No Need For A Core?

Earlier on the day of Gemeti's arrival...

Deidre mentally reviewed the plan for the upcoming procedure while checking over the setup and materials carefully. An empty ‘table’ grown from Krystraeliv’s roots stood beside Svetlana’s core, along with a second table that held a few potions and a set of surgical tools, along with the pieces of core matrix that had been rewarded to Deidre before she had become a temporary contractor for Azeria. Nearby was another small table that held a change of clothes for later.

It was a pointless mental exercise; Svetlana had already checked everything, and Deidre couldn’t imagine the core version of herself missing anything. The process simply helped calm her nerves, similar to one of the many moving meditations Satsuki had previously led her through in their time together.

“Are you alright?” Satsuki asked from behind her.

Deidre nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” said Paine, from where she rode on Deidre’s shoulder.

“As much as I can be. Everything is ready, and everyone is here. We should just get started.” Mordecai, Moriko, and Kazue were all here to lend their assistance when needed. She told herself that she had confidence that they had fully memorized their parts. After all, she entirely trusted them. They had liberated her and then given her into the safety of Satsuki’s care.

Svetlana was there too, of course. She was always there, which was part of their mutual problem. Deidre shouldn’t find it so easy to think of Svetlana as another person, and part of her rejected that idea still, even as the rest of her recognized the truth of the matter. They were no longer of one mind, one sense of self, and to Deidre, being ‘retired’ to become part of Svetlana once more sounded more like death.

But they were still similar, had still experienced much of the same life with the same memories, and neither wished the other an ounce of ill will. More than sisters; perhaps conjoined twins would be a similar level of intimacy of a shared self. The solution to their mutual problem was also similar: surgery.

She shrugged off her short robe, leaving herself in only a loose skirt, and unsettling Paine in the process. The pixie made an annoyed noise, but she also took the robe from Deidre and somewhat laboriously flew it over to the table with extra clothes, and laid the robe out there.

Deidre sat on the surgery table, accepted the potion vial that Satsuki handed to her, and downed it quickly. She returned the empty bottle, then laid down on her back and closed her eyes. The potion would help numb the pain and partially paralyze her, but she had already chosen to be awake during the procedure to ensure that Svetlana would be able to give feedback based on what Deidre felt.

The living-crystal-wood beneath her was just cool enough to be comforting, even when it grew branches that wrapped around her limbs and key portions of her body to ensure that she couldn’t reflexively move in response to the surgery.

There was a rustle of cloth, and through Svetlana’s view, Deidre could observe Moriko helping Satsuki put on the last of her surgical outfit. While some basics like a smock and a mask were obvious, the construction of these garments was new to everyone but Satsuki; it was something that she had learned from her off-world travels, and she’d had to carefully instruct Moriko as to what order to help her don the pieces and what parts of those pieces could be touched. The often vain kitsune had even gone to the trouble of shifting into a completely human form that was devoid of any hair.

The others had acted similarly, though Moriko had to accept a spell from Mordecai to have her hair temporarily suppressed. Deidre appreciated what they were doing for her, but they all looked a little odd, unfamiliar, and a little scary this way. She closed her eyes to block out the view, and did her best to not dwell upon it.

Multiple beyond-blue light sources embedded in the ceiling and walls activated, and the smell of lightning crept into the room. Satsuki had specified both of these, and Mordecai had shown Svetlana how.

The revelation of the other bands of light had sparked more anger at how limited her ability to experiment had been, but it was a small drop in a large bucket of grievances that could never truly be redressed.

Deidre pulled away from her awareness of Svetlana’s senses; she didn’t want to watch herself being cut into. Satsuki’s presence and touch helped, and there was no one she trusted more to do the surgery, but it was not something that was easy to be relaxed about.

A scalpel sliced through her flesh, and even with the numbing effects of the potion, it was an unnerving sensation. Deidre focused on it, determined to be as aware of everything as she could be, but she said nothing. Svetlana was relaying anything moderately important to Mordecai, and Mordecai was passing it on to Satsuki.

Even with salves that quickly staunched any bleeding, the surgery to implant the pieces of core matrix into her body felt like it was taking forever. The metallic tang of blood that now filled the air only added to her discomfort. Each piece was being carefully placed to rest at a junction of nerves that also met flows of mana, spiritual energy, and meridians for the flow of chi. Moriko verified the meridians, while Satsuki verified the rest. Mordecai had his eyes closed and was focused on the sensations from Deidre’s body, via Svetlana.

Once a piece of matrix was settled into place, a small amount of healing potion was applied to the wound by Kazue, and then the connections double-checked before more healing potion was applied.

It was slow, steady work, and nerve-wracking for all of them, though nothing surprising happened during the carefully scripted process.

When all the pieces were implanted, the steps were checked over once more, and every aspect of physical and spiritual connection to and around the matrix was verified. Only then did everyone relax, though it was not yet the hardest part of the full process.

“Alright dear,” Satsuki said as the table withdrew its branches. “Let’s get you dressed; then we can have you move around and test your flexibility to make sure everything feels alright.”

Deidre nodded and followed the instructions Satsuki gave her. This had been one of the most important decisions in Deidre’s life, but now that it was happening, it felt surreal. Her emotions seemed disconnected, making it hard to feel strongly about anything. The numbing potion had already begun to wear off, so it wasn’t magic that was responsible — the looming change that would soon occur was just daunting. And terrifying.

If it didn’t work, then Deidre would probably be even more dead than if she’d merged back with Svetlana. Avatars were designed to fully integrate their spiritual connection to their nexus’s core. This was part of what made such a connection incredibly hard to sever in most circumstances. But that was exactly the plan today.

While Satsuki helped Deidre go through the physical exercises to ensure there were no problems, spiritual energy was gathering and building up in the room. Four nexus cores, three avatars that were faerie royalty, an immortal nine-tail, and a young but already powerful world-tree were all focused on her, and deliberately increasing the density of the spiritual energy around Deidre.

The pressure wasn’t intended to push against her, as some might do to demonstrate their strength; it was intended to saturate her with spiritual energy.

It was working, but it ached in a peculiar way. She was being filled and overfilled with all this energy, and it was compressing her aura. Deidre fully relaxed her control over her aura, an action that should have flooded the area around her with it. Instead, it was pressed even deeper into her flesh, and into the core matrix now embedded in her.

The goal was simple: condense enough spiritual energy to start forming a nascent soul inside of her despite her nature as an avatar, and only then cut the connection between herself and Svetlana. It should be more than enough to help her survive the severance, and from there let her fully form her own unique soul.

Should.

An important and terrifying word. One that haunted her. If it didn’t go as intended, and her body died, she might truly die irrevocably, with no soul to salvage.

However, Kazue’s boon worked even for normal animals, who only had spirits, just like Deidre currently did. Surely that boon would attempt to grab her spirit, but no one had any idea of how well that would work or how trying to recreate her body would work. There were so very many unknown factors, but they had all been covered repeatedly in previous discussions. Deidre was not going to let any worries or fears distract her at the last second.

She shuddered, and her legs wavered under the increasing pressure of spiritual energy. “I need to lie down,” she gasped out to Satsuki, who nodded and helped her back to what had once been the operating table, but had already been converted into a comfortable bed, with a sleeping pad and blankets.

Deidre curled up onto the bed and began shivering. Her body didn’t know what to do with all of this excess energy being forced into it, and Deidre felt uncomfortably stuffed and full in every way possible. It was an illusion of sorts — her nerves and mind were trying to translate this feeling into something that she had experience with. That knowledge didn’t make things much better.

Satsuki sat beside her and petted her soothingly, but she was also using her touch to push her spiritual pressure even deeper into Deidre’s body, compressing it around the bits of core matrix. Deidre felt like she was being crushed, a giant vice made of everyone’s will pressing into her from every direction, and had now gone far beyond simply aching. Kazue joined them, sitting on Deidre's other side and offering up what comfort she could.

Every bit and piece of her hurt. Compressed, crushed, overfilled, and ready to explode, all at the same time. She refused to let pain win, though she was quite glad to feel her Paine settle next to her head and press into her hair. “I’m right here with you,” the little pixie whispered. “It’s going to be all right. I am your familiar, and I am going to help get you through this.”

By power alone, the pixie could make little difference here, but she still might truly be helping. She’d formed a familiar bond with Deidre specifically, and that mystic bond was tied to Deidre’s spiritual form, not to Svetlana’s soul.

Deidre was grateful for the pixie’s love and care, and regretted that she’d been so brusque earlier when she’d shrugged off her robe. “Thank you,” she whispered back to Paine, then fell silent again as she turned her attention back to coping with this excess of energy flooding her body. Eventually, the pressure stopped building, and the sensations plateaued in intensity, though everything still hurt. In some ways, that was worse. The building pressure had been something to concentrate on, and now that it had stopped, it was harder to ignore the pain.

“Alright, that’s all we can do,” Mordecai said, and he sounded hoarse. Everyone was giving everything they had to this, and they clearly couldn’t compress any more energy into and around Deidre.

“Are you ready?” Satsuki asked Deidre.

“Yes.”

A moment later, Mordecai verified that Svetlana was ready too.

Deidre did her best to draw all her attention and will into herself, and could feel the person who should have been her otherself withdrawing as well. Satsuki reached out into the space between Deidre’s body and Svetlana’s core, her hand growing ethereal for a moment, then she grasped something immaterial to draw it into the physical world.

A shimmering strand of what looked like thick antiqued silver thread lay in her grasp, the ends of it trailing off into nothing. Deidre felt like she was going to be sick; the intimacy of the sensation was threatening, a violation of the sanctity of her very self. She had to fight to control herself as she watched Satsuki’s hands transform into claws that glowed with spectral light, claws she slid delicately across the silver thread connecting Deidre to what should have been her true soul.

SNAP!

Deidre writhed and screamed in agony. Part of her was gone, cut away, and she needed it back, but this hollow void was suddenly overwhelmed as the surrounding spiritual energy forced itself into the gap.

She was being ripped apart and crushed into nothingness; she was dying and being born; destroyed and recreated. Everything she had ever been was being undone, her very existence unraveling from within while tangled threads of thought tried to cling to each other and create a new weave and pattern of self.

She had no sense of time or of the space around her during this torture, but after what felt like an eternity, the overwhelming and contradictory sensations softened and eased, letting her begin thinking again. And thinking meant being alive. She groaned as she opened her eyes, every sensation feeling like it was against rubbing raw nerves. Then she gasped at what she saw.

Satsuki was pinning her down, as were Mordecai and Moriko, while Paine fluttered overhead, darting back and forth anxiously. Kazue was sitting on the ground nearby, looking exhausted. One side of her dress was shredded, bloodied, and entirely missing a sleeve, though her flesh appeared unmarked. Mordecai and Moriko’s clothing also bore signs of recent injuries, though it also appeared that they’d been healed already as well. “What happened? What did I do?”

“It’s alright love,” Satsuki murmured with a relieved sigh as everyone let go and gave Deidre some space, while Paine swooped in to land on her shoulder and give Deidre’s head a hug. “You thrashed wildly and your body shifted form a few times, but it was clear you had no idea what your body was doing. We had to pin you down just to make sure you couldn’t hurt yourself. Well, anymore than you already had. More healing had to be used on you than anyone else.”

Kazue looked up and gave a wan smile. “I was unlucky enough to be the first one you hit, but my arm took most of the impact. The inside of my body wasn’t injured.”

Deidre’s eyes widened at that; she knew what Satsuki had been doing with the three of them, and that Kazue was carrying a child. The thought that she might have injured Kazue’s baby was horrifying. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I—” She was cut off by Satsuki pressing a finger against her lips.

“We know,” Satsuki said, “and everything is alright. You are alive, and your soul is forming nicely. It’s already passed the strength of a toddler’s, and by the end of the day should be as strong as most teenagers. It’ll slow down from there, but you will still gain years of strength per day until your soul catches up to where your spiritual strength should be. For now, take it easy and rest. Maybe in a day or two you can start doing some sparring, or even try delving on the combat route. Just don’t push yourself too much; the exercise will help stabilize your soul, but too much could undo some of your progress.”

Deidre nodded, then she realized she’d forgotten something. “Svetlana! How is she doing? She’s alright, yes?”

“Yes,” Mordecai said. “While it did hurt for her too, the backlash was a lot less severe. She wanted to help you, but there was nothing more she could do. She didn’t even dare risk supplying more of her spiritual energy, lest your connection try to reform haphazardly. I don’t think that would have gone very well for either of you.”

Moriko helped Kazue to her feet, then turned toward Deidre. “Come on, we’re going to take you back to our home. You can have dinner with us, and Satsuki also has a room topside, not just the one she has near our cores that you’ve been sharing. Oh, and you never had a chance to meet Amrydor’s friend Gemeti; she’s going to be joining us for dinner, which should be entertaining.”

Kazue shook her head with a look of exasperation. “I don’t know what Fuyuko was thinking with her game this morning, but I think we’ve reached the limit of any advice we can give.”

“Oh, this sounds good!” Paine said excitedly. “You have to tell us everything; looks like we missed out on a bunch of tasty drama.”

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Early chapters, some excerpts and short stories, and more art!