“Aaaarh!”
“Fuck!”
I woke up screaming, what the fuck happened? Where was I?
“Elias! Elias can you hear me!? And you ghost bitch you stay away from him!”
“How rude! After all I did this is how you repay me? You should be grateful I can’t hurt anybody here or else!”
“Just try me! And step away! What the hell did you do to him!”
My head was pounding, actually my whole body seemed to be pounding like my head, it was really a strange feeling, and the light and screaming around me wasn’t making it any better.
“Alya, I’m fine…”
“You’re not fine! That transparent whore got inside you! And you were convulsing, and you’re bleeding from… every hole you can bleed!”
Her voice was panicked, but the shouting wasn’t helping.
“I’m good now, I think, just help me get up.”
Alya kept one hand on the greatsword pointed toward the floating figure in front of me, the blade was blazing a multitude of shades of crimson, and with the other one she took my own and pulled me up.
I got on my feet unsteadily, I was starting to piece together what happened, I was feeling… strange, but not in a bad way.
I regarded the floating woman figure, now that I had a moment to look at her, she didn’t look too much human, aside from her incorporeal body, there was some alien quality to her, like Aurelia, the guide in the first safe room when we arrived in the tutorial.
“I have many questions.”
“Oh yea, I’m sure you have mister! It’s not everyday that someone can take a trip in their own soulspace, it’s a rare occurrence even for multiversal standards trust me!”
That gave me an inkling but my mind was still fuzzy, “Can you be more exhaustive please? I’m afraid that I’m quite out of my depth here, why did you do… that? And what was it about?”
“Oh well, I would like to tell you but… you see, I promised you not to.”
What?
“Explain.” I said while taking my hand off of Alya, I felt I was steady enough to stand on my own.
“She attacked you! She entered your body and after a couple of minutes you started shaking and convulsing, then you looked like you died, your eyes became totally black! Eli, she’s dangerous.”
“I did it to help him! And because I was a little curious I admit, but I helped you in the end no?”
I was about to respond when I felt it, the absence, the absence of the emptiness, of the consuming darkness that I felt growing in the past days.
My curse…
Not only that, my aura too, it was contained now, and much easier to control. I didn’t have to constantly fight against it to keep it inside my body.
“How?”
“How? I’m an Aureal.”
She said it as if it was the most normal thing in the universe, as if I should know what the hell she was talking about, I could only hypothesize that it was her race maybe? Vix called himself a Lord of the Aurei, she was an Aureal, and given that she was made of aura, I think I wasn’t too far off the mark.
“Is that supposed to be a fucking answer!?” Alya’s remark came swiftly, and I could feel her becoming more and more enraged, barely containing it.
“Alya, take a breath, she actually helped me,” I cleaned my eyes and nose with my sleeve, staining it crimson, “Despite her… questionable methods, she solved a couple of issues I was dealing with.”
“A couple of issues? Mister! Your soul would have collapsed under the curse in less than three days without me! You should prostrate in reverence after the boon I granted you, and some more!”
Alya turned on me, “What is she talking about? What curse?”
Fuck, damn ghost with a big mouth.
“I-”
“Oops… she didn’t know right? I’m very sorry, I know that soul curses are quite the difficult topic but you should open up a little, it’s not good to keep everything inside you know? If I were in y-”
I raised a hand, I felt a surge of indignant rage bubbling on the surface. “Enough.”
She stopped talking, her mouth open in the middle of spouting some more of my secrets no doubt.
“You shouldn’t have said that.”
“Sorry…” She had the decency of looking chastised at least.
I sighed, this could become a big problem, I’d have to deal with it the proper way.
“Miflin right? I need to know what happened, what did you do, and why, and the consequences if any.”
I raised a hand before the blabbering Aureal started speaking.
“But not now, later, I need to clear my mind a little first, and we came here for her.” I pointed at Alya.
“Oh, ok! I’m here all the time and I don’t sleep, so you can come whenever! What did you need for the foul mouthed girl?”
“Hey!”
“I need access to the System store, and I know the way for forcing any shopkeeper to open it up so I would appreciate if we could simply get access without any more trouble.”
“Of course! I never barred anyone from accessing the store, actually I sell a lot of items that the store doesn’t have in stock, so feel free to take a look around if you feel like it, if you need my help just call me!”
And with that she turned around and disappeared through a door, and I mean it literally, because the door was closed.
“What the fuck is her problem?” Alya was looking at the place she disappeared in, flabbergasted, but with her greatsword still blazing with aura.
“I have no idea, but at least we can go on with our things now.”
“No wait! Eli, we need to talk about what she sai-”
“Alya, please, not now, I need to think about some things first, so, let’s deal with your problem first, then… we’d see.”
Her head hung down, the aura on her plain greatsword dying down.
“Fine, but talk to me ok? I would help you in any way I can, you know that right?” I couldn’t see her eyes but she sounded sad.
I was in no position to think about her right now, I just wanted to get this over with and have a proper conversation with Miflin, she would have more answers than most I was sure. What a being like her was doing here acting as a merchant, I didn’t know, but in any case, I needed information, from Adrian, from her, from anyone I could get, and soon.
“I know I can trust you.” I put a hand on her shoulder, “Thank you for protecting me.”
She scoffed, “I couldn’t do anything, that bitch was too fast.”
She was, I actually activated Accelerated Perception before she did whatever she did, and I couldn’t even begin to understand her speed, and I couldn’t defend myself at all, people outside of the tutorial were scary. I was a big fish in a small pond, no, not even a small pond, I was just a big fish in a bowl, and another bigger fish was already here with me, so I had no idea how to face the monsters of the deep that I would face outside here, I would have to step up my game.
“Me neither, she was many times faster than Adrian; don’t provoke her Alya, she helped me, for some reason, but if she decides to not act kindly anymore, we won’t be able to do anything to protect ourselves.”
“Damn it all, how much more would this continue? Monsters, aliens, corporations, ghosts… and we didn’t even exit the tutorial, are we really going to be able to survive out there?”
“I don’t know… but I’m not going to stop and let anyone run over us if I can help it. I would fight and grow and take everything we need to make us the most powerful we can.”
“Yea… yea you’re right, we are just at the beginning, even if it feels like a lifetime since we entered the tutorial.”
“I know, I get the same feeling, the others feel it too, but now we have a chance of getting a serious power up, so let’s get to it.”
I didn’t want to lose more time than necessary here, I had much to do.
“Ok, so what should I buy?”
Oh boy… this would take some time.