The Game Before the Fall

Chapter 32: Power over. (Part 2)

Ardent Friend:

It had been close to a month now since I had fought Kai and since then I had made a small amount of progress. I was able to walk, although assisted. Each step and motion of my body now was connected to mana and without it, moving felt sluggish, like I was pushing through honey. Each step sticking to the last, each motion of my hand like forcing my body to move in a dream.

"Wow," Vanter looked at me as I ate breakfast. "Sucks to be you."

"Oh, screw you," I replied. "How did it go yesterday?"

"Nothing much. We're progressing like you expected. We should be fine for the tournament now that it's been announced. The question is whether you'll be part of the team or not?"

"And that depends on Areithia's update. They did say something would be released the week before the tournament."

"A day before the preliminaries start," Vanter folded his arms. "You're going to be quite a bit behind the current ranked players."

"I should be able to make up for it."

"If you can even log in."

I chewed my cereal. It was hard to say if I'd make it in time. The updates to Areithia had come out sooner than I expected, a lot of it due to the larger player base than before. The VBH's were a huge hit and not just to play games. Like Professor Grayton had always wanted, they were being spread far and wide for all kinds of purposes. The problem was whether with Areithia's popularity booming, what update would they release next?

"Also," Vanter began, "Did you see Erin's stream?"

"I watched.... It was chaotic. Fun but chaotic." It was somehow relieving to see the internet react the same way as I did when Erin and Aria announced their relation. When they told me, I was certainly shocked. Worse was the fact that I had to admit that Vanter was right. Though when I looked back on it, there were certainly signs that Aria batted for the other team.

"Your sister and Endi have quite the following. There are already fan sites."

"Well, that's... a thought." I wasn't sure how to react. Though I was curious as to their contents. "Let's put their adventures aside. I've finished reading those documents you sent me."

"The one on the Witches?"

"Yeah," I nodded. I hadn't just been idle at home. I was cruising the internet on any information players had gathered about the Witches that once lived in Areithia. Most were just stories that passing players had picked up, a lot having to do with the Sand's Heart. Vanter had done his own digging and sent documents he had downloaded from various libraries across Areithia to me.

"Anything special?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the legends only go back a few hundred years. There's no mention of Rift Walkers at all." I frowned, remembering what Aria once whispered to me. "All the legends however, they don't end well. Whether it was Dumar's Witch of Dance, the Witch of Sands or the Witch of Blades... all of them had terrible ends. They're cautionary tales of power that led to destruction. Stories to scare children to think before acting or end up like a Witch, alone, out casted from the world."

Vanter folded his arms, contemplating what I had just said, "So nothing on Witch's being the saviours of Areithia against the Rift Walker invasion?"

"Not even a little bit. Witches are all painted as villains and seemingly, every society had stories of them."

"From what we know of the Witch of Sands, she wasn't horrible, just misunderstood." Vanter scratched the back of his head, "We'll be exploring the Field of Blades soon. Hopefully that will tell us a bit more."