Chapter 723: Garden-Variety Arrogance

Jason’s team were preparing to leave his soul realm when Jason went dead still.

“Jason?” Gary asked, prompting everyone else to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” Humphrey asked.

“Allayeth has been staring at the portal the whole time we’ve been in here. She just got up and walked through it.”

The group all looked at the nearby portal arch.

“I opened another portal in the gardens,” Jason said. “Stay here.”

“Would you like us to…” Humphrey started only for Jason to vanish.

“…help with anything,” he belatedly finished, then sighed.

“Is it a good thing that the god-like power here doesn’t make him any more imperious?” Neil asked. “Or is it a bad thing that he isn’t any less imperious when he’s anywhere else?”

***

Dedicated portal specialists had power sets that synergised to expand the rank and number of people they could move with translocation powers. They supplemented this with specialised rituals and custom-crafted tools to further push those limits. But there was no combination of essence abilities or bespoke magic items that would stretch a silver-rank portal to accommodate a diamond-ranker.

This alone implied that it was not a portal of the normal variety to accept Allayeth, and likely not an essence ability at all. Even so, she hesitated for only the briefest moment in front of Jason’s portal arch. The overwhelming power she could sense on the other side had given her pause, despite her determination, but she pushed through.

Transitioning through the portal felt slightly different from going through an ordinary portal. It was hard to tell the exact difference in sensation, and even a gold-ranker would have trouble noticing any difference. Allayeth’s senses were able to pick up that the transition took the tiniest moment longer than it should have, and she felt a slight-but-definite shudder against her soul.

This led her to arrive with just a hint of trepidation. When the realm beyond the portal registered on her senses as she arrived, that trepidation was proven more than justified. The spiritual environment in which she found herself felt almost like an attack, an aura of raw power and terrible will as ubiquitous as the air. She screwed her eyes shut and concentrated on rallying her spiritual strength. She struggled against the domineering power that demanded control, but fighting it was like trying to drink the ocean.

The sense of someone else controlling her fate was something Allayeth had spent her entire adventuring career, the vast majority of her life, trying to overcome. Now she was adrift in a sea of raw spiritual oppression faced with the inescapable fact that she was under someone’s control.

Allayeth staggered as she flashed back to the childhood memory still seared into her mind. Slung over one of the house staff's shoulders, bouncing up and down as the woman ran. Her arms stretched out helplessly in the direction of her parent's bodies, vision blurring as her eyes filled with tears. That was the last time she had felt so completely helpless against the world around her. Nothing in her adventuring career, from iron to diamond, had ever left her feeling so at the mercy of fate.

“Here,” Jason said softly and she found herself sitting in a chair with the impossible comfort of cloud furniture. The pressure was gone but she could sense the aura, waiting for her to challenge it again if she had the temerity.

The spiritual pressure being gone didn’t allow her to relax but she realised her entire body was clenched, half curled up in the chair. She opened her eyes and found herself in a rainforest, in a clearing under a bright sky. After a moment she realised it was not natural rainforest but a garden expertly cultivated to feel like one.

The lush green foliage and gorgeously vibrant flowers were a little too perfectly arranged, and the space was too convenient for the passage of people. She was in a beautiful grove with a creek merrily babbling by, raw magic radiating off of it. She had no doubt that if she drank from it, it would be just as nourishing as a spirit coin. The trails leading away from the grove were flat and easy underfoot. One invited her along a wide, seemingly natural path, leading into a false twilight created by the canopy. Another meandered along the creek past tantalising fruit trees. That fruit, the tropical flowers and the rich greenery filled the air with an aroma that was almost musical.

But under the beauty was a sense of foreboding that she couldn’t quite place the source of. She had a distinct feeling that danger lurked in the shadows for any who sought to explore beyond the well-defined paths. The garden was beautiful but also a threat; a benevolent cage that promised safety so long as she remained inside it.

The other notable aspect of her environment was an unsettled mutability, as if everything around her were on the verge of shifting. It felt like the zenith of the tide; still for the moment, but soon to inevitably change.

She wondered where Asano was, having definitely heard his voice as she had fallen into the chair. Wanting to confirm the danger her instincts warned her of, as well as find Jason, she pressed out her aura senses. The instant they reached beyond her body, they ran headlong into a wall of molasses. The world felt heavy, like the air on a summer day so humid that it was hard to breathe.

She reflected on the oddness of the comparison, given that she hadn’t needed to breathe in well over a century. She wondered why her mind had thrown that up, then trembled as she realised. She didn't have any real memories of her childhood, bar the one that remained crystal clear. What was left was little more than a recollection of feelings, but her flashback had somehow managed to dredge something up.

She was holding her father’s hand, licking flavoured ice on a scorching day. That was all she got, not when or where or why. Tears formed in her eyes, reflecting how deep that trauma had dug into her that her body would adapt to produce them.

She had to spiritually heave to spread her senses even a little way past her body. She closed her eyes again, concentrating entirely on extending her senses, and when she examined the aura more closely, it startled her. She had looked past the façade of Jason's surface aura before, but she had only brushed against the core before he sensed her intrusion and she backed off. That brief glimpse was identical to the aura around her. She opened her eyes to assess her physical surroundings again and found Jason standing in front of her.

He was wearing a floral shirt, tan shorts and sandals, topped with a broad-brimmed hat. In one hand he held a half-eaten sandwich and in the other, a glass of juice with a wedge of fruit pushed onto the edge. He was a few metres in front of her, standing on the grass with a concerned expression.

“It’s you,” she said, disbelief shaking her voice. “It’s not some backer who we can’t sense because you’re imprinted on the portal. It’s just you. All the things we attributed to… it’s always just been you.”

“Not always,” he answered, his voice soft and his expression gentle. “I do have some remarkable acquaintances.”

He gave her a smile unlike anything she had seen from him before. There was no trace of an underlying smirk, no ironic amusement. It was just kind.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “That seemed like an intense memory.”

Her eyes turned sharp.

“You saw that?”

“No. Just the emotions that came with it. You blasted them out pretty hard, but I contained your aura so that no one else in this place sensed it.”

“This place,” she echoed. “This place is you. Not just the power but the physical space itself. Some kind of dimensional space, and I don’t think it’s an entirely stable one. Everything around me feels like it’s paused in the middle of some otherwise constant transformation. How is it so powerful? Why does your aura permeate it like water in a sponge.”

Her eyes went wide as she had a revelation.

“Are we inside your soul?”

“Yes.”

“How is that possible? How does that even work? Your body is your soul, like a messenger. If your body and soul are one thing, and we’re in your soul, where exactly are we in relation to that? Did we shrink and are in your body somehow? What part of your body? Do I even want to know?”

Jason let out an easygoing laugh.

“No, we’re not tiny people running around inside my eyeball or something. As you say, my body and soul are one, both physical and spiritual aspects. That means the spiritual elements intrude on the physical realm, granting me certain abilities. It’s why my spiritual expression — my aura — can manifest as a physical force. The messengers are the same. Where we are now is the opposite end: a physical intrusion into the spiritual realm that is the astral. It’s something akin to an astral space, but instead of being anchored to the world, it’s anchored to me.”

“Do all the messengers have one of these spaces as well?”

“No,” Jason said. “They have the potential for them, but the space does not manifest until they become an astral king.”

“And that’s why they say you are a king. Because you can do what their kings do.”

“Yes.”

“It’s unstable.”

“Embryonic would be a more accurate description. I’m still new to this and this space has grown faster than my ability to manage it. I don’t have all the tools to make things settled yet.”

“The tools?”

“Yes. I need something called a soul forge. There may be a way to obtain one from the natural array, or perhaps turn it into one. I suspect that is the true objective of the messengers, and likely what the device they intend to give us will do. It’s also the main reason I’m quite certain they intend for me to die down there. They need me to get it, but they can’t allow me to keep it.”

“I think they intend everyone to die down there.”

“I imagine you’re right.”

“But what makes you think that this soul forge is what’s down there?”

“Something that Healer gave me.”

“Healer, as in the god?”

“It would be weird if it was Healer the pre-loved amphora salesman.”

“A god gave you a gift?”

“Don't be envious. Gods and great astral beings don't give you gifts; they give you manipulation with a sweet candy shell. You take it, because they don't muck about when handing out the goods, but get ready to drop neck-deep in the brown. Nothing is just a gift with them.”

Jason took out a fist-sized orb that glowed with gold, silver and blue transcendent light. A window popped up in front of Allayeth, startling her.

-------

Item: [Genesis Command: Life] (transcendent rank, legendary)

The authority to create a life. (consumable, magic core).

• Effect: Give true life to an astral construct created from a dimensional space. The construct becomes a true astral entity, bound to the dimensional space.
• Uses remaining: 1/1
• You do not meet the qualifications to activate this device in the current space. Missing element: soul forge.

-------

“What is this?” Allayeth asked, the screen blurring as she passed a hand through it.

“This is how I see the world,” Jason told her. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“There are other elements.”

Synthesizer music started playing and a black and white helicopter flew overhead.

“Sorry,” Jason apologised as the music abruptly stopped. “I’m still learning to control this place properly and I occasionally get some reflexive Airwolf.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that if you see David Hasselhoff wandering around, just let him go.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You’ll catch up. Have you ever heard of a DVD box set?”

Allayeth stopped asking questions that only led to nonsensical answers and turned back to the message window still floating in the air.

“This is a description of the item the Healer gave you?” she asked, her eyes moving to the orb still in Jason’s hand.

“Yes. You’ll see the last line mentions that I’m missing something in order to use it.”

“A soul forge.”

“A suspicious man might look at something that he got from a god with a critical missing component and imagine it to be a clue as to what he might encounter in the near future.”

Allayeth frowned, still overwhelmed by everything. The power of the place. The man behind that power, who had received enough gifts from gods and great astral beings to share the benefits of his experience.

“How did you get this power?”

“Which power? You’ll have to narrow it down.”

“To create this space inside your soul.”

“It just kind of happened. I tend to get powerful new abilities when I die. The second time I died was when I first gained the ability that would ultimately become this place. It really came together after the fourth time I died, but that was just coincidental timing. It was already in motion before Shako killed me.”

“The Builder’s vessel?”

“He was at the time, yeah. They gave him the boot for breaking the rules when he tried to kill me again.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know, right?”

“Are you going to keep hiding things from me at this stage? I’m inside your soul.”

“Yes, I am. And yes, you are. Walk with me.”

She stood and fell into step with Jason as they wandered along a gravel path that followed the creek. Just as she was about to press him with more questions, she spotted a messenger flying off in the distance.

“You let the messengers here roam free.”

“Everyone here is as free as I allow them to be.”

“Meaning that no one is free at all,” she said. “Except you.”

“I’m not sure even me.”

“This is your soul.”

“Yes, but obligations are chains in and of themselves. If my behaviour out there changes who I am, it changes things in here as well. If your soul crumbles, Allayeth, it's a metaphor. For me, it's literal, and I don't know what this place becomes in the aftermath of that.”

“You were right to be wary of showing us this. Charist would kill you as soon as he got out. Never let him know about this until you have the strength to stop him. Or do you have it already? Did you use the power of this place to kill the diamond-rank messenger?”

“No. I still have no idea what happened there. I can tap into the power of this place while I’m out there, but it’s never easy and there’s always a price.”

“Then tell no one.”

“You may have noticed, lady, but that’s what I was doing. You’re the one who barged in here.”

“At your standing invitation.”

“You weren’t meant to accept it.”

“And if Charist does as well?

“Then he stays here until I’m strong enough that he can’t kill me.”

“Disappearing a diamond-ranker would be a mess I don’t think you’re ready for.”

“That’s why I’d appreciate you keeping him out.”

“And what makes you think you can trust me?”

“I’m working on that.”

His face took on a sad smile.

“I like trusting people,” he told her. “It used to be that I would always trust people until they gave me a reason not to. The cost of making a mistake is too high for that now. There is so much riding on me that I can’t risk that kind of mistake just because it might help me make a new friend. I have to be careful these days.”

Allayeth nodded, understanding the burden of power and responsibility. She looked away from him, het eyes once more taking in the beautiful gardens around them.

“This is why you act like you’re already a diamond-ranker isn’t it? You’re just waiting for your rank to catch up to the rest of you. The power you have here, your spiritual strength. The circles you move in and the challenges in front of you. The gods and the great astral beings understand, but we mere mortals don’t see it. How many of your problems stem from exactly that?”

“Most of them. Fortunately, it’s rarely the problems that involve killing things.”

“I see why you act the way you do now. I think I would too.”

“No,” Jason said, shaking his head. “I was already like this before I acquired all this power. It’s just ordinary, garden-variety arrogance.”

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