Jace Brontarion
Sora zapped Vo with the small current she could muster to calm him down.
The rest of my teammates were a mess, yelling and attacking the air, as if they were in a life-or-death fight against a behemoth.
Managing everyone was too much for me. I didn't understand why my sister wanted to lead so badly.
It was a pain to deal with others.
Right
Left
No, right then left
The combination of cool droplets of sweat sliding down my forehead and deep growls from the astral behemoths kept intruding on my ability to focus
Sora's hands were outstretched, searching for my cloud. "Everything alright, Jace?"
"Yeah. I just need to figure out what path to take next." I tried my hardest to tune out everyone's chatter.
"I think we should take the second on the right," Cyrus said, pointing directly at the pathway.
"You're not the leader." Sora snapped back.
"Someone has to be. We've been waiting here for a while."
I needed silence.
My clouds reacting to my thoughts went to cover my ears, but that didn't work.
Right.
Left.
Clouds were not soundproof, so I settled for plugging my ears with my fingers.
Right.
Left.
Concentrating on the signature felt like fishing in an endless ocean for a single fish.
Right.
Left.
"Alright, everyone, get behind Sora, and follow me. We're taking the second path on the left."
Cyrus clicked his tongue. I can tell he didn't like being opposed.
Just like Father. People like him were always exhausting to deal with.
Floating into the next path, the sound of the behemoths increased in volume. The sounds were horrific.
Flesh being ripped apart, bones being crushed, and the cries of dying people and creatures echoed through this path.
Vo wasn't in good shape. Sora couldn't help him any more than she already did.
Squids seemed unfazed by it all, but hives manifested on her neck and everyone else's.
Even if they didn't want to admit it, everyone except Nerena shook, as if their bodies were being sifted on an assembly line.
No matter how strong you are, your body will always react to a devastating force of nature.
The sounds reminded me of when our father took us to the storm plains to see our first astral behemoths.
Back then, I was small, powerless, and afraid of it all. I wasn't now.
The sounds were overlaid through the speakers.
Easy for me to dismiss without a blindfold, but to others, it probably felt like a haunted house.
We traveled down the path for a while, reaching another crossroads. This time, ten different paths branched out before us, and the signature bounced between each tunnel, almost as if it were taunting me.
People always said I was blessed by the Pantheons, gifted with an abnormal amount of cosmic energy and the ability to control and sense it.
But this test pushed me.
"Jace, we are going the wrong way," Cyrus yelled, his voice bouncing off the walls.
I stopped.
Left.
Right.
His arrogance made my cloud rumble and spark. He had some nerve to think he could out-sense the signature better than me, especially while he was handicapped.
Nonetheless, I remembered my master's teachings. The first law of cosmic energy is that it can only be present where thought exists. So instead of calming my mind, I made it run. This technique is a bit dangerous. At least that's what my master said. Spreading your conscience out into different places at once could result in losing yourself and never being able to recover if a starbound had poor control and shallow reserves of cosmic energy.
But I found it fun; it also made me wonder if my master knew that I had a harmonic astral affinity the entire time.
Soon, a faint sensation reached out and gently brushed against my senses like a feather, allowing me to trace it back to a source.
Right.
Providing me with the path to take. This path curved like a serpent and provided multiple forks that made me choose.
Right.
Left.
Along the path, I lost track of the signature, forcing me to backtrack a few times. A few people in the group weren't happy.
Right.
Finally, we made it out of the path and arrived in a well-lit area. When we crossed the threshold. A voice spoke.
"You have reached the first checkpoint. You have five minutes before it's time to resume."
Everyone sprawled across the floor.
"So nobody else was terrified of behemoths getting us?" Voen asked. Everyone laughed, each offering a reason why they weren't scared.
Liers.
Voen shrugged it off, "Well, I guess I'm safe with all you brave warriors."
Cyrus got up from the floor and started walking to a wall. "Hey, why didn't you take any of the routes I suggested?" Cyrus said, I assumed the question was for me, but he was facing the wrong direction.
A chuckle escaped my lips.
I thought about explaining how I expanded my consciousness from my body into multiple parts to get us through the maze, and how no one else was capable of doing so.
But I thought against it. "Simple. I don't trust you."
His fist balled up.
"Hey, screwhead, chill out. He got us here, that's all that matters, right?" Mira said, pointing at where Cyrus stood.
"Jace is a concordant for a reason. He's good at these kinds of things anyway." Vo said, backing up Mira.
"Test it," I said to Cyrus, knowing he never once turned away from the wall.
"Jace.. not the time for it," Sora said, thinking she stepped in between us. Cyrus stormed away and crashed into the wall.
I laughed so hard that my cloud even hiccuped.
"So the lazy sack of bolts, and the screwhead have beef. Who would have known?" Mira said, somehow finding a way to lean on my cloud.
"Cyrus pushed it too far during the totem games," Voen responded, still sprawled on the floor.
"Ohh. So he played you, and you fell for it. Sounds like you deserved to lose."
My cloud changed form as sparks jumped out in all directions.
"Get upset all you want, I call it how I see it."
"Mira. You can't side with Cyrus. He went against the rules." Sora said, stepping towards a random corner and bumping her head.
"There are no rules in the real world. Maybe you heirs are too privileged to understand that."
The checkpoint zone went silent.
A voice rang from the speaker.
"The new leader will be selected," the voice said over the intercom. I was more than relieved.
I could finally sit back and relax.
Everyone waited patiently.
"Nerena Corvantis will be the new leader." Sora's and Cyrus's shoulders slouched.
Voen was relieved. But Mira walked over towards Nerena and whispered something in her ear.
I couldn't make out what she said, but Vo did, and by his expression, it wasn't good.
That was their problem, though. I pulled my blind fold over my eyes and fell into the embrace of my clouds.