Greater Cleansing Song
Significance:
With this spell, with this practice, marked a turning point in Second War of the Shadows. The point where even the Shadows and Gods feared Ilgor. She began her own journey toward the path of godhood, and would walk to heights greater than even they ever saw.
Effect:
A unique spell developed by Ilgor The Brownie while her stay in The Elsewhere taught her much about the nature of the Universe and her place and role in it. This spell cleanses the mind body and soul of all effects of the Miasma. For a creature, entity, object, born into this reality it is more of a metamorphosis than a true cleansing spell. For a being that has a divine soul, but one that had been tainted by the Shadows Touch, it reverts the being into what their species as born from.
Though, there a three paths this spell can take, Acceptance, Rejection, and Synthesis. All three are paths that are guided by Ilgor once she has begun singing this Song. While she is neither master nor slave to the process, the end result is always the will of the one it is being cast upon.
"I will not choose for you, you must decide. I will not force you, I will not change you, for this change is born from your own heart. I will not stoop to their level, never to debase a soul of it's dignity. The mind must heal to seal the cracks of the soul, and in the end these will change the vessel."
Is perhaps the most visceral and traumatic to the mind and soul. For a body that has no knowledge of its true form, its origin, it represents a potent amount of faith placed in Ilgor as she begins systematically pulling you apart in absolute. Her song pulls apart everything that makes you who you are, sees everything your mind has ever thought, sees everything your souls has ever done sins and righteousness make no difference to her. She strips the Miasma from every part of your being, shatters the chains The Shadows laid on you. When she has walked this path with you, for you are never alone, you will have traveled to a height denied to you. An Ascendant place.
Rejection:
When the hand is offered to you, of your own mind will witness itself. Everything, a moment of self reflection that is apocryphal, yet one you cannot deny. She will smile and accept you for what you are, she is no master, no magistrate, no judge. Should you choose to remain as you are, chains and all, a shackle will be broken in the mind. One that no longer binds you to the Shadows, but she will not stop you from following them, as they are the only thing you've ever known. You are now given the choice you never had, to stay or go. Your loyalty is now tied to your own soul, not their power. "Ones own soul is always in ones own keeping, don't forget that."
Synthesis:
To walk a path that one has never traveled, to forsake an entire history is not one journey one takes lightly. To walk away from a people to become something alien to your mind, to walk among a different grove of trees, to see the stars in a way that sees the constellations in different shapes. She will walk with you, she will witness every tear, every shout, every fury that burns the heart, as will you live it again. In the end, you will take a different form of acceptance, not one that clothes you in the robes of different monarchs, but in ones of your own making. Accept the darkness that lies within oneself and become one with it, for there cannot be light without darkness. A grand act of self acceptance and healing, to mend the wounds you have made yourself, the ones the world has made for you. You are both Shadow and Divine, a new being, given a new seed this world has never seen before. And she will be there with you in the end, as you ascend higher than the chains holding you down ever thought possible. It is an illusion of control, your own limits are the ones you have made, your own fears are the ones that were made for you. Realize its absurdity, and change the rules that were set before you.
Through the Eyes of the Cleansed
Show spoiler
The battle was going poorly, the front line broken by those spawn. Quickly overrunning the human armies that held that line with as much blood and sweat as the lives had to give. While the Dwarven artillery pounded down on the swarm, the mages weaving great storms of fire and fury with the magic I taught them. Mother Pyromancer than began calling me, but for all I did, it felt meaningless as that Shadow commanded the battlefield and it dark army.
We had received word that Several of Ilgor's inner circle were returning from the Elsewhere to assist us, we had been hoping for one of those vaunted Ash Bringers to rain hellfire down on this darkness. The last word I had heard from them was that they were preparing to open a gate of some sort. I remembered that they were hesitant to do this as it would open the Elsewhere up to attack directly from the Shadows, a fate they feared before all else. After seeing this carnage, after seeing what they could do to the living, becoming living weapons of war with singular purposes, I finally understood why.
Even the might of the gods wouldn't stand up to this forever. I thought I finally understood the fear, the anxiety, the feeling of the inevitable. Our deaths were all but guaranteed once the line broke and those humans fell. Only to rise again as vile twisted versions of their former selves. I joined the quickly faltering second line weaving my own storms into their mix, reminding the Shadows why I was called the Witch of Ash. I didn't see the spell as the first one blasted me and sent me reeling, hair singed, clothes mostly burned away, deep blisters forming on my burned skin so quickly.
I didn't even know a Mistwalker could be burned, yet there I lay. Tears running down my eyes, head thunking hard to the ground as I couldn't move my right arm or leg from the deep burns. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Shadow and it's vile grin casting another beam of heat at me. Though, as if in slow motion something dropped down out of the sky, spear in hand as it Parried the beam back into the swarm. Something I had never seen, like Ilgor's people, a goblin... But her skin was the night sky, constellations and everything. A tail streamed behind her as she laughed downing every spawn she landed on as she closed the distance between her and the Shadow. Its grin vanishing as it recognized something I didn't.
Everything screamed as something picked me up in it's arms. Through burning eyes I could just barely make out the face of Ghet, only he had changed as well. A bellowing roar sounded off in the middle of battle, the frontline suddenly falling back as another one of those Cosmic skinned goblins began hacking apart the Shadow's minions. Somehow I thought that it should be Knoll, the old Veteran always had a brutalist way of handling things.
Something was pressed to my lips, a fiery numbing feeling filled my body as pain ceased to exist. A golden eyed Fairy looked down at me, strange weapon in his hand as his Rebreather phased out and allowed me to see the rest of his face. The one face I didn't want looking down at me, the one Fairy who stood up for me and The Shrine Guard those many months ago. Anlyth smiled as he tapped the side of his head as if telling me to listen.
I didn't understand, it was just the sound of the battle as I assumed it was Cori and Knoll now dominating the field of glory. Just the two of them, how? Anlyth must have sensed my confusion, he finished speaking into some comms array before looking down at me. "I never thought I'd see them again. I never thought there was cure to the disease the Shadows made."
"I don't..." Was all I could muster, before I heard it. Her voice. A glorious, beautiful song I had never heard before. Just the magic steeped into her voice instantly began healing my burns. Anlyth quickly taking the cloak off his uniform and draping it over me.
Like someone filled my veins with warm water, my cheeks flushing with renewed energy. My skin already itchy from being stitched back together, lifting the cloak to see my skin was fresh and raw already, not the blistered mess it just was. "She's here? She's really back?"
He just smiled down at me, while Ghet set me back down on my feet. I could finally get a good look at him, he had truly changed, his age no longer visable on his face. Constellations slowly moving across his skin as a tail flicked behind him, his ears seemed different, larger, fluffier. "Neaves, I would like you to see one of the first Brownies to be seen in... Well since we lost the War." Anlyth said with an odd sense of awe I'd never heard out of him before. "Vilorlith is also regaining strength at a wonderful rate, but Illy. She's something else..."
His words faded as the world blurred around me, the world falling away to leaving nothing but the stars in the sky behind. Floating in a void of endless points of light, not even my own wings making their own light. Looking around there was nothing except the view of the universe in all of its glory. Slowly churning nebulas, the distant spiral of galaxies far beyond my sight. The motion of the solar system around me felt personal. "So you feel it?"
I whipped my head around to see Ilgor standing behind me, kneeling down quickly I plastered her face with kisses as I hugged her tightly. "I thought I'd never see you again!" I could feel her face flush with heat as she pushed me away, but only just a little. I looked down at her, my heart stilling as I understood what I was looking at.
She was more, more real, more potent, more present than she ever felt before. Her skin racing with shooting stars, three tails wrapping themselves around my waist, her eyes burning with a royal purple fire. The same as Vilorlith's did. "I missed you too. But, I told you long ago that I wouldn't let you fall for me. Seems I was wrong in the end. I'm sorry."
"No no no, don't apologize. You didn't give me permission, but I couldn't help it. I love y." She cut me off with a finger to my lips.
"My friend. You've never been so forward like this before. I come with a choice." She spoke with words that hit me like a sack of bricks.
"Please say one of those choices is you." I said, shocked at myself. But she smiled as her tails wrapped around me tighter.
"No, but, Neaves Emberwing, you have seen the truth. You've seen what the wrongness of this world is. You've seen what has become of the Faeries, what has become of your people. You have star in your heart, suns for eyes, and a love that not even the darkest depths could suffocate. Walk with me." She spoke with a whisper as her tails unwrapped around me.
We walked though a shifting place, places I recognized. My home in the Shrine, faded faces I couldn't remember anymore, names that wouldn't come to my lips. She said nothing as my mind filled with memories from when I was a child, all the lonely nights, all the resentment the village felt toward me. All the perceived slights against me from the boys in the Shrine.
I remembered learning to control my fire with Afjie, she took me under her wings and taught me everything she knew. Picked me up when I was down, my rock in a storm. I saw the steams of tears run down her face as I said goodbye to her. Felt them fall down my own. I remember Rhys teaching me to stand up for myself, Erlin teaching me to fight back when the kids got too out of line. Pyria always there to talk to when I felt lost. Mother Afjie filled my mind again, only now with a stange twistedness to her, a dark shadow following her around.
"What is that?"
"A chain. One that has been with you, with everyone you have ever known. One that has been with every act of kindess and wickedness that you have ever endured." She said as she reached up and grabbed my hand, squeezing reassuringly.
"What do you mean a chain? Can you tell me why you are so different?"
"I broke those chains to myself. I became what I was always meant to be, so that I could help. So that I could follow my own path, not one set for me."
"I don't understand." Looking down at her only to have her piecing eyes bore through me.
"You don't need to, you just need to feel it. You are a Faerie, not a Mistwalker. You have had your entire life determined for you. All your might, all your fire and passion. That chain in your soul is proof enough."
I looked down to see a blackness swimming through me, through my chest, up into my wings and back through my chest. A worry having worked its way to the surface. "What is that?"
She said without any inflection. "The Shadows, when they chained your people the same way they chained mine. They could never create anything on their own, so they stole the only things they had left. They stole us from our heritage, our purpose, our dreams and our goals. Every thought you've ever had, checked by a Shadow to ensure compliance. Every feeling you felt checked by a Shadow to ensure you wouldn't grow to powerful. You see this?" She reached up into my chest and touched a finger to small spark.
I didn't even feel phased, I trusted her. "What is it?"
"That is you. The only thing that was ever you. That is your Spark. You know, I heard a story while I was away. An old fisherman told me that if you kept a beautiful golden fish in a small tank it's entire life, it would only ever get so big. But If you let it live in a pond it would grow, and it's scales would become more brilliant. If you took that fish again and put it in a lake it would grow even bigger, scales like gold. A creature to challenge even the biggest beasts that lurked the depths. So what would happen if you took that fish and gave it no limits? As much as it wanted, as much as it could roam?"
I remember back to when Ryhs and I went fishing in the hot springs. We would pull up eel after eel, well he would and I'd be there cheering him on. But, he would tell me these stories about legendary eels that lives in the upper lakes along the mountains. things like dragons. "I imagine that they would beautiful indeed."
"That is your tank. That is your limit. That darkness makes it so much smaller for you, that chain that holds your spark back from exploring the vast ocean of possibility around you." With her words it clicked.
"But, I don't know what else is out there."
That is true, I cannot experience it for you. That is journey for you and you alone. But, if you fear the unknown forever, you'll never know. Maybe you don't need to jump into the deep end right away, but you start somewhere. But, I won't force you. The choice is yours. I suppose the only question is this, are you comfortable with this? Are you okay with being what you are?" She said without looking at me.
"Why does it sound like you are trying to convince me?"
"I'm not, I am only asking questions you've always had. I don't want you to make any decision you'd regret. But I see you struggle. You never think you're enough for Afjie, you don't want to disappoint Ryhs, you want to live up to Erlin and Pyria's expectations. You want to shove your ability into the faces of everyone who has ever doubted you. You want to be enough for me." I look down at her, only to see her tracing a rune of my clan into the air, I suddenly appreciated that she never let go of my hand through this entire discussion.
"But, I won't ever be enough for you..."
"Don't think of me as your only prize. One cannot go through life with everything achieved. There will be others, I was simply the first one to treat you as you should have been. Have you ever seen the way Pyria looks at you?" As her memories flooded my mind, I saw it now.
"But, what am I supposed to do? What are you asking me to do?"
"I am not asking anything, I am pointing out that you have placed so many limits on yourself that you cannot see past them." Each word came with a poke to my chest. "That spark in your heart has earned more than anything else. That piece that is you. That piece that is yours alone. The part that no one could touch, the part that the Shadows actually care about. Everything else about it is meaningless to them. Your spark is fuel to them that they themselves cannot create, and you sit here worrying about how I feel when you have so many other lives that could bloom with your light. You a radiant sun you are the flowers of the field, you are the light that guides the darkness, you are the one who wants to break her cage! Do you really want to be such a big fish in a little tank? Do you really think your wings can grow when they've never tasted the sky? Do you really think that you can grow when you haven't even broken your chrysalis?
I kept my eyes away from her, thinking back to my life. Was I enough? Not for everyone else, but for myself? Was I really ready to settle with what I could do now? My now just got me burned and injured beyond repair without Ilgor and her crew saving me. It took a demigod who gave his everything to make a safe haven for me to feel any semblance of anything again. "No. No I am not satisfied. I want be more, I want to help. I want to be able to save my people from this darkness that chains me down."
She smiled as she reached inside my chest once more and began breaking me down. Chasing that darkness away from me, as my Spark only grew and grew and GREW. My eyes snapped open as I sat up. My skin burning away and my wings becoming a second sun in the skies. My eyes burning with a dark red that I new Syn would be proud of, a roar with the power of a supernova ripping across the battlefield ripped from my throat. Molten wings dripping with the cores of stars, as flames licked up my arms and shoulders. Arcs of lightning traced across my hands.
I didn't catch Anlyth's look of shock, I didn't catch the smile of Syn's face, I didn't catch the pride in Illy's heart as my hand closed around the Shadow's Throat.
Scope:
An EOA that is capable of affecting several hundred targets within a eye-sight of Ilgor, all to be targeted at the same time. Each casting of this spell and it's result to be realized but a moment later. Before targeting the next several hundred targets under the same circumstance. She is able to cleanse many tens of thousands of souls in a single day, though this is not without strain.Secondary effects/ Restriction
While any Child can cast this spell on a singular individual, only Illy can cast this spell on hundreds of targets at the same time, a feat not even her Mother, Vilorlith is capable of accomplishing. Though, this marks her path to godhood, she finds separating her mind instantly among so many people to cure them of the Shadows touch an immensely physically and emotionally exhausting experience. Having to experience so many lives in the span of a few seconds over and over leaves her weak for some time after each instance she does this. So, she teaches as many Children to do this in her stead as she possibly can, truly gifted beings like Anlyth, First Son of Syn, Taneth The Navigator, and Y'vitol are capable of cleansing a few dozen at a time, but face the same level of exhaustion as Illy.
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