PreCursive

  I…I wasn’t sure if Sylvia was still alive.

  In the few freeze frames I’d been able to perceive before Nerexxa had take, I thought I’d seen the Vampire tear a massive rent into the Mithril chassis of Sylvia’s abdomen. The gravity of that hadn’t dawned oil now, when I was fully coherent and not being talked down to by a pair of Spirits.

  But…in the dim light of this pit, I could see her now.

  She didn’t look good.

  The Sculpted woman was lying haphazardly strewn across the surface of a nearby boulder, looking to have fallen straight onto her ba the fall. Her sapphire eyes were open but appeared to be unseeing to my own, and I don’t think she was scious. Like I’d thought, there was a massive gash inflicted on her, around where a stomach would be on a fleshy like me. If she’d had them, her guts would be spilling out. As it was, the torn and tortured surface of her metallic skin revealed the dark hollow inside of her, where joints and tticework were meant to protect structural iy.

  When designing and strug my false arm, I’d learned about how both the Sculpted funed and their entment matrix. So much was determined by their skin being whole. A cut or two wouldn’t kill them, but massive rents like the one Sylvia had could. Their matrix-bound soul couldn’t maintain cohesion without surface skin iy.

  The Sculpted entment matrix included a sleep fun that mimicked that anics, and I’d seen my partner sleep plenty of nights before. But this didn’t look like that gentle slumber I’d witnessed before.

  No, she almost looked….

  I took a deep breath, grit my teeth, and cmped down hard on the panic trying to overwhelm me.

  Dead.

  But it was hard to tell that sometimes with Sculpted, I told myself. I’d seen a few heavily injured Sculpted in the past, either in Honoka’s tent or with random Healers. When a Sculpted was too damaged to fun normally, they almost…shut-down, in an attempt to preserve their soul, before it could escape their marred frame.

  They didn’t have the veell of a heartbeat or breath to vey life. You had to examihem individually in order to determine if they were savable.

  Unfortunately, I had my own wound-based problems to deal with. I’d isoted the pain in order to focus, but that didn’t ge the fact I had to get myself treated or I was in trouble. I inned here for now.

  But I had another option, to tell if my friend and lover was still with me.

  I shut my eyes and did my best to shut out the world around me. I ighe oppressive nature of this cave, still tainted by the Aether of that ‘Godbound’ that Nerexxa had awoken. I ighe faint tremors from the surface that rippled all the way down to us in this pit. I even ignored my own senses, slowly shutting them off with my c.

  Until the only thing I could perceive was my Aetherial sense.

  I breathed deep, fog intensely on Sylvia’s dire.

  In, and out.

  In, and out.

  A spark.

  There!

  I almost started weeping at the sensation of Aether ing from Sylvia’s dire. There wasn’t much, and what I could feel was struggling to maintain cohesion, but it was there. Sylvia was still alive, for now.

  But that could ge any minute.

  It didn’t matter if I would hurt myself more doing this. I had to aow.

  My eyes snapped open, and I snarled. I reached over my left shoulder, grasped the thick stagmite pierg straight through my shoulder, and activated Sylvan Vigor at full power. The Skill struggled, as my Stamina was no doubt near exhausted from my battles, and I probably only had moments of usage out of it.

  But I didn’t care.

  I heaved, ign the fresh blood that the movement drew from my wounds.

  The stone shattered, freeing me from the floor. But I didn’t remove it from my shoulder. Instead, I rolled myself to my front, and started dragging myself in Sylvia’s dire, as I didn’t have the strength to stand. Sylvan Vigor had faded almost immediately.

  When I had reached her, weeping fresh blood from new cuts on my front caused by the jagged stone of the pit, I did my best to assess the damage. As far as I could tell, Sylvia had lost almost the entire surface area of her stomach. The jagged edges of the Mithril looked razor sharp. I…I needed something to patch this with. It would o be mystically reactive, as well, or else it wouldn’t work to maintain the entment matrix that cradled her struggling soul.

  And I only had one sourystically reactive metal on me.

  Whatever. It was ruined anyway.

  I reached over, and thumbed the release switch at the base of my prosthetic. It popped, but the crushed nature of the limb meant I had to wrench it off of the socket with as much force as I was able to muster. Once my damaged prosthetic was free, I pced it on Sylvia’s surface, doing my best te the gap between the edges of the tear.

  And fell into my Aetherial Melding trance more.

  You see, I had a theory, and that theory was the only reason I thought this could work. Normally, for metals like Mithril and mystically enhanced gold, you would need a fe in order to melt it down and shape it. But…this wasn’t any normal metal. This was metal that had been in close proximity to my soul for aended length of time.

  It had been directly lio me.

  My uanding of Aetherial theory told me that I should be able to manipute it. Not to the extent that I could make repairs and make it funal.

  But enough that I could melt it down.

  I focused, trying to direct as much Aether as I possibly could to the limb. The gold and Mithril of the limb didn’t react immediately to the flow of Aether I was direg into from the surroundings, causing a mote of doubt and panic to fill my rings.

  But…gradually…

  I felt the metal under my hand start to soften. There was only one problem now.

  It was going too slow. This close to Sylvia, I could feel her start to slip away, the matrix of her soul starting to fray at the edges from the effort of ging to my lover.

  I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  If the process was going too slow, I was just going to have to speed it up. There was only one way I knew how to do that.

  I reached for the Aether io my own soul and fumblingly shoved it down into the stream I was using to shape the broken limb. The process sped up immensely, a visible rainbow glow so simir in shade to that of The Stilnt Bde beginning to suffuse the gold and Mithril.

  There was another problem, however. I only had so much strength left ier all I’d been through over the st twenty-four hours.

  All that I had left was the vital energy of my own being.

  I was burning the dle of my own life, in order to save Sylvia’s.

  I had to hurry, or we would both die. I rapidly began to meld the bined liquid gold and Mithril around the rent in Sylvia’s abdomen, feeling my strength leave me every sed I tinued. I didn’t bother making it look pretty, so the patch was very rough in appearance. But it was w.

  God, it was w.

  It was as I was smoothing over the st of the gold and Mithril patch that something blindsided me. It wasn’t a problem with Sylvia, as I was already starting to feel her soul stabilize.

  It roblem with me.

  I…had never sidered the i drain of Aether and Stamina that it must take to maintain Ringed Mind. It was so miniscule that it didn’t matter, as my soul naturally replehe energy required just by existing. However…now that I was draining it of Aether to save the life of another, and at the same time demanding the focus my mental Skill imparted for the task?

  It was too much.

  I felt something pop in my own head, and my middle ring vanish at the same time. It was gone, and I could no longer trol my emotional state. As panid fear and anger and desperation rolled over me like an o, I slowly blinked one eye and theher.

  My vision began to darken, and I toppled over to nd on top of Sylvia.

  As my sciousness began to fade once more, I felt a ix of satisfa and dissatisfa.

  Satisfa, because I had mao save Sylvia.

  Dissatisfa…because I hadn’t been able to save another.

  Just on the edge of my Aetherial sense, I felt it as the wounded, unscious, bleeding form of Crook…

  Lost its battle.

  As my eyes closed, and the world fell away, I thought I heard something.

  Odd stumbling and shuffling steps approag as if from a distance.

  ……………………………………….

  I didn’t wake up. Instead, I found myself in another pce.

  This time, it wasn’t the strangely murky pce that I had spoken to the serpent and the moon in. No, I reized this pce.

  It was my soul.

  Only…diminished.

  The crystalliree that I’d seen before was cracked and splintered, with a number of different branches only hanging on by strangely sinuous fragments. The previous rainbow glow of healthy Aether was almost entirely gone, and now it only possessed a dim gleam that inated from the core. Those brahat weren’t nearly shattered instead were drooping, bereft of their previously razor sharp leaves. They y in piles at the foot of the tree, while all through the structure, it was streaked through with what looked to be blood.

  Ah…

  That…didn’t seem good…

  I was shocked out of my iion by the sound of an oddly familiar voice. “In normal times, I’m sure this is quite the striking refle,” It mused. “But now, not so much.”

  The voice was missing an uone in it from when I’d st heard the sound. But…I think I reized the owner.

  Turning to face the speaker slowly, I bli who I found. That…wasn’t who I was expeg.

  The speaker was a dark-skinned man of siderable height, nearly matg Leopold in sheer verticality. He was older, looking to nearly be on par with Grey’s apparent age of near sixty, with a pletely shaven, shiny head. On his square jaw, he had a short beard that was whitened from age. And from his wizened features peered a pair of knowing amethyst eyes, ringed with ugh lines and watg me patiently.

  But it was what he was wearing that really tipped me off as to who this was.

  Draped over his broad form was an impeccably maintained bck silk robe, with a crimson cape thrown over his shoulders.

  I tilted my head at him. “Tzo…?” I asked hesitantly.

  The tall man bowed at the waist theatrically to me, one hand over his heart. “In the flesh,” He said mischievously, before winking. “Well, when I had flesh, at any rate.”

  “Oh,” I said mely. It was…hard to focus. I was having trouble uanding what was going on. I couldn’t fully parse why a Lich was standing with me in my soul, suddenly alive again. “How…are you here?”

  Tzo must have realized how addled I was, as his expression softened. “Because some of my assistants found you and your panions, and brought you to my b,” He said kindly. “I’ve spent some time repairing your…somewhat mangled forms as best as I was able. Some I was too te for, such as that rge woman-”

  I felt a fsh of pain at the sudden reminder of Crook’s death.

  Another I had failed.

  “-others, I could, such as that Dusk woman, the dwarf yet again, and the young girl,” Tzo tinued, before peering at me curiously. “And you appeared to have somehow saved Grey’s daughter before losing sciousness, so well done you. But…I don't quite uand what's going on and why so many of you are down here, and you’re who I chose to ask. I’m speaking to you from outside of your soul, using a spell to peer inward. So. What, exactly, is happening on the surface?”

  Ah…

  As if I was in a dream, I haltingly started expining to the Lich everything that had happened.

  From the st stand of the Noe Division, to the maations of Nerexxa and her ritual…

  To what Elys aan had told me about the Godbound she had awoken.

  At the first mention of the Vampire, Tzo’s expression had grown irritated, but when I spoke of the woken Camity?

  He started swearing loudly. “Son of a bitch. That’s what she was after?!” He threw up his hands in disgust. “If I had known she was going to wake a damned Camity, I would have stopped her!”

  “What?” I asked him, my bafflement lending me more coherence. “You…knew about Nerexxa?”

  Tzo spared me a gn his frustration. “Yes, yes, I knew about the Vampire. I warned you before you left, didn’t I? There was moing on behind the ses than you knew. She approached me some time ago, and tried to get me to work with her. But, she didn’t raise much of a stink when I turned her down. I’m suddenly regretting not turnio ash.”

  I wao shout at the apathetic old Lich, but it…didn’t matter anymore. I ’t even imagine how many lives could have been saved if he had just killed Nerexxa when he had the ce. Even the War might not have happened, if he had just done his damned job.

  I knew what to do, though.

  “Yoing to deal with her for us,” I told him directly, taking an almost aggressive step towards Tzo. “To atone for your carelessness.”

  Tzo gave me a sharp g that. “Watch yourself, boy,” He said warningly. “The only reason I’ve helped you so far is because of your e to an old colleague. You, however, are not that man. What makes you think I’ll acquiesce to your demands, and not flee the ing storm?”

  I smiled sharply at him. “Because Elys is calling in her debt,” I said vindictively, enjoying the shock that erupted on the Lich’s falsely fleshed face. “Yoing to kill Nerexxa to atone for your sin of ina.”

  Oddly, I saw a strangely silver mist blow through the void in the ter of my soul at my words. The branches of my damaged tree creaked ominously in the wind, while it caressed my body almost soothingly. Tzo, however, shivered as the mist brushed his form.

  He scowled, and threw up his hands i. “Fine. Fine!” He almost shouted. “I should have known you would have es to that interfering old biddy, with how Grey has taken you under his wing.”

  “I’ll sy your damned Vampire, boy.”