Starlight Life Of The Sage

Public Release: March 16th, 2019 - 3:30 am EST

Tikki Stonelight marched in step with the other prisoners through the streets of the Tin City towards the Southern Gate. The Dixon Head walked alongside them, making sure they raised no trouble along the way.

Puddles lined the streets. Their departure was delayed due to the storms.

During his time alone, Tikki couldn't get his niece's face out of his head. Nor could he forget the aura of her blood. She possessed a bloodline far purer than any Stonelights that came before her, as if her body was gifted by the Patron Gods themselves.

And Tikki knew the worst fact about the matter: that the heritage in the Stonelight's LIbrary wasn't the true one.

The Stonelights claimed their bloodline came from a Land Wyrm, but that claim was false. The truth of the matter was that the Stonelight heritage was far deeper and more profound than that, but due to the degradation, due to the many generations of weakness and rot, none could posses the true true legacy…

At least, none until this point.

Cara Stonelight had the potential to inherit the true legacy of the family, but Tikki never said a word about it. She renounced her family name and, thus, renounced any possibility of her possessing the truth.

So long as her name was Cara Avery, she would never possess the Stonelight Legacy.

The Stonelight Head and Tikki both agreed on that fact.

The Stonelight's ancestor grounds hidden in the Westland Ruins would remain locked until a new heir came along, if one ever did.

-

Cara read through the 'Bloodline Legacy' information she procured from the Library, but everything she found seemed far weaker than expected. The methods the Stonelights used were mere mimicry at best of Wyrms and other Draconic species.

While Cara herself relied on such things, they hardly seemed worthy of an 'ancient legacy' to a powerful clan.

Cara focused inwards, particularly on her blood, and she felt it rushing through her. She could feel her blood boiling, reacting to her cultivation like a man dying in the desert, greedily s.u.c.k.i.n.g in Mana with reckless abandon.

There were more secrets there. She could feel the very land calling out to her, the Spirit of the Soldier Garden telling her to walk back, that the 'East' was the wrong way.

Cara could feel something west of the Tin City calling to her at times. She wasn't certain why or what it even was, but she knew that, after her journey to the Empire's Training Grounds, she'd need to go west next.

She understood, at that moment, that one of the factors in the Spirit of the Soldier Garden choosing her had to do with her bloodline.

She also understood that what hid within her body was the legacy of no mere Land Wyrm.

-

In the warm afterglow of the storms, the land bloomed. Flowers and plants unfurled and revealed themselves. Colorful mushrooms of blue and red colors sprouted, their caps breaking the dirt like emerging like bears from their dens after a long winter.

The cries of Magic Beasts echoed through the glade.

Cara walked down a rocky hillside where vines sprawled like veins, spreading in a capillary formation from the base. Root systems emerged along the ways, leading through the dirt into small tunnel systems along the side.

The two women neared the edge of the Soldier Garden, then. Cara could feel it, her connection telling her the way. She could see through it, and feel the rumblings of human habitation ahead. They were nearing a town.

The mountains that once looked like decorations on the horizon now stood like a total backdrop for the way forward. The morning sun started to appear later in the day as Cara and Zara trekked deeper into the shadow of the mountain range.

-

Near midday, when the sun stood directly overhead, Cara emerged from the edge of the Soldier Garden into a wide golden field. The tall grass grew waist-high on Cara and it tickled her arms and legs as she walked through it.

Off in the distance, a bit to the south, she could see a small road that cut through the fields further toward the mountain base. There were signs of wood cutting and several hoof-prints from what Cara assumed were horses.

Zara jumped into the air and looked ahead. "There's a large town about a half-day's walk from here," she called from above.

"Then let's keep moving at our current walking pace," said Cara. She wasn't in a rush and she wanted to see more of the countryside as she went. She enjoyed the scenery and felt her 'old man' soul shiver with joy at it.

-

As the duo walked, Cara felt her connection to the Spirit of the Soldier Garden weaken a bit, but she could still feel it there. It was something she would keep with her no matter where she went, no matter how far she walked. And she could feel the sadness of the Soldier Garden at her leaving.

Their connection was something intimate, more than just the basic give-and-take. They had lived together for years and now they were parting for real.

"I'll be back," said Cara under her breath as she c.a.r.e.s.sed her Spirit Connection. She felt a soft affirmation in reply.

The further she walked, the weaker the mana she could pull from the ground. Cara's cultivation started to slow down for the first time since she arrived in the magic world. In exchange, though, the air itself started to fill with more and more ambient energy.

The only problem was that the energy in the air was tainted.

"Teacher," said Zara as she covered her own mouth, "what is this?"

"This," said Cara, "Is the aura of a much more powerful Spirit, one that has killed far too many people. This is the Monster of the Empire."

-

Cara could see signs of humans in the surroundings. It started with small things, like sparse garbage scattered about, but soon it turns into something worse. Ruins lined the road east, burned remnants that were once farmsteads stood like monuments to a great disaster. A pungent smell filled the air, a smell Cara recognized from her second life: the smell of factories and air pollution.

Cara couldn't see the town yet, but she could see the rising clouds of smoke and chemicals. She could smell it already. She frowned but said nothing. She walked on, her pace steady and slow.

After a while, Cara could see smokestacks rising over the next hill. She closed her eyes for a moment and walked to the peak where she could see further. She opened her eyes, then, and everything came into view at once.

A large river cut down the nearest mountainside where it turned, hooking itself through the center of a small metropolis towards the south. The river water, clear and blue along the mountainside, turned to green and then to black as it passed the city.

The town itself looked like something out of America's past, during the industrial revolution… Perhaps a bit beyond that. Cara could see the shape of it. She could see the quality in the buildings increase as they moved further upriver, and she could see the slums spread out in terrible grays past the factories.

South of the city, downriver from it, there were no plants growing, only a bleak wasteland spread from there, devoid of life. It looked like a desert without sands, with only cracked rocks exposed to the sunlight spreading beyond.

"This…" Zara couldn't find words to say. From the earlier distance she couldn't quite see the full situation, but now…

"This is the result of someone from Earth," said Cara. "I'm not the only person whose soul has passed into this world."

She thought of the password to the Stonelight Library. She thought of how the runes seemed so similar to computer programming languages.

And now she looked on at a fully industrialized city and sighed.

Cara loved her second life. She loved the world of Earth and its clever people who invented tremendous things…

But she wasn't an idealist, either.

More than technology or science, Cara loved nature. She loved looking at the surroundings as she moved, and she loved plants and trees.

Cara looked down at the sick city and she could feel a tremendous dark aura trembling from it. She could feel the aura of a new Spirit, one far stronger than the Spirit of the Soldier Garden.

The aura extended past the city in front of them up into the mountains, encompassing large swaths of the mountain range.

Cara pulled out one of the maps provided to her by the Empire's Princess. The city in front of her was but a mere stop along the way. There were many others dotted on the map that looked identical to it…

Cara and Zara were entering an industrialized country.

Cara thought back to her talk with the Dixon Head. He mentioned something about the 'Boshwa'.

Cara couldn't help but find that talk, that off-handed remark, as prophetic.