Verigenesis: Bounty (Rifthunters Book 1), page 38
I’m with you to the end, hotshot: that’s what she’d told him. Well, now it was his turn to be there for her.
“She’ll be back,” Nate growled. Hot tears burned a trail down his cheeks. “She’s not gone.”
Vince didn’t reply, and when Nate looked up, he saw the old spaceweaver had vanished. True to his word, he’d left Nate’s share of the bounty sitting on the floor. It was a fortune, enough to buy him a mountain of treasures or raise him several entire ranks in a single go.
Nate wanted nothing to do with it. He sat there a long time, and as he pictured Ellie’s smiling face, he wept.
Epilogue
Ellie awoke in a room unlike any she’d ever seen. Walls of smooth white stone formed a hexagon around a cavernous open area. The only thing to disturb the otherwise perfect blankness of the space was a glowing purple crystal at its center. Well, the only thing besides her anyway.
Her head throbbed, and fatigue made her muscles heavy and unresponsive. She tried to push herself up, but plopped back, groaning. Cool; more soul sickness. Guess this was why you shouldn’t make dying a habit.
Nothing she could do about it now though. Reclamation had brought her here…wherever here was. Not the Ward in Tabula Rasa; of that, she was certain. There was no sign of attendants, or anyone else for that matter.
The crystal briefly flared with violet energy. She shuddered, remembering the light that had enveloped her in the Lord Protector’s grip. The essence had felt wrong somehow: twisted and writhing.
It had pierced into her flesh, burrowing within her. The pain had been excruciating. She remembered Nate calling out to her, and then…nothing. Just blackness, followed by this pale room.
The crystal flared again. Ellie pushed past her disquiet, forcing herself to concentrate on it more fully. The energy was unlike anything she’d ever seen, its chill touch reminiscent of what she imagined it would feel like to touch the Null itself. Some variant of shadow-aspected luminous essence perhaps? Or maybe a specialized form of death magic?
That last might make the most sense. As she stared at the crystal, she realized it resembled the verifont she’d glimpsed in the Ward, if less polished and well-shaped. A resurrection crystal? Is that how I got here?
What Ellie knew of the reclamation process suggested that should be impossible. She had bound herself to the Ward, so that was where her soul should have returned. Had that purple essence somehow undone her bond, rewriting it to chain her here instead?
Whatever the cause, the end effect was the same: she was trapped and alone. She forced down her growing unease; panic was never productive. She would find a way out of this. She just had to stay calm, think logically, and figure out the solution to this riddle.
Step One: Recover my vera. Ellie closed her eyes, breathing deep as she meditated. Verists always resurrected with empty reserves, so she might as well start by refilling hers. That should restore her aegis and help her body recover a bit from its soul sickness.
She waited and waited, maintaining her trance-like state, but nothing happened. Attunement remained beyond her grasp, and she detected not even the barest hint of connection to her domain. That…that was a problem.
Her throat suddenly felt parched, and her stomach rumbled as she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten. Without her vera to sustain her, her body would need all the same things a normal person needed. Was she going to starve to death here?
Ellie calmed herself. At least she wasn’t cold, thanks to the thick robe she wore snug against her skin. Except…if she had just resurrected, where had the robe come from?
Someone is in here with me. Or at least, someone had been. The room appeared empty, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a concealed exit somewhere.
Step Two: Escape. With immense effort, Ellie forced her weakened body to its feet. She wasn’t about to sit here helplessly. She swayed and had to prop herself up on the glowing crystal to keep her balance. But, hey; it was progress.
Before she could take even a single step toward one of the far walls, however, a circle of faintly glowing runes appeared in the polished floor a few feet away. In a flash of purple light, a figure emerged: one she recognized with a sinking feeling in her gut.
“Hello, my dear,” the Lord Protector said. A too-wide grin was plastered over his face, more like a snarl than a genuine smile. “I am pleased to see you awake.”
Ellie opened her mouth to speak, but the Immortal twitched a finger and no sound came out. It was as if her words died on her lips. Did that mean he had access to weaves after all?
She wasn’t sure, but her instincts said that this was something else. Perhaps by the time you reached the Immortal Stage, you learned to control your elements at a more fundamental level than just your memorized spells.
The other abilities they’d seen him use had all been based around manipulating vibrations. Was he canceling out the vibrations her words made in the air to silence her?
“Save your questions, girl.” The Lord Protector turned away from her, striding toward the nearest of the pristine walls. “We dare not be late.”
He waved his hand behind him. Energy materialized around her, lifting her off the floor and propelling her through the air. So far as she could tell, she was literally being held aloft by waves of sound.
Ellie considered trying to resist. With no vera, however, that seemed like a good way to end up sprawled on the floor with a broken wrist. Instead, she let the magic carry her after the Lord Protector.
Right as he was about to step into the wall, the stone parted around him like a curtain. The movement was so subtle that Ellie wondered at first whether it had really been stone at all or just an illusion fashioned from luminous essence.
A tunnel materialized in the solid rock before them. Somehow, the Lord Protector shaped their path by shifting the stone out of the way. She managed a quick glance back and noted that the tunnel closed behind them as soon as they were past.
Ellie focused on the Lord Protector and thought she detected tiny vibrations emanating from him. Yet it didn’t seem like enough force to have so dramatic an effect on regular stone. Perhaps this white rock had been forged to be susceptible to force. If that were the case, maybe she could make her own vibrations to alter it as well.
She filed the idea away for further examination as they emerged into another cavern. Though far larger than the crystal chamber had been, it was composed of the same white rock.
Ellie peered around the massive space, catching glimpses of crates and machinery leaking essence. Shifting forms moved in the distance. Before she could see more, the magic supporting her body vanished.
She crumpled to the floor with a silent cry of pain. Wincing and propping herself up, she saw they had stopped at a circular indentation sunken a foot or two deeper than the floor around it.
Other figures already huddled within the shallow pit. She recognized some as the missing members of the Riftwalkers. Commander Grisham glanced toward her, expression unreadable, then looked away. Bastion sat to the guildmaster’s right. His usual smug expression had been replaced by wide eyes and quivering lips. He looked terrified.
They’re like me, Ellie realized. Somehow, these others had also ended up here instead of resurrecting back at the Hub like they were supposed to. But…why? What was the purpose of all this?
Her former guildmates wouldn’t have been her first choice for company. Nevertheless, she took some small comfort in the fact that she wasn’t alone.
The Lord Protector strode to the center of the indented space and kneeled. A man appeared beside him a moment later, as if on cue. Ellie detected no signs of spatial veristry; only the faintest distorted ripple in the air marked his passage.
The new arrival looked vaguely familiar. When he turned to face them, Ellie gasped. Once again, no sound escaped, but around her, she could see her shock reflected on the faces of the other captives.
It was the Judge: the Immortal who had spoken to her and, so far as she knew, every other verist in their dreams when he selected them to join the Nexus. He had seemed benevolent then, his angular face and neatly trimmed beard granting him the stern countenance of a teacher who only wanted the best for his students.
Now, he studied her and the other captured verists with cold eyes. When his gaze fell on her, Ellie couldn’t suppress a shiver. It felt like fingers were rummaging around inside her head, shuffling everything about. At last, the unpleasant sensation ended, and he turned back to the kneeling Lord Protector.
“You have procured a number of worthy specimens,” the Judge said. “Their strength will be vastly more useful than those creatures with which you have been tinkering.”
The Judge’s gaze hardened. He didn’t say a word or make any noticeable motions, but the Lord Protector cried out and clutched at his head.
“Yet you have failed to bring me Valenica’s soultrap,” the Judge whispered. “Without it, our plans will be greatly slowed. And now that we have attempted its theft once, our hand has been played. Telemicus will make it nigh impossible to steal a second time.”
The Lord Protector’s screams grew more anguished. He fell, writhing, to the ground. Ellie scooted across the floor, trying to put as much distance between her and the two Immortals as possible.
This Judge was nothing like the kind man she remembered from her dreams. Everything about him radiated a sense of barely restrained malevolence, all without so much as raising his voice.
The Lord Protector’s cries cut off, leaving him panting. The Judge crouched beside him. His eyes didn’t just burn with violet fire; they were roiling seas of purple flame that boiled out from the sockets.
“Tell me, Bastul, why did you delay returning to me with your prize? It is almost as if you wanted to be caught. As for our new guests…”
The Judge spared a glance for the rest of them, and Ellie shivered. “I find it…curious that you brought only these. You encountered others, did you not? Yet you allowed them to escape; why?”
The Lord Protector trembled, and no answer came out. The smile he’d had while leading Ellie here was gone, replaced by…regret? Guilt? She stared at her captor in astonishment as a single tear slid down his cheek.
Then the ghastly smile returned, and he bowed his head before the Judge. “Apologies, master. Such a lapse in judgment will not happen again.”
The Judge studied the Lord Protector for another long moment. Then, seemingly satisfied, he rose. “Pray it does not. For now, we must make do with what we have.”
The Judge spun toward Ellie. He approached her, holding up a hand crackling with purple energy. Ellie tried to shrink back, but she found herself frozen in place, unable to so much as twitch a muscle despite every instinct she had screaming at her to flee or to fight.
“Let us begin with her.”
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Verigenesis: Bounty, the first book in the Rifthunters trilogy! If you enjoyed this journey through the Nexus, please consider leaving a review. Reviews are the lifeblood of any author and are one of the best ways to show your support.
You can also check out Nate and Wes’ harrowing traversal of the Precursor Trials in the prequel novella Verigenesis: Trials, available for purchase on Amazon, or for FREE if you sign up to my mailing list.
The world of Verigenesis was inspired by my years playing MMORPGs, as well as my ongoing love for Dungeons & Dragons. In everything from the magic system to the encounters, I wanted to capture the sense of adventure such games have always evoked in me, while still ensuring the world and its mechanics remained approachable. With your support, I hope to keep writing books in the Verigenesis universe for many more years to come!
Nate’s adventures will continue in Verigenesis: Redemption, coming Winter 2021.
About the Author
Eric Walsh is a lover of all things fantasy and science-fiction. After getting his PhD in how to communicate ideas through video games, he tried his hand at a number of gaming-related professions before finally returning to one of his earliest aspirations: writing fantasy novels. Now he spends his time running Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, reading the newest Will Wight book, and writing until his hand cramps up.
For monthly updates on his progress and a FREE copy of the Rifthunters novella Verigenesis: Trials, subscribe to Eric’s mailing list: https://www.ecwalsh.com/contact/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ericwalsh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ericwalshauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ecwalsh
Vera Codex
Overview
Veristry is the art of harnessing the essence that defines the natural bounds of reality to condense it down into its ideal form: vera. By attuning themselves to a specific type of essence, verists learn to rewrite the truth of existence and bend the universe to their will.
Verigenesis
Verigenesis is the process through which a person gains their own vera and thus becomes a verist. For people who grow up in a vera-rich world, verigenesis naturally occurs during childhood. It is also possible to forcibly initiate verigenesis regardless of age so long as enough vera is present nearby.
Guides
When a person undergoes verigenesis, they form a bond with an elemental spirit called a guide. This bond determines which elements the verist can manipulate and in what ways. Verists can typically communicate with their guide only through vague impressions or subconscious thoughts. As a verist’s connection to their guide grows, so too does their own power.
Domains
Each verist harnesses their power from one of twelve natural domains, defining the scope of their elemental influence. A verist’s guide determines their domain when they undergo verigenesis. Domains are sometimes further classified into two spheres based on the relative nature of their power.
Celestial Sphere: These domains are believed to draw power from the heavens. They represent broader, immutable laws of existence.
Thermal: Manipulation of Heat
Common Elements: Fire, Ice
Luminous: Manipulation of Light
Common Elements: Radiance, Shadow
Spatial: Manipulation of Space
Common Elements: Location, Size
Temporal: Manipulation of Time
Common Elements: Past, Future
Kinetic: Manipulation of Force
Common Elements: Gravity, Sound
Universal: Manipulation of the Source
Common Elements: Essence, Vera
Terrestrial Sphere: These domains are believed to draw power from everything that lies beneath the heavens. They represent the ground, sky, and seas, as well as the life that dwells there.
Aerial: Manipulation of the Sky
Common Elements: Wind, Lightning
Geologic: Manipulation of the Earth
Common Elements: Stone, Metal
Aquatic: Manipulation of Water
Common Elements: Liquid, Gas
Primal: Manipulation of the Wild
Common Elements: Beasts, Plants
Vital: Manipulation of Life
Common Elements: Healing, Death
Psychic: Manipulation of the Soul
Common Elements: Mind, Spirit
Verists hypothetically have access to the full range of elements available within their domain, from the two common ones to others that are more esoteric. However, while some verists attempt to strike a balance between various elements, most discover an innate preference that leads them to specialize.
Disciplines
In addition to a domain, every verist has one of three disciplines selected by their guide that constrains how they control their elements. A verist’s discipline can usually be identified by the distinct way in which its power is manifested. Similarly, while all disciplines involve casting spells, the nature of those spells varies, as does their uses for crafting.
Weavers: Weavers affect their elements in the world using weaves. These near-instantaneous spells carry powerful effects; however, they are typically instantaneous or persist only so long as the weaver actively concentrates on them. This makes weavers ideal for combat or other situations requiring decisive action.
Manifestation: A weaver’s vera manifests through alterations to their physical appearance. These changes usually begin with their eyes and then spread to the rest of their body as they grow more powerful.
Crafting: Weavers can spend essence to create spell gems that contain a single casting of a weave they know. Spell gems require a vera to activate and are consumed after a single use. Any verist can activate a spell gem, regardless of their discipline or domain.
Binders: Binders imbue their elements directly into other creatures or objects as bindings. These spells alter the nature of the affected entity until the binding is removed. Bindings typically last longer than weaves and persist without the ongoing attention of the binder. However, they also require minutes or even hours to cast, rendering binders best suited to roles as either support personnel or crafters of enchanted goods.
Manifestation: A binder’s vera manifests as an aura surrounding them that grows in strength as they become more powerful. This aura typically corresponds to their domain’s elements in some way.
Crafting: Binders can spend essence to create semi-permanent enchantments with passive or activated abilities. This essentially amounts to a sustained binding with a slowed rate of deterioration; however, verists can also combine multiple bindings to produce unique effects.
