187 - Reevaluation : Test 1 (Patreon)

Arielle woke up to warmth on her forehead. 

She groaned but leaned into it, the dampness of the fabric having a cooling effect following the relaxing heat. 

It felt familiar, down to the trickling of water and a low murmuring that followed. It was from a variety of voices, deep and soft, combative then placating. 

She couldn’t make out the words, but the routine of the conversation struck a chord within her, so much that it roused her from the bone-deep exhaustion she felt.

“Celie?” she murmured without opening her eyes. 

 The voices stopped.

“Yes,” the voice closest to her said as the cloth was placed on her forehead again. “It’s me. I’m here.”

Arielle finally managed to pry her eyes open, confirming that her sister was really by her side, with a cloth on her forehead. She had a look of worry on her face, which turned into a trembling smile as she said, “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just concerned that you had a fever.”
Ari shook her head. She felt hot but not feverish. The heat was probably due to the weather. The home wasn’t regulating the temperature as well as it used to. 

Behind her stood her father and mother, and behind them her brother, who all looked at her with varying levels of worry and expectancy.

Brom stood next to them and held up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” she responded.

“Do you know where you are?”

 She blinked at them slowly, wondering how she had gotten home, then she realized that she wasn’t staring at the thatched ceiling of her stilted swamp shack, but the roof of Vittoria’s house. 

She was still in Vittoria's living room, but Sir Spendulon, Inara, and Catriona had been replaced by her family. 

“Yes,” she responded, clearing her hoarse throat. “What are you all doing here?”

“Are you serious?” Her mother squatted, her voice shaking. “You’re going to ask us what we’re doing here after you nearly died?”

Arielle nodded even as her mother rolled her eyes. 

"Arielle, seriously, this isn't the time to annoy me. Of course we were worried sick.”

“They were worried sick,” Brom said. “I was only a little concerned, but I knew you were fine, after giving those demons hell. Thanks to my training of course.” He sniffed, but his casual tone felt a tad unnatural. There was also some strain in his features, his wrinkled forehead, and his rapid blinking. 

Celie smirked. “Ignore him. He was so worried that he didn’t sleep all night and skipped his date to be here. And he didn’t even ask about the dragon.”
“Date?” Arielle asked. “What date?”

“Ignore her,” Brom said but Celie chuckled.. 

“You remember Herring’s daughter? Geralda.” 

Arielle nodded, thinking of the tall, slender girl who was a talented marksman with a bow and arrow.

“Your brother had a date with her today.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Brom countered. “She was just teaching me something.”

“Yeah, something like this this.” Celie puckered her lips together and made kissy noises at Brom who shoved her into the bed. She bumped Thessa slightly but her mother didn’t seem to notice, focusing on running her hands over Arielle’s hair over and over. 

Arielle leaned into the touch, drawing comfort from it. It was light, barely there, just how she liked it. 

“How did you know I almost died?” she asked her mother, whose stress showed starkly on her features. 

“Elric told us,” her father said, and he too squatted. “Ah, my Ari. Look at you. Look what they’ve done to you.”

Arielle had not looked at herself, so she had no idea how she looked. There were no open sores on her body, with most of her injuries being from the internal poisoning, but maybe that had an impact on her appearance too.

Her father cupped her cheek and attempted to pull her into his arms. She groaned. 

“Torv,” Thessa scolded.

“Sorry,” he said as he lowered her gently back to the bed. “I forgot. I’m so sorry, my heart.”

“It’s okay,” Arielle said.  The pain wasn’t that bad anymore. It seemed that the rest was helping. She wanted to sleep some more, but she didn’t want to waste her parents' visit. She didn’t know how long they could stay or when she would see them again.

“Tell us what happened,” Thessa said. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it. It’s just that Elric was quite brief in his explanation and I have so many horrific images in my head…”

Arielle truly didn’t want to talk about it, but it seemed like her parents wanted her to. Celie and Brom too were waiting for her. 

The images flashed in Arielle’s head once more. Involuntarily, her breath quickened. 

“At the ball, wee got attacked by demons,” she told them, and her mother nodded.

“I know. Elric told us.” Her mother ran her hand over her hair. “Oh I wish I was there, my dear.”

Arielle swallowed. She didn’t want her parents there. It would have made everything much worse. 

Already, the latent fear was creeping back in, the terror not just for herself, but for her friends. Imagining them dead was almost worse than going through the experience herself. 

“I got hit a bunch of times and also poisoned,” she admitted also, because she thought her parents should know. “It hurt. It really, really hurt.” Ari’s voice broke on the last word, as the memory rushed back. So did all the emotions she had not yet processed, that she kept at bay, so that she could focus on what came next, on her recovery. 

She vividly recalled the fear as she stared at the titans appearing around her. The pain of being captured by the demon, the despondency when she thought of never seeing her family again. 

The hopelessness that loomed before Gio’s arrival. 

In another world, she would have been dead. 

She would have died there after a lengthy torture session and the horror of it was now just occurring to her. Not the death itself, but the pain attached to it, and the loss of her family forever. 

Now that she was with them, the delayed reaction set in. Her chest tightened and her breath quickened. The tears began to spring into her eyes, the sheer depth of what she went through finally sinking in.

“It really hurt,” she whispered, as a tear escaped and flowed down her cheek. 

“Oh, Ari,” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, and she made a move like she was about to hug Arielle, but she seemed to catch herself in time, pulling back. She resigned to just kissing her on the forehead, petting her cheek, letting Arielle cry as Celie put the cloth on her forehead again. 

Torv squeezed her hand, swallowing thickly and even Brom seemed emotional, looking away and clenching his teeth. 

They remained like that for several minutes, during which it seemed like no one knew what to say.

They were Mossbornes, a warrior clan. 

Celie went on dangerous missions all the time, and Brom protected the village from scary creatures and invaders. Death and injury forever lurked at the corner of their very existence. 

But this was different somehow. 

Arielle had never seen this level of concern for any of them before, not even when Celie had come back with an arrow in her shoulder or when Brom had gotten injured during his fight with the Bogworm. 

Maybe because none of them had gotten significantly hurt, or maybe because they had simply never thought they had to worry that Arielle would be in the type of danger where she faced demons. 

Either way, the silence felt heavy, and healing all at once. 

Finally, it was her father who broke it. 

“The pain might  remain, but so does the strength,” he said. “And you my dear, have you proven that you are stronger even than the creatures of hell who sought to kill you. You survived and they didn’t. You are a Blacksoil, with the blood of victors in your veins, and nothing will ever break you. Right?” 

“Yes.” Arielle drew his words around herself like a blanket. She was a Blacksoil. Nothing could break her. 

“But don’t do it again, if you can help it,” her mother added. “Understood?”

Arielle nodded. 

“Tell Elric if anything happens to you, Brom and I will come after him,” Celie said. 

 Brom jerked. “Why am I included?”

“Because you’re her brother.”

“Only as a circumstance of birth. That doesn’t make me crazy enough to threaten an Archmage.”

“Even an Archmage who failed to protect your sister when he promised to?”

"I’m going to go make you some wellness soup,” Thessa interrupted, seemingly tuning out her bickering children while focusing on Arielle. “That should get you right as rain in no time at all."

Arielle groaned. She hated wellness soup. It was bitter with a weird texture, wet leaves floating around in gritty broth. She would rather drink anything else, but she could never convince her mother that she didn’t need it, and she knew the argument would only tire her out. 

“I brought the ingredients along,” Thessa continued. “Maybe your friend can help me.”

“My friend…Inara?”

“I think you said her name was Tori the last time.”

“Oh. Is she here?” Was Vittoria back from her mission?

"No, she's not.” The new voice came from the doorway, announcing Elric's entrance. He walked up to Arielle, touching her hair briefly, the touch of a smile on his lips. "Are you feeling better?"

She nodded. "How was the meeting?" A glance out the window showed that it was very dark here, while it had been bright out before.  Which meant that the meeting was likely over and done with.

“It was…good for the most part,” he said. “I had to talk to Lord Wesley first, but he's gotten most of the council to agree to changing your ranking to master, following the system evaluation.”

Arielle exhaled in relief. “Meaning I won’t get my cores suppressed?”

“No,” he said. “Although if there’s anything else you haven’t told me, now would be a good time to do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I informed them that you had extra sensitive cores that were overdeveloped. That you’ve had them your entire life, and nothing was done to you to give you this skill.” He glanced at her mother and father. “Is that correct?”

Thessa and Torv looked at each other and then back at Elric. 

“What are you implying, Archmage?” Torv said. “That we did something to our daughter to make her this way.”

“No, I’m not implying that. I’m simply preparing for the eventuality that a question like that will be asked, and I need to know for certain that the answer is no."

“Of course it’s no.” Torv sounded offended. “We would never do anything to harm our child in any way."

“I don’t think you did it to harm her,” he said. “But perhaps it was something you did hoping to help her. Something you might not even realize had much of an impact. Did you ever give her any special potions or have her blessed by a temple as a baby?"

"No," Thessa said. "Arielle was a sickly child, so we would sometimes give her medicines, but nothing out of the ordinary. We did go to the temple occasionally but she was not blessed by anyone. And we only visited the medicine woman in our village whenever she was excessively fussy. She would give us some potions to help."

“These potions...were they made in your village?”

“Yes. They're given to many of our young, because many can't afford a healer whenever we want, can we? But we did the same to our other children whenever they were sick, and they don't have the same abilities Arielle does. So I doubt that had much of an impact."

"I see," he said slowly. "And nothing else was given to her?"

"Nothing else that I can think of," Thessa confirmed. 

"Okay. That’s good to know.”

“We would never do anything to jeopardize our daughter," Torv reiterated. 

“I know that.” Elric gave them an apologetic look. "I just wanted to make sure in preparation for her reevaluation."

"We understand,” Thessa said. There was a look of reconciliation between the archmage and Arielle’s parents, and a moment of silence until Celie pointed out, "I think Arielle has something to say."

All three turned to her expectantly. 

While the conversation went on, Arielle had been quiet, because she was slowly realizing that there was something she may have forgotten to mention to Elric, something important about her cores.

"Arielle?" Elric prompted.

"Um, there's something I have to say," she added. "Something about my cores I forgot to mention." She'd searched her mind and realized that, while she assumed Elric had known because Vittoria knew, she'd never specifically told Elric about the blue orb.

"What is it?" he asked. 

"I have another one," she said. "A core that I never told you about."

"What?"

She exhaled. "Remember that elven oath spell I broke that one time?"

“You broke an elven oath?” Celie’s jaw dropped as she stared at Arielle like she sprouted two heads.

“Where did you find it?” Brom followed up, growing excitement on his face, but Elric held up his hand.

“That’s not important right now,” he said. “What about it?”

"Well,” Ari continued. “ I found one of the essences that was used during the spell in the North Base cave. An elven essence. And I meditated and communicated with it long enough that now I have a tiny core for it within me. It's very minuscule, but it is there."

After she was done, both Elric and her family stared at her. No one said a word for some time, as her anxiety spiked.

"An Elven core?" Elric eventually asked.

"Yes. Is that going to be a problem?"

Elric just continued staring at her. 

Then he pinched the bridge of his nose, and began rubbing his temples intensely. 

Her mother straightened. 

“I’ll go make that soup,” her mother wryly. "It seems like the both of you will need it.”

***

“It probably won’t be a problem,” Elric said as they sat at the back of the carriage the next day, on the way to the system testing center. Arielle had spent most of her recovery time, sleeping and eating, and when awake, she was asking about Lyra and Maus. They were both still with the Wesley’s and she would go visit them after her reevaluation. 

They had teleported part of the way to Elric's home, but Elric had decided to continue the rest of the journey in his griffin-drawn carriage. He’d also been talking for most of it. 

“They don’t have the equipment to test for additional cores, I don't think and even if they do, they wouldn't think to test for it. And as you've mentioned, your elven core is very tiny."

Arielle nodded. It wasn't very noticeable. Mostly the blue orb obeyed her because it wanted to, not because she had any true control over it. 

"On the other hand, we actually don't know what we're walking into," Elric continued, his voice a little frantic. "And this could very well be the thing that triggered the additional system review in the first place. In which case, if they find it, we just tell them the truth. Or at least the half truth. You happened to be meditating in a cave. Your essence sensitivity meant that you noticed there was an elven essence there, and you happened to develop a core for it, and that was that. They can't imprison you for that, right? It doesn't ruin our plans at all. If anything, it makes you more special. But still not too special, right?"

Arielle nodded again, even though at this point, she figured Elric was mostly talking to himself because he wasn't responding to any of her words or gestures of agreement, nor was he looking at her. 

"Forgive me for babbling," he said. "We don't know much about what we're walking to. Gio said it would likely be a series of tests, including performance tests, but he didn't have the specifics. It's making me anxious."

"Me too." Arielle was always nervous for tests that she hadn't prepared for. Especially since so much was staked on this, and, as Elric stated, she had to try her best to do well, but not too well. 

"If it's an intake test," he said. "Control your intake. Allow yourself to go past the level I brought you down to before, with Master Phineas,  but don't reach the maximum, which was Archmage tier."

Arielle nodded again. 

"If it's any other type of test, the same principle applies. I know it's going to be difficult, but try to gauge what the max is and stop short of that. We want you to be excellent but not ridiculously so."

"Yes, I understand." She had a fair idea of how much essence she'd taken in during her last test, and how much she’d had to eject to be read as an apprentice. She divided it into quadrants to know where the master tier started and stopped. 

If she was asked to perform a spell, she also could visualize the complexity and guess whether it was a Master-tier spell or an Archmage-tier spell. 

She would make sure to succeed at the former and fail at the latter.

Hopefully it would be that simple. 

Elric had bitten off some of his nails when they reached. 

The carriage descended in front of a building that looked similar to a cathedral, with massive marble columns and statues standing next to it. 

A clock was embedded in the head, but the hands didn't move, merely pointing at the center of the leyline concentrated on the building itself. 

When the doors to the carriage opened, and they got out, Arielle noted a few people standing in front of the bronze gates of the cathedral .

A handful of men and one woman. Gio was part of them. 

They all stared at Arielle, and her discomfort grew at the blatant regard. 

She shifted closer to Elric then remembered to bow. They were likely Masters. She could feel the authority they held, but none of them approached Gio's. 

“Is this her?” one of them asked as she straightened. 

“Yes,” Elric said. “This is Arielle.”

“She looks younger than fifteen.”

“She’s small for her age,” Elric explained, and then he said, “We can go in now.”

“Of course.”

As they walked through the portico,  Gio somehow found his way to the other side of her. Arielle glanced up at him briefly, and he winked at her. 

She looked away, facing forward, her palms getting sweaty as they entered through the large bronze doors that opened for them. 

The system center wasn’t what she expected. 

She’d expected something like the evaluation room of the ministry, with a large circle in the center, and sophisticated machinery at the peripherals. 

Instead, it looked very much like a temple, with a quiet fountain at one end, and statues lining the other.

The statues were of the primordials, the Flamerider, The Lifetree, the Unmaker, the Truthsinger and the Stonechild, each of them seeming to look into her soul. 

In the center of the room, underneath a dome, was an altar that was raised seven feet high, with steps leading to the apex, and a mass of essences swirling around it. 

There were also magical security protocols constantly scanning the room for any sign of a threat, but it was far less than what Arielle had expected given Gio's description. There must be more that she couldn't see, perhaps in the ground or embedded in the walls. 

Their footsteps echoed as they approached the altar, but most of the white-robed inhabitants of the room ignored them, walking briskly from door to door. The doors opened and closed with a gentle click, as about two dozen people milled about, all seeming busy as they muttered to each other. None of them seemed to regard the guests. 

"Are we meant to get their attention?" A master with a hooked nose murmured to himself, sounding disgruntled. "What sort of welcome is this?"

At his statement, one of the doors opened, and an old man walked out. 

His hair was white and long, braided till the point where it brushed the floor. He was wearing white priest robes, but they had a collar like the healers' rather than priests. 

He stopped right in front of them and said nothing for some time, simply staring at Arielle. His eyes were completely pupilless and unfocused. Ari wondered if he was blind, but decided it might be rude to ask.

The oddest thing, apart from his silence and the fact that he did not bow to anyone, was that she could feel nothing from him. No authority, no sense of his ability. None of the orbs clung close to him, which wasn’t unusual, but also the fact that they kept a near-uniform distance was strange too. Almost like he kept them away willingly. 

How would he do that? And why would he do that?

One of the Masters cleared their throat. 

“I am–”

“I know who you are,” he said shortly, cutting off the man in his speech. 

The man let out a sound of disbelief and another master raised an eyebrow, his lip curling. 

“The audacity,” someone muttered. 

The old man ignored him. He didn’t take his eyes away from Arielle as he said, “Come.”

He turned around, and they all moved to follow him, but he held a hand up. “Just the girl.”

They stared at Arielle. She stared at Elric. 

“I’m her guardian,” he said.

“You may observe,” the old man said. “But you cannot follow her past that line.” He pointed at a black line inked in the white marble floor that they only just noticed. It was likely made of Vacu essences. 

Arielle glanced at Elric, and he gave her an encouraging nod.

“Perhaps if you could explain what’s happening, the girl will be less frightened," he said to the old man. 

“We do not explain our methods to outsiders,” the man responded, and he gestured for Arielle to walk. 

She took a breath, and crossed the line. Immediately, she felt a rush of energy over her skin and looked down to observe a ring of essences surrounding her ankles. 

They looked like chains, but they did not hinder her movement. She looked up again at the old man again and swallowed. 

She walked slowly, following the point of his finger. It led her up the steps of the altar, and the dome shifted, such that the sunlight streamed through to hit her. 

The second she stood in place, the essences began to rush at her. 

She blinked as they entered her cores, with a far stronger force than it had during her first test at the ministry. She didn't even have to inhale for it. It was rushing, to an almost invasive degree and before she knew it, she was approaching the level that she'd had the last time, the one Elric had told her to not to reach. 

She wondered if they would notice if she put a stop to the flow artificially. The man watched her measuredly. He wasn't saying anything, and it made her nervous to be under such strict scrutiny. 

Regardless, she squeezed her cores to slow the rush to a crawl, mimicking what a normal core would do at this point. 

Then, she stopped it entirely.

Silence reigned in the hall. 

She watched him expectantly, waiting for him to announce that it was over, or that they were moving on to the next test. 

Instead, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. .

"What on Earth am I looking at?" he murmured. 

***

AN: Sorry for the cliff. Have a great weekend!