Ch. 20-496 - Epilogue VIII: Meeting for the First Time Once Again (1/2)

Shroudbreak +20 years...

She wasn’t nervous because she couldn’t be nervous. She was Dauntless after all, and the effects of fear simply didn’t rouse themselves to bother her.

Still, the anticipation was killing her.

She’d never met him in person. Actually, none of the family had. He’d earned a place being taught by Queen Morningwind when he turned fifteen, his opposed Bloodlines long manifested and spun away into a strong and vital Arcane Bloodline, giving him the road to magic that his mother had never had.

Hah...

Elrii Rantha exhaled softly.

The Souldive had shaken up her worldview, despite itself. She understood why they’d done what they’d done. The Rantha Curse had been powerful enough to remove her from the Shroud with aid, and given her a chance at the life and love and strength she’d not had in her last time around.

She wasn’t Elrii Morningdark, not anymore. She was Elrii Rantha, a totally ass-kicking hunter of Fiends and the servants of Shoul, who her mother had happily set her loose upon, and she had hunted them down with terrible focus and energy despite herself.

The God of Shadows had made a lot of inroads in many places. There were always people begging for power, willing to do almost anything for it, and Shoul loved preying on them and spreading the dread of His Name. Whether they succeeded in their plots in the end made little difference to the God of Night and Murder as long as His Name was recognized, and His power and place acknowledged.

Knowing that, offing His minions didn’t bother her at all, as first of all, He couldn’t see her directly as a Null, and secondly, He’d just get more. She didn’t slap His face directly or call Him out or anything, just cleaning the field of His people and servants, and using the chance to Level.

Making Eight was a lot easier for her than her mother, now that the Shroud was gone. There were powerful creatures around in the shadows to hunt, and she enjoyed hunting them, with or without friends along to help, a burning need to reap them and Level-up driving her as it had her whole life.

But now she knew why she hated the Church of Shoul so much, why her mother had started her long road on the assassin teams and hit squads and information networks of Shoul, and why she always went back to hunting them when she wasn’t called on for help elsewhere.

The Dark Hag was what the Church of Shoul called her in their own well-deserved dread, and she flicked back her black hair proudly, tipped with silver ever since she was born, totally unlike her mother Sama’s golden locks, or the messy brown of her father Briggs.

Her mother had told her no incarnation dive to find out who she’d been until she reached Eight and Charisma 30, and the Church of Shoul and its antics had provided a lot of that Karma. The rest had come as part of strike teams, often led by Heavenbound, against other people who thought that dealing with Fiends and Aberrants was a good idea to get some power for themselves, regardless of the threat to the locals, the land, or the world...

Finding out she wasn’t named after the Lady Traveler, the woman who had saved the world, had been a jarring shock. She was the woman who should have saved the world, if only she had known then what she knew now!

She sighed again, and glanced over, her eyes widening slightly as she saw him, and felt that instant connection.

They were in Issoma, an Elven word that meant ‘fortuitous beginning’, where the European University of Magical Studies was located, part of Queen Morningwind’s vast reclamation projects in the former Shroudzones of Germany. It was buttressed by full Temples to Sylune, Aru, Harse, and Nuava, and attended to by Casters from all over the Continent and beyond. If they came and had the Talent, they were educated so that they could use their Gifts to the best of the university’s ability to teach them, and then they could return home and contribute to the upgrading of their homelands in the never-ending grind to reclaim the lives they’d once had under technology, and maybe something more.

He was tall for a halvyr, almost six feet, with silvered eyes from his mother, and the Moonlit Hair in reverse, white with black tips, meaning he was Touched by Sylune. The Sylunar Church was expecting great things from him, as were so many others, but his childhood had been one without real magic, training in the ways of the Arcane Fist so that he could learn to grasp his Matrix, spin his Bloodlines, and free his magic from the deadlock of them.

It showed in the disciplined way he moved, not like the cheerful and relaxed manner of the Casters around them, who flitted and played with magic instinctively and unconsciously.

His silver eyes met her Rantha-blue eyes, and he blinked in astonishment, clearly taken aback. He waved at a couple students at the café who recognized him, moving smoothly through the crowd to greet her as she rose.

“Elrii Rantha? Collin Taylor,” he introduced himself, extending a hand, which she took promptly and shook. A decent measure of ki, she noted, as his eyes widened again at how smoothly their ki meshed. “Wow, I haven’t met many Nulls that hard...”

Elrii laughed despite herself. “The Church of Shoul has been generous in their offerings of Karma to me.” She gestured to the seat opposite him, smiling with the eight canines she, her little sisters, her Big Sisters, and especially her mother had made infamous. “A beautiful city they’ve built here.” She waved at the surrounding architecture, built basically up from nothing over the span of the last two decades.

“Part of our studies are practical use of magic. Adding constructively to the city is part of it... as is learning how to tamp down on more, ah, salacious uses of magic while doing so.” The pranks that continually occurred during this process were notorious, but cleaning up over suggestive or lewd deeds was all part of their curriculum.

“Work instead of tuition costs for profit,” she agreed. The students also spent time Burning gold and other power comps into magic items, learning the intricacies of doing so, as there was naturally a never-ending appetite for Artifice.