Lua sat at the edge of camp as the false sun was setting on the horizon. She had dismissed the top half of the Blood Relic's outer plates, although all memories attuned themselves to the wearer's body. Wearing a full set of armour all the time was still rather uncomfortable. As such she had dismissed all the outer plating besides her boots, leaving her in the far more comfortable bodysuit.
She idly watched the undulating dark sea as it fought against the curse keeping it here, desperate to continuously expand outwards and consume more territory. But for the same reason the stone colossus couldn't advance beyond.
It stood to reason that they had left the boundaries of the Forgotten Shore proper and were now residing within the boundary between it and the Hollow Mountains. Being near the death zone of death zones was a rather uncomfortable experience for someone who knew that nothing less than a Saint would even dare to brave the zone.
She had known that Saint Cormac had been taking regular excursions into the mountains whilst occasionally checking up on 'Him'.
At the sound of soft footsteps on the ground behind her, Lua turned her head and watched as Sunny approached and sat next to her. He gazed into the dark sea for a while before speaking.
"I've been wondering. Your innate ability is your eye's and dormant is your essence. How do you absorb soul fragments from enemies you've killed?" Sunny asked, curiosity evident in his voice.
Lua observed the young man for a few moments before pointing to her glimmering golden eyes. "My innate ability, my eyes, allow me to see more, but also influence other things. Which is why I can strike the souls of creatures directly. That ability also allows me to directly absorb soul fragments."
She paused for a few minutes before adding, "Saint's incorporate their will into their actions, this allows them to achieve that which isn't conventionally possible. I do something similar, but of course, a sleeper's will is far weaker." She examined Sunny's serious expression, "It's a work around."
Sunny only nodded, before turning back to the undulating water. After a while Lua stood up and headed to the camp, sitting down where the fire previously was she summoned her runes. Examining the memories she got by almost killing herself a few days ago.
That risky manoeuvre of hers, overstraining her cores to supercharge a single enchantment had almost torn her soul open and destroyed Sky's Gift. Both outcomes were rather unfavourable in Lua's eyes.
Memories: [Winter's Warmth], [Knight's Crest], [Sky's Gift], [Scale Suit], [Talon of Unrest], [Eventide], [Mystic Beacon], [Sky Cleaver], [Valhalla], [Broken], [Blood Rune], [Nature's Gift], [Crimson Howl], [Veil Bloom Charm], [Primal Brand], [Reaver's Claw], [Goreheart Gauntlet], [Phantom Spore]
Echoes: [Blood Flower]
Eidolons: [Aetherium Wolf]
Lua whistled to herself and entered her soul sea to see the memories properly. She felt her arrival in her soul sea, in front of her four brilliant deep magenta suns rose above the calm golden water, the far off starry veil littered the remaining sky.
Lua took a few steps forward and sat down on the rippling water. She stared down at the golden water, lowering her hand, she ran her gauntleted hand through the shimmering water. The liquid ran over the pale bone which was coating the deep onyx, the elongated claws sifting through the water.
The runes remained in front of her eyes as she called on the specified runes moving to her new echo.
Blood Flower
Echo Rank: Awakened
Echo Class: Monster
Echo Attributes: [Shrouded], [Vessel], [Scarlett Rot]
[Shrouded]
Attribute description: [This monstrous flower's true shape is unknown.]
[Vessel]
Attribute description: [Bonded with its master, the monstrous rose can bond with its master.]
[Scarlett Rot]
Attribute description: [This flower's spores carry a devastating rot.]
'It's the monster based on what was in those disgusting primates.' Lua lifted her head and summoned the echo. Slowly a blood red moss began to form over her right arm. The moss extended up to her shoulder, spreading out like thick bloody veins.
Quickly three roses bloomed over her arm, the white petals glimmering in the light. 'What?' Lua examined the growth over her armoured body. The attributes of the echo weren't too powerful and given its relatively low rank it would be too powerful.
She ran her hand over the blossoms, the moss was soft and comfortable to touch yet felt alive. The flowers were soft and delicate yet carried a certain deadliness. Flexing her arm she felt no difference in strength of power.
'Must be a utility set of abilities.' The attributes the echo possessed were wide ranging and rather unspecific. The [Scarlett Rot] attribute was clearly an offensive one but having a wide area poisonous attack wouldn't be too smart when traveling with others.
Although having a large poisonous entity living on her arm would prove useful if a large creature attempted to eat her. But it was unlikely Lua would allow herself to fall into such a scenario.
'Best to only use this when need be and not all the time.' Lua dismissed the strange echo. The blossomed bloody moss slowly came apart into a storm of white sparks. 'Next, the memories.' Lua turned her attention away from the dismissed echo and onto the collection of new memories she acquired.
Summoning the first one, a long hollow crimson horn in the shape of a ram's. A small hole was at the other end, clearly used for blowing air into it.
[Crimson Howl]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: II
Memory Type: Tool
Memory Enchantments: [Terrify]
[Terrify]
Enchantment Description: [Blowing this horn causes immense fear in those who hear it.]
'That's… useless' Lua frowned. The enchantment sounded cool, the ability to scare anyone who heard it seems good. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, the sound would scare everyone, including the user.
Sure it could be useful if one could overcome their emotions. But, given Lua's flaw, if she used it around other people, their emotions would completely overpower her mind and cause unbelievable terror to overtake her.
'Definitely not a good idea to use that often… Or at all' Lua grimaced, the enchantment would cause problems no matter what context it was used in. Lua moved onto the next one. A dull silver pendant with a metallic red flower sigil slowly materialised out of bright white sparks. 'VeilBloom Charm'
[Veil Bloom Charm]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: II
Memory Type: Charm
Memory Enchantments: [Purified]
[Purified]
Enchantment Description: [This memory grants a moderate resistance to poisons.]
'A charm, useful' the enchantment itself was rather mediocre, but she might as well keep it. Turning the dull pendant over in her slender fingers before attaching it to the belt of the Blood Relic. The new addition rested among the others.
Lua skimmed over the other memories before settling on one in particular, the only memory worth really anything.
[Goreheart Gauntlet]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: II
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Enchantments: [Kinetic Potential]
[Kinetic Potential]
Enchantment Description: [This memory can absorb kinetic energy and redistribute it.]
The memory manifested, bright crimson and white steel gauntlets forming over her forearms, the metallic structure was harsh and angular, giving it a fearsome and violent appearance. Several dim grey runes glowed darkly against the red metal.
To test the enchantment, she slammed one hand into her palm. The grey runes flashed briefly before a few of them glowed slightly brighter. Clearly the energy from her attack had been transferred into the runes. 'This could be useful.' Lua dismissed the memory.
Lua finally finished examining the seven memories she had received, many of them were rather useless for someone like her. The last thing she wanted to check was a change she felt in both Wolf and the mysterious memory which enhanced it.
She'd thought the memory was gone, but it seems to have slunk into the recesses of his soul, almost as if it ran on a charge. Lua focused more on the memory, she felt slightly more connected to the memory. It had changed and become more complete. The runes shifted slightly, slowly the missing words slowly filled in.
[Heart of Rebirth]
Memory Rank: unknown
Memory Tier: unknown
Memory Type: unknown
Memory Description: [unknown]
Memory Enchantments: [Transmogrify]
[Transmogrify]
Enchantment Description: [In the quiet darkness, the Heart of Rebirth whispers of forgotten cycles and hidden metamorphoses.]
'So that's what it's called' Lua examined the true name of the memory, weirdly it still didn't appear in the list of memories that the spell displayed. She likely had to fully understand the memory in full for it to appear on her runes. And as usual with memories beyond the standard rank and tier system, the Spell refused to translate what the runes actually meant.
But the conditions to use it again clearly hadn't been met, as while it appeared for Wolf, the Blood flower didn't cause the prompt to appear again. Likely because some criteria within the Echo itself hadn't yet been fulfilled to allow its transformation into an eidolon.
Lua slowly exited her calm soul sea, finding herself back in the camp, the members of the cohort sleeping peacefully around her. She spent a few minutes looking around before lying down, slipping into the warm embrace of sleep.
***
The group slowly examined the large sunken pit of the quarry before them. The quarry was great in size, there was a road clinging to the slope of the circular pit led to the bottom of it, wide enough for ten carriages to ride side by side.
At the far end of the quarry, the grey slope of the mountain was cut and hollowed, creating something that resembled either colossal steps or seats of an amphitheater built for giants. Here and there, massive blocks of stone stood, as though ready to be transported back to the ancient city.
Lua gazed down at the quarry, the thing was huge but still smaller than places like the NQSC or even the Sanctuary of Noctis, but it was no understatement to say that this vast quarry was truly large.
Effie, meanwhile, was staring at something with a tense look on her face. Suddenly, she pointed to the center of the deep quarry and said "Over there, look."
At the bottom of the quarry, there was a giant Nightmare Creature. It looked like a strange insect, somewhat resembling a weird mix of a rhinoceros beetle and a praying mantis, with a smooth carapace, massive horn, and deadly blades attached to the joints of its limbs.
The whole creature seemed to be made out of stone and was the same color as the floor of the quarry. That flesh, however, was broken and shattered, lying in piles on the ground. The giant stone demon was long dead.
Lua gazed at the enormous corpse, trying to pry out what rank and class it was, but it was to no avail, the creature's corpse was far too old to glean what it once was. Lua's eyes narrowed as an essence blade flickered into existence in her hand. The rest of the cohort followed suit as they summoned their memories.
The cohort slowly moved down the long, twisting road, making their way towards the center of the quarry, and the large corpse holding dominion over the ruins. Lua focused her senses on identification of souls, aiming to use herself as an improvised radar for detecting nightmare creatures.
After a tense and exhausting half an hour of descending into the deep pit, the cohort finally got close to the remains of the giant stone insect. Cautiously stopping a few dozen meters away from it, they hesitated, not sure how to proceed.
Finally, Nephis sighed and walked forward, approaching the shattered body of the dead monstrosity. As their leader came close enough to the carcass to touch it with her hand, all of them held their breaths. A few seconds went by, then a few more. The giant creature had not moved, nor had it shown any signs of coming back to life. The thing just lay there, its body shattered and broken, terrifying even in death.
Turning her head, Nephis looked at them and said, "Come closer."
Encouraged by her words, the members of the cohort finally put their caution to rest and walked over to the dead creature. Of course, they were still prepared to instantly react in case something unexpected happened. The seven of them spent a few minutes studying the remains to determine whether the terrible creature was killed by a human or something of its own kind.
The next few minutes were rather uneventful, sunny shared his insight about how the creature died, but otherwise nothing important was happening, well besides an odd feeling that had crept its way into Lua's soul. It was familiar yet unknown, paradoxical in nature as her very soul seemed to be rejecting the foreign influence affecting her.
Her attention was taken as she watched the members of the cohort approach a shallow pile of rocks, resting a few dozen meters away from them. A grave.
Standing around the grave, the members of the cohort looked at it with somber expressions. Sunny stared at a set of words written into the stone, slowly he read the basic human language out, "Her nightmare is over"
The other members of the cohort were slowly coming back from their sudden reverie. Kai sighed and looked at Nephis, his face full of sadness. "I guess… I guess this is what we've been looking for. The First Lord and his expedition definitely passed this way. But what now?"
Nephis threw a last glance at the grave and turned to face the charming archer. "There should be an entrance to an old mine somewhere nearby. From what Cassie had seen, this is where they went."
Lua turned towards the deeper parts of the mines, idly gazing into the depths of what lay below the Hollow Mountains, the underworld. "...Cassie? Did you see something?" Lua turned over her shoulder at Neph's voice, there she saw Cassie gazing up at the Hollow Mountains, more specifically at a slow veil of mist which was descending towards them.
There was an expression of terror written on the blind girl's face. For a few moments, she just breathed heavily, as though trying to control herself. Finally, she spoke, her voice quiet but steady. "The mist... we must get underground before the mist comes. If not, all of us will die!"
Lua grimaced 'this damn palace is desperate to kill us' she thought with resignation, quickly she followed Sunny and Kai's examples and sprinted off, aiming to find the underground entrance before the mist finished descending.
She half glanced over her shoulder, witnessing as the mist ran down the upper edges of the quarry and began to descend directly towards them. "Follow me!" Lua instantly followed Sunny, his instructions plain enough given the situation.
Halfway to the wall of the quarry, Kai landed near them and gestured to a barely visible opening between the stone steps. "There! Hurry!" They entered the hidden path and ran as fast as they could, soon approaching the wide tunnel.
Each of them darted inside as the mist overtook the surface, drowning everything in the cloudy haze.