The Chained Maiden: Bound by Fate Read online

  “Yaaayyy…” Dora cheered weakly, splashing her arms about in joy.

  “Let’s get you back to land,” the Water Exarch chuckled. She waved her hands and a wave rose up, carrying the limp Healer all the way to the shore, where she was deposited like a sack of wet laundry on the sand.

  “Come on now, up and at ‘em! Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten how to cure your aches and pains?” Dramhyda tittered, and Dora winced.

  “They just get worse after I heal them…” she whined.

  “Well, naturally, that’s how it works! If you heal muscle strain, but then go right back to using them, then the pain grows stronger. But if you don’t heal yourself, you won’t be able to move, now will you?” the watery woman reminded the young blonde half-orc.

  With a long, loud, and heavy groan Dora did as she was told, and channeled magic throughout her body. She manipulated the fluids in her body, a trick she’d learned from the Exarch of Healing Water, and saturated them with Light magic. In this way, Dora slowly undid the knots and tension in her muscles.

  Even as sweet relief came to her, she knew it was only temporary, and then the pain would surge back. Hopefully by then she’d be in her hotel room and could collapse onto something soft to wait it out.

  “Okay, I’m back on my feet,” Dora announced as she pushed herself upright off of the sand. The next thing she did was use a simple Water spell to collect all the moisture on her body and clothes and expel it from her. The sand around her feet turned muddy, but the rest of her was now nice and dry.

  “Very good control little Dora,” Dramhyda praised. “With a bit more study and practice you’ll have complete mastery over the Level One Water spells I’ve taught you.”

  “I can already think of several ways these seemingly basic spells can help me with my healing,” Dora said with a thankful smile sent the Exarch’s way. “I’m not that good at the Element though, so I doubt I’ll ever be able to go beyond Level One spells.”

  “That you’re able to push through that lack of talent and use sheer will power to cast them speaks well of your resolve. Just don’t forget everything I’ve taught you, and you should be fine,” the powerful woman smiled, her hair braiding itself into a trio of pig tails as she spoke.

  Dramhyda walked with Dora back to the hotel, and the pair both beamed up to her room.

  “Now that my training with you is over, what next?” Dora asked, plopping down into a chair with a grunt of relief. “If I can’t return to Erafore quite yet, where do I go next?”

  “Nia didn’t say. I assume she has plans for you, but what they are I can only guess at,” Dramhyda said with an apologetic shrug.

  Dora held back a grumble of discontent at hearing that.

  “This past year has been one hell of a trip. I go from being practically abandoned by the gods to being fought over by two of them,” she complained.

  Dramhyda murmured “There, there,” and patted Dora’s head comfortingly, if also a tiny bit condescending.

  “Those Healer robes look uncomfortable. Why don’t I find you some other article of clothing to wear while you relax?” she offered, and the half-orc nodded her head idly.

  “That’s fine. My stuff is… around,” the young Healer said, waving her right hand about in a vague gesture. Indeed, her stuff was lying about on the floor of her room. She’d never gotten around to putting it away. She had nudged the bigger piles with her feet to the sides of the room so they didn’t take up space when walking to and fro.

  The matronly Exarch chuckled at her guest’s messiness and walked over to the largest lump of loose luggage.

  “I believe the Gold-Squalls sent you and your two friends brand-new Bags of Holding so you can put your items away,” she tittered as she sifted through the mound.

  “Yeah, I placed it on the bed,” Dora said, waving feebly towards the bedroom. “It’s got a ton of space. I’ll pack up my junk before we head out, don’t worry.”

  A strangled cry was all that Dramhyda uttered in response. Concerned by the strange vocalization, Dora glanced over at the Exarch and found her staring at the item at the bottom of the pile. It happened to be none other than the Depiction of Utopia painting, and the blue woman was gazing at in a mixture of awe, disbelief, and horror.

  “W-where did you get this?” Dramhyda demanded, unable to tear her eyes away from the picture.

  “I found it in Targua,” Dora said, carefully observing the Exarch. Her hair had gone limp and flat, and resembled a sheet of water wrapped around her entire body. But not a drop of moisture landed on the painting.

  “This was what was creating the barrier you spoke of in your tale?” she whispered. Dora nodded bitterly.

  “It’s also what Lady Nia told me to find. Well, one of the artifacts, at least,” the half-orc added. As Dramhyda continued staring at the object with wide eyes and barely speaking, Dora began to grow concerned.

  “Is everything okay, Lady Dramhyda?” Dora inquired. The Exarch did not respond. Worry erupted to life in her gut, but Dora was unsure of what to do or say to get her teacher to stop being mesmerized by the painting.

  With a groan of aching muscles, Dora rose up out of her chair, limbs creaking in protest, but she pushed the discomfort aside as she approached Dramhyda, who remained kneeling on the floor.

  “My lady? Teacher?”

  Dramhyda continued to be entranced by the Depiction of Utopia. With no other option, Dora took a deep breath and fortified herself with magic before reaching down and yanking the picture frame out of the blue Exarch’s hands.

  The instant the Depiction of Utopia was out of Dramhyda’s grasp and torn from her line of sight, she exploded into a geyser of watery fury. Her hair rippled and morphed into tendrils that lashed out, several of them pinning Dora to the wall of the room, others flailing around viciously, slicing up the furniture, floor, and ceiling.

  An animalistic growl seeped out the Exarch’s throat, and her eyes were stormy pits that glared hatefully into Dora’s and sent terror coursing through the half-orc’s soul.

  However, that furious expression lasted only for a moment on Dramhyda’s face after she looked into Dora’s own blue orbs. Her eyes returned to their normal deep blue shade, and her hair went limp. Dora, no longer pinned to the wall by strands of liquid hair, fell to the ground with a strangled grunt. A gasp escaped the Exarch and she staggered back, horror clearly written clear across her face.

  “What have I done?” she hissed to herself, disgust in her actions apparent with how she looked around the pent house suite, disbelief in her voice.

  Dora tried to answer her, but instead of words only a wheezing cough made it out of her, and to the young Healer’s dismay blood was spilling out of her mouth in disturbing quantities. A quick check with her magic showed that every single one of her ribs had been shattered, a portion of her large intestine was ruined, her spine had broken six vertebrae and slipped four discs, one of her kidneys had ruptured, and her left lung had collapsed. Oh, and one of her tusk-like fangs was loose, but that was minor compared to the rest of it.

  All that damage had come from a single, unconscious blow from the Exarch of Healing Water when she’d blindly lashed out and struck the half-orc.

  Screeching in fear, Dramhyda surged towards Dora and placed her hands against the blonde half-orc’s chest and immediately began healing the injuries she’d caused.

  Using magic to be able to observe your own ruptured internal organs rapidly healing was a trippy experience, and Dora was uncertain if she was ever going to forget it. Already it felt like a fever dream thanks to the sheer amount of anesthetic magic Dramhyda was pumping into her as she repaired everything.

  An hour after the operation began, Dora felt her loose fang wobble and slide back into her gums with a sticky reverse slurping sound. She winced and coughed at the sensation, as the feeling of mana in her mouth was extremely unpleasant. Not to mention Dramhyda’s magical energy felt and tasted a lot like salt water, so it wasn’t all that fun
having that taste all over her tongue.

  That was the last of the healing she’d needed, though. With her tooth back in place, Dora was back to full health. Once done, Dramhyda slipped backwards, cradling her head in her hands and weeping silently to herself.

  Dora remained on the floor, unsure if she should try and speak with her mentor or not. After a few minutes, Dora sat up and looked around for the cursed painting. She crawled over to it, and couldn’t help but stare at the damned thing.

  Like before, the landscape painted on the canvas shifted as her eyes fell upon it, revealing impossibly perfect scenes to her. Great golden fields of grain shifted to shining blue and green hills under a pristine sky full of golden clouds. A languid ocean of liquid sapphires swayed beneath a golden moon and fathomless stars that sparkled in all the colors of the rainbow, before it turned into a volcanic region that belched multi-colored smoke even as vast rivers of molten precious metals poured forth, covering the cracked and blackened ash waste in a beautiful shell of gold, silver, brass, and platinum.

  It was beauty. It was perfection. It was Utopia!

  However, Dora was able to tear her eyes away from the perfection before her, and with a primal snarl in the back of her throat she flipped the painting over, pressing it face down. Completely freed from the mind-bending effects of the image, she pried the Depiction of Utopia out of its gold and orihalcum frame. Then, she took the parchment canvas and carefully rolled it up into a tube shape. She tore off a piece of her Healer’s robe and used it as a crude ribbon to tie the powerfully magical painting up nice and tight.

  Her job done, Dora let out a sigh of relief before turning to Dramhyda, who was still curled up on the floor and weeping. The young Healer approached the woman and carefully wrapped her up in a hug. The shaking stopped, and after a moment the Exarch of Healing Water looked up at her comforter.

  “Y-you… what are…?”

  “Shhh, just be calm, it’s okay, I dealt with the painting,” Dora said quietly, maintaining contact with her teacher. “I forgive you. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But it was! All that rage and anger… it was all mine! I thought I was better than that! I truly believed I had changed, but it seems not even eons can change an entity’s true nature,” Dramhyda whispered, self-loathing lacing her tone.

  “You were able to overcome it, though! If you’d really wanted to hurt me, you’d have kept going when you had me pinned,” Dora pointed out.

  Dramhyda sniffled at that, a hint of perkiness returning to her expression and hair, and she looked hopefully up at her one-time student.

  “Maybe you’ll feel better if you explain to me why you did what you did? What exactly that picture is?” Dora suggested, desperate to get answers of her own about the strange painting the Goddess of Love had ordered her to obtain.

  The Exarch nodded at that, a weary sigh drifting out of her.

  “That might be for the best,” she agreed, before looking around the room cautiously. “Are you certain it’s covered up?”

  “Yes,” the blonde Healer assured her. Dramhyda bobbed her head, relieved.

  “Good. Good…” she trailed off, thinking of a way to explain what had happened.

  “I suppose the first thing you should know is that that painting, Depiction of Utopia, is a dangerous thing for beings like myself who are born from the Aether. It is an ancient creation, created fathomless eons ago by the very first God of Art. The scene it depicts is of the Afterlife, of Heaven Itself, when it first came to be.”

  “Truly? But, the way the images change all the time, flashing between different landscapes… does that mean it’s simply showing different aspects and locations within the original Heaven?” Dora inquired. “Also, you make it sound like there’s only one heaven, but I thought that there were five Domains that made up the Heavenly Lands of the Gods: The Domains of Security, Monumental, Faithful, Purity, and Divinity.”

  “That is the case now, but in the beginning, when Aun still ruled over all, the Afterlife was a singular plane of existence,” Dramhyda revealed, her eyes misting with memories of times long gone. “Oh, it was so beautiful! You cannot truly describe the sights that could be seen back then, or express the feeling of tranquility and serenity that suffused the entire realm! Oh, those were the days!”

  Her expression turned dark. “But then the War in Heaven happened, and the Afterlife was sundered by the conflict between gods, mortals, and the Titans, giving rise to the Four Purgatories, the Five Heavenly Lands, and the Six Hellish Planes as it was broken apart into numerous shards of its former glory.”

  “Okay, interesting bit of theology there, but I can’t exactly see how that,” Dora gestured vaguely towards the rolled-up painting, “could cause such a strange reaction with you! It was like you were addicted or something similar!”

  “That’s not an entirely wrong assumption,” Dramhyda sighed. “I am old, Dora Halfmoon. Older than your planet, older than your entire segment of reality! I was there when Heaven shattered. I witnessed it happen! And, being so old, certain things can stimulate me like no other. When I saw the Depiction of Utopia, and laid eyes on a whole, undamaged Heaven for the first time in fathomless eons, I became lost in my own memories. It’s a terrible curse, being immortal.”

  “Not only that, but all beings of the Aether are drawn to the sights shown in that mesmerizing painting. How could we not be? It is a representation of perfection, and simply being in its presence can drive us mad, knowing we can never again be anywhere even close to the pinnacle. We are formed from singular energies and ideals, molded to be one thing, and one thing only. Even the lesser demons and entities that roam the impure realms are singular in purpose and identity, which gives the painting power over them. Only mortals can safely wield and observe the Depiction of Utopia without going mad, and that is because they’re… oh, I don’t mean to be rude, but your kind are so short-lived and filled with imperfections and mistakes that the manifested concept of perfection has no hold or sway over you, beyond its beauty.”

  “So that’s why the city was still so intact,” Dora muttered to herself, thinking back to the mostly intact ruins of Targua and doing her best not to be offended by Dramhyda’s comment about mortals. “The demons were so focused on getting to the painting that they ignored the rest of the ruins completely, instead spending their time bashing against the barrier. Normally demons would have gleefully destroyed any and all traces of civilization due to their nature as Chaos and Destruction incarnate!”

  When Dramhyda nodded in confirmation, Dora’s pensive frown became deeper. “It’s not safe for me to be here,” Dora announced after a few minutes of thought.

  Seeing the Water Exarch’s hurt expression, the half-orc shook her head. “It’s not because of you. Not entirely. But if this painting really is so enticing that it can even turn someone like you, who has an ironclad will, into an addict, then I don’t feel safe being around other creatures or entities from the Aether.”

  “I need to get out of the Aether,” Dora stated after pondering her choices. “But if Lady Nia won’t let me leave without doing whatever the Hells it is she wants me to do, then I have to figure that out quick, complete her task, and get back to Erafore.”

  “I can make a portal for you and your friends that will take you right to where Nia wants you to go,” Dramhyda claimed. The blonde half-orc nodded gratefully.

  “That’d be great! Can you summon Ain and Enrai? I need to tell them what’s going on.” She then frowned. “But I thought you didn’t know where Nia wanted me to go?”

  “That was a lie,” Dramhyda admitted, looking down in shame. “She told me where you needed to be. But I was so enthused by the idea of having a student again, even if only for a short while, that I kept you here a bit longer than you should have.”

  Dora’s frown twisted even further down on her lips, and her teacher refused to look at her. Instead, the Exarch of Healing Water rose up and waved her hand through the air, dispatching astral messages to
her servants, who’d pass on to the Monk and Spellsword it was time to go.

  Ten minutes later, Dora’s friends were knocking at her door. She let them in, expression grave.

  “We need to leave. Here, some replacement Bags of Holding for your stuff.” Dora handed the duo the enchanted backpacks, who took them with expressions of surprise and a hint of confusion.

  “What’s going on, Dora? Oh, these are nice and roomy!” Enrai asked, soon getting distracted by the superior capacity and quality of the new luggage.

  “Is everything alright?” Ain inquired, looking around her room and noticing the holes and cracks in the walls.

  “You know that painting I ‘liberated’ from Targua? The one that makes that city-sized barrier that stops all time within it? Fun fact: apparently it’s an ancient artifact of immense power that drives gods, Elementals, and other Aetherial denizens crazy when they look at it,” Dora explained, quickly giving her friends the abridged version of everything she’d learned so far.

  “Oh. OH! That explains the mess,” Enrai said, looking around at the scattered piles of clothing and luggage that littered the room.

  “Um, no, that’s, uh, that’s how it was to begin with. Only the holes in the wall and the scratches on the ceiling and floor are new.”

  “…Huh,” the Monk muttered, surprised to learn Dora was a messy person.

  “So, we’re leaving?” Ain asked her, and the Healer nodded.

  “Yup. Since I still don’t know what Lady Nia wants me to do, we should go and do something about that. Go grab and pack your stuff, guys. We’re checking out early.”

  ∞.∞.∞

  The trio stood in a separate chamber just a few hours later. Throughout the room stood large and complex teleportation arrays that had been carved into three massive blue marble slates. Great, man sized spikes made of solid, seamless diamond were arranged in a star pattern around each of the arrays. A muted hum of dimensional power filled the air, and faint rainbow light flickered and pulsed inside the crystalline pillars. These were some of the Resort’s Planeswalking portals, currently in standby mode.