Eldrid
The Realms
Fifthday, 2nd week of the 11th month, Age of the Chosen 1
Early Afternoon
Caellach Macht, Mistvale Highlands
The only thing that saved Eldrid from being flash-fried was the thickness of the ice around her. In the first heartbeat of Aidan's flashy battlefield spell, she felt several inches of the three-foot-thick barrier sublimate straight to steam. Eldrid focused on pulling the water back down into her impromptu igloo as Aidan's onslaught went on and on and on.
Then a fucking lightsaber plunged straight through her defense like it didn't exist. The first searing blue-white blade missed her by a hair's width, passing under her left arm. The second did not. Eldrid felt a tug, the tiniest hint of resistance, on her right wrist. Acting on instinct, she jerked her arm away. Then she stared at the stump on the end of it where her hand should be.
The pain hit her a split second later. Agony crawled up her arm and across her spine. Eldrid staggered, her whirling dance disrupted, her concentration hanging on by a thread. She curled up into a standing fetal position and clutched her arm to her belly as if the pain would stop. The two lightsaber-like blades crossed an inch above her head, her life saved only by her instinctive reaction.
This wasn't fun anymore. Eldrid was a sitting duck here. Her icy dome might be able to protect her from the inferno outside, but it didn't leave her much room to dodge physical attacks. Not for the first time, she regretted that her Vapor Form only transformed herself. Her enchanted equipment lay in a pile where she'd been when Aidan surprised her the first time. She wasn't confident it would have protected her from this new spell, but it couldn't have done worse than her bare skin.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Aidan better give the best fucking massages in the world. This is gonna hurt. Eldrid opened a hole in the ice and sprinted out of it. The protective spell melted back into water and covered her as she passed through, but not before the conflagration made its presence felt. A scream rose from her belly and out through clenched teeth. It felt like she was running through Satan's own fires. She could feel herself being cooked alive.
Knowing the lightsabers couldn't be far behind her, Eldrid offered a silent prayer to God and her Patron. Please let this work. Marshaling her tattered concentration, she threw herself into a front handspring. A one-handed front handspring, something she'd never had much reason to practice.
Between her pain, unfamiliarity with the motion, and inability to see through flames, Eldrid almost overshot the first block. However, desperation and long years of disciplined practice saved her, allowing her to correct for the bad angle. She launched into a shorter, tighter, more dangerous, but most importantly, still moving second handspring.
Then, as if in answer to her prayers, the fires around Eldrid died out. Once again able to see the ground in front of her, she landed one more handspring before launching into a twisting leap. The first rotation provided a fleeting glimpse of the battlefield. Still encased in his silvery defensive spell, Aidan stood out like a sore thumb—as did the two blades speeding toward her. She couldn't dodge or outrun them forever. It was time to bring out the big guns before Aidan managed to finish her off.
Eldrid gathered the thin layer of water around her and the billowing clouds of steam from the air and shaped them into long, thin threads. Then, she anchored one end of each to her body. As she spun, they followed, lashing out like a thousand near-monomolecular whips. Aidan's blazing swords—was that a third one now?—proved immune to the attack. For a heartbreaking second, Eldrid thought Aidan was as well. The first several dozen strands to connect with him fragmented upon contact.
Then the silver glow shattered, and Aidan's blood spurted from hundreds of cuts across his body. Eldrid couldn't maintain cohesion in watery tendrils this thin for more than a fraction of a second after they encountered resistance. It was still enough to carve inch-deep lacerations through Aidan's armor and into his flesh.
Eldrid landed poorly, a jolt traveling up her left leg and making her stumble. Heart in her throat, she spun to face the attack she knew was coming. Halfway through the turn, her leg gave out. Eldrid toppled to the ground face-first. She reached with her hands to arrest her fall, forgetting she was playing the part of Luke Skywalker at the end of Empire Strikes Back. The pain of her stump jamming against the hard-packed soil was a savage reminder.
Struggling through the agony, Eldrid raised her head to watch the attack that would spell her loss. Supine like this, there was no way to dodge all three of the swords. One would strike true. That would be the end of it. Nonetheless, even as she watched the three blades separate to hit from different angles, she struggled to her feet. In all her life, both here and on Earth, Eldrid never quit.
When retinal dystrophy claimed the last vestiges of her eyesight two months after her eighth birthday, Eldrid—Hazel, at the time—didn't cry. She'd known it was coming, already learned Braille and familiarized herself with autoreaders and text-to-speech tools. But, most importantly, Hazel enshrined the mental photos she took of her parents years prior when she learned that, one day, she wouldn't be able to make out their faces.
Blindness shaped Hazel's life, but it didn't rule her. She diverted the attention other children spent on visual media into other pursuits. The first four dance teachers her parents approached rejected them out of hand, unwilling to take on the extra work a blind student would require. It took six gymnastics schools across three cities and two states to find one who would accept her. The whole time, Hazel wasn't idle. She read books on the subject, sought out videos and podcasts to listen to, and taught herself the basics.
Hazel never excelled at either of her chosen disciplines. She was never the lead dancer or the premier tumbler. Her unfailing determination to succeed, however, meant she was far from the bottom. Hazel never won an event, but she had more silver and bronze medals and runner-up trophies by the time she started college than years of age.
At Tulane, pursuing degrees in dance and psychology, Hazel first encountered immersive virtual reality. Normal VR was of no interest to her since it relied on vision. IVR, however, bypassed the retina and acted on the brain itself. While nothing within the simulated worlds was real, it was still a transformative experience. Faced with the prospect of being able to see again, Hazel finally had a goal.
It took her a year after graduation to save up enough money to buy a top-end IVR rig and another six months to afford a more budget-oriented pair for her parents. That night she walked her parents through installing the units and software, running the launcher, and creating their avatars. When she logged in and saw their faces, the same as the ones she'd held in her mind's eye for almost twenty years, she couldn't hold back her tears.
Then came The Realms. Boasting a new level of sensory and kinesthetic fidelity and artificial intelligence, it proved irresistible to Hazel. She applied to the alpha test program and, when she received her copy, spent all her free time playing. She worked her way up from a newbie character with few skills to becoming a respected tradeswoman over an in-game year.
It was on a purchasing trip that joy turned to horror. It was always Eldrid's habit to switch her respawn point to the nearest one to her present base of operations. So when a local merchant she'd done business with before invited her to stay at his manor while she conducted her business, she accepted without putting much thought into it. Gorry never leered at or propositioned her like most other men she met, so Hazel felt comfortable in his presence. When his home registered as a spawn point, she thought it was the game's way of telling her it was a safe zone.
How wrong she was. Gorry turned out to be another Chosen, and his home was a trap for the unwary. He killed her the first night, swift and silent. When Eldrid woke up, the death notification came as a total surprise, but she had no chance to make sense of it. Gorry was there waiting, knife in hand.
The subsequent fight was short. Naked and disoriented, it only took a few seconds for Gorry to overpower and restrain Eldrid. He took his time with her then, torturing her in unspeakable ways. Never sexual, thank the Lord, but no less terrible for it. And yet, Eldrid never stopped fighting. Gorry killed her twice more with a special dagger granted to him by his Patron, each time siphoning some of her soul.
When she woke up for the third time, something inside her told Eldrid this was her last chance. If Gorry killed her again, she would stay dead. Spurred on by necessity, she struggled tooth and nail. The other Chosen seemed to revel in her resistance, cutting her several times in exceptionally painful ways that nonetheless left her able to continue to fight.
That proved to be his downfall when, in her desperation, Eldrid learned to Invoke spells. She used her own blood as a source and impaled her murderer on a dozen sanguine spikes. Then she wrenched the dagger from his grasp and stabbed him with it, once in the chest, then again under his chin.
Even with Gorry dead, Eldrid knew it wasn't the end. He would revive, just as she had. A small part of her wanted to do to him what he'd done to her. She might have if she wasn't afraid of him turning the tables on her. Instead, she worked through the night and the next morning, redirecting water from the nearby river to Gorry's manor.
Eldrid flooded the basement, where the murder chamber was, clear to the ceiling. Then she rusted the door's hinges and lock, hopefully trapping Gorry inside when he respawned. Next, she piled furniture against the door, just in case. Finally, she used water pressure to undermine the house's walls, collapsing the upper floors and leaving behind a pile of rubble housing what she hoped was Gorry's final, watery grave.
So, when Eldrid saw Aidan's three lightsabers start their swings, she didn't give up. Instead, she bent backward and twisted to the side, causing one to pass an inch above her nose and a second to burn a trench in the ground. The third plunged straight through her abdomen and out the other side. Eldrid tried to jump away, but her legs refused to cooperate. Her back hit the dirt a heartbeat later.
The pain was overwhelming. Her missing hand, scorched skin, and now severed spine. Tears sprang unbidden to Eldrid's eyes as she watched the blades swerve in the air above her. This was it. She was going to lose. Eldrid watched the bars of blue-white fire come for her, refusing to close her eyes. Aidan won fair and square. She wouldn't avert her gaze from his victory.
As she watched, the swords wobbled to a stop in mid-air, then vanished. Confusion reigned in Eldrid's mind. What happened? He'd better not be going easy on me. A moment later, the world around her shattered, and she found herself, armored once more, staring at an uninjured Aidan from across the dueling ring.
"And with Lord Aidan reduced to unconsciousness by blood loss, the winner is Captain Eldrid!" Valmai's exclamation washed over Eldrid. Her mind reeled at the sudden cessation of the various agonies inflicted on her during the duel. Aidan appeared the be suffering similarly, judging by the way he swayed on his feet.
Eldrid ignored the raucous crowd noise and walked over to Aidan, step by ginger step. Her brain was still screaming that she was paralyzed, while another part reminded her she'd sprained or broken her left leg. The paradoxical nature of those phantom complaints just made things worse.
When she reached Aidan, she pulled him into an embrace and rested her forehead against his. Eldrid stared into Aidan's eyes for a long moment, both of them panting with the effort to resist phantom pain. Finally, she mustered a grin. "I know you think you're hot stuff, Lord Aidan, but you should really be more gentle when you shove your sword into a girl."
Aidan's eyes widened at her joke. He let out a wheezing chuckle, then said, "I dunno, you seemed plenty wet to me."
Eldrid snorted out a laugh of her own. "Another myth. Water is a terrible lubricant. Believe me, I'd know." As it turned out, sex in a jacuzzi was a much worse idea than it sounded like.
They both laughed. Then Aidan's head tilted, and his lips pressed against hers. Caught up in the moment, adrenaline still pumping through her system, her body still telling her that she should be dead, Eldrid did not resist his touch. She opened her mouth with a needy moan. Their tongues met between their lips, fighting a miniature duel of their own.
Only the sound of Valmai repeatedly clearing her throat nearby brought Eldrid back to her senses. She jerked her head back and pushed off Aidan with her hands. Both hands, thank the Lord!
"What was it I said about exhibitions, Captain Eldrid?" Valmai's voice was dry as a desert.
"Yeah, yeah. No plan survives first contact with the enemy and all that," Eldrid responded. She took a step away from Aidan, shoving the feelings his hungry gaze brought forth into the back corners of her mind. "Vapor Form has its restrictions, and I'd have lost the duel then and there without it."
"I have to admit," came Aidan's wry response, "I didn't even realize you were naked until the very end. Something about us trying to kill each other distracted me." Golden truth flared around him.
"Oh?" Eldrid crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up and framing her exposed cleavage. As always, Aidan's eyes dipped to her chest and lingered for a moment, sending a warm surge through Eldrid. Seeing the effect she had on men never got old. "Such a shame. It might have been your only chance. Tragic to have squandered it so."
"You intend to be clothed when I give you your massage?" Aidan asked when his eyes returned to hers. He arched an eyebrow.
Eldrid smirked. "Maybe, maybe not. That's for me to know and you to anticipate." She took note of the way Aidan's nose flared and jaw clenched. Now, every time she mentioned it, he'd have to wonder just how much she'd let him see. It would be fun teasing him for the next few days before she let him off the hook.
"Now then," she continued, "I believe we need to clear the field for the next demonstration. I find myself desperately in need of another drink. Care to join me, my Lord?" Eldrid offered her hand to Aidan, who hesitated a moment before holding out his elbow for her to take hold of. How cute. He was still trying to resist her. That was a concern for tomorrow, however. Right now, she needed to forget how it felt to have third-degree burns over most of her body.
That was a sick fight. I ususally skip fight scenes but I was hooked here.
Not sure how Valmai had the balls to call her the victor. Even if he passed out first she was definitely going to die first if it was a real fight, especially with the big whole through her torso. Though he really didn't deserve the victory if he wasn't going to use his very viable life magic. His crown lets him use a spell from each school with no concentration cost if I am remembering correctly.
Very nice chapter. Guess her power/god doesn't offer extra lives. Though I think he should have dominated the fight more despite being fire versus water as a journeyman fighting an apprentice. Maybe she should be journeyman rank too? Her magic was pretty impressive where his biggest spells were fire/life combo, which two schools together are supposed to be stronger according to Allis.
No, Eldrid won 100%, though it was a thoroughly pyrrhic victory. Aidan bled out from literal hundreds of inch-deep cuts across his whole body. He would have been completely exsanguinated within a minute if it weren't for the dueling ring Talent.
Eldrid's injuries weren't directly life threatening (although 3rd degree burns will get that way left untreated). She lost a hand and had a half-inch wide hole through her chest, but in both cases, the wounds were cauterized by the attack that made them.
As for Aidan's healing magic, he didn't have time to cast them or for them to matter. Patch Wounds is too tiny to matter in this case, Pulse of Life takes 10 seconds to cast, and Summon Golden Fawn takes 30 seconds to cast. If he'd pre-cast them, Pulse of Life would've drained all his stamina, and the fawn would've been killed long before Aidan took any real damage.
Eldrid definitely received extra lives. Gorry killed her more than once.
Regarding their relative skill ranks and single vs multischool spells, Phoenixfire Conflagration forced Eldrid to use (in MMO terms) an emergency cooldown. Aidan, for the most part, used his magic like hammers, direct and to the point with little variation, while Eldrid was more creative and adaptable. Something that isn't obvious, but isn't a spoiler, is that Eldrid only cast two different spells in that whole fight. Vapor Form protected her from the first Conflagration, and everything else she did was a result of using another single spell in creative ways. She didn't even show off any Sanguimancy (blood magic) since she wasn't bleeding.
Eldrid has almost 5 years of experience over Aidan. The only reason their levels are comparable is the enormous amounts of XP Aidan got from the Battle of Ceallach Macht and killing the Primeval of Decay. He has more, and more overtly powerful spells than she does, but Eldrid has has years to experiment and gain expertise with hers.
@Zurai I don't know if you are into metaphysics but it is perfectly in line for fire to be like a sludge hammer and water to be fluid and adaptable, but I don't think you are really appreciating the amount of damage the fire sword going through her chest would cause. If it was hot enough to destroy her spine in less than a second, her lungs, heart, blood vessels are fried and her blood is boiled. The damage he caused her is no joke, she was as good as dead.
What I meant by her not getting extra lives was that, Aidan was able to buy an extra one for points, other than the apparently 4 you start with if I count that she died 3 times and her sixth sense told her this was it.
Still I knew he should have leveled more than sex.
I made a comment a while back about a typo, where Allis said she knew about 6 schools of his, but she actually knew about 7, you never responded or edited it so I don't know if you saw it or not? Either way, your work is one of the highest quality on royalroad or scribbblehub.
@leiowl2 Luke's blood didn't boil when Darth Vader cut his hand off, and neither did Eldrid's here. To put it another way, physics is a house rule when magic is in play. In this case, the spell causes very tightly localized heat.
Re: extra lives: You're assuming everyone gets the same number of lives to start with ;)
Do you remember which chapter that was in? I'll go back and look at it and add it to my master list of corrections to be made if needed.
@Zurai Well if a bit of lukes blood boiled in his arm down by his wrist which wouldn't have any extreme arteries it probably wouldn't kill him. But Quigon Jin definitely died from Darth Maul's thrust. I mean burning your lungs, heart, and diaphragm, while severing and boiling major arteries and veins is a big deal, but who am I to argue with magic?
Re: Re: extra lives: Why you sneaky little...
It was chapter 50. I wrote the explanation of why she definitely knew about all seven of his schools there.
@leiowl2 The prequels don't exist in this timeline
More seriously, Qui-Gon lived for a while after being stabbed and was able to speak to Obi-Wan. Not really indicative of having his blood boiled away, lungs scorched to uselessness, and heart exploded.
I'll add 2/50 to my list of chapters to update when I have time to do an editing/revision pass, thanks.