Chapter 48 – Eye of the Storm (1)

Bright ended up making another hour worth of trips between Rain's Soul Temple and the real world, meticulously documenting runes from the Chaos Altar. It wasn't that she finished at that point, but rather that he was becoming painfully aware that they were almost out of time until he promised to meet Tess. So, he had to gently remind Bright of the time constraint and her promise to let him see her Soul Temple. 

That's how Rain and Bright, the latter rather reluctantly, came to be sitting across from one another on the floor of his room, their hands on one another's Marks. Bright seems rather apprehensive. Rain, of course, should be sympathetic to how she's feeling, but...

"What's the matter Bright? Scared of what I'll see in there? Don't worry...when I find out about your Quirk, I won't be too mean...probably."

He expects her to grow annoyed and give him some witty retort, but she just casts him a nervous glance and responds in a subdued tone. 

"This isn't much of a joking matter to me, Rain...I'm about to give you more information about myself than anyone has ever had. Even if you're trustworthy, it's hard for me to suppress years of instincts screaming that I'm putting my life in danger by exposing my weaknesses."

Rain immediately feels a pang of intense guilt, and he has the strong urge to comfort her. This time, however, he doesn't need Unhinged to push him towards the instinct. He directs a very serious expression at Bright, all of his normal levity gone.

"Bright..."

She glances at him, her expression initially annoyed. However, when she sees how serious his face is, her eyes widen in surprise.

"Yes?"

He studies her grey eyes, trying to convey with every fiber of his being that he means what he's about to say. His voice comes out low and urgent. 

"I want you to know...no lies, no jokes, no tricks, no ulterior motives...just say the word, and I'll let you off the hook about this. I won't hold it against you, I won't ask for anything else. If you'd like, I won't even make jokes about it later. That's because, all of my teasing aside, I really do consider you my friend, Bright. And whatever you want to call it from your end, I know that you'd have my back if I really needed you...I don't need to see your soul to be convinced of that."

Disbelief washes over Bright's face as she meets Rain's steady gaze. He can see a faint warmth in her eyes as she studies him, an otherwise conflicted expression on her face. Eventually, she sighs and gives him a wry smile. 

"You know, Rain...sometimes...when you say things to me like that...I almost wish you were a few years older."

Shock registers on Rain's face, shortly before a mischievous grin takes its place.

"Well in that ca-"

Before he can even get the thought out, Bright clasps her hand over his mouth to silence him. Her face looks annoyed, but her eyes still seem amused. 

"No...don't talk. You left me with a rare, charming impression of you just now. Don't ruin it with that mouth of yours."

Letting out a deep sigh against Bright's hand, his eyes lock with hers and he gives a small nod of acknowledgement. She pulls her hand away from his mouth warily, but he just smiles at her. 

"Okay. That guy's kind of a bore, but...suit yourself. So, I assume that you'd like to spend the rest of our time together scribbling more notes about the Chaos Altar?"

Bright smirks and shakes her head. 

"No, I'm going to take you into my Soul Temple like I said I would. But I do appreciate what you told me. So, you ready?"

After a few seconds of staring at Bright in surprise, Rain gives her a pleased smile. 

"You don't have to ask me twice."

*****

'Well no fucking wonder...she was right, mine is depressing by comparison.'

Rain is standing in a large room with marble floors and a slab of rune-covered sandstone positioned in its center. Around him, in place of walls, there are white stone pillars supporting a domed, white roof. The roof has a large section in its center that is left open, functioning as a kind of skylight.

Around the edges of the room, between the support pillars, stormy grey mist swirls dynamically, obscuring any hope of visibility outside the room. Above him, visibility through the roof's skylight is similarly obscured by a strange, misty phenomenon that resembles dark clouds in the middle of a thunderstorm, streaks of blue and white light periodically flashing within it. 

Rain is standing in the middle of Bright's Soul Temple.

"For fuck's sake Bright, why is this place so massive?"

It's one of the first things that he noticed, aside from the difference in aesthetics. If his own Soul Temple is the size of a room, then Bright's is the size of an entire commercial building. Tearing his eyes away from the magnificent sights around him, he directs an incredulous stare at Bright. Her face is still tinged with residual apprehension from his presence here, but she offers him an amused smile anyway. 

"That's how it works. As you Ascend, your soul grows and evolves, and your Soul Temple is a reflection of your soul. When you Ascend to a Paragon, yours will get bigger, too."

Rain's eyes widen in surprise. 

'Figures...more stuff I'm ignorant about.'

Continuing his assessment of her massive Soul Temple, he notices the two mist gates on the far side of the room. However, he notices something strange about one of them. The gate that should be her portal to Asphodel is larger, wider, and more intricately detailed than her gate to exit the Soul Temple. In his case, they are identical. He turns to Bright to give her a puzzled look.

"Hey, Bright, why is your Asphodel gate so much different from the exit gate? Are everyone's like that? Because mine look identical."

Bright shakes her head at him nonchalantly. 

"No, not exactly. The gates of Champions and Paragons look identical. However, once you Ascend to Demigod, your Asphodel gate...expands. That change coincides with the ability to bring other Marked with you to your tether in Asphodel."

His jaw nearly drops in shock. He's learned during his time at the Academy the basics of how traveling between realms works. Essentially, after you become a Paragon you can use the 'realm gate' in your Soul Temple to travel between Earth and Asphodel. When you do, you leave behind a kind of tether at your location, which is where you will return when using the realm gate again.

He also learned that there are some limitations, especially while one is a Champion or Paragon. For example, you can only travel between Earth and Asphodel about once per day, with your realm gate inactivating between trips. In addition, Paragons and Champions aren't sufficiently powerful to activate their realm gates from Asphodel without the help of a Bridge to Earth. That's why the Crucible involves having to find one. 

However, he wasn't aware that it was possible for Demigods and Titans to bring other Marked with them into Asphodel. He directs a bewildered expression at Bright, his voice full of excitement. 

"Wait, wait, wait...so you're telling me that you could take me to Asphodel right now? Maybe...uhm...you know...help me get a leg up on the other students by accumulating Resonance and Relics."

Bright is silent for a long time, giving him a gaze that screams of her disappointment in his intelligence. 

"No, Rain...I can't. The person has to have an active realm gate of their own, which pre-Crucible Champions don't. Trust me, if it was that easy...I'd have dragged you there myself and forced you to kill Fel until exhaustion. You think I'd sit by idly if there was a way to get descriptions from new Chaos Lineage Relics like that?"

Rain sighs internally, disappointment washing over him at the lost opportunity to increase his strength in a semi-controlled environment before the Crucible. He also makes a mental note that Bright's obsession with Asphodel research is even more disturbing than he originally thought, because he didn't sense that she was joking about dragging him to Asphodel for brutal training.

He sighs and shrugs at Bright, who's still staring at him.

"No, I guess that doesn't sound like an opportunity you would pass up. What a bummer. Anyway...ready to have me read all your secrets like a book?"

Bright frowns at him in disapproval. 

"I regret calling you charming..."

Rain flashes her a wide smile and begins walking towards her rune stone, waving his finger over his shoulder as he calls out in a cheery voice. 

"No take backs!"

As he arrives in front of the large slab of sandstone, he can see white runes shimmering on its surface, displaying Bright's summary. He hears Bright's footsteps stop behind him, but she remains silent. 

Name: Bright

Prestige: Demigod

Lineage: [Storm]

Bloodline: [Titan]

Nature: [Insulated], [Toxic Heart]

Talents: [Winter's Grasp], [Charge], [Open Skies]

Relics: [Harpy's Skin], [Windcutter], [Endless Elixir], [Lunatic's Charm], [Heart's Lament]

Rain's eyes scan over the runes, drawn to her Lineage and Bloodline. Based on the air-chilling powers she has already displayed around him, he was pretty much expecting her patron to be the Storm God. Similarly, he was almost certain that her Bloodline was at least Demigod, since her Prestige has already reached that level. Still, her having a Titan Bloodline is impressive. 

It's not a set rule that Marked can only Ascend up to the Prestige associated with their Bloodline, but it is a very clear trend. For example, hundreds of Paragons have passed the First Rite to become Demigods, but none of them are known to have Bloodlines below Demigod. The same is true for Ascending to a Titan. The general reports about Rites suggest that their difficulty doesn't increase proportionally with their rank – the higher the rank of a Rite, the more exceptional a Marked needs to be relative to others of their same Prestige. So, it makes sense that as a Rite's rank increases, more potent Bloodlines are needed to pass them. 

Rain accesses Bright's Bloodline description to check her Resonance. He pales when he sees that she already has over 2,900 of her 3,000 possible Resonance, realizing what it must mean for her physical abilities. 

Next, he inspects all of her Relics, curious what a government-backed Demigod must have access to. Harpy's Skin and Windcutter are an armor and sword, respectively, both of Demigod Prestige. Endless Elixir is interesting – it's a self-refilling vial of golden fluid that can be consumed to completely meet food and water requirements for the day, suppressing hunger and thirst, but it only refills once per day.

Lunatic's Charm is a charm-type Relic that provides the wearer with exceptionally high resistance to mental attacks. From what Bright has told him, that's a must-have for all combat-oriented Marked, but they're hard to come by. Good thing he doesn't need a Relic for that. Finally, of course, there's Heart's Lament, the ring that he's used himself. 

Rain's next target is her Talents. Winter's Grasp appears to be what he's experienced before – it lets her drop the temperature of the air around her, freeze objects, and perhaps even summon ice storms. Charge is an ability that lets her summon and control lightning. It's pretty straightforward, but that doesn't make it any less cool or deadly in Rain's mind. Her final Talent though, Open Skies, that one...

"She can fucking fly!? Are you kidding me!?"

He can't help but be envious of her final Talent. It's true that he can do something resembling flying when he activates Uncertain Existence. However, there's a big difference between their Talents. While Rain's drains Ichor so fast that he can't keep it active for more than two minutes, Bright's Open Skies seems to be a passive Talent. So, she can just fly indefinitely. He casts a bitter glance over his shoulder at Bright, muttering about unfairness, while she watches him with an amused smile. 

He eventually returns his sights to the part of her summary that he's been avoiding out of respect for her comfort...her Nature attributes. Now, though, it's all that's left. 

It's time to learn about Bright's Quirk.