[B2] Chapter 79 — The Mirror of Truth

Ria turned in place, extending her senses out to get a feel for the strange room she found herself in. Rather than just the room, the whole Tower of Dreams felt strange—as if she were in a place that might only tangentially exist in the real world.

Her attempt at research into the mystery of the Moon Elf gardens hadn’t resulted in much more than smirking supercilious nonsense from the second-year boy whose job it was to provide information to students and guests visiting the tower—or so she thought until, having given up on getting useful answers, she exasperatedly asked what floor the ‘Floor of Discovery and Wonders’ was.

She thought the boy was just teasing her, but not only were the floors of the Tower of Dreams not numbered, but the proffered reason for that was something ridiculously mystical and mysterious. Or maybe it was just plain ridiculous. For some unfathomable reason, with the exception of the entry and topmost floor, the locations of the tower’s floors weren’t fixed and changed depending on the time of day and phases of the moon.

Who would build a tower to function like that? What purpose could such a design possibly serve other than elven whimsy? It was bizarre to even think about, much less experience. And, experience it she did. Somehow space shifted as the elevator platform passed between each floor. She had even ridden the elevator platform multiple times to better explore the feeling and make sure she wasn’t imagining it.

Directly experiencing the physical implementation of that mysteriousness confirmed something she had begun to suspect: her orichalcum affinity did, in fact, include a spatial aspect.

She wasn’t the only one that found the tower (and in particular the Room of Revelations) to be strange. Ranger had wandered off a ways and was sniffing at his reflection in the floor—an oddly lifelike reflection which was certainly a feature of the room’s enchantment.

The room’s stone floor was both reflective and dark enough that, from where she stood near the center of the large circular room, she appeared to be standing over a bottomless abyss with only a thin sheen of reflective water holding her up. Even to her senses there was nothing below her but infinite emptiness.

“Quite the enchantment, The Mirror of Truth,” a male voice greeted.

Ria’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, where an older man and girl her age were entering through the room’s double doors, both clad in rare pink robes that Ria would recognize anywhere!

“Phoebe!” Ria exclaimed and tilted her head. “Why are you here?”

“When I overheard that Master Onai would be performing an astral body visualization, I just had to come!” Phoebe gushed and winked. “That I’ll get to see future archmage Ria of Shadewood’s astral body is simply sweet jam on top of a confection!”

Ria rolled her eyes at her friend, but a smile still slipped out at the girl’s innocent and infectious enthusiasm.

The humoring reaction didn’t stop the peachy-haired girl from practically skipping over to take Ria’s hands into her own. “Are you excited to see your astral body? It’s quite the boon for a mage to have their progress and potential laid out so clearly!”

When put that way, it did sound like an opportunity, but… “Iori’s worried that I might be Spiritbound….”

“Spiritbound?” the girl gasped, wide-eyed, and stared at Ria’s face, maybe hoping it was a joke in poor taste. “W-why would you even suspect that? Is this related to the… ‘troublesome ancestors’ that you mentioned?”

Ria slowly nodded. Regardless of who might have done it, the reason was surely related to her ancestors one way or another.

“Oh, Ria is already here?” Iori’s voice echoed into the room.

To Ria’s surprise, Rienne and Zoe were with Iori.

Rienne made an apologetic gesture in Ria’s direction. “I hope you don’t mind. As members of the Order of Celestial Knowledge, Zoe and I were quite curious what would be found, especially after all of the rumors and such.”

Ria tried to keep any expression from showing on her face. Risking Phoebe’s family or sponsor finding out about whatever secrets were contained in her astral body already left Ria uncomfortable. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Iori there, much less Zoe—not that she could deny Iori or Rienne if Lady Asara was paying for the astral mage’s services.

“You do not need to worry about secrecy, young Ria of Shadewood,” the old mage rumbled, accurately intuiting her concern. “Manifesting a mage’s astral body can reveal a great many secrets. As such, astral mages are expected to use the divine magic Veil of Threadbound Secrets to bind the participants into an oath of secrecy before performing the Reflect Astral Body spell.”

Ria’s eyes widened at the mention of divine oath magic, particularly since the spell sounded a lot like ‘Oathbound’. “Veil of Threadbound Secrets?”

“The spell calls upon Mythra’s grace to prevent others from hearing or seeing anything concerning the matter bound to secrecy. As an example, if any of us were to speak of what we witnessed without your permission, Mythra’s Veil would muffle the words so they couldn’t be understood,” Rienne explained in place of the old mage. “If you’re uncomfortable with us watching, it’s fine to say so. We won’t be offended.”

With a denying shake of her head, Ria indicated that it was fine. It would have been rude to tell them to leave at this point, and even though it made her nervous, having more friends that she could talk about her secrets with would be nice.

The old mage called her over to stand near him, and once she was in place, he began working the divine magic, performing the energy transformation and shaping the glyphs as he chanted.

“In Mythra’s name, we bind those present to maintain the secrecy of what is to be revealed here. May Mythra keep the secret safe and punish those who give up the secret without young Ria’s consent.”

A pulse of divine magic spread out from Master Onai, feeling like an expanding veil. When it interacted with Ria’s ‘soul’ gate, it gave the impression of gossamer threads being loosely tied between her and the others. Fate Magic! Ria realized, recognizing the feel and some of the glyphs from the luck spell. The spell’s ‘punishment’ might even involve a lessening or minor cursing of one’s fate if she was understanding the spell’s design correctly.

That the Order of Celestial Knowledge would use such instead of spirit magic as the Hall of Bindings and Inquiry did was interesting.

“That matter addressed, we can begin the astral reflection,” the old master mage pronounced and held up an exquisite metal-inlaid nacre cube. Ria gripped her hands together in nervous anticipation, but he paused, eyes staring through her for several moments. “Your amulet, please pull it to the side so I can work the spell.”

Ria was surprised at the request but quickly hooked the chain with her fingers, lifting the medallion out of her blouse. Wouldn’t the results be better if she took it off?

Seemingly unconcerned about the medallion’s actual effect or sensibilities or propriety, Master Onai promptly placed a hand against her chest near her heart and proceeded with passing his energy through the cube-shaped focus tool, skillfully projecting complex spell constructs made of astral and illusion energy. A pulse passed from the hand against her chest and echoed against her mystic gates as it bounced around her body, not unlike when she used an attunement measuring machine.

A gasp from Pheobe and a pink glow from below drew Ria’s attention from the spell construct to the reflected figure beneath her feet—a ghostly glowing figure that, through the reflection, felt oddly real to Ria’s senses even if entirely made of astral and illusion energy.

“Now, Pheobe, as we practiced,” Master Onai prompted, and Pheobe used a similar nacre cube to work a simpler, but still multi-element, astral and illusion spell of her own.

As Ria watched with widening eyes, her reflected astra body was projected, standing in the center of the room for them to observe in more detail. This time, it was Rienne and Zoe who gasped. Iori’s reaction was a bit different, frowning at the sight.

“Is an astral body supposed to look like that?” Rienne asked with enough worry in her voice to heighten Ria’s own worry as to what the sight before them might mean about her astral body’s condition.

The figure shone with bright pink tangles that represented her gates and energy pathways, but the rest faded into barely luminescent purple tatters, like a torn and weathered flag, fluttering in place to some imaginary breeze. A golden strand loosely connected her to Ranger, who whuffed questioningly and was staring back and forth between the illusion and the reflection with his head tilted.

“No, young Rienne. Young Ria here has suffered significant recent damage to her astral body,” Master Onai confirmed with a resigned tone. “The kind usually seen when a student’s astral body is forcefully projected over long distances without proper training and while not having a strong concept of self.”

Projected over long distances… Ah-!

Ria’s initial thoughts were that the damage was from overextending herself during the fight with Orlisi or her soul-strengthening sessions, but…

Could it be from the vision at the library? The one where she projected herself to the cavern with the orichalcum dragon-tree? Was that actually real? Had she actually sent her astral body to a real place?

“Have you been performing astral projection spells, young Ria?” Master Onai asked.

“I might have…,” Ria grudgingly admitted then quickly added, “By accident! I had used a Soulkeeper inspiration-granting technique, and after successfully forming an orichalcum glyph, I could feel a distant source. I wanted to see it. And, lost in the inspiration… I used the glyph to connect the two spaces and… went there. I thought it was just a vision, though…”

Rienne and Zoe were staring at her, open-mouthed. Iori was rubbing her forehead like she felt a headache coming on.

“The library incident?” Phoebe suddenly guessed, both eyebrows raised.

Ria nodded.

The old man let out a long, frustrated sigh and muttered, “It’s always the wild talents,” shaking his head.

“Setting aside Ria’s ill-advised and accidental foray into astral magic, this looks like a terrible amount of damage,” Iori again spoke up. “Is it as bad as it looks, Master Onai? Something that will cause problems for her?”

“The damage is extensive, indeed. And it would normally be enough to have affected her foundations and made control over her magic noticeably unstable,” the old mage evaluated. “But young Ria’s energy pathways and nodes provided by her bloodline show surprisingly minor damage—damage that, oddly, may have been caused by something else entirely. As far as problems go… I would suspect that energy flows near the surface of her body would be more erratic than usual, and some reduction in the effectiveness of improving and making use of her elemental attunements would be expected.”

Ria scrunched her eyebrows at Master Onai’s expectations matching some of her recent difficulties. Did that mean that the problems she discovered in the isolation chamber had more to do with the damage to her astral body rather than her unstable foundations? Somehow, she suspected that was overly optimistic considering her symptoms had started before the orichalcum glyph creation. The real answer more likely wasn’t ‘either-or’ but rather ‘both’. The damage to her astral body may have even exacerbated the problems she was having with her underdeveloped and overstretched foundations. Either way, it was something she’d need to discuss with Lestina when next they met.

“Can the damage be repaired?” Iori followed up, still frowning, but sounding relieved.

Master Onai rubbed his white beard and squinted at the illusion of Ria’s astral body.

Ria also probed it with her senses. Just like Phoebe had said, everything about the astral reflection presented an insight into her current condition, her progress, and her future.

Some of the features were obvious to figure out. Her three gates showed clearly as nexuses for the clusters of tangles that represented her energy pathways and the magical aspects of her various bodily organs. Her ‘soul’ gate was clearly the brightest of the three, lit by a small glowing globe nearby that Ria felt represented her Seed of Divine Judgment, but her ‘energy’ gate wasn’t far behind in intensity and exceeded the other gates with the density of connected tangles and nodes. Even the pathways for her new orichalcum organs on either side of her head connected to her ‘energy’ gate rather than her ‘soul’ gate. Her ‘body’ gate seemed more associated with the purple areas that she suspected were indications of the progress attuning her body to various elements.

The three gates and her seed weren’t the only prominent points of interest. In the brightest part of the purple between her ‘energy’ and ‘body’ gates there was something like a tiny sun. From the way it felt, she was fairly certain that the orb packed full of ancient power represented her orichalcum affinity and was the part of her astral body that most densely connected to her ‘body’ gate.

Master Onai made a ‘hmm’ sound and nodded. “A combined approach would likely be most effective. With the damage mostly associated with the less magically developed areas of her physical body, an elemental body-tempering or constitution improving method could help re-anchor and restore tattered portions of her astral body. That should be paired with either elven or Soulkeeper techniques designed to reinforce the body by partially manifesting the soul’s essence. Given that her astral body has a surprisingly strong connection to her ‘soul’ gate, that may allow her some ability to project her soul into the gaps in the damaged areas and better restore them. The effectiveness would depend on the strength of her soul and her skill with meditation though.”

“Isn’t the astral realm, the realm of the spirit?” Ria asked with some confusion. “Shouldn’t the astral body normally have a strong connection to the ‘soul’ gate and isn’t the astral body a representation of the soul?”

The old master chuckled. “A common misconception. The soul is suspected to reside in the heavenly realms rather than the astral. It is speculated that pulling the soul through the ‘soul’ gate and manifesting it is one of the key steps of ascension. Interestingly, if true, it would also mean that achieving immortality through ascension opens one up to the risk of true death.”

Ria wasn’t the only one blinking with comically wide eyes at that assertion.

Master Onai chuckled some more at their reaction. “Gives perspective to the risk the gods take watching over us and providing their blessings.”

Zoe broke their moment of collective introspection with a question of her own. “If the soul exists separately in the Heavenly Realms, does a spirit mage draw the soul through the ‘soul’ gate when binding a spirit?”

“Oh? That is a great question!” A glint showed in the old master’s eyes. “And a matter of fascinating research performed by both the Hall of Binding and Inquiry and the Soulkeepers. While in some cases a small amount of the soul can be extracted through the ‘soul’ gate when a spirit is bound, more usual is for the gate itself to maintain its connection to the disembodied spirit. In fact, while overly simplistic, saying that the spirit is the astral body is mostly true.”

“And in the case of an astral body sharing multiple ‘soul’ gates?” Zoe pressed.

Master Onai’s face fell a bit. “An unfortunate business, that. It is true that the power of the astral body can be increased by the extra gates, but while sometimes the gates can be merged—the true consequences of which are unknowable to all but the divines—more often, the shape and composition of the astral body will be unstable, constantly pulled toward each bound spirit’s concept of self. The resulting chimeric astral body will poorly match the physical body and the resulting astral dysmorphia will likely be the least of the problems incurred—at least until the mage learns shapeshifting magic and takes on a more representative physical form. I would strongly advise against such practice.”

Phoebe was horrified at what she had heard, and Zoe paled. Iori and Rienne gave their friend sympathetic glances, and Rienne pulled the freckled, red-haired girl into a brief side-hug.

The astral mage returned to looking at Ria’s astral body before speaking again, “If you were asking because of young Ria’s rare astral body composition, you needn’t worry. Hers is something a fair bit different. It’s not often that you see a mage with a divine spark.”

“Divine spark?” Ria asked. “You mean my mystic seed?”

Master Onai shook his head to deny it. “Though a divine spark can be nurtured from the blooming of a mystic seed and, in particular, during ascension, your divine spark is something that exists apart from your mystic seed.” A grandfatherly smile of amusement was directed her way as he highlighted the location of each in the illusory figure and watched her reaction. “Excluding certain members of the Vesali family, it’s not often that I see a fragment of an ascended being’s soul integrated into a mage’s astral body. As with what I have seen with those that carry the Vesali bloodline, the connections to your body gate suggest that the divine spark you carry is due to having an ascended ancestor.”

When the master mage’s illusionary blue halo indicated the sun-like orb half-way between her ‘energy’ and ‘body’ gates as the location of her divine spark, Ria realized that she underestimated the significance of the source of her affinity. A fragment of an ancient power’s soul!

Phoebe seemed to have also come to the same conclusion as the usually bubbly girl was also carefully watching Ria’s reaction.

Though initially excited at the revelation, the more Ria thought about it, this was only confirming and clarifying something she already knew. Ria furrowed her brow. It was good to have a better understanding of her heritage, but she had already acknowledged the divine properties of her bloodline. Understanding the truth of its source didn’t really change anything.

Yet, there was one important question remaining that could change everything. Taking a deep breath to prepare herself for the answer, Ria asked her question: “Master Onai, what about divine blessings? How would they normally appear?”

“Oh, oh! Another excellent question!” The old man beamed a teacher’s smile. “In the case of a hereditary blessing, it could look very similar to your own divine spark. In the case of a non-hereditary blessing, the spark would not be as densely connected to the body gate. In theory anyway. I doubt anyone’s seen a newly given divine blessing since the last Time of Troubles.”

Ugh! That didn’t help rule out her possible sainthood at all!

That said, at this point, by the evidence and her own divinations, it was all but certain that she had a royal bloodline. So, maybe it didn’t matter if Hemse had or hadn’t added a little extra of his own. Her gaze fell to the amulet she was still holding out from her body.

Feeling a little bolder she removed it entirely, but the only change was a slight brightening of her astral body. No second spark, or anything obvious.

“So, have you girls seen enough to answer your questions?” Master Onai asked. “Though I’m fine for a while longer, I imagine young Phoebe here will be approaching her limit soon.”

Phoebe nodded, to confirm that it was true.

“Master Onai, can we be certain that Ria isn’t currently Spiritbound then?” Iori asked.

“There’s no active binding that I see, other than the one to her familiar.” The elderly astral mage shrugged. “But it wouldn’t hurt to spend a few minutes looking over everything more closely to inspect for inactive and conditionally activated bindings that might be hidden.”

Ria returned her attention to her astral body together with the others. Looking at the glowing figure, it was hard to believe that she had spent so much time thinking she didn’t have an affinity or even a bloodline. The modern texts on meditation talked about the steps needed to unlock the three gates for those not gifted with a bloodline. That her energy gate had always been open was a major hint that she had a bloodline all along. If she had started out with a more modern text, so many things would have gone differently, and she would have much more developed foundations by now.

At least she could be relieved that the fears of being Spiritbound had proved unfounded.

There was something about the faint purple tatters though… a hint of shapes along the edges that looked suspiciously like a spell design. Her eyes narrowed the more she looked at the purple until her breath caught with sudden realization. To her growing horror the barely discernible pieces suggested a design, a familiar design. One similar to Amilee’s!

Iori was right! Someone had bound her! Had dared! Her sudden spike of fear and divine anger caused her orichalcum energy to flare and, only by a great exercise of will, did she stop from wrapping herself in her true mantle of power and accidentally disrupting the astral magic.

Ria’s eyes widened as the broken fragments of glyphs and constructs flared to brightness with the surge of her orichalcum energy, vividly revealing the extent of the binding’s design.

“Those designs!” Rienne gasped out.

“Amilee was right…” Zoe breathed out.

“So, she was Spiritbound, after all,” Iori concluded, voice grim. “To be so lucky that a random magic-induced astral projection damaged the binding…”

Phoebe sucked in a horrified breath.

Master Onai hummed in thought. “Rather than a binding of oath, this looks like a seal to me.”

The astral mage highlighted the fragments forming what would have been the central glyph of the design, and where Amilee’s design had a glyph of ‘oath’, the fragments of hers were quite different.

A sealing… had her parents or someone else had her bloodline powers sealed? Her brothers as well? Was that why they never showed any hints of magical talent even with such a powerful bloodline? Was her mother also sealed?

Who did her parents know that could do such magic?

Her thoughts went to Jeni’s family. Jeni’s parents and Jeni’s grandmother in particular—a member of the Order of the Silent Sky. The Silent Sky was controlled by House Ravelle. Could House Ravelle have knowledge about her past?

The lunch with Leriah and nurturing a friendship with the girl suddenly seemed much more important.

With the surprise revelation, they chose to give Phoebe an energy replenishment potion and had Ria use her magic in different ways to perform a few more tests before Iori called the session to a close.

The conclusion was that the binding—whether seal or something more sinister—was no longer properly functioning and would fade with time as her astral body healed.

Though anger still simmered in the depths of her strengthened soul, Ria felt a tremendous relief. Even if resulting from stupidly ridiculous luck, she was now free of whatever had been done to her, and there was no way for whoever had arranged for the binding to know.