Rylan opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented. Feeling a strong urge to breathe, he opened his mouth, only for water to rush in.

[Boss! That's your air hole, not your food hole!] Arphin helpfully said.

Rylan managed to get his feet under him, and stood up, spluttering and coughing as he broke the pool's serene surface.

[See? Now you have trouble breathing.]

"Rylan!" Tamina called to him, inches from the pool with one hand stretched out. "Are you all right?! What happened?"

"S-She was supposed to be released," Rylan managed to bring out, still reeling from all the impressions. "But the Hermeans all died or left, and now she's stuck, and... she's being drained to power that thing! It's tearing her apart!"

"I meant what happened with you, actually," Tamina muttered, but Rylan barely registered her voice as he looked up, straight at the glowing orb suspended in a metal lattice; at her prison.

"I want to help you," he said, tears welling up and mixing with the film of water still on his cheek. "But I don't know how!"

'The console,' Maris whispered. 'Access... the console.'

The impression of horrible, tearing pain transmitted along with her voice was more than enough to set Rylan in motion. Dazed, he turned to the right, and started to wade to the pool's edge. In doing so, he moved right past Tamina's outstretched hand, only belatedly even realising it had been there.

Tamina followed him, and when he started to push himself up on the ledge, grabbed him by the armpit and hauled him out in a single pull, making him idly wonder how many points she'd invested in Strength.

"Ry, you're scaring me," she said, the words coming out a little shaky.

"I'm fine," Rylan mumbled, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. "But Maris isn't. She's hurting so much, and I have to help her... I owe her that much, at least!"

[Woah! She's in pain? No wonder she's sad...]

Tamina bit her lip, but allowed Rylan to pull himself loose and stumble over to the metal pedestal holding a hexagonal prism at the edge of the pool.

While he had no idea how it worked, he'd seen the technicians in Maris's memories use it often enough to know what to do.

Slapping his hand on top of the translucent crystal, he called out, "Ethereon, activate console!"

For a moment, nothing happened. Fog, it's not broken, is it?!

Suddenly, the prism lit up with a deep purple glow, and a small stream of mana pulsed from it to his hand.

《New user detected,》Ethereon's voice spoke, somehow sounding a little livelier, friendlier than usual.《Performing authority check. Authority recognised. User flagged as administrator. Welcome to Aeloria Waeld's local network. What is your command?》

"Release Maris!"

《Captured spirit designated 'Maris' has served 847 years of her 120-year term. Confirm release?》

"Yes!" Rylan replied decisively. "Release her now."

《Release confirmed,》Ethereon spoke, somehow sounding almost relieved.

Something shifted in the room, some subtle flow of energy changed or disappeared and Rylan whirled to face the spinning lattice that he now knew to be a cage. After a moment, its runes starting to dim, then falter, one by one. Finally, a tremor ran through the entire structure, before it dropped like a stone, taking the glowing metal orb that contained Maris with it.

The whole thing disappeared into the pool, causing ripples to radiate outward that actually bounced off the stone edge around it, the surface no longer unnaturally still.

For a moment, as Rylan and Tamina stared at the disturbed pool, the whole room seemed to hold its breath. Then the water lit up with a bright blue glow and began to swirl. Splashes of water flew up, the spray of droplets sailing in improbable orbits, seeming to dance through the air, before landing all around, some of it on Rylan and Tamina.

Cursing, Tamina grabbed Rylan by the shoulder and pulled him a step back. "What is she doing?" she hissed.

"I think she's... playing," Rylan replied, a smile growing on his face.

[Boss, you did it,] Arphin said, sounding rather overcome with emotion. [You made the sad lady happy!]

Suddenly, the glowing water stopped swirling, and started to converge over the pool. At the same time, fog bubbled up from below, filling the air and swiftly clouding most of the room in a light haze, though Rylan noticed there was an area around the odd machine in the centre that remained clear.

Finally, the glowing water came together into a roughly humanoid shape with vague facial features and long flowing 'hair.'

'Thank you, kind one,' Maris spoke, her voice seeming to both echo through the room, as well as resound directly inside Rylan's skull.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

From Tamina's flinch, Rylan surmised that this time, she was able to hear the spirit as well, which he reckoned might have something to do with all the fog around them.

'You have aided me in my darkest hour. I believe tradition holds that I grant you a boon,' she said, her voice holding some mirth, as if she were recalling a joke from long ago. 'Will you accept my Blessing?'

Rylan hadn't fully understood what the Blessing she'd provided the young Quinthar in her memories entailed, but he knew he definitely wanted it.

The oldest epics were those about spirit-blessed heroes, who used their abilities to stand up to the wicked. However...

"Are you sure?" he blurted out. "Won't it hurt you, to do so now?"

Something akin to a smile played over Maris's face. 'A small price to pay. Do not let it weigh you down; you have saved me, and it is I who owes you now.'

Rylan took a deep breath, and lifted his chin. "In that case, I would be honoured to receive your Blessing."

The swirling, glowing form came floating forward, and an arm-like appendage came forth, a hand forming only at the last moment, just in time to touch down on the centre of his chest.

His eyes widened as he felt her reach out further, touching his spirit.

Her voice reverberated in his skull, seeming to swell with power, while simultaneously lowering to a whisper. 'May the waves carry you gently, and the sea answer your call...'

Rylan didn't fight the power that flooded into his spirit, just marvelled. He had some thought of trying to study what she was doing, but a kind of pressure welled up inside of him, causing his eyes to roll back into his skull as his knees went weak.

He faintly heard Tamina curse, and felt two hands—one soft and one hard—catching him as he sagged, and everything went dark.

For the second time in a row, Rylan came to groggy and disoriented in the underground chamber. At least he could breathe this time, though his clothes were still damp.

[You're awake! Honestly, Boss, you need to learn to take naps in more appropriate places...]

'I'll take that under advisement, Arphin,' Rylan sent back fondly as he pushed himself up, blinking against the weird lights in the room. His eyes adjusted only very gradually, rendering him confused when a soft green glow rapidly approached him.

"Ry!" Tamina said as she knelt down next to him. "Are you all right?"

Rylan blinked again, but he was still seeing a green glow superimposed with her chest. Actually, he'd seen it before, when he'd performed the Quinthar salute for the first time...

Tamina cleared her throat, sounding somewhat amused, and Rylan realised where he was staring. With blood rushing to his cheeks, he yanked his eyes up to meet hers. "I can see your spirit!" he blurted out by way of explanation.

Tamina's brows shot up. "Seriously? That's... that's pretty neat. I have to say, I was wondering what that whole Blessing thing was about. I mean, a sea of what?"

Rylan pushed himself further upright. "It's... a body of liquid water. But not like a little pond, a huge body of water, that you can't drink from because it's too salty."

Tamina shot him a funny look, then touched the back of his head. "I'm pretty sure I caught you in time..."

Rolling his eyes, Rylan got to his feet. "I'm fine, I just..." he trailed off, as while looking down, he noticed two things. First, was a green glow originating from his own chest, second was a yellow glow, coming from his belt. Wait, I can see Arphin's spirit too? That's awesome! I wonder why it's yellow, though. Probably something to do with the Aetherium? It's about the same shade...

"You were saying?" Tamina asked dryly.

Rylan shook his head. "Sorry. I am fine, I promise. And I know what a sea is because Maris showed me what this place used to be like. The cloudsea... didn't exist yet. Tammi, the world was completely—"

Tamina held up a hand, interrupting him. "Look, we can talk about salty bodies of water later. If you're all right to move, I think we should get out of here."

"Why, what's going on?"

Right then, his attention was drawn by a loud groaning sound coming from the towering structure in the centre of the room. Glancing up at it, he noticed that the glow shining through the gap in the panels had dimmed, and was flickering. And in fact, now that he was paying attention, it kind of felt like the steady hum it had previously produced had lowered in frequency and volume, and was moreover stuttering.

"That," Tamina stated succinctly. "It's been making weird noises for a while now, and I for one would prefer not to be here when it blows, so come on."

"No, it's not going to blow," Rylan said, his eyes widening. "That machine is what keeps the fog at bay, and without Maris... it's running out of mana!"

As if to punctuate his words, one of the Cubes embedded in a socket on the wall winked out and disintegrated. Actually, that had been far more visible to him than it should have been. It was almost like the Cubes shone a little brighter than they used to in his vision...

"Fog!" Tamina cursed. "In that case, we definitely better get out of here, before—"

A clang of metal hitting stone echoed out from the stairwell.

[Ehm, Boss,] Arphin said nervously. [We've got company...]

Rylan froze, his eyes quickly darting around the room for a hiding spot. Before he could find or do anything, however, a figure landed at the bottom of the stairs with a heavy thump.

A figure with, in Rylan's eyes, a shining blue spirit superimposed with her chest.

The captain rose from her crouched landing position, wild eyes immediately landing on Rylan, then Tamina. "You!" she barked, already striding forward and grabbing her hammer. "What have you done?! I should've killed you the moment you set foot in this bubble!"

Tamina's face darkened as she grabbed her shield, the tell-tale white glow covering both their weapons.

An almost manic sneer came over the captain's face as she lifted her glowing hammer.

"Wait!" Rylan shouted, raising his hands as he stepped half in front of Tamina. "It wasn't her! It was me; I released Maris!"

"You what?!" the captain spat, fire in her eyes.

[Boss, watch out!]

The hammer swung down. A hand roughly yanked Rylan out of the way, before the large weapon met a pitch-dark shield with a mighty clang.

"Oof," Tamina grunted, as her knees threatened to buckle under the heavy overhead blow.

The captain's sneer widened as she pushed down, and the stone under Tamina's feet began to crack. No, actually, she wasn't pushing down, she was feeding her hammer mana; Rylan could vaguely see it flow towards the deepmetal head, causing it to grow heavier and heavier.

Rylan acted immediately, rapid-charging Jumping even as he pulled out Arphin. He leapt forward with one foot, and kicked out with the other, finding purchase on the captain's shoulder.

Her Mana Shell lit up against his foot, thick and sturdy. Then he activated his Skill's second Augmentations, pushing off against her with full force. He flew back, actually performing a backwards somersault somehow and landing just in time to see the captain stumble back, her hammer having slipped off Tamina's shield and smashed into the ground.

Tamina stumbled back, looking pale but determined as she drew her sword and it, too, lit up white.

Rylan's stomach was sinking however. He'd given that kick his all, and he'd barely moved the captain. Unless we pull off something crazy, we don't stand a chance; her Mana Shell is too thick!

Then Soren reached the bottom of the stairs. "What the fog is going on here?!"

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