NEVRASThe centaurs were excellent archers, and I was stuck in place defending Elias since he was our healer. In retrospect, this was around the time I decided to invest in a shield.

    Arrows hurt. I know this seems like a stupid thing to say, but from the historical archives of film we watched at the castle, it seemed like there were an awful lot of them that behaved like you can take ten or twelve arrows and still live. I''m looking at you, Princess Agents. Or they showed people pulling arrows out of people with no issues.

    No. An arrow is like a large splinter driven into your body. Trying to remove it without knowing exactly what you''re doing would be a recipe for disaster, since the arrow was actually holding in blood from leaking out of the body. Or they sometimes have it broken off, and then they push it through instead. Breaking it off is probably a better idea, but pushing it through wrong can catch on organs or bones, creating a fish-hook bend, or that arrow that you just broke wrong introduced wood shards inside the body. Thankfully, my armor had cushioned the one that hit my torso to the point where it was only a flesh-wound. He pulled this one out easily and healed it up. The other two was in an arm and my knee, the former had hit a blood vessel.

    As I was being treated by Elias, from out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aqorm. She raised her hands over her head, and knelt to the ground in respect for the land, placing both hands on it. The centaurs were loading more arrows, but it was already too late. The land mana drew from the forest, covering them all with vines and thorns. They dropped their bows abruptly and were pinned to the ground. Their hooves floundered on the ground. The good news was they wouldn''t be fighting anyone any time soon. The bad news was, as she had explained to us in an earlier battle, “If I were a real elf, I could draw mana from the land properly. But I can only use this ability once a day.” Any of these critters that showed up after this would be trouble.

    The sudden pain brought me back to attention. Elias wasn''t doing it right. Yes, he had managed a creative approach, cutting off at both tips so the arrow was one big column, but the way he pulled at these all at once was making things go dimmmmm....

    ELIAS

    Despite all claims to the contrary, I did know what I''m doing. Yes, the way I pulled this arrow was rather abrupt, but there was no real right way to remove an arrow. I was careful to make sure of two things first. I twisted it around to make certain there was no muscle or bone before pulling, and I gently tugged from the point end (being sure to actually remove the ends, so there was no foreign matter), and secondly I made sure he was lying on the ground with my other hand directly over the wound, so I could heal when I felt blood. Starting behind the knee, I pulled. It had pierced straight through the patella, all the way through the bones and the cartilage behind, and I was pushing it through from the front.

    As I felt blood, I closed the knee up using my healing ability. Unlike the surgical medicine of those ages called the modern ages, I had virtually no need to see any of this. I simply called on the power to heal, and it did. Healing bone and cartilage took significantly more effort, since the bone healing actually involved rapidly clotting the blood to heal with any speed, and heavy amounts of collagen sealed the bone from infection. This is the point at which he passed out. The healing would continue, with the collagen hardening into a sort of bone cluster, and then finally the area would flatten out; of course, the difference was this would take hours rather than weeks and be strong as before. It would look very lumpy in the meantime despite my healing, but healing always set matter to repair itself to its original state, even if I were healing a slime. I really didn''t need to know how the body worked since it was on a basic level just programming the body to heal itself, but in practice, the more that I knew about an organ, the less mystic power it actually took. I pulled the other end out, and closed off the wound.

    It was time for bad news. I had just healed myself several times today, healed the party of all bruises, and performed a complex healing. I was good for just one more heal, and it had to count. I had a choice, I could either focus my healing on the outside, stopping the bleeding from spilling out but risking internal bleeding, or the opposite. I could wait, but moving him right now would be hard if there were any pieces that could shift, the shaft might slip out anyway. I took a risk and pulled it out as fast as possible, then as soon as I could tell that the arrow was clear, I rejoined the blood vessel. The blood was still leaking out the side! He would bleed out....

    AMBROSIA

    “No! Nevras! Don''t go....” I was probably showing a lot more emotion that normal, but c''mon, I''m not made of stone. I jumped out of the bushes and wrapped his wound with my apron. Elias helped secure the makeshift bandage properly. Even Aqorm seemed concerned, but I could never tell what she was thinking. Working together, Aqorm and Elias built a stretcher to cart off Nevras to someplace safer. How did she know how to do this?

    It was slow going, but with the three of us walking together we managed to bring Nevras to the Great Tree. The area was filled with tourists and earth elementals. These ones looked like moles in a tight cluster. There was an old man dressed up like a chief, and there was a girl who was obviously waiting for someone to get back. I asked her about it, and she said, “My boyfriend agreed to meet me here after he visits the world''s temples. He''s a Miroku Buddhist, and we promised to get married and stuff. This tree itself is holy, so it''s part of our pilgrimage.” Her face showed concern, and a flicker of something else. It almost looked like she recognized Nevras, but then she looked away.

    Nevras meanwhile seems to still be doing poorly. It looked like the attempt to heal hadn''t had enough energy after all, and only partly succeeded. He was slowly but steadily continuing to bleed out.

    I called to the old man, “Please! Help us! Our friend is bleeding out.” The old man said, “Legend has it that when the Earth was remade, God planted a seed so that life would always grow in the world. This is now the Great Tree,” he continued, “Your friend... he is dear to you? Place his body in the water near the roots. The Tree has healing properties.” I wished he could have said that first! Now my friend was worse because he had to talk about history... I lifted him like a bride gets carried across the threshold, and gently laid him in the water, being careful to rest his head on the roots so he wasn''t at risk of drowning. I looked at the other two (particularly Aqorm) and said, “Don''t you dare tell Nevras I was worried about him.” I quickly moved in position behind the other two, so he didn''t see me looking concerned if he woke up. It''s not like I''m into him, or anything.

    GOD

    While all of you are wondering what befell the young one known as Nevras, I will speak of teleology. I have spoken of the end of the old Earth, and of the dawn of Creation, but this is, so to speak, about the purpose of the universe.

    Say someone plants a seed. That seed “knows” it will become a tree. This, by the way, is how all of creation works, from healing to setting a fire to dousing it, because this is also how the Tao works. Drops of water, even those made by runes, don''t have to ask what to do with soil or wood or flames, they simply soak it because this is how they are made. When I said for there to be Light, it fulfilled its purpose. Light is to shine forth through the darkness and to make things whole. It made creation possible. Likewise, water was supposed to clean wounds, so that the tree could heal. And that is precisely what it did to Nevras.

    NEVRAS

    I opened my eyes slowly, the world looking fresh and new to my eyes like I had been reborn. Looking around, I saw the others standing at a distance away from me. Ambrosia seemed to be hiding behind the others. Normally, she stayed near my side with relative apathy, but today she seemed extra disinterested, refusing to come closer until the rest of the group had also approached. Odd. Ambrosia told me about some strange girl who had been waiting for a Miroku Buddhist, who wandered off shortly after she saw our group. I could swear that sounded like my youngest sister Chastity.

    We asked the old man about the mountain, and it turned out that pretty much everyone else headed south and east to find a rather well-worn and obvious path up the mountain, instead of circling around the back end. People did that? After everyone spent some time sleeping and recovering, we made our way to the proper entrance to the mountain.

    The path up the mountain was a strenuous climb. It was relatively shallow but kept winding back and forth. The mountain was broken into a series of plateaus that cut sharply into sheer rock walls. The walls were steep enough to be practically unclimbable, rising up like a shelf of earth. All along the path, weak beasts plagued us. On the path crawled some small venomous snakes here and there, on the wall hung groups of spiders. The spiders of New Earth are not like those of Earth. God had ordained that small venomous creatures were too hard for humans to see and made spiders range from the smallest size as big as a kitten, to roughly that of a semi-trailer. Shouldn''t have bothered, God. For the most part small critters like this were not a big problem for me, as I was able to slice them up rather quickly. We managed to get some snake meat out of the whole thing, yet Ambrosia got some web in her hair and shoulder. “Ptui!” she spat out the mucilaginous substance, and desperately tried to wipe it off, only to get more caught. It was endearing, in a deeply dorky way. Sёarch* The N?vel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    As we climbed the mountain, I felt the air get colder until we saw snow falling. There was a nearby cave that appeared be man-made, just for such a purpose of climbing to the upper part of the mountain without slipping and falling to your doom. The cavern spiraled from behind so as to provide ease of climbing up and down. “Let''s stop and eat.” Despite having rested, we haven''t eaten anything since our journey started, and it was time. After beheading and cleaning the snakes of their venom sacs, and setting aside their skin for later use, I likewise reserved the food for later. Elias cast a prayer commonly used for preserving bodies from rot. I was told there was some kind of issue preventing that prayer from being used recklessly, though. We didn''t want to overwork him, he had already removed a few doses of snake and spider venom from our bodies for every time Aqorm or I screwed up and got bit instead. Ambrosia pulled out some yak meat she had been keeping, along with some cookware. We could definitely make a good stew from this. Climbing to the top of the cave I gathered some snow to later melt for water. Ambrosia told Elias and Aqorm, “You need to gather some wood because I don''t have an axe.” In response to her slightly rude demand, Aqorm grumbled a bit under her breath. So I asked her, “Ambrosia, could you make a fire to...” I looked at her blank look and immediately felt sad for her. “You bought all of that gear but never managed any kind of flint and steel, huh?”

    By this point, Elias and Aqorm had left so they were probably not within earshot. Her perpetually composed face broke into tears. “I''m sorry! I''m poor, and I''ve been poor since childhood!” She told me about how she had amnesia before a certain age, how she was adopted by a family, and how things turned south around the point where she lived alone. “I gave my money to several investors that promised to increase my money, but instead... they took my money and ran!” She talked about years on the street, eating food that wasn''t generally fit for eating, how she had never had any proper tools to even build a fire so she eat meat cold and raw for years, and lacking a knife, usually whole too. I was surprised that she was alive, honestly, but this made me believe even more that should she would not judge me for being effeminate.

    While we had talked, Aqorm and Elias gathered wood, and when they returned (hours later) they were talking about something out of context for us, something about something called Operation Paul Bunyan. I could hear Aqorm giggling about this. I pulled out my dagger of First Iron, and struck it against a First Flint stone until it made sparks. First Materials could recover from anything, including breakage and rust. But most First Materials were unbelievably expensive and rare. They were effectively priceless, as materials could not be gathered; they were from another dimension after all. To have this reusable firestarter wound up costing Phoenix as much as their castle per tool. Since this was completely impractical for military use, we instead invested in the creation of the highly break and rust-resistant durasteel. It turned out, though, part of why fires started was the flaking of iron caused tiny shards to rust. The fire was actually from the metal rusting, so my katana was completely unable to start fires. First Material on the other hand, was ideal for this purpose as these two could immediately bounce back from striking against each other.

    To have a fine steel weapon suddenly fall apart on you is no good. This was the reason for the Second Bronze Age, in fact. During this time, people became interested in archaeology. Having noticed that their own history was becoming lost, they began to create artifacts of new alloys: durasteel, mithril, adamant, ceramics, and even a hard plastic known is carboniform. Of course, future generations didn’t necessary know what these artifacts were. Some of them concluded that a rifle must be some ancient object used for rituals.

    I looked into Ambrosia''s eyes as she watch me set this fire. To her, she had no idea of the monetary value of this stuff, but the emotional value was worth more to her than anything I could imagine. “Here you go,” I handed her these tools to keep. Her eyes lit up and she dropped her guard, and then started sobbing. I held her tightly until she stopped.

    The fire began to blaze under the pot. I added the meat and grilled it on the pan. Each of us had brought something to the meal. I added potatoes, carrots, and peppers that I had bought from the store. Elias had many herbs and spices that were also considered medicinal, which he added to season the soup, and he also carried extremely high quality Five Source Purification salt, which was also used for exorcism of undead. Aqorm had some wild onions, garlic, and some wine. I had originally considered taking the meat and veggies out of the pan but instead I elected to simply cover it, while I melted the snow in another pot. We drank some of this water, and the rest was added to deglaze the pan while we stirred the stew.

    It was a meal that was so soft and tender that I can''t describe it, except to say that the garlic completely blended with the wine, the other herbs, and strong taste of meat in the thick broth. The salt was of such fine quality that there was in fact no salt taste at all, having completely dissolved into the flavor. Somehow, everything just blended together to make what a stew should be. After the meal, we set up a tent inside the cave, and went to sleep. We had a long hard hike the next day, and we needed to be well-rested.

    AQORM

    Ambrosia sent us off to gather wood in the forest. She was getting bossy, with all of her psychic scanning abilities and her sacred destiny. Not that I had any reason suspect her word of being anything but... “Hey.” This was the first time we had talked alone “Elias, you know how to show events from the past, right? Might you be able to tell me where Ambrosia came from?”

    Elias raised an eyebrow. “I suppose I might. Are you really that suspicious?” I shrugged, “It''s not really that I suspect her, but... I make it a policy to not trust someone without getting to know them well. Why, she could be a spy! Or an alien!” At this, Elias started giggling.

    “Very well. If we must find out, I''m gonna need some hair, a tear, a grain of sand, and something belonging to Ambrosia. With this stuff I can do a ritual to find out what you need.” I snuck back to camp to grab something of hers. The apron she used to tie Nevras''s wounds earlier should do just fine. As I came closer, I listened in on her conversation from the bushes while looking for an opportunity to sneak away with this bandage. I would do anything to find out the truth.

    As it turned out, Ambrosia volunteered about her past on her own in the next few minutes, telling all of the graphic details of life on the street. I had also lived on the street, and had survived by becoming a thief and a professional makeup artist. They did not know about my past brushes with the law, but... I would keep her secret until she wanted to confess to us about it. And I would give them some alone time. I edged back to Elias. “So, you got something of hers?” I shook my head. “Here''s something of mine.” I twisted a small chunk of my hair into a loop, then cut it with my dagger, then handed him both my hair and my dagger to borrow. “Huh?” I responded, “I want you to know about my past.”

    ELIAS

    I looked at the objects granted to me. Hair for connection to the person, tears for a drop of vision, a grain of sand to represent a moment in time, and a valued possession to represent her truest self. I said the words, “If it is your will, grant me a vision of the past.”

    Aqorm was a young child, just born. I saw her father, an aquatic elf. I saw her mother, a wood elf. They appeared to have some family business...

    Here, the images became grainy. This was a memory that she was unwilling or unable to remember.

    I saw her growing older. She became a teenager, and I watched her grow up. Her family lived thousands of years, and I saw her reading at home. Finally, as her parents insisted she become... she told them she wanted to be a musician. I watched her play classical music all the way up to modern music. Soon she was composing her own pieces. I saw her as she lived on the street, resorting to theft to survive. And finally she came to my town. I saw her make a deal with Delphi.

    “There''s something you''re not telling me.” I said, raising an eyebrow. Aqorm blushed slightly, “Yeah, that. My parents are able to live so well because we''re exotic dancers. In fact, most of my siblings are too. I was the black sheep, and got mixed up in a lot of theft because my parents hoped I would follow in the family trade.” I questioned her, “They threw you out?” Aqorm muttered, “No, I left. The rent was free, but I believed that I would never accept me,” she continued, “since I was dead set at fulfilling my dreams. They would never understand what it''s like to strike out on your own and follow your dreams.”

    I replied, “Leaving your loved ones to pursue ideals is a common thing for people to do, but I''m not entirely sure that it''s all that clever a thing to do. I mean, you left a place where people cared for you, loved you, and sheltered you. You refused their support, instead turning to crime, all because you believed they wouldn''t understand. What if you''re wrong?”

    At this, Aqorm roared, “How dare you?!?” Calming down slightly, she asked, “What gives you the right to talk to me like that?”

    I think she wanted me to yell right back at her, but I explained, “I believe most parents love their children. But it seems like, in the process of striking out on your own, your parents possibly suffered as well. I don''t think it''s mandatory that you follow their dreams, but I do think most of all, your family wants to hear from you. I don''t believe it''s fair to them to expect them never to understand having your own dream. Were your grandparents exotic dancers?”

    Aqorm softened. She was probably imagining her grandparents pole-dancing, because shortly thereafter she started giggling uncontrollably. I almost told her that her grandparents (as pure elves) would probably be able to do that forever and still look sexy, but then she probably knew that, and I figured it might ruin the moment. Her laugh was lyrical yet sad, the laugh of someone who had experience in great quantities over centuries yet still bore hope. “No, definitely not!” she said between giggles, “Hey, you''re kind of funny. Could you tell me some stuff, just to make me laugh and take my mind off things?” I can''t really tell jokes. Instead, told her several stories while walked back to camp, that I happened to think were funny. I talked about odd or interesting events in history, philosophy (she liked Plato''s Cave), and even some laughably bad scientific theories that people used to believe were true, such as the Flat Earth theory. I can''t imagine what sort of person would ever think that was true.

    We were starting to walk back when I told her one last tale, carrying our load of wood. “In Korea, back in the 20th century, soldiers were trying to fight, but kept being ambushed since a large poplar blocking the view. When they tried to trim it, they were met by guards telling them that they were not allowed, because that tree had personally been planted by the leader of the country despite it being over 100 years old. When they tried, they wound up getting killed, and chainsaws got clogged by the sap of the tree. By the end of it, they sent in tanks, Special Forces, artillery, grenade launchers, martial artists, and heavy artillery to try to get rid of this tree. And that...” All that Nevras and Ambrosia heard by the time we made it back with the wood was probably “... And that was Operation Paul Bunyan.”

    AMBROSIA

    Walking up the mountain was a slow process. Our path led to a steep cliff overhang. The ice and snow made every step extremely treacherous, so we walked along, one step, then another step, and another. Walking along this way, we managed to avoid falling to our doom.

    Finally, the path of snow widened as the extreme overhang joined with the main part of the mountain. It was just fortunate we were walking up and not trying to climb it from underneath. But still. Walking on slick ice is no picnic. On the top of the mountain, I looked around. I exclaimed, “There''s nothing here?!? All that climbing for nothing?” Nevras sighed, “Calm down, maybe we took a wrong turn at some point.” I''m sorry, but I kind of wanted to be a drama queen here. “That''s easy for you to say, you seem to always be calm, don''t you?” To be honest, this wasn''t really fair to him, but yeah, I had just walked up an icy mountain. Aqorm decided to get involved, and cried out, “Hey! Nevras is right, you know?” I took a deep breath and spoke, “...Okay. I''ll try to have more faith. Sorry, Nevras, for snapping at you.” He grinned, “It''s okay, I forgive you.” I looked around again, “But, I don''t have any idea how to cross here.”

    Just then, I heard a noise. “Miau,” hollered a white and black cat. It was a cute little thing, and I desperately needed to pet it. Yet, how did it get here? “A cat? What''s it doing up here?” I said. This mountain was steep and rugged, and we hadn''t seen any easy paths. I barely had time to consider this question before something impossible happened. The cat jumped off the cliff, and landed on its feet in midair. From here, the cat continued until it rested on a floating island in midair. “What in the Six Paths? It just jumped onto the air.” Nevras and Elias finished each other''s sentences, “It''s a... a hidden path?” I asked the others, “Is this a Pattern?”

    ELIAS

    When people said Pattern, they mean illusion. There''s many types of illusion, but three that everyone know. An illusion that surrounds an area and displays its to anyone who entered is called a Pattern, an illusion cast around a person to disguise them is called a Glamour, and then one cast against a person to control what they see is called a Figment. Glamours were simple, efficient, and foolproof until you touched the person, even allowing even a fat person to assume the form of a thinner person. Figments were pretty much only used to gaslight people, because only a single person could see something, so the whole thing fell apart unless you either cast the same spell multiple times or had a few accomplices. The flaw of a Pattern was that it was fixed around a caster, or fixed around an area, and that it displayed a pre-recorded image. Having something enter or exit was simply not possible, nor was hiding objects. If it was an illusion, it definitely wasn''t a Pattern.

    Hmm. There was one way to find out. “Disbelieve!” This was a radius effect that would dispel all illusion. Unfortunately, it did nothing. Taking my staff, I tested, poking at the air where it stepped. Something wasn''t there, but then it was.

    This wasn''t a Pattern, it was a Paradigm. The matter was solid, but only so much as we were convinced it was. If we for a second stopped believing that it was real, we would begin to fall through. “Aqorm, this is a Paradigm, take my hand, I''ll guide you through.” After the long talk we had, she seemed to not be averse to trusting me. Which was good, since I needed her to believe in something, it didn''t need to be the flooring itself. I wasn''t sure about the others. How would they fare?

    NEVRAS

    Being well-educated, I knew what a Paradigm was, but my heart was filled with uncertainty. Unlike the guards of some towns, I wasn''t an atheist. But I didn''t have a specific religion either. I didn''t know how strong my faith was. And yet, I took one step into the air.

    The surface felt like gelatin. It heaved and wobbled under my indecision, as though deciding what to do with me. Each moment that passed, uncertainty gave way to doubt. I was going to sink, I knew it! I wasn''t strong enough.

    Then a hand clasped mine, and pulled me back from the edge. “Nevras,” she said, “believe in me. Let''s do this together.” Slowly, yet surely, we stepped forward, one foot, then another, until we were standing in midair, and walking forward. No longer was there jelly wobble, the ground was firm. For some reason, I never saw Ambrosia as having any particular belief either, but she must have been believing in something because this ground was as firm as rock.

    The view was incredible. Unlike the whole adage, “don''t look down,” I did so and yet felt no fear. I saw the clouds, which every now and then cleared, showing the land beneath. I saw the Great Tree from before, the eastern forests, and directly below I saw plains and grasslands. If I looked off to the distance, I could faintly see the island of Ghobli and its lagomorphic features. The island of Ghobli was believed to be formed when a man with a massive supply of bunnies crash landed into the water; the bunnies died, but according to the legend formed the island. Seen from here, I could definitely see the resemblance.

    Ambrosia held my hand tightly, and brought me back to focus. We walked ahead to the floating island in the sky. I saw a priest, a peddler, and the cat from before. The others had already bought better weapons and gear than before, and seemed to believe they were about to fight at some point. Meanwhile, the priest accosted Ambrosia. “Pardon me,” he proselytized, “but have you been saved?”

    Ambrosia returned with a question of her own. “What''s this about?” The priest explained salvation, then led her to a big glowing circle, “Come sit here in this sacred circle, and I will work to save your soul.” He continued for a while, until... “There now. Whenever you find one of these circles, your soul will return to this location, and your body with it. The same goes for the rest of your group. You may even be able to set up some sort of tent within this circle.” Ambrosia shrugged and stepped outside of the circle.