Realm of Monsters - Chapter 702: Chaotic Degradation

Chapter 702: Chaotic Degradation

  Aurelia’s eyes suddenly widened in recollection, “My mother’s elixir!”

  She had almost forgotten.

  “The elixir was lost, unfortunately,” Lunae admitted quietly.

  “No. I saw it fall in the snow. I need to go find it,” Aurelia moved to get out of bed, even though her muscles screamed in protest.

  “No, you do not understand. I found the elixir. The vial was shattered. The liquid contents spilled into the snow.”

  Aurelia licked her chapped lips and shook her head erratically. “We can fix it. If we gather the snow, we can melt it and extract the elixir from within.”

  “Unfortunately, you cannot.”

  “Why not!?” Aurelia yelled, her voice breaking.

  But Lunae did not react to her outburst. Instead, she continued in her same calm tone, “It seems that during your battle with Mortem, an explosion from one of your spells not only shattered the vial but blew the snow off the clifftop. The vial’s contents are lost to the winds and mountains. There is no recovering what was inside.”

  “C-Can you make another? Please?” Aurelia bowed her head.

  “Unfortunately, I do not share the alchemical expertise of Mortem. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Your mother’s condition has always been fatal among its victims.”

  “Wait.” Aurelia’s head shot up. “You know about my mother’s disease?”

  “I did a quick examination on her an hour ago, yes.”

  “But, you actually know what specific disease ails her?” No shaman had ever been able to identify Nalindra’s illness. It was one of the reasons why it was so difficult to find a cure in the first place.

  “It is not a disease. Rather an affliction,” Lunae corrected. “Chaotic Degradation.”

  “Chaotic… Degradation? W-What does that mean? Exactly?”

  “Among the eleven elements of mana, only one is unable to coexist with nature. Excluding my species, there is no flora nor fauna able to withstand any significant amount of chaotic mana, let alone able to absorb it into their hearts, like magical creatures or mageborns.” Lunae held up a finger, “The only substantial gathering of chaotic mana in the Ebon Realm is in Glimmer Grove.”

  “The Shadow Lake,” Aurelia guessed.

  “Correct. The water itself is thick with chaos. No life can exist around the lake. Any mortal who draws too close to the lake ends up getting sick after a while. Falling into the water is certain death.”

  “Why? I mean, can’t we train to resist it? Somehow? Or extract the mana outside our bodies, like with Grey magic?” Aurelia grasped at straws.

  “It’s not that simple. A Grey’s spell weaves would fail before it could absorb the chaotic mana. Simply put, chaos is destructive in its nature. It disrupts other forms of ethereal energy, elemental and chromatic, both. But what chaotic mana does at a cellular level is far worse.”

  “Cellular?” Aurelia asked.

  “Right. Cells—not the prison kind—are,” Lunae stopped to think for a moment. “They are the bricks to the castle that is all life. All our bodies are made up of these countless bricks, but they are so small that you cannot see them. Sort of like a strand of hair, but much smaller.”

  “Can you see them?”

  “If I focus on one specific point, yes. There are special lenses capable of allowing an ordinary person to see them as well.”

  “How have I never heard about any of this?” Aurelia muttered to herself. Not once in all her studies at the temple had any of her teachers mentioned anything about these so-called ‘cells’.

  “There is much mortals do not know. Your lives are short, as are your memories. In any case, when the body is exposed to chaotic mana, some of that mana is absorbed into the body, into its cells. But chaos doesn’t play well with others. It erodes the cells, breaking them apart. And if the foundations fail…”

  “Then so does the castle. So chaos kills anything it comes into contact with?”

  “Not exactly. The drows of Glimmer Grow visit Shadow Lake all the time, even though it’s expressly forbidden to most of them. Small amounts of chaotic mana leeching into the air are harmful, yes, but the damage they can do is limited, so long as the mortals don’t linger around the lake. Contact with the water itself is much more dangerous.”

  “So, you’re saying my mother fell into the lake or something?”

  “She would have died had she fallen into the water. No, at some point in your mother’s life, she must have been exposed to a significant, though not lethal, amount of chaos. And it wasn’t simply in the air around her. Rather, the mana would have had to somehow seep into her body. With nowhere to go, the chaos energy would have slowly degraded her cells from the inside. Nalindra is a warrior and a skilled practitioner of the life arts. Judging by the terrible state of her degradation, her body must have resisted its effects for many years. Any ordinary mortal would have died long ago.”

  “H-How?” Aurelia swallowed hard. “How could she have been exposed to that much chaos? You said Shadow Lake was the only place in the realm with a gathering of chaos energy, right? But she’s never been to Glimmer Grove.”

  “She could have been attacked with a chaos-infused poison, though that is highly unlikely. Anyone capable of obtaining such a poison could have killed your mother through much easier means.” Lunae sighed, “The only logical conclusion is that Nalindra encountered one of my kind long ago. A titan. The titan would have had to deliberately infuse chaos into her.”

  “Why…? Why would anyone do that?” Aurelia whispered, her voice trembling.

  Lunae gave her a resigned look. “If a titan wanted to kill Nalindra, it would not have been difficult for them. There would have been no need to infuse her body with chaos.”

  “Unless they didn’t want to kill her?”

  “Correct.”

  Tears slipped down Aurelia’s face. “He was testing her. Mortem infused chaos into my mother to see if she was resistant to chaotic energy, like my grandmother, like me… Ivory poisoned my mother.”

  “I suspect so, yes,” Lunae said quietly.

  “He’s a monster.” Aurelia bent over, arms wrapped around herself, and cried. “There has to be a way to save my mother. Someone must know how to create another cure?”

  There was one individual Lunae considered. The Monster in the Dark. His wisdom seemed to pertain to magical repositories of knowledge that even Death was unaware of. Still, making any bargain with Caligo was dangerous. Lunae banished the thought. “There are none.”

  “Then I’ll make one myself. Mortem must have left some of his research notes in his rooms. There has to be enough material in there to figure out a way to make another elixir,” Aurelia said.

  “There isn’t, most of what Mortem does stays in his head. What he writes down is for the sake of others. He had no reason to write down a long list of complex equations necessary to brew such an elixir. Not to mention, it most likely requires the touch of a god to create the potion.”

  “You could make it then.”

  “As I said, I wouldn’t know where to start. And even if I did, it would take time. Time your mother does not have.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nalindra’s condition has significantly worsened after tonight’s incident. Understand that the amount of chaos flowing over the clifftop was enough to kill every single hunter who accompanied your mother. Nalindra may have had years left before, but now… I do not know if she’ll make it to the end of the year.”

  “I see…” Aurelia bit her trembling lip until it bled, “I’m such a fool. This is all my fault. I fell in love with my mother’s murderer.”

  “He is also the one who created an elixir that could cure her.”

  “As if he did that for anything but his own selfish reasons. He wanted me to feel indebted to him, so I would go along with all his little plans,” Aurelia said, her words dripping with venom.

  “Perhaps. I’ve known Mortem for many years. He is not the kind of person who gives much thought to the lives of mortals. His mind is brilliant, but it is always moving on to the next thing that catches his interest. I doubt there was any malice behind his actions towards Nalindra, only apathy and carelessness. If he created an elixir for her, it was simply to correct his mistake, not to indebt you to his will.”

  “Why are you defending him?” Aurelia scowled.

  “I am not. I just want you to understand the kind of person you’re dealing with. His mind doesn’t work like yours, or even mine. He is a Calamity. No matter where he goes, he will always be a Calamity. The child forming in your womb will also carry a part of that nature.”

  “…Why are you telling me this?” Aurelia asked warily.

  “Because the choice of whether this child enters this world or not, is yours to make.” Lunae handed her a small vial. She stood and walked to the door. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

~~~

  Aurelia sat in her mother’s infirmary room, staring at the vial in her hands, the red liquid sloshing between her green fingers. Nalindra had awoken half an hour ago. After a short, tearful reunion, Aurelia had told her everything she had learned. And for the last ten minutes, Nalindra stared up at the ceiling in silence.

  “What are we going to do…?” Aurelia broke the suffocating silence with a whisper.

  “I’ll need to gather the Mothers and prepare a rite of ascension for your brother.”

  “What?”

  “You know as well as I that the tribe’s Mothers do not favor our family on account of our Veres blood. If your brother’s claim as chieftain is to not be questioned, then I must have him perform the rites soon.”

  “You’re talking as if you’re already dead. How are we going to prevent you from dying? That’s the question you should be asking. That’s all that matters right now!”

  “I’m already dying, child.” Nalindra caressed Aurelia’s face. “I made my peace with that when I saw you and Jahn lying and bleeding in the snow tonight. I would gladly die a thousand lifetimes if it meant that both of you could live this one life.”

  “I don’t want you to die,” she cried.

  “Oh, darling. Your life and Jahn’s are all that matters now.” Nalindra closed her daughter’s hand over the vial. “Drink the potion.”

  Aurelia frowned. “Mother, what are you—?”

  “Your life should not be bound to the whims of a god. The creature growing in your womb will only bring you despair. If what you told me is true, then the child is of chaos. He will poison your body.”

  “I’m resistant to chaos.”

  “But you are not immune. Even if you survive the pregnancy, who is to say you will not suffer from Chaotic Degradation like me? Why else do you think Lunae gave you, her Favoured, the stillness potion? I don’t want you to suffer as I have. Drink the potion, please.”

  “I…” Aurelia pressed her hand over her abdomen. “I need to think.”

  “Aurelia—”

  “Excuse me,” she bowed and hurried out of the room.

~~~

  … Present Day… Murkton…

  An orc soldier patrolled one of the city’s watchtowers with a quiet grumble. Ordinarily, the tower would only have two guards on the night watch. But after all the recent attacks on towns lining the coast and a few rivers, the nobles had grown paranoid and ordered five guards to patrol each shift. As if there was anything to report that one pair of eyes couldn’t see, let alone five.

  He was supposed to be off duty today, lying in bed with his wife. Instead, he was here. Walking the ramparts around the watchtower, searching for imaginary threats. The Murkton Fleet had set out just yesterday. In two weeks’ time, they would return, triumphant as always. Adding three extra guards to a shift didn’t help anyone’s cause. 

  The guard was about to head back into the watchtower and out of the cold wind, when something odd caught his eye. A thick fog was creeping up on the horizon. There was nothing innately strange about that, except that the fog was moving at an alarmingly fast rate.

  He squinted his eyes to try and get a better look, but the light of the full moon did little to help. “What is that…?” he muttered.

  Deep in the fog, a massive silhouette emerged. The bow of a frozen ship made of ice.

  The guard’s stomach dropped and his blood ran cold. He stumbled backwards and scrambled into the watchtower.

  His comrades gave him strange looks. “What’s wrong? Need to take a piss?” one of them asked.

  The guard shook his head. “S-S-Signal the alarm. Signal the alarm! SIGNAL THE ALARM!!!”