PHANTASIA (24 page)

“All tastes can be acquired, even personal ones” Arkan replied. “Some may require years of dedication and consistent consumption, but certainly they can all be acquired.”

“Speaking from experience, Prince Arkan?” Red laughed.

“Shh, shhh, shhh, you mustn’t use that name here,” Arkan chided. We are in grave danger under our current circumstances. You never know who may be listening in on us.”
 

“In danger from what? There are people
here
that are looking to do you harm?
”
Red asked. “But we’re around a hundred guards.”
 
 

“They are looking for far worse than that I’m afraid.
Conversation,”
Arkan whispered in a deadly tone.

“Look, there’s everyone else, with my brothers,” Magnus pointed. Butz, S, and Raven were huddled together in a small crowd with members of the priori and several natives of Areopa. Nearly everyone at the ociramma were identifiable by their garb. Members of the priori wore silver cloaks, the nobility of Areopa wore light blue tunics, MegaCORP’s acolytes donned their black and gold uniforms, and most of everyone else wore either the combat suits of their respective guard or clothing emblazoned with their family emblems. One of Magnus’ brothers seemed to have taken a liking to Raven, and despite her impassive response to his approach, the scene imparted Red with an unfamiliar malice that he tried to ignore.
 

 
“I’ll try it, just once,” Red said, whilst grabbing the cralanx from Arkan.

“Excellent. Let us mark this moment as the beginning of your corruption, eh?”
 

“Sure,” Red snorted with a laugh. He glanced up at the Ocrimmar before using the cralanx, instinctively looking for a sign of approval before inhaling the creature’s bodily produce. The critter continued staring all around the ociramma with its long head, ignoring all of the people down below that were using its cralanxes.

“Ocrimmar’s are meant to have their cral consumed by other creature’s. The substance is poisonous to them in bloated amounts,” Arkan replied. “You didn’t think we were barbarians here in Areopa, did you?” he added with a wink.
 

“Oh… I didn’t know that,” Red replied, suddenly feeling better about the whole process. Critters were classified into distinct categories based on qualities that ranged from aggressiveness and intelligence to empathy and diet. Certain categories were barred from hunting or domestication. When it came to the Ocrimmar, Red could not help but share a feeling of rapport with the peaceful creature. At Crest, he had once had a discussion with Magnus that ran through the night about how morally complex the practice of hunting critters was. Only six decades ago, hunting dragons, creatures that are fully sentient, was not considered a breach of imperial code.
 

“Are you waiting for it to die of old age first?” Arkan asked.
 

“No, sorry,” Red replied while intaking the cral. The substance tasted deliciously sweet and swirled around in his mouth in a mix of liquid and gas before he exhaled it in a cloud of pink. Its effect was immediate; his body felt lighter for a few moments, the music pounded in his ears, he could feel the energy of everyone dancing around the Ocrimmar, and the world suddenly brimmed with an over saturation of color.
 

“Wow…that’s intense,” Red replied.
 

“Tragically, It only lasts for only a few minutes,” Arkan replied. “Now…
psychedelisis
on the other hand…if you’re into Crystal Sleet Spiders —”

“Uncle, please, will you refrain from influencing my friends too much?”
 

“A silver cloak approaches, she is in search of the prince, and someone has indicated that Magnus is the one to ask,” Arkan replied.
 

Red was confused by his response until he turned to Magnus and saw a tall, elderly woman of the priori approaching them from afar. The cral made it seem as though her stroll were a glide, and that her coming was going to herald an epic event. Luckily, the effect of the substance had faded by the time she got to them.
 

“Are you… Magnus Basil, son of Elysia Basil?”

“I am,” Magnus replied with a curt bow. The woman’s eyes glanced over Red and Arkan, but lingered on the prince’s strange attire.
 

“I am told you are the one to ask about the whereabouts of your uncle, heir to the throne of Nimbus? We have been trying to find him all evening. It seems difficult to find an audience with him. He is not at the royal table?”
 

“Probably somewhere around the food,” Magnus replied. His eyes darted to Arkan for no more than a second, but the woman’s eyes quickly followed and she seemed to have caught on.
She’s sharp,
Red thought.
 

“We would be delighted to have you at our table. Your two friends are welcome to,” the woman replied, gesturing to Arkan and Red. “Zenae Chloe, Heart of Light,” she replied with a short nod.

“I’m Red,” Red replied with the same bow and gesture Magnus had, but going a bit lower. He felt as though he should have added a title after this name but could think of nothing. ‘Student at Crest Academy,’ did not have the same ring to it as ‘Heart of Light.’ The woman then looked at Arkan, who bowed but remained silent.
 

“Please, do follow me,” Zenae replied. She turned around without waiting for their response and ushered for them to follow behind her.
 

“How rude…” Arkan mumbled under his breath.

“We were actually going to go meet our friends,” Magnus said, pointing over to the group where their team was.

“Ahh, they are with members of the priori already,” the woman replied. “I shall bring them all over to our table as well, will that work for you?” she asked, in a polite, yet overly artificial tone. They was something off about her voice and Red decided after awhile that it was the monotony of her accent.
 

Magnus slowly nodded before continuing to follow her.
 

“Is that the best you could do to get us out of this?” Prince Arkan angrily whispered in his ear. “‘
Going to our friends.’
Have you not learned
anything
from me
after all these years?”
 

“Sorry, sorry.” Magnus whispered back.
 

 
Zenae led them over to a long table at the end of the room seated with several other priori members. Among them, Red noticed the girl he had seen earlier, the one that shut the door in his face. Zenae gestured for Magnus to sit next to the girl, and for Arkan and Red to sit on Magnus’ other side. A moment before they were at the table, Prince Arkan put a hand on Magnus’s shoulder and leaned over to speak between both of their ears.

“Observe: the monotonous tone, the stiff movements, the empty eyes of the woman before us.”

“Id-speech?” Magnus asked incredulously. He exchanged a confused look with Red, who was equally bewildered.
 

“The girl next to you, she does not want to be here. The light has demanded of her a very specific task. They are cunning people, do not underestimate them,” Arkan added pointedly. He quickly switched to a casual stance before anyone in the table had noticed they were speaking to each other.
 

“Lux Euclid, Prestige of Light,” the girl said, with the hint of a bow. Her voice was soft, but stern and sharp with a trained and refined rhythm. Red and Magnus introduced themselves and then the three of them shared an awkward pause as they waited for Prince Arkan to do the same. Instead of saying anything, Arkan took to picking at the plate of fruits at the center of the table. A few of the other priori members around them were in a passive discussion; but Red had a feeling they were all intently focused on the conversation between the four of them.
 

“The light shines upon Areopa,” Lux said. “I heard you were quite the warrior.”
 

“You must’ve heard wrong. I’ve never even been in a real battle — let alone
 
done anything to take the mantle of a warrior,” Magnus replied graciously.

“He’s just being modest,” Arkan quipped. “Mongo here is going to be competing in the qualifiers. We’ll see him in action soon enough I daresay.” Magnus glared at his uncle, who happily continued discussing Magnus’ gift for combat.

“You want to join that
abomination
of a group?” Lux replied after letting Arkan finish. Red noticed the eyes of a couple of the other members dart between each other. One in particular flashed a look of warning to Lux. Red suspected that they had all intended the conversation to take a very specific and different route. He looked at Arkan, the prince continued picking at the fruits in front of him.
 

“Only chance we’ve got of fighting against the Xenosite I reckon,” Magnus answered calmly. “Saw in the news that the priori has been trying to unite different factions against them the way WEAPON did, not too much luck eh?”
 

“Let me ask you
this,
have you ever actually
seen
a WEAPON?” someone asked from across the table — a boy only a few years older than Red. His silver cloak was more decorative than the ones Red had seen so far. The hem of the robe was adorned with perfectly clear pearls and several other transparent jewels.

“No, I thought not,” the boy added after a moment of silence. “Ever read a report on how these larger than life soldiers saved a city from an invasion, eliminated a swarm of Xenosite, or even bothered to help any of the other guards in their fights?” Another pause. “I imagined not. These qualifiers that everyone is so obsessed with — it is to my understanding that most of the participants
die
in the process? Except for a small minority who ‘qualify?’ Does no one outside of the light see the absurdity of the situation? The best soldiers of every race are dying, killed off in these
purges
, and no one bothers to speak out against it? And the select few who
do
make it…disappear within MegaCORP itself? Quite inconvenient,
don’t you think
?”
 

“Who stopped Mej’Lith?” Arkan broke in. “A creation of the light itself, I hear?”
 

“MegaCORP, yes, but there was no evidence of a WEAPON ever seen. And Mej’Lith was no seeker of light.”
 

“And you imagine some other force could have stopped him, instead of a WEAPON?” Arkan asked.

“Who
is
Mej’Lith?” Magnus asked politely. “The name sounds familiar, but I can’t recall its significance.”
 

Lux was about to speak, but Arkan got to it first. “Toft Lumo was a gemini, and one of the highest ranking members of the Priori of Light, Soul of Light I believe.” As the prince began to speak, all of the silver cloaks around him exchanged surprised glances, seemingly caught off guard by the prince’s knowledge over their own group. “The light fancies itself as an organization that fights against the void; an alternate dimension infamous for being poorly understood by nearly everyone. Only two things about the void are truly understood, and one of those things are only understood through tale, myth, and legend. One, that the void is home to fantastic beings that seek destruction upon our own world, and two, that the void itself can be utilized as a source of energy — a pool of infinite dark mana with unlimited potential. Toft Lumo had found out that a sect of elves, a small sect, relatively unknown among their race, had been drawing energy from the void and using dark mana for their own practices. Being a fanatic for “peace and life,” naturally, Lumo waged war and declared death upon the entire sect. Eventually, his ambitions grew, and he labeled
all
elves as tainted by the void, leading to one of the largest exterminations of a single race in the history of our star system. To this day, relations between the light, the gemini, and the elves, have never been repaired. But the crowning irony of the entire situation is that at the end of his life, Toft Lumo himself began dabbling with energies of the void himself. He soon perceived himself a prophet of sorts, took the name Mej’Lith
the devourer,
and began an all out conquest, attempting to unite our star system under his control. After a century of his antics, MegaCORP intervened and decimated his empire, the entire northeastern hemisphere of planet Ultra.”
 

“His actions were not condoned by the priori,” Lux replied briskly. “He was a monster.”
 

“Ahh yes, I believe the light has a rather convenient process for disowning its own members for exactly these kinds of awkward misunderstandings, eh? Every once in a while, someone forgets that light
can be just as blinding as darkness.”
 

“Granted your account may be accurate, if biased, that still provides no evidence of ‘WEAPON,’” the boy replied.
 

“I didn’t know WEAPON was that old,” Red interrupted. “I thought it was a relatively new invention, created for the Xenosite just like academies.”
 

“That it is called WEAPON now and labeled an experimental army does not hide the fact that since its inception, MegaCORP has been using soldiers of immense powers to advance their interests across our star system for its three thousand year existence. The tree elves that live right underneath us report that when Titanamedusae had gone to the Cron extraction plant in Indapia, seemingly to level the entire construction, the creature was
stopped
by
something,
and returned three days later, sustaining such heavy injuries that it had to sleep for an entire year afterwards to recover. No one seems to question the obvious stunning revelation, that MegaCORP controls a force that can subdue
Titanamedusae
. The rebellion force in Takis — for an entire decade they had ravaged the planet’s extraction plants, at its peak growing to a force of millions. Millions of excellently trained soldiers I may add, with combat abilities renowned across the planet. And then — overnight — the entire rebel force vanishes? Only a single account of the battle remains, and it recalls the emergence of several beings of nearly godlike power that came and eradicated the rebellion, evaporating its members into dust. Believe what you want about the qualifiers, but do not doubt that there
is
certainly
a fist underneath
that
glove.”