Essentia Animus

50-Building Futures

The three girls had returned safely to the seclusion of their personal room, and in doing so left no room for further delays in explanations. Being all three in association to the Astral Flame, there was a general concern that any related discoveries in turn affected all of them.

Riyxia knew it was for this reason that she was currently possessing the blanket from her bed and having it float around to the private entertainment of her two closest friends. They both appeared generally entertained as well, though they were still not quite certain how she was capable of linking a connection between multiple objects as she had previously with the swords, it was that level of possession that had made a bit less sense to them. The shimmer they saw in turn left the impression that she was in multiple places at once as a result, making things much less clear. Riyxia could see how that conflict might have originated, but herself understood at that point that the shimmer they all saw was not because of her essence, but because of the influence of the astral flame. When she had been inside the five blades, her essence had itself personally waited within only one of them in a majority of its form, but to the other girls it appeared that she was in all five blades equally. She still wasn't certain just how much she could link at once, but having the four additional links had proven to be a bit challenging. There was also always the chance that her limitations were greater if she linked together objects while enraged. This however brought her discoveries in a direction she was still a lot more uncertain about.

"Technically, that's not all I figured out, but the rest I'm still not completely certain about. It's also kinda scary to consider, honestly. Remember that beast I talked about earlier? Obviously I couldn't do anything about it without having access to my rage, and by that point I was also making use of my spectre to help me get everything done. I had it in a suit of armor, even discovered that I could empower the object I possessed with my rage in the process, but that's not the only option my rage brought to my spectre. When my enraged spectre came in direct contact with the beast, it felt something.. more than the physical contact between the beast and the armor. My essence could feel its essence, I could feel the.. texture of it.. I don't know, not really. In that moment, empowered by the astral flame itself, I could feel a connection made by the flame to this other essence, like I had options to manipulate it, to do things with it, much like my gift can manipulate the potential of living bodies and Vwyx can repurpose inanimate objects. I felt like I had control over their very essence.. but in my hesitation to do anything with that connection, the flame itself took its own opportunity, doing what it did best. In that moment, the beast was covered in a faint purple haze, the color seeming to drain away from it, and I knew I had destroyed its very essence." Riyxia went quiet at this point, generally aware of how bad all of this would sound to her current audience. Vwyx and Sryine had also gone quiet, the entertainment of the circumstances having been lost. A purple haze, like a muffled flame, with the victim having lost all sense of color from the burns.. it was something both girls remembered all too vividly for themselves. It was in similar circumstances that they had themselves died, or at least was the death of their original selves and the start of their new lives. To learn that Riyxia was herself able to kill someone else in much the same way, it brought a firm realization exactly what kind of flame actually still inhabited them to this day.

"I expect I have an obligation to let Ayzherie know about this too, and even Eqriuxzl is going to need to hear about it so that he can keep up the research Ayzherie has him on. I'm only worried about just how much this is going to prove his original statement.. right. Under all of this, I really am some kind of destroyer, with a flame capable of consuming lives, even eager to do so if given the opportunity. Honestly, just how dangerous are we to the entire world?" "With power comes responsibility. I mean, think about it, Ayzherie has to keep things going smoothly here, otherwise the beasts will overrun the city and kill everyone, maybe even go beyond the city and hunt down others. If she doesn't keep things under control, a lot of people will die. For us, it's something a lot similar. I mean, you keep saying that the shimmer we see isn't even your true essence, only the traces of the astral flame, and you aren't exactly the astral flame yourself. None of us are, we just carry it within us, a power that we have a responsibility to keep under control, else it will run rampant and take lives. In this way, we aren't exactly the destructive force of the astral flame, only the ones responsible to watch over each of our respective traces, right?" Riyxia was surprised just how deeply Vwyx had been thinking things through, it was a level of insight that wasn't often expected of her. Vwyx had a pretty good point too, but it did measure up with an immense feeling of responsibility. Vwyx had been left with considering plenty of details for quite a while, and in this way she was positively brimming with insight.