The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Waking up with a groan, Larek opened his eyes and was briefly surprised that he could actually see the sky above him. The last thing he remembered was being blinded by the explosion of his spell patterns, but everything after that was just gone.

What happened? Where am I? More importantly, did it work?

“Please be fine, please be fine—Larek! You’re awake!”

The sight of Nedira leaning over him brought a smile to his face, as it proved that she had been able to get away from the explosion. Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw Verne and Norde sitting in some short grass, which was also great to see, and it also helped him locate where he was. Since there wasn’t any snow or frozen trees around, he could only assume that he had been brought out of the transformed forest and was lying down in the grass outside. In addition, based on the angle of the sun in the sky, he was fairly certain that only a short time had passed since his spell patterns exploded, so he wasn’t out for very long.

Before he said anything to Nedira, Larek did a mental check through his body to see if he was hurt anywhere, but it didn’t take long for him to determine that he felt physically fine. Quite hungry, though, which meant that he’d likely had some extensive healing done on him in addition to his eyes, but whatever it had been was gone.

He frowned when he looked at his body in a different way, however. When he concentrated on his Pattern Cohesion, it was in shambles; thin in places, ragged in others, and even slightly torn in parts that worried him a little. Overall, it was bad, but he didn’t think it was bad; he was fairly certain that with some rest and not using his Pattern Cohesion in any way for at least a week or two, he’d be fine. His Pattern was fairly resilient, he’d found, but he had pushed it quite a bit with what he just did.

“What? What is it?”

Nedira must have seen the frown on his face, because she looked worried at his expression. He hurried to reassure her. “I’m alright. I overextended my Pattern Cohesion a bit, so I need to lay off the Fusions for a week or two.”

The fifth-year Naturalist’s expression turned from concern to relief and then to anger in a matter of a few seconds. She punched his shoulder, which didn’t hurt but surprised him. “What was that, you idiot?! You almost killed yourself and all of us with that little stunt!”

“Ahh, well, yes, about that,” he said a little sheepishly as he looked away from her, seeing that all of his companions were gathered around and everyone was thankfully alive. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, but we were running out of time and had to do something.”

“Moron. Why do you think you need to be the one that does everything? We might have come up with a solution if you told us what you were thinking, but no, you had to go and nearly kill yourself.”

He was slightly hurt at the way she was talking to him, but he tried to look at it from her perspective. He had nearly killed himself, after all, and she was worried about him. He could only imagine that he would feel the same way if any of his friends threw themselves into a dangerous situation like he had.

Reaching out to cover her hand with his own, he looked her in the eyes and said, sincerely, “I’m sorry. I… wasn’t thinking clearly, and I shouldn’t have put myself and all of you in danger.”

Some of the anger softened in her face, but he could tell she was still a bit mad at him.

Before she could say anything else, he asked, “So… did it work? Was the sphere destroyed?”

Larek heard footsteps heading in his direction and he turned his head from where he was lying to see Major Kuama heading in his direction. He stiffened in preparation for a betrayal of her sworn vow, but the worried look on her face strangely made him relax. If she was worried about something, then it meant she likely wasn’t planning on trying to hurt him or his companions.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your question,” she said when she had his attention. “We sent some scouts to check it out, and I’m not exactly sure of the answer.

“First, there is no sign of any Greater Trizards other than the remnants of some corpses, and the trees around the area of the blast – which was damn stupid of you, even if it seemed to work – have been flattened in a circle that reaches a little more than 400 feet from the explosion’s epicenter. As for the dark sphere, it’s still there, but it’s comparatively tiny at about the size of my closed fist here. The scouts attempted to damage it further, but their attacks all passed through it as if it didn’t exist at all, but though it is obviously still there because of its visibility.

“When we couple that with the transformed forest still looking as it did when we entered, I’m not sure what to think. I believe the threat is over for now, but whether it will return? There’s no way to know.”

That was at least a little bit of good news, though it was worrying that the sphere was still there – if seemingly inert instead of constantly spewing out monsters.

I guess we can say that the task was failed successfully.

“Regardless, this is something we have to report to those higher up in the chain of command, so when we travel to—”

Whatever else the Major was saying was lost to Larek as a notification suddenly slammed into his mind.

Welcome to The Culmination, Guardian!

Congratulations! You have located and temporarily closed the first Aperture to appear in this world!

While Scissions are temporary portals into the world of the Corruption, Apertures are permanent connections between the two worlds. These permanent connections are established when the Corrupted Aetheric Force present in their physical manifestations (that the sapients of this world refer to as monsters) infuse a particular density of Corruption inside their chosen territory. When an Aperture is first established, the environment in their chosen territory can and will transform to better accommodate the physical manifestations of Corruption, making these areas particularly dangerous for mundane sapients without access to Aetheric Force. In addition, during this process, all physical manifestations that will populate the Aperture and surrounding environs are absorbed for their Corrupted Aetheric Force and used as fuel for the establishment of the permanent connection.

After the Aperture is opened, the Corruption will then seed the transformed territory with the same physical manifestations that were used in its creation, evenly disbursing them around the area to defend its territory until a threshold has been reached. This seeding process is the absolute worst time to try and temporarily close an Aperture, because there is no limit to the number of physical manifestations that will emerge from its opening as it attempts to populate its territory. It is best to wait for the seeding process to finish before temporarily closing the Aperture, as it will take much less time and effort.

As this is your first temporary Aperture closing, keep in mind that the Aperture will reopen once the Corruption on the other side of the opening reaches a critical level, which all depends on the strength of the physical manifestations. For weaker physical manifestations, the closure can be measured in days or hours; for the truly powerful manifestations, closures can last for up to a year.

Warning! Do not allow the Apertures to remain open for too long, otherwise they will begin to spread their Corruption beyond the bounds of the original territory. As their territory expands, more physical manifestations are added to seed the expansion, and can even begin to develop stronger versions of the manifestations as time goes on. Temporarily closing an Aperture will revert the territory to its original dimensions, so keep this in mind when evaluating which Apertures take priority so as to reduce the loss of nearby mundane sapients.

In addition, Apertures left unchecked for long enough and allowed to expand will gradually raise the ambient Corruption in this world, increasing the frequency of Scissions and the potential for additional Apertures and therefore more chances for spreading the Corruption. Too much ambient Corruption can lead to a widening of the main breach into the other world, which will increase the risk to Guardians and all sapient life.

Good luck and good hunting!

Larek was glad that he was still lying down, because the sudden information overload was not only jarring, but overwhelming after all that had happened. When he read through the notification, he groaned again while wanting to close his eyes and fade back into unconsciousness.

This can’t be happening. Can it?

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Nedira said, hearing him groan.  Larek was about to explain to her and the rest of his group what the notification told him about Apertures, but then he realized that the Major was still nearby looking at him. How do I explain all this? He immediately knew that he had to tell the woman something, given that this Aperture would open again at some point and would have to venture back into the forest to close it, otherwise they ran the risk of it expanding and threatening Whittleton. It was only a few miles away, after all.

Overwhelmed by all the information and with the Kingdom—no, the entire world—at stake if this knowledge wasn’t immediately shared with the SIC, he mentally shrugged and displayed the notification above him large enough that everyone could see. He debated censoring the parts about Guardians, but decided not to after giving it a brief thought; it was unlikely that anyone would know that term, as those who knew about the Gergasi thought of them as Great Ones instead of Guardians. It was still a risk to share it all, especially when there would inevitably be questions about how he received this information, but he thought it was too important not to.

The soft murmur of voices that Larek just then realized was coming from the local SIC force gathered at the edge of the transformed forest faded away as they all turned to the displayed notification hovering above Larek. That silence continued even as they finished reading it, and the Fusionist could see shock clearly written across those faces he could see from his position.  That shock only lasted long enough for the quickest of them to register what they just read in their minds, before the floodgates were loosened.

“This can’t be real, can it?”

“Apertures?”

“Permanentconnections? To what world are they talking about?”

“Who or what are Guardians?”

“I don’t understand, what is the Corruption and what is this Aetheric Force stuff?”

“Who is this guy and how did he get this? Is this an illusion?”

The cacophony of questions was too much for Larek to handle, so he began to ignore it. The most important response wasn’t from the rest of the SIC, but the Major. When Larek looked at her, she was frozen in place, her hand on her spear with its butt on the ground, staring at the notification. After a few seconds of watching her, the local SIC leader looked down at Larek with conflicting emotions spread over her face. “If this is true, then we have no time to waste disseminating this information. Are there others like you who will be able to spread this knowledge?”

Larek shrugged, which wasn’t as impactful laying on the ground, but it got his point across. He didn’t really have an answer for her, because he didn’t know.

“And this is just the first? Can we expect more of these… Apertures to open all over the Kingdom?” she asked.

“I would assume so, but I really don’t know. I only found out about them moments before I displayed the notification, so your guess is as good as mine.”

While the whole situation with Apertures and Corruption mattered to the Kingdom and the SIC as a whole, Larek didn’t think it really applied to his own situation all that much. Sure, he needed to kill monsters in order to improve his Skills via the Aetheric Force he would receive from their deaths, but he was in no position to go around and help close Apertures right now. He needed to get stronger in his ability to make Fusions, as well as attend Fort Ironwall to learn how to fight.

The reason for that wasn’t even because he wanted to fulfill Dean Lorraine’s hope that he would close this “breach” mentioned in the notification, but simply because he wanted to survive. From the first days after leaving Rushwood, he was finding that the world was a much more dangerous place than he ever imagined, and it just seemed to be getting more dangerous as time went on. If he didn’t learn how to defend himself, his friends, and his family from all the threats lurking out there, up to and including the Gergasi working behind the scenes, then he would become just another victim of unfortunate circumstances. Helping to save the Kingdom and perhaps even the entire world was of secondary importance to him. That, of course, didn’t mean he wanted to watch the world burn around him, because that would mean there was no safe place for the people he cared about to live.

He'd help where he could, which was why he originally wanted to provide the duplicitous SIC force in the Whittleton with Fusions, as well as sharing the notification with the Major. But he still had no plans to go out of his way to challenge the Gergasi and close this aforementioned breach into another world.

Finally standing up, as he felt better – if quite hungry – by that point, Larek remembered helping to kill one of the Greater Trizards back near the Aperture and wondered if he actually received any Aetheric Force from it.

Larek Holsten

Fusionist

Healer

Level 21

Advancement Points (AP) : 17/18

Available AP to Distribute: 2

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 5,424

To say that Larek was shocked at the current total of 5,424 AF available in his Status would be an understatement. For a moment, he wondered where it had come from, because he doubted that he had received over 5,000 AF from just a portion of that Trizard he had killed.  It was only when he thought about all of the monsters that had been alive outside of the Aperture when his spells detonated that he remembered that he had likely killed at least two dozen or more of them in the explosion. So, I got all of their Aetheric Force, too? It was the only thing that made sense, but he wasn’t going to argue whether he earned it or not; the current state of his Pattern Cohesion was proof enough that he more than paid the price for it.

He was in the process of figuring out where he wanted to allocate his bounty of Aetheric Force when he was interrupted by the Major.

“I don’t know where you came from or where you’re going, but I have to thank you for your help,” she said begrudgingly. “I feel a bit ashamed of how I acted earlier.  I was desperate and grasping at an opportunity that presented itself, but that is no excuse for my actions as an officer in the SIC. I’ll see to it that your wishes about your anonymity are upheld, even if I have to beat in a few heads to get the message across with all these meatheads.”

The Corpsmen that heard her didn’t seem to take offense at the Major calling her subordinates meatheads; instead, it seemed to break the tension of the crowd as Larek heard a few chuckles. While they weren’t suddenly friendly toward Larek and his group, their hostility took a back seat to the entire situation with the discovery of the Aperture and future danger of even more appearing nearby.

The Fusionist could tell that the Major wanted to get back to her job, so he reached out and shook the hand that she offered. “Thank you. We need to be on our way, as well, so—”

Larek stopped as his whole body stiffened in response to something. The Major dropped his hand and whipped around with her spear at the ready, as an overwhelming presence could be felt coming closer to their location.

Oh, no. Not this again.