Chapter 74: Blood Moon, Aurora
Dion’s darkened eyelids were blanketed in a deep, crimson red, and within that moment where the shock of it had brought him back to grips with his own awareness, he woke up in what looked to be an entirely different world.
His body was immediately made wet and slick with red rain, and from where he stood, across the distance to the horizon of the space and whatever lay beyond it—if there was anything that did—was a sea of red.
The wetness immediately had him raising his head and one hand to cover his forehead, his brows faintly furrowed.
"My soul sea rains blood?" he had inadvertently muttered.
It certainly smelled like blood, and felt like it. But at the same time, it didn’t stir any of the urges that he felt within himself whenever he was smelling the blood of anything else that was not a zombie. It was a bit of a relief, honestly, even as ominous as the reality before him was.
Oddly enough as well, it was raining without there being the slightest thick cloud.
The sky that was above him was a strange red colour; it was of a much deeper shade of red, very close to the colour black.
Within that expansive sky, there were flowing streams, as if an aurora, mostly of red, with thinner streams of gold running through it, and thinner still, some streams of blue.
What caught his attention in particular, though, was that in the streams, there were flecks of white, as if there were stars flowing through all of it.
Thereafter, with his body being drenched in red rain, he looked to the only source of light in the place.
The figure of a large, red moon hung in the sky, and his eyebrows faintly rose, his expression loosening into surprise.
His hand slightly fell back down to his side, and his countenance gained the lightness of admiration.
The moon was bright, even with its deep, claret red colour, and whatever it was about it made it feel... so beguiling. It was, perhaps, the most enchanting thing that he had ever experienced.
He was taken out of his reverie when he felt the water beneath him stir, undulating in small waves that made his eye level rise and fall that little bit along with them.
And with the name of this place being a soul sea, it told him that its depths should have been far deeper than he might initially think.
It was all a fascinating experience.
His attention being down there brought his brows into a slight furrow, and he crouched down for a few seconds.
His palm immediately lay flat over the blood.
’There are things swimming inside it.’
Curiosity filled him to find out, but he didn’t know the first thing about soul seas. He wouldn’t know where to even begin to draw them out.
Thus, his attention moved over to the flowers that, along with the blood, had filled the soul sea, carpeting it, and just like the blood they sat upon, they were red.
One of his hands caressed the leaf of the nearest one to him, and he dare say that he even felt it nudge itself into his palm.
"These are red spider lilies." Was what he said when he had looked up from the one that he was holding, glancing around the the rest of the soul sea.
A smile faintly adorned itself on his expression as he lifted himself up. All of this was wonderful, but he had come here for a purpose, and at that, he looked around himself.
"Now where in the world am I meant to find that Vestige? She said this is where they essentially live..."
As soon as he had said so, he looked back down to the blood that began stirring.
In that moment, his smile grew wider to see how responsive the soul sea was to him.
Blood, and the red spider lilies rose from the blood sea, tangling together.
What it formed, however, wasn’t the longsword. In their strange, bloody fusion, they transformed into the shape of an almost crystalline heart that was throbbing and dripping blood as it hovered ahead of him.
Through its form, Dion saw a faint, red flickering and a dark shape outlined in the form of the sword.
Having just had his hands cut by the damn thing, Dion didn’t directly touch the heart that was meant to be his vestige immediately.
He opened his Chronicle then, looking for its information:
{Vestige: Gnoll-Bone Longsword}
{Description: A longsword fashioned from the rib and spine of a creature that revelled in inflicting pain. Each groove along the blade was carved by its own claws, with each hollowness of its form is the manifestation of its depraved delight. Thus the blade weeps still, seething with a vicious glee that hungers for another cruel hand to guide it.}
{Order: Destitute}
{Grade: A}
{Behaviour: Hostile}
{Grace: Thirst}
Reading the description, he immediately grimaced a little at the revelation that vestiges had behaviours to them. It was no wonder the thing didn’t like him.
’At the very least, I suppose it does make sense. Vestiges are preserved from existences, and with it carrying on the nature of the gnoll I killed, its only natural that the thing is hostile to me.’
That thought even made him briefly wonder exactly to what extent vestiges possessed some kind of this kind of consciousness.
Like, could he speak to the gnoll and ask him nicely for it to behave now that they were essentially allies?
His eyes, not knowing how to even begin reaching an answer to such a question, fell down to the mention of Grace, and he pulled for its description.
{Grace: Thirst}
{Pain inflicted by this weapon nourishes the blade, making it sharper and stronger. The enhancement is temporary but stacks with continued suffering, to a threshold.}
’Grace are their abilities then, which is simple enough. And at the very least, the compensation for its hostility is that it’s a useful grace.’
While he was thinking about this, he remembered the gnoll that had reinforced its club in their fight. With a sword like this, problems like that wouldn’t be as big a problem as they had been.
Dion then wanted to go on to be brave and interact with the thing once more. There was something that he wanted to test out with regards to its Behaviour.
But suddenly, screams and the shattering of windows tore him out of his soul sea, back into his body.
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