Sacrifice Mage

When I woke up, I was pretty sure I was in hell. Or the Pits, maybe. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be the real world, because reality would never let me exist with a massive headache tearing my skull in half.

I didn’t get up because the part of me that didn’t feel like completely splitting apart assured me that I was still alive. That I was back in the regular Nether Vein. That there were people around me. That I was obviously being carried somewhere in something like a makeshift stretcher.

What… had happened?

I probably should have voiced that question, but my throat wasn’t working right. It felt clogged. Stuffed with something gelatinous.

At the very end of my experience in whatever weird space Se-Vigilance had gotten stuck in, I had used Sacrifice. I distinctly remembered receiving a reward categorized as [Monumental]. I had thought the trio of [Minor], [Moderate], and [Major] was all that existed. To discover that there was an extra category beyond [Major] made me feel elated.

Or it would have if my head wasn’t trying to cosplay rubbish getting junked by a trash compactor.

Then I had read something about finally manifesting my second—

Oh.

Was that it? Was getting my second mana core causing the supremely horrendous headache that was eating me alive?

I tried to get a feel for it. When I could push my senses past the pain throbbing like my head was cracking to reveal the ugliest duckling in existence, I found it. There it was. Mynew mana core.

The discovery had me gasping out loud.

“Oh!” a familiar voice said. “You’re up! Hey, hey! He’s finally awake.”

The pain was so bad, I was partially blinded too. I couldn’t see for the life of me. If this had been a battle, I’d have been slightly less defenceless than a newborn.

But I didn’t care. My new mana core was here. My new, beloved mana core… I wanted to give it a hug.

Oh, Pits. The pain was making me delirious too.

I tried to focus on the pulsing heartbeat of energy in the centre of my skull. Maybe the Weave would bring up some more helpful information. There had been something about the Beyond in the description, but like most things with the Weave, it hadn’t exactly told me much.

Or maybe it had tried to tell me more. I thought I remembered seeing something about the Path Evolution, but I hadn’t been able to see the end of whatever it had said. Crap. Had I really blacked out in the middle of receiving my Weave notifications? That hadn’t happened before, as far as I remembered.

Before I could dive into finding out more about everything the Weave had said before I had lost consciousness, my little stretcher was crowded by a few figures.

“Look at that,” Khagnio said, sneering down at me with all his fangs bared. “The saviour-ling finally arises from his beauty nap.”

“You alright, Ross?” Ugnash asked.

Right. The earlier familiar voice had been Cerea. Had she been hovering around my stretcher? When I tried to raise myself up, hot pain lanced out from my cranium. Oh yes. I wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

“Easy there.” Ugnash’s big hand gently laid me back to rest.

“I think I’m alright,” I managed to say. No, I really wasn’t, going by how my voice sounded like a squirrel had nested inside my larynx only to die the next day.

“Sure you are,” Ugnash said with forced cheer.

I was tempted to laugh. If only my skull wouldn’t have exploded from it.

Since I had difficulty talking, I was spared the need to explain what exactly had happened when I had tried to help the Councillor. The most important thing was that I had helped her, that I had freed her from the trap set by whoever was behind the obstacle.

And beyond that, I had also apparently opened up the way forward in the Nether Vein. Well, Se-Vigilance had, but if I hadn’t stepped into that strange space, she’d never have managed it.

As the others talked, I checked my status as surreptitiously as I could.

[ Ross Moreland

Profile

Race: Human

Weave Access: Full

Universal Language Approximator [Paragon I]

Paths

Path of Starforged Firmament: Gold III

Path of the Auric Hierophant: Gold II

Core

Ignition Charge

Beyond: [Unawakened]

General Attributes

Vitality: Gold V

• Mana Heal
• Vital Mana

• Mana Injection
• Empowered Deflection

• Reflexive Mana
• Drain

Spirit: Gold IV

• Threaded Reinforcement
• Manifestation

• Permanence

• Enshrined Growth

Gravity: Gold VI

• Infusion
• Siphon
• Field Manipulation
• Granular Control
• Massless Interaction

• Windfall
• Emulation
• Experientiality
• Returned Offering
• Essence
• Overclaim

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

• Concentration
• Capacity
• Absorption

• Imbuement
• Reflection
• Highlight

• Structure
• Windfall
• Liturgize
• Circle

• Emission
• Intake

Starburst: [Gravity, Flare, Illumination]

Protostar: [Gravity, Flare, Illumination, Entropy]

Ignition Charges: 17 ]

I sighed imperceptibly. No, my Path hadn’t suddenly evolved. Of course it hadn’t. It couldn’t, not when it was still pretty far from the next rank tier.

Even worse was the fact that, though I had a new mana core, I still needed to go through the process of awakening it. Why? Hadn’t I already gone through that crap with my first mana core. It made sense I’d need to do so again for any other cores I manifested, but why universe, why?

My silent grumbles paused when I noted that I had somehow received a new Sacrifice Affix.

When in the world had that happened? What did Overclaim even do? I didn’t recall aiming for anything like it. Well, not in the same purposeful way I had gone about claiming most of my other Affixes.

Alright, that did it. I was now fully convinced that the Weave had shown me more of its blue screens and I had just missed it. Stupid consciousness.

So now I needed to find a way to see back into the past. This was going to be annoying.

I tried to pay more attention to my companions and what they were saying. It wouldn’t do to make them think they were talking with a Ross-shaped, semi-sentient wall.

Most of the expeditioners hadn’t left, opting to assist Revayne instead. Not that there had been much need for it.

It turned out the threat I had left them facing at the end wasn’t too bad. The shrieking was mostly just that. All bark and no bite. Having survived that monstrosity of a Bonestrider, the expeditioners had made short work of the flying monsters that had attacked them afterwards. The massacre had been worsened by Se-Vigilance returning to the fray.

I got to see a bit of the creatures that had been slaughtered by the expedition and their returning Councillor. Well, what was left of them, at least.

They looked like part-dragon, part-ox. Great, leathery wings lay torn and ripped around their corpses. Zero mercy. As was to be expected from people pushed to the brink of death. They weren’t going to give anything but their all while still within the Nether Vein.

We weren’t leaving the Nether Vein entirely, of course. Several people had remained behind to perform the arduous task of setting up yet another forward camp. We had moved too far away, but I was still able to note how the wall blocking the expedition’s way forward had collapsed into a mountain of debris.

Debris stuffed with all sorts of “treasures”, including the Klevacite we needed.

In fact, now that I looked around, we had more makeshift Klevacite torches. No wonder we were travelling almost leisurely.

It really was a mystery why the Klevacite was so effective at repelling the threats of the Nether Vein. Of course, there was a reason for it. We just weren’t privy to it. I had to wonder if anything the historian found would point to why it had such unique properties.

And I was pretty sure we hadn’t even discovered its most unique use cases.

I also learned that they were picking up other treasures soon. Just because this wasn’t a regular dungeon with actual, built-in treasures didn’t mean there weren’t things that could be looted and sold. One of those things was the presence of enhanced mana stones, with tiny Netherthreads trapped within the harvestable crystals.

Hmm, I wasn’t sure how good of an idea it was to harvest these Netherthreads that were somewhat living and were filled with so much animosity. But admittedly, if they could be “tamed” and made useful, there was no doubt a lot of potential to be explored there.

The real issue lay with harvesting the mana stones. Apparently, Zairgon didn’t have a huge mining economy. No surprise. I hadn’t noted any real mining operations anywhere on the mountain or within any dungeons. The regular mana stones were left for adventurers to gather within dungeons when they went on delves.

They’d have to create a new mining operation. That would be interesting.

It was clear my companions—as in, Khagnio, Ugnash, and Cerea—were dying to know what exactly had happened. I didn’t want to hide anything from them. Not really.

But for one, I was having legitimate trouble talking or even just moving my head. The pain was still blinding, still overtaking every other sense I had, so I was left a little helpless. For another, I didn’t even understand most of what had happened, or why. Who was that freak inside… actually where had I been taken?

The answer came easily. The Beyond. All I knew about it was that people’s souls apparently travelled to the Beyond. It had made me think of it as some sort of afterlife for the people of Ephemeroth, real or otherwise.

Well, it was frighteningly real.

Or, as real as something experienced in some form of weird vision that could still affect me physically was.

Thankfully, my friends were too nice to push. Bless the lot of them. Even Khagnio.

I did give them bits and pieces of what I had experienced when I could. The presence of the strange man, the explosion of power that was unfathomable to the real me, I told them all about those in halting fragmented words.

“Give Ross a rest, you two,” Cerea said. She glared at the other two until they finally subdued. Then she turned steely eyes onto me. “Ross. You need to recuperate. Stop letting these idiots distract you.”

“Hey!” both Ugnash and Khagnio said in unison.

Their bickering about me continued for a bit, but before long, I received a summons to meet up with the Councillor. I was expecting something like that. Honestly, it was surprising it had taken that long.

By the time my stretcher reached the Councillor’s location, we had come to a stop again. This was where the others were unearthing more treasures. At the moment, they were trying to pull apart a strange machine without actually destroying the mechanisms within. I was distractedly told that this was one of the main things driving the flesh-mech puppets we had fought. Huh.

“I needed to thank you personally,” Se-Vigilance said. “If you did not come in when you did, we would not be making our way homewards as we are doing now.”

I kept up my non-verbal-ness and just grunted. Gutran would have been proud.

That said, there were questions I needed answers to.

“What happened?” I asked. “In there…”

“Ah, yes. I assume much of what went on would have been terribly confusing to you. It still is to me, and I’ve been there for longer than I’d have ever cared to be.” She sighed. “I’ll try to explain what happened and where we were and all that. And… we can discuss theories as to why you went through what you did.”

That made me perk up. So Se-Vigilance had not only noted my experiences in particular but had also come up with potential explanations. Whatever she was about to explain about the Nether Vein would no doubt factor into it.

“Do you know how the Ascendants created their Monumental Opuses?” the Councillor asked.

I shook my head. Honestly, a part of me was distracted at opuses. Was that really the plural of Opus?

“You might think that, because they were Ascendants, the strongest beings just beneath the very gods themselves in stature and prowess, they were capable of feats like these Monumental Opuses that we struggle with day to day. While that isn’t wrong, it’s only partially true. In truth, when the Ascendants banished the gods during the Rupture, they also took a great deal of their power.”

Slowly, my eyes widened. “And this power…”

“Yes, exactly. This power went into many of their creations, including Monumental Opuses such as the Nether Vein.”

While we were observing the others work, I noted that we had gained a little bit of privacy. Se-Vigilance had purposefully banished the people who were hauling my stretcher. I was just sitting on the floor now, though I was trying to gather strength to finally stand on my own two feet. The pain hadn’t lessened but I could fight through it. Surely.

“This… caged divinity, for lack of a better term, is a primary factor behind a lot of what we have experienced in the Nether Vein,” Se-Vigilance said. “Why do you think the Netherthreads lash out? Because they are born from the gods who were forcefully torn from their thrones. Why do you think the Nether Vein itself seems alive with hatred?”

I shook my head. “Because the divine side of it overpowered whatever controls or processes the Ascendants put on it so now it’s beyond anyone’s control?”

“In a sense, yes. The Ascendants are gone. Or, they have other things they are attending to, and thus, they have allowed their own creations to degrade. I am certain that if one or more were present and active, they could right all that was wrong with the Blight Swarm and the Nether Vein. And in their absence, their power was superseded by the very ones they sought to entrap.”

Entrap. Just like that man had tried to hold us.

“So that guy,” I said. It was still hard to talk, but I was forcing myself to speak anyway. “He… I don’t know, merged with the remnant of the gods’ power inside the Nether Vein?”

Se-Vigilance smiled. There was a bit of pride on her ivory face, but there was something else there too. An almost disquieting level of what looked like yearning. “Good guess. Your method was unconventional, like everything else about you, but I connected with the Nether Vein in much the same way he did. By linking my soul to the bit of the gods’ power—to the Beyond—inside the Nether Vein.”

“That… sounds wild.”

“The feeling was certainly indescribable. I can completely understand why he would forsake his mortal form, forsake all of his mortal life, to remain subsumed within the Nether Vein in that form.”

“But why stop us?”

“I don’t know for certain. We have recovered a corpse from the way forward, which is now open as you know. An aged corpse that gives me the same feeling as he did within. A corpse that has certain markers and possessions that indicate the man is from Claderov. We might be able to find answers there.”

I shook my head. The mystery was getting weirder and weirder. A man from some indeterminate time whose origin was a city I was familiar with by name…

The next question was obviously whether Claderov had a Nether Vein gate just like Zairgon did. The answer was yes, of course, but as far as Se-Vigilance was aware, the gate was supposed to be closed. None of the city-states in southern Falsient was supposed to have the Nether Vein open. Otherwise, that would create an enormous hue and cry.

Which Zairgon had apparently bulldozed through now.

“Tell me, Ross Moreland,” Se-Vigilance said. “What exactly did you receive when you used Sacrifice within the facsimile of the Beyond stuck inside the Nether Vein?”

I debated telling the truth. It was an easy decision. I didn’t want to become the kind of person constantly worrying about hiding everything from others on the off chance someone would use what I said against me. Caution wasn’t bad. Paranoia was no way to live.

It was somewhat gratifying to see even Se-Vigilance’s eyes widen at the revelation of everything I had gained.

“A mana core with powers of the Beyond…” She shook her head. “And you said you were unable to see all your rewards from the Weave before you lost consciousness? Well, there is a way to check old messages. Just focus on your status for a little bit and concentrate on seeing the past with it. Focus on where you see the changes or expected to see changes.”

That sounded so odd to me. If that was even possible, why had I never heard of it before? Se-Vigilance was the last person I’d expect to be pulling my leg, though, so I followed her instructions to the letter.

It surprisingly worked.