44: Dinner
As much as Eris wanted to dislike this woman, she couldn’t deny that Pravala knew damned well how to cook. Naturally, it absolutely had to do with the fact that SOMEONE in the thousand-plus people she had enslaved would have known a thing or two about cooking, and both she and they’d had over four hundred years in captivity to hone the craft. At least Eris could take some solace in knowing that the food she made for herself, Bailey and Elmas every morning and night still tasted better. No matter how good of a chef Pravala was, she didn’t have any magical crafting to make the fish, biscuits and gravy rival Eris’s capabilities.
“It’s actually kind of a shame that you don’t get the abilities of the people that you enslave,” Eris said. “It would make setting up our plans much easier.”
Pravala raised an eyebrow over the biscuit she delicately bit into. The woman, of course, had dressed for the occasion. Eris did little more than wash up in the small shower rigged outside the workshop- a bucket of ocean water and a string to tilt it slowly-, then put on some clean clothes consisting of dark grey shorts and a white button shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Pravala looked downright regal.
A long, dark red dress that showed off her delicious femininity, pale skin, and black hair that draped down to her bare feet. Her long, smooth legs were gently crossed over each other in her seat and a cloth napkin was draped over her lap- one she lifted and used to gently dab a drop of gravy from the edge of her mouth. “How so, Darl-... Eris?”
“Simple. If you got Elmas’s skills as an Abjurist and were able to super-level them with all that Envy you must have stored up, then you’d probably be able to force the Warden right into the trap without any risk. Instead you need me to figure out how to fish that damned thing out without killing us.”
“What makes you think I don’t have your friend’s abilities?”
Eris shrugged. “If you could steal abilities, then you’d have no reason to let me stay free. You take my skills, level them all up with whatever energy you’ve got stored, then break yourself out. Instead, you chose not to enslave me. Not only could you tell I was an Artificer as soon as you saw me, you knew that letting me keep my abilities was your only chance to get out of here.”
Pravala smiled. “No matter what we can do, even us Echoes have to understand when the assistance of others may be required.”
“Hmph.” Eris reached across the table for the salt shaker, her elbow ‘accidentally’ bumping the fork hanging over the edge of her plate. She frantically reached to catch it but Eris was far from the most dexterous of individuals. Instead, the metal clattered to the floor and Eris frowned as she picked it up.
A low, amused sigh came from Pravala from the other side of the moderately-sized circular table, then a delicate hand lifted a few inches from the tablecloth. Eris watched the air just beside her plate shimmer like a mirage before it darkened and turned solid. In a moment, where there hadn’t been one before, a fork rested on the tablecloth just a shade darker than the metal held in Eris’s hand. Eris placed the old fork off to the side and lifted the new one.
“That works too. This isn’t gonna turn to sand or something in my mouth, right?”
Pravala chuckled. “Unless you manage to bite it in half or I choose to unsummon it, you could use it to eat for the next month.”
Eris furrowed her brow, then looked down at the fork. Curiously, she grabbed it with her other hand and applied a firm amount of pressure until the stem of the fork began to bend. Eris forced a frown and cycled new information to the back of her mind.
“Seems approximate to regular iron. I suppose levelling up your skill didn’t increase the durability, which may be a problem. The Warden will tear right through this.”
Pravala shrugged. “It’s far less time-consuming on your part than if you were to make the entire thing from scratch. We’ll just have to rely on you applying your efforts where it matters most. With me boosting your ability to make structural reinforcements, those on my creations and the scaffolding the kingdom built should be more than capable of withstanding the Warden.”
Eris sighed. “And you can’t just conjure up an army of dragons to take it down once we pull it out of the ocean?”
The woman actually laughed, then lifted her glass of water to her lips for a short drink.
“Alas, I can only maintain one being at a time. If I were higher level, though, then that could lead to some quite phenomenal results. But that’s what makes you special. I can’t level up in here because combat classes only progress when we fight. I can keep making my skills stronger with the Jealousy I siphon away, but there’s no real way for me to unlock more of my potential. As an Artificer, you’re different. You progress by crafting. You don’t need conflict to become stronger, so there’d be no way to lock you away in here forever. You can keep levelling up more and more forever until your power exceeds that even of the Seven themselves.”
“Perhaps, but I have no intentions of sitting in here for four hundred years. So, a level one Artificer and a level three Summoner are just gonna have to do the trick.”
Pravala smiled. “I suppose that is true. There’d be no point in escaping if the world’s consumed by the Hollow before we manage to get back.”
Eris thought for a moment. “When we pull it out of the water, we might need something to act as bait for the Warden if the trap doesn’t trigger properly. Do you need line of sight to summon a creature, or will you be able to do that from behind the barricades?”
“No, unfortunately.” Pravala shook her head, the hair cascading over the back of her chair shifting with the movement. “Even if I could summon where I can’t see, it wouldn’t do anything in terms of distraction. The Warden knows where I am at all times and will come straight for me- ignoring anything and everything else. If that trap doesn’t work, then we’re in trouble.”
Eris tried to compartmentalize the information. Thankfully, she could pass all of this off as trying to figure out the kinks in their escape attempt- which still was the case. All of this was incredibly useful to know when working out all the details of their plan. However, it was also very useful for another reason.
“Can’t you just use yourself as bait to get the Warden into the trap, then teleport away?”
“Hmph. I suppose great minds think alike,” Pravala said before taking another bite of fish. “But that won’t work, because that’s exactly how I got that thing stuck in the ocean in the first place. I dove in, it followed me, and then I teleported right back to the surface while it sunk to the bottom. If I try that exact same trick again, it won’t fall for it.”
Pravala was quiet for several moments, leaving the comparatively small dining room in silence. Her voice was tense when she spoke again. “Eris, are you absolutely positive that our plan requires the Warden?”
Eris let out a sigh.
“To escape the Obelisk, perhaps not. To escape the Obelisk safely? I would much rather deal with this headache of a problem first.”
Pravala’s eyes narrowed. “You say we need the Warden to escape and I’ve decided to trust you for this planning stage. Now, I believe it’s time for you to tell me exactly why the Warden is a necessary piece of this solution rather than added risk.”
Eris leaned back in her chair.
“Well, what we’re attempting to do is destroy one of the Obelisk’s enchantments that keep prison realms one-way. However, doing that would probably make every prison realm get unlocked, and I already despise the thought of letting you escape. Therefore, the only way I’m going to make us a way out of the Obelisk is if I know for a fact that only this prison realm gets unlocked- and I think the Warden might be the way to make that happen.”
Eris brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear- it was getting a bit too long to be comfortable.
“My main question is if the prison realms were truly impossible to escape, and there was no chance to overcome the magic of the Obelisk’s enchantments, then why would the Artificers make Wardens to watch over the prisoners? I think the answer is that Artificers could make some crazy powerful things, but they were obviously imprisoning other Echoes. Ones who could do incredible things of their own and may very well be able to overpower the lock that keeps them from getting out. One single enchantment wouldn’t be enough- not to keep everything and everyone contained.”
“You think that it’s a lock with multiple keys, and the Warden is one of those keys?” Pravala asked through a bite of fish. Eris shook her head.
“Not quite. I think the enchantment on the Obelisk is a locked door at the end of a hallway, and that door has no key. It’s not meant to be opened. In that hallway, there’s all the prison realms, each being their own prison cell with a Warden blocking the path into the hallway. However, because it’s two separate doors, it means that even if you get through the Warden, you still can’t get out because you need to be strong enough to break down the door in the hallway. If you are someone that’s capable of breaking down the door, then you still need to deal with the Warden before you can even try.”
“Well, I’ve already dealt with the Warden-” Pravala said. “It’s at the bottom of an underground ocean. We’ve got easy access to do whatever we want to the door.”
“But what we don’t have is a way to make sure that only we get through that door,” Eris said. “If other people managed to deal with their Wardens, then us opening that door will let them out, too.”
Pravala’s brow furrowed. “You want us to break the enchantment so we can get out, then somehow come up with a way for the Warden to put it back after we’re already gone?”
Eris crossed her arms. “Not quite. We’re gonna use the Warden to shove us right through the wall of our cell and bypass the door altogether.”
The woman leaned back in her chair, face slowly twisting into a smile. “My, my… and you truly believe this would work?”
“I can assume,” Eris said. “Believing is still up in the air until I can Inspect the Warden and see what kind of magic we’re working with. But if it’s designed to contain people that might be capable of breaking through the enchantments on the Obelisk, it’s definitely got some insane power. It’s like a giant walking electroarcanic battery filled with more magic than you or I could ever produce.”
“Hence the Ichryte,” Pravala hummed.
Eris snapped her fingers. “Exactly. It’d be much easier to break the enchantment outright instead of trying to work around it, but breaking the enchantment is a no-go. Bypassing it is our only option, and that’s going to need a ridiculous amount of power. Ichryte absorbs and stores magic, so we’ll use the Warden to charge all the Ichryte, then use that Ichryte to boost the magic of my creation. Even with how low of a level we are compared to the Artificers that made the Obelisk, you buffing me through the roof and then the Ichryte multiplying that even further should be enough to take advantage of the fact that the Obelisk is so heavily damaged and let us slip right through the cracks.”
Pravala thought for a moment. “I take it you’ve decided to trust me, then?”
“Not at all,” Eris said. “But right now, neither of us have a choice. We’re allies until we get out, no matter how atrocious the crimes you’ve committed.”
Pravala actually rolled her eyes and took another sip of her water. “Darling-”
“-Eris.” The redhead corrected. Pravala sighed.
“Eris, you most certainly don’t have the right to judge me for my actions when you know not of what I’ve done, nor the reasons for my doing.”
“The way I see it, you took away the free will of over a thousand people and ensured that they would share in the punishment designed solely for you. It’s pretty reasonable to judge you after that.”
“And that is why it is obvious you know nothing about being an Echo.” The woman scowled- an ugly look for such a beautiful face to make. “Because if you did, you would understand the fundamental reasons behind everything we do.”
Eris picked up her old fork- the one she intentionally dropped on the floor earlier- then swallowed another bite of her meal. “Enlighten me.”
“As Echoes, everything we do, no- everything we are is about balance. Everything is equal- forever and always. We are designed by the Seven to be the warriors that keep that balance in the world. If there is too much evil and darkness, we must bring it to heel. Vice versa- if there is too much good in the world, it is our responsibility to sunder and raze.”
Eris furrowed her brow. “There is no such thing as ‘too much good’.”
“Ah, but that is where you are wrong.” Pravala stood from her chair- graceful as a cat- and padded around the table until she was standing over Eris. “If the scales of balance are tipped too far in either direction- good or evil- then things fall apart just the same. Hard times create strong people. Strong people create easy times. Easy times make weak people. Weak people make hard times. As Echoes, we cut that cycle open. We are the hard times that make people strong, and we are the strong people that let others be weak. We are the good and the bad, hence why we must be nested with sin.”
Eris simply stared at the woman as Pravala continued.
“We are a paradox. We can only bring good into the world equal to the sin we bring into ourselves. Likewise, we can only cause as much evil as the good we keep in our hearts.”
“And yet here you are, locked away like a monster.”
Pravala rolled her eyes.
“We can’t prevent tragedy if we don’t let ourselves become powerful enough to fight against it. I sought to prepare for the worst of what could come in the future, not what was transpiring right then. Several of the Conclave actually agreed with me at my sentencing- the vote was barely skewed in favour against me.”
“Conclave?” Eris raised an eyebrow. Pravala smiled, then reached a hand forward.
Before Eris could properly react, a thumb pressed in the space between her eyebrows. Every hair on her body stood on end as goosebumps rippled down her spine. The edges of her vision warbled with distortion, forcing Eris’s eyes to water and make her blink several times. When her sight cleared and Pravala pulled her hand away, Eris could only look around with wide eyes. She wasn’t sitting anymore, and neither of them were in the marble-walled and wooden-floored dining room.
Eris looked up at a grand space that was so oppressive and intimidating that it made Eris feel like she was no larger than two inches tall. The entire room was cast in shadowed darkness that made ascertaining any details completely impossible- she may as well have been standing in a perfect abyss. The only thing Eris could see was a circular beam of light shining down from a gap in a domed ceiling, right in the center. It formed a circle of illumination on the black floor about six feet in diameter, making exactly one thing clearly visible in the colossal room- the nude woman.
Pale skin was marred with dirt and a few streaks of dried blood, but no wounds were visible. She was on her knees with her wrists held above and behind her head, chained to a black metal pole that rose approximately four feet off the ground. Her head was bowed and held limp, short black hair dangling around her ears. It wasn’t quite long enough to cover her face from the side profile, letting Eris see the identity with clarity. In fact, it made her do a double-take to the Summoner standing beside her.
The edges around Pravala standing beside her seemed disconnected with the surroundings, and the light didn’t match up properly. She almost looked like she was glowing in the darkness of the room, and Eris could see that she herself was, too. In fact, it reminded her of the Gifting- when she was in that dark expanse and talking to the ghost of Demeri. Like a spirit being projected into a place it normally didn’t belong.
“What did you just do?” Eris asked. Pravala motioned with her hand towards the woman kneeling in the center of the floor.
“Invited you into a memory.”
“Why? What is this?” Eris turned her attention to the naked, chained woman.
Pravala sighed. “You wanted me to plead my case and know why I was in here.”
A presence shifted, tearing Eris’s attention around the dark room. Of course, she couldn’t see the source, and she wasn’t even entirely sure what she sensed. It wasn’t quite a sound, nor was it a vibration of movement. It almost seemed more like a twinge in Eris’s chest- hair raising at the back of her neck like someone was watching her. Then, the voice rang out through the chamber.
It wasn’t one person. It wasn’t two, nor was it three. Instead, it seemed like a dozen voices or more were all conjoined and spoke in perfect, uncanny unison that reverberated around the room. They weren’t speaking in Common. It was flawless Ra’lan. Despite that, the words almost seemed to flip around in Eris’s mind- translating everything that Eris couldn’t immediately understand as if they had been speaking Common all along.
“Pravala Deimeious, Echo of Alda the Promise- mother of Plague, Home, and Crossroads. You kneel before sanction.”
The room was quiet for many moments. Then, the nude, dirty Pravala in the circle of light spoke out with a shaky voice.
“I request my trial in absolute truth under the eyes of the Seven.”
Another shiver went down Eris’s spine and the temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees. When the unseen voice spoke again, it was no longer an amalgamation of people all talking at once- it was a single, stern male voice.
“The Seven bear witness to your soul. Let all be known to the Conclave and accept the judgement that shall come to pass. Now, speak your truth.”