My destiny was to continue along this path of Chaos, as far as the threads of fate were concerned at least. Capricorn had materialized an exact replica of my coin—or she could have summoned my very coin itself, I'd never know, and the particulars mattered little.
I had called Heads to agree to the binding, and the coin had turned up as such.
I sighed.
Not in relief, or in anxiousness. But in resignation, that this path was inevitable. Should I not walk it, then another would.
Breaking my gaze away from the golden disc, my eyes met Capricorn's. She shifted her posture and slid off the pillar she had been resting atop.
"You've come to a decision then?"
"I have. I'll agree to this, binding… In exchange for the power to bring my friends back, that is."
She clasped her hands together, and with a wicked grin and a wink she exclaimed, "Great! Then let's get you all bound up then."
"U-uhh… Wait, what?"
"Nothing to worry about, you'll feel a little pressure."
Once again, Capricorn coiled around me. Her smooth skin brushed along mine, causing a shiver to run down my spine. An intoxicating aroma wafted through the air; it was sharp, almost spicy… like cinnamon.
From behind, both of her arms looped under mine. Her body was now pressed close to me.
"Relaaaax, little empress. The ritual is a tad… Intimate. Oh, and it might hurt."
Just as she had said, there was a tight sensation in my chest as the pressure built up.
Tendrils of orange energy swirled around us. The gale increased in speed and size at an alarming rate, within seconds we were engulfed.
Capricorn began reciting some incomprehensible ritualistic words. The vortex ceased its circular motion and began to pour into my chest.
My skin flared in pain as if it were set ablaze.
Moments later, the last of the aetherial tendrils were absorbed. A brilliant flash of light blinded me for a second, and the pain had subsided.
Capricorn released her hold on me and I fell to my knees, hands trembling.
"Aaaaah! What in all that is holy was that!?"
"What a fantastic outcome! Your soul survived the process. It was a fifty-fifty shot you would be overtaken by the binding and zapped away into nothingness. It will take some time to get used to the well of power that you have available now."
"Zapped away into nothingness!?"
I frantically crawled away from Capricorn's looming figure. Searching for Virgo, I spotted her nearby and as we made eye contact… she shrugged.
I am not a plaything!
"I suppose that's where you're wrong."
Mors' sullen words stung hard.
Even I knew I was wrong as I thought it.
In the game of cat and mouse the only outcome for me was likely to be deceived and taken advantage of. We're talking literal Gods that created the world here.
"Oh come now, that pouting doesn't suit a powerful Empress such as yourself." Capricorn scolded me. "Besides, you have things that must be done before you return."
"…"
Gritting my teeth, I scrambled back up on my feet. "What do you mean, I have things to do?"
"Well, while my sister here can give you the power to resurrect yourself, seeing as your soul is tied to her realms, she can't control the souls of those who aren't. It's your own will to go back, right? Well, all those souls you want to return with you have their own wills."
"They have to agree to come back, is what you mean."
"You convince them to accept the terms, and I push power through you to… borrow their souls."
"Borrow, huh? This deal keeps sounding worse and worse."
"Tch."
Capricorn made a noise that sounded like she clicked her tongue at me. Who knew a Goddess could be so sassy.
"That's the best we can do. Unless you want to get Gemini worked up. Do you think that you, the soon-to-be immortal mortal, can take on the Celestial of the Void, the Keeper of Aver'teria, the Twin-faced Horror of—"
"No! I get it. Borrowing souls sounds great."
"You'll fit in just fine, Harbinger." She placed a hand on my head and ruffled my hair as she moved past me. "Take as long as you need to discuss this with your comrades. After you're done, come find me. I'll show you how to make use of your new powers."
I turned around, but she had disappeared. A low groan escaped my throat.
Is the crazy magick Goddess taking advantage of me, or not? At this point, I'm in so over my head that it wouldn't even matter…
Mors had apparently 'borrowed' the souls at the same time that Vita had gone to inform Capricorn that Virgo was ready for her.
I didn't know what I expected really.
After seeing the clothed figures shambling around the endless groves, I thought all the souls would look that way as well.
Wrong.
I was face-to-face with Julius. Just as tangible as I was, here in the plane of constant surprises.
"Hey, Julius."
"Hey yourself."
"Sooooo… I guess you died, huh?"
"You died too, dummy."
"True. Fair. Buuut, I died after we killed the big bad demon."
Julius bobbed his head in agreement and pursed his lips. "Sure, still died though."
He waved his hands around in a 'well, what is all of this' manner, giving me a quizzical look.
"Okay, so hear me out. It's gonna sound crazy. And it might take a moment to get through it all…"
-✵-
"…No, yeah. Easy, I got it. You're a member of a special race of humans, who has some secret purpose to fulfill. And now you've got super powers, and we're all gonna come back to life."
"I can't tell if you're being serious or not, Julius."
"Of course I'm not being serious! What kind of fairy tale nonsense—"
"I can still hear you. Remember the part about the mind-reading? Private thoughts don't exist here? This isn't fairy tale nonsense."
He threw his hands up, "If the Celestials are here and giving us eternal life, then where are they, Airis!?"
Julius turned away in frustration, stopping short immediately. Mors had crept up behind him during our discussion, probably picking up on the overwhelming levels of disbelief coming from Julius.
"Oh—what the shit!?" he exclaimed while falling backwards.
"That's Mors. I told you about them."
Julius eventually settled down. I was now on my way to talk with the next in line, which seemed to be ordered by who died first—excluding those who were killed by 'lessers', a term used by Mors to describe the multitude of undead in the horde we had to fight in the Citadel.
Only the souls of those killed by the Archdemon were able to be retrieved.
I would say I argued until I was out of breath, but I didn't really breathe here in the afterlife. Nonetheless, I argued as much as I could. Ultimately it wasn't something we could do anything about.
A marker of sorts was applied to those killed by the Terror Demon, which could be used to exploit whatever unknown principles Capricorn had alluded to with 'borrowing' souls.
One-hundred and fifty-four raid members entered the fight with Asteryith, and just over one-hundred of us were killed.
So, one down. A hundred to go.
Next up was Soren. According to Julius he had withstood the initial attack, but must have been killed along with Soren moments later.
A shiver rippled down my stomach as I recalled being impaled and almost eviscerated by the monstrous demon…
I'll avoid bringing up specifics with Soren…
I found both Soren and Alistaire together, laying on their backs in a nearby clearing. My approach had gone unnoticed; allowing me to make my way so far as to loom above them. Their eyes were closed, sleeping in tranquil ignorance of my presence.
"Ahem."
Both sets of eyes popped open.
"Commander!?"
"Hope you had a nice nap, Alistaire. You too Soren. Nice to see you both."
I looked them over. They both looked fine—Well, as fine as you can look for being dead. I happened to notice Soren try to discreetly move his hand from out from under Alistaire's.
"I wasn't interrupting you two, was I?"
Soren's bewildered face betrayed him.
"Ah! Shit, I wasn't expecting you to appear from nowhere!"
Uh huh. And why would it matter if I saw what I saw? Hmmm?
Both of them stared in disbelief. First, Alistaire was looking frantically at Soren. But once he noticed that his lips weren't moving as he was think-talking, he whipped around to me. Just in time to watch me respond via thought.
"What in the Aether is going on? Commander?"
"Well, for starters… We're all dead."
I explained our situation, for the second time. If I had to go over this one-hundred more times, I'd lose my mind—if I still had one at this point.
The boys took it much better than Julius did. I asked if they had any questions, but they said they think they understood. Soren quietly asked if he could have a moment to think about it, and Alistaire said he'd like time as well.
So, I left them to mull it over while I continued my grove-to-grove sales pitch for eternal life.
I started gathering groups of ten. I tried a larger group, with over twenty, but there were too many questions and too much confusion. Ten was a solid group.
Most of the soldiers who had perished alongside me had some sort of unfinished business; family members left behind, wanted more in life, what have you.
Only six decided against returning. I didn't pry into anyone's reasons after the first had rejected the offer.
I was genuinely curious, with no motive to try and convince anyone against their wishes. An older man wearing the insignia of Initiate, a Divisional rank marking a new enlistee, had flat out rejected the idea of returning to life. When I asked him why, I discovered that he had lost his entire family in Axio.
Renaultian soldiers had entered his home while he was away for a late evening meeting with another family of nobility. They murdered his daughter and wife.
An artist by trade, he was swept up with the retreating bulk of other Vanixians as they fled the city.
He enlisted in the Divisional armies after being approached by Luke.
After the hardship and pain of losing his family, a burden of another life… a life away from his loved ones, didn't suit him. He chose to pass on, and try to find his wife and daughter in the Underworld.
I didn't have the faintest idea if that's how things worked. But if the possibly of him reuniting with them was true, I couldn't stand in the way.
Alistaire was lurking around during my last 'join me for eternal life after life' briefing, making it very obvious he was trying to get my attention.
As the last soul departed he tip-toed his way to me and positioned himself in an awkward mid way between standing at attention and being at ease.
"Commander, Soren and I are ready to give you our answer."
"We're dead Alistaire. I think we can relax on the formalities for a bit. Whatever choice you both decided on will be fine." I grabbed his arm, wrapping my own around it, and led him out to the glade the two had been napping in.
Soren jumped to his feet as we arrived. Alistaire went to go stand next to him.
I took a moment to steady myself for their decision.
"Okay, boys. Hit me with it."
They exchanged looks with a slight tip of their heads and exclaimed in unison, "We're going back with you!"
"That's okay, I kinda expec—Huh!? Did you say you are coming back?"
"Of course we are. Soren and I still have so much we want to do. Plus we swore an oath to protect the Republic, right? If we have the option to go back and make a difference in the world, then we wouldn't want to be anywhere but at your side!"
My heart swelled with pride and joy.
Though, inside my strained to breaking-point mind I was losing myself. I was so certain the two of them were going to go the other direction with this decision.
And with that, came a deep sigh of relief.
-✵-
Capricorn was weavingmagick around me. Or, that's what it looked like at least.
I had no clue what she was doing.
I've seen the highest level of magick used in action before, Tactical class spells required intricate set up practices and complex sigils. Some even needed to use specific reagents as catalysts for the spell to function correctly. Incantations varied but fell on the lengthy side, upwards of hundreds of words.
Capricorn just spun a spell that looked to be twice, or even triple, as complicated in forty seconds. With a dozen words that I couldn't even make out as pronounceable. And after that, with just the snap of her finger, something that looked like a way more complex version of my personal interface appeared before her.
The labeling was in a written language that I'd never seen before. So even though I could see the panels being displayed, there was no way for me to understand what sort of information was listed.
"Uhm, what are you looking at?"
"You."
"Of course you are. Find anything interesting?"
"My sister has gotten quite creative with you."
"Well that sounds ominous. I imagine you're not going to tell me much then."
"It's probably more fun if you find out about it yourself. I wanted to give you an introductory lesson on chaos magick, so this should work out great."
She pointed to a block of her interface that looked identical to my grimoire's display.
"Your OVERSIGHT ability. It is a primitive form of the spell I'm using now. With some minor… adjustments you could see what I see."
"Adjustments? You want me to change how a spell works? I've barely cracked holy magicks—"
"I want you to believe that you can change a spell. Reject what you know about conventional magicks. Remove the idea of a fixed model for spell casting…"
A thundering headache radiated through my mind.
Without a way to track how much time had actually elapsed, I was just guessing, but it had to be close to a month.
It could have been two.
Julius, Soren, and Alistaire had tried to keep me company in my lessons with Capricorn. But after the first dozen they started making excuses, claiming they needed to be somewhere else.
Where could you need to be? We're all dead!
This chaos magick was an absolute nightmare to grasp.
In normal magick I would say an incantation and if necessary, trace a sigil to anchor the spell. The words of the incantation would draw the Aether from around me and focus it through my body.
Whereas in Capricorn's bogus metamagick world of make believe, I needed to enter gnosis—a state of altered consciousness—to focus my own wills and beliefs to affect… well, anything.
There were two main forms of gnosis: Inhibitory and Ecstatic.
Inhibitory gnosis wasn't much different from meditation. Take controlled breaths, relax your body, and try not to think about anything.
Capricorn's exhibition of Ecstatic gnosis still makes my body shudder. It's the degenerates version of chaos magick.
Yeah, that's right Goddess. I'm calling you out for being too raunchy.
Basically, you take advantage of intense emotions. Say, like the ones you'd get while aroused.
Yep, it was sex magick.
Come to think of it, it was actually around the first lesson of horny-gnosis that the boys decided they had those super important things to do…
According to my Celestial teacher, there was actually a third state of gnosis. But it wasn't something that could be taught. I'd either achieve it, or I wouldn't.
Great.
As the soul of someone who was dead, I couldn't actually use any magick here. So all these lessons were just theory and principles. I would have my practical once I was returned to life.
After graduating from Capricorn's introduction to chaos classes, I was able to retrain my sights on the original goal. It was time to learn the resurrection spell the two Goddesses had promised.
In an almost equally convoluted lesson, Vita explained to me the limitations of RESURRECTION. The spell did not simply bring anyone back from the dead.
What it did, was summon a soul back to the plane that the living world existed on.
I would borrow their soul from the Underworld, undoing their death and returning them in a 'perfect' state before they died.
And by perfect, it means the soul only. Meaning it doesn't heals any wounds. It just brings them back as they were before whatever killed them had happened.
So, I would have to be careful not to resurrect anyone in the middle of a fight, or else they could return to their already injured body in the middle of battle, and just die right away again.
Magick created by these Goddesses was troublesome.
Eventually, by infusing a spell with chaos magick, I may be able to bestow the same immortality granted to me to the souls we borrowed. But it wasn't something I'd be able to do right away. Even Capricorn warned it may not work the way I want it to in the end.
But the possibility was there. And that's all that mattered.
After all these lessons and over complication, it was finally time. We were ready to return.
Mors would continue to safeguard the souls of my comrades in the Coil of Ascendance, allegedly it would make it easier for them to return.
Vita placed her hand over my chest. "Are you ready?"
Her blank look didn't give me any indication of what was about to happen.
I nodded and a sudden pressure change around us was followed by a blinding light from her palm.
The force hit me squarely in the chest, knocking me off my feet.
An incredible pain tore through my chest as my heart jolted back to life. Feelings that had been held in stasis while I was dead raged around my nerves in a destructive rampage.
My eyes opened weakly.
Sunlight spilled over the long-haired silhouette wrapped around my waist. Her hands were clenched tightly around the straps of my chestplate. Strands of ruby-red hair clung to her tear-stained cheeks.
I raised my right hand, caressing her cheek in my palm. Flinching at the unexpected touch, her eyes widened in shock.
"H-heya, Hails…"
"Whaaa!?—"