Chapter 9: My First Friend
Iskander
The oppressive grey pressed in again, thick as burial wool, swallowing the brief clarity my aether punch had bought.
Sevren's presence beside me was a solid anchor in the sensory void, his breathing a steady counterpoint to the frantic drumbeat of my own heart.
My awareness, stretched thin on the loom of ambient aether, remained fixed on the lurking signature of the Being from the Fog. It hung back, a violet-red light in the swirling grey nebula, its predatory intent coiled tight but unnervingly still.
The soul-crushing uneasiness that had driven Sevren to blind flight was absent now, replaced by a taut vigilance shared between us.
Oh well, the thought drifted, absurdly casual amidst the cosmic dread. Maybe we already resolved this zone? Just find the exit now. The sheer normalcy of the hope felt alien, almost blasphemous, in the Relictombs. Was escape ever this simple?
"Sevren," I called out, my voice cutting through the muffled silence. He jolted beside me, muscles tensing instantly. The reaction was swift, instinctive—a soldier snapping to attention. A cold prickle traced my spine.
How deeply ingrained was the fear of beings like me? Even with my shorter horns and violet eyes, even after I'd hauled him from the jaws of panic, the shadow of the Vritra Blood legacy clung to him. It was a sobering weight.
"Yes?" His reply was clipped, professional. His eyes, though, weren't darting in terror; they scanned the impenetrable grey with a sharp, analytical curiosity.
An Ascender, trained to observe even in oblivion.
"Let's get to know each other," I declared, forcing a lightness into my tone that felt brittle. Desperation, perhaps, to bridge the chasm his deference represented.
"I am Iskander. Stop." The command was reflexive, a flimsy barrier against the titles he might conjure. "I woke up in another zone of the Relictombs... some undefined time ago. And now I'm here." The vagueness sounded pathetic even to my own ears.
A soft, musical chuckle resonated in my mind, warm and teasing. "Oh, how cute. Trying to act so mysterious for your new little friend?" Sylvia's voice was a balm and a barb simultaneously. Heat rushed to my cheeks.
I am not trying to be mysterious! I shouted in my head. But.. Sevren was my first real friend, wasn't he? How was I supposed to have made friends in that sterile, pain-filled existence before?
Alfred was family, a father carved from kindness and steady support. The doctors and nurses? Custodians of my failing flesh, their kindness often tinged with professional pity. Companionship? Laughter? Shared secrets? Those were luxuries my withered body couldn't afford.
"You really want to talk about that while we are risking our lives?" Sevren's voice cut through my internal floundering, laced with genuine astonishment.
Beneath the surface calm, I sensed a flicker of annoyance, expertly masked by his poise but undeniable to my heightened senses.
Whined. I actually whined. "Oh, pardon me for wanting to get acquainted with my new friend!" The petulance felt alien, bubbling up from some buried well of childhood frustration I'd never had the energy and the occasion to express.
"Fine! I'll start breaking the ice…"
Silence stretched, thick as the fog. Panic fluttered in my chest. What could I say that wouldn't sound utterly deranged? A line from a comic book? My decades tethered to a hospital bed? Look at me now.
Grey skin humming with stolen divinity, horns curling above my temples, a core of cosmic primeval energy blazing where only frailty resided. Who would believe the wraith I used to be? Explaining the aether core?
Sylvia, a literal goddess, had barely believed it until she witnessed the brutal forging. Sevren would think me arrogant or insane... or both.
"You don't know what to say, huh?" Sevren observed, his tone shifting from annoyance to something closer to understanding. He'd read my floundering. I nodded mutely, gratitude warring with embarrassment.
"I think it's common," he offered, a careful neutrality in his voice. "For Vritra Blood, I mean. I have a sister who is one. Though she…" He hesitated, choosing his words with diplomatic precision, "...luckily hasn't awakened her ancestry yet."
"Luckily?" The word hit me, sharp and cold. Disgust, raw and unexpected, twisted my gut. How much I hate that word, that concept in itself.
Sevren froze. I felt the subtle shift in his stance, the sudden rigidity. His eyes widened fractionally, a crack appearing in the Highblood facade.
"I didn't mean any kind of disrespect, Iskander," he corrected swiftly, the words tumbling out. He dipped his head in a shallow, formal bow of apology. The gesture felt like glass shards scraping my skin.
"I surely didn't take it like that..." I mumbled, my gaze skittering away, fixing on the meaningless grey. The attempt at connection curdled into awkwardness. This wasn't working. The fragile bridge I'd tried to build felt perilously thin.
Then, the aetheric signature shifted.
It was a sudden, violent lurch—a star collapsing into a singularity of malevolent intent. No longer still. No longer observing. It surged, a silent scream through the ambient energy, aimed not at me, but squarely at Sevren.
"Sevren!" My shout tore from my throat, raw with sudden terror. Instinct overrode thought. Aether roared through my channels, molten violet fire igniting beneath my skin.
I didn't think, didn't plan—I punched.
I aimed at the suffocating grey separating me from my friend. The condensed blast of aether ripped outwards, a silent detonation that vaporized the fog in a ten-meter sphere around us. Light and sound crashed back in, harsh and startling.
Sevren staggered, one hand clawing at his chest, his face contorted in a rictus of pure, suffocating dread. His breath came in ragged, tearing gasps. But his eyes, wide and terrified, locked onto the space where the Being from the Fog had been charging.
His other hand, knuckles white, gripped the bone-white dagger with desperate strength. As the fog swirled violently at the edges of our fragile bubble, already rushing back to reclaim its dominion, the predatory presence halted, recoiling into the grey depths like a startled viper.
"It seems... as long as you can clear this place... we are going to be safe," Sevren panted, sweat sheening his face, plastering strands of olive hair to his temples. His voice was thin, strained, fighting against an invisible weight pressing down on his lungs.
"Sevren, what's happening?" Panic, sharp and acidic, flooded my own veins. My vision swam. The hand I'd just used to blast the fog trembled violently, the aftershocks of power and sudden fear jangling my nerves.
"Child, calm down!" Sylvia's voice cut through the rising hysteria in my mind, sharp as a scalpel. "You are having a panic attack too, just like Sevren. Breathe."
I stared at my trembling hand, the violet light beneath the skin flickering erratically. With deliberate effort, I clamped my other hand over it, forcing it still. The cold reality washed over me. Sylvia was right.
The crushing weight, the sense of impending doom… it wasn't just Sevren. It was me. The fog's assault had returned, amplified, targeting us both. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone.
"Both of us... are affected," Sevren managed, his voice tight with the effort of each word. He leaned forward, hands braced on his knees, fighting for breath.
"The question... is why?" He looked up, his intelligent brown eyes meeting mine, searching for an answer neither of us had. "When we grouped up... the first time... we weren't affected." He sucked in another ragged breath.
"Yet we are now... What's... the difference?" I asked.
"I..." Sevren tried again, but the psychic onslaught visibly intensified for him. He swayed, a low groan escaping his lips. The dread radiating from him was palpable, a physical force pushing against me. It was clearly worse for him, a relentless pressure his non-asuran spirit couldn't easily deflect.
The difference was stark—I had the humming aether core, a reservoir of power, however new and raw; he had only the ambient aether, a vast ocean he couldn't navigate or command. And worse of all he couldn't use mana due to this fog.
"I think..." he gasped, tears welling in his eyes, tracing clean paths through the grime on his cheeks. The sight was profoundly shocking—the composed Highblood reduced to this raw vulnerability.
"...we need to help each other..." The words were forced out, a desperate hypothesis born of instinct. "When you... leaned me your hand... I suddenly stopped feeling anxious... before."
"Child, breathe," Sylvia urged again, her presence a warm, steadying pressure against the cold dread. "Listen to Sevren." And in that moment, understanding clicked.
It wasn't just the aether core shielding me better. It was Sylvia. Her constant presence, her guidance, her unwavering belief—it was emotional armor the fog's assault struggled to fully penetrate. Sevren had no such shield.
Without hesitation, I stepped closer, closing the small gap the cleared space afforded. My hand, still trembling slightly, found Sevren's shoulder. The touch was firm, grounding.
"How are you feeling?" My voice was rough, but I pushed concern into it, pushing back against the fog's insidious whisper.
He flinched minutely at the contact, a remnant of ingrained caution, then sagged slightly, a tremor running through him. "Better," he breathed, the word thick with relief. He straightened a little, meeting my gaze. The terror in his eyes had receded, replaced by a dazed wonder.
"It works. Whatever this 'Being from the Fog' is... it feasts on..." He searched for the word, a grim, ironic chuckle escaping him. "...on egoism. Isolation. Self-preservation above all else."
He shook his head, wiping roughly at his tear-streaked face, a flicker of his usual wryness returning.
"Pretty ironic, considering most Ascenders would rather slit each other's throats over a scrap of relic for a chance at the Sovereigns' notice than offer a hand."
"What? Really?" The sheer, brutal stupidity of it struck me. Sacrificing potential allies in this hellscape for the approval of a tyrant? "Aggron also supports toxic work environments? Truly the apex of evil."
The name slipped out, laced with the contempt I felt for the architect of Sylvia's murder and my own strange existence.
"Aggron?" Sevren echoed, confusion knitting his brow. Then, horror washed over his face, draining the scant color that had returned. His grip on my forearm, where I still held his shoulder, became vice-like.
"Wait... you don't mean... the High Sovereign, right?" His voice dropped to a terrified whisper, as if the fog itself might carry the name to malevolent ears.
"Yeah, Aggron, Agira, Agrona, whatever," I shrugged, the casualness deliberate, a rebellion against the fear he radiated. "Same difference."
Sevren's hold tightened painfully. "Iskander," he hissed, his eyes wide with pure alarm, "I don't know if you are crazy or just suicidal. This is the High Sovereign. Not a Retainer, not a Scythe, not even another Sovereign. The High Sovereign. You cannot speak his name so casually!"
The terror in his voice was absolute, a primal thing.
"He is right, Child," Sylvia's voice was grim, laced with ancient sorrow. "Not even my asura brethren speak Agrona's name lightly, though for them it is disgust and hate, not this... abject terror."
So now Agrona was also the Unspeakable One. Did he possess a single trait that wasn't a villainous cliché? I wondered what Alfred would think… No. Alfred wouldn't see him as some literary trope.
He'd see the cold, calculating monster who murdered Sylvia, who engineered suffering and experiments with a stolen consciousness like me, whose very name paralyzed my first friend.
Agrona deserved no respect, only defiance.
But seeing Sevren's raw fear… it was a stark reminder of the tyrant's reach, the shadow he cast over entire worlds. My defiance needed to be smarter, quieter, for Sevren's sake.
"Sorry, Sevren..." I mumbled, the heat returning to my face for a different reason. I rolled my shoulders, trying to dispel the tension. "I didn't know… never mind. Forget it."
"Yeah," he agreed shakily, releasing his death grip on my arm. "Let's just... get out of here."
We moved. If collaboration, mutual support, was the key to silencing the fog's psychic assault, then we would embody it. Shoulder to shoulder, we stepped back into the encroaching grey, our strides falling into an unconscious rhythm. Step. Together. Step. Together.
The damp mud sucked at his boots and my soles in unison.
I closed my eyes, surrendering useless sight to focus entirely on the aetheric tapestry. The world became a symphony of violet currents—the thick, swirling ambient energy, the dark, coiled presence of the Being maintaining its distance, the bright, humming core within me.
And Sevren… a complex, vibrant signature beside me, human life intertwined with faint, intricate patterns—his runes, their mana dormant but present... i guessed.
And then, something else… a subtle thrum, a resonance within the bone-white dagger he clutched.
Not the overwhelming density of the obsidian heart relic in my waistband, nor the bright utility of the Life-lanterns. A touch of aether affinity, woven into the weapon itself. Interesting.
"Sevren," I murmured, my eyes still shut, navigating by the aetheric landscape. "You know something about aether?" I felt his surprise ripple through the energy field beside me.
"More or less," he admitted after a beat, his voice steadier now, focused on the intellectual puzzle. "I've studied it… a bit. Obsessively, some might say."
"But not even the Central Academy's library in Cargidan holds much beyond Vritra-approved… interpretations."
Central Academy? Cargidan? Names to file away. I briefly reached out mentally for Sylvia, seeking her insight on the dagger, but couldn't locate her spectral form visually in the fog. Speaking aloud to her now would only deepen Sevren's confusion about my sanity. Later.
"And what have you discovered?" Genuine curiosity sparked within me. He couldn't know more than Sylvia, the remnant of an actual dragon, but a fresh perspective, untainted by ancient biases Sylvia might have was invaluable.
The irony was kinda fun. I was likely the single most knowledgeable being about practical aether manipulation alive, thanks to the core Agrona's experiments and Sylvia's guidance had helped to forge within this stolen body. The thought sent another shiver down my spine.
Was he waiting outside? Anticipating his weapon's emergence?
Sevren's voice pulled me back. "Apart from the basic structure? That it's divided into three edicts: Vivum, Spatium, Aevum?" He listed them with academic precision. "That the Ancient Mages supposedly harnessed it directly? That the Relictombs are saturated with it? Beyond that… speculation, fragments, dead ends. The Vritra hoard the real knowledge." Frustration tinged his words.
I couldn't help it. A grin spread across my face, unseen in the fog. "I see. Well," I announced, the thrill of sharing this impossible truth momentarily overriding caution, "you have walking beside you the first aether core in recorded history!"
Silence. Thick, disbelieving silence. Then a choked, "Huh?" Followed by a sharper, incredulous, "Huh?! Iskander, that's… I don't believe you!" His skepticism was a tangible wave.
I chuckled, the sound feeling strangely light. And then I noticed it—a subtle thinning of the fog around us. Not a clearing, but a lessening of the oppressive density.
This was it! The key wasn't just mutual aid, but shared levity, shared humanity, defiance against the dread. A philosophy etched into the Relictombs' challenge?
"I promise! Cross my heart!" The childish phrase felt absurdly right. "How else do you think I punched the fog away? With aether! Directly!"
Sevren inhaled sharply. "That… that was why I sensed no mana surge nor saw anything…" he murmured, almost to himself, the pieces clicking.
"You're telling me you wield aether like mana? The Scythe of Sehz-Clar herself told my sister it was something not even the dragons of Epheotus could achieve directly!" Excitement warred with his lingering disbelief.
Again, the fog recoiled, thinning further, retreating like a living thing repelled by our shared astonishment.
"Want to see?" I offered, the smirk back on my face, the thrill of demonstration pushing back the zone's gloom.
"Of course I want to see!" Sevren exclaimed, the Ascender's innate curiosity blazing through his fear. "Even if I can't perceive aether directly… the effect! Show me!"
The fog thinned yet again, becoming almost translucent. And there she was—Sylvia, hovering nearby, her ethereal beautiful form clearer than before.
She was smiling softly, a mixture of exasperation and profound fondness in her lavender eyes as she watched Sevren and I geek out over cosmic energy like two scholars over a rare manuscript. She shook her head slowly, a silent commentary on our bizarre camaraderie.
"Look! Look!" I couldn't contain my enthusiasm. Focusing, I channeled a thin stream of aether, not for destruction, but for demonstration. It coalesced at my fingertip, a tiny, brilliant violet star.
With a flick, I sent it streaking forward.
It pierced the thinning fog like an arrow, leaving a momentary tunnel of clear air in its wake before the grey rushed hungrily back to fill the void. No sound, just pure, visible force.
"I… I didn't see the energy," Sevren breathed, awe replacing skepticism, "but I felt it! The displacement! The sheer… force! It felt like a high-tier Caster's rune, but… cleaner. Raw and without even a hint of mana!"
The idea struck me then, fueled by his excitement and the increasingly tangible thinning of the fog. Trust. It demanded trust.
"I found this earlier," I said, pulling the obsidian heart relic from my waistband. Its cold, dense weight pulsed with contained violet lightning in my palm. The air around it hummed with ancient power. I held it out towards Sevren.
"Take it. As a sign of friendship."
His eyes widened, fixed on the relic. "That's… a functioning relic of the Ancient Mages!" he breathed, reverence and shock warring in his voice. "I've only ever seen depictions… sketches in forbidden texts unavailable in legal ways. The Sovereigns hoard them all, rewarding finders with nobility, lands, legendary runes…"
He looked from the relic to my face, genuine astonishment breaking through his reserve. "Iska— No. No. You are utterly mad if you think I can accept this!"
"I insist," I repeated, holding his gaze, the relic glowing faintly between us. The fog seemed to hold its breath.
"You are kind, Child, wonderfully so," Sylvia's voice chimed in, warm but laced with caution. "But this… this is impulsive. Think."
Sevren stared at the heart, then back at me, his mind visibly racing. Then, a slow, cunning smirk spread across his face—the expression of the Denoir heir presented with an intriguing puzzle.
"I have a better idea," he countered, his voice dropping conspiratorially. "The High Sovereign steals all functioning relics. He sells the 'dead' ones—the inert ones, the broken husks—back to the Association for exorbitant sums, profiting from the risks Ascenders take."
The casual revelation of Agrona's petty greed added another layer of loathing. "What if… instead of giving it away… we study it? Together? You," he gestured at me with the bone dagger, "are clearly far better equipped to understand its workings."
The fog didn't just thin. It vanished.
One moment, suffocating grey; the next, a vast, open plain of damp, brown earth stretching beneath a featureless, pearlescent sky that mimicked the Relictombs' eternal twilight. The sudden clarity was blinding.
Laughter burst from me, bright and relieved, echoing strangely in the open space. "Yes! Let's do it!" The joy of shared purpose, of defiance, of victory over the zone's psychological torture, was intoxicating.
Sevren grinned back, the tension melting from his shoulders, the Highblood heir replaced by the thrill-seeking Ascender for a moment. He opened his mouth, likely to suggest where to begin.
The obsidian heart, momentarily forgotten in my hand as I laughed, suddenly felt like ice.
"CHILD!" Sylvia's scream was pure, undiluted terror in my mind.
A blur of impossible speed. Not from the periphery. From within the very space the fog had occupied moments before. A coalescence of crimson mist, thick as blood, swirling into a semi-corporeal horror.
Dozens of eyes—mismatched, lidless, swirling pools of hate and hunger—blinked open across its form. It held no sword of fog. It held a blade of solidified dread—long, impossibly white, gleaming with cold malice, set in a hilt of tarnished gold.
It moved with the silence of a shadow, the speed of a striking serpent.
It lunged, not for me. For Sevren. Its target, isolated in the moment of rejoicing.
"Sevren! Watch out!" The shout tore from me, raw and primal. Time seemed to slow, crystallizing into a single, horrifying frame. There was no thought, only instinct, only the surge of protective fury that obliterated everything else.
I shoved Sevren with all my augmented strength, sending him sprawling backwards onto the damp earth. The obsidian heart tumbled from my grasp, landing with a soft thud in the mud. I spun, placing myself squarely between Sevren and the horror, my body a shield.
The white blade met no resistance.
It pierced my chest just below the sternum with a sound like tearing silk and shattering ice. Agony, white-hot and absolute, exploded through me, radiating outwards in concentric waves of fire. My breath hitched, strangled. I tasted copper, thick and metallic, as blood welled in my mouth and spilled over my lips.
The world tilted, the pearlescent sky swimming above me. The crimson mist-form loomed, its multitude of eyes fixed on me, swirling with alien satisfaction. The golden hilt felt obscenely cold against my grey skin.
I forced my head up, meeting those countless, hateful eyes. A grim, blood-flecked smile touched my lips.
"Hello… Being from the Fog…" I rasped, each word a lance of fire in my chest. I spat a gobbet of crimson onto the damp earth at its… feet?
"You… won't lay a hand… on my first friend."