Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

The old year had ended, the new year was in. Night and Arachne were busy, busy people, and while I’d gotten a number of invitations to fancy functions and various parties, without Iona to push me and provide a strong incentive to go, I’d declined almost all of them. The only one I’d accepted was a party the War Sentinels were throwing, which had felt a little out of my league. It wasn’t that I felt I didn’t belong or anything like that, just that their idea of entertainment was founded on most of them being over level 1000, which allowed for some niche, extreme stuff.

However, in the end, I did get to arrange a nice little sit-down dinner with Night, Arachne, and Clotho, her bonded black widow spider. Julius and Artemis joined us, and my heart had a little crack in it when Iona failed to miraculously appear out of the sky at the last second to join us.

I knew she was out and busy. I knew she’d be back in just a few months, if not weeks, and that the time wasn’t so long as to be worth making a ton of trips. I knew she hadn’t been gone long.

But all those were logical arguments, and I missed her something fierce.

Auri had baked, Julius had scrounged up some relatively old bottles of blood wine, Artemis had acquired enough different food to feed an army, and I’d gone ham on enchanting every last square inch of the villa. We all pitched in on the cooking.

Auri was very particular on the difference, and with me around, she was a little better at telling Artemis where to stick it.

We didn’t have a proper arcanite core yet, but I could run the enchantments myself for now.

One moment our doorway was clear, the next Night, Arachne - Susan, here at an informal event - and Clotho, Arachne’s bonded spider, were at my door. Gods, they were so fast I didn’t even see them approaching.

“Hello!” Susan stepped inside.

“Hey! Come on in!” I shouted, hurrying over to properly greet them like a good hostess. “Thanks for coming!”

“Oh no, thank you for inviting us! Your place is simply marvelous!” Susan gushed over my home, while Clotho, sitting on her shoulder, waved a jaunty leg at Auri. The little phoenix puffed herself up importantly.

“Remember.” I muttered out of the side of my mouth, well aware that everyone could hear me anyway. It was about the appearance of the thing, not the actuality. “They’re guests. Be nice.”

“Brrrpt.” Auri tried to be quiet with her protest, but it was merely tolerably loud instead of her usual high powered blast. She wanted to let me know that she had a store, plenty of customers, and knew how to be polite.

She ended her reminder with a buffet of her wing to the back of my head. I loved immunity to fire. It included immunity to being smacked by solid flames!

Night smiled as he entered, holding a wrapped gift in his hands. I could see through the waxed paper easily enough, and lifted an eyebrow.

That was an excellent housewarming present. Night knew me well.

“Night! How are you? Come in, come in, don’t let the cold get you!” ‘Cold’ was a relative term, and part of me wanted to go on a dizzying analysis on how temperature was relative. Our ‘cold’ here in Exterreri was someone else’s ‘warm spring day’, but at the same time, we were all used to our warm and cold, so our cold felt cold… until stats and skills kicked in, which…

Thank the System for [Parallel Thoughts].

“Elaine. I must concur with Susan, your home is most wonderful. I get a strong sense of behaaglijk from it.”

I tilted my head in confusion, not knowing the word. Night understood.

“It is a word from Frisian with no good equivalent in High Elvish or Creation.” He said. “It exemplifies the idea of cozy. Comfortable. Warm. Snug. Agreeable. Everything a home should be. It is the crackling log in the fireplace. The hot mug of milk. The warm embrace of a loved one.”

I looked around with Night’s words in mind.

“Behaaglijk. Yes.” His description was accurate.

We made more polite small talk as we made our way over to the garden, where I was hosting dinner. A fancy set of spells had snow drifting through the air, only to vanish once they hit the ground.

“Brilliantly done.” Susan praised as she saw the snowfall. “It’s not an illusion at all. Such a clever application of Ice, Wind, Fire, and Dark.”

I coughed awkwardly.

Shit! That would’ve been a much neater way of doing it! Ah well, live and learn. The more practice I got, the better I’d be.

Hey!

Wait!

There’s no way Susan didn’t know how I’d actually done it! I wasn’t trying to hide it at all, the runes were glowing all around the edges of the garden. She was trying to subtly steer me down a better path!

My shocked look must’ve made it to my face, because the rainbow-haired woman sent me a cheeky wink.

Everyone sat down and made various greetings as Auri and I bustled around, getting food served for everyone.

The idea of getting a few apprentices to do the gruntwork was starting to become appealing. I could see the benefits of such an arrangement! Heck, I could even pay someone to do all this.

Be helpful to Nina as well. The place was big, and I was starting to feel like I was rattling around in it a bit.

“Auri, I do believe that your current accommodations are lacking a certain flair, one I seem to recall a much younger Elaine gushing over once upon a time.” Night said as he presented his gift to Auri.

“Brrrpt!!” Auri’s estimation of Night went way up, mostly for bringing her gifts.

In a surprise, she didn’t just burn the paper off. She fluttered around it, her wings buzzing at the speed they flapped at, carefully ripping the paper apart with her beak. One spot than another, she artfully shredded the paper.

I already knew what was inside it. Auri’s scream of birdy approval when she finally unwrapped enough of it to see what was inside was a thing of beauty. Night smiled as she burned away the rest of the paper in her excitement to see her new arcanite perch.

Auri twisted and turned to see herself in her new perch, then hopped up.

“BrrPTT!!” She declared it perfect and marvelous.

“I am most pleased that it meets your approval, young one.” Night said with a smile, and Susan shot him a loving look.

I refocused on the conversations going back and forth, moving quickly from appetizers - a charcuterie board, with artful drizzles of basilisk blood for the vampires - onto the main course. Tasty, tasty agnolotti, stuffed with rapini and king salmon! Pork loin on the side, a small dish of curry imported from Ralakar - a day of flying there, a day of flying back - and a beautiful set of freshly cut garden greens in a salad.

For the vampires we had ethically sourced silvery unicorn blood, warmed and spiced. The seller was the seventh person I’d tried claiming to sell unicorn blood, and the first one I believed. I knew what it smelled like thanks to Varuna, my roommate Skye’s bonded companion back at the School. I’d dropped an idle word about it to Auri, who’d dutifully passed the message along to Atlas. I figured that was good enough.

The ethical part I had no way of confirming, but I couldn’t imagine a steady supply without some willingness on the unicorn’s part.

Night leaned back, swirling his glass of blood wine and bringing it up to his nose. He breathed in deeply.

“Ahhh, a most wonderful find. Elaine, I have been looking for interesting tales recently, and I have one from my past which I believe you would find most fascinating.”

I straightened up, although Julius and Susan were still deep in discussion on the nature of command. Susan was delighted to hear how Julius viewed things in Remus times, considering it a valuable source on how thought, philosophy, and command had evolved over time.

“Too far back for anyone to remember, too long after you were cruelly torn from Pallos, a powerful Spatial mage appeared.” Night began to recount. “At the highest levels, fights become interesting, to say the least, and blows can come from any direction, from any element. Yet, one thing remains true the world around - the vitality defense.”

Night was slowly weaving his spell of words, drawing all of us into his story.

“Two individuals of even vaguely the same level can not directly impact one another. They must find another way to visit violence. This one mage, however, found something of a workaround. An arguable loophole, in the time before the Divine Decree banning tearing the very fabric of space was enacted. Indeed, I have good cause to believe that this nameless mage was the cause of said Decree, due to it coming ‘round near the end of his lifespan. But I digress. The mage, you see, was a master of portals, Spatial magic only available at the highest levels. Not only did he have the power to rapidly create small portals, but he worked out a way to move them through space, ‘scooping’ up anything that went through.”

Night paused for a moment, letting us imagine such a thing. I immediately saw the connection.

“He could ignore people’s vitality when teleporting them.” I gasped, imagining all the horrible things that could be done with such a power. Into an active volcano, into the depths of the planet, and a thousand other possibilities sprang to mind.

Auri’s eyes went wide, and Artemis had an evil grin on her face.

“Ooooh, I’d love to do that to some people.” She said. “Just throw someone into the bottom of the ocean, and let them drown.”

Night nodded.

“Indeed he could. But he was more clever than that. See, many powerful Immortals could survive being taken to the bottom of the ocean, and such widespread slaughter would draw unpleasant attention. Instead, he simply sent people on a trip. The other thing he’d worked out was how to make portals to other worlds. What does it matter if your opponent is alive, if they have been stranded on another plane of existence entirely? For all practical purposes, they are dead.”

Night swirled his glass of wine around again, taking a delicate drink.

“That is the background to this tale. The story, proper, is how I found myself trapped on a world called Aetherion, a world entirely lacking in the System but rich in a different type of magic, and how I found my way back home, to Pallos proper. This is a tale that requires three days and three nights to properly regale, but alas, I shall have to cut it short.”

Night paused for a moment, and I didn’t even care that sauce was dripping off my ribs, onto my nice tunic.

“I have stolen from sleeping barrow kings, thrown tyrants off the highest peaks, and survived a single night with Morgana Moonwhisper. I have navigated the labyrinth of souls, recovered the heart of the forest, and sung so beautifully that the Siren of Sylvara wept and tore out her voice.”

He paused, letting his words soak in and ignite our imagination.

“I am Nyx Shadowbane, Warden of the Dark, Sovereign of Shadows, and Guardian of the Dreamrealm. You might have heard of me.”

Susan and Julius rapidly finished their conversation as Night started to get into the meat of the story, all of us engrossed at every word coming from his mouth. He spoke rapidly, every single one of us here Classers and able to keep up with his furious pace. Still, it was clear that he was dramatically abbreviating portions of the story.

Him getting caught. The portal closing over him. The new world. New rules.

New magic.

Bit after bit, word after word, Night wove the most fantastical tale. A finger poking Auri got her to get the desserts - her pride as a [Chef] overriding her desire to hear the next part.

It was slowly becoming clear that all of Night’s titles and achievements that he’d just mentioned were purely from his time on Aetherion.

Night was detailing how they’d weakened a dam, preparing to flood out a town that a shape shifter of vicious power and seeming true immortality had taken over.

“The beams split with an almighty crack,-”

Right as Night said crack, a vicious Lightning bolt cracked through the sky, landing just outside the villa. Artemis was on her feet in an instant, knife in hand as stones began to spin around her.

“Excellent instincts.” Susan praised, manipulating threads that Clotho was furiously spinning. “Single human male. I don’t recognize him.”

If looks could kill, whoever was interrupting our dinner party would’ve been struck down by Night.

“Bird! I know you’re in there! You ruined my life! Come out!” The dude shouted in Trader Tongue from outside. Susan quickly relayed and translated the words to those of us with poorer senses. I was tempted to put my hands on my hips and glare at Auri, but restrained myself.

All eyes were drawn to the phoenix.

For all that it looked like Auri was continuously getting into trouble, she wasn’t. The last few times I’d tried to save the situation I’d been completely wrong, and misread both her and the situation. From the builders, to as early as this evening, Auri had been doing the right thing, and it’d be wrong of me to prematurely scold her, or even accusingly ask what she’d done.

“What do you think is going on?” I asked Auri.

She made a shrugging motion with her wings.

“Brrrpt?”

“Would you like me to intervene, dear?” Susan asked. “We are as inconvenienced as you are.”

“Give us a few minutes to try and resolve it ourselves. You’re guests, you shouldn’t need to be involved.” I said.

I got up with Auri, and started to head out. Julius and Artemis joined me.

“We live here, we’re not exactly guests.” Artemis explained. I nodded my understanding.

I made sure my [Persistent Casting] was on, both for myself, a small area of effect for Julius and Artemis - we’d be in moonlight once we were outside - and two casts for Auri. Whoever it was seemed to have a beef with her, and while she was a phoenix who could revive, why take any risks?

I assumed my enemies were competent. If someone was explicitly going after Auri, I assumed they had something prepared. Like a bucket of water.

We got outside.

[Ranger - 340] was the dude’s level, and it was like he came out of the jungle or something. Quetzalcoatl feathers made a cape, jackalope horns were shaped onto a crude helmet, a rabbit’s foot was at his waist and he had a glorious hoof-shaped bruise on his chest. A necklace filled with various carnivore’s teeth was around his neck - megalodon teeth and medusa fangs were distinctive - and he had a cerberus fur loincloth. He wasn’t quite steady on his feet, and he was armed with a pair of scimitars, but lacking in armor. He looked enraged at seeing us.

“You destroyed my life!” He screamed at Auri, starting to flourish his blades in a complex dance. “It was all going perfectly, I was going to be great! Then YOU came along!”

It clicked.

Suen. Osengard. The plague town we’d been driven out of, after fixing their problem. I crossed my arms.

“You already tried to murder us once, now you’ve chased us all the way down here?”

Julius made a pacifying motion.

“Let’s see if we can talk this out.”

The dude snarled, his blades increasing in speed. He took a step towards us.

“Yes! No! I -”

That had been enough for Artemis. With a dozen sharp overlapping cracks, two dozen small sharp rocks leapt from around her, crossing the distance in an instant and pulverizing the man. Blood, brain, and gore arced across the ground, and he dropped dead like a puppet with its strings cut.

[*ding!* Your party has slain an [Extinguisher of Legends] (Lightning, 340)//[Pursuer of Myth] (Mantle, 314)]

“Sorry love.” Artemis apologized to Julius. “I didn’t see that ending peacefully, and it’s better we get his notification than him ours, or poor Auri’s. Especially with that class.”

Julius sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“You made the right decision.” He easily admitted. “Just wish that people weren’t so stupid.”

Susan’s threads had already neatly grabbed every single bone shard and shredded artery, neatly wrapping everything up into a tidy package. In moments, it was like the [Extinguisher of Legends] hadn’t even darkened our doorstep, every inch cleaned up and removed.

I patted his back.

“That’s what we admire about you.”

“We all know you’re more than willing to give the execute order.” Artemis chimed in, slipping her arm around his waist. “One of us has to be the reasonable one, otherwise we’d both be rotting in jail!”

Julius hugged his wife.

We went back inside and settled down again. Susan and Night had clearly helped a little with the dishes, subtly making our lives easier while not stepping on our toes.

I started a new book inside my [Astral Archives] - clever social moves by Susan and Night, and started taking notes. When in doubt, they were the masters.

“I am dying to know what class he had that got you all so interested.” Susan prompted us as we sat down.

“[Extinguisher of Legends] and [Pursuer of Myth].” I answered before Artemis could, throwing her a smug look.

Susan’s eyes went wide, and Night whistled.

“The class sounds most potent. A concern one must always hold is the ability for an individual with the proper skills and classes to punch far, far above their weight. Elaine, Auri, he might have even held a threat to you and your lives! Such a class could be explicitly designed to slay those who are out of myth and legend, which the two of you most assuredly qualify as. You might have found your healing deserting you, or the legendary phoenix’s resurrection failing. Indeed, a few more levels and I would be wary of engaging such a person.”

Artemis looked smug. I pointed a knife at her.

“I’m pretty sure you also qualify as legendary, Miss Founded-the-School.” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t wait for his speech. Now he’s dead, and I’m feasting!”

I didn’t have a second knife to point at Artemis. Drat.

“No feet on the table!” I quickly said before she could put her sandals up. She mimed horror.

“Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“Brrrpt?” Auri wanted to hear more of Night’s story.

“What happened after the dam broke?” I asked, quickly redirecting the conversation to Night’s story.

“Well! I hopped onto one of the largest logs with my boon companions, and we rode down the flood together, hoping to strike in the chaos and confusion. However, we hadn’t considered that…”

The dawn was arriving as Night wrapped up the abridged version of his story.

“... as much as I wish to say that the Enorian assassins found me at the height of the ritual, alas, reality occasionally lacks the dramatic flair of a story.”

Julius and I traded disbelieving looks. His entire adventure had been something out of a story! Night had a tiny little quirk in the corner of his lips, clearly aware of how his words were received.

“The ritual completed, and a portal was ripped clean open from Aetherion to Pallos. I had already said my goodbyes to those who would be staying behind, and quickly stepped through with those who wished to see new worlds, and explore new mountains. We found ourselves on the northern continent and that…” He paused for a dramatic moment. “Is a story of its own.”

I enthusiastically clapped and cheered at the end of Night’s story, a sentiment quickly picked up by everyone else. Auri made a whole audience’s worth of [Mage Hands] to join on in.

We started to get up and out of the garden, nobody wanting the vampires to be exposed to the sun.

“Dawn. Would you do me the privilege of walking together once again?” Night asked.

I straightened up at his request. He’d called me Dawn, not Elaine, so this was important.

“Yes.” I said.

In a twist, we stayed inside, navigating through rooms in a slow, endless loop, staying out of the garden in the center of the villa and out of the faint rays of the morning light. Wasn’t sure how the two vampires planned on getting home, but they were welcome to spend the entire day here if they wanted to.

Vampire room I mentally added to my list of things to add to the place. A deep, secure, lightless crypt for visiting vampires.

“I have had many causes to observe the workings of your [Oath] upon the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who have taken it up since your time.” Night began the conversation in his typical manner, hands clasped behind his back, stepping slowly and pausing for me to absorb his words.

Some routines had been sorted out ages ago, and never changed.

“A regret I have - I shall not tell you a bald-faced lie and claim it is my deepest regret, not when that would do injustice to so many others - is that, after a time, I simply forgot that they were because of you. The memory was not important, and so I allowed it to be relegated to the annals of history, failing to give you proper credit. For that, I would like to apologize.”

I waved him off.

“You had every reason to think I was dead, and how many literal years of time have you spared yourself by not tracking my name every time it could possibly come up?”

Night nodded his thanks.

“Over time, I have seen many, many healers engage on the front lines. Those who choose to pursue the path of both sorcery and healing remain rare, for obvious, self-selecting reasons, but there are a few every generation who make a name for themselves. I have also seen a number of people struggle with their vow to heal all who come, when just moments before their patient was attempting to end their life. When people across the battlefield are not directly choosing to try and harm the healer. I was concerned when Arachne settled on the role of War Sentinel, although you seemed to go into it with both eyes open. Nonetheless. I believe a conversation on the topic of ethics would be fruitful, in the light of your imminent deployment to foreign fields. A deployment that, if I recall correctly, you explicitly asked not to have happen as part of your regular duties, and yet, which you find yourself now wrapped up in. Come, tell me of your thoughts.”

I grinned.

“I’d wanted to have this exact conversation with you Night, thank you.” I said. “Last things first, the Han Empire. I’ve been wanting to go for a while. In fact, Iona and I almost went there after we graduated instead of going to Exterreri, both of us having a good reason to be there. My starting thoughts are fairly simple, and I know they’re going to evolve over time. Before a battle, after a battle, everyone is fair game. Everyone deserves aid. There’s an argument that I’m making a tactically poor choice to ensure my enemy is in fighting shape before an engagement, but I feel fairly secure in after the battle. During the fight is where I anticipate problems. My initial thoughts are fairly simplistic. They’re trying to kill me and harm my patients, so I’m going to defend myself and my patients first. However, I can anticipate several situations where it might not be so clear cut…”

Night knew what he was doing with the time and the sun. Dusk came and went before we even began to wrap our conversation up.

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