Shadowbane

Aresa laid down next to me and poked the dried blood on my armor, "Explain this first."

"Oh, right... I was attacked on the way back from the bathhouse. And god damnit I just cleaned my armor too... I removed the Xerath's blood only to have it replaced with Human blood ten minutes later."

"Show me that memory first," Aresa replied as she closed her eyes.

I reached over and grabbed her hand before closing my eyes as well. A few moments later we were inside my soul realm, and much to my surprise, it had taken on the appearance of Terra'ka's planet.

"Niiice!! I've been trying for so many years to get this to be my default environment. I tried one last time on the limo ride over here, but I never actually expected it to work. It's about damn time though, that's for sure."

"Where is this...?" Aresa asked while she marveled at the scenery.

The world was just as I remembered it. Blue mushrooms of all sizes filled my vision, while random crops of land littered the swampy landscape. And some of those spots of land had strangely designed tables and chairs set up on them(the tables I saw the Lizardmen gambling at). There were also other pieces of land that had bushes with glowing orange lights at their centers that strangely looked like they were on fire. And most beautiful of all, was the sky that appeared as if it lacked an atmosphere. Thanks to that, it resulted in the prettiest sky ever, and it was also the reason I wanted my soul realm to reflect this world.

"This is your first time seeing this world, huh? I forgot that you were stuck with the templars during the Lizardmen's initial invasion into Urza."

"Ooh, so this is Terra'ka's world?! Alicia had described it to me before, but uh, this isn't quite how I had imagined it. Maybe she's bad at describing places? Or I misheard her."

I changed the environment a little so that one of the patches of land above the water was much larger, allowing me to place all of my furniture and the TV on top of it.

"And is that the temple you rescued Godwin's family from?" Aresa asked. I turned and saw her pointing at the temple that had apparently been made into a staple of my soul realm.

"Yep, that's the place. They were in cages in there along with some other races, including Elves." Hearing Godwin's name made me wonder how his family was doing, "Have you heard from Godwin at all?"

"No, but if you're asking me that, then that means you saved him before Viseux was invaded?"

"Jeez, you don't even know that... I'm not blaming you, it's just that this is completely different from what I had expected to happen. I thought Markus or someone from Arkaios' faction would have been here to tell you what happened to us. But thanks to Kai, I know Markus couldn't have been the one to tell you. He told me earlier that his group never showed up here, which means that Viktor must have kept the artifact."

Aresa rubbed her temples and sighed before sitting down on a couch from her chateau that I had recreated for her. "Okay, you're right. You better start from the beginning. I missed out on a lot apparently..."

I sat down in my usual recliner and kicked it back before recreating the scene in the alley near the bathhouse.

"But you want to see this first, right?"

Aresa nodded, so I played the memory starting from when Rodger approached me. And all the way through it the emotions on Aresa's face didn't change once.

After the scene had reached the part where I passed out in my bed, she turned to look at me and said, "I recognize the blonde man who attacked you and the woman you punched into the wall. The man is Rodger and the woman is Kelly. They both work for the Phoenix Initiative. Not on the books of course, and if the police try and trace their origins they'll be blocked by the Initiative."

"Why are they after me? Did you, Cera, or Euphemia talk about me openly? Seifer found out about my reincarnation because he overheard you---Oh. Maybe he was the leak...? If so, I need to find out just how much he told them about me."

"Again you bring up Seifer... I want to ask more about him, but let's go back to when I last saw you outside of the City Hall."

I brought up the memory she was referring to and we watched as Shana and I mocked Ishar for wanting to return to the Lizardmen's portal alone. She was watching along silently again until it reached the part where I entered the building. After that, she stood up and walked over my the recliner. She then pushed me to the side so there was enough room for her to sit next to me, which took me by surprise at first, but then I realized why she had wanted to sit so close to me. We had just played the moment where I had disappeared from her sight for thirty-four years. Aww, and here I've been moping about how 'mature' she is now. But this was very reminiscent of the Aresa I know.

Aresa pointed at the guy Godwin had been strangling to shut him up. "What happened to that guy?"

"Uhh, I'm not sure? Is this merely curiosity on your part? I don't remember seeing him after we left the cell area so he must have stayed behind."

"Mostly, but also because I knew him. You met him before too. He was one of the priests who served under Devon. Remember that guy?"

"Of course. I forget people and their names from time to time, but I wouldn't forget him, since he was supposed to be a part of my family. I tried to reach out to him when we returned from Kellog but none of the priests or priestesses would tell me where he was. I remember becoming more and more suspicious over time, but then Viktor invaded Viseux and because of that I completely forgot about him up until now."

I changed the memory to the time I had originally met Devon in the tent, or I tried to, but I accidentally changed it to when I had first entered the tent. It showed me crouching behind Aresa's chair as she looked back at my invisible form.

"Wrong scene, but this was a creepy moment for me by the way. The fact that you were looking at me really weirded me out."

Aresa chuckled, "I think I told you before, but I only vaguely sensed something directly behind me." Aresa smacked my leg, "Oh wait! There's something else I want to see! I know we keep getting derailed, but I want to see the beginning of your memory here."

"You mean when I woke up in that jail cell?"

"Yes! I wanted to ask you this back then, but I was too scared to. After all, I don't know if there is an etiquette for this kind of stuff. You're the only one I know who can replay memories like this so casually... Outside of me of course. But that's different because of what I am."

I would've happily shown her if she asked me back in Viseux, but I can't blame her for being hesitant. It is kind of a weird question to ask. 'Can I view your past memories?'.

I rewound the memory to the very beginning; the moment I woke up in the cell next to Gaz and Peter. After I snapped Gaz's neck Aresa responded in a way I hadn't quite expected. She began to laugh.

"S-Sorry! It's just so funny the way he was talking all psychotically about cutting up your 'corpse' and then you just... Pfft!"

She was still laughing when we got to the part where I lit Peter on fire, at which point she was laughing so hard she doubled over.

"I thought you said that you didn't change! The little girl from that tent would not have laughed so hard at this." I said in between chuckling. Her laughter was infectious, even I was starting to view the whole scene as comical.

"Blah! I can't help but be a little more cynical after dealing with so many corrupt adults for years on end. And don't even get me started on..."

While she didn't finish her sentence, I did see her quickly glance at my chest. Ahh, she's referencing Lunaria indirectly. She knows she can't talk about her since I have one of her fairies with me.

"Ah... Skip this part, please." She said as I snuck up behind Jason.

I paused the memory, "I heard he was a good kid. Did you know him personally?"

Aresa nodded and brought her knees up to her chest, "I know why you killed him and Brian, and those two assholes from before of course. They did deserve it, but Brian and especially Jason weren't the monsters this whole situation made them out to be. Brian had spent his whole life saving people, and Jason trained day in and out all to fulfill his dream of serving alongside Keith. He wanted to spend his life helping the people of Urza. But I get it, okay? You don't have to remind me of what they did. That's why their deaths are so freaking conflicting for me."

I skipped the memory ahead until it showed me in the coliseum. I was huddled in a corner creating a thin layer of armor to protect myself. Looking back on it, that armor was next to useless. It was barely better than a robe.

"Okay good. It was starting to get awkward for me." Aresa said.

"Why is that?"

"You've been naked the whole time, stupid!"

"Oh... Well then I'm sorry to say, but things are about to get much weirder for you. I was naked most of the time back then. All the way up until the Templars showed up."

"W-Why...? I know you can create your own clothes, and I just watched you do it right there!"

"Because that armor right there is fucking useless. I might have kept creating it if Brian and Albel hadn't nearly killed me. But they showed me early on just how powerful my enemies were, so remaking that armor which is practically on the same level as paper mache was a complete waste of time."

I sped the memory up to reach the trap scene faster, but still at a speed where she could see how I stealthed through the abandoned Kitsune village.

"And here it is, my first big fuck up. I was better off just using one of the human souls so I could jump over the damned wall, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking 'What are the odds this area really is trapped?'. Pretty fucking high apparently."

Reimia the fool reached the crate that had the trap placed on it, and the next thing we saw was me getting impaled into a tree and burned to a crisp.

Aresa's eyes went wide upon seeing what had happened to me, "Whoa... You told me about this before, but I didn't think it was this bad. I can't believe you survived this!"

"I barely did, especially since I forced myself to not use any mana defensively after that wood pierced me. A much younger and inexperienced me would have pointlessly used up those souls to defend against Albel's flame attack. But then I'd of been completely screwed. I would have had no mana left to do anything, including that."

Inside the memory I had just grabbed Brian's throat. Seeing it from the outside it was kind of funny the way I was waving him back and forth to protect myself from Albel. I could feel Aresa jump a little when a crack sounded out from the memory as Brian went limp. And not long after that Albel turned into a blue sphere and disappeared.

Aresa sighed as the Reimia from the memory randomly reappeared inside a hole in the ground. "So that's what happened to you back then... Did you come to the tent after this?"

"No, I went after Nisha first, and almost managed to kill her too."

"What?! I don't remember hearing about that part! How close were you?"

I skipped ahead again to the part where I was tracking the mana lines. At some point they went underground so I had to guess where she was based on the direction of the lines and distance from her allies, but eventually I located a disturbed part of the dirt, which is how I knew I had finally found her. After the scene played out and I was back underground, Aresa turned and looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"... You commented on her breasts the first time you met her? Under those circumstances?!"

"All I wanted to do was kill her and be on my way, but when I pulled her out of the ground her shirt was all cut up, and it was really hard not to notice. Even under normal circumstances, they're uh..."

Aresa rolled her eyes, "Okay pervert. But you didn't attack her again after this, right? There's no way Keith would have left her unprotected after that."

The scene skipped ahead to where I had returned to Nisha's location.

"See him there? It's Albel, but I wasn't sure if there were more people hiding in the trees. Also, in hindsight, I'm really glad I didn't risk it. Even if I did manage to kill Albel, Nisha had her connections up the entire time, so she could have brought the others to her side, at which point Keith would have made quick work of me. I didn't know it back then, but the only reason that didn't happen the first time was because she had cut the connections before I had pulled her out of the ground. I could have still fled before the blue spheres reached me, but if Albel had survived it would've made turning invisible and fleeing infinitely more difficult."

"He's the only one who was happy to be branded. Did you know that?" Aresa said.

"What? Albel? I don't know much about him, he's very quiet and keeps to himself."

"Yeah I thought the same thing, so I talked to him one time in the chateau while you guys were doing something in town. It turns out he was in love with Keith's sister, Rachel. I don't know if you remember anything about her, but she was eaten by that grinning Demon, and so when you guys saved all of those souls, they were taken to Arkaios temple. Arkaios can't send souls to the afterlife, so he told us to find a way to bring them back to the goblins, which was uh, not really an option anymore after Viktor put those obelisks everywhere."

She continued, "So Arkaios decided to keep the souls and give them the same fate that all the branded receive at the end of their service. They live out the rest of eternity in his realm as souls. Albel was very happy that Rachel was saved, and so was Keith for that matter. That's why they both serve him willingly now instead of purely through duty."

"I didn't know any of that... Most of my time with Markus's group was spent trying to survive. We had a little downtime here and there, but nowhere near enough. And Albel kept to himself almost the entire time. I don't think I talked to him even once."

I looked at the memory which was at the part where the spiders were dragging back bodies to the hive. "I never did find out where those sacrifices came from. That village you guys were in was completely secured if you exclude the massive hole in the backside, but the spiders weren't attacking you there. So where the hell did the people in these sacks come from?"

"You really didn't know? It was the same place Markus and the Templars came from. There was one more village to the north that was inside the forest. It had a mine underneath it that the Kitsune wanted to revitalize, so the Templars and a group of Guardians stayed there with them while they attempted to fix the place up the best they could. But from what I heard, the village had no walls. It was very small and mostly just treated like an outpost. I don't blame Markus or the Guardians for failing to protect everyone who was there."

Damn, so Markus had also fought the spiders? She's right, I didn't know that, but it does make sense in hindsight. Because when I first saw the Templars, they were approaching from the same direction the spiders were bringing back sacrifices from.

"This is actually kind of fun revisiting past events, but we should probably skip ahead to when I died in Viseux. You don't have much time, right?"

"Urgh, I don't... As much as I love it here in Termia, I miss having free time. I haven't been able to sit down and read a book in ages. I MISS MY BOOKS!!"

I went back to the scene where I split up from Godwin's family and Markus. "Have you really not heard from Godwin, Jasper, or Hera?"

Aresa shook her head. "Nothing. And it'll be a miracle if we do see them again. If they really did reach the northern portal, then that means they were moving away from Aetheria."

The Reimia from my memories was running up a building when something smashed into her right side, sending her flying through multiple buildings. I rewound it and looked in the direction I was hit from, but whatever it was must have been far outside the range of my vision, because I couldn't see who was responsible for sending me through all of those buildings.

"What hit you?? I don't see anything..." Aresa said.

... Good question. And whatever it was never made an appearance during the assault on Xethra.

We continued watching in silence for a while, all the way up to the point where I reached the chateau. At that point I could see Aresa hurriedly wiping away tears.

"You miss it that much?"

"I wish with all my heart I could bring it here, but I know that's impossible... I'm slowly turning the chapel here into my own domain but I don't have Mother's strength. It's going to take me another fifty years at the rate I'm going." She continued, "But that's not entirely the reason I was crying... Just seeing it here like this and the state of Viseux, on top of you being alone there. It's all so..."

Definitely not the Viseux she remembers, that's for sure.

"Ooh! So that's how you found out Ishar survived." Aresa said after she saw me activating the Chimera's soul-tracking ability.

After the meeting with Arkaios, I sped through the memory until I reached Jericho. Aresa couldn't withhold her excitement at the part where I had to leap past all of those Draugr and deal with the entrance chamber that the Ghorak was guarding. In fact, she found the whole excursion through the city fascinating. Not the city itself. That she wants to destroy one day. But she loved watching me infiltrate and stealth from the entrance of the city to the portal room. At which point I paused it and zoomed in on the werewolf in power armor. The anger I felt welling up as I looked at the fucker was difficult to contain, and Aresa picked up on it right away.

"Did something happen with that werewolf?"

"... You'll see later on."

From there we watched as I jumped through the portal, hid as the Lion and Minotaur dueled, and only stopped to talk when I met Shana. "Aww! She's so dirty and even looks a little frail..."

"Nisha and her had been stuck here for a long time. They were trying to rescue Ishar, who was currently in a cage surrounded by Demons. Err, well, not really 'Demons' anymore, but still in a cage and unable to escape."

"Not Demons? More of that Lion-thing from earlier?"

"Yeah... It's hard to explain, you'll just have to see for yourself. There's a lot of very strange things that are going to happen from here on out."

Someone began to knock on the door to my home, interrupting the memory.

"You expecting someone?" I asked Aresa.

"Yes! I asked Lunaria to have Kai and Xi be sent over here. I wanted to spend some alone time with you, and I did love this, but the more I watched your memories, the more I felt those two should also see what happened. Is that okay? I kind of forgot to ask you what your thoughts are on the two siblings. For the record, I adore them both and trust them wholeheartedly!"

"I have no issues with them so far and have rather enjoyed their company. So I'm not opposed to them joining in."

I exited my soul realm and opened the door. Kai had the same neutral expression he usually wore, but Xi looked like she wanted to pass out.

"Your sister okay?"

"Nope." Kai merely responded before dragging her inside.

"Aresaaa~, I'm so tired... Can't we do this tomorrow?"

Aresa lightly kicked Xi's thigh, "No! It has to be today, silly girl. You know how busy we're going to be from here on out thanks to the summit coming up."

"The summit...? That's not the same summit you were talking about earlier, is it?"

Aresa smirked, "Yep, it is. Which means your favorite person in the world is going to be in Termia in a couple of weeks. You showed up just in time!"

..........

Kai dragged his sister to the bed and laid her down where our feet would be. Once she was in place, he laid down beside her and grabbed her hand as Xi grabbed onto Aresa's ankle.

"Do you even know how much some people would pay to touch the goddesses feet?" Aresa said, now turning her smirk onto Xi.

"It's so creepy when you call yourself a goddess! Please stop doing that..." Xi said.

"I'm merely speaking the truth. An Eldritch Lord inside of a Human body who willingly tied herself to the wellspring, radiating energy everywhere she goes. Protecting our great nation with her righteously beautiful aura. So pure! So magnanimous!!"

"Ughhh..." Xi groaned as she looked at me, "Was she always like this?"

"Definitely not. She was just a sheltered naive little girl the last time I saw her. Although this new version is slowly growing on me."

I crawled back into bed and held Aresa's hand again before re-entering my soul realm. This time Xi and Kai joined us, and they were both impressed as they should be by the world around us. But as much as I wanted to enjoy Terra'ka's realm with them, I sat down on my recliner again next to Aresa and replayed the previous memory.

"And what is happening currently? All I see is fog everywhere and this lady who I assume is Miss Shana." Kai said.

"To briefly catch you up; After I revived on Urza I followed the past visages of Ishar's soul to another moon, and in doing so I found Shana."

The scene where we revived Markus made Kai jump out of his seat. "I-I had heard of this ritual from Lady Aresa, but it was so far-fetched that I didn't put much credence into it. I felt she must have misunderstood or misheard something, as I'd never heard of an Old God named Arkaios before she spoke of him. 'He must be an abnormally powerful Eldritch, so his follower's fanaticism is what is causing fake information such as this to spread.' This is what I was thinking at the time. But now that I've seen it firsthand... To see him truly recover one of his follower's souls and revive them..."

Kai turned toward me, "I must meet this Old God. After we tour the Western district tomorrow, I will do whatever it takes to find the nearest temple. All of our Gods are dead. It will mean the world to us if I can get my people to follow this Old God of yours."

Aresa stomped her feet on the recliner, "Kai! You thought I was misled?! I wasn't that naive."

"Ehm, apologies Lady Aresa. But Lady Euphemia and Cera have never once mentioned this Old God. So I figured..." Kai scratched the back of his head and sat back down, clearly hoping Aresa would drop the matter, and she did.

"I don't think you're going to find the answers you're hoping for, Kai. From what I've seen, the Templars don't just swear fealty to Arkaios and then they're rewarded with pseudo-immortality. They all serve him. Do you understand? You can't just gain his favor and then go back to whatever the hell your life was before. At least that's what it looked like to me. Arkaios seems more than happy to protect the average day citizen with his warriors, but that's where the favors end. Which is honestly amazing all by itself."

Kai leaned back into the couch, "... You are most likely correct. But I must see and speak to him myself to know for certain. It's far too important for my people."

"What is that?!" Aresa asked as she elbowed me.

We had just watched the scene where I first met Ishar and Greyson. She was pointing at the ethereal spider after it grabbed me.

Xi was the next one to point at something. She was pointing at a guard who was watching me get absorbed by the spider, "Those guards are really strange looking too. It's almost like they're about to explode from having too many muscles. Can you see that big vein popping out his head?"

"Eww... Everything here is so gross! What is wrong with these people, Rei?" Aresa asked.

"I think the mystery is really adding to this. I wasn't sure if you guys would know what was happening here, since Lunaria told me to ask you about---Actually, never mind. I want to see if you can figure out where we are on your own."

Everyone groaned when the giant cat, armored monster, and minotaur killed us. And what happened next really took Aresa by surprise.

"You wanted to ask the Tengu for help...? There's no way it actually helped you, right?"

And with that said, she was left slack-jawed as she watched the next events unfold. From the Tengu agreeing to relay our message to one of his Lords, and to when that Lord actually showed up at the temple.

"No freaking way... And he really does look righteous! He looks nothing like the five Lords I've seen in the past."

The three of them watched in amazement as we saved Ishar and set off toward the dig site. And when the group was halfway down the tunnel, Kai finally spoke up.

"Wait... I think I know what you were referring to earlier. The aesthetics of the creatures you've fought up until now were vile in a way I wasn't quite used to, and that's coming from someone who has taken part in battles killing dozens of different Eldritch Gods. But it just now hit me that these creatures are very similar to the ones I've seen in videos attacking Viktor's settlements---"

"These are creatures of the Abyss, aren't they?" Xi said, cutting her brother off.

"Well done you two. I thought you wouldn't figure it out until we reached the God of the Abyss."

"The God of... No, never mind. I'll wait until I see it before I start asking questions." Kai said.

The door to the underground city appeared in the memory, causing Aresa to tense up and look at me. "I don't understand... The first sightings of the Abyssal creatures should've been long after this memory took place. I'd need to look through my archives to be certain, but I feel like I'm right on this." Aresa looked back at the door, "So does that mean you met them before everyone else?"

"Yes---" Just then, a random memory popped into my head. "Hang on, we skipped past a lot of the chatter in the temple, I want to go back and look at something real quick. I want to make sure I'm not remembering it wrong..."

Back in the temple, we watched as I talked with Ishar and Greyson about the armor I had made for them and about how Greyson was captured. Soon after that Shana showed up, and we talked about Aresa a little, which I could see was making her tear up again. However, the part I had remembered transpired before us, which left me and everyone else here baffled. At the time I had asked Arkaios if he told the Lizardmen about everything that was happening on Veca, and his reply was 'I have sent an agent to tell them about what is happening here. Do not worry. They will tell this 'Alicia' girl about everything that has transpired.'

Aresa looked at me again, "Alicia never once told me about any of this."

I had this strange uneasy feeling assaulting me whenever I thought about the fact that Aresa didn't seem to know anything about what had happened to us on Veca. Even if Markus's group was still dead, there should have been something else happening that ensured Aresa would be informed of our location and happenings. And yet, that clearly didn't happen...

"Then that leads me to my next question. Do you know when Alicia is coming back to Telebron?"