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Abbey House Dining Hall | 5:23 AM | Third Day
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very quickly - maybe 3 minutes passed at most, and none of us, even Linos, really knew what we were doing. It''s easy to be rational when you''re somewhere safe, alone and comfortable, with time to think... But human beings are creatures which are apes first and logic engines second. Unless you train yourself otherwise or have a strict plan in mind, if your fight-or-flight instincts kick in, it''s already over.
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shit!" Ezekiel exclaimed, as he was cut off. Ophelia let out a gasp of shock, and Mehit practically lurched backwards, gripping Lilith by the shoulder, who screamed. I felt Ran grab my arm and pull me towards the table.
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what?"
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this!" she protested. Even when Ran shouted, it wasn''t quite a shout. It was more like she just spoke up very, very aggressively.
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Moment-Emulating Arcana, but I''m not seeing anyone out there."
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They cast something that complicated without even speaking? No way.
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Moment-Emulating Arcana was an advanced Divination technique that collected a large amount of information from the surrounding area in order to grant the caster a vision of a certain action they intended to take, though only for a few seconds into the future, as the eris cost became exponentially greater as the artificed scenario became more and more complicated. Still, it was incredibly advanced for people our age. The mathematics required not to instantly drain your scepter dry was intense even by my standards, and the conceptualization aspect in particular was tremendously difficult to master.
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Life-Sensing Arcana from memory, and suddenly I remembered that I had one that was suitable, too. Before anyone realized I was being an idiot, I started incanting.
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D e a t h - S e n s i n g
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flash like that," Ezekiel exclaimed, his cheeks growing red as he became flustered. "It was obviously an attack. Don''t start relaxing-- They could be on us any second!"
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Linos''s, probably, my brain reminded me. Remember, he said he had one on him.
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that''s certainly a thing," Fang muttered, fishing it out.
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What?
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Death-Sensing Arcana to check if we were being tricked. Fang took the pistol with us, keeping it pointed well away from anyone, and we collectively shot back out the room and through the hallway. Linos and I lowered our barriers as we shot through the door, and he brought his back up in a flash.
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World-Deafening Arcana, or something more obscure. It was muted, and not in a manner that natural, like we were only hearing half of the resonance of what should of been there. It sounded as though it was coming from a broken set of speakers. (Well, I wasn''t sure I''d ever actually heard sound from a broken set of speakers, since they''d been largely phased out by logic bridges since before I was born and lacked the nostalgic value of phonographs, but this was what I imagined that''d sound like.)
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hadn''t realized, amidst everything that taken place in the past couple of minutes.
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No... This is impossible. His barrier had covered the whole area. Hadn''t it?
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Object-Manipulating Arcana, sliding the lock back.
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How had it got locked to begin with?
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painful, like he was trying to cry out at the same time. Mercifully, it didn''t hit either of us, but I still instinctively flinched backwards, ending up edging a little closer to the kitchen door.
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look at me!" Seth said, taking hold of his face. Some of the others begun to approach too, Ptolema looking taken aback.
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That can''t be Baridya, my mind told me.
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After all,
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Bardiya has a face.
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thing I was seeing... The object-that-wasn''t-Bardiya... Something had happened to everything above its neck.
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like it had been ripped away by a wild beast. In fact, it lay in pieces around the surrounding area, the floor soaked in blood and viscera. I could see muscle, and worse, raw bones beneath, in some places shattered. The jaw had cracked, and part of it had come loose, the teeth cracked through their structure and splintering out like chunks of wood in a sheet hit by a hammer. One crack ran up to the cheekbone, and above that, I could see the socket where an eyeball had once resided, with all that remained now being a crushed mess...
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At least, on one side. On the other, it was still intact, and this was even worse. Because seeing it there, framed by the last lingering section of skin on the face, its dark brown iris staring emptily into nothingness, shattered any illusion that what I was seeing wasn''t a face. And the feeling that ran through my body was like nothing I''d ever experienced.
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My grandfather died, I''ve often had very vivid dreams, especially when sleeping at times or places that I normally don''t. Honestly, I''d expected to have nightmares every night I stayed in the sanctuary, so it''d been a pleasant surprise to have merely slept badly on the first day. Maybe that note had done me a favor, getting me so worked up that I couldn''t drift back into the more shallow slumber that comes with trying to force your body to rest against it''s impulses.
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feeling in the background, but other times there would be distinct visual components. Sometimes the sky would be black and starless, while on other occasions the ocean would be gone or strange somehow - clumpy, sometimes, like congealing blood, even though it was still blue. There were sometimes grotesque sights interspersed about, images taken from life or produced by my subconscious or childhood imagination. In this case, a mountainous version of Bardiya''s face from a moment ago hung in the background, and I tried awkwardly not to look at it.
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"I hate you so much."
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"Liar. Thief. Murderer."
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"I wish I''d never even spoken to you. To think something like this could''ve happened... What a horrible mistake..."
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"Stop walking on those feet. Stop feeling things with that skin. Stop breathing the air with that mouth."
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"What makes you think you have the right to live like this? It''s so cruel. It''s revolting."
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"Just die. Please, just die..."
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genuinely mature (as opposed to the broken facade of maturity that most adults are forced to make do with)... Can weigh them against the their happy memories and the wider context of a meaningful life, and find true, permanent acceptance, weaving the pain into a constructive part of themselves. Like the tale of the fairy who spun straw into gold.
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was worse. What I feared more than anything was looking back at both those wonderful, shining memories... And the agony afterwards, and the awfulness of my sin... And not having any particular response. To try and call to mind either the beautiful, soaring hope and love I''d felt, and the crushing, unspeakable grief of its loss... And find only a vacuum.
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was how I actually felt more often than not. That, too, was a reason I didn''t want to look. But still, I looked.
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want that aren''t obscenely expensive."
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Oh, that''s right, I thought. I did ask him about it, didn''t I...? But he gave me a vague answer, or something. And I wasn''t really interested...
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exactly ''throw me out''. They held a vote, but... It was more that the atmosphere just became too cold to bear. You could say that I couldn''t go to meetings without worrying that someone was going to push me down the stairs." He chuckled again, though a little more sadly. "As for why it happened, I suppose it was to do with a disagreement about the order''s purpose."
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universal cure''. A treatment for every conceivable ailment of the body. ...however, ''universal'' can be applied in another way than just ''in regard to everything''. If you use it as you would ''universe'', it can instead be interpreted to mean ''pertaining to the world''."
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Su... I heard.
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C''mon Su.
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had been friends. We''d talked a lot, worked together often, even hung out every so often. And now he, like Neferuaten, was gone. And I knew that every time I thought of him again, I''d only be able to see that awful scene.
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