AETHER BEASTS

Chapter 241

I raised an eyebrow and leaned back as my instincts sounded a minor alarm. That smile was full of malice, though from her thoughts I could see that whatever this idea was it wouldn't actually hurt or kill me. I wish I knew what it was, but she was blocking that from me, most likely because she wanted to see me sweat.

Too bad for her.

"Have you forgotten what you put me through?"

My voice was cold and soft, but the lost queen's smile faded somewhat, and I could feel an emotion rise in her. It wasn't guilt, but something similar, though it felt more like she was sorry because it inconvenienced her at this point and not because she actually cared about how it had affected me.

"What's the idea," I said, wanting to move away from the topic. This was the second time today it had been brought up, and if it happened again, my mood would deteriorate.

"It would involve me taking a hold of your mind and making a few tweaks so that sensing the power is easier."

"And there is no other way?" I questioned, not wanting to give her even the slightest bit of control over any part of my body for even a second.

"There is, but they would take longer and some are riskier," she replied.

"I have time," I said, not knowing how they could possibly be riskier than giving control of my mind to someone who would gladly kill me if they could

I wasn't in a huge rush and if taking longer meant I wouldn't have to let her take control then so be it. Even if she swore on her soul not to do anything to harm me, I wouldn't trust her. I didn't know her full capabilities and putting my mind in her control sounded like a terrible idea. It sounded like a foolish mistake.

"Fine," she said with a small shrug of one shoulder. "Your loss. The first inferior method would be meditation and trying to sense the power naturally. It is the slowest method, but it has no risks, and can have other benefits."

"How long would it take?"

"A couple of years," Aneva answered. "Though it would take longer for you since you would need to learn how to meditate correctly and when I say meditate, I don't mean in an arcane way. I mean actual meditation."

"Ok, so meditation is the first, What's next?"

"The next would be to shock the power into action," Aneva explained. "But this would require something similar to what happened the first time. I would need to flood you with power and hope your bloodline reacts which will give you a better chance to sense it."

I let out a breath at the thought of feeling such pain again, and I fought back the wave of negative emotions that wanted to overwhelm me.

Aneva must have known what I was thinking as she shook her head. "It can be done in such a way that you feel no pain. It would feel uncomfortable, and odd, but not painful."

I nodded but decided to see what other options there were first before I decided on anything.

"Lastly would be soul manipulation," Aneva said and this time her voice held no hint of anything and her eyes were serious. "This is the most dangerous way as one mistake could lead to severe damage. The soul is everything you are and have been. Every experience, thought, memory, and action. A mistake could lead to you losing engrained instincts or years' worth of memories or a fate worse than death, non-existence."

Which meant the best options were meditation and trying to shock the power into action.

"We'll try meditation and the shocking," I said. "I'm sure there are techniques, elixirs, and pills that can help with that."

Aneva's next words sounded like they pained her and she had to force them out. "I can help you with the meditation if you like. I am master when it comes to the mind and body."

"I don't want to give you control," I said.

"You wouldn't be," she said. "It would be like the mindscape I put you in before, but different. I would place your mind into a state that will help you focus on yourself and cut out distractions. I would… guide you and push you back if you strayed."

"You'd do that?" I found it hard to believe.

She gritted her teeth and smiled, though it was clearly forced. "I would."

I was about to suggest we start now when Aneva's head snapped to the left and her eyes grew distant. I was immediately on alert and turned to face the same direction.

"What is it?"

I could her confusion and shock through the bond which was not something I had felt from her since our clash and her subsequent bonding to my second core.

"Someone's using horror aether," she muttered but then frowned. "And another energy form. It's faint, very, very faint, but it's there."

"Who?"

"They're shielded." Her eyes narrowed. "That's against the accords…"

Her words trailed off and she shook her head in what seemed to be disbelief.

I tried to get a sense as to what was happening from her thoughts, but there were for the first time, a mess and muddled. I caught a few stray thoughts about vampires, some odd runes, and also pain. She was in pain, deep pain. Then her thoughts just cut off, a mental grunt sounded before walls slammed down blocking the stray thoughts from reaching me.

"Aneva. What's going on?" I spoke in a firm tone that finally caught her attention.

She turned to me with a frown, and I could see she was holding back the pain from showing. "Someone in this expedition is playing with forces beyond their comprehension and power well beyond their means."

"Is it someone involved with the parasite?" I asked.

She tilted her head slightly. "It doesn't seem so, but I could be… wrong."

The word seemed painful for her to say and she said it as though she had spoken it in such a way before.

"It's fading rapidly." She stood and a look of indecision came across her face before she spoke. "You need to find out who's responsible for this and stop them or else none of you are going to make it out of this desert."

I shook my head. "You're going to need to explain further."

"I can't," she said with a grimace and I was about to argue when I realized what she had said.

"Won't or can't?"

She shook as though she was struggling against invisible restraints. "Can't. All I can say is that you need to stop them."

With that, she vanished back into her core, and without another word blocked herself off from me.

"What in the world?"

_____

Halfway across the camp in a small vehicle covered in odd symbols and heavy enchantments of unknown origin, the alchemist who went by the name Dylan cursed as the test rig he had set up failed for the third time.

The horror aether wasn't melding correctly with runes etched into dark material he was using as a substitute for the actual material he'd be using when the time came to perform the ritual for real and he wasn't able to use enough of the energy. He didn't have enough of the chalk-white metal to use it for testing. The dark stone which he had hastily made was all he had to use and it seemed it wasn't as good as he had expected.

He was only testing one part of the ritual on a small scale and though it had been failure after failure, he was confident when he tried the real thing, he could do it. He'd done of the journey to the plains and he'd improved since that crude attempt.

He picked up the empty aether cell which had contained a decent amount of horror aether and flung it away. He could reuse the cell, but he didn't really need to as he had plenty.

He wished he could say the same about the other. The energy cells for the other form of energy that would be used in the ritual were in a lower amount and he needed to be careful how he used them. He had only used a small amount for this test, and he now realized there was no point in that. Unless he used the correct amount, things wouldn't progress to the second stage, which was ok for now.

He wouldn't need that until the real thing anyway.

Smiling as he thought about the future, Dylan couldn't help but glance at the image that was projected onto one of his workshop walls. It was a marvel, plain and simple and far beyond anything of this world he knew. Whoever had created this had been of a level far higher than all but a few people of this world, and this was just some research notes and a clear hastily cobbled together idea.

It had taken years of work for him and his fellows of the Philosophers Tower to get to the point they were and he was honored he had been chosen for this task, and though they'd been forced to work with the vampires, in the end, it would be most beneficial for them.

Speaking of the vampires, Dylan had to test the other set of runes. As he prepared everything he kept in mind that it would all soon be worth it.