The Wrong Kind of Immortality

Orestis stepped through a gate into the Divinarium’s medical wing, feeling supremely pleased with himself.

The last couple of days have been quite productive. Took longer than I would have thought, but I managed to complete the soul-communication spell to my satisfaction.

He would probably need a better name for it, too. Or maybe not. He could always leave that particular problem to Eirene.

Speaking of whom, he began making his way through the wing looking for her. The atmosphere lacked the urgency of an emergency ward, but the place was still fairly busy.

Healers moved briskly between treatment rooms carrying trays of potions, enchanted instruments, and bundles of notes. Researchers occupied nearly every available table, comparing observations or arguing quietly over diagrams spread across the workbenches.

Further inside, soldiers sat in small groups awaiting examinations, while others performed carefully supervised aura exercises under the watchful eyes of several instructors.

It was exactly what Orestis expected from a project overseen by someone sharing a soul with Varra.

The focused rhythm of people working through a problem, one careful step at a time. The same process, just on a larger scale.

It was good to see that, despite their differences in personality, both Aelia and Varra employed the same methodologies when it came to research.

Eventually, he came across the woman in question inside one of the treatment halls. Aelia was attending to a patient who was restrained on the bed—one of those who had already gone berserk. Apart from the standard restraints, the soldier also had artefacts strapped to his arms that continuously drained both his physical strength and aura.

Had there only been a single restrained patient, Orestis might have assumed one of the volunteer soldiers had gone berserk after arriving in Nomyra. Instead, he saw two rows of similarly restrained soldiers within the room. Which meant they had been transferred here after they had succumbed to aura sickness, not before.

Looks like Maxim managed to negotiate an exchange of sorts with the Temple. The Crown would have needed to sign off on it, too. I wonder how he managed that.

It was obvious the Temple had no choice but to negotiate. Leaving them in Maxim’s custody would have been even more damaging to their reputation.

Considering the scale of the operation and the people involved, they could not even pretend the incident had been the work of a rogue faction. Nor could they make the hostages ‘disappear’ and claim that Maxim had killed them.

Orestis found himself smiling at the thought.

I am sure they would have liked to—but they simply do not have the ability to pull something like that with Maxim.

Best of all, they would not even be able to suppress the news of what they tried to do. Sure, they could order the defeated Temple personnel to keep their mouths shut—and they might even be able to get the Nomyrans to cooperate with the silence. But there were too many independent witnesses for the story to stay buried for long.

In an even better mood now, he went to take a look at what Aelia was doing. It looked interesting.

Also, she would know where Eirene is. Or should. Much better than randomly wandering around looking for her.

Orestis walked up to Aelia and stopped beside her, observing as she held her hand over the soldier’s head, channelling a soul spell.

Aelia did not say anything, but she did look towards him and nod once before turning her attention back to her patient.

“Have you seen Eirene?” he asked. “Oh, and Maxim.”

“Eirene should be in the analysis wing,” Aelia replied without stopping her work. “While she does not have the necessary knowledge for this research, she does remarkably well with data analysis and interpretation.”

Orestis nodded. It was one of Eirene’s strengths after all.

“As for Maxim,” she continued, “I sent him to Varra since her current equipment surpasses anything available here at the Divinarium.”

“Makes sense,” he acknowledged. Especially since anything Varra learned, she could share with Aelia immediately.

Saves time while also utilising facilities centuries ahead. Very efficient.

She smiled at him. “Thank you for that, by the way. It will help save a lot of people.”

“Not why I did it,” he responded with a shrug. “But you’re welcome.”

They settled into a comfortable silence. She worked, and he watched her work. He had to use his soul sight to truly see her spellwork and the changes it produced.

What Aelia was doing—or attempting to do, he should say—was creating something akin to additional threads between the soul, mind, and body. The three were already connected, obviously, but she appeared to be trying to stitch them together even more tightly.

And why am I using a sewing analogy anyway? Must be my mother’s influence—she was doing embroidery while I was working the other day. It fits, though.

The analogy became even more apt when Aelia flexed her fingers, causing her spell to cinch the soul, mind, and body together like three layers of fabric beneath a needle.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the skill involved,” Orestis remarked, “but what exactly are you trying to accomplish?”

“Oh, this?” Aelia asked, gesturing vaguely at the soldier’s head. “We’ve found that the berserker state seems to stem from the soul falling out of alignment with the other two aspects of the self.”

Orestis raised an eyebrow. “It’s not a physical ailment?”

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Aelia nodded. “No one expected aura running through the physical pathways to fray the links between the body and the soul.”

“Which, in turn, led to the destabilisation of the mind,” he finished. It made sense; the connection between the trinity, while subtle, was far more important than most realised.

It is also why there are so few liches despite undeath being the easiest path to immortality. Separating the body aspect from the trinity without consequence requires no small amount of skill.

Aelia nodded. “Exactly. It also explains why no one else discovered the cure in the future. Most likely, everyone else had been searching for a biological cause, never realising where the real problem lay.”

As she spoke, Aelia adjusted the settings on the cuffs restraining the soldier, reducing their suppression effect.

“Honestly, I would just say they were bad researchers,” Orestis said, not feeling the least bit charitable towards Temple affiliates. “If they never bothered checking every possibility, they weren’t looking hard enough.”

“Agreed,” she replied, keeping her attention on the soldier as he slowly regained consciousness.

The man did not rage or struggle as one would expect from someone afflicted with the berserker state. He looked around in confusion before asking where he was and what had happened.

It would seem Aelia had already devised a successful treatment.

Or not entirely, Orestis thought as he continued observing the soldier through his soul sight.

Aelia spoke a few comforting words while running some diagnostic spells on him. Afterwards, she adjusted his cuffs and put him back to sleep.

“Not bad,” Orestis said. “He remained stable for about a minute before the soul started drifting out of alignment again.”

“You saw that?” she asked, tilting her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you possess a form of soul sight. Was that another thing you learned from Varra?”

“No. It’s a side benefit of my soul alignment,” Orestis replied. Aelia had no doubt seen the snapshot of his soul by now.

Aelia sighed as she headed over to a different patient. “Must be nice, having inherent soul vision. I developed my own version of soul sight, but it’s rudimentary at best.”

“If you’re interested, I do have a spell that mimics the soul vision of demons,” he said nonchalantly. Almost immediately, he saw her eyes brighten with interest.

Without a word, she held out her hand, silently requesting the spell. Orestis initiated a soul link and sent her the spell.

Aelia immediately cast it and looked around at her patients. “Fascinating. It’s not just vision; it carries the other senses as well.”

Then she looked at him and froze. Blinked. Blinked again.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s an… interesting apparatus you have attached to your soul.”

Oh. Right. The soul stabilising matrix.

Orestis began to explain. “It’s an—”

“Emotional regulator, yes,” she finished. “I can see that. But why is it so…”

“Robust?” he supplied when she trailed off.

“Let’s go with that,” she said a bit too quickly.

He rolled his eyes. Everyone’s a critic.

“It is on its first iteration,” he said. “I do plan on reducing its size.”

Eventually.

“Please do. You’ll be doing yourself a favour,” she replied, looking as if she was doing her best to remain polite.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.

Seriously. Who is even going to see it? It’s not as though I am on the demon continent. The number of people here capable of using soul sight could probably be counted on one hand.

“Anyway. You should be able to develop a cure faster now that you have that,” Orestis said, steering the conversation back on track.

“Oh, I already have a cure,” she replied. “Unfortunately, the procedure is simply too complex for most healers. What I’m trying to do now is devise a simpler alternative.”

That actually explains a lot. I did think the whole sewing thing looked ridiculously simple.

But it makes sense if she is trying to develop a version even novices can use.

“Should help with that too,” he said, then added, “Before I go, can you show me your version?”

“Sure,” she replied. Then, instead of demonstrating on one of the patients in the hall, she initiated a soul link.

He blinked, but accepted the link, and she sent the information about her spell to him.

Makes sense, I suppose. After all, every patient she cures is one less subject that she can test her ideas on.

As for the spell itself, he could see why she needed to simplify it. She had designed a spell that drew upon both magic power and the caster’s own soul.

Even setting aside the complexity of the sigils themselves, there was no way anyone below the Fifth Circle could cast it safely. That, or they would need to have souls as unreasonably powerful as Aelia’s.

Apart from that, though, the spell also gave Orestis an idea of exactly what was wrong with the soldiers and why they were falling into a berserk state.

Quite interesting. I have not encountered this failure mode before.

Not that he had ever involved ordinary people in his experiments—which was the only way he could have encountered this phenomenon in the first place. Still, it did open up avenues for aura applications he had never considered before, so that was good.

It was not something he would ever need, of course, but it would make for an interesting research project the next time he found himself with nothing better to do.

“Thanks,” he said, waving as he turned and headed for the analysis wing.

… Analysis wing. Such terrible naming sense.

Which reminds me.

Orestis turned around and said, “Hey, if you had to name a soul communication spell, what would you name it?”

Aelia looked at him and said, “I’d go with ‘soul communication’. No need to make it too complicated.”

Of course. What was I thinking? One half overcomplicates everything and the other refuses to complicate anything.

So unreliable.

He went to find Eirene.