“Everyone keeps saying that Venustaluna achieved apotheosis when they became the first person to design a perfectly efficient schema, but I’ll tell you right now that by the time I’m done, what they did is going to look like child’s play.”

  -Bobbie ‘Armagendon’ Lee, one decade prior to The First Cataclysm

  “Let us begin.”

  The Abbot tried to say it in as stately a voice as possible. He wanted a ceremony such as this to be filled with purpose and the righteous will of the Divine. He was well aware of the ill intentions the Baron and Baroness held towards their daughter but he couldn’t bring himself to care; not in a way where he would risk himself in trying to offer aid at least. So long as this sacred ritual proceeded without issue, he wouldn’t be concerned with what might happen later.

  With the censers burning and herbal smoke floating in the air, he took a deep breath. Decades ago he had developed the schema he named ‘Ritualism of Holy Entanglement.’ He had built a massive and complex system that combined three different ritualistic schemas from different cultures and he made it into his own. Formed from the Sultanate’s alchemy, the Theocracy’s shamanism, and the Republic’s rune crafting, the final product became his magnum opus.

  The Abbot used the smoke and unique elements therein to bind his energies to those in the surrounding air. Not only that, but all others present who breathed the fumes would secretly lend their power as well. From there, he would then sculpt and direct the gathered energy while maintaining a steady stream of mana. The sigils on the ground channelled and shaped all energy into the target, and the rubs on her skin and the uniquely woven cloak would refine and channel it directly into Dahlia’s newly developed mana-organs.

  Each stage of the ritual was complex in its own right and, unlike others who simply tossed down a magic circle and called it a day, the Abbot refused to settle until he had total unyielding control of the process. It was because of this perfect control that he immediately sensed some oddities. It wasn’t enough for him to stop —it would take literal divine intervention for him to willingly stop halfway through the ritual— but as he continued he remained far more wary. Nonetheless, he pressed on and began his chant.

  “Dear sovereign of magic, hear our prayer. This child now becomes one of yours. Her heart, body, and soul are yours to have and yours to guide. Let this child see the beauty of your creation. Let her bear witness to her life beginning anew!”

  His voice was still hoarse and suffering from the long talks he had only just finished, but he remained steadfast in this part. Magically speaking, the words weren’t necessary, but for someone so devout to not recite the ceremony’s invocation, the thought was inconceivable.

  He briefly glanced over at Dahlia who remained standing still as a statue while the crystal she held released short intermittent bursts of energy. The alraune’s crystal wasn’t strictly necessary, but the pulses and wavelength it produced caused much better results: some individuals awoke only a portion of their aspect and the crystal would help prevent that.

  Seeing it was all going smoothly, the Abbot set aside some of his concerns from earlier. Even if the girl was an unusual case, so long as he finished the initial stage of the ritual he had nothing else to worry about. With that in mind, he sped up his chant, hoping to move things along before anything got out of hand.

  “Son of the moon, daughter of the sun. Venustaluna, please guide us and this child so that we know our truth. Bless us with your presence and let this young one know herself the way those in tune with magic know themselves. Please, oh God. Oh Goddess. Deliver her unto your heavenly embrace!”

  The Abbot was finishing the main chant as he felt a sudden wave of pressure run through the entirety of his ritual. Those he was secretly stealing mana from felt the backlash, with many staggering or falling to their knees and gasping for air but, to his credit, the Abbot didn’t waver. Maintaining the ritual, he followed the flow of his own mana, intertwining it with the ritual to find the cause, only to come up short as he took all the details in. The ritual was intended to gently awaken a person’s magic: like cracking an egg, it was intended to be strong enough of a catalyst to awaken Dahlia’s mana without being so rough as to cause harm. And yet… the girl’s own mana had caused a rebound that surged through the ritual, as if instead of cracking an egg, he had instead burst a dam. He watched intently, almost losing track of the ritual entirely due to how unusual the development was, but the girl only confirmed his suspicions as—

  Thud.

  His gaze flickered to a nearby candle and his brow raised. Not even half a grain had passed and yet she was already unconscious; the implications that had on the girl’s compatibility with casting were massive, though for now the specifics eluded him. Regardless, he could only be thankful that he had expedited the ritual, otherwise who knew what might have gone wrong.

  Letting out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding, the Abbot turned to look at Vincent who looked to be on the verge of starting a tantrum. The Baron’s face was livid after being affected by the ritual’s backlash and it was likely only due to the ceremony that the man wasn’t already berating him. Sighing, the Abbot could hardly spare his time to try and calm the entitled noble, but he figured it would at least be best not to become the man’s enemy.

  “Please my Lord, don’t look so upset. Your daughter entered the hallucinatory stage far earlier than anyone else I’ve ever worked with and it’s a sign that she has an incredibly high affinity for conducting mana. The magical rebound we all felt was an unfortunate side effect, but it’s also an excellent sign.”

  Seeing the man’s troubled face he continued, hoping to alleviate any remaining concerns or confusion.

  “This is a separate matter from what her aspect might be. We won’t know that until she wakes but this is a sign that, regardless of aspect, she’ll be able to contain more mana, conduct more, combine it, and shape it to an incredible degree. Even if she had the most insignificant aspect, she may be able to turn a molehill into a mountain once her abilities mature.”

  He chuckled a bit to himself at the thought of a literal ‘molehill’ aspect creating massive rocky mountains. It would be an absolutely ridiculous sight but, considering the girl’s aptitude, it might not be as absurd as it first seemed. His thought was cut off, however, as the girl on the ground started to shake, sob, scream, and whimper, and his eyebrows raised again.

  Such an intense expression of emotion was exclusively tied to a high compatibility with an aspect and was typically reserved for less common aspects as well. Taking into account all the separate signifiers he was seeing, the Abbot was beginning to suspect the girl might even be a genius in the making. He didn’t bother to hide his smile —nor the fervent look in his eyes— as he continued to raptly watch Dahlia scream.

  ~~~~~

  Dahlia blinked, trying to clear her mind and understand what was going on. Her mind was foggy and it was a struggle just to process what was happening around her, but she could at least tell that she was quickly recovering.

  “What the hell even happened?”

  The girl tried to take stock of what was going on, but only found her anxiety growing with each passing wick. When she first woke, Dahlia was worried that she’d been drugged: the grogginess and confusion alone were enough to make her feel that way but, as she regained her senses, that fear only grew more likely. Something had changed since she was last aware: the air was different —colder and more humid— and even the acoustics had changed away from the muffled echoes of the church to now something much more… open.

  “Anybody? Hello? Please!”

  She ignored how her voice cracked from a sudden surge of panic and instead focussed on what was actionable: there was no response, her eyes were still covered in that gods-damned veil, and her memories were a complete mess. She couldn’t even remember what exactly happened, only that the Abbot had started the ceremony and, at some point, her attention had drifted off with her only becoming alert mere moments ago. Worse, although she couldn’t put a finger on why, there was something off with how she was thinking. Even as the girl tried to parse all the information she had, it refused to click like she was used to — it was as though her mind was fighting against her. Each and every moment, another sliver of her rationality could be felt slipping away and everything would feel just slightly more wrong.

  The confusion made it all the worse as a screaming fear of the unknown began to overtake her and, finding that her hands weren’t bound, Dahlia hardly even realised what she was doing as she desperately tore away her veil. That desperation only made it a hundred times harder to remove as it snagged on every little thing possible, but eventually she finally managed to break free, eyes wild and breath heavy. The sight that found her wasn’t a church however, but a massive, fog-enshrouded forest.

  That was when it clicked.

  This was all a part of her hallucination, though it was even more realistic than she anticipated. Typically —at least based on the accounts she’d read— these hallucinations were supposed to be far more esoteric, like vague dreams that never managed to feel particularly real. This though? On some fundamental level, she knew she wasn’t thinking rationally, but that didn’t change how both her mind and body screamed that what she was experiencing was real.

  “This… isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be like this.” Her eyes flickered about, searching for something —anything— that might make it all feel better. Less real. Less terrifying. And yet all she was met with was more of the same dark and fog-enshrouded forest. “Alright, this is fine. I’ll just… I’ll just stay in one place. No need to panic. No need to overthink anything at all. It’s all completely fine.”

  At the back of her mind, some part of her just wanted to talk to the plants around her. Perhaps they would become her new friends and family and, more importantly, Dahlia thought they might offer a means to distract her from everything else. Unfortunately, even something as basic as starting a conversation was beginning to feel impossible; at least not while the atmosphere only grew more cloying and stressful.

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  Even as the girl did all she could just to centre herself, there was something that seemed to constantly raise her anxieties and fears. She was in a beautiful forest, a place Dahlia would typically call a haven, yet she was trembling where she stood. Attempting to take her mind off what she was going through mentally, she turned her full attention to the surroundings.

  The forest was dense, both in its undergrowth and its canopy. Sunlight hardly filtered through the tightly packed branches and yet, rather than a barren forest floor one might expect, she instead found the underbrush to be shockingly verdant. It was as if the plants here fed not on sunlight, but instead the shadows that surrounded them.

  Despite some oddities though, the forest wasn’t particularly unusual — most similar to a temperate rainforest if Dahlia had to guess. The trees were primarily dark-needled conifers, while the forest floor was dominated by lush moss, ferns, mushrooms, and brambles. Things shifted to the less natural though as she noticed exotic plants also present, ranging from thick verdant vines blanketing the trees, to gorgeous flowers with every colour of the rainbow. It was as if the forest existed in the land of the fae; something so mystical and beautiful that there was no way it could be found in an ordinary place.

  The thought brought something else to mind: far to the north, past the Amarei Grand Duchy and running along the Empire’s coast, was the Kíposthanát. A forest that poems and songs were written about and that adventuring sorts told tales of like it was a myth instead of a real place. It just so happened that those tales also described a place not too unlike this and that comparison did little to soothe the girl’s nerves. Rarely did those stories say anything positive about the woods and, as she began to recall more and more of the Kíposthanát’s tales, Dahlia found herself being gripped by a renewed panic as well as a desperate urge to escape.

  Fueled by something deep within, Dahlia felt that urge grow from a mere spark into a raging flame, becoming only more overwhelming until the desire to run, hide, and find safety consumed her thoughts. Her heart began to race and simply remaining stationary was beginning to make her short of breath. It didn’t take long until her rationality collapsed altogether and fear won over. She wanted to find safety —no— she needed to find safety. She needed to find a way out or a safe haven at the very least.

  It was in this state of mind that the girl began to rush through the woods. Thoughtless. Stumbling. Tripping. Getting back up only to run and fall again. The sensation was dreadful and Dahlia felt she was living through a nightmare where the more she tried to maintain her balance and sense of direction, the more she fell and the world spun around her. Time and time again, she found herself sprawling on the ground, gasping for air, and not even knowing how she got there.

  “P-please. No more. I can’t take this! I need out, please! I… I can’t breathe… someone help! Just, get me out, please!”

  She begged for help: yelling and crying as her throat became raw and she began to taste the tang of blood. Yet, even as she screamed her throat ragged, she never paused or stopped running for a moment. There was no rationale to her actions anymore, nor was there a plan or destination. All the girl knew was her desire to leave.

  Time passed in a blur, seeming fast and slow at the same time and, after what felt like hours, Dahlia could feel herself losing her mind. She was bloody now; scraped and bruised from forcing her way through underbrush that tore at her soft skin, and having fallen over hundreds of times in her meagre attempts to navigate and escape the woods. The forest’s shadows cloyed at the corners of her vision and the roiling mists danced with hidden shapes just slightly out of view. No beasts had come to attack her, but the girl wondered if it would have even been necessary; she seemed to be tearing herself apart just fine on her own.

  It was by this point that her exhaustion was beginning to truly take its toll, and the forest’s towering trees seemed to warp her vision as a strange sense of vertigo overtook her. It felt like the world was spinning and, all the while, roots, vines, brambles, and bushes constantly ensnared her, wrapping her limbs in a sharp unforgiving web.

  She didn’t even know when it had started, but by now Dahlia was sobbing and struggling to reign back her hyperventilation. Her anxieties had spiked to such an extreme that it was becoming clear that this place was a poison to her and she could feel it slowly killing her off. Already, it was to the point that standing wasn’t an option; her fatigue and the vertigo making it impossible to remain upright. Still driven by her deep seated fear however, the girl continued to flee to an unknown destination, crawling and dragging herself forward in a near feral desperation.

  Branches, roots, and thorns all dug into her, ripping cloth and flesh as she pulled herself along. She had run for so long already, and now crawled for even longer; it was enough that a part of her was beginning to cry in joy. She did not know how far she had come, but Dahlia was certain that some form of progress must have been made.

  Then she saw it.

  Broken branches. Torn cloth. A spattering of blood.

  She had been here.

  A small accidental circle would be one thing, but Dahlia recognized the local area. She knew and despised one branch for how it had jabbed into her, and she glared at the rotten mushroom that had cushioned her fall. She had been here back when she could still stand upright. It felt like a day ago, and yet she was still here. All that time had passed —all that effort spent and blood shed— and yet she had accomplished nothing but make a massive winding circle. The revelation was overwhelming: enough to leave her mind reeling.

  This event alone was enough to flip the switch. She understood.

  Despite how her rationality had long since crumbled, deep within the recesses of her mind the girl had never stopped analysing throughout the whole hallucination. All while panicking and running away, a portion of her mind she wasn’t even aware of had been trying to make sense of what was happening and finally it had clicked into place.

  This forest existed for one purpose. It only needed to be one thing and it needed to be that thing perfectly. The fears, anxieties, vertigo, and confusion: they all were innate to this place. They were just as natural as the bushes or trees, or the dirt beneath her feet. Just as the shadows and dark mist enshrouded everything here, so too did the sense of being lost and wishing to escape.

  Coming to this understanding, Dahlia could feel her nerves ease. She still felt scared and alone, but that was inevitable so long as she stayed here. But coming to terms with it felt better. It was like accepting that a volcano was erupting right beside you — there was a peaceful acceptance that came from it all.

  And it was with that sense of acceptance that Dahlia’s eyes shot open and the church was back in sight.

  ~~~~~

  As the ritual continued and grains grew to knuckles, and knuckles turned into an hour, the Abbot continued to watch the entire time with growing interest, all while Dahlia’s parents stood to the side. It was interesting, he thought, how similar yet different the two of them were. Both parents had started off watching raptly, almost as though they both had an overt fascination with seeing their daughter in pain. Over time though, their behaviour deviated.

  The Baroness, for her part, had initially seemed to have almost no interest in the ceremony itself and, if anything, had appeared remarkably bored until Dahlia had fallen to the ground and started screaming. As time went on and the intensity of the girl’s reaction became clear however, the Baroness’ attitude shifted from vaguely amused to hypervigilant. The Abbot wasn’t sure exactly when the change occurred, but at some point the woman’s cruel and lackadaisical nature was replaced by one far more serious and appraising.

  Contrary to his wife however, Vincent’s mood only seemed to worsen as time passed. Apparently, watching his daughter writhe in fear and agony on the ground was interesting to him for little more than a grain, but he grew tired of the sight quickly. At first the Baron at least managed to restrain his discontent, but he could only maintain it so long until he finally snapped.

  “Abbot! You said this wouldn’t take long so would you care to explain why we’re already past half a candle? I waited to say this because I trusted you and your reputation, but two hours is simply absurd. Do you take joy in testing my patience?”

  The Baron was fuming at the waste of time, unable to justify wasting so much time on someone he cared about so little. If it weren’t for putting on airs, he would have left long ago but, even so, there was only so much that he could put up with. For his part, the Abbot just gave Vincent a consolatory glance before refocusing on the collapsed and crying girl.

  “My Lord, the reason it’s taking so long is because of the aspect’s complexity. Everything about your daughter is nothing short of remarkable from a magical perspective. But if you are truly concerned, don’t be; she will wake soon. I can feel the mana flowing through her becoming progressively more steady and she has already shifted her behaviour from earlier. It’s only a matter of time before her hallucination comes to an end and she tells us what her aspect is.”

  Vincent only nodded, but his eyes smoldered as he restrained his anger. He was undoubtedly furious by the waste of time, but he could at least restrain himself due to the positive news. Though he hardly cared about Dahlia’s aspect itself, the part of the ceremony he could see value was, if the girl had a particularly strong aspect, he may be able to marry her off for a greater profit. It was for a similar reason that, even if he knew that Dahlia didn’t possess the burning lion bloodline, he figured that he may as well have her bloodline tested as well, just in case it would add some extra value to her.

  Having a group he hired take a sample of Dahlia’s blood during the ceremony, it was only a matter of time until he received a report detailing just what bloodline the girl might have if she went about actually purifying it. At the moment all they knew was that it was currently a particularly low purity, tests from earlier in her life had proven that but, now with mana flowing through her, a more accurate examination could be performed and it would only be a matter of time until they found out what exactly she had in her veins.

  True to the Abbot’s words, another knuckle passed before a noticeable shift was finally seen in the girl. Just under two and a half hours: that’s how long it took until Dahlia’s body started shaking violently and she began to release her loudest screams yet, only to go silent and deathly still moments later. Everyone in the room held their breath when she blurrily opened her eyes soon after.

  A thin smile cracked the Abbot’s otherwise austere expression. Dahlia’s eyes might have been open, but they remained confused, flickering things. Even after waking, the hallucinations wouldn’t fully stop haunting her for some time to come and it left her lucidity in shambles. Naturally, this lack of awareness was fully intentional and even considered one of the benefits of the ritual. Confusion and lost lucidity made it almost impossible for those under the ritual’s effects to lie, and it always ensured that recently awakened aspects were properly documented. At the moment, Dahlia’s critical thinking was simply too low to even consider lying as an option and he planned to take full advantage of that fact. Walking up to the girl, the Abbot crouched down, tilted her head up to look at him, and spoke firmly.

  “Well girl? What is your aspect?”

  The old man was trying to hide it, but he was verging on giddy. It was like Venustaluna themself had gifted him this opportunity; this event had been entirely unique to him despite his fifty year career and he was practically salivating at the possibility of discovering a truly unique aspect.

  Dahlia blinked a few times, trying to wrap her head around reality. She mumbled something, but it was impossible to make out.

  “I’m sorry dear, could you say that again?”

  She shuddered as if she was dredging up a horrific memory, but managed to slur the words out one more time, louder than before.

  “‘Lost in the dark forest’. That’s my aspect.”

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