10/07/337

Vasuki

When Vasuki awoke he was on the snowy mountain from a few nights before. He shivered as the blizzard surrounded his naked body. He quickly turned and ran into the cave behind him, this time he stayed on the mountain instead of waking up like last time.

He quickly looked around his surroundings inside the cave. The stone walls were made of some kind of blue mineral, like the entire cave was made of azurite ore. Cobalt colored crystals layered parts of the walls and floor, all of them gave off a cold aura. Getting close to them Vasuki could see, what looked like, snowflakes fluttering within them, as if they encapsulated the essence of ice itself. Looking at his options it didn’t seem like he had many other choices but to walk deeper into the mountain.

It didn’t take long for him to come across a table with clothes, that seemed to somehow fit him perfectly. A dark blue woolen doublet, deep brown breeches, woolen socks, leather boots and a thick brown, hooded, surcoat. He wasn’t sure why there were clothes here, much less a table, or how it was fitted almost exactly to him but he wasn’t about to start complaining about his luck.

After getting dressed in his new clothes he began to make his way forward, now being able to stave off the cold a lot more easier than just a few moments ago. As he approached a fork in the road of the caves he could hear snarling, the sight of broken crystals gave him a fair warning enough. He called for his blade and reflexively went to grab the soon-to-be-shattered ice that called it into existence, but there was nothing. No ice came to his grasp, no weapon to defend himself. He called forth his magic, there was nothing.

Three white wolves appeared from the right fork of the cave, they were large, well-fed and already on their next hunt. They bore their fangs which glistened in the light the crystals, their fur raised in alarm. The first of the three of them charged and leapt, at him. Instinctively he put his left arm up in self defense, biting onto his scaled arm he would be fine, but his clothes would be taking some damage. He noticed the other two already on their way to him, he didn’t have another set of scales that could defend him.

Reacting quickly, he slung the white wolf on his arm at the others, the clawing and gnawing slump of muscle flew off of his arm hitting the wolf on the right. He drew his arm back and back handed the one on the left, watching the wolf yelp as it flew off to the side. He was worried he might come across more wolves so he ran down the left branch of the cave. He could hear the wolves already giving chase, this time they would be more cautious of him. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, skidding as the cave took an abrupt right turn. He heard another loud yelp as one of the wolves ran hard into the cave wall. He thought he might be lucky until he turned and saw one leaping in the air. Attempting to block it with his left arm the force of the wolf’s leap forced him to the ground. This time the two other wolves bit on to his sides, he was thankful for the thick surcoat he wore.

Vasuki looked to his left and right for anything to help him before they found out a different way to get to his skin, and tear him to shreds. Then he heard a voice in his mind.

“Take this from me, Ascendee of mine, you are all you need.” The voice was arrogant and proud, almost royalty sounding, “You’re stronger than you know.” With that Vasuki threw his right arm into the wolf’s neck. It breathlessly yelped and jumped off of him. He shook off the other two and caught one by the scruff of it’s neck, he lifted it up and threw it against the wall of the cave, a crystal shattering under the wolf’s impact. He fell onto the ground and gasped for air. It got up limping and snarling, the other two looked at the situation, looked behind Vasuki and made a bit more effort backing off.

Hot breath hit the back of Vasuki’s neck. Every hair stood on end, he jumped forward, turned and looked at his new adversary. He had no idea what this creature was. It looked like an eyeless giant lizard, just a little shorter than him on all fours. It’s scales seemed to be made of the crystals from the walls of the cavern, with the sharpest one acting like a horn on top of the beasts nose. Through years under Cabana’s wing and access to bestiaries from the Royal Knight’s personal library he had never seen such a beast. It screeched at him, a large black frill unfurling from it’s face. It bounced from one wall to the other before tackling him, it was way too heavy and it knocked the air out of his lungs, he moved his head to the side as the monster’s jaws went for his head, the force of the beast put a hole in the rock floor.

Vasuki brought his knee into the beasts underside it was enough to hurt the creature for it to back up, and let him get off of the ground. He grabbed a nearby crystal and tore it off the wall, never pulling his eyes off of the creature, then held the crystal like a dagger. Oddly, it felt natural to him, but he couldn’t explain the reason behind it. The creature planted it’s foot where he had been and sniffed the air, then faced him directly. It was like the Shallow, except it’s sense of smell seemed to be it’s hunting method instead of echolocation.

The beast whipped it’s tail at him, seeming to stretch farther than it seemed it could feasibly reach. The act was faster than he could react and he felt it stab into his abdomen, through the thick protective layers of clothing. He looked down and realized with horror that he had failed to notice the bladed tip of it’s tail. It went deeper and he felt the tail go through his back and realized with horror that it penetrated itself into the wall behind him. He tried to stab the tail with the crystal only for it to shatter upon impact.

The lizard ran into it’s impaled pray and went straight for his neck. He held his left arm out and felt the razor sharp teeth pierce through his garment but not quite through his scales, he retracted his arm from the ruined sleeve, it then went in for another bite. He grabbed it’s jaws doing all he could to keep the beast back, but he was much too weak to fight this thing. He felt a chill creep across his body, like a snowstorm billowed within him. The scales on his left arm quickly crept up and down his arm, his fingers becoming scaled claws, the skin on his upper arm was covered in newly formed silver scales. He found himself much stronger than before and dragged the creatures head off course until it rammed it’s head into the cave wall beside him. He grabbed the creatures tail and ripped it out of him, before punching the creature, causing it’s head to retract from the wall and skidding to the side. It screeched one more time before it ran at him, he looked up at the beast and grabbed it by it’s jaws and slammed it shut before throwing it into the far wall. He fell to one knee before looking down to see the hole slowly, but surely, closing itself. He stood up and called upon the cobalt chains, he felt pain sear through his arms as he called a pillar of cobalt up into the beasts chest. It whipped it’s tail at him one last time, this time it was much slower, allowing him to catch it and bring it into the beasts neck, he didn’t let go until the creature stopped moving.

Vasuki backed up, breathing heavily until his eyes caught his reflection in ice that seemed like glass he almost didn’t recognize himself. Brown hair had turned to light gray, nearly white. His eyes, usually described as honey were now a soul-chilling bright blue. Silver scales had completely covered his left arm, as if it belonged to a dragon, rather than a variant. He felt his side beginning to cramp forcing him to double over from the pain, he got on his knees and pulled away from the cold that had surrounded his soul. Quickly, the pain vanished as did his foreign appearance in the icy mirror.

Vasuki sat with his back against the cavern wall, his breathing was slowing to a normal pace. Something was off with his sense of smell, everything only smelled cold. He hadn’t smelled the wolves, or whatever kind of lizard that had been, he couldn’t smell the iron from the blood that had been spilled, he could only smell the crisp chill in the air. He stood up and was about to head deeper into the cavern when he heard footprints approaching him, soon followed by clapping. They were close. He readied himself for Vistrata to appear.

The man who appeared was a far cry from Vistrata, light gray hair, and soul-chilling blue eyes. He wore a black hooded cloak around his neck, covering his entire body, swaying just over brown boots.

“Boreal.” Vasuki said.

“Vasuki.” Boreal responded. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Kind of unfair that Audra gets such easy contact with Lusalene, while we only get to talk every once in a while.” He complained, “But nevertheless, you did a swell job putting that beast to rest. I commend you on such a job well done.” He clapped once again, revealing two arms covered in silver scales.

“Thanks...what is that thing?” Vasuki asked. Boreal shrugged his shoulders.

“Hell if I know. I just made something up to challenge you.”

“So, you just invented that thing!?”

“Yeah, don’t look too deep into it. We have important things to discuss and not a lot of time.” He snapped his fingers and Vasuki found them standing at the mountaintop, overlooking the clouds.

The mountaintop slanted slightly upwards and at the very top was a black shortsword, embedded deep into the ground. Boreal pointed at the blade.

“That blade, is a major problem.” He claimed.

“I figured it would be, Felix put it into me” Vasuki claimed.

“Felix put that into you?” Boreal asked. Vasuki nodded, “Forgive me if I’m not quite caught up on everything, looking through your mind and seeing what has transpired is extremely difficult for me. Like looking through a heavy fog.” Boreal began to walk closer to the blade, gesturing for Vasuki to follow him.

As Vasuki approached the blade his head began to ache, memories of great battles began to sear themselves into his mind.

“The blade is odd, because it doesn’t let me have control of your ascension, instead it belongs to Vistrata. And I’m afraid, because of it, we don’t have much more time.” Vasuki saw through Boreal’s eyes as he killed demon after demon, non-stop bloody memories filled his mind. He felt his arms being cut from his body, his left leg being bitten off by a giant dragon. He saw himself sparring with Lusalene in preparation for battles, arrows plummeting from the sky as knights fired upon their allies. A dark obsidian covered human fighting against him and Lusaelene. Vasuki began to scream as he fell to his knees in pain. He saw Zaurah holding a pitch black shortsword.

“I will do what I can to guide your Ascension, but as it stands I’m simply the reason you can ascend.” Vasuki saw the sword he called from ice extending, becoming more jagged, cold air surrounded it’s very existence.

Suddenly the pain vanished and he was now standing a few feet from Birthright, a bright red feather was engraved into the center of the shortsword’s hilt. Boreal placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Keep your eye on Felix. That sword is a direct creation from Zaurah, the Ancient Phoenix of Chaos.” Snow began to swirl around Vasuki’s vision, and when he came to his senses he was staring directly at the night sky, stars littered all over the sky.

“Felix...Cabana said….he was the only Phoenix variant...how did we not see it sooner…” He said, to himself in a daze, before losing consciousness.