ALL NOVEL Chapter 81: Beyond the Reaches
"...and then he asked her for a dance," Alayna Murray, one of the many healers in the barracks infirmary, recounted the events of last night at Drunken Filly. "Can you believe that?"
"Did she agree?" Becca asked, having a hard time believing that one of her colleagues, not even a senior healer, someone who had recently formed his second array, had the balls to flirt with one of the Master Guards. Those guys were in a league of their own, the best of the Castiana City Guards.
"That's the thing. She did, and they danced for hours."
"Wow...do you think they're... you know, that they fell in love?" Becca's friend, Meredith Selit, asked, taking a bite out of a cookie she had bought on her way to work this morning.
"Nah, what matters is whether they end up in bed together." Why their Chief Healer, Lieutenant Marcus, was sitting at the table with them, listening to their conversation was beyond the understanding of all three women. It wasn't about flirting. Everyone knew he was married, and to none other than one of the Master Guards. In fact, Becca couldn’t remember him ever hitting on a woman, even though she herself found it pretty hard to say no to his charming smile. The reason he was allowed to sit there with them, to join in their little chat - silly as it was.
"I don't think so, Lieutenant."
"Oh, come on, Becca, how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Marcus? Besides, why wouldn't it matter? Either way, it's gonna be weird between those two for a while now."
"True, but..."
"MARCUS!"
There was no mistaking that firm voice of authority. Becca could only wish that their Captain didn't shout their Chief Healer's name every time she came into the infirmary. Understandable, though. The man had an uncanny knack for being unfindable when he wanted to be.
"Ah, San, how lovely to see you this early in the morning. Here," Chief Healer raised his voice, cheerful as ever, and waved at her from the table tucked away in the corner of the infirmary along with a sofa and a small kitchen with countless magic tools for those on duty to enjoy a little rest here and there during the day. "Care to join us? We just talked about..."
"Cut the crap, Marcus. I heard enough of bullshit yesterday."
"The party at Egerton Manor?"
"The Spring Labyrinth Ball," she corrected him with enough bitterness to spoil Becca's morning tea. "That greedy bastard kept me there all afternoon."
"Little Egerton? You? And how did he manage to do that? I would have thought that you..."
"Money, Marcus. What else?"
"Ah, he threatened you to cut our budget again?"
"What else?"
"You know he'll find a reason to do it anyway, right?"
"Yeah, but every week without budget cuts counts. One night of pointless parading in front of those stuck-up ladies and lords is something I can survive," Captain Rayden sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose, obviously not as unphased by it as she'd like to be. "Anyway, not why I'm here, Marcus. Four bodies were brought in yesterday, right?"
"Uh...Becca? You were the one to take them over, weren't you?" Chief Healer passed the ball to her, making her straighten up. The man might have seemed disinterested in his work, perhaps even bored, but despite that first impression, he had a good grasp of what was going on in the infirmary and the barracks as a whole.
"Yes, sir. I was - around four o'clock in the afternoon, they brought back four bodies, two male, two female. Three humans, one female half-Terr'den. She - actually, if I may, ma'am?"
"Go on."
"It's a real shame because she just came to the city, the half-Terr'den woman, I mean. I did her initial check-up only a few hours before, ma'am."
"I see, that's truly... maybe better if you take me to see the bodies first."
"And the reason is?" Chief Healer Marcus asked, as intrigued as Becca and everyone else at the table. It wasn't often that their Captain wanted to go to the morgue in person, let alone for her to appear so unsure of something.
Seeing their looks, Rayden sighed under her breath. "Because I was the one who cleared the half-Terr'den woman for citizenship and as such, have reason to believe that she might still be alive."
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How long has it been? A few minutes? Hours? Or days? The oppressive darkness and eerie silence that reigned in this place made it impossible to tell time. Sure, there was my breath to count and more, but my wandering dark thoughts made it a struggle. Not distracting my mind inevitably meant to think about where I was - in the morgue; at least, that was my hope. No, I wasn't into that kind of stuff; being here, surrounded by corpses, creeped the shit out of me. What scared me evenmore, however, was the possibility of me not seeing daylight again.
If this was a crypt and I couldn't die...
Better not to think about it.
However, when I inevitably did, it didn't make much sense. Why would they put a bunch of thugs and nobodies in such a fancy place? It would be cheaper to bury them or burn them.
Of course, I was glad they didn't - hence my hope. It meant that there was a chance that, at some point, someone would walk through the door I found on the other side of the room to check on the corpses here.
'Maybe I should try opening them again?'
Pointless. I had tried to open them twice now, and they hadn't budged, nor did anyone answer my cries and pounding on them. So here I was, curled up in a ball, Sage pressed against my chest, wings enveloping me in a tight bun, reading the description of [Spatial Domain] for the hundredth time.
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Spatial Domain
General Weave
12 glyphs - ⦿⦿
⦿
You are one with the surrounding space,
and in it, you will not miss a single trace.
⦿⦿
There is more beyond the reaches you claim as your domain,
much to discover and see, though limited and not so plain.
─◇────────────────────────────────────────
The description claimed that I should be able to use my perception to see beyond my current domain, beyond the roughly three meters of the space around me where, if I wanted, no detail remained hidden from me. Did I try, though? Bloody heck no! I didn't want to see deeper into this room where the darkness only held more dead bodies. Heck, I avoided looking even at the two on the tables next to me. Why would I when just the thought of them being there gave me the creeps?
Though, despite my best efforts, every now and then my perception wandered further than I would have liked.
'You are one with the surrounding space...' I read for the hundredth time, struggling with the urge to get rid of the weave just so I wouldn't have to face the corpses of those I killed again. Sure, it would be enough not to use my perception. Easy, right? Wrong. Not to see, to be surrounded by utter darkness, at the mercy of what was beyond, was even worse.
'and in it, you will not miss a single trace...'
Maybe I should try to read something else? But then again, I didn't trust myself not to do something stupid, something that I would surely regret later - like getting rid of [Indomitable Will]. What would keep me sane, then? Sage? Its softness was indeed divine, and the smell of apples well covered the stench of the dead around; regrettably, though, the periods of my death by poisoning were too short to bring me some peace, but...THE DOOR HANDLE!
It moved.
Silence.
Did I imagine it?
No. No, someone was at the door - metal rattled in the lock, and then, with a weak creak, the LIGHT cut through the darkness of the morgue.
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Name: Korra Grey
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Age: 27
1st Array: Slave
Master: None
Sigils: 97 - ○○○○○○
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Weaves: 1st Array (6/6)
Eleaden Standard Language (General): . . . 19 glyphs - ⦿⦿
Indomitable Will (Slave): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 glyphs - ⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿
Thrifty Drinker (General): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 glyphs - ⦿
Equilibrium (General): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 glyphs - ⦿
Hunger Fortitude (General): . . . . . . . . . .5 → 6 glyphs - ⦿
Spatial Domain (General): . . . . . . . . . 11 → 12 glyphs - ⦿⦿
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