Amdirlain’s PoV - Maze


    “We’ve been at this for weeks; how have you continued to contain that rage?”


    Athena rose and stretched before making her way to the water basin. That her thoughts were now clearly audible to Amdirlain was both a blessing and a curse. They could communicate clearly outside the mind palace, but it now slowed Amdirlain''s progress, even within it.


    “I have the proper motivation; giving into it isn’t as important as my plans. Though I’m not bottling it up, simply redirecting it to serve as fuel for an important fire.”


    She cupped her hands to splash water on her face and projected another question. “Are you planning to turn a world into cinders when you get out?”


    Already on her feet, Amdirlain removed her dress and tucked it away in Athena’s hidey-hole. She already had her plans for Athena’s rest break. After nearly twenty days spent on mental constructs and stretching telepathy’s limits, she needed to punch something. “No, but I need to burn down a metaphysical forest. I won’t be here when you wake up, but I’ll return when my task is complete.”


    “Finally getting back to your other training?”


    “That should get the enemy I’ve been practising for to put in an appearance.”


    Without giving Athena time to reply, Amdirlain teleported away to a region she’d only explored via a scrying technique. Though the corridors were the same grey-white stone, the region’s atmosphere gave the place a claustrophobic air. The slaughterhouse feel was complete when she rounded the last bend before the cell she sought. Broken and rotting corpses made the large chamber crowded with a macabre harvest. In the middle, deliberately ignoring his setting, burned an erratically spiked aura that radiated malevolence and violence across the containing threshold.


    Amdirlain dealt with two targets she’d scried on in short order, and a Guardian appeared in an almost relaxed stance.


    “Your father wants to know if you intend to follow through with assisting her?”


    “Nicholaus was Orhêthurin’s father, not mine. While I can feel an old rage directed at her, if Athena keeps behaving, I won’t take the key back off her,” replied Amdirlain. “Though I don’t know what his rules say about her leaving?”


    “The same as they do for your departure,” replied the Guardian, lowering his spear. “Though you do not have to: when you use your key, would you be willing to speak with him?”


    “I’m pretty sure I can manage the speaking part and avoid ranting,” quipped Amdirlain. “I’ve remembered that this Maze was at my request, as were other matters..”


    “Let us begin.”


    The mental presence of the vines grew steadily throughout the fighting, but even when they were clear, Amdirlain waited. With each exchange, she memorised how their minds reacted to Acoustic Mapping. As the fight progressed, she continually cycled the Psi energy to maintain her reserves for what lay ahead. When they first breached skin, she provided the signals to mimic the fight’s movements. Though she didn’t yet have their proficiency in Acoustic Mapping, she could provide them enough that they filled in the blanks. Only when it was apparent that they were responding to what she offered and not reality did Amdirlain retreat to her chamber.


    She ignored the combat summary as the thorns continued to shift within her. Thorns surged through flesh and retracted with lightning speed while the vines’ weight twisted. Amdirlain didn’t fight the pain but rode its storm-tossed waves, slowly allowing the vines to grow aware of her agony. The first hint of pain she allowed through excited and blinded them to her deception. A flurry of thorns erupted from her flesh around the pain’s apparent origin, yet Amdirlain continued.


    Rather than seek a mind based on its relative position beneath her skin, Amdirlain instead assessed their mental strength. When she found the weakest, she didn’t strike but split her attention and slowly slipped beneath the surface of its thought. Carefully mimicking the same mental aspects of the other whispers, she kept the contact in place while she listened and learned.


    To the mind that she’d invaded, Soul and flesh were simply different sources for the nourishment they sought. With the vitality from the pain she’d fed them surging through their mind, she eased it away, and they all surged higher. Their whispers became a frenzy of information, exchanged in their determination to restore their food. Their uncooperative host had hurt one of their junior growths; now, they worked in tandem to gain food to spawn new growths to bring it under control.


    Memories of injuries the guardians had inflicted elicited the same response as being allowed to sense the pain they caused. So, a source at a time, Amdirlain catalogued what provoked the strongest reaction. With their minds more complex than she had expected, but simpler than her worst-case scenario, Amdirlain adjusted her plans.


    She faked the mental touches she’d heard while listening in the first’s mind and slipped between vines. Upon her arrival, she set a telepathic thread in place, a tendril of her own to guide a return even when they fell out of sync.


    With reserves running low, she tallied the minds again before she brought the faked sensations to an end. The mutual exchange of protest from her parasites contained nothing that hinted at understanding her deception. They took it as another of her strange position shifts and merely thrashed in protest before they retreated to safety.


    [Advanced Telepathy [M] (37->38)]


    Seventeen green parasites were hanging on a Soul. And if one green parasite should accidentally fall.


    With a groan for her poor joke, Amdirlain teleported back to Athena’s empty room. Amdirlain’s pouch of keys and the dress were still present, but the key she’d given Athena was missing. With no trial in progress, she wasn’t sure what Athena intended to do with the key. Amdirlain dressed, collected the pouch, and started along the path to the stairs. The route wasn’t long, just one that allowed a traveller to get turned around quickly. Yet Athena had made it to the stairs and sat on them halfway to the corridor of choices.


    The weeks of practice must have given Athena a sense of familiarity with her presence, as she immediately looked up when Amdirlain mentally reached out. “You called it the corridors of choices, but never said why.”


    “The borders of every square hold lethal traps. To a trial participant, stepping onto the picture shows a key choice in their life. The trap gets them if they can’t take what they have to face and unbalance. A corridor only allowed me onto the first square and showed me an unpleasant what-if, though that could just be my weirdness.”


    Her aura surged with wild extremes of emotions as Athena rocked in place. For a moment, Amdirlain thought she’d leap into the corridor. Slowly, the wildness in her colours eased, and Athena turned the key over in her hands. “Corridor of choices. Why does everything that’s connected to you have to do with choices? Do you have something to do with this place?”


    Amdirlain calmed her thoughts and took her time before she responded. “It''s not just me, Athena, life is about choices. Good ones, bad ones, and moments where every option is ugly. Just walking through a Maze is about making choices.”


    “What happened to you after the first square?”


    “The walls crushed me, and I ended up back in my room.”


    Athena clenched her hand around the key and punched her palm. “Do you need me any longer, or did your training work out?”


    “No, I’ve pushed my telepathy power enough. Did you want the information now?”


    “No, you can tell Hestia yourself when you get out. We’ve been in the Titan’s realm for a few thousand years. Do you think a few more will make the situation worse? Plus, without us dragging her down, perhaps the dwarves or elves might share the knowledge with her. I want to see what choices these pictures have to show me.”


    “Go right ahead; if you die, you’ll just end up in your room. The downside is you won’t forget whatever it is you see. I hope your first square, or any of them, aren’t like the one I faced.”


    Athena extended her key to Amdirlain. “Would you hold on to that for me?”


    “I don’t know if you need it at the corridor’s end.”


    “Guess I’ll find out.”


    Reluctantly, Amdirlain took the offered key and placed it in the pouch. Almost as if Athena sensed Amdirlain''s hesitation, she gave a reassuring nod before she started down the stairs. A confident step took her across the boundary, and Athena’s aura brightened with a surge of colours before she momentarily slumped. Her shoulders heaved as she gasped for breath unsettled by whatever she’d seen. Amdirlain didn’t intrude into her thoughts but set a mental link to track her presence. A square at a time, Amdirlain watched Athena shakily progress down the corridor until she vanished from sight.


    “I hope you make better choices if you get out, Athena.”


    She’d long-delayed handing out the pouch of keys, but with nothing immediate to do, Amdirlain began that task. Days later, she was still scouting out the local pathways when the mental link to Athena snapped. Not knowing if that was good or bad, she scried Athena’s chamber to find only bare earth instead of grass and the olive tree.


    “Gain more levels and then see how things go.”


    Amdirlain finished her distribution of the keys and headed for home. Despite her blistering pace through the corridors, the vines remained beneath her flesh. Along the main corridor’s curving path, her mind reached out to locate more targets for elimination. The next phase began once she had her dress safely tucked away in her chamber.


    The waves of guardians ebbed and surged, but Amdirlain set a brutal pace of destruction. Whoever was in control tried multiple times to start a conversation, only for the unit to be smashed apart. Amdirlain’s immediate retreat left the first Tier 6 unit that appeared untouched. Yet she’d barely been in her chamber for a minute before teleporting back.


    When she found no opponents in place, another two spirits quickly met their end. Cycle after cycle, she ground them down and pushed every spare attribute point she gained into Intelligence to strengthen her psionics.


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    Ebusuku’s PoV - Laurelin - Hestia’s Domain


    At first sight, the white stone of the community''s buildings had given me a cold and unfeeling vibe quite at odds with the friendliness of Hestia and her Domain. Once inside Hestia’s home, the lush colours of tapestries, rugs, and other decorations thoroughly washed away the immediate sense the white stone had projected.


    The welcome from her celestials had been genuinely kind, and they’d ushered me through to a central courtyard. There they arrayed the space with furnishing that gave the area an atmosphere of welcome, relaxation, and family. That impression hadn’t faded with any of my subsequent visits. No doubt Gail would complain about not being allowed to hear the Domain’s music in person, yet again. Her verdict on the lingering music was extra cuddly.


    The last Gate closed behind us, and with the darkness of Limbo no longer looming beyond its threshold, that warmth took full effect. Hestia’s escort took its closure as a signal to disperse and left Hestia alone in the courtyard with me.


    Only when she let the last weapon settle onto its rack did Hestia’s Mantle flare to life again. Her posture immediately relaxed with the rush of energy washing the aches and pains from a day’s fighting away. The black leather cuirass fashioned from some sea monster’s hide had moments before weighed her down, but now she shucks it effortlessly. With it set aside, the last of her clothing alters in an exercise of will, and she’s in her usual white toga.


    The sigh of relief that follows has already become familiar, but I keep from laughing. “Will you come along tomorrow?”


    Brushing back a loose strand of hair from the burn along her face, Hestia nods. “Those canyons are so sad. All those hearths that used to be home to so much life now perverted in such a fashion. I’m not sure you could keep me away.”


    “Seems Sage has another convert to his war against the undead.”


    Hestia’s laughter isn’t a denial; she gives me a helpless shrug. “Steady progress is the key, right?”


    “From what Titania shared with me.”


    A new light source suddenly shines in the room with the manifestation of a Lantern Archon, and Hestia turns towards it in shock. I’ve seen thousands of lantern archons manifest from a Domain but never seen one immediately charge their Goddess. Hestia’s arms rise not to hold it away but ?to enfold it against her chest, and she bends to rest her cheek atop it.


    “I’ve no arms.”


    The archon’s silvery whisper of a voice is feminine, with a clear soprano tone.


    “Athena, how is it you''re not destroyed?”


    “I was in a holding place; the Titan’s servant said it is simply called the Maze. I met Amdirlain there, and she had a theory about why I didn’t just meet my end.”


    Hestia''s gaze immediately rises to catch my own, and she gasps at my knowing smile. “You knew.”


    With my smile already a clear admission, there isn’t a point not sharing some details. “She got a message to me before we started speaking.”


    “How?”


    Gesturing at the apparent remnants of Athena buys me a few moments while I consider options. “Haven’t you ever promoted a Petitioner or a Celestial?”


    “How would you deliberately do that?”


    “They go through a trial in the Maze and walk the corridor of choices,” offers Athena, and I can feel her attention on me. “I’m sorry ?about the part I played, but I didn’t know Apollo’s plan until they announced her capture.”


    The words almost earn a snort, but I catch myself in time. “Did Amdirlain tell you anything about her plan''s progress?”


    The slightest twitch of the lattice is enough to give away Athena’s attention shifting to Hestia for confirmation. “She has to deal with an enemy and needed her telepathy stronger. She spent weeks holding me in a room’s mental image. I was out of sync with her in the Maze, and our states made it a challenge.”


    “A mental room?”


    “Said it was a proper Mind Palace but didn’t explain what that meant. At first, it was enough just talking to her about people and places. As I told her about things, the room gained cabinets containing little keepsakes: mosaic plates, urns, or paintings atop them; and then adjoining rooms appeared. Towards the end of my stay, she had me constantly trying to free myself, that was the most exhausting part.”


    “Why did you help her?” Hestia asks, and I catch the question is for my benefit.


    Athena’s reply wasn’t immediate, and her tone was almost shamefaced. “I’d love to say because it was the right thing. She had to slap sense into me, fortunately only verbally, and threaten to leave me to rot. I’m sorry, she was going to give me a reward to pass to you, Hestia, but I couldn’t take it. I said she could give it to you when she got out.”


    “What reward?”


    “Information about how to bypass the Mantle to regain personal strength and stop it from being leached away. With how I behaved, I couldn’t take it from her even if it was to help you. I knew you’d always remember that I was the one that passed it to you. I shouldn’t be the one to earn any credit for it, even by association. So no getting dragged into another Gods’ War until she’s free, okay? ”


    The gesture Hestia makes just stroking across the filigree reminds me of brushing Gail’s hair, and I wonder at their relationship. “Ebusuku has already shared that information with me.”


    Athena starts about, and the energy in her voice turns her tone into a squeak. “How did you learn it?”


    “Titania shared it with me after the Gods’ War settled, and Hestia and I have been discussing things. It seemed only fitting to pass the information to a new ally, especially one I know Amdirlain likes.”


    “Amdirlain said they knew how to bypass the Mantle’s leaching effect.”


    “More mysteries of Amdirlain, it seems. I would like to know how much she remembers of her existence as an Anar.”


    “What are they?” asked Hestia and Athena in unison.


    “Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out,” I happily tease.


    Livia’s PoV - Judge Po’s Court


    The valley floor grew rapidly closer, but neither the speed of the descent nor the mountain’s constant hurricane buffeted her. During her ascent, it had ?threatened to rip her from the mountain; now, standing on Bàofēng’s cloud form, it barely brushed her skin. Though tempted to ask the boisterous spirit, Livia acknowledged the reason ?didn’t matter and enjoyed the scene.


    At the valley’s midpoint was Judge Po’s five-story courthouse, surrounded by hundreds of buildings that matched its black walls and red roof. The precisely ordered streets felt like they should have more significant meaning than simple order. Yet, while the images formed by the monastery’s structures had leapt out to her, these remained simply buildings.


    Bàofēng chose a path that approached from the courthouse’s side and made a final loop around the third floor before he softly landed in front. The cloud beneath her feet grew insubstantial when she finally touched down before the courthouse. At first, she thought that Bàofēng had vanished away, but she suddenly felt his presence amidst her chakras.


    “What are you doing?” asked Livia softly. While his energy wasn’t uncomfortable, it seemed like a stray breeze could sweep her away.


    “You said I could come with you, how else can I do that?”


    Despite the young storm spirit inside her middle chakra, his voice sounded mid-air from right beside her.


    The attention of court officials in fine silk robes had fixed upon her when she’d landed, and Bàofēng’s booming voice drew a feeling of ire. Each of them possessed a sterner demeanour than many judges she’d met, yet the four stood beneath the building’s protruding awning as if they were mere attendants. Each had a black goatee that came to a thin point with a well-groomed moustache to match. Though far fancier in attire, their voluminous silk robes matched the black-on-white layers of the scribe she’d encountered upon her arrival at the waiting hall. Their robes’ fabric was so clean that the black layers appeared wet with how they shone in the morning light.


    Unfortunately, she wasn’t in anything close to the same state. Her loose clothing was now frayed, and she’d lost her boots climbing the mountain long ago. Traversing its slopes had challenged her perception of time, and frequently it had lost all meaning. The battered fabric barely changed when she tried various spells to clean and repair it. Her journey had imprinted the mountain’s presence on her clothing and flesh. The only matter of appearance she felt able to correct was her wild, wind-blown hair.


    A slow exhalation calmed her nerves, and Livia unfastened the jade combs that Bàofēng’s father had gifted her. The jade matched the gleaming white the peak’s touch had left on her hair and skin as precisely as their sapphires'' shade matched her eyes.


    “But we’ve reached the mountain’s base. Isn’t that what you wanted?” enquired Livia, confused by his antics as he repeatedly shifted between the chakras of heart and solar plexus.


    “No, I asked if I could come with you. The word ‘with’ doesn’t mean just help you off the mountain, and I certainly didn’t say only to the courthouse. Wasn’t your judgement that I had to make amends by assisting mortals?”


    “Yes,” admitted Livia warily, the testimony of Bàofēng’s father had painted Bàofēng in a very unpredictable light.


    “Well, I’ll come along and assist you; you''re not a full Immortal yet.”


    A shift in pressure caused Livia’s gaze to narrow. When it continued, she clapped a hand to her mid-rift and hardened her Ki flow to block him. “Out.”


    “Your heart chakra is a bustling place with her present, and it’s not like you''re using that sacral chakra; I could blow all the dust out of it for you.”


    “If you must accompany me in such a fashion, nowhere below the solar plexus.”


    “Fine,” grumbled Bàofēng. “Aren’t you supposed to be going inside?”


    “Your behaviour distracted me,” chastised Livia.


    The spirit swirled around within her solar plexus chakra, and Livia only started towards the front doors once it had a consistent pattern. A sensation of energy flowed around her, and without action from the officials, the doors swung open to reveal a polished black slate floor beyond. White pillars with bands of gold reached towards a ceiling far higher than the five-story exterior allowed. The vastness of the interior drew her attention, appearing, as it did, capable of swallowing Eyrarháls without a ripple. Yet endless rows of desks with scribes busy at work consumed the space allowed.


    The same energy that had opened the door beckoned her forward. With the invitation extended, a massive white jade door bearing the likeness of five eastern dragons appeared. Livia had barely started ahead when the first scribe she passed absently handed her a white jade plaque. When he glanced over her ragged appearance, he didn’t so much as blink in surprise.


    “You certainly have the roughness of one of Master Cyrus’s disciples. Present that to the dragons tending the door; they’ll see you back to the Mortal Plane.”


    “Don’t I have to see Judge Po?” asked Livia.


    “You’re three months overdue for your hearing, so he dealt with the formalities in your absence.”


    “I didn’t think I was that slow in climbing the mountain,” murmured Livia, ignoring Bàofēng’s snickers.


    “Your instruction said nothing about going all the way to the top, rather climb a mountain and pick a bloom,” replied the Clerk and motioned her towards the door. “How many flowers did you pass once you got out of the foothills?”


    “Your translation effects leave much to be desired,” Livia replied, tapping the plaque against her palm. “Why didn’t someone send a message to let me know the hearing date?”


    “The hearing occurred when the clerks finished reviewing your paperwork. One who strives for immortality must always find their Tao,” replied the clerk and motioned towards the door again. “They told you to climb a mountain and pick a bloom. To you, that meant reaching the top of Sun Wukong’s mountain and helping spirits resolve disputes along the way. No instructions said to bring back the spirit flower sitting in your heart chakra, nor the child born of the mountain’s wind.”


    “Best to take the plaque and run while we can,” Bàofēng whispered; this time, only Livia heard his voice. Within Livia’s heart chakra, the spirit born of the peak’s sunlight added her own murmured agreement.


    “One last question: how long ago did I arrive in the waiting area?”


    “Eight moons and eleven days. Some have spent years trying to reach that peak. You are fortunate that tally wasn’t in centuries.”


    The possibility of lost centuries had Livia blink in shock, and she hurried towards the Gate. As she got within a hundred metres, the dragons that had seemed carved into the jade came alive with colour. None of them was a single hue like what Master Cyrus called western? dragons. Each was lion-headed with deer-like antlers that rose out of a mane that turned into a spiked crest running down the length of their serpentine bodies.


    When they first moved, the depiction in the gate’s carving suddenly gained genuine depth. A cloud-filled space had replaced the jade-carved gate with an archway, the only constant in its transformation. The closest dragon gripped the archway with a five-clawed paw; each nail was longer than her body. With its motion, the others retreated and revealed a set of stairs spiralled upwards, and the other dragons circled it in a predatory fashion.


    “A first-time visitor from your plaque. You can ascend safely, though do not dally on the stairs. We’ll guard the way so no other might misuse the stairs.”


    “Where do these stairs come out?”


    “Within an older section of the City of Zhongdu. Given your current attire, you’ll appear like a vagrant. Best be cautious to avoid trouble. Unless you seek to test your fighting skills against the imperial guard.”


    “I’ll waft you away, and then you can Teleport us to your home,” offered Bàofēng.


    “That’s far from your centre,” warned Livia.


    “That’s fine, miss sunshine and I have got you to serve as an anchor, don’t we?”


    The dragons snorted in amusement at his words, but Livia treated the question carefully. “Don’t go causing trouble, or I’ll send you back here. Alright?”


    “Agreed.”


    The spirit girl who had barely murmured since taking up residence in her heart chakra spoke clearly. “Agreed, Livia. I’ll behave and watch him as well.”


    “Thank you both,” Livia replied. “Have you decided on a name yet?”


    “Not yet. I’ll let you know when I do.”


    Not wanting to delay further, Livia moved onto the stairs. As she drew near, the first dragon retreated to allow her to pass and sealed the gate behind her. The timelessness of the mountain climb tried to press upon her, but taking the clerk’s words of centuries lost as a warning, she focused and pushed hard.


    When she stepped across the stairs'' upper threshold, Livia found herself in a small quiet courtyard. The surrounding buildings, with their grey stone and faded red ceramic roofs, looked worn by time and weather. Despite the worn-down appearance of the buildings, Livia found herself on a small, well-maintained stone dais. The background of the dais was a man-height stone version of the jade carved gate, a stone that looked freshly carved and polished. Someone had covered the stairs leading up to its platform in flowers, small bowls of food, and various trinkets that she didn’t recognise.


    The suggestion Bàofēng had provided seemed valid, as a glance around with Mana Sense showed her traces of a city ward, though the Mana styling was different.


    “If we go straight up, we should avoid trouble from anyone believing they need to defend their home,” offered Bàofēng.


    “You know what’s got you into trouble before, so let’s avoid that,” replied Livia and felt Bàofēng reform, lifting her feet from the ground as he did. The air crackled with electricity, and they sped skywards, leaving zephyrs to swirl about the platform in their wake.