TVisTV Book 3: Chapter 44 (RAW) (Patreon)

A very big chapter!

Chapter 44 - The Great Goddess

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics

- Brian Greene

[STATUS] Seraphina de Sariens - Noble/Oracle (Human lvl.27)

STR:

DEX:

CON:

INT:

WIS:

CHR:

LCK:

57

29

56

32

12

43

32 [37]

Health:

Stamina:

Mana:

Experience:

1140/1140

99/99

19/19

5248/11447

[Skills & Proficiencies]

Improved Swords

(lvl.1)

Bows

(lvl.3)

Crossbows

(lvl.4)

Throwing Weapons

(lvl.2)

Dodge

(lvl.3)

Improved Critical Hit Mastery

(lvl.1)

Improved Riding

(lvl.3)

Monster Taming

(lvl.5) [Imp. lvl.2]

Herbalism

(lvl.2)

Daggers

(lvl.5)

Improved Unarmed

(lvl.1)

Rest

(lvl.5)

Power Strike

(lvl.4)

Slings

(lvl.4)

Polearms

(lvl.3)

Medium Armor

(lvl.3)

Heavy Armor

(lvl.3)

Improved Blind Fighting

(lvl.1)

Stealth

(lvl.1)

Dash

(lvl.2)

Power Throw

(lvl.3)

Dual Wield

(lvl.3)

Club

(lvl.2)

Axes

(lvl.1)

Endure

(lvl.1)

Spiral Fury

(lvl.1) 15

Spells & Magic

Heal

(lvl.5) 5

Silent Casting

(lvl.3)

Wail of Judgment

(lvl.4) 10

Crystal Dagger

(lvl.5) 1

Mana Regeneration

(lv.4) [Imp. lvl.2]

Crystal Spear

(lvl.2) 2

Identify

(lvl.1) 1

[Gifts]

Strength of the Old Ones:

+25 Strength

Resilience of the Old Ones:

+25 Constitution

Legacy of the Dragon Turtle:

+1 Constitution, +1 Luck, +10% Water Resistance, +10% Physical Resistance

Undead Exorcist

+10% Dark Resistance,

Chance for all attacks to be imbued with Holy against Undead.

Her eyes widened as the damning truth hit her. All that effort, everything she had endured to unlock what she had believed was a “broken” class, had earned her exactly that: a broken class, and not in the good way.

All of that nonsense for an Identify spell. The gall of the game. And in this world, there was no going back. No save points, no do-overs, no recourse for bad choices. She’d been offered a wealth of options, and she had chosen poorly. Seraphina would have cried tears of frustration if she had had any left.

To get Identify could have been as simple as a little side quest to pick it up… except, wait. Since she wasn’t the game’s “heroine,” that meant she could not do quests at all. She had tried, many, many times to trigger them, and nothing had ever happened. Still, maybe all wasn’t lost. A pathetic silver lining to the whole debacle.

Even so, it was only a utility spell, nearly useless to her. Seraphina could always hire someone to identify items or, heavens forbid, use her own eyes and powers of deduction. Knowing the quality tier of a handkerchief or a sword was meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

All in all, it offered no real increase in power, neither long-term nor short-term. Only a tiny, tiny increase in convenience. And more importantly, it gave her no logical path out of her current predicament.

An Oracle without any oracular powers. The very thought galled her. And the young girl knew, oh she knew, it wouldn’t be enough. It was a setback, a bitter one, but she hadn’t clawed her way to the top by being weak.

Mirae. Get yourself together, she told herself. Her thoughts hardened.

“Eloise, Ibn!” she called, then winced internally as she remembered, too late, that Ibn was most definitely not here.

As always, she met disappointment, that constant companion, when Miriam popped in instead.

“Milady, how might I serve?” the maid inquired, wrapped in her usual nervousness.

Seraphina fought to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Milly, please call Eloise. I require her assistance… and Gravens.”

“At once, milady!” Miriam said, and hurried off.

In no time at all, her lady-in-waiting arrived, looking worried. Gauze backed by steel showed in the lines of her face. From the look of her, you would never have guessed she had spent the night in the military camp. Sir Gravens followed and was about to snap a salute, but a blush stole over his features as he realized Seraphina was still in her underclothes.

“How may we serve you, Lady Seraphina?” Eloise asked, then aimed a small kick at Gravens’ shin to punish his wandering eyes.

The boy yelped and looked wounded, but remembered to avert his gaze.

“That was a bit much,” Seraphina chided, a small grin tugging at her mouth. “Gravens can hardly help me into my armor if he cannot look at me. That was usually Ibn’s job… but as you know, he is currently indisposed.”

The words fell between them like a stone tossed into a puddle, a dirty and unwanted reminder.

“At once, Lady Seraphina,” Gravens said, duty overriding his usual, stolid sense of propriety.

And this time, Seraphina was not clad in mundane steel, but mithril and Hydra scale, an avatar of feminized war. The armor was functional, yet it suggested the feminine lines of her form beneath its smooth, sloped scales. The highlight, of course, was the great plume of the helm: a shock of red that fell past her shoulders. Living goblin hair, thick robes of it, drank at the air around the wearer, siphoning ambient mana.

A goddess of war she had become, at least in appearance. Yet as she felt Cornelia stir against her bosom while Gravens handed her her mundane zweihander and estoc, she knew she was still far from it.

Still, she had to try.

As if summoned by the whore of her fate, with perfect timing, the witch Anaselena appeared. Her beautiful mother wore a chaste dress that accentuated rather than hid anything, a picture of sin clothed in the trappings of modesty.

And Anaselena wore her disapproval like a shroud. “I do not think, my darling daughter, that all of that will be required. You will use your little card now, I think, for this family and the peace of the realm.”

“You are mad, that way lies only death and destruction!” Seraphina cried, losing control, as she always seemed to do when faced with her mother.

“Mad, you say? Oh, you sweet child, this is the only way. And make no mistake… you will obey your mother, and then one day you will be the Queen.”

“I will not…” Seraphina said quietly. Then, louder, “I will not. I will not be a Queen of the ashes,” she stated defiantly, fists clenched tight.

It was as if her body fought her, every survival instinct screaming that this chosen path was the path of annihilation. Somehow, Seraphina still found it within herself to throw a punch with all her great Strength at her mother, praying that her enhanced gifts would finally be enough. She might as well have tried to fight a leaf made of adamantium.

Anaselena moved in a way that should not have been possible, all curves and precision guided by foreknowledge. She caught her daughter’s armored wrist and laughed, almost comically.

Then she dismissively removed her helm and kissed Seraphina’s forehead, a mark of possession, a branding that only sharpened Seraphina’s embarrassment. Worse, it happened in front of her retainers.

But Anaselena, for all her foresight, had made a mistake. Yes, she could infer thoughts from human action, but she could not read minds. In Seraphina’s defiance, and in Anaselena’s effortless cruelty, Gravens and Eloise finally saw the monster behind the title. This was the Duchess Anaselena de Sariens, the Witch of the Wrack of Fate, as the game named her.

Instinctively, Sir Gravens’ hand went to his sword as he stepped between his lady and her mother. Eloise’s face became a perfect picture of shock, a wide “O” forming on her pretty lips.

“I am disappointed that is all you have, daughter. Fists, like a common brawler,” the Duchess said, shaking her head.

She looked at Seraphina, then at Gravens and Eloise, and in her heart the young girl felt the unspoken threat. Her mother’s every gesture was a knife, sawing into her ribs and angling for her heart.

Resigned, she did what she never thought she would do. She admitted defeat, or as much defeat as her pride could tolerate. Already, her mind reframed it as a necessary tactical retreat.

“Leave us,” Seraphina ordered, hiding the quaver in her voice.

“But, Lady…” Eloise and Sir Gravens began together, their voices in sync in a futile display of loyalty.

“I said leave us!” the blonde girl shouted again, adding a dash of cruelty to make sure the order bit deep.

“Yes, my daughter and I have something we must do… for the good of the Kingdom,” Anaselena added imperiously. Her voice dripped with barely veiled condescension as she waved them off. “You may go.”

They gave Seraphina one last look, filled with hurt and worry, before they left.

“Now then, daughter of mine, it is time to do what you must do,” Anaselena crowed, and ran an elegant finger across Seraphina’s lips, an act of possession and intimate violation.

Seraphina closed her eyes, a simple act that cost her more than it should have. To close your eyes in front of a greater predator was either suicide or bravery.

“Now, Mother?” the young girl asked, resignation steep in her voice.

Anaselena smiled, that half-mad smile she wore when she hunted for something in the present. “Now, my love.”

Seraphina’s hand rose to the emerald necklace at her throat, the thing that bound the entity she could summon. A trump card she loathed to use so soon. Holding it was like possessing a nuclear missile. Its power lay in having it, not in firing it.

She let mana flow into her, the god-gift of this world, and her world exploded.

Before her consciousness slipped away, she briefly felt her mother’s arm around her, catching her, cushioning her fall.

***

She entered the Dream, the place between thoughts, where the mind can wander freely, unencumbered by the constraints of the world. It was neither night nor day. It was a wide, breathing hush, threaded with pale currents of memory and half-born intent. Sound arrived late here, like an echo deciding whether it deserved to exist. Colors bled at the edges, then sharpened into impossible clarity when her attention touched them. The Dream was the corridor between worlds and selves, where imagination was not a pastime but a lever, and will was not a feeling but a force.

Here, power answered purpose.

Even after her temporary defeat, her will remained extraordinary. It coiled inside her like a drawn bow, taut with refusal, sharpened by humiliation, and made dangerous by resolve. If she meant to shield her true goals and ambitions, then what she required was not a lie but a deceit of truly cosmic scale. Not a mask for a face, but a mask for fate.

Reflections gathered around her, not in glass but in possibility. A thousand Seraphinas stared back from the shifting ether. Some were crowned. Some were broken. Some were smiling with teeth that did not belong to a girl. Each one was uniquely her, each one a different answer to the same cruel question. They orbited her like a court of ghosts, watching, waiting, hungry for the path she would choose.

Mana rose in her like a tide. It filled her veins with cold light and set her nerves humming. The air itself seemed to lean toward her, eager to be commanded. Her eyes ignited into a piercing cobalt blue, a stain of pure purpose. The blonde girl inhaled, and the Dream inhaled with her.

From the ether, she shaped herself into the thing she would have to pretend to be.

She clothed herself in raiment she had once seen on classical sculptures: draped fabric that clung like water and fell like judgment, cinched with a gleam of gold that looked stolen from a temple. Her hair arranged itself, heavy and immaculate, the way artists lied about goddesses. It grew longer where once it had been short. The final touch was a veil, gossamer-thin and faintly luminous, softening her features into something untouchable. Not a girl. Not a duchess’s daughter. Not the acting president of chaebol. A symbol.

A necessary falsehood made holy and most absolute.

When she was ready, she reached for the ritual and pulled.

The Dream answered with resistance, then with surrender. She felt the seam between places tighten, then split. A clean tearing sensation ran through reality like silk being riven by ruthless hands. The space between worlds opened, and a part of her cried out. Another, smaller part of her, buried and secret, recognized what this meant. There would be no going back. That childish, desperate wish that a summoning like this might send her home was not a wish at all. It was a trap she could not afford to indulge.

Then she saw him.

Or rather, she saw the vague naked shape of him, a silhouette of world-ending possibility. In the Dream his features refused to settle, as though the mind itself rejected the idea of containing him. Looking too closely threatened to scramble even her formidable will. The outline shimmered, too large in implication, too heavy in consequence. He was a presence more than a person, a pressure in the air, the suggestion of teeth behind a smile that had not yet formed.

And then she chose.

She did not choose his final form. She did not choose the world-ender he could become. In the last savage act of defiance, she chose him at his weakest. She forced the game’s “difficulty” selection into the smallest shape it would allow, wrenching Fate by the throat in sublime rebellion.

She had chosen to save the world rather than doom it.

Not out of mercy, and not out of goodness, but for the sake of her glorious ambitions.

And then she spoke.

“You have been chosen,” she intoned with the lightness of an angel, yet carrying an ominous echo of ages long passed.

The figure sank to their knees, overwhelmed by her presence.

“I am justice, and you shall be my herald. All that you do will be in my name. You will be the avatar of my will,” the Dream Seraphina proclaimed.

For a moment, the boy looked as if he would break, but then something in him rallied.

“Why?” he asked, voice hoarse and strained.

“You have been judged and have not been found wanting. A life lived without sin and in service to your fellow man. A soul that is compatible with our needs. Forged anew to be a tool of the righteous. This will be our covenant,” she stated her lie, giving the apocalypse a semblance of purpose and appealing to the narcissism that lives in all of us.

She watched hope burgeon in his eyes, his aura filling with grand purpose. That was what the little people desired. They craved meaning to fill their small, insignificant lives.

But it was not enough. Bringing him to this time would upset too many things, introduce too many unforeseen variables. No, she would send him back to the past, or further into the future. It did not matter. Or perhaps she could provoke something else to do it for her.

“But, let it not be said that there is no justice without mercy. Though it will cost me greatly, you will be given a day to face the trials to come. Prepare yourself, my champion. I am Avaria,” she said with all the gravitas she could muster, while internally she squealed with joy at her grand deception.