Chapter 30
Solara, sitting at her desk, greeted me wearing nothing but a short silk robe and her abyssal snake, Sarah.
I preferred her wings to the seraphim I had recently met.
Wings looked much better with horns, I thought.
A warm Sanctuary day passed outside her Sanctuary windows while a snowstorm ravaged the world beyond the barrier.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said, glancing down at my package. Since I was standing, she was eye level with my sword.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
“Not at all. I’ve been researching phylacteries. I can take a break to satisfy you, of course.”
I took in my sorceress’ penthouse. She had a dozen paintings of Purity in various seductive poses hung around.
In one, the archpriestess bared her ass to the viewer and looked back over her shoulder with a coy smirk.
In another, she was seen in profile, her back arched and head back like she was riding a cock.
The pose pushed her tits forward, making her erect nipples look even harder.
“They help me think,” Solara explained. “I like watching the Stocks of Glory for the same reason. The increased stimulation is good for my process, but don’t worry. I keep a Byron’s Blessing and a Byron’s Bliss on my nightstand.”
Smiling, I said, “I’m not worried.”
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Solara asked, looking longingly at a painting of Purity on her stomach. The curves of her dark-skinned ass rose up in the background, contrasting against the white sheets beneath her.
“She is exquisite,” I agreed. “Like all my treasures. Speaking of, I have a gift for you.”
I held out the seraphim feather.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Solara said, carefully accepting the feather.
"It's from a seraphim, and her blood is at the base.”
Solara’s eyes sprang wide. “Truly?!”
“Truly.”
“You’re incredible. The next challenge is finding 10 virgin celestials.”
“That’s already taken care of,” I assured her. “We’ll have access to those ingredients in the future. That may be some time away, but you don’t need to devote any attention or effort to solving that problem.”
“I can’t wait to fry some angels,” she said, her gaze going distant for a moment as she imagined the carnage.
“So the feather will do?”
Solara shook her head emphatically. “Absolutely. Thank you, Master.”
“What work did I interrupt with my visit?” I asked.
“Phylactery research. If you’d like, I’d love to tell you about what I’ve learned.”
“Please.”
“As we expected, resources on phylacteries are difficult to locate,” Solara reported.
“Most of the sources we’ve found speak about the process broadly but don’t explore specific mechanics.
It’s a bit like reading an encyclopedia on different types of bank vaults and only seeing illustrations of the exteriors, none of the inner workings. ”
“But you wouldn’t have asked to see me if you weren’t excited about something.”
Solara grinned. “Maybe I felt pent up and needed release?”
I stroked her panties with Silkmancer.
She closed her eyes. “Mmm.”
I stopped.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“You’re so mean,” Solara pouted playfully.
“Well, according to Micah’s Magical Oddities and Peculiarities, the phylactery process isn’t as straightforward as popular myth would lead us to believe.
What we hear about, the lich-grade phylactery that regrows a whole new body when the user dies, is the ultimate expression of that magic.
This source talks about less powerful phylacteries. ”
“How could a phylactery be less powerful?”
“Recreating a copy of your body requires an enormous amount of mana and dozens of high-precision enchantments. A weaker phylactery creates a scenario like you and Aurketzu, where the soul isn’t sent to the underworld but remains on the material plane.
You’re not dead, but you don't have a body either. To fully resurrect, you have to find a vessel to hold you.”
“How similar to what Aurketzu did to me?”
Solara wobbled her head. “Depending on the method, nearly exact. With that kind of phylactery, your soul is held in limbo until someone agrees to ‘carry’ your soul, at which point said someone finds you a body.”
“Interesting.”
She nodded. “This source also details phylactery methods that bind the soul to an object, so legends about talking swords or talking paintings might have actually been phylacteries at work. The weaker version of the same method binds your soul to an object, absent the ability to speak.”
“That sounds like sentencing yourself to an eternity in prison,” I said.
“I agree,” Solara replied. “The spectrum of potential phylactery solutions is fascinating, though. According to this source, phylacteries have been made from bottles of wine where whoever drinks it automatically accepts the soul into themselves, a forceful version of Aurketzu’s hitchhiking on your soul, basically.
A weaker version of that mechanic makes the acceptance voluntary for the living person in the equation. ”
“So they could drink all of the wine and decline the soul passenger?”
“Correct. At which point the soul is lost forever, since the wine is destroyed by the body’s digestion.”
“Wow.”
“See what I mean about a spectrum of types? The actual rituals aren’t included, but the author suggests that it’s a classic magic tradeoff.
The easier the phylactery is to make, the less robust it becomes.
Someone might choose a wine phylactery because they can’t–or maybe don’t know how to–make the ultimate phylactery that clones your entire body automatically on death. ”
“Quite the gamble,” I observed.
“Indeed, and reading this makes me wonder how many lesser phylacteries were outright discarded. This author suggests that books, full scores for symphonies, musical instruments, whole homes, and even sailboats can be phylacteries. In our case, lesser-strength phylacteries could be less risky since we have each other to help if one of us loses their body.”
“And that’s better than no phylactery if we can’t achieve the best version for whatever reason.”
“Exactly.”
The idea of my soul attaching itself to someone else’s deeply disturbed me.
As soon as Aurketzu’s attempts to drain me of Will points were foiled, she became entirely beholden to me and my choices.
She could only sit by and loudly complain while I did what I wanted.
That was a unique form of helplessness I never wanted to experience.
But was that really worse than death?
I found that question difficult to answer.
Solara pulled a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I can’t decide if I would want a phylactery like that,” she admitted.
“I was having the same thoughts.”
“So I’m not crazy?”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Of course not. Good work on this.”
“I’ll keep researching.”
“I know. Would it help if you had a team of scholars working under you?” I asked.
“We have the Capital University team in our pocket still. They have been waiting for a new project from us since the tower search concluded. I should probably kill them sooner rather than later to be certain they don’t leak any of our secrets, now that I think about it. Until then, could they be of use?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Consider it done,” I said.
Solara reached for my hand. “Byron, thank you.”
I gave her a puzzled expression.
“Thank you for this life and for the future you’ve given me,” she said. “I would have been so ordinary if I hadn’t met you. You’ve done so much for me, for all of us. I want you to know how grateful I am.”
“You shouldn’t thank me.”
“Why not?”
“For my part, the choice was entirely selfish. I never wanted to be without your company. The idea of living forever but not getting to hear your voice again? What would be the point?”
“That does sound lonely,” Solara said.
“And less fun. A victory is sweeter when you have people you love to share it with. In 100 years, you’ll be the only ones who can appreciate how far I’ve come and how much I’ve accomplished.
Every human I’ll meet will be shortsighted, uneducated, and temporary.
Without minds like yours to engage mine, living forever would be a prison sentence. ”
“Somehow, I fall more in love with you every day,” she cooed.
Having promised Solara that the rest of her Spell Forgemaster quest was all but in hand, I was relieved when Abby informed me that her sisters requested my attention. I owed them another check-in, but if they were reaching out to me, their work on the construct must be complete.
Drae and Stacey’s expert craftsmanship were critical for acquiring the virgins we needed–among other objectives–so I joined them in Drae’s shop right away to see the completed construct I had ordered and revised several times over.
The lizardwoman tasted the air around me with her long tongue while her metallic sister stood nearby with a shiny hip popped and her arms crossed beneath her chrome breasts.
“Do you intend to change my design yet again?” Drae asked.
“I do not.”
“Do you promise, Master? I am proud of my creation, and it will sadden me to discard it.”
“I have no changes in mind,” I assured her.
Drae walked to one of two white sheets draped over a statue-like form that was exactly my height.
With a flourish, she yanked the covering away to reveal an exact duplicate of me fashioned out of silk steel that was almost as seamless as Stacey’s body.
This Byron was entirely naked and carried a round shield and a fire crystal spear enchanted with Sharpen+27 and Ghostly Feint+4, just like Invia’s sword.
Where the rest of the construct’s body was hard metal, its erection was a duplicate of Byron’s Blessing, a hard but slightly forgiving material designed for comfort, pleasure, and performance.
“Prepare for battle,” Drae commanded the construct.
A thin layer of silvery green spread across the construct, encasing the entirety of the machine.
“The Gol-Gol slime armor,” Drae explained. “Nullifies magic damage and physical damage, as my Master requested.”