Chương 176: 4.42 Sheddings

After their raid of the archives they left without so much as a goodbye. Under veil of Void, Irwyn carried them into the horizon. North again, then a bit to the East following the compass given to them by Bhaak. That would be their next stop, and perhaps the last before reaching their destination. Mood for adventure had been souring.

"It's about time I carve my next Concept," Elizabeth announced not long after the town disappeared from their sight.

"Where do we stop then?" Irwyn nodded. It was only to be expected.

"That will not be needed," she shook her head.

"It can be done in flight with you here. You can provide the environment of rampant Flames. Just don't actually infuse the Concept into them - it could possibly skew my insights, however unlikely."

"Sensible," Irwyn admitted. After a short discussion, they settled on an arrangement of a burning cube surrounding her while she prepared to carve. Irwyn would watch the process, just in case it afforded some snippet of knowledge, but that would only start after a few hours of mediation as Elizabeth double-checked her insights. Since Elizabeth would be busy, it fell to Irwyn again to arrange their concealment. A block of fire was rather striking when flying through the skies.

Even if Irwyn could suppress the visual effects to something closer to a red box, it would be better to be invisible. And Irwyn just so happened to have an invisibility spell. He had to brush up on it since it had not seen use in a long while. The basic principle had been to copy the natural Light coming from an angle and then project it to the other side. Simple enough in principle, though he had to upscale from the more personnel spell.

That was fine, he had also grown orders of magnitude better at magic since first developing it. A large area around their group became fully transparent to any onlooker in just a short while. The only challenged was that he had to account for a slight distortion, but with his mind as potent as it was, that proved no great hurdle. To add to the effect, Irwyn also overlapped the invisibility with his own privacy spell. Another tool that had gone well underused since Elizabeth was simply better at providing both.

He re-examined each of the spells, empowering them to nine-intentions, but still opted out of using his Concepts for anything that could come into contact with his friends. In the few minutes he had been making those arrangements, the rest of the group had not been idle. Except for Elizabeth, who actually was exactly that inside the cube of Flames.

The other three had been bickering, welcoming Irwyn to the tail end of a mild argument that had Desir leaving in a false huff and the remaining two descending into a match of rock paper scissors. Which could be a rather interesting event since both of them held utter contempt for the game's rules. But that was not the important part. It provided Irwyn with an opportunity he was not quite ready for yet, but needed to grab onto.

He slowly moved Desir's platform forward so that they would be next to each other while thinking about what and how exactly to say. Irwyn had wanted to manufacture a chance to speak with their newest member one on one, but it was coming all too quickly, requiring him to improvise rather than plan out the conversation.

"You heard that I made a spell earlier for the break-in," so Irwyn started casually, casting All is seen in the same breath, barely filtering the surge of visual information. It was much easier up in the air with nothing much in the ambiance to distract him.

"One focused on perception." Glancing behind him at Waylan and Alice revealed nothing surprising. Waylan was extremely blurry to even that supernatural sight, true, but besides that he kept the same distinct shape, even when appearing more like a shadow than a man. He would likely still be wholly invisible when the sneak was trying to hide, but that was a whole different topic. The Time mage was even more normal, her form merely lined by slightly altering flows of vague distortions.

Perhaps he perceived her as a bit larger than life, but that was nothing extreme. More interestingly, on her finger was that metal-lattice ring that revealed incredible depth, then tried to autonomously conceal itself when observed. Like staring at the Spires from the edge of Abonisle but through mottled glass. Irwyn could tell there was much hidden, but not quite what. Elizabeth was similar in some sense. She, too, was hidden beneath layers of concealments and protections, though none as complete as the ring's.

Irwyn assumed that he was only able to seen her at all because whatever defenses her family had woven were designed against altogether different kinds of observation than what he was doing from so up close and without hostility. Not that she was easy to look at with the spell active. It actually physically hurt him. Slight stabbing pain that accumulated within his eyeballs the longer he stared at the swallowing black hole that was the heiress of House Blackburg.

A dark pit of profound depth, painful for his Light to behold. But still humanoid shaped, basically what he would expect.

"Yes, I figured this might be coming from just the name," Desir nodded while Irwyn mused.

"We have a few minutes before the backseat gets suspicious."

"So," Irwyn glanced at their newest member.

"You can imagine that I have questions." Because Desir, to his spelled sight, took a shape that did not even resemble a mortal being. Or much of a firm form in the first place. They appeared as an amorphous mass of evershifting matter. Perhaps it was flesh, but that was difficulty to tell, given it had the tint of every colour Irwyn had ever seen and then some - shifting, merging, and diverging from one another with every blink.

Like if someone had trapped the progenitor of all rainbows inside an invisible bag where it got all twisted up desperately trying to escape.

"Then I will endeavor to answer some," the being nodded with a wide smile upon the facade Desir wore.

"What you wear is not your real body, is it?" Irwyn sighed, getting straight to the point.

"That is rather arguable," Desir clicked his tongue theatrically.

"What is a real body? This flesh is physical. I can bleed, even out, if it ever comes to that. My metabolism is mostly normal and maintaining the brain-Soul link is still mandatory for my survival. Presumably, even death will be mostly the same - though I loath to actually put that to the test. I am practically human."

"But it is not your original," Irwyn qualified.

"No it is not," Desir nodded, the usual humor draining in between moments as his voice took on an edge.

"And to be clear, we will only have this conversation once, then never again. I would rather not talk about my early days at all if I couldn't see the paranoid worry spreading out from you like a miasma."

"I… cannot help but be perturbed," Irwyn reluctantly admitted.

"And I cannot help but despise some of my earliest memories, yet here we are," Desir shot back.

"The faster we get through this, the sooner I can not think about it again. So let's move on from any discomfort that wasn't strong enough to nip this in the bud."

"What are you then?"

"Something artificial. I am almost certain I was made rather than born. It's why those demons had hunted me for so long - reclaiming property as far as they are concerned. Except here I am, with all this free will and desires which very much do not include vivisection nowadays. Good luck convincing their liege of that, though."

"Do you know why they made you then?" Irwyn hesitantly inquired. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"My best guess is some big shot demon wanted to lab grow soldiers," Desir nodded grimly.

"I remember there were others. They gave us numbers instead of names, and the highest I ever met was 1433 - no idea if that was high or low end of the spectrum. There was also a lot of focus on preparing us for combat or other tasks."

"Then what did you look like back then?"

"Like whatever the men in charge wanted. One day a rampaging chimera, barely sapient. The next a sleek hunter with uncanny resemblance to an elf. And countless others. They had a way of forcing me to take certain shapes."

"Do you know your… original shape?" Irwyn had to know, still staring at what might have possibly been it.

"Originally, huh," Desir scoffed bitterly, then a dreamy expression took over his face.

"One of my eyes was definitely bright glowing pink. It still is the hardest part of me to transform, and reverts back to that state if I don't maintain the magic every few weeks. I definitely had a neck and wrists because I can still feel the phantom fetters there sometime. Legs… I don't remember walking in the early days. Torso could have been bloated or thin, no clue. Same for any extra appendages or growths. Does that sate your curiosity?"

"Yes, sorry," Irwyn nodded. When he looked for it, he thought he likely beheld something that could've been a singular pink eye. Not a human one, just an orb of bright color moving around the place but seemingly never deforming too far away from that shape. The other parts were harder to determine as Irwyn saw nothing with particular resemblance to limbs or a head. Or at least nothing that kept that shape for more than a few moments.

"Move on."

"What were you doing there? Or where was it in the first place?"

"Somewhere in the Void, but anchored to make physics and magic mostly the same as in a Realm - so on the shallow side. And I was dragged through a mix of training and experimentation, often both. Magic, brawling, manipulation… I was taught to do things, then evaluated on performance. Never once told if I was doing well or not though. The lessons are one thing I won't wholly begrudge, because they served me well, even if I despise remembering them. Then eventually something happened and I escaped.

Not saying a word beyond that on those events - don't think I even can, actually. Just that there was an opening so I grabbed on and held on. Spent who knows how long stranded in the Void, my meager body sustained by the ambient energy in the hollow absence. I think I went insane from the lack of stimulus for subjective eternities, though I have none of those memories anymore. Some trick of the psyche let me suppress the ego death until I met Bhaak who sold me a way to remove that part wholesale.

Anyway, eventually, I washed up here on this Realm. At the foot of one of those glass mountains we are heading towards. There I almost died again, unable to really survive with whatever Void adapted shape I had been in at the time. But luckily I ran into a human. The memory is blurry, so are the following weeks on account on the large swaths of it that had to be surgically removed.

That person could have taken me in and helped me get on my feet, or I might have killed them on the spot without ever knowing their name. Either way, by the time I recall being coherent again, I had somehow shapeshifted to a human physiology and had basic understanding of the local area that let me survive. Still don't know how I had shifted so fully back then, even to this day. Despite all the progress I have made, my control over the shape changing remains incredibly limited compared to what I know is possible.

From there you mostly know the important bits. Bhaak got me to the Federation. By then I knew I would be pursued, so I went and faked my death in the northernmost parts of the Duchy of White. We actually first met on my way back from there. Afterward I did a much better job feigning an untimely devise as you know - because they wouldn't expect me to feign that kind of thing twice within a few months of each other."

"I did not realize how terribly you were treated in the past…" Irwyn started"You can honor that suffering by concluding this conversation."

"Thank you for sharing with me even through the discomfort."

"Don't mention it. And by that I mean ideally ever again."

"I won't… but can I bring it to Elizabeth? Or the others?"

"Sure, as long as I am out of earshot, and no one suddenly remembers that their family has an extradition treaty with the demon who had ordered me made."

"Hopefully you can at least trust it wouldn't come down to that, even if such a thing existed."

"Yes, I wouldn't have shared otherwise," Desir let out a deep sigh.

"But would you look at that. Rock, paper, temporal-cutter has just about concluded. I could use something a bit more light to get my mind off of this."

"Sure," Irwyn nodded, moving Desir's platform back wherein he joined Alice and Waylan at the end of what really did not look like rock paper scissors anymore. Or maybe it looked too much like it. Alice was throwing random pebbles she had stored for perhaps that exact reason and sheets of paper she had 'taken to maximize confusion' while Waylan was dodging out of the way of both. That left Irwyn with time to ponder magic until…

"Hey!" Waylan interrupted that forming chain of thought.

"?" Irwyn shot back a questioning glance.

"You are also playing," Alice waved a deck of cards above her head. And well, what choice did he have? He also had an idea he wanted to test against her. The heiress of Steelmire certainly had a knack for cheating, and Irwyn had just the right snare in mind. So, they sat down and enjoyed a moment of sheer leisure. Irwyn did not hesitate about implementing his trap either"I cannot believe you did that," the Time mage was still sore about her loss despite several hands passing by.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Irwyn shot her an innocent smile. When Alice sneaked a peek at everyone's cards with her subtlest magic, she still needed to visually look. So Irwyn had overlaid an illusion of a different, worse, hand over his own. It only worked once, but he had timed it well, resulting in Alice landing in the overall last place despite all her efforts.

"I think we are the living nightmare of every casino," Desir chuckled.

"Except for me," Waylan added.

"Just because you are cheating to lose doesn't mean you are not cheating."

"He was?" Irwyn raised an eyebrow at his old friend.

"You are so full of magic you forget to look for basic sleight nowadays, Irw," Waylan grinned.

"And the point is not winning, but not getting caught. No one gets suspicious that I had lot of shit hands. Except Des."

"Is that what my name shortens to?" Desir inclined his head.

"Yep, works out fine."

"What about me?" Alice jumped in.

"Do you want to be called Al?" Waylan shot her an questioning glance.

"No…" she shrunk back.

"What about Elizabeth then?"

"She gave me a way too harsh of a look the one time I tried Lizzy, so that's a bust."

"That's what her mother tends to call her," Irwyn recalled.

"I can imagine that wouldn't go down well."

"Makes sense."

"Actually, is a harsh glare all it takes to make you drop a stupid nickname?" Irwyn frowned. Then tried giving Waylan the harshest look he could manage. Which wasn't the best.

"I know you don't mean it, Irw," Waylan just guffawed at the attempt.

"It looks like she is starting," Desir interrupted with the reason why they had stopped their game in the first place. Elizabeth was slowly beginning to carve her second Concept. Flame. It would be different from Irwyn's in some ways, similar in others. Irwyn's own burned, a tool of destruction and incineration. Elizabeth's would be the inner heat that drove her past any limit of the body. The conflagration of the forge, the combustion of an engine. Irwyn watched as she drew the first line.

The group was not wearing that strange monocle that let them see Soul better again - they were apparently limited and could get used up - so Irwyn was left relying on just his raw sense and new spell. But it was the element they shared, so he perceived much. He could even decipher the intention itself, heat, watching it's curved and geometrically impossible shapes come into fruition. She was no faster than the first time, taking a while to finish each line as the pressure increased.

Unlike Irwyn she still struggled despite every bit of preparation. Even though her sheer talent should have logically made the boundary trivial. Carving remained a trial. But one she was against overcoming. Intention by intention, one carved line at a time. Some intentions used were the same as the ones Irwyn had utilized himself and he recognized them easily. Yet even though their shapes were familiar, they were ultimately slightly but unmistakably different from his own. Both perfect, just for someone else.

Then, eventually, she was done. Irwyn watched the moment her Flame attained completion. Heat, ignite, warmth, kindle, embody, control, magic, strengthen, and empower. Hours had passed with Irwyn only keeping a side eye on the way ahead. No real air traffic in the Kingdom besides birds, and they were flying far above even the tallest buildings. When the heiress emerged, unraveling that burning box, she was smiling. Actually, there was something else to it. A spell, making Irwyn frown and look for the source.

It was on or within Elizabeth's body, wielding that new Concept with natural deftness. But despite that it was small enough in scale, he had to look for a good while to locate where. An almost embarrassing amount of time, actually. Because he had conditioned himself over the previous weeks to explicitly not even glance at the spot. A certain wart was smoldering. Burning up from within, being evaporated by cleansing heat meant to purify and embolden the flesh.

And an undesired imperfection like that could not hold on. In the past, the ugly growth had survived being even cut out with the errasive power of the Void - it had always returned. Regrew from practically naught. But the Flame burned it down to the invisible root. Incinerated the very resilience that embodied it.

"Good riddance," Elizabeth laughed as the bit of burned flesh finally fell to the floor and then through it. Down and out of sight forever.