Book 6, Chapter 1
Author’s Note: This is the unpolished first chapter for Book 6 of The Lurran Chronicles, so those who are interested can get a taste of what’s to come. However, keep in mind that I’ll be removing this page just prior to publishing the completed title next month, so read it while you can! JQ
Eli woke up to an uncomfortable pressure in his skull that had him grimacing in discomfort, but the idea of greeting the day didn’t sound too enticing right now. After all, his bed was feeling especially soft this morning, so he sent a wave of healing energy toward the pain before burrowing deeper into the silky blankets, wanting a little more shut-eye.
“Eli, are you awake?” a woman’s familiar voice asked from just over his shoulder.
Shock had Eli’s eyes opening wide as he tossed the blankets off his head while flipping around on the bed, just to stare in disbelief at the beautiful, rainbow-haired woman sitting in a bright blue chair a few meters away, her brows pulled together with worry.
“Fluxi?” Eli asked confusedly, his thoughts feeling annoyingly disjointed, reminding him of a few really bad colds from his childhood, but even with the slight ache in his head, he couldn’t help noticing the pitch-black curtains hanging in the air behind Fluxi, which hinted at where they were without explaining how he’d ended up here.
Following the battle with Boruta all those months ago, Eli had first appeared in this white-tiled room with its ominous walls, and he noted the circular space had expanded quite a bit once again, further hinting at him leveling up again.
Eli pushed the silky yellow blankets away and tried to sit up in bed, only for a nauseating dizziness to sweep through him, so he took his body’s warning seriously and relaxed back into the soft pillows.
“You know, I really did plan on being healthy the next time we saw each other,” Eli tossed out, looking at Fluxi with a grin. “Unfortunately, all my good intentions didn’t keep me from showing up hurt again, though I’m still a little confused about how I ended up here.”
His admission seemed to amuse Fluxi, her lips curling into a slight smile. “In truth, I was hoping you might know the answer to that particular query, as I arrived for our session a short time ago to find you unconscious, with evidence of recent healing throughout your body’s tissues,” she said, gesturing off to one side. “Regardless, rather than leave you lying naked on the ground, I moved you to my travel bed before providing some psychic healing treatments of my own.”
Eli felt his face heating. “Thanks for helping me out,” he said, imagining this beautiful woman finding him sprawled in a heap on the ground in nothing more than his birthday suit.
Fluxi nodded, her expression turning more serious as she waved a hand to one side, and a rectangular sheet of colorful smoke appeared in the air beside her.
“My scans have confirmed your mind underwent new trauma since our last session, with quite a significant amount of foreign energies coursing through your system,” the woman explained, meeting Eli’s gaze. “I don’t know whether that sequestered world of yours has anyone capable of repairing a near-disassociated consciousness, but without their direct intervention, you likely wouldn’t have awakened from your injuries.”
Eli definitely didn’t like the sound of that. “Just how bad am I banged up?” he calmly asked, all too aware of the uncomfortable pressure still filling his head.
“You are already on the mend,” Fluxi replied with a reassuring smile, rising from her chair to reveal the yellow one-piece bodysuit she was wearing today, with slashes of contrasting white strips of fabric along her arms and legs. The outfit was quite a bit different from her usual style, yet the slick, leather-like material hugged the gorgeous woman’s form in a very enticing way as she stepped closer.
“Much of your discomfort should pass by the time you return to Lurra, though you might still feel some lingering symptoms,” Fluxi said in a more professional tone, stopping to stand beside the bed. “I have witnessed similar injuries in some of my other clients, so I can only imagine the situation must have been truly dire for you to employ such a questionable technique to survive.”
Despite the rainbow-haired woman’s smile, Eli didn’t miss the cool assessment in Fluxi’s gaze, much like when they’d first met all those months ago, but unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what technique she was talking about with this annoying blank spot in his memories, though he could remember some flashes of color swirling in the air around him and a lot of pain just before everything went black.
“Sorry, my memory is a little hazy, but what do you think happened?” Eli asked, sitting up more slowly, which seemed to help as he didn’t feel a fresh bout of nausea this time.
Fluxi crossed her arms with a neutral expression. “Extracting the vitality from another sapient is fairly well-known throughout the Greater Infinite, though the particular methods can vary quite a bit,” she remarked dispassionately. “I recognize that certain species have learned to mitigate some of the inherent risks in using these techniques, yet they cannot completely inhibit the deep psychic wounds suffered from so many minds interacting with your own in such a destructive fashion, so regardless of the power you gained from consuming the lives of thousands, this sort of hazardous growth has a tendency to create unforeseen dangers, like bringing the attention of Greater Beings that already do not view humans kindly.”
Eli still didn’t know what Fluxi was talking about, so he took another look around and noticed a semi-transparent screen several meters away, floating above the pale tiles behind the bed and already oriented toward him.
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Infinite Path
Name: Eli Tal
Current Status: High Initiate (7th Step)
Allocated Time: (08:17:12)
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Eli stared in surprise, since his updated status as a High Initiate on his “7th Step” meant he must have gone up two levels, yet the amount of allocated time for this meeting with Fluxi seemed a good bit more than expected. Regardless, he wasn’t planning on using all those hours today since that would mean about ten days passing back on Lurra.
Looking for more answers, Eli pulled up his previous system prompt.
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Congratulations! You have completed the optional quest to defend Palium against a vastly superior foe.
Calculated Difficulty: Low Prime
Reward: Marker of the Everwatching Guardian, 600 celestials, additional time has been banked for your next counselor session
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Eli frowned in puzzlement, just to suddenly remember standing atop a tower in a fortress several kilometers outside Palium and watching as a skyscraper-sized cyclone of mana rose from the open ground between them. Off to the south, the enemy legions from Houses Marmabel and Marmadon had been retreating after losing all of their artillery to Eli’s fireballs, along with many of their warriors.
“What is it?” Fluxi asked, pulling Eli from his memories as he turned back around on the bed to see the rainbow-haired woman staring at him with a slight frown.
Eli focused for a moment and then watched as Fluxi’s gaze darted toward where the screen was hovering, her eyebrows rising.
“I’m starting to remember what happened right before I showed up here,” Eli said, hooking a thumb toward the floating message. “Not too long ago, I was in Galdish when I learned about the Southerners appearing outside Palium with a couple of their legions again,” he continued before explaining his actions of creating a gateway and traveling to that city with reinforcements before launching dozens of fireballs at the enemy, which forced their formations to retreat.
Fluxi’s brows were soon furrowed when Eli described the sudden storm that had seemed to erupt from nowhere, with massive, skyscraper-sized cyclones of multicolored mana rising from the very ground around him. He’d known his evolved body would be somewhat protected from all that mutative energy, yet the same wasn’t the case for the rest of his people or those living in the nearby city, so he’d drawn in all the power his omnessence could withstand while simultaneously using that extra energy to wreak deadly havoc among the two enemy peak threats and their surviving warriors.
At the time, Eli had recognized that hundreds of lives among the Southerner’s legions were being swept away with every flex of his empowered aura, and he certainly didn’t feel any guilt about killing the peak threats, but the other enemy consciousnesses were harder for him to ignore, especially remembering how so many of them had mentally screamed out in their confusion and terror, only to be forever silenced.
Ordinarily, Eli liked to think of himself as a decent person, at least most of the time, but he was finding such notions increasingly difficult to believe these days. Sure, the vast majority of those he’d killed since arriving in Lurra had been hell-bent on killing him, his friends, or innocent bystanders, yet that was a cold comfort with the blood of thousands on his hands.
“You mentioned crushing the life from these enemies, but what do you mean?” Fluxi asked, her brows furrowed.
“That’s just how I see it,” Eli admitted, grimacing at the memories of their mental screams echoing through his consciousness. “I’ve learned a few things over these past months, like how the auras inside people are quite elastic, but they have a breaking point, and employing enough force will shear them away from a person’s body, which is instantly fatal. So, with the storm’s mana swirling through my omnessence, I had all the power I needed to just wash away thousands of lives like a massive tidal wave of death, and the only ones I spared were some scattered groups fleeing the field, though I can’t imagine those survivors did well in the storm’s aftermath, especially if a bunch of monsters spawned afterwards as expected.”
Sighing, Eli hoped his people were doing okay back at Palium. He’d sensed Bearach, Malitea, Wolf, and the others disappearing into the shielded rooms beneath the Waldrics’ fortress before the storm hit, but a lot could have gone wrong later, like their energized barriers failing or a few monstrous peak threats appearing out of thin air to wreak even more havoc on that beleaguered city.
Fluxi was still frowning as her gaze turned toward the floating sheet of smoke beside her, and she waved a hand through the smoke, sending the colors away in a sharp burst of greenish light, though after several seconds of staring, the woman glanced back at Eli while looking a bit embarrassed.
“Eli, please accept my apologies,” Fluxi offered in a quieter voice. “While my scans revealed the mental scarring and other psychic wounds you recently suffered, I allowed my own biases and fears to sway my interpretation of that data,” she explained, gesturing at the floating sheet beside her.
“What do you mean?” Eli asked, gathering the yellow blanket around him and scooting across the mattress while doing his best not to flash any extra skin along the way.
Then, making it to the edge of the bed, he decided against standing, not quite ready to test his balance since the room was staying nice and stationary around him right now, and he wanted to keep it that way as the pressure in his head slowly lessened into more of a dull ache.
“Certain binding oaths limit what I am allowed to reveal, but I have mentioned other human clients in the past,” Fluxi replied, pursing her lips. “Among their number, some have employed morally questionable methods in their pursuit of taking another step along their path, and while I try to keep my personal feelings separate from my work as a counselor, I have found that somewhat challenging at times,” she murmured, glancing down. “Earlier, when I saw the injuries to your mind, I assumed the worst, giving little consideration to the honorable man I have come to know since our first meeting.”
Eli forced a grin, trying to hide how much Fluxi’s words stung. “I’m definitely no saint, but I do my best to keep any of my murderous tendencies at bay,” he tossed out in a joking tone.
Fluxi’s pale orange eyes rose to meet Eli’s gaze, a bit of humor tugging at her lips. “Even if you hadn’t repeatedly demonstrated as much, that reward you’ve earned for yourself is quite convincing,” she said and pointed toward the floating quest message.
Eli lifted an eyebrow. “I’m assuming that means you can tell me more about that mysterious reward, and seeing as there isn’t anything new sitting on the tiles, I’m guessing whatever it is got stored away in my DS,” he said, holding up his left arm and the silvery bracelet still wrapped around his wrist.
“I would presume as much,” Fluxi replied with a slight smile. “The marker should be similar in shape and design to the token you received from the Trial of Might, as both are generated by the Greater System.”
Eli held out an empty hand rather than try searching through his dimensional storage, since a lot of objects were stuffed inside there right now. “Give me the Marker of the Everwatching Guardian,” he ordered with careful enunciation.
A thick metallic disc materialized atop Eli’s palm, and much like the trial’s token, this object had a dark gray circular center, though instead of being surrounded by a crimson ring, this one had a band of deep blue, its outer edge ringed in a bright silvery material that somehow glinted in the room’s nonexistent lights.
The disc was pretty enough, sort of reminding Eli of the medals he’d seen at various martial arts competitions back on Earth, though obviously made from far more precious materials. Still, the object seemed somehow special as a sense of relaxation slowly spread away from his hand, releasing tension throughout his body that he hadn’t even noticed was there until it drained away.
“What the heck?” Eli breathed, looking over at Fluxi in wonder. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this thing was putting out calming vibes.”
Fluxi chuckled softly. “Objects made from sarintalium produce a pleasant sensation in humans, but rest assured, the effect is quite benign beyond providing further validation that you hold a genuine marker.”
Eli smirked, glad to know he wasn’t getting a dose of dangerous radiation or something similarly troublesome. “So, what am I missing?” he asked, holding up the disc. “I’m not complaining, but this thing must have some purpose beyond helping to calm my nerves.”
Fluxi leaned closer to the bed, pointing at the disc. “This marker contains the Greater System’s record of your recent deeds at Palium, which guarantees you an audience with the Everwatching Guardian, who would likely provide a suitable reward for you’re actions. Of course, finding this Greater Being is a small challenge unto itself, yet they are known to have official representatives in several Prime worlds across the Krakoma Sector,” she explained, though her smile dimmed a bit. “Sadly, that will also do you little good until we discover some other means of extracting you from your sequestered world, but in the meantime, I recommend being careful about letting others know you possess such an object, as I have to imagine anyone employed by the Association would recognize it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Eli agreed with a snort. “I definitely don’t need any more attention from them, especially after helping to kill a couple of other Associates a few weeks ago. At this point, I can only assume they’ll be resurrecting soon to come after my ass, so I’d like to spend some time with you today, strategizing on how to handle them.”
Fluxi’s eyebrows rose. “You encountered more Associates beyond those outside Palium?”
Eli nodded. “After our last meeting, your gateway dropped me off in the middle of that same Thuard settlement I told you about before,” he replied, waving a hand to the side while pulling up the older quest message from a couple of weeks ago.
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Failure! You have failed your optional quest by killing a Being at or above your evolutionary stage before your next step.
Calculated Difficulty: Variable
Reward: None
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“As you can see, I failed that particular quest,” Eli noted wryly, pointing toward the floating display. “When I appeared in Silverhome this last time, I encountered some dead Thuards and two exceptionally strong people who’d just captured the town,” he explained, his tone darkening with the memories. “I wasn’t sure about helping at first, since taking on a small army by my lonesome seemed a bit dangerous, but after watching them suck the life out of a prisoner, I decided to help liberate the place.”
Fluxi studied the floating words, her brows furrowing. “The sheer probability of you receiving such a message, just to then stumble upon individuals who met this quest’s criteria, appears exceedingly unlikely,” the beautiful woman muttered suspiciously.
“That’s pretty much my thoughts on the matter,” Eli agreed, glad to know he wasn’t the only one unhappy with the situation.
Despite how helpful the Greater System had been at times, he couldn’t help but be nervous about the idea of some vast, all-powerful entity taking a personal interest in him. On the other hand, it didn’t seem like he had any say in the matter, leaving him to wonder what new surprises might be heading his way soon.
“How about I get dressed?” Eli suggested, holding the blanket in a fist against his side as his naked legs swung out to dangle off the edge of the bed. “That is, assuming your scans confirm I’m okay?” he added, nodding toward the sheet of colorful smoke.
Fluxi had been frowning at the floating message, but Eli’s question had her orange eyes turning his way, the beautiful woman’s warm smile blooming as she moved closer to the bed again.
“Did you bring more toasted snapfruits?” Fluxi asked with an excited lilt to her voice. “They were simply delicious, their crackling spikes of flavor truly unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before, and what of the canduins?” she added, grasping Eli’s free hand in both of hers. “I recall you mentioning various preparations and condiments you wished me to sample for that particular delicacy.”
Eli didn’t bother keeping the big grin off his face. “I brought those and a lot more,” he returned, his heartbeat suddenly racing at the casual contact and thoughts of spending the next several hours with this wonderful woman.