Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Path Of The Fallen
https://youtu.be/NvwRFtHpsS0
Early Afternoon - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 0 : Richmond, Virginia | East Coast United States
World: Earth | Rank: 6 | Population: ~1,895,413,000
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"Your bath and the first few drinks have been prepared, Miss. I apologize for keeping you waiting." Pausing, Bella lowered a plate of multi-colored drinks to the floor, setting them beside the bubbling bath before backing away to formally motion me in with a bow. "Is there perhaps a name or title you wish for me to refer to you as?"
Gently shaking my head, I let my eyes linger on her lush black fur before stepping through the doorway with a deliberate caution—my boots not making so much as a rustle against the carefully polished tile. "Whatever you wish to call me is fine."
"In that case, I hope Lady Lestir, is okay?"
Giving a blunt, distracted nod, I continued further into the room without a stutter—my gaze drifting up to the massive, half-steamed mirror behind the sinks to find the familiar, weathered woman who made her home in my reflection—her gaze distant, her body worn, her hair long and tattered.
"Hm?" Noticing my gaze darken at the sight, Bella's focus snapped back to me, inquisitive, but inevitably puzzled.
Most mercenaries—especially those of prowess—were quite arrogant. Just as they took pride in their strength, many took pride in their appearances as well. They had accomplished something amazing in their world, and they took pride in that.
In Bella's eyes, I was supposed to be one such mercenary.
However, after climbing far past those illusory peaks, trekking so deep into the labyrinth that I had lost memory of the sky outside, I saw something different...
In that mirror, I didn't see someone who surpassed challenges, climbed mountains, and stood triumphant over adversity... I saw an old woman, weathered by time, and scarred by war, staring at a glimmer of skylight through a crack like a poor child looking into a treasury full of glimmering gold—bathing in the thought of wealth.. of freedom...
For the first time since the system had first presented itself, I felt hope.. hope to pave a path out of hell and escape the endlessly looping misery...
It was the hope to find purpose again.
But recognizing that hope only made me miserable.
Standing before that mirror, I wasn't doing anything... I was given the opportunity of countless lifetimes, and instead of truly taking advantage of it, I was getting ready to hop in a warm bath.
The next steps I needed to take were going to take time, yes.. but in my mind that didn't feel like an excuse.
Feeling my thoughts twist and sour, I shook my head slightly, pulling my eyes from the mirror with a bitter click. "What am I even doing..." The whisper was cold, sharp as a blade, yet so weighted I could hardly lift it.
"Lady Lestir," Bella spoke, dragging my gaze up to her, her dark, mechanical eyes flickered momentarily with something uncannily human—concern, or curiosity. "Is everything alright?"
A brief silence instantly settled. In times past, the question itself would have drawn annoyance, but here, now, it softened the edge of my frustration just enough to reach into my collar and press in a pattern of armored plates. *Snap-Click*
*Sn-Sn-Sn-Snap* Watching the countless interlinked plates conforming to my chest, stomach, and back spread and open up, the pressure on my chest loosened, and I peeled away the armor to let myself finally breathe... "Hooh..."
*Pat* Laying my armor on the floor next to the bath, I reached up to take off the plates on my arms and leggings as well, before running fingers around my wrists and waist to take apart the tight gambeson beneath it all.
The sight of my reflection, now unobstructed by armor, was raw, almost painfully honest. Each scar mapped a story I hadn't asked for—weaving together a tapestry of the relentless struggle I had managed to overcome with just the right mix of luck and unending determination to live.
But live for what?
As I lowered myself into the boiling water, hardly feeling even warm to my tempered skin, I questioned that... Running my mind through memory after memory in search of why...
Was it the drive for power? The curiosity to explore?
No... Perhaps it was all just the thought of hope... The chance that maybe.. after everything.. I'd finally reach a place where I could look upon the starry sky again.. and rediscover the warmth that once made me who I was...
Feeling the water gently ripple around me, I reopened my eyes to watch the steam drifting upward, gently curling in tendrils of smoke reminiscent of a freshly-extinguished fire. Each puff would rise, condense, fall, and boil again, trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle of beginning and end...
In a way.. it was much like me.. trapped by the cold coils above the bath, like I was by the walls of the System's manufactured maze.
Closing my eyes again, I let the quiet hum of the room fill my senses, the gentle bubbling of steam and churning of water creating an oddly calming rhythm. Yet even amidst such tranquility, I felt the restless gnaw of impatience biting at the edge of my consciousness.
It was that impatience that pushed me to grow faster in the past, and was most certainly the main reason I was even still alive.
But in that fleeting moment.. I found myself questioning if there was a point to it. When I returned to Earth, I lost everything. I was thrown against the wall of the labyrinth so hard it made me lose my breath. But at the same time, the impact fractured the wall and let light in.
Light I not only wanted to drink, but also take my time to bathe in.
I wanted to slow down...
"Hooh..." Letting out a deep breath, my nerves finally started easing.. if only slightly.
For the first time in countless years, I had a chance to relax... -It can't hurt to take a moment now, can it..?-
"Lady Lestir," Finally breaking the silence, Bella spoke, cautious yet gentle, cutting through the still as softly as the steam itself. "If there is anything troubling you, please know that I am here to assist."
Drawing in a slow breath, I finally allowed my shoulders to relax, the warm currents washing over my scarred skin doing their best to soothe the turmoil beneath. "Thank you, Bella." My voice held a calmness I didn't entirely feel, masking the tempest of thoughts still lingering beneath the mask of artificially forced sensation. "Unfortunately, some things aren't so easily helped.. but I appreciate the offer..."
"Of course, I apologize," her mechanical eyes immediately flashed with a glimmer of empathy before scattering with static. "Would you perhaps like a drink to help soothe your thoughts?"
Finding my gaze drifting to the carefully prepared arrangement of glasses sitting on the tray beside me—each colorful liquid promising flavors and sensations long forgotten or perhaps never known. I gave in with a faint nod, reaching for a glass of softly glowing amber before raising it to my lips. The taste was gentle yet complex, sweetened with a bitter warmth that spread an odd sense of comfort through my chest. "What's this one called?"
"Elven Oak," Answering softly, Bella's voice grew slightly colder and more mechanical than it just was. "It is distilled with mana-infused herbs known to grow on the oaks of the north—an alcohol popular among.. troubled mercenaries..."
"How fitting," I murmured with an ironic twist to my lips, taking another slow sip to let the drinks warmth mingle with the heat of the bath.
To a body tempered by the universe's most deadly toxins, the warmth only lasted a moment, but that moment felt like an escape in itself. Bringing silence to the turmoil I struggled to reign in myself.
But that quiet moment of solace was unfortunately fleeting.
No matter how gentle the drink, how soothing the steam, or how inviting the illusory view of a rustling rainforest canopy above me was, reality was relentless.
After centuries, I'd grown numb, unable to get my body and mind to properly relax as if I had forgotten how. Inevitability was ever-present, and the creeping awareness that these breaks were merely pauses, kept my nerves taut like mooring ropes keeping the tides from pulling a ship out to sea.
So, after several drinks, and a brief rinse of my mind, I went to climb out. If I really wanted to ease the tension in my nerves, I needed to do as I always had, and move. I needed to start learning about the energy surging from my body, and figure out how I was going to grow the crack letting light in.
I didn't know how.. I just needed to start somewhere.
Eventually climbing up out of the bath, letting my anxiety gnaw at me, I dried off, taking a moment to slip the socks, leggings, gloves, and shirt of my gambeson back on before running my finger along their seams to weave it all back into a single cohesive piece.
My focus was shifting.. my mind changing direction.
But as I ran my fingers around my wrist again, feeling the threads tug and weave into one another, the carefully maintained balance I had found, collapsed.
*Vwoop* Feeling a faint ripple, as if through space itself, a panel appeared before me.
The data link:
'Requester Name: Saint Michael'
Reading through the panel, I was presented with countless disclaimers, warnings, and in-depth explanations for every detail of the link, how certain aspects of it could be used maliciously, and who had authority over what.
In short, the data link was the tethering of a user's main system profile and a mirror of that profile permanently planted into another server's database. This meant the user would inherit access to the tethered server and all its functions at all times regardless of their connection to it. So, even if they were in another world, connected to a different server, they could access and communicate with the tethered server and anyone on it, as well as receive quests and transfer items.
However, as expected, being constantly connected to a world's server also meant that that server's administrators would have access and jurisdiction over the user's profile, being able to not only issue quests with penalties, but even directly manipulate the inventory and stats of the mirrored profile. Items and experience gained under the jurisdiction of the linked server would have to be manually transferred to my main profile if I wanted anything.
Though, that wasn't something I had to worry about.
Quickly skimming the rest of the panel, my gaze drifted to the bottom, and I tapped accept without so much more than some idle, reserved thoughts.
But that was a mistake. *Vwoop*
The moment the panel flickered away, time itself bent, the pixelated flickering of the skyglass froze, the flow of steam turned solid, and the rustling black fur on Bella's tail ceased its sway.
Almost instantly, a presence completely incomparable to anything else I had ever felt appeared.. a being who manipulated time with the ease of an artisan molding clay...
A god on a level I wasn't close to even fathoming.
One that could kill me with a thought.
*WOOOM* With a heavy, suffocating clap, space warped, and time froze. The air grew so stiff I could hardly move, and even the flow of my thoughts felt as if they had been submerged in sludge.
Yet despite all that, a deep, arrogant voice still met my ears without the slightest resistance. "~What do you think you are doing?~"
The voice resonated not through air, but through my very existence—a thunderous echo from a realm beyond time's relentless march.
He was a ruler, not of the lower reaches of the maze like Michael, but above the deepest stretches I had ever touched, even in the peak of my power.
A being whom I could not afford to offend...
That was at least until the crack letting the sight of skylight reach my eyes was abruptly sealed, and my hope of freedom was choked.. and suffocated...
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