Two days after his revelations in the Archivum, Arcturus was again staring at the status screen in front of him in consideration, once more mulling over the change that Astra Zion — or at least, the conscious sliver of Astra Zion — had wrought upon his status sheet. In particular, his most integral magical skill. In truth it wasn’t specifically a ‘change’ as much as a ‘clarification’, but it still filled him with a sense of curiosity and wonder as he read it.

INFORMATION PANEL

Astrakinesis

(Level 24, Active)

Previously believed to be the more mundane Telekinesis ability, this magical ability is instead unique to its wielder. This capability has been unlocked by [System Custodian Primus].

Combining the capacity for Spatial, Gravity, and Force manipulation with Psionic catalyzation: Astrakinesis is the mental control of the forces of reality around oneself.

Astrakinetic domains include (but are not limited to): Spatial Expansion, Spatial Compression, Gravity Manipulation, Kinetic Force Manipulation.

At appropriate power levels, this ability may even show the potential for manipulating the Strong Nuclear Force.

This is a Divine Ability reliant solely on the wielder’s force of will. To wield this power is to be a peer to the Eldest of Elder Gods.

Optimal Range: 20m Around Caster

Fall-Off Range: 25m+ Around Caster

Dead Zone: 30m+ Around Caster

The ridiculousness of the ability still left him floored when he sat down to really think about it. He was no physics major, and his understanding of the four fundamental forces was relatively rudimentary; but he knew what the Strong Nuclear Force was and the idea he could influence it at some point in the distant future… It was mind-boggling. The clarification on his range limitations was helpful as well, and the first time he’d seen it his initial reaction had been to wonder why the System hadn’t clarified those details earlier.

Perhaps it had something to do with Astra Zion’s dormancy.

[System Custodian Primus] clearly designated the Elder God, after all.

Arcturus pulled his eyes away from the status screen as he dismissed it, and instead focused on his surroundings. He was seated in a subordinate room of the library, one which was used for meditation and cultivation of Vitae from what Lilith had told him. The room was circular, ten metres in radius, and had a shallow depression two metres in radius at its centre.

It was within that depression that Arcturus sat, cross-legged and frustrated at his lack of progress. The advice Lilith had given him about cultivating Vitae was clear, but the actual implementation of the relatively simple instructions she’d given him remained an exercise in futility. She had told him to clear his mind, steady his breathing, and focus on threading his Anima and Aether together. Her words had been about breaking the barriers between the material and spiritual, the magical and the mundane, and twining his two essences into a single combined whole.

In Arcturus’ head, the image of a Double Helix had appeared when she’d said it, and he’d been focusing on that image as the foundation of his meditation. Constantly and unendingly, he tried to take Anima and Aether and thread them into something resembling the Double Helix. The first problem, of course, was that he had no worldly idea how he was supposed to manipulate Anima.

Aether was one thing. Arcturus was quite confident that he was excellent at aether manipulation, in fact, thanks to his Soulforce and the manner in which it informed his usage of pure aether. Especially as an Archon, his talent for turning his mana into magic was naturally superior to most people. How this translated to the manipulation of his anima, however, was perplexing. Lilith had made it sound like they were tied together in the way she phrased things, but for Arcturus it was simply bewildering.

He could no more will his body or blood than he could will the sky to rain.

In fact, with access to Aether, the latter might have proven far easier.

Passive Anima was the body and its structure, active Anima was the blood, cells, plasma, et cetera. The things that gave the structure life and vitality. Similarly, passive Aether was the soul and the energy of reality that allowed all creation to be born; like the fuel of some cosmic multiversal engine. Active Aether was the mana in one’s body, and the residual magic in the air and atmosphere that suffused properly saturated Shards and the Source itself.

How those things joined together into Vitae, however, remained a perplexing mystery. He couldn’t quite understand how the union was achieved, nor how to properly find convergence between the two. Was it a matter of extracting liquid mana? He’d seen it done, but it was a slow and arduous process, and didn’t seem correct for what it was Lilith was asking. He could make himself bleed, but the blood would decay and be rendered corrupt eventually by the oxidation it would undergo.

Arcturus once again found himself struggling to understand how it was that the Vitaeans stumbled upon the means to create and harness Vitae. It seemed odd that such an esoteric and enigmatic method of power cultivation could simply be found by people with the desire to learn. It felt like there had to have been something else at play, something important that he was missing and that was also missing from Lilith’s own recollection of her race’s history. That, or something she was keeping from him… Though he doubted it was the case. Astra Zion had said he could trust Lilith, in perhaps different words, and he was inclined to take the Elder God’s word for it.

You can trust her. Those that reside in this Acropolis, barring the Fallen, are your allies.

Astra Zion’s smooth baritone relaxed him as it answered his subconscious desire for absolute clarification. While Arcturus couldn’t call his interactions with the sliver of the Elder God conversational, the infrequent times he did choose to pass something along had so far proven invaluable.

When the deity had deigned to accede to Arcturus’ request and allowed him to act as a medium between Astra Zion and Lilith, so the latter could receive absolute confirmation on the Elder God’s fractional consciousness, he had greatly improved the woman’s disposition and general sense of liveliness as a result. Where before there had been a quiet resignation lurking within the black-haired beauty’s gaze, Arcturus saw instead a fire of determination that had been kindled by his arrival and fed to a blaze by Astra Zion’s brief communication.

What had passed between them Arcturus didn’t know, as he had not been privy to the details, but Lilith’s tears of joy and emboldened drive to see him made ready told him that it had been positive.

Arcturus sighed in the same moment as he realised that he was intentionally letting his mind wander. He’d been beating his head at the secret to unlocking Vitae for several hours, and the most he’d come up with was how implausible the entire task seemed. It bewildered him that there had been an entire race, literally thousands or more people that had managed to transmute their lifeblood into Vitae. That’s what the process was, after all: An internal, artificial transmutation.

His thoughts drifted to a short and angry blond with a prosthetic, and he snorted.

Accepting that he wasn’t going to make any meaningful progress, Arcturus pulled himself to his feet and stretched, enjoying the feeling of his new clothes on his skin. Their arrival had been a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. He had woken up the day after his discussion with Astra Zion and found them folded and waiting for them on the chaise inside his room. They were exactly his style as well: A high-collared red button-up shirt, black vest, black tie with a patterned silver dragon on it, a pair of matching black leggings and comfortable knee-high boots that completed the ‘dark’ theme.

Whatever people wanted to say about black and red and how ‘grim’ it looked, Arcturus loved it. It made anyone who wore it look good, capable, and badass. The idea that it was somehow a ‘villain’ flag struck him as preposterous. He’d asked Lilith the meaning behind the black and red that was everywhere, of course, and her answer had only increased his enthusiasm: Vitaeans proudly wore black and red in demonstration of the tenets of their society, as opposed to any villainous or insidious purpose. In the eyes of Vitaeans, black was the only immutable shade in the entire spectrum of available choices, and through its stoic implacability represented the virtues they wished to uphold: Fortitude, honour, dedication, fidelity, honesty, integrity, and strength.

Black was non-deceptive, clearly defined in its purpose, and lacked gaudy ostentation. This made it very desirable to the duty and purpose-oriented Vitaeans. Red, similarly, was chosen for its correlation to passion, and the similar emotions it evoked. Love, commitment, bonds, duty, and emotional investment. The natural transition to black and red as their primary and secondary colouration was a simple evolution of the comparatively minimalist and humble Vitaean perspective, compared to the modern Empire.

In fact, Vitaeans saw gaudy or flamboyant colours as deceptive, false, and as representative of a lack of reliability: Especially since they could be 'changed at a whim' by other influences, and thus represented duplicity or weakness of character to the Vitaean people. It was a logic that was, admittedly, rather archaic and absolutist in its delivery but was a logic that he could support. Even resonate with. The solidity and all-encompassing nature of the black shade was one he found suitable for a representation of what it was the Vitaeans sought to espouse, and he found their reasoning far more palatable than most.

“You’re daydreaming again.”

Arcturus looked up from the silver dragonhead cufflinks near his wrist to where Lilith stood, framed prettily in the doorway with her arms folded over her bust and her right side leaning against the frame. She was attired in a flowing crimson dress, with a slit up each leg and a black, red-laced corset that did nothing to hide her figure. Were it not for the fact that she seemed completely uninterested in him, Arcturus might have sworn the Vitaean scholar was trying to seduce him each time he saw her.

She was breathtaking.

“Guilty.” He admitted readily as he walked towards her. “I was getting frustrated.”

“So it seems.” She responded without ire. “You’ve been locked in here for a few hours. I thought it might have been prudent to offer you a reprieve.”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all Lilith.” Arcturus teased as he drew level with her, peering down at her bright ruby eyes with his own.

“Yes, well…” She cleared her throat. He could have sworn he saw the faint traces of a blush before she turned away and hurried ahead of him back into the Archivum proper. “It’s past time we addressed your immediate problem with the… What did you name them? The Oni?”

“Oni, Yōkai, Others, Beyonders, Eldritch Horrors, extra-dimensional lovecraftian assholes…” Arcturus smiled as he followed her departing figure. “Whatever works, really.”

“Your colourful choice of definition never ceases to amaze me.” Lilith responded drily as she led him to her usual table, bang in the centre of the Archivum’s main floor and conveniently close to the meditation room he’d been using. “Those won’t be the direct subject of today’s discussion however.”

“Oh?” Arcturus asked as he joined her at the table and sprawled into one of the comfortable armchairs that Sevatar had supplied at his request. “Then what shall?”

“The Dark Tribes.” Lilith said with a resigned glance at his relaxed position, having given up on trying to force him to be more ‘appropriate’ in how he sat during their sessions. Arcturus was attentive and did his best to learn, and that seemed to assuage the wound to her propriety created by his laissez-faire approach to posture and decorum.

“The Dark Tribes?” Arcturus asked curiously as he leaned forwards subconsciously with interest. “That sounds ominous and dramatic.”

“I am glad that stirred your interest.” Lilith responded just a little smugly while unfurling a map of the Blighted Lands on the table with several interesting icons sketched in. “The Dark Tribes are the descendants of the mundanes that remained loyal to the Vitaeans during and after the Fall. They even refused to leave the Blighted Lands once they were corrupted, citing a divine obligation to await the ‘return of the eternal ones’.”

Arcturus raised an eyebrow at the theological implications.

“Yes.” Lilith said in answer to his unspoken question. “They turned us into figures of deific reverence, though thankfully we are firmly secondary to the Elder Gods.”

“And the Twelve?”

“Upstart servants of the true gods.” Lilith replied with clear approval in her eyes and tone. “The Dark Tribes, for all their degeneration into comparative savagery; retained a sense of identity and adherence to a Vitaean code of honour and conduct that is rather impressive.”

“How’d you learn all this trapped in the Acropolis?” Arcturus asked curiously.

“They trade with Sevatar.” She answered honestly. “They bring us furs, silks, even food. In return we give them trinkets and treasures from the Acropolis that mean nothing in the grand scheme, but are seen as important cultural and historical relics to them. It is a little distasteful to essentially swindle them in this manner, but it does give them a sense of achievement and cultural pride.”

“Have they really regressed that much?” Arcturus asked as he looked down at the map, and the various designs drawn upon it.

“Perhaps regression or degradation paint the wrong image. They have become what was necessary for their survival, especially against the Beyonders. They even retain some measure of our understanding of the natural world, since they have all chosen to make their home within the graveyards of Dragons.”

Arcturus’ eyes widened. “Okay not only is that pretty cool, I also understand why thanks to Astra Zion.” He ignored the faint shiver that gripped her whenever he mentioned speaking with the Elder God. He kept overlooking how odd it must have been for the woman that he was casually hosting a sliver of Astra Zion in his head. “Dragons naturally amplify Anima and Aether wherever they are. I would assume the bones of Wyrms would be immensely potent, even millennia after their death.”

“That is correct.” Lilith said with an approving smile. “The graveyards ironically enough create a field of renewal and accelerated growth that counters the influence of the Beyonders’ destructive presence. Each of the members of a Dark Tribe also wear talismans made of carefully extracted and carved dragon teeth, and have tattoos mixed with dragon bone powder that grant them a considerable measure of protection while they fight and kill the Beyonders that draw too near to their sanctuaries.”

“...Wow.” Arcturus said after several moments’ silence. “That sounds impressive… and useful.”

“The Dark Tribes, I believe, are the immediate solution that Astra Zion spoke of. If you were able to unite their disparate factions, you would have an army capable of not only securing a core swathe of the Blighted Lands against the Beyonders, but a force ready to stand against any assault from the Forsworn Empire.”

“Astra Zion told me to look at my shard’s history… I suppose that means the sections about men like Hannibal, Ghengis, and Attilla. On Earth, they were renowned conquerors that defied and founded the great nations of their age.”

“You will need to advance along the path towards taking the Sovereign’s place before you can think of such lofty goals.” Lilith warned him. “If you do not command the Grand Acropolis in truth, and if your power does not impress them; you will fail before you can begin any form of unification.”

“That makes sense.” Arcturus said with a nod. “Astra Zion told me I’d need a force to hold the Acropolis regardless, and he told me to look to my Main Quest. I would assume he meant the task to Cleanse or Kill the Fallen in the sublevels.”

“That would be a dangerous task.” Lilith warned him. “However if you succeeded, you would have not only a cadre of powerful warriors, but loyal and capable Vitaeans to help rebuild our society.”

“An Empire is nothing without its people.” Arcturus agreed. “Having restored Vitaeans to aid me would be an immeasurable advantage, but the sheer cost in Vitae…”

“One step at a time.” Lilith said calmly. “Your desire to redeem my people is…” She smiled at him warmly. “You are quickly becoming worthy of the Royarchal mantle you are walking toward, Arcturus, but you must do things in their correct order. First you must cultivate Vitae, then you will ascend, and then you can look to the Fallen and Dark Tribes.”

“Not to mention my other Quest from Astra Zion…” Arcturus sighed.

“The Dragons…” Lilith said softly. “That would truly be something to behold, I wish…” She blinked and shook her head. “What is done is done. Now, the Dark Tribes! Unless you wish to continue one of the previous tangents?”

Arcturus was half-tempted to ask what it was she’d meant when she had trailed off, but he resisted the urge. Digging up the past was a good way of inspiring melancholy in the Scholar, and he was enjoying her company enough to want her to retain a positive outlook. “I’m happy to listen.” He said instead with a polite smile.

“Very good.” Lilith intoned approvingly. “The Dark Tribes are, as you’ve likely guessed, a tribalistic society in a definition sense. They are each led by a Chief, with a council of Elders who act as advisors and guides within their sprawling sanctuaries. Each tribe is represented by a different symbol, one which correlates to a cultural or social aspect of the tribe that is imperative to their identity.”

“What about this one?” Arcturus enquired as he tapped the symbol closest to the Grand Acropolis. “Tell me about them.”

“The Bloodstone Tribe.” Lilith said without needing to look where he’d pointed. “They are the most magically adept of the Dark Tribes, and practice a mixture of blood magic and brutalistic close combat techniques that makes them a premier faction among the tribes. Bloodstone tattoos are unique in that they are infused with a rare resource: A preserved cache of blood from a Great Wyrm attuned to Fire.”

“How in the hell?” Arcturus asked in surprise.

“Dragonsblood was a powerful reagent and carefully controlled resource in the Vitaean Empire, provided willingly by donation from the Great Wyrms and lesser Dragons. Each donation was taken by the barrel, and stored with powerful preservation techniques in specifically designed caches” Lilith looked at the map with a sombre expression. “Almost all of them were destroyed or used in the Fall, but a very small number survived. The Bloodstone Tribe discovered one such cache several centuries after the Fall.”

“And they do what with it?”

“The use ritual Athames to carve shallow spellform runes into their tribe members’ flesh for every kill scored against a Beyonder. The tattoos follow the same spellform as those of the other tribes, but the dragonsblood enhances them greatly. Each member of the tribe is granted one such tattoo upon reaching adulthood.”

“And how old is adulthood?”

“Fifteen.” Lilith answered readily.

“Jesus Christ.” Arcturus muttered, reaching up to rub his forehead with his thumbs. “So young.”

“Are you not barely past twenty years?”

“Yeah, and that’s how I know that most fifteen year olds don’t know a goddamn thing.” Arcturus grumbled.

Lilith let loose a sound Arcturus could have almost called a giggle.

“You speak of ignorance with great experience.” She said with a twinkle of mischief in her ruby eyes. “Knowing you as I do only makes the fact more amusing.”

“Oh. Hilarious.” He responded drily. “Mock your future Royarch.”

“Humility is important for any ruler.” Lilith responded with a sly grin.

“Careful now my lady.” Arcturus admonished. “I may go mad with power and demand your head as recompense for my wounded ego.”

“Your Highness!” She gasped in feigned shock. “How terrible of you. You would truly visit such evil upon a helpless, innocent maiden?”

“I don’t see any innocent maidens, only a wicked sinner.” Arcturus responded with a snort.

As he finished speaking, Lilith’s pale cheeks turned crimson and she glared at him. “How dare you, my lord! My honour is quite untarnished!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Arcturus asked in bewilderment.

“You implied I was some sort of harlot, to have given away my maidenhood frivolously! I became a Vitaean with my purity in-tact!”

“What are you even talking ab—?” Arcturus’ voice died when he realised. “Oh my god.” He said as he felt his cheeks turning red with embarrassment and realisation. “Oh my god. You’re talking about sex.”

“Y-you insulted my honour!” Lilith responded angrily.

“No, Lilith, I was just referring to your snarky witticisms. Your sexual proclivities, or lack thereof, were never a factor in what I said.”

“I… You…” Lilith stared at him until her eyes widened and she released what Arcturus could only call a squeak of mortification.

“Wow…” He said in a stunned voice, lips curling into a grin. “This is… Wow…”

“It’s not funny!”

“Oh my god.” Arcturus said as his laugh grew and his eyes watered with mirth. “Oh my god, you actually squeaked.”

“Arcturus!” Lilith exclaimed with a pair of burning cheeks. “Stop laughing!”

Despite her growing protests, he didn’t stop for quite some time.