Annabelle’s Bastion

Anna felt grotesque at the sight before her—the sight she created.

After what seemed like hours of tedious work, the statue no longer had any functioning limbs. Its cracked-open torso and lizard head were all that was left of the once-powerful killing machine.

Seeing it made Anna feel terrible.

It was just a defensive statue, but it still trying to attack her regardless of its condition made her feel sad. Even without an arm, it still swung... an endless duty.

She held the geometric, shining green crystal in her hand. It was the fruit of her battle, one she had to spend upward of an hour slamming around its chest to get.

Runic symbols lined the entirety of the core’s surface, forming what was likely thousands of lines in tiny text. Deeper, at its center, larger symbols wrapped in a sphere, constantly moving.

“Beautiful,” Anna muttered. She could stare at those symbols all day, not unlike the mystique of the Sigil’s.

Finally, she had it.

Not just the key to getting the real key but the solution to her idle life of survival.

All she had to do was slot it, and she’d presumably gain a path to the surface, along with a new path forward!

The thought of leaving this dreadful chamber had her feeling weightless as she stepped forward.

“Actually…” She stopped and turned around, her ring appearing in her palm. “Leaving you guys behind feels… wrong.”

Storing the sword used a lot of mana, but it didn’t feel right to leave everything behind.

Her ring formed around her hand, and a black glow spread across the statue’s body. She pulled it into her storage space. It took more than she expected and took a minute for it to grab!

She then went to the first room, doing the same for the other two statues.

“I suppose I should take you, too,” Anna said as she also pulled the Goblinfish’s body into her space. “Ew… and now I feel like I need sleep.”

Already exhausted from having to mine, taking the statues and the Goblinfish’s body took enough mana to have her feeling like she needed a nap.

But the excitement wouldn’t let her do that so easily!

Anna stood before the pedestal with the core aligned with its slot. All she had to do was push it in, and she’d really get things moving again on this lonely planet.

“Here we go…”

She pushed, and it clicked as it perfectly slid into the opening.

A few seconds passed before the runic markings on the pedestal dimmed, spreading to the cyan light on the ceiling. Behind her, the rooms were already pitch black.

Nothing happened after that.

Anna poked the key. “Uh… wha— Woah!”

She reflexively reached out to grab the gem that just seemed to pop out as a mechanism beneath it pushed upward.

She brought it close to her face, eyes glued to it like it would disappear at any moment. The cold, smooth surface was the key to that massive tower.

“Finally,” she muttered.

It really did look like it would fit perfectly in that spot. Actually, it probably wasn’t a key but a power source of some kind. There was no way they’d go this far to protect what was only a simple key!

Regardless, it was hers now.

Speaking of hers.

She once again activated her storage ability, her black ring appearing on her wrist. Taking those cores took a sizeable chunk of her remaining mana and a few minutes to fully store, but it was worth the exhaustion.

Now, she could probably add looter to her resume!

“But…” Anna paused, looking around the chamber that was only illuminated by a dimming cyan light. “How do I get out?”

The walls must have had ears. Just after she asked, the cyan light completely died, and the ground crumbled and vibrated.

On the wall behind the pedestal, a square fiercely shook as rock fell from the top of it and clattered against the ground.

“That simple?” Anna took a cautious step back. 

She felt stupid for missing that, but these walls were perfectly crafted and jagged enough that she didn’t notice anything off! 

Finally, stone scraped against stone as a large square section of the wall slowly descended.

It felt like she was a child waiting for a delivery!

“So slow!”

Eventually, rays of bright moonlight peeked from the opening as the tops of those familiar trees peeked into her view.

A beautiful full moon greeted her weary soul.

Anna wiped her eyes and sniffled.

It had only been, at most, a full day… but it felt far longer.

She turned around for one final glance at the empty chamber. The place that, had whoever the skeleton was not been there before her, she’d have died in.

Yet she walked out with so much.

The skeleton, all three statues, the Goblinfish’s body, the satchel, the cores, and the sword were all comfortably in her storage space.

“Can I technically say I conquered a dungeon?” Anna wryly chuckled. “Probably not.”

But it sure did feel that way for someone as amateurish as her.

God, she couldn’t wait to tell Aria about it… to tell her friends and family about it.

Once through the door and on a patch of dark grass, Anna felt rejuvenated at the familiar feeling of air phasing through her like mana. A breeze she had grown to love.

She didn’t know where she was, other than it was near the mountainsides.

Thankfully, after a little looking around, she could see the top of the gargantuan tree that made the tower in the distance!

But, god, she was so damn tired. She struggled to even keep her eyes open, so it definitely wasn’t the time to venture forward. As much as she wanted to resist it, storing those powerful items had all but drained her dry.

And so she activated her enhancements one last time, climbing into the nearest tree home for some sleep before she passed out.

---

---

“Ma’am, we’ve finally received news from the construction quarters.”

“Oh?”

“Yes—we’ve gotten reports that the gate to Sorana is nearly complete.”

“Nearly?”

“Y-yes, ma’am… finding the exact coordinates is proving challenging, as it seems the… the initial documents have been lost to… c-clerical error. Without a core to guide us…”

“It’s difficult.”

“Y-yes.”

“Clerical error, huh? Jaxon, when’s the last time Bastion had a clerical error that resulted in losing the location of a planet?”

Her voice—her otherwise mature tone—always somewhat playful, yet still carrying her authority… it was no wonder people were reluctant to hand deliver news to her. Was she angry? Wrathful?

Or was she just finding amusement in the suffering of those who had this assumption of her monstrous nature?

Jaxon closely watched Alisha, who was sitting at her desk with her legs up. As always, betraying the gravity of what this meeting had been about. Hoping to glean something from that was impossible.

Instead, he checked the carrier; the terrified man with his head dipped, doing anything but making eye contact with the powerful blue eyes behind the steel mask.

Of course, he was scared.

Alisha had been waiting for real news on that gate for months, and for the news to be something so utterly stupid? Well, she wasn’t the type to shoot the messenger. But it could certainly feel like that when she wasn’t particularly happy about something.

“Never,” Jaxon said simply.

Not once.

Her implication was obvious, evidenced by the shaking man.

“Right—never. Not in my time, not my senior’s time, and certainly not in our leader’s times.”

“Ma’am… this—”

“You’re making me feel like a monster!” Alisha interrupted, lightly chuckling as she shook her head. “I don’t know why you think I’m going to eat you alive, but I’m not into that.”

“You can leave,” Jaxon said.

The only reason he was still there was because Alisha found it amusing to see people quake before her due to nothing but rumors.

“Aw~!”

“Yes!”

He couldn’t have been more desperate to leave the room, and the door gently shut on his way out. Jaxon could feel the carrier’s racing heart, even as he went down.

Alisha sighed, dipping her head back in her chair and leaning the seat back.

“What?” Jaxon asked.

“My precious princess!”

“Frost… do you really think—”

“She is obviously alive, you idiot.”

“Right.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Your doubt is palpable, but her dying Sorana is the most absurd thing you could think. Do you not remember what I told you guys?”

He did remember.

“You were as vague as fu— possible.”

Alisha shrugged. “Because my information is that vague… unfortunately.”

“Then how could you confidently say those words?”

That Frost was the solution to all the biggest problems Bastion had. Such a claim, one even spoken in jest, would be grounds for immediate, harsh punishment.

“Because the Grandmaster believes them... faith, I guess you could say.”

Was she one for faith? Jaxon wasn’t sure.

“But you don’t know what her Apex Sigil does nor how it can help.”

“Not entirely, no.” She raised a finger at him. “But you confirmed the presence of the Radiance Fragment, and that cemented my belief.”

More ominous words he didn’t understand.

“The other personality?”

“Bingo!” She clapped once.

“That name only makes me feel…”

“Fear? Anxiety? Anger?”

“All of them.”

She snorted. “Right. You said that her… alter ego was like a cold ruler treating you like a subject and that your power meant nothing.”

Something like that.

“Yes.”

He had never felt anything like it—it was as though the thing wanted him to feel insignificant in its presence. It wanted him to feel like his power was nothing.

“That’s probably based on Anna’s personality and upbringing. Something that she could become.”

“Frost?” Jaxon couldn’t hold back his slight chuckle.

Frost, become that? The only image he could conjure was that pitiful look she gave Aria when he was having a private discussion with her. Childish, to put it lightly.

“I’m not a psychologist!” Alisha said, bringing her legs off her desk and standing. “But that point is intriguing. The other subject was more obvious, but he turned into a violent monster. His upbringing? Violent.”

“Subject? That thing is a parasite?”

“Nope!” Alisha pushed past her desk and toward her door, obviously expecting him to follow. “It truly is as much Annabelle Frost as the other one, the princess—the queen, I suppose it more apt.”

“What does that have to do with her survival?”

As much as he wanted to know what a Radiance Fragment was, he could get the hint. Alisha either didn’t know or didn’t want to disclose it. The former, most likely. She wasn’t so cruel as to keep something with that kind of name a secret from her subordinates—soldiers.

But then, how did she know about these supposed experiments?

She stopped by her door, turning to Jaxon to look him in the eyes. “I know about the things I know because I pick up the pieces. Torn research documents, eyewitness accounts, eavesdropping, conjecture…” She lightly shook her head. “Stuff like that. The rest is faith… and hope.”

That stare meant he could ask questions.

“Why does this… Rad—” He hated that word. “Fragment… make you think she will survive?”

“Because…” She paused for a moment. “Well, regardless of how it may act toward you or me, she is Annabelle Frost. She would not allow anything to happen to her alter ego—her other self.”

“You’re treating it like they’re the same person.”

“Because they are.” Her eyes were not playful, nor was her tone—she was being as serious as Jaxon could tell. “This is where we get to my conjecture.”

“Oh?” Her so-called conjectures were usually correct. Usually.

She held up two fingers. “Two souls cannot exist in the same body—that is common sense. We know of a mage with multiple personality disorder, but that is still not two souls.”

“Are you saying—”

“No, and that is where the misunderstanding comes from.” She lowered one finger. “The fragment didn’t add a new soul to Annabelle’s body.”

“Then, what?”

It just didn’t make any sense.

“Annabelle Frost is technically a case of multiple personalities, but it isn’t related to the brain, but deeper—to the soul. Two beings perfectly merged.”

“How is that possible?”

“Well…” Alisha lightly shook her head and wryly chuckled. “This is where it gets mysterious, even to me.” She turned back to the door. “The only way for such a perfect merge to happen—to my knowledge—is if the fragment and Annabelle were literally born together. Not one being added to the other, but a being created like that from the beginning.”

Jaxon’s mind couldn’t get any more chaotic.

“What?” Was all he managed to say, the situation being entirely nonsensical to him, bordering on what he’d say was delusion… if it were anyone else.

“And that, Jaxon...” Alisha’s fist clenched around the doorknob, her tone mercilessly cold and commanding. Jaxon ignored his confusion, replaced by the knowledge of what his leader wanted. “That is why we’re going to go kill a few people who think they can take what doesn’t belong to them and keep it from me.”

“Yes.”

“Ah… get the others, too. Their bones might be getting dusty.”

“Yes.”