Aperio eyed the Souls she had freed from Gyesfal, making sure they stayed in the little pool she had made for them. The invisible water of the River of Souls was doing its job and gradually removing the runes that had been engraved upon them, but it would still take a while to heal them all.
The progress that had already been made caused Aperio to question how long she had spent in her Void with Caethya. Her disciple did not seem to mind the time spent thus far, still leaning against her with her eyes closed. Did she fall asleep?
"How long will it take to heal the Souls?" Caethya asked, trying to pull Aperio's wing a little tighter around herself.
Guess not. The All-Mother obliged, letting her disciple move her wing as she saw fit. "A while," she replied. "I don't really know if they are healing faster than the first ones I fixed, or if we have already spent a week in my Void."
"A week?" Caethya asked, shifting slightly to better look at Aperio. "Does time flow faster in here?"
The All-Mother offered a small shrug in reply, trying her best to not disturb her disciple. "I know precious little about my Void. I mostly thought my own perception of time was off as I also failed to notice days going by while I was on a carriage."
"Well, your perception of time is likely very different from my own or that of other mortals," Caethya said. "Probably also different from other deities, too."
"Perhaps," Aperio replied, her voice trailing off as she felt a small change in the realm Gyesfal had called its home. "Someone finally noticed that their experiment disappeared."
"Anyone you know?"
"No." Aperio narrowed her eyes slightly as she focused on the hooded figure that stood in the hall the abomination had resided in.
Her idea had proven valid, however, as she could quite easily sense the trail of mana that snaked its way through the threads of reality to some other place. "I can find out where they came from, however."
True to her word, a part of her mind flowed along the strand of mana that still connected the hooded figure to wherever they had come from. She considered cutting that connection, leaving the person stranded in Gyesfal's dead realm as punishment for taking part in that abominable experiment, but decided against it in the end.
They might have been forced to do this… That could've been true of Miesto as well, but the man had tried to destroy his own soul as soon as Aperio had caught him. Not something she could just let happen. Of course, she did not know if this person would do the same, but if they belonged to the same organisation that Miesto had been a part of… Better not risk it.
"How long will it take for you to figure out where they came from?" Caethya asked, sitting herself up a little straighter and removing her hand from Aperio's back.
The All-Mother frowned a little at the motion. She did not want her disciple to stop, but neither did she say anything about it. "Not long," she said instead, focusing on the stranger in Gyesfal's realm who had produced a large scroll with various runes written on it.
Much to her surprise, Aperio was able to read nearly all of the runes. How exactly a formation on a piece of paper was supposed to track her, the All-Mother did not know. Is it easy or hard to track me? She constantly exuded...well, a lot of mana. No matter how much mana was already surrounding her. But then again, her mana was rather similar to ambient mana, according to Mayeia. And that realm he’s connected to has ambient mana from so many worlds. But, maybe that drove them to develop a way to tell them apart?
She tilted her head slightly as she let a little more of her aura seep into the realm, poking at the magic that slowly formed above the scroll the newcomer had brought. The spell that slowly assembled itself did not strike Aperio as too complex. Much like the runes that had created it, she knew what it was supposed to do; almost as if the magic had noticed her scrutiny and wanted to ask for her permission.
Non-interference seemed to be taken as an okay as a wave of orange light spread from the small orb that had formed above the scroll, causing the ambient mana that lingered in the air to shift, making it even easier to see in Aperio's aura.
"So it's just to help the person track?" she mumbled to herself, focusing more on the small thread that led away from the hooded figure. The spell she had observed had been neat but she could not really do anything against a person trying to find her mana, bar removing all mana or messing with that person's mind. Both were things she would not do.
"What's happening?" Caethya asked, leaning herself against Aperio's wing so she could better look at her.
The All-Mother opened her mouth to speak before she closed it again, just showing her disciple what she saw instead. Aperio had not considered that it might hurt Caethya the first time she had shared what she saw, but fortunately the Demigoddess seemed to not feel any pain from her direct mental communications anymore.
The information was filed away for later as Aperio's aura spilled into a new realm at the end of the thin thread that connected to the stranger. A world much more akin to what she had expected.
Towers of gleaming gold, each surrounded with a sprawling city, pierced the skies here. Every single one of the towers — while made from the same materials — had been constructed in a different style, always somehow matching the symbol at its base.
The tower and city that bore the flagged sword of Epemirial was easy to find. It stood taller than any of the others, actively channeling a good bit of the mana that was present in the world upwards and into… Nothing?
Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it wasn't nothing. Just another thread that leads elsewhere. This one, however, was not a mere connection, but a conduit for the mana that the tower seemed to gather. What's she doing with that?
"That's Epemirial's sigil, right?" Aperio asked, looking at her disciple.
Caethya nodded in reply, holding her head afterwards. "Yes," she said. "And could you please stop showing me what you see?"
Aperio did as she was asked, letting the mental connection fade. "Did it hurt?" she inquired, letting a bit of her mana flow through the Demigoddess' body. "I'm sorry."
"It doesn't hurt," Caethya replied. "It's just… too much. So many sensations that I do not know what to do with. Like my mind cannot comprehend what you are trying to show me."
"I could try to limit what you see the next time," Aperio offered, moving Caethya closer to her with her wing. "But I believe it is only a matter of time before you understand what I am showing you. My telepathy does not give you a headache anymore, after all."
"I guess…" her disciple said, looking at her hand as if that would provide answers. "I didn't notice anything change, though."
"I did not notice myself changing much either, until I looked." The All-Mother shrugged. "Now I just keep track of every small thing that changes without even thinking about it."
"But you can also keep track of a million things at once," her disciple said. "You are currently talking to me, checking that the Souls heal correctly, tracking some person in another realm, looking over another realm, and probably a lot more stuff. All without looking like it is any kind of burden."
"Because it's not," Aperio mumbled, turning to face Caethya. "I just… put my mind to it and then I focus on that as well." She hesitated for a moment, trying to find words that could better describe what she did before she sighed. "I really can't explain it. I just do it."
"It's fine." Caethya waved her off. "I am okay, and we have more important things to focus on. Don't think I didn't notice how you are stalling again. The sooner Epemirial is dealt with the better. Both for you and the world in general."
"I'm not," Aperio rebutted, letting her mind wander along the thread that connected Epemirial's tower to yet another realm. "I am going from realm to realm trying to find her and that takes some time.
"The person that came to check on Gyesfal came from a realm that is mainly big cities surrounding golden towers devoted to a given deity," Aperio continued. "Those towers also seem to channel mana from that realm somewhere else. To the deity they are made for, I assume."
"I didn't think Chrysos was real," Caethya said. "The idea of it was as ridiculous as Vigil's moon temple." She paused for a moment, holding up her hand as Aperio opened her mouth to speak. "I know, I should have seen this coming after it turned out that was real."
"You are also currently sitting in front of the River of Souls next to the literal Creator of the universe."
"And I am now a Demigoddess," Caethya continued, raising her arms in defeat. "I get it, I shouldn't be surprised by stuff like that. I just never… noticed the change. Again. Maybe it's your influence?"
"I have an influence of obliviousness?" Aperio asked, furrowing her brows as she found more threads joining the one she was following that came from Chrysos.
Her disciple stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. If she hadn’t been sitting on the nothing of her Void with creases in her dress, Aperio could have taken her for some lost royalty.
"I take credit for your grace as well, then," the All-Mother mused, not wanting to let the chance slip by. She had been told that she appeared graceful even when she had been tortured, a quality that still gave her a twisted sense of pride. Why do I like it so much?
"Do you now?" Caethya asked, running her hand over the inside of Aperio's wing. "I think the first one is more fitting."
"Probably," the All-Mother relented, lowering her head slightly. "I did not exactly have the opportunity to learn how a normal mortal should behave."
"I guess you did not," her disciple said, removing her hand from the All-Mother's wing, "but you have me now, so we can work on that."
"Not now, though," Aperio said, tilting her head slightly as yet another part of her mind found itself in a realm that made a lot less sense than the others. "I think I found Epemirial's Dominion. Or at least something close to it."
Desks and chairs were abundant here, on the floor as well as on the walls and ceiling. The Goddess of Duty and Loss clearly did not seem to like the concept of up and down, and the mortals in this realm wandered to and fro as though this situation was all perfectly normal. It was only at the moment when they moved from one surface to another that they seemed to remember that a wall was a wall and a floor was a floor. Wherever they had just come from seems to always be the new wall.
"Anything unusual about her Dominion?" Caethya asked, leaning herself fully against Aperio's wing.
"Besides having every surface be 'down', no," Aperio said. "Doesn't feel much different from Ferio's Dominion. Perhaps a little bit more mana inside it, but not as much as I had feared."
"Does she know you are looking at her home?"
The All-Mother could only offer a shrug. While she was trying to be careful, she did not know how Epemirial perceived her own Dominion. Or if this even is her Dominion.
"I do not know," she said. "But I think she hasn't noticed yet."
"So, what are you going to do now?" Caethya asked. "Find Epemirial and confront her in her own Dominion?"
"That was my plan, yes."
"Can't you bring her here?"
"Bring the one that manipulates Souls to the nexus of all Souls?" Aperio asked. "I don't think so.
"I do, however, have another idea," she continued. "I have another realm we can use."
The white abyss her temple had been in was empty now as far as she could tell and, just like her Void, always lingered patiently at the back of her mind. A thought was all she needed to transport the both of them into the bright expanse.
"How many realms do you have?" Caethya asked, looking at the new form of nothing that surrounded her.
"I do not know," Aperio replied, taking an unneeded breath as she let more of her aura seep into what she assumed was Epemirial's Dominion. "Nor does it matter for now."
The All-Mother removed her wing from Caethya, a touch of her magic supporting the Demigoddess instead. She stood up, a thought smoothing out her dress and erecting a barrier around her disciple. In her own realm, Aperio wasn't too concerned about something happening, but precautions should still be taken.
"Now, to find Epemirial in her Dominion and bring her here."
GamingWolf
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Aperio eyed the Souls she had freed from Gyesfal, making sure they stayed in the little pool she had made for them. The invisible water of the River of Souls was doing its job and gradually removing the runes that had been engraved upon them, but it would still take a while to heal them all.
The progress that had already been made caused Aperio to question how long she had spent in her Void with Caethya. Her disciple did not seem to mind the time spent thus far, still leaning against her with her eyes closed. Did she fall asleep?
"How long will it take to heal the Souls?" Caethya asked, trying to pull Aperio's wing a little tighter around herself.
Guess not. The All-Mother obliged, letting her disciple move her wing as she saw fit. "A while," she replied. "I don't really know if they are healing faster than the first ones I fixed, or if we have already spent a week in my Void."
"A week?" Caethya asked, shifting slightly to better look at Aperio. "Does time flow faster in here?"
The All-Mother offered a small shrug in reply, trying her best to not disturb her disciple. "I know precious little about my Void. I mostly thought my own perception of time was off as I also failed to notice days going by while I was on a carriage."
"Well, your perception of time is likely very different from my own or that of other mortals," Caethya said. "Probably also different from other deities, too."
"Perhaps," Aperio replied, her voice trailing off as she felt a small change in the realm Gyesfal had called its home. "Someone finally noticed that their experiment disappeared."
"Anyone you know?"
"No." Aperio narrowed her eyes slightly as she focused on the hooded figure that stood in the hall the abomination had resided in.
Her idea had proven valid, however, as she could quite easily sense the trail of mana that snaked its way through the threads of reality to some other place. "I can find out where they came from, however."
True to her word, a part of her mind flowed along the strand of mana that still connected the hooded figure to wherever they had come from. She considered cutting that connection, leaving the person stranded in Gyesfal's dead realm as punishment for taking part in that abominable experiment, but decided against it in the end.
They might have been forced to do this… That could've been true of Miesto as well, but the man had tried to destroy his own soul as soon as Aperio had caught him. Not something she could just let happen. Of course, she did not know if this person would do the same, but if they belonged to the same organisation that Miesto had been a part of… Better not risk it.
"How long will it take for you to figure out where they came from?" Caethya asked, sitting herself up a little straighter and removing her hand from Aperio's back.
The All-Mother frowned a little at the motion. She did not want her disciple to stop, but neither did she say anything about it. "Not long," she said instead, focusing on the stranger in Gyesfal's realm who had produced a large scroll with various runes written on it.
Much to her surprise, Aperio was able to read nearly all of the runes. How exactly a formation on a piece of paper was supposed to track her, the All-Mother did not know. Is it easy or hard to track me? She constantly exuded...well, a lot of mana. No matter how much mana was already surrounding her. But then again, her mana was rather similar to ambient mana, according to Mayeia. And that realm he’s connected to has ambient mana from so many worlds. But, maybe that drove them to develop a way to tell them apart?
She tilted her head slightly as she let a little more of her aura seep into the realm, poking at the magic that slowly formed above the scroll the newcomer had brought. The spell that slowly assembled itself did not strike Aperio as too complex. Much like the runes that had created it, she knew what it was supposed to do; almost as if the magic had noticed her scrutiny and wanted to ask for her permission.
Non-interference seemed to be taken as an okay as a wave of orange light spread from the small orb that had formed above the scroll, causing the ambient mana that lingered in the air to shift, making it even easier to see in Aperio's aura.
"So it's just to help the person track?" she mumbled to herself, focusing more on the small thread that led away from the hooded figure. The spell she had observed had been neat but she could not really do anything against a person trying to find her mana, bar removing all mana or messing with that person's mind. Both were things she would not do.
"What's happening?" Caethya asked, leaning herself against Aperio's wing so she could better look at her.
The All-Mother opened her mouth to speak before she closed it again, just showing her disciple what she saw instead. Aperio had not considered that it might hurt Caethya the first time she had shared what she saw, but fortunately the Demigoddess seemed to not feel any pain from her direct mental communications anymore.
The information was filed away for later as Aperio's aura spilled into a new realm at the end of the thin thread that connected to the stranger. A world much more akin to what she had expected.
Towers of gleaming gold, each surrounded with a sprawling city, pierced the skies here. Every single one of the towers — while made from the same materials — had been constructed in a different style, always somehow matching the symbol at its base.
The tower and city that bore the flagged sword of Epemirial was easy to find. It stood taller than any of the others, actively channeling a good bit of the mana that was present in the world upwards and into… Nothing?
Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it wasn't nothing. Just another thread that leads elsewhere. This one, however, was not a mere connection, but a conduit for the mana that the tower seemed to gather. What's she doing with that?
"That's Epemirial's sigil, right?" Aperio asked, looking at her disciple.
Caethya nodded in reply, holding her head afterwards. "Yes," she said. "And could you please stop showing me what you see?"
Aperio did as she was asked, letting the mental connection fade. "Did it hurt?" she inquired, letting a bit of her mana flow through the Demigoddess' body. "I'm sorry."
"It doesn't hurt," Caethya replied. "It's just… too much. So many sensations that I do not know what to do with. Like my mind cannot comprehend what you are trying to show me."
"I could try to limit what you see the next time," Aperio offered, moving Caethya closer to her with her wing. "But I believe it is only a matter of time before you understand what I am showing you. My telepathy does not give you a headache anymore, after all."
"I guess…" her disciple said, looking at her hand as if that would provide answers. "I didn't notice anything change, though."
"I did not notice myself changing much either, until I looked." The All-Mother shrugged. "Now I just keep track of every small thing that changes without even thinking about it."
"But you can also keep track of a million things at once," her disciple said. "You are currently talking to me, checking that the Souls heal correctly, tracking some person in another realm, looking over another realm, and probably a lot more stuff. All without looking like it is any kind of burden."
"Because it's not," Aperio mumbled, turning to face Caethya. "I just… put my mind to it and then I focus on that as well." She hesitated for a moment, trying to find words that could better describe what she did before she sighed. "I really can't explain it. I just do it."
"It's fine." Caethya waved her off. "I am okay, and we have more important things to focus on. Don't think I didn't notice how you are stalling again. The sooner Epemirial is dealt with the better. Both for you and the world in general."
"I'm not," Aperio rebutted, letting her mind wander along the thread that connected Epemirial's tower to yet another realm. "I am going from realm to realm trying to find her and that takes some time.
"The person that came to check on Gyesfal came from a realm that is mainly big cities surrounding golden towers devoted to a given deity," Aperio continued. "Those towers also seem to channel mana from that realm somewhere else. To the deity they are made for, I assume."
"I didn't think Chrysos was real," Caethya said. "The idea of it was as ridiculous as Vigil's moon temple." She paused for a moment, holding up her hand as Aperio opened her mouth to speak. "I know, I should have seen this coming after it turned out that was real."
"You are also currently sitting in front of the River of Souls next to the literal Creator of the universe."
"And I am now a Demigoddess," Caethya continued, raising her arms in defeat. "I get it, I shouldn't be surprised by stuff like that. I just never… noticed the change. Again. Maybe it's your influence?"
"I have an influence of obliviousness?" Aperio asked, furrowing her brows as she found more threads joining the one she was following that came from Chrysos.
Her disciple stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. If she hadn’t been sitting on the nothing of her Void with creases in her dress, Aperio could have taken her for some lost royalty.
"I take credit for your grace as well, then," the All-Mother mused, not wanting to let the chance slip by. She had been told that she appeared graceful even when she had been tortured, a quality that still gave her a twisted sense of pride. Why do I like it so much?
"Do you now?" Caethya asked, running her hand over the inside of Aperio's wing. "I think the first one is more fitting."
"Probably," the All-Mother relented, lowering her head slightly. "I did not exactly have the opportunity to learn how a normal mortal should behave."
"I guess you did not," her disciple said, removing her hand from the All-Mother's wing, "but you have me now, so we can work on that."
"Not now, though," Aperio said, tilting her head slightly as yet another part of her mind found itself in a realm that made a lot less sense than the others. "I think I found Epemirial's Dominion. Or at least something close to it."
Desks and chairs were abundant here, on the floor as well as on the walls and ceiling. The Goddess of Duty and Loss clearly did not seem to like the concept of up and down, and the mortals in this realm wandered to and fro as though this situation was all perfectly normal. It was only at the moment when they moved from one surface to another that they seemed to remember that a wall was a wall and a floor was a floor. Wherever they had just come from seems to always be the new wall.
"Anything unusual about her Dominion?" Caethya asked, leaning herself fully against Aperio's wing.
"Besides having every surface be 'down', no," Aperio said. "Doesn't feel much different from Ferio's Dominion. Perhaps a little bit more mana inside it, but not as much as I had feared."
"Does she know you are looking at her home?"
The All-Mother could only offer a shrug. While she was trying to be careful, she did not know how Epemirial perceived her own Dominion. Or if this even is her Dominion.
"I do not know," she said. "But I think she hasn't noticed yet."
"So, what are you going to do now?" Caethya asked. "Find Epemirial and confront her in her own Dominion?"
"That was my plan, yes."
"Can't you bring her here?"
"Bring the one that manipulates Souls to the nexus of all Souls?" Aperio asked. "I don't think so.
"I do, however, have another idea," she continued. "I have another realm we can use."
The white abyss her temple had been in was empty now as far as she could tell and, just like her Void, always lingered patiently at the back of her mind. A thought was all she needed to transport the both of them into the bright expanse.
"How many realms do you have?" Caethya asked, looking at the new form of nothing that surrounded her.
"I do not know," Aperio replied, taking an unneeded breath as she let more of her aura seep into what she assumed was Epemirial's Dominion. "Nor does it matter for now."
The All-Mother removed her wing from Caethya, a touch of her magic supporting the Demigoddess instead. She stood up, a thought smoothing out her dress and erecting a barrier around her disciple. In her own realm, Aperio wasn't too concerned about something happening, but precautions should still be taken.
"Now, to find Epemirial in her Dominion and bring her here."
GamingWolf
If you like the story, do leave a rating. If you really like it, please write a review!
Want to chat? Join the Discord. Want to read ahead? Check out the Patreon.
