabina, Sorcha, and Maeve with their levels,” Eir suggested. “For their safety.”
“No, that’s alright,” Jay shook her head at the offer. “We’ve got lots of potions, and we won’t be going far. If we need help, we’ll come straight back.”
“Very well,” Eir smiled as Jay lifted her into her arms. “I trust that you know what is best. I will join Jocelyn.”
Carrying Eir out of the ruined building, Jay called out to Ludger and Tegwyn, offering them both a ride so that they could quickly rejoin the march. Both declined, with Tegwyn transforming into his ram form and galloping away while Ludger jogged next to the Dryad with a surprising level of speed. Without any further delay, Jay lifted into the sky on her white wings and headed for the column.
While progress had been made while she had been busy with bombing runs, Jadis still had some power leveling to help with. After all, there were five of her companions who still needed to reach CLR sixty and unlock their tertiary classes. Jadis hoped to help at least one of them do just that by the end of the day.