[Valerianne Yul]

"Aloenna made me to be your host… What am I to you? A meatsuit that you just wear?" I finally asked.

"Heh. Meatsuit." The darkness laughed.

I frowned.

"Here's the thing, Yul. I've talked to some things recently.” Nox said.

“Things?”

“Moons, to be specific. I talked to my self-elected daughter, moon Magraterra. You’ve interacted with her too, I believe? She suffocated you by messing with the oxygen and carbon dioxide within her crystal Citadel.”

“She told me that she was in control of Knight Maximillion Rex via a crystal brain-spider.” I nodded, shaking a little in disgust. “One of her agents murdered the previous owner of the Divine amulet of healing just so Maximillion could give it to me.”

“Well, she made me aware of some things too. You and I are in the same boat."

"How so?"

"To planetoid-sized monstrosities like Maggie, we both are just pieces on a chess board. We’re mere tools to her, means of achieving her ultimate goal of ending all organic life. I am driving your body half the time, sure… but it's not like I want to do it."

"Hrm. Why don’t you leave me alone then? Let me control my own body. You’ve inhabited June for a bit. Why not go inhabit someone, no... something else?"

"I could only inhabit June when she was my Apostle. She’s not my Apostle anymore. She doesn’t believe in me. I’ve embedded far too much of myself in your flesh, blood and marrow already. Leaving your body isn’t an option, unless I want to leave most of my power and memory behind. Contrary to how I’ve been acting when I first took over your body, I grew to like both you and June. I started to trust the two of you. If Magraterra’s been putting mind control crystal shards into people… there could be thousands of her agents out there. I don’t know how many serve her willingly or how many have been coerced into obedience via a variety of manipulation as simple as bribes or threats of death.”

“Aloenna made me over seventy seven generations of breeding… and put a seed into me. It awakened a memory within me... of the day she told me that she’s my creator. I don’t know what else the seed could do,” I said, shuddering at the thought of something blossoming inside of me.

“Yeah, I know.” Nox sighed. “I can’t locate it. I think it’s buried somewhere deep in the area I can’t reach, close to your aura. So far it’s done nothing but give you some relatively harmless memories. It’s not mentally controlling you though… but it probably could. It could do anything.”

I gulped.

“I won’t let it though. You’re mine.” She smiled.

“I am not anyones!” I growled.

“Okay, chill out, girl. I understand that you want to be free of Aloenna’s control, but you won’t be… not anytime soon anyway. I can’t get the seed out. The best I can do is protect you from its influence.”

“At the cost of controlling me.”

“I don’t want to control you, damn it! I’m synched to your very soul, stuck in you. Forced to inhabit your body! How do you not understand that? I have no Apostles, no temples to move into. There’s literally nowhere else for me to go!” She snapped.

I blinked.

“You need me to survive. I need you... to help me get June back.”

“Hmmm.” I pursed my lips.

“I can kill better than anyone, you know.”

“This isn’t very encouraging.”

“I don’t know how long I’ve been alive. I lost most of myself when my planet-wide triskelion rune exploded and even more during my six thousand year long incarceration. I can’t remember where or why I started killing monsters and Gods. I was human once, long ago… I think. Maybe I even loved someone and lost them. I haven’t really appreciated anyone since I became a Necromancer. Attaining immortality had a price - the focus of self and the sacrifice of all feelings towards others. I don’t want to lose June.” Stardust gathered in the corners of her eyes, sparkling. It looked like tears.

I scrutinized her face. It now had a human-like expression, but everything else about it was inhuman, celestial. Clouds of amethyst stardust slowly floated about, danced within the chimerical depths of her body, glimmering with jewels of far-flung constellations. Her hair was akin to luminous vapor, boundless and immesurable like the vast skyocean above Europa. The corneas of her eyes resembled the corona of magic around voidstar, pulsating ever so sligthly with iridescent shades of lavander.

“I’ve been continuously sacrificing my memories to use blood magic to accelerate your body, to defend you and June. With every use I’m less of what I once was and more of something… new. Something… different, maybe worse, maybe better. As I fought across the burning Sextant-dominated city I gave up a lot of my ‘self’ to kill the Sextants in my way. I don’t know if I’m me anymore.”

“Then... what are you?” I asked, curiously.

“I’m whatever people believe I am. Belief has the power to change me by minute, incremental amounts.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe then.” I replied. “There are undoubtedly thousands in Kleinberg who believe that you’re a monster that’s responsible for destroying the Convent of the Light.”

“That is true, but you are much closer to me.”

“Does that make my belief stronger or something?”

“Yes. If I keep sacrificing my memories to protect you and June… you and anyone else who believes in me, thinks about me the most, can slowly change what I am. Not instantly, not immediately, but with time… anything is possible.”

“I see.”

“Please, Yul. We can work together. I’m tired of trying to fight you. I’ve been levelling you up. I let you choose your path as a Healer - that was all you, not me. I’ve told you my greatest weakness. What else do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop murdering innocent people.” I said sternly. “I’m not helping you get June back if you don’t stop being a monster.”

“Nobody is truly innocent. You don’t know how many people the masters of the Convent of the Light broke, how many souls they’ve carved apart to purge them of Sins!”

“What?” I gasped.

“Do you not know how the church of Virtue works?” She waved her inky, shimmering hand towards the distant town of Amarillia and the cathedral of the Triumvirate.

“Do tell.” I said.

“I’ve talked to the ghost of Legate Ingrid Feuerstahl.”

“What? She’s dead?”

“No. The ghost was a 200-year-old part of her that the Convent of the Light murdered. She herself was dark once. There were runes all around the Convent of the Light. Runes that sliced souls apart and took whatever the Virtuous deemed as Sins - they deprived people of their talents, destroyed feelings of happiness, love and passion. The Searchers of Virtue looked for darkness within everyone's aura on Europa and then the Convent itself carved it out by force of magical rune work!”

“You are lying.”

“I am not! They nearly erased me with one of those damn runes!”

“You are evil and probably full of Sins.”

“I think that I awoke full of Void mana and sins for a reason. All of the dark thoughts, all of the desires which the church of Virtue made people fear... All of the things they’ve repressed and carved away… went to me while I was sleeping. The giant triskelion runes on the White Towers, the great Spiral labyrinth. They all have to be part of an ancient system, a design put into place by my Archmages long ago, meant to contain me. An interconnected system made to mentally change, control the citizens of Europa.”

“Hrmmm.”

She snapped her fingers. “I can prove it! I’ll show you a memory of mine!”

The dream world around us twisted, shifted. We were suddenly in the white-limestone room of the Convent of the Light.

There was a twenty year old girl in the room of the Convent of the Light that I had once slept in. The girl was weeping softly. She was pale, see through, transparent. She looked like the Legate, but a whole lot younger. I could barely recognize her.

“What is your name?” Nox asked.

“I am Ingrid Feuerstahl.”

“Why are you here?”

“I am a prisoner of the Triumvirate of Virtue. I had committed the sin of lust!” The ghost of the Legate stuttered.

I watched as young Ingrid told Nox of how she loved her friend Castillia and how the Convent’s runes murdered, erased, carved out this love from her soul. It was truly awful, horrific. My worldview started to slide sideways and my faith in the absolute goodness of the Triumvirate cracked for the first time.