Death's Door

Amun.

21st of Duotra, 1492

El-Did Province, Shujen Kingdom. The Hall of Meditation, Nydorden Monastery.

4:13 AM.

***

I finally understood. I truly understood what it meant to have a suitable vessel for death. It meant not learning how to shift one's body in accordance with an attack to prevent damage. But to shift the body towards damage, slightly diverting or sometimes tanking it entirely. It was learning how to fight past the limitations of the mind and body, releasing the strength found in the undead. It was putting every ounce of energy into locomotion, rather than conserving it.

It was then that I truly became one with death. That was to say, toeing the line with death birthed an eerie strength within me, yet the pain was still there.

And then came Ki. Something like gasoline to the engine that was my body, an analogy I used throughout the last two days of meditation and training.

Even now.

I felt a sudden coldness race through the fires to brush against the back of my head and reacted immediately, using the potent fuel to snap my hand in the path of a somewhat blunt bolt just as it came into range. And after a surge of fuel, a quick snap sent it rushing back.

<<This marks the verification of your initiation.>> Etan entered the ring, waving the many, many slaves to discard the remains before gesturing for me to take another bowl of that strange porridge and follow.

Of course, I felt a particular way about the practice. But there was nothing more I could do for them than give them a sweet release of suffering through death. And besides, the dwindling fires within my Ki Pond reminded me of the poor state of my body. So I took the strange food greedily and grinned wide as the fires were reignited.

With the pain gone and Etan's silence, I had a small moment to think about the state of this place.

It went without saying, but it took a lot to hide my disgust. Slaves outnumbered the drow almost five to one. And there were thousands of drow in the Monastery alone. Most of them were monks, of course, but there were many religiously dressed drow ladies thinking they were hidden in the shadows. They did nothing but watch and talk amongst themselves, making every comment one could think of for days on end.

I was at least content with Abbot Eiriol's treatment of my girls. More than content, I was grateful for the devotion she showed in not just training them, but educating them. I even learned a few new things regarding annexes and aphids, but my focus kept me away from the Net for now, thus I simply gave the old Abbot a blessing to help her and left her to it.

The only other saving grace came from the place's historic beauty. A small hut on the surface gave entry to a buried tower of inclined floors, or Halls that extended for kilometers. A geometrical paradise of ingrained history.

The air had a strangeness to it unlike any I've smelled before. A smell, I knew, that came from the countless monks before me sinking the odors of their efforts into the stone itself. Every step within was like following a path led by a thousand generations of ghosts. Over the ages, their daily movements made groves on the stairs. The force of a trillion consecutive stomps created lattices of depressions on the parade grounds. Fungal trees stood with bowed stalks, making a testament to both nature and man- or in this case, drow.

It was the third time I'd seen such a wondrous place. The first being on Earth and the second being the Arxis Hub. But this was structured more like the latter, for its layout guaranteed an acolyte passed the necessary requirements for entering the next Hall before they even saw the end of the current one.

As was the case here.

We were nearly at the end of the Meditation Hall, although the exit was occluded by octahedral huts made almost entirely of divine tree roots and what appeared to be clay.

Ignoring any coming explanations, I stepped inside to meet the same midnight purple glow as Etan's… stand. Only this light was cast by roots as thick as my body creeping up the walls, making footholds for subterranean bugs, lizards, and insects that added to the concentration of Ki within. Like fire dispersed in the air, the energy churned and coiled in on itself continuously. And yet, it seemed to seep into yet another piece of familiar geometry, etched into the floor to shoot back out as linear flames.

Crossing my legs, I sat at the center of that geometrical pattern and focused on the swirling fires. Not of those within the room, but the ones swirling around my spiritual body, contained within a void near my Arcana Well- near my heart- like a heliosphere pushing back interstellar radiation. But unlike stellar radiation contained by a magnetic field, the fires of Ki had a release. A network of conduits like veins and arteries built for Ki and Ki alone.

Therein lay the object of my newfound focus, a seemingly random 'vein' within the network of the brain region was pinched to create a blockage and force the walls apart. Then my focus split evenly. Half went towards containing the churning flames whilst simultaneously compressing the incoming waves Ki while the rest of my concentration was willed towards continuing where the energy left off in expanding the membrane to a sphere slightly smaller than my brain.

Carefully. Slowly. I worked, taking caution so as to not condense the ki too much and trigger an implosion. Taking heed, so as to not allow the incoming flames to burn the firmament dry. Being patient, so as to not spread the membrane so thin that it would tear.

Icarus with balloons.

With time, the effort required for the task began to wane. Soon after, I began to relax into a meditative trance. Eventually, my thoughts began to drift into the darkness, leaving me standing- or falling- on a black plane of nothingness. My breath sounded like the dying gasps of an eldritch being. My lungs rose and fell ever slowly, despite no air flowing through my nostrils. My eyes stared at a distant point in the far beyond, despite there being nothing to act as my focus.

Until that was, a point of sea green appeared in the beyond and flashed in a big bang that birthed a two-dimensional universe. A line poured from that infinitely far point in the before, racing between my feet to end equidistantly at some point in the beyond.

My eyes fell, pushing my organs up into my throat as my body plunged with it. Down and down and down and down, watching the line widen to a rod to a bar to a beam to a… road. A road with trees of black bone that was like wood but also not, and burning with the abyssal-violet Flames of Moil. An avenue that led to a lone abode- a necrotic manse of black bones, fossilized masonry, and sea green vines; segregated from the abyss by a gate of solid sludge and landscaped with a lawn of grasping hands.

It had never been so clear to me before. And never, had it been so far away. Death's Door.

I took my first step and felt my heart falter, for my eyes looked down, causing the road itself to break. The edges crumbled from a road to a beam. From a beam to a bar. From a bar to a rod. From a rod, down a line of necrotic thread. One line of sea green energy that poured from an infinitely far point in the before, pushing against the soles of my feet, in turn pulling it taught against that equidistantly far point in the beyond.

There I was, suspended on a tightrope within the infinite darkness, high above the realm of death, looking down at the sea-green tempest as it ascended with a roar of threats to blow me over the edge; and thus hushing the promising whispers of greater strength.

—-

[Monastic Tradition, The Way of Death's Door - Step 3: Task Complete]

[Reward: Mutation - [1st Gate of Death: Death's Road.] - The Road that leads to Death's Door is an accursed path, for the whispers carried by the winds at its borders grants one the strength to traverse it, yet the roars rise in intensity with each step with threats to push you over. When you toe the line with death, your Necrotic Ki blooms and beckons the fires of the dying to reignite your embers and keep you on your feet. But do not fall, for its use will wear Death's Road thin, and the plummet spells doom.]

[Reward: Passive Skill - [Undying Defense] The winds that blow over Death's Road act as a lifting agent to keep you dancing atop the ever-thinning path, enabling you to surpass the limitations of mortality in exchange for Necrotic Ki.]

***

Head Monk Etan Za'Darmondiel.

***

<<Tell me what you know.>>

'Fuck!' I internally exclaimed. How much I hated that voice. Hated more even than that most unpleasant face. So much like mine, it appeared, only adding to my ire. Not that I could show it. All I could do was take a deep breath and turn, kneeling as lowly as physically possible. <<Matron Etyl.>>

For almost 17 years, a sneer from Matron Etyl Za'Darmondiel was the nicest response she had the pleasure of gracing me with. I would have been a fool to think this day would have been any different. She was the most powerful drow in all the Darkworld on this side of the World Seas. The most favored Matron in the whole of Nonus by the Demon Queen of Spiders.

My mother.

Although she was as obsessed with Amun as any other drow, she was unlike Abbot Eiriol. Matron Etyl of House Za'Darmondiel had all of the Spider Queen's favor while the Abbot had not a drop. And so, despite her being vastly older and more experienced, among other things, the Abbot held little to no power over the drow of Zimysta Falls.

Obviously, the same could not be said in reverse. Matron Etyl Za'Darmondiel held all the power any drow ever could hold.

All but one.

I was not that drow. Thus I had no choice but to comply.

I began to explain he excelled in all remarks, only to be met with a prompt slap that left the taste of metal lingering in my mouth.

'Tell me of his magic!' she snapped her hands furiously. 'Tell me of his oddities. I do not care for his fighting prowess!'

'Everything about him is strange, Matron.' I humbly signed back. 'Everything from his appearance to his personality. The weave itself is strange around him.'

That made her angry. But then again, priestesses and their higher counterparts were always angry. But she was a Matron Mother. They were always seething. That, however, was not the problem.

<<Open the door.>>

<<I cannot. The Abbot will- >> I spoke without thinking. And her hand reaching towards her waist corrected me on the spot. Yet she sneered still.

<<Your Abbot has deemed that you are to check in on him every twenty-five hours, no?>>

<<Correct, Matron.>>

<<How long has it been since you've checked last?>>

<<Almost twenty-five, Matron.>>

Again, a sneer was my only response, my only warning to push open the doors before she got violent. Lethally so.

When I pushed open the doors, any fear I had towards the hateful woman vanished. In my face now, was a swirling vortex of blue-green fire that wailed with the screams of ten thousand tortured souls. And at its center sat the exceedingly strange half-breed. I stared in morbid awe for a full second before the vortex flowed into his form in a maddening torrent before peace returned to the Halls.

Only then did Amun stand, bringing me to notice the scars, dried blood, and oddly shaped limbs of his blue-green flame-wreathed form. Or rather, the lack thereof. And then he turned, fully healed, to point those eldritch eyes into those of the hateful woman beside me.

<<What is this?>> The Matron gasped, mastering herself in mid-sentence so as to turn her shock into reverence.

But all Amun did was raise a brow of indifference. <<Who are you?>>