"Where are you taking me?!" asked Tirah with a muffled voice, after hours of of being dragged through space by Daniel, while covering her face with his hand. It was only after nothing but a speck of light was left of the planet they had just left, that Daniel finally stopped, and let go of her.
With a faint smile Daniel responded by saying, "Somewhere where you won't be a problem to anybody else."
Slightly confused, the Necromancer thought of how to ask him to explain in a way that could actually grant her some answers, but her words went back down her throat even before being spoken the moment she felt a waft of warm wind come from behind her. "I know this smell." said a deep and hoarse voice that came from behind her.
The familiarity of this voice was not a welcome surprise for Tirah, as she could count the number of friends she had in the entire universe, in the fingers of a single hand. However, this voice in particular had left an impression. She slowly turned around to see an immense dragon head. The rest of the dragon's body was hidden within the planet's spatial protection, but from the size of the head alone, it was obvious that his full body, as well as power, could not possibly be compared to the last time the two had faced one other.
"What is he doing here?!" She blurted out before waving her arms around in fright. Even before Xargy's increase in power she had been unable to kill him, let alone now that he had reached a power that could match that of the oldest dragons, and that were part of her older sister's rooster of tamed beasts.
"Did you bring me a snack?" Asked Xargy while showing his two mountain range-sized sets of teeth, with a menacing tone.
Daniel could understand what Xargy meant. Tirah had been one of Daniel's most dangerous enemies. While he could agree that sheer idea of killing her was sweeter than any other bitter alternative, he knew more than Xargy did. "If only it were that simple.." he said before giving a gentle push to Tirah's back, causing her to float in Xargy's direction.
Xargy opened his immense mouth in response, almost as if preparing himself to welcome the child of Iewah into his stomach, causing the frightened Tirah to close her eyes and shriek in fear, but just as she was expecting to hear the dragon's mountain-like teeth close around her, she opened her eyes, and immediately realized that Xargy had turned in his human form, and was currently floating next to Daniel.
Tirah had now floated a few kilometers away into the empty space, and to her, it did not seem that neither Daniel nor Xargy were caring. A few more kilometers later, she started to worry that Daniel's solution was to throw her into the empty space, forcing her to float aimlessly in a single direction until she would be lucky enough to crash against something that could kill her, which in terms of probability, the word 'unlikely' was already more than a generous estimate.
Scared that that was her actual fate, she started to shout in Daniel's direction, "HEY! LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS!" she said, however, the lack of power made it impossible for the sound of her voice to reach Daniel through the kilometers of empty space.
Just as she was about to start to panic, her body went through a thin layer of illusory space, and in front of her, appeared a massive flourishing planet which emanated the same form of essence possessed by Daniel.
She was barely able to utter the beginning of the word 'What', before she was caught by the planet's gravitational pull, and forced into freefall towards the planet's surface. Protected by a simple soft layer of spatial barrier that could not entirely stop the wind from pressing against her body, the teenager-looking Tirah kept gaining speed, until she broke the barrier of sound.
The planet's crust expanded in front of her eyes, and in about ten minutes, she finally found herself counting the seconds left to her death.
Right when she was expecting to become a stain of red which decorated Daniel's odd planet, she suddenly stopped a few centimeters above the ground. Next to her were Daniel, Xargy, and a young boy in his early teens who had appeared from out of nowhere.
After a simple exchange of signs between Daniel and Virgil, Tirah noticed the former hand over the controller of her limitations to the latter, along with the odd bracelet which her kidnappers would use to extort information from her whenever the torture would start.
Virgil expression beamed with joy. The opportunity to study alien technology different from any form of cultivation-centered technology developed in his home town was more than he could hope for, so when Daniel assigned the task to him, he forgot about his entire monthly schedule of training and study, and dedicated a hundred percent of his attention to the task.
Soon after Daniel's return, the leading members of his group approached, eager to hear the stories of what he had seen. Amongst them, were Sewah, and Edmund.
"You?" Asked Sewah with brows raised high in surprise after noticing his sister. "What the hell is she doing here?" He then asked after turning to look at Daniel, unaware that her powers were sealed, and worried that she would start raising the dead just like she had done in the base of the Poisonous Rose.
"Hahahahah! Look at you, little brother. You have become the lapdog of your host. As if you couldn't fall lower than the last time I saw you!" Said Tirah after bursting out in a hearty laugh.
While Sewah could usually control himself, this degree of self control instantly broke the moment his older sister started teasing him. His buried feelings of competition started to emerge. He took a step in her direction, ready to attack her the moment she would show any sign of hostility, but he was promptly stopped soon after by Daniel, who surrounded his body with a gentle and calm form of mental essence, which instantly restored his composure.
"I did not save you so that you could be a problem for me. Behave, or I'll put you into spatial formation where you will barely be able to move, and throw you into space." Said Daniel with a threatening tone to his prisoner. However, for some reason, Tirah did not appear to be interested in his threats, as much as she was interested in another individual amongst the ones that had appeared with Sewah. The person she was currently looking at was none other than Edmund, who was in turn looking at her with a similar interest.
"Why do you look so familiar? Who are you?" Asked Tirah after standing back up on her feet, and approaching the middle aged man. "Are you dead?" she then added. Contrary to the young woman, Edmund's expression did not show as much confusion, as he seemed to understand what was the connection between the two of them.
Instead of answering to Tirah's question, Edmund turned to look at Daniel, and said, "If you have to imprison her somewhere, leave her to me."
"What for?" Asked Daniel with confusion.
"The power of her system, it grants her a connection to the underworld, right?" Responded Edmund with a question.
"Yes, what about it?"
"At the beginning I thought that the underworld was only a theoretical place where the consciousness of a person would go to rest after their death, but now I am one hundred percent sure that it is in fact a dimension like any other." Responded Edmund before taking a step closer to Tirah. He then added, "Whenever I see someone die, I feel their consciousness cross the barriers of space, and enter the dimension that we call underworld. I have felt the same, and keep feeling it, ever since I have laid my eyes on her."
This revelation caught everybody by surprise, after all, what Edmund was inferring was that given enough control over his powers, he could possibly enter the underworld, were the consciousness of all of the deceased beings that had ever existed, resided.
The first person to regain his mental clarity and speak was the Golden Cauldron old man, who looked at him with the eyes of a friend, and asked, "Do you want to study the connection between our world, and the world of the dead?" The worry in his voice could not be completely hidden.
"I won't experiment with it. I just want to learn how to bind myself to this dimension. I don't want to wake up one day and find myself inside an unknown dimension. I can use connection to the world of the dead to learn how to anchor myself here." Responded Edmund in an attempt to reassure the old man, as well as Daniel, who ad joined the former in his worry.
Right as Daniel was about to decide whether to allow this or not, he felt a gentle tug of his clothes. When he turned around, he saw the figure of Virgil, who held the flat rectangular device in between them, and tapped on it a few times the very moment Daniel's eyes landed on it.
Left with no other choice, Daniel let out a sigh in resignation, and said, "Alright, I'll leave her to you two. But follow my rules. Do not free her, and more importantly, do not kill her." After making sure that the two had understood his instructions, Daniel left for a few hours of deserved rest.
Later that day.
In the balcony of his castle room, Daniel sat over one of two wicker chairs placed one next to the other, facing the the scenery. In his hand was an empty clean glass, and on the table placed in between the two chairs, was an empty bottle of wine.
Sleeping had long since become an optional practice for Daniel, a practice in which he indulged for the sheer pleasure of it. The only thing that stopped him from doing so, was the action of falling asleep. Ever since he had lost the need for it, he had found out that spending his time sitting around and drink would usually help him relax, and so he would do.
However, this time, no matter how many hours he spent looking at the stars, or how many glasses he drank, he could not reconnect to this now foreign concept. What prevented him from sleeping was not something he was doing wrong, but someone who was missing. Someone that occupied a great importance in his mind, and if possible, he would have wanted to encounter much sooner.
"For old habits.." he muttered after retrieving another bottle of liquor out of his spatial ring, and pouring its contents into a second glass present right next to his own, one that hadn't been used. He then stood up, and left the castle without touching his bed.
—–
Three weeks later.
"Do I just talk while wearing this, and my words will be translated into that language?" asked Daniel to Virgil by talking directly into his head while holding one of the helmets he had recovered from the attacking party of aliens.
Virgil quickly nodded in response, before starting a long series of signs with his fingers.
"Oh, really?" said Daniel with surprise.
According to what Virgil had told him, thanks to an additional, yet simpler sample of technology like the universal translator that Daniel had given to him, he had been able to understand more of the alien technology, to a point where modifying the alien's spatial suit so that it could fit a human's body was possible.
Unfortunately, these modifications could only allow Daniel to be less suspicious when walking around in it, and not to use the suit's full capabilities, which required a specific chemical signature that Virgil hadn't been able to replicate.
Nevertheless, this was more than Daniel could ask, as the next step of his mission did not require him to fight, but to impersonate one of the aliens.
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*Primary Quest Started: A Way Back Home*
-Description: Return to your sector of origin.
Second objective set: Reach the military headquarters of the alien race, and infiltrate one of the frigates assigned to the reinforcement of the wormhole's entrance.
Optional: Avoid being discovered.
Optional: Avoid being captured.
Reward: ???
Cooldown: 3 days, 6 hours.
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