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diamond-dangeresque · 6 months ago

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Day 6 — Legendary

A/N: i wanted to promise i wouldn't hit y'all with Another Wall of Text but unfortunately i have Stephen King Syndrome and I Can't Stop Writing 😖😖😖

1325AE, Fractals of the Mists ~ Sunqua Peak Fractal

"Please, quill its elementals and restore peace! You must hurry!"

That's what the 'mountain spirit' told Chihiro, and so up the fragmented stormy mountain he climbs, pulling out a shortbow and firing at the airy wisps until their squalls bind to his legs; he leaps from stone to stone with their enchanted winds at his feet, getting closer to what looks like the top of a tall, winding staircase carved out of a mountainside.

He thinks back to the 'spirit'. She sure didn't seem like a nature spirit. Seemed pretty human, actually. But maybe it's just because he can 'see' through the charade she puts up. It'd fool most others, being fair. And he didn't want to say anything, either, both because it's not like him to spoil a kid's fun and because he's been chided before about "breaking script", whatever exactly that means.

The wind elemental scuttles in its small arena, awaiting its target. But then, as Chihiro gazes at it, the elemental turns; it gazes back at it, feet planted firmly. Warnings hiss through the gale ("Why are you even here? I don't need your help!") before it calmly leaps away, leaving behind something glittery in the rain-drenched grass. Chihiro leaps into the now-empty arena, disappointed that a fight was avoided.

"Was there an elemental you just fought?" Dessa crackles through the Observatory's intrafractal comms system, a loudspeaker over existence in this microrealm. "I can't tell; my visuals fried for a few seconds and the strong reading in that arena is gone."

"Nope," Chihiro yells back, hoping she hears him this time, "it fled." A few seconds. No response back. Damn it. He walks over to the object the fleeing elemental left behind: a small chunk of something like a sword's blade, filigree supporting a lack of blood-groove and a blade made of what was either bronze or brass segmented like drakescale. His fingers tingled at the touch, even through the draconic envoy gauntlets, and the hairs on the back of his head stood at end. This was a powerful thing the elemental left behind.

And he can feel Glint behind him, also observing. "An artifact," she hisses, satisfaction in her voice. "I did not think we would find such a boon here in the Mists. A good omen towards your path of the Hero."

"You call a broken blade a good omen?" Chihiro questions, left aghast at this Dragon's so-called wisdom.

"Where there is one," Glint answers, fading back into his subconscious, "there are others. Artifacts behave differently from normal objects and weaponry. Stay vigilant, Herald."

And to that end, she was right: as the climb became more treacherous on this fragmented Sunqua, the elementals—harsh gales giving way to roaring despondent waterfalls with waves that pushed back—in turn matched the desperation of the voice hanging in the winds on the mountain.

In the wading pools of a mountainous sanctuary surrounded by waterfalls, Chihiro effortlessly frees a trapped water elemental from under massive boulders. Its reward to him, other than desperate pleas carried on the hushed sounds of running water ("What is it that you want? ... Leave. I'll give you anything."), was another piece of the strange artifact. This time it was of the sword's forte and hilt, also of that same bronze-like material. The pommel, the endtips of the guard, all bear an open circle that crackles with further electricity, catching stray sparks in the air. Thoughts run through the back of Chihiro's mind, memories involuntarily dragged to the forefront. He pushes them back, though a few manage to stay unwelcome guests. (The fear of centaurs. The forever-bruised eyesocket. The dagger in his hip. The meeting of he and Shiro in the Replica Temple.)

Cool waters make way for heated air and flowing lava, tiny sluglike elementals rising from the molten stone to assault the Herald. Nothing Ventari's Tablet and summer-air shield can't keep away, but it eats at his energy and so he moves quickly to deal fast strikes at the lava slugs. Their body temperatures eat at his steel blade, the poor thing, and eventually he reaches another arena tossing away the ruined blade. But like with the wind elemental, this one glares. With no weapon, all he can do is defend. So he does, raising the Flameseeker Prophecies to his chest and head, kneeling as he's cocooned in a crystalline chrysalis. The catlike elemental roars at him, summoning meteorites that shriek as they land ("There's no point! ... I couldn't save her!"), then leaves once they land. By the time the Herald lowers his shield and leaves his defensive posture, another piece of the blade is in front of him. He gives it a bit before he picks it up, but still it crackles with the lightning of that raging storm outside once it sits in his hand. More memories surge through his mind, overtaking his vision. They flash too quickly for him to memorize any of them, but all carry a lingering pain that resonates through his veins. It was getting harder to keep the torrent of memories at bay.

Chihiro grips his head. The last time he had a boiling headache like this, he had drank too much Charr whiskey. "Oy, Glint."

"Herald." Glint reemerges from her position in his mind.

"Are you sure we should be collecting these things?"

"If they were truly dangerous, I would have long stopped you from claiming the first piece, let alone this third."

"Hey, explorer," Dessa sparks back onto speakers. And here Chihiro was okay getting used to her absence. "I lost signal again. Yokko's trying to parse the data that's still readable and defrag what did get scrambled—several exabytes of audio-visual feed alone—but every time you reach an elemental, the stream just gets worse and worse." Well that's not such a– "If this keeps up, I'm not entirely sure I can extract you safely given the failing signal. Or intact. Or, really, at all." Oh. Okay, that's pretty bad, actually. He'd like to not be spit back out to the Observatory in the way this blade looks right now, and getting stuck in the Mists is not an option at the moment. "Let me know if you want to pull out now or keep going. We'd prefer if you kept going, but we understand if you don't."

"Pay no mind to the Asuran krewe," Glint reassures her Herald, "you will be safely extracted despite their worries to the otherwise."

"And you know this ho–"

Glint growls. "Really now."

Silence. Chihiro swallows his pride. "Right. R-right. Sorry." Godsdamned oracles.

The exit to the cavern reveals itself, heated air rushing to escape. With some pained walking, Chihiro reaches a small garden walled off by mountainous rock. Monuments to the dead are strewn about the ground and in varying states of ruin. The 'mountain spirit' fidgets in place, legs moving about and head turning here and there as they talk to themselves about something or other.

"You doing okay?" Chihiro pipes up at the spirit.

The spirit hops in place, whipping around to look the Herald in his (blindfold?? A Ritualist? she asks herself), and gathers her composure to say, "You've done well, oh steamed one! Yet her pain overpowers her still."

"'Steamed one'? Okay, who or what is this thing, and–"

"Listen, this was fun and all," Chihiro interjects, stretching his arms and shoulders as he sways from side to side, "but it's time to stop playing. Come on, kid. Talk to me. What's really happening here?"

The spirit looks stunned. She steps back, head lowering. "I... I do not know what you speak of!"

"I can see right through you," he chimes, finishing his stretches and tapping the side of his head—the blindfold—with a finger, "even through this. You didn't fool me from word one."

"...O-oh." A beat. The spirit raises her head back up, though now in a more relaxed posture. "The woman beyond this point...I know her, and she's in terrible pain. Could you please calm her down?" She steps a bit closer, panic spiked in their last few words. "But don't hurt her."

Chihiro tilts his head a bit to the side. "Yeah, I could do that." The last request seemed off, but he keeps it in a mental back pocket. He's taken stranger assignments before.

The spirit looks to the sealed doorway. It swings open, and the storm around the mountain intensifies as it does. The spirit appears pushed back by the storm's winds, and she vanishes in the resulting gale. Stones rise from the void below to pave a bridge towards the final arena: large, carved of pristine granite, and sitting in the middle facing away from the outer stairs is a woman of middling age in light cloth garb, a straight-blade dagger on both of her hip sides.

"Energy readings are spiking! Be careful!" is what Dessa tries to tell Chihiro, but her speaker goes on the fritz and all the Herald catches are some consonants and a panicked tone that doesn't leave his mood much better. Oh well. Not like she was very helpful here to begin with.

"Why are you here?" the woman rasps, holding back a painful sob. The storm around the arena intensifies further still, now almost a typhoon centralized entirely on this platform, threatens to blow the Herald onto his back from the sheer intensity of the rain and winds. Yet, even with this, he could hear the woman clear as a bell. "I came to this mountain to be alone."

"Hear me out, please," Chihiro shouts, unsure if he's as audible through this storm to her as she was to him, "I'm just here on a favor—"

"I don't want to hurt you, but you need to leave." She stands up, turns around, looks dead on at the Herald and unfazed by his appearance. "I can't control what happens if you don't." Her face is strained, eyes red and cheeks flushed. Her hands rest on her dagger hilts.

Chihiro is too familiar with this sort of stance. So he lowers his shoulder and relaxes his posture a bit, best as he can without being knocked onto his ass, hands raised and palms open. "I got a message I'm delivering, and then I'm gone, okay? You can..." He takes a deep breath. "You can mourn in peace when I leave, okay?"

His words seem to work, and her grip on her daggers loosen a bit. The mountain rumbles and the waterfalls surge before everything calms down. Everything but the storm above both their heads, that is.

"Okay. Cool, cool. Thanks for hearing me out." He stands upright, clears his throat. "There's a spirit on this mountain, and she sounded real concerned for your well-being. Some kind of old deer-like guardian." The woman looks puzzled, but her lack of audible answer urges Chihiro to keep...explaining? Lying? Saying whatever he needs to in order to get this fuzzed-out elementalist calmed down. "Said stuff about the mountain and the elementals being in disarray, wanted you to cool it a bit with the storms and eruptions for long enough to let her talk to you." Chihiro has a vague idea of what this spirit is, but without the girl blabbing the truth he'll never know. Still, establishing some stuff ahead of time might get her to come out of hiding. More importantly, it might let him walk away from this living storm not looking like a piece of overcooked bacon. "She means it, too. She cares about you, a lot. Do you know her? Mmmmaybe you prayed to her once or twice?"

The woman finally answers her puzzlement: "The only spirit of this land is Zunraa, and he's never done anything you describe." Ahh fuck. "Now leave."

He was reeeeeally hoping this would have worked, too. "Kiiinda hard to with this storm—"

"I said LEAVE!!" The woman brandishes her daggers and the wind howls back to a harsh pace around her. "I'm warning you!!" The ground rumbles with new seismic activity, and the previously lightening rain becomes a downpour.

Damnit. Okay. A fight it is.

———

About 45 minutes later

Turns out this "Sorrowful Spellcaster" was also one hell of an Elementalist, throwing things like localized thunderstorms and fiery meteors at him. Kinda wished that deer-girl spirit warned him about this shit sooner. Though he was thankful to be able to deal with her relatively fine, it was the swirling watery vortex pulling him in, along with those crushing water tethers preventing him from moving too far away, that nearly did him in on this mission. Only thanks to retreating within the safety of his shield's chrysalis did he survive, and for long enough to break out and bash her face in with said shield; her concentration breaks and she crumbles to a kneeling stance on the floor, the magic dissipated. Her nose'll look kinda funky at the end of all this, but at least she won't be nursing any particularly grievous wounds.

He really hopes this spirit shows up and explains herself. Having his drowning be recreated when he fought this lady was beyond unpleasant.

"Just take what you've earned and go," she tells the Herald, grabbing something from an inro that hangs at the back of her waist sash and tossing it to his feet. She then moves her hands back to cradle her tender nosebridge. "You're not safe here. No one is." The tears begin to freeflow from her, thick with unspoken-of agony.

Chihiro kneels down and picks up the object: the last piece of this sword, its bronze-colored bladetip.

"That's strange," Dessa pipes up, perhaps her technology finally working at last, "you defeated the spellcaster at the center of this instability...but this fractal isn't stabilizing."

And just as Chihiro goes to ponder on what that actually means, he feels a sharp jolt strike his body; the pieces of the artifact fall out of his bag and hand, and they hit the floor with a claaaang!! sharper and louder than it had any right to be, even in the midst of this storm still raging over both his head and the spellcaster's. Breaking away from her own misery, she looks up; this is not her magic fueling this storm. This isn't the man's magic, either. Was it...

Was it all coming from that piece of bronze she found?

They snap to each other, sparks flying and broken lines reforming into unbroken bronze, screeching as they drag onto stone until the blade lies on the ground fully formed and intact. It was a beautiful blade, Chihiro has to admit. The woman, meanwhile, looks back down and stares at the blade in front of the man. What was that? The chain of events in front of her seemed so ludicrous as to almost snap her out of her depression. (Almost.)

"Take the blade," Glint urges.

"Hey, explorer? I think you want to leave that thing alone..."

"Ignore her. Take the blade." Chihiro obliges Glint's insistence, ignoring both Dessa's plea to stop and his own desire to step away from this thing. He grabs a hold of the blade's handle; lifting it to eye height, he discovers it to be incredibly lightweight for how long and weighty it otherwise appears to be, and the sparks that were held in each individual part now felt a circuit of electricity coursing through his body proper. It feels as if this blade was a missing piece that completed him as a circuit.

"This is..." Chihiro can barely describe the awe and wonder the blade in his hand imprints onto him. And just so: as he lifts the blade higher, not realizing it's what his body is doing involuntarily, a lightning bolt parts from the heavens to strike the blade and electrocute the Herald, the storm clearing as it does. What would have been a gruesome electrocution is instead a surge of energy charging every cell in his body as he feels his body begin to become unmoored from the realm around him. Is this Dessa performing that extraction like Glint promised she would do? Maybe so. That wasn't the core of his focus, no no no, that would be the solidified visions in his mind's eye. What were before fragmented memories and echoes, he now sees brief happenings and phenomena. He sees a past relived, bitter memories and sweet moments, even visions of things he couldn't possibly remember (a darkened doorway, bundled in a red cloth). He sees a present uncharted, new allies with unknown names across the horizon, and in the distance a city like Lion's Arch burning to the ground.

The future, to his surprise, was much more cryptic: a crystalline egg in a sanctuary made of gold.

The surge of energy clears of him and Chihiro falls to his knees, smoke and steam plumes leaving his overly warmed body. A sense of overwhelming clarity fillz his mind. Yes, he tells himself, this is what this blade was meant to do.

Bolt, he tells himself still. The blade's name is Bolt. A sword forged to serve a not-yet-existent Dragon. A blade made for a Herald of an Elder Dragon not yet here.

He understands, a little bit more, why Glint chose him as this world's "Hero".

#day 6 - Legendary #guild wars 2 #gw2commanderweek #guild wars 2 ocs #chihiro yadora #gw2 ocs #gw2 #dd.txt #reduce reuse reblog

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luxiomahariel · 2 months ago

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you dont get the privilege of having ur name redacted if ur gonna take pride in wishing death to entire minority groups btw

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