Capítulo 99: Echoes And Mysteries
The dark elf stared at me, awe visible in her eyes. I could tell she was appreciative of the fact that her sight had been returned to her. The pride I felt as we stared at each other wasn't small at all.
Qu'Ren had once been a blind dark-elf, something quite rare for her species. The quest to gain influence over the domain of light had been to restore sight to the blind. She was one of the blind people whose sight I had restored.
I only later learned the reason behind her blindness: she had evidently made a mistake when casting an evocation spell and evidently her spell backfired as a result.
After restoring her sight she had apparently asked the system for information about whoever it was that was responsible for healing her. The system informed her about me, and she prayed to me sometime later.
In that prayer, she asked me to come and meet her some time at her family's property. Minutes ago I arrived in her familial home and was promptly escorted to where we were now.
We were pleasantly seated around a table, and the moment was quite nice. It felt like I was being treated like royalty, or at least like nobility. It was a bit unusual, but frankly, I could get used to it.
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"It's so nice to meet you Althos!" Qu'Ren said, speaking emphatically. If not for my powers to detect lies I'd have thought she was being insincere or polite. Her attitude differed from that of the other dark-elves I had met, and even those of her species who worshipped me.
I studied her for a moment, eyeing her cautiously. She noticed and the grin that was on her face only widened. On the other hand, her bodyguard's scowl also widened. I could hear his muscles tensing, and his knuckles whitened from the strain of his grip on his weapon.
"Is there anything I could provide for you? Some refreshments perhaps?" Qu'Ren asked, in her thus far perpetually bubbly way. I smiled at her and shook my head to decline her offer before turning to look at Sombra.
"Would you like anything?" I asked. My shadowy assistant was seated to my left. Sombra looked at me and then at Qu'Ren and wordlessly declined the offer. She did so with a surprisingly polite gesture and with a smile on her face.
Her presence intrigued Qu'Ren, and one of the first things that the dark-elven evoker had done when my minion had shown up beside me was question the praereptor. Sombra had remained silent though and thus far had shown more interest in studying the dark elf than permitting herself to be studied.
Qu'Ren wasn't deterred for a few moments, but eventually she did give up. That said, I didn't blame Sombra for being interested in the odd evoker, Qu'Ren was fascinating. Her friendliness was so unusual for members of her kind and Sombra's interest only amplified my own since my demonic pet told me she knew the dark elf before today.
"Well... If you're sure." Qu'Ren said to us, giving us a funny look. I chuckled and considered what to say for a few moments before beginning to converse with the dark elf.
"So Qu'Ren... Why don't you tell us about yourself?" I asked though I considered for a moment merely using my powers on the mortal.
I ultimately decided against that, preferring to see what would happen if I let this moment play out naturally and without the usage of my godly powers. Qu'Ren considered my question for the amount of time it took her heart to beat, before beginning to speak.
"Hmm... Okay, where do I begin? I know you're young... Very young as far as I know, so I honestly don't know what you know." She asked, looking at me with an amused smirk on her face. I chuckled at her, appreciative of her candor.
"Well, if you feel comfortable discussing the day you lost your vision, I'd love to hear about that." I asked, hoping that I hadn't said something that made her feel uncomfortable. She chuckled at my recommendation and locked eyes with me.
"You're very direct aren't you?" She asked a cocky smirk on her lips. I laughed audibly at her statement before replying.
"I didn't mean to be. I apologize if I asked you something delicate. It wasn't my intention." I replied, grinning at her. She shook her head at me to indicate that she wasn't offended before speaking up.
"You didn't. I have no problem explaining what happened the day I went blind." She told me, speaking casually and easily before her eyes began to mist over as she reminisced about the past.
"A few months ago a demon came to my family. This demon taught us what it knew about conjuration magic. The thing was actually an excellent teacher! And some of our family... Well, they took to conjuration a bit too well." She explained.
I had to work to contain my shock when she implied that a demon was indirectly responsible for her misfortune. I was able to do so, but not before sending an annoyed mental message to Sombra. It seemed that the playful praereptor demon had had her fill of mischief and inflicting misfortune before I came and twisted her mind into its present state.
"My family is filled with ambitious people. It makes sense that the spiteful creature chose us. We had fun summoning demons and using them to act as enforcers. Until the tiny asshole who taught us turned on us." She told me, beginning to frown a bit.
"The little shit liked watching us suffer. We had mistakenly summoned something that was more than we could handle under the assumption that it would work for us." Qu'Ren explained. Sombra turned her head, pretending to cough, but I turned and saw her smiling.
"Demonic conjuring circles are finicky things. All it takes is for one part of it to be adjusted slightly and the magic that makes them actually bind demons to someone is weakened." Qu'Ren told me, revealing something that I immediately stored away in my mind.
"The spiteful shadow demon adjusted the circle slightly, using its innate mastery over darkness to do so without us noticing. In doing so it allowed the final demon we summoned to run amuck. I was there when the creature the demon was summoned. Incidentally the praereptor demon... wasn't. It had left the day before." Qu'Ren said, anger twisting her facial features into a cruel grimace.
"The battle against the demon was long. Nearly three hours long in fact. Many of my relatives died. Others... survived. They are currently locked away, for their own safety." Qu'Ren told me, and I had to suppress a grin.
Mortals who survived being attacked by demons contracted a vicious disease. A magical one. I could cure it, but if I wanted too I could also take advantage of this opportunity.
"Towards the end of the battle, when our side was beginning to lose more ground to the demon I stepped in. I was actually a major player in defeating the demon!" Qu'Ren explained, her eyes alight with pride as she said that.
"I hit the demon with a flurry of magical spells. I helped put it on the ropes. But evocation magic is tricky. All it took was one moment where I wasn't focused and the spell I was using turned on me. And exploded in my hand. I was blown out of the room the fight was going on in and knocked unconscious." Qu'Ren explained, a frown pulling her lips down.
"When I woke up I couldn't see. That was months ago. And then one day that changed. All of a sudden, I could see. All of sudden, seemingly from nowhere, my sight was back. For months I couldn't see at all and then all at once I could. You gave me back my sight. And what's more is that you didn't ask me for anything. You didn't bargain with me, you just gave me what I lost." Qu'Ren told me, turning and looking intently at me.
Her eyes were quite literally luminous at that moment. Light was pouring out of them, casting a warm glow on the air between us and thus illuminating what was otherwise a nearly utterly dark chamber.
"Althos... I don't know if I can ever repay you for the act of kindness you showed me that day. It's just so odd. Kindness is suspicion inducing to dark elves. I don't know how many of us you know, but we are not a species that is known for kindness." Qu'Ren revealed, while speaking reverentially to me.
Sombra looked at the dark-elf, and then her bodyguard. There was an odd expression on her face. It took me a moment to identify it. Sombra was suspicious. The demon couldn't believe what she was hearing. I grinned at my minion, curious as to what was on her mind. And so I took a look using my powers. When I activated my powers to peek into Sombra's head I was suddenly and momentarily overwhelmed by something. A vision.
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I was suddenly and instantaneously hurled out of my body and into something less distinct. One moment I was seated in the chamber with Sombra, Qu'Ren, and the dark elf's surly bodyguard, and in the next, I was in the same chamber but a version of it that no longer existed.
I found myself standing at the edge of the room, unseen and unnoticed by its occupants. Darkness surrounded me, and I could see a large number of dark-elves, around fifteen, encircling a monster the likes of which I had never seen. Everything around me had an incompleteness to it, a sort of visible brokenness that made it clear that this was an imperfect recollection of whatever I was about to see.
That wasn't the only change either. In the present there was a large table that separated myself and Sombra from Qu'Ren and her bodyguard. In this memory that table was gone.
The creature was standing in the middle of a large circle made of a dark substance, and at a glance, I could tell that it was standing on top of a more advanced circle than the one that was located in my temple in the lair of the reptilefolks I had conquered.
The monster, a demon of some sort, growled at the dark elves who had brought it to this dimension. Its voice was supernaturally low, and seemed to rumble throughout the room as if coming from everywhere at once.
It had two pairs of serpentlike eyes but its body was anything but serpentlike. It had a thick, blocklike body made of dark-blue muscle and possessed three sets of muscular arms. Each of its eyes locked onto a separate dark-elf, and though the thing wasn't moving its eyes were dancing around, working to stay locked onto a separate target.
I recognized three of the dark-elves in the room. Each of the members of Qu'Ren's family I had met so far was in the room working to contain the demon. The guard I met earlier, and Qu'Ren's bodyguard were close to the monster, while Qu'Ren lingered by the entrance she and I had taken to walk into this room.
None of the demon's eyes were focused on Qu'Ren, though that changed when the dark-elf rose her hands in the direction of the demon and suddenly hurled a pair of flaming spears at the thing. It rose its treetrunk like arms to block the spells but I still distinctly heard the monster roar in pain when the spears connected with it.
The instant after the creature rose its arms and prevented the spears from reaching its chest, the other dark elves dashed in close and slashed at the beast. This time the beast's wails were more distinct, and I even saw its blood begin to drip from the wounds the elves inflicted on it. But even though the monster was bleeding and in pain, there was a macabre, possibly masochistic grin on its face.
That was when I heard the sound of the first droplet of blood hitting the floor underneath the beast. And that was the moment of its triumph. The creature made eye contact with Qu'Ren, all of its eyes locking in on her in an instant. The beast dashed forward, allowing the spears of the dark-elves to cut the beast more deeply, while running towards Qu'Ren.
The thing was like an out-of-control wagon, unstoppable and terrifying. It was almost upon Qu'Ren when she frantically began to prepare another spell. In Sombra's memories, I was unable to actually see auras but I could tell by the look of frantic concentration and fear on Qu'Ren's face as the monster rose a heavy fist to strike that she was weaving magic together.
Her back was to the door, which was closed shut. It was an odd construction made out of some sort of thick fungal matter.
Sombra focused on it for reasons I didn't know, and when Qu'Ren's magic exploded I was able to watch her unconscious form be shot back through the door by the force of her own spellcasting. The unconscious spell-caster hit the floor and the shouts of some of her dark-elven allies filled Sombra's ears and therefore mine since I was relieving Sombra's memories.
The unconscious Qu'Ren's arms were covered in wicked black burn marks that hadn't been visible before. Some of her hair had fallen out too. That struck me as mildly amusing because the Qu'Ren I was conversing with was bald. She had a smooth, almost egg-shaped head.
The dark-elf who now seemed to be Qu'Ren's bodyguard paid chillingly little mind to his fallen companion. He actually had a grin on his face, and it had first appeared on his lips when Qu'Ren's magic failed and sent her sailing from some sort of internal explosion. He was still present in the moment though and his eyes never strayed from the demon in front of him.
The last thing I heard before everything turned hazy and indistinct was the sound of Sombra giggling evilly at the carnage unfolding before her.
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In an instant, I was returned to the present. I once more found myself seated in front of Qu'Ren and her questionably devoted fellow dark-elf. He had remained silent this whole time and had only scowled at me and Sombra.
"Hmm... So Qu'Ren's condition wasn't of concern to the dark-elf at her side?" I asked myself, intrigued by that. That said, I knew that this wasn't the time to do much more than quietly scan the dark elf's mind. I did so without any particular movement, and chuckled when I sensed his impatience and suspicion.
"Why won't this asshole get out of here?" The dark elf wondered, his impatience mounting more and more with each second we spent together.
"Does Qu'Ren really believe this guy is a god? I know her mind hasn't been the same since that day but still..." He thought, anger mixing with impatience. It seemed that Qu'Ren's belief in my divinity wasn't shared. That wasn't exactly shocking, but it was annoying how rude the dark elf was about it.
I took advantage of the silent moment to question the mind domain about what had happened just now. I worded my question politely.
"Hello, so I just saw memories. That's kind of new. I mean... I think I saw memories? I'm honestly unsure. Can you explain to me what's going on?" I asked, curiously. I transmitted my question instantly, before getting an unbelievably speedy response.
"Well Althos, you're a growing god! When a god gets old enough his body starts to undergo... some changes." The mind domain told me, clearly joking. It let its bad joke hang in the air for a few seconds before sending me a real explanation.
"No reaction? Jeez, tough crowd. What's actually happening is that your powers are expanding and the sheer intensity of Sombra's thoughts allowed you to experience a moment from her perspective. The... What did the dark elf call her? A 'little asshole'? Yeah, that sounds right, the little asshole must have been in the room, incorporeally, and watched the confrontation." The domain explained, and I sensed the amused grin in its voice.
"But that's enough about me. Althos, it's your turn. Tell me and my husband all about you." Qu'Ren suddenly exclaimed, leaning forward in her seat. The dark-elven spellcaster was gazing at me expectantly. My eyes widened, and for a moment I considered how honest I ought to be.
I momentarily debated actually making use of my powers over lies, and unbelievably it was actually tempting. I figured I could actually have fun making up something, and seeing how believable it was.
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