Reunion With Lucidna

I walk into the Figment Library for the first time in a very long while. Even though it's been nearly three weeks though, I can successfully navigate it like the back of my hand. It isn't very long at all before I walk into the basement area that Lucidna and I usually work.

"Lucidna, I'm back." I say as I walk over to her desk.

She's reading a book when I call out to her, and she looks up at me, the most surprised I've ever seen her. Of course, Lucidna often doesn't often show much emotion other than annoyance, so "most surprised I've ever seen her" really just amounts to her opening her eyes really wide and staring at me for a few seconds.

"Ah, Azariah, you're finally back. What's more, you don't seem to have any injuries. That's good, when I heard that the situation was bad enough that the king sent Cherilyn and my teacher, I was very worried about you."

"Huh?" I accidentally say. "You were worried about me?" I carefully string together.

"Of course I was, I'm not a sociopath. Now, getting to the first order of business, those dreams you were having. I did quite a bit of reading and even met with Arcana Iryis over the matter. Apparently, those dreams you were describing match perfectly with a spirit of death known as "Ctothis."

I did quite a lot of digging to figure out everything I could about that entity and why it would take interest in you of all people. There's much I can't say out in the open like this, but from all that I read about its personality, I doubt that it's particularly nefarious. I just can't figure out for the life of me why it would seek out you, specifically."

Lucidna's knowledge about Ctothis surprises me at first. But then I realize just how deep she would have had to dig for all of that information, and she did it specifically to keep me safe. Does Lucidna actually care about me? Well, I know she does, but I never thought that she'd go to such lengths.

"Lucidna, thank you… but… well…"

"Well what? Go on, spit it out, I don't have all day."

"Um… I knew that… I have that connection. With her." I say, unsure whether or not I said that grammatically correctly.

"What? Ah, um, so you did? Enough to refer to it as "her." There's clearly some context I'm missing. Please, fill me in."

"Well, um…"

"What's wrong?"

Instead of saying anything, I just gently hold out the frozen, broken remains of my communication orb out to Lucidna for her to see.

"What? How? How did that even happen? What in the world did you do to pull that off?" Lucidna sounds actually, legitimately confused, which is weird to be hearing from her.

"I didn't do it!"

"Shh!" Aah, it's been a while since Lucidna's done that to me too.

"If it isn't your fault, then explain how it ended up like this. It obviously didn't just randomly go from perfectly functioning to whatever state this is one day."

"Um… I'm worried… I'll mess up." I say. I doubt anyone other than Lucidna could have figured out what I was talking about from that.

"You should be at a point where that shouldn't be an issue. You already know Axinsiya, you shouldn't even be using that thing at this point." Ahhh, Lucidna's glaring at me again too… I didn't miss this.

"I'm sorry." I say.

"Whatever." Lucidna stands up and grabs my ear. "I'll just have you keep talking with me constantly until the last of your mistakes are ironed out. Now come here."

Lucidna proceeds to drag me by my ear into her office and shoves me onto one of the chairs. She sits down at her desk and closes her hands as she stares me in the eye.

"Explain, in detail, just how the entire trip went, from start to finish, in a professional tone. I'll correct any mistakes. Now start talking."

Lucidna's glaring at me, so I start talking as soon as I can, but I start stumbling over my words very quickly. She tells me to slow down, and I start making pretty decent progress after that, not making many mistakes that Lucidna has to go out of her way to correct. Sometimes it does take me too long to string words together to maintain an actual conversation though.

I leave out only being able to feel arousal in the land after death, as well as lusting after Cesre and Freware while we were bathing. Other than that though, I try my best to tell her everything.

Eventually, I reach the part where I got stuck in that cave for a week. I talk about how I got chased out by a bunch of flaming beetles, and how I escaped them. I explained my basic survival strategies and getting chased by that weird rock and vine monster.

After that are the crystals, which causes Lucidna to react in surprise for a brief moment. Then I continue with all the amazing things that I saw in the cave until I get to the whole fight with the wyvern. It's a bit difficult for me to talk about that, and Lucidna seems to notice that too as she tells me to hurry up a lot less.

I admit blasting the wyvern's head off despite not knowing what it had said to me. Then the ice and vine monsters, and "Thrill on Death's Edge." When I get to that point it becomes noticeably more difficult for me to say what had happened.

I wind up glossing over all its effects as well as the other spells I made with Ctothis' connection. When I get to the situation with Olen, I just tell Lucidna he was a follower of Vincent Boreas, and that we all worked together to defeat him. I just tell her I had gotten so hurt during the whole thing that everyone decided to give me the full bounty and needed Cherilyn to heal me.

"I… I see…" Lucidna still shows no emotion on her face, but her voice sounds full of concern.

"Judging from all you've said about this Olen character, he seemed to just be working for Boreas to kill and to feed. Yetis, while somewhat civilized, tend to be closer to beasts than actual people. Most of Boreas' followers are not like that.

They are driven for purposes and dreams; they believe with all their soul that Vincent Boreas is the only one who can fulfill those dreams. You say this man ran away the moment his life seemed in true danger, most of his followers would instead struggle to the bitter end.

I've seen it with my own eyes, men, women, children all fighting, grinding their bodies and souls to dust to the very end all for the sake of their stupid dreams that that disgusting piece of trash promised to fulfill. In all likelihood, in the unfortunate scenario where you come against another of his followers, they will fight until their last dying breath, hooked on dreams that will never come true.

From what you told me, running away did not seem like an option, so I don't fault you for staying, but if there is ever a next time, please run away. It is not shameful to struggle to live another day, and anyone who says otherwise should stab their throats out before they speak another word."

Lucidna looks so… angry. Like, actually pissed. That last part too… even for Lucidna that's really cruel…

"Anyway, judging from what you said alone, up into the situation with that man's follower, you seemed to do adequately. It just seems to me like you could have flown away the whole time but chose to stay with the others? Why did you make that decision?"

Oh, we're back to normal now? Even for you, such a switch seems really extreme… "Um… I was offered, but I couldn't. If they had died because I ran away… I would have survived, but… I don't think I would have lived…"

"I see…" Lucidna closes her eyes and- eh?! I see Lucidna doing something so shocking, it rocks me to my very core. She's smiling! What?! How?! It looks so gentle too! Since when was this an expression she could make?!

"What are you looking at?" And just like that Lucidna suddenly switches back to an annoyed glare when she notices me staring at her in shock.

"Lucidna… were you just smiling?"

"I most certainly was not. Now, there's something I want to get out of the way before we start discussing Ctothis. You mentioned crystals that absorbed the fire you made with Florian's connection, right? You also mentioned taking a bunch of smaller pieces with you. Do you have them on you?"

"Oh, yes… I do." I reach into one of my pockets and put the small piles of crystals I got onto the desk.

Lucidna goes to pick up one of them, and eyes it very closely. She goes to hold up her other hand to it, and I instinctively activate Mana Detection. She prepares a very small amount of mana at the tip of her finger with a connection to Adad. A shock runs into the crystal, which causes it to glow. Mana Detection picks up the spark being contained within the little crystal.

"It's as I thought. These are crystals of manatite. They're often used to store spells to be used for later. Imagine firing several wind blades into these things, and setting them off all at once. That's essentially what they're used for."

"Eh?!" That gives me an idea! "Then… could I cool things down with them with a connection with Beira?"

"I'm not sure why that's the first thing that appears in your mind when told about such a viable resource, but yes, that would be something you can do."

Yes! I found a way to survive the summer without having a panic attack every 5 seconds!

"Of course, you could also sell them, they would make quite a bit of money if you approached the right buyer."

"Absolutely not."

"Well, that wasn't exactly unexpected. Now, Ctothis… you skimmed over it a lot, exactly what spells have you created with its connection?"

"Um, well… it might be better to show you…"

"Ugh, fine. Go ahead."

"Um, you have to start casting a spell for this one to work…" Lucidna raises her eyebrow. "You have connections with Archons other than Adad, right?"

"I have connections with all the Archons, although I rarely use most of them."

"Um… just make a spell with any of them. It should work."

"Alright then." I hone Mana Detection in on Lucidna. She pours mana out from her soul making use of a connection with Kari. I feel the mana slowly form into a windblade.

"You're making a windblade." I say, before it can actually appear in any physical space. I'm shocked to see Lucidna's jaw hang open for a brief moment. Like Lucidna, she proceeds to switch to her normal expression as good as instantly.

She dispells the mana in the wind blade and switches connections. "An icicle." I say as I sense the mana forming.

She does this again.

"A small lightning bolt."

"Manipulation of the ground under me."

"Some sort of… I don't quite recognize this, but it's definitely one of Adad's spells…"

"Aah… Lucidna, I know we're practicing, but please don't gather the mana to cover the entire room in fire, even if you don't intend to fire the spell. I might actually have a heart attack…"

"Amazing." She says. "Actually, absolutely amazing…" She looks actually stunned. I wasn't expecting her to be so obsessed with Mana Detection… I honestly don't know how to handle this.

"That spell… with a Death Spirit? How? How does it work?" She looks… like she's actually interested. Actually, incredibly interested. Lucidna can get like this? How do I interact with her when she's like this?

"Um… look into my soul…" I say. Lucidna switches back to the normal glare immediately.

"You made changes to your soul? For a novice that's incredibly dangerous." She says in a very heavy tone of voice, getting her point across easily.

"Aah! I didn't make any changes to my soul! I just added stuff around it!" I say, desperately trying to get Lucidna to stop being annoyed at me.

"Is that so then?" She proceeds to get up from her desk and walk over to me. She then… looks right down at my boobs. I instinctively try and cover myself.

"You… even as a woman you shouldn't stare like that…"

"I'm looking into your soul, idiot, you were the one who told me to do that. I don't care in the slightest about the useless flesh sacks on your chest."

Huh… you know if you say it like that it's actually quite disparaging…

"What? Is that how you did it? But that's so much higher than your skill level… did that spirit's connection do that?" I just nod my head.

"Amazing… but what does this other one do? Um…" Lucidna looks a bit worried, which really scares me. Just what would make her worried? "Prepare yourself. This isn't going to hurt a bit, but it isn't exactly going to be pleasant either."

I desperately try to string together the equivalent of "What are you doing?" in Axinsiya, before Lucidna reaches down to my chest and touches it with several fingers. Before I can even feel embarrassed at being touched in such a way, I'm struck with a familiar feeling.

I feel all my autonomy wrestled away from me. It feels like I'm submerged in water, except a bit better than from when Ctothis did it. With Ctothis, it felt like I was in the ocean just deep enough to only barely see the light, but now that Lucidna's doing it, it feels like I'm in the shallows, just inches away from getting my nose and mouth over the surface but still being unable to move.

Maybe from a certain point of view this is worse, because with Ctothis, I knew absolutely that no matter how much I struggled, I'd never be able to break free of her control. With Lucidna it honestly seems that if I really tried, I might have a chance at wrestling autonomy back from her.

It isn't long before I feel my soul switching from Mana Detection to Location without my permission. I feel it fire mana from my soul without my permission. I feel it sense the incoming mana, but I don't get the image uploaded to my brain, it goes somewhere else.

As soon as that's over, Lucidna gives me my autonomy back and I fall to the floor, gasping for whatever air I can. I desperately frail my arms and legs to prove to myself that I can move them again.

"Amazing… an image of all your surroundings delivered directly to the brain… How did you even think of that, much less figure out how to do it?" Lucidna says while I'm still choking on my own air.

"Asshole! Ctothis at least warned me!"

"What? That Death Spirit possessed you?"

"Yes… just to heal me once…"

"It seems you left quite a bit out of your explanation earlier. Anyway, what I did just now was less possession than it was suppression. The effect is generally the same, but the cause is rather different. You should be able to tell the difference from the name alone."

"It still felt like I was drowning."

"Drowning? Is that what it's like for you?"

"Yeah… What about you?"

"Like being stuck in a dark field, the moment I move a muscle or even blink, I'll be torn apart by monsters I had no chance of knowing were there."

O- oh…

"Anyway, I owe you an apology. Forcing someone's autonomy away from them is just about the worst thing that you can do to a person, and I did so anyway because I couldn't keep my patience in check. For that, I'm sorry."

"Apologizing? You can do that?"

"If you're in a well enough mental state to be talking like that, you're clearly fine. Now get up as soon as you can. Before we talk about making your spells stronger, are you aware of the basic anatomy of the soul?"

"Um… no, not really." I say as I stand up.

"Here." Lucidna pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil from her desk. In the center of the paper, she starts doodling on it really hard until a small, black blotch has appeared.

"In all humans, and the vast majority of other creatures, this is the center of the soul. Your darkest desires, your instinctual urges, they all come from here. Hunger, arousal, jealousy, rage, they all originate here as responses to your environment for the sole sake of keeping you alive and producing children to keep alive."

Lucidna moves on, drawing a many pointed star shape around the blotch. "This is your higher thought. Everything you think of when asked about what's necessary for civilization happens here. Planning, restraint, judgment, decision making, math, creativity, all come from here. It exists as a natural extension of the darkest recesses of your soul."

Lucidna shades in the area around the star shape in a weird, uneven blob. "This is your life force. This is where your memories are stored onto your soul, and the very foundation of the soul itself. It can be used as a source of mana, but if it runs out, your soul comes undone like a knot and completely disintegrates."

"Uh…. that's like… much worse than I thought it was…"

"That's because it is. As life goes on, your life force dwindles away slowly. Life usually ends when it is about to run out, but not quite. Certain conditions can cause it to be whittled away to the last ounce though. Alzheimer's, for example. It's also of course possible to spend all of it as mana."

"And… what's the difference between dying with life force left… and without it?"

"Let's see? Do you remember what Ctothis' job was? Now… is there any way for it to do its job if the soul itself has been completely disintegrated?"

That realization shocks me to my core. I'm sure that Lucidna sees the color draining from my face.

"No afterlife, no reincarnation, just nothing. Actual, true death, with no hope for reversal. All traces of a person's spiritual existence, just gone, reduced to nothing but spare mana."

I actually start to feel a bit queasy.

"In addition, all memories that are lost through excessive life force decay are permanently lost. No magic to my knowledge currently exists to bring those back. Reversing the flow of time might do so, but to my knowledge there is no spell in existence capable of creating such an effect."

"Ahh… how terrifying…"

"Yes. I'm a proponent of struggling to the last breath. Kill myself or serve as someone's slave? I'd simply bow my head down. Death or keep fighting after my limbs are shredded? I'll simply use my teeth. Even then however, if faced with the dillema of suicide vs. a fate like that, I would not hesitate to choose the former."

"I… I actually agree with you…"

"Good, I would not mind talking about it some time, but I'd rather move onto your spells and get away from such a depressing topic. So, Azariah, this is a diagram of your soul. The white areas on the edges will be your mana, and off the page will be those charms you set around your soul. Now, with that in mind, where on this diagram do you think connections are formed?"

Huh? There's an actual, physical place where the connection is? Why haven't I detected this yet? Um… where would it be, though? It obviously isn't outside, or in the mana capacity. That just leaves three options…

I lean over and point to the higher thinking part of the soul.

"Well, you're half right. The answer is actually higher thinking and/or base desires. At the end of the day they are both two sides of the same coin and therefore interchangeable."

"Then… just where are my connections?"

"It's too small to see without enhancing my vision in some other way. I seriously doubt you have any spells that would be able to check that too. Depending on your external environment and what you're using the spell for the connection can drift between either or."

"And what's the difference between the two?"

"Spells made from the recesses of your soul tend to be more simplistic and powerful, while spells made from your higher thought tend to be much more complicated. While I said that they're too small to see, I was able to feel them when I was suppressing your soul."

"Does that mean you're able to tell me?"

"Yes, and all your connections. There's Kari and Ctothis, obviously, but there's also Adad, Florian, and Beira now… Your one with Adad seems to be really used as well."

"I mentioned gaining all those connections, well… except for Beira…"

"Yes, what's more is that your mana capacity has increased extensively since the last time we met. You remember how your mana capacity grows, correct?"

"Yes, by constantly using mana, it will grow over time."

"Yes, but stress also comes into play. Using mana in high stress situations to avoid death or grave injury will cause it to grow faster. For example, using it so sparingly that you're always above half capacity in a situation like yours would cause it to grow faster than if you sat in your room all day, constantly blowing wind until it ran dry again and again."

"I see… that makes sense… is that a response to keep the owner of the soul alive?"

"Surprising, you actually figured out that much. Yes, and because of that your mana capacity has grown significantly. Most of it over that one week, definitely. Now, to be clear, I am not telling you to put your life in danger for the sake of growing stronger, I am simply noting a fact of the matter so that you are aware of it."

Lucidna grows unusually serious at that last sentence. It's enough to get me to shake and sweat. How terrifying.

"Some soldiers working for Pitiful Girl indulge in such a practice, and it's quite barbaric, please do not end up like them."

"Yes ma'am."

"Good, now let's move onto your spells under that Death Spirit. That spell that sends images of your surroundings into your head, what do you call it?"

"Um… Mana Location."

"Right, so it works by sending out a small yet steady stream of mana out from your soul and that layer of mana around your soul detects it coming in, forms an image based off of how the mana wound up hitting it and sends it directly to your brain. Is that correct?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Right, so my first recommendation is to stop with the steady stream of mana and instead imagine many, long, energized spears of mana. This will change the image into less of a complete image and instead an assortment of dots, but it should still be navigable and get across a fatal flaw I realized when using it. I'm sure you realized it too."

"Mana interference?"

"Yes, the spears of mana should be able to pierce through manipulation of other mana. What's more, I'd recommend imagining some sort of mark on them, and only having Mana Location form images based off of incoming mana with marks on it. That should more or less completely fix the issue of other people's mana getting in its way."

Oh my, what a genius solution! Thank you Lucidna!

"Also, I never used the spell you used to detect my spells before they had any tangible forms, but I'm assuming that other layer of mana simply detects excess mana from the spell, and forms an image of what spell's being used before it takes form."

"Yes, but only from a database of all the spells I've seen before. If you were to use a connection I don't recognize and a spell I've never seen before, I'll have no idea what's happening."

"Hmm, so that's why you told me to only use a spell from an Archon."

"Yes, but I can usually get a rough idea of what the spell is, even if I haven't seen it before. Oh, and as soon as it's casted the first time, I'm going to know what the spell is and when it's being casted next."

"I see… so, what I want you to do with that is change how you use those layers of mana around your soul. Fuse Mana Location with that detection spell and have them work in tandem. Change how that detection spell works. What I'd recommend is creating a small layer of mana around your target, and setting it up to detect mana that way and send the image to your brain."

That's actually genius! That would make the process so much simpler, as well as allowing me to run Mana Location and Detection in tandem. Just thinking about that… that's bound to be overpowered…

"Now remember, you're able to know what spells your opponent are using while they're casting them. That is such a huge advantage that it would even throw me off."

I jump up in surprise. "Does that mean… I could beat you, Lucidna?" I say.

Lucidna just clicks her teeth in annoyance. I pick up mana mapiluation from Lucidna, but before I can figure out what spell it is, I'm blown back across the room in a massive puff of air. Then I start to feel fatigued. So completely and utterly tired that I can't move a muscle to even start the process of getting up.

I try to use Mana Detection to figure out what's happening, but I find myself too tired to use it. I try to switch to Mana Location instead, but I'm too tired to. I try to use wind, lightning, even frost, but I can't muster up a single line to a prayer.

"There's your answer." Lucidna says as I'm still on the floor, desperately fighting to stay awake.

As soon as it started, the fatigue leaves me and I'm able to stand again. I slowly get up, with Mana Detection honed in on Lucidna. The moment I sense any sort of mana manipulation from her, I'm using wind to blast myself to the left full force. After that, an assortment of wind blades.

"Stop looking at me like that, idiot. You already lost. At least take it in kind."

I calm down a bit, knowing that the fight is already over, but then I get kind of excited, wanting to know all of what Lucidna did. "Um… Lucidna? What was that?"

"A fatal flaw in your spell that I don't have a solution for. All it takes to get around it is simply form spells too quickly for you to react and adjust yourself accordingly. Of course, having to create spells so quickly could also easily mess up the spells of less experienced mages…"

"Alright, I got that, but what did you do after that? The spell that kept me from getting up. That wasn't suppression, and I don't think it was a spell from any of the Archons…"

"You're inside the largest magical library in the entire capital, figure it out yourself."

"Oh! Ah, right, I will! But, um, there's something else I want to look for while I'm here. Um… could you help lead me towards it?"

Lucidna just sighs. "What do you want? It better be a book."

"I just want a beginner's guide to some of Beira's spells." Lucidna looks legitimately confused at my answer.

"Um… OK, but… you have a connection with the overseer of lost souls, put in place by the Earth God himself a millenia ago, why do you want to start learning Beira's spells now?"

I slowly explain the situation with Noelle to Lucidna the best I can. The more and more I say, the more disappointed she looks, though.

"Tch. Getting scammed by a 10 year old does seem like something that would happen to you."

"H- hey!"

"Right, anyway. Follow me."