The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 386 - Astral Scout In The Astral Bubble

Sevra took an unconscious step backward as her hand moved to her hidden blades. The thought actually hadn’t occurred to her because of how focused she was on the ’bigger threat’, but now... the man’s hand raised up in a fairly unoffensive gesture.

"This is what we call a common sense assessment. Recognition that a variable has given ranges is not any sort of proof that an intent exists within a system to force them toward one of those extremes."

Madrigil lowered his hand and started to step away again, to the proper distance away from people with metallic weapons on their person that he didn’t trust.

"To put it more ’psychologically’... capability doesn’t equal ’malicious’ purpose. You could easily kill people all the time, too. But I would assume you do not, because I have not seen it. Not that you cannot."

"But she’s... she’s an ancient cultivator. It’s different. The stories about what they specifically have done-"

"I’ve spent decades having people dismiss my work and call me mad because they couldn’t follow the reasoning I use. So if you’re looking for particular sympathy from me, you’ll find none - I actually identify more with your... improbable monster. Now, excuse me."

While he began to suddenly stare at the nearby ’graffiti’ carved arch, Sevra found herself looking at the array. Both of them staring at the sort of sigil working they could not really understand. One weighing it against what she’d been told so long ago about the reincarnator, what she’d seen herself these years...

And most of all, that small, buried part of her that kept thinking she deserved any terrible things that would happen to her... which so often amplified her fears and her paranoia. Eventually she spoke once more to the sigilist standing there trying to *understand* the effort an ancient mind had gone through.

’Looks nothing like art. There are patterns and structure, but not in the way of any sigilscript I’ve ever seen. It seems to have nothing powering it and no effect, but-’

"...You think I’m being unreasonable."

"I think you’re letting fear make decisions that logic should handle. She laid out her points and plans more honestly than most people I’ve dealt with, actually. Especially fellow nobles."

His assessment slapped back at her immediately, with no judgment in it. Just the observation he’d made. It actually felt wonderful to be so able to easily articulate his thoughts without his brain branching out toward tangents brought on by his Parallel Astralism.

"What if she’s... lying about everything? Using you as someone that seems reliable to trick me into this?"

"Then we’re already dead, aren’t we?"

He said it so matter-of-factly that Sevra could only blink. Finding a spot to pause in his attempt to decipher the grand-scale working, he turned toward the woman who he was starting to understand... was a pain in a researcher’s behind. Someone who asked questions, but didn’t seem to *try* and answer them herself!

"A simple Illusion making us think we were still breathing would suffice. We could be in a simulation heading towards any number of experimental ends. In which case, your choices and struggles don’t seem to matter much, do they?"

The viability of his suppositions was undeniable - and that made it worse. Sevra sank down onto a nearby flat rock and held her head in her hands. She wished someone would just speak with some sort of comfort she could believe... but that was clearly impossible in this situation.

"I don’t know how to stop being afraid."

"Perhaps stop trying to. That always worked for me."

Madrigil laid on the ground flat on his back while staring at the basalt arch from a new angle. He’d never paid that much attention to the geologists of his scholar compatriots, so how the great stone structure was originally formed was not of sudden interest. But the choices in exactly how it had been smoothed and the carved shapes in it now was - the perfective elements done for sigilry.

"Worked. Worked how?"

"Fear can be a useful biological imperative - it makes you cautious, observant. But when it prevents you from functioning entirely, it becomes a liability."

"You’re not afraid of her at all?"

"Terrified, but also fascinated. So I’m choosing the part that is more interesting. When was the last time you met someone who could teach you things you never imagined possible?"

He admitted cheerfully - but the casual admission of terror somehow made her feel less alone in it. Altogether it was probably the closest thing to a comforting statement she’d heard all day... that she could actually believe. Because it at least made sense that the other ’normal’ person here was scared of the situation. If she ignored everything else about how he was acting.

"She really just... left us alone?"

Sevra looked between the carved spiritual enhancing array and the cliff edge where Elua had disappeared minutes ago. Madrigil’s words echoed in her mind, his assertions that she was not using consistent logic. She picked up a small stone from the pile Elua had created during her carving work.

Her hand trembled only slightly as she tossed it into the center of the array and nothing happened. The stone landed with a soft click against the carved rock and rolled to a stop. A larger rock followed, also landing harmlessly within the boundaries.

"Rituals intended to connect to a cultivator spirit typically require an occupant beyond a sacrificial rock."

"I know that!"

She snapped at the man before crouching down well away from the edge of the circle. Extending one hand toward the boundary as if it was a lion’s mouth, the woman stopped just short of crossing the carved line. Her fingers hovered in the air as she tried feeling for any unusual sensations or energies.

But there was still just the ’regular’ abnormal density of essence that permeated the entire realm. Taking a deep breath, Sevra slowly moved her hand across the boundary. The moment her fingers crossed into the circle’s interior, she felt... something.

She jerked her hand back instinctively, then forced herself to be still. Nothing had grabbed her, her hand was still there, and nothing had tried to pull at and bind her spirit. It had just felt... different. Like the air had been drained of whatever quality was suppressing her essence field.

With a deep inhale, the scout stood and placed one foot across the boundary. The sensation traveled up her leg - a feeling of the limited essence inside becoming more malleable to her level of ability to control it. Before she could lose her nerve entirely, she stepped fully into the circle.

Sevra’s spiritual awareness immediately felt amplified in what seemed like a surpassingly ’quiet’ space... and her legs shook from the adrenaline running through her body. The scout quickly sank down cross-legged in the center of the array before she toppled over in relief.

"If this kills me..."

"I’ll make detailed notes about the process for future reference."

"That’s not reassuring."

She closed her eyes and reached for her Walk Astralism, expecting to endure the usual slow process of separating her spiritual form from its physical anchors. Instead, her consciousness simply... stepped out of herself like shrugging off its meat shell. Immediate, perfect disconnection that would have panicked her if she wasn’t *overwhelmed* in other ways.

The world - the Astral Exclave - blazed with the kind of clarity she’d never experienced. Every spiritual impression that pinged her Astral form came as if organized, prioritized, and filtered by way of some near perfect mental system that sorted irrelevant information out without discarding it entirely.

’Incredible...’

Her astral form felt almost solid, responsive to movements that usually required concentrating. She turned toward Madrigil, who sat watching her physical body with academic interest while palming a rock. He tossed it toward her and saw the sigils surge with a barrier that deflected it.

"Ah, so that’s what that part was. Went out of her way to protect you from me or other unknown attackers. Clever."

The probably still at least a little maddened noble looked toward where she was, though he couldn’t *exactly* see her. He waved with a smile then walked off towards the nearest surface of the arch.

’I really should keep more of an eye on him, shouldn’t I?’

Reluctant to leave her body sitting there alone, she tested how quickly she could move. In a heartbeat, she was at the location he was walking toward and she saw him slow down as he ’noticed’.

With her next thoughts, she was out in the air and looking seventeen hundred feet down. The enhanced spiritual sight pierced the normally light refractive an reflective cobalt waters like they were purest crystal. She could see all the way down to the lake bottom clearly.

And there, moving through the deep water was Elua er Goltbred. The reborn ancient wasn’t swimming so much as sliding through the liquid. With her Astralism engaged and enhanced, that silver dress glowed around her like the starfire of a white dwarf... not that the Primalist had ever seen one.

Even from this distance, Sevra could sense the casual mastery behind every gesture. Could feel how she was apparently treating the entire lake as her personal playground, detonating clusters of essence and spinning the water into an increasingly chaotic maelstrom. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

’No... now she’s reversing it all slowly. Each new movement is meant to counteract the forces around her. That... she would have to be seeing everything like I am now to do that, wouldn’t she?’

Shaking off that comparison and likelihood, the scout turned her attention to the broader landscape around them. Another thought sent her astral form racing across the valley at speeds that felt like a choppy dream. Terrain that would take hours to cross on foot flashed beneath her in minutes.

Rocky outcroppings, odd shaped trees, moving creatures, and clusters of those strange spiral flowers in patches of what might be arable soil. The information of it all flowed into her awareness without her even needing to stop and stare.

Water sources here, mineral deposits there, even areas where the essence flows created natural convergence points the likes of which would draw every Voidling if this were within their world. Everything was organized and memorable in ways that would have been impossible to her without the array.

’She made this... for me to use. Think of all the other things she could make for people. But she never has. Why? Because she doesn’t care about anyone? What about Qatrand...’

Instead of getting stuck on that and if the current expected hero was ’made’, she pushed further out... driven by curiosity and the intoxicating freedom and power of enhanced astral projection. She could easily maintain perfect connection to her body it seemed, no matter where in the realm she might go.

Tens of miles passed until she saw the patches of landscape that looked more barren and ’new’. Landscape began to curve upward in the distance against the inner sphere of pocket dimension boundaries. Shimmering like heat waves, was the chaotic distortion that marked the edge of stable space.

It writhed and twisted, reality becoming as uncertain at the edges as she’d felt about her own safety ever since they arrived here. After staring at it for minutes, she finally integrated that all of this was something that ’few’ had ever seen. Perhaps less people than currently existed in her home region had ever been in this place.

’And there are so many other places that are like this. That have never been seen by many. Maybe places that no one has ever seen... except a Divinity.’

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