PftA Book 5 - Interlude 4 - A Celebrated Ascension

“Are you going to watch the ascension ceremony tonight?” a young woman asked her friend as they sipped their specialty drinks leisurely at a small bistro table next to the door leading to the neighborhood market.

Avery Mercer recognized both girls from the apartment complex, filling all but the first story of the building. They were both relatively new additions to the neighborhood, having moved in shortly after finishing their mandatory post-awakening training.

She smiled at the pair, though neither looked in her direction to see the expression. Unbothered, the healer slipped inside.

“Welcome, Healer Avery! I have your order ready,” the familiar clerk said by way of greeting.

Because storage devices made theft a real problem, even small shops like this one implemented [Spatial Lock] enchantments that blocked all but the strongest dimensional storage items from working from anywhere other than the checkout counter.

They did nothing to stop the use of expanded bags or pouches, though accessing such an item would result in a very visible marker to appear on both the person and the item accessed.

Triggering such a ward when outside the direct view of an employee automatically granted shop owners and their clerks the right to search such items. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was better than nothing.

“Thanks, Marti!” Avery said with a smile as she injected a small pulse of mana into the shop’s kiosk and authorized the payment from her account.

As soon as the funds cleared, the clerk passed several thin bags across the counter. Avery immediately stored the items, making use of the small bubble of ‘unlocked’ Space to use her ring.

Technically, her ring was strong enough to bypass the enchantments, but doing so would likely damage the wards. There was also no reason to do so since Avery had no plans to steal from the store.

“Are you going to watch the ascension tonight?” Marti asked after she handed over the last bag.

“Probably not,” Avery replied with disinterest. “While I admit it’s a pretty amazing accomplishment, I don’t really have any desire to watch the process unfold.”

“Your daughter should be eligible to ascend soon, right?” the clerk asked with a knowing tone. Her expression shifted to one of sympathy before her eyes lit up again. “Hey, won’t that make her the first Earthborn to ascend?”

Avery’s lips thinned, and she nodded. A lot of people knew who her famous daughter was. Even when she kept the information to herself, it seemed to spread anyway.

“It looks that way,” Avery agreed.

“Well, that’s got to be exciting! I know it probably sucks for you to lose your daughter like that, but it’s still pretty amazing!”

Avery didn’t disagree, though it was hard for her to think of Emie ascending as being anything other than a loss. Knowing that her daughter had already decided to ascend instead of sticking around like so many other Pinnacles had already caused Avery to pull back somewhat.

It wasn’t intentional, but Avery recognized it for what it was.

It didn’t help that the woman already felt guilty for not keeping in touch as regularly as she knew her daughter wanted, but there were only so many topics she could discuss, and most of those topics had been exhausted after the first year.

It wasn’t like anything really interesting happened in her life. Aside from some gossip or occasionally updating Emie on what the rest of the family was doing, Avery honestly struggled to find anything to talk to her daughter about.

It shamed her that she’d allowed their relationship to grow so distant. Unfortunately, it was just a reality of life, especially when their life experiences were just so different.

Avery exited the grocery store and headed to the elevator near the center of the floor. Though it was run by mana now instead of electricity, the device still worked pretty much the same way as it had before mana became a real thing. Only the power source was different.

At least, she was pretty sure it worked that way.

There was probably some enchanting involved as well, but that was basically like computer programming if she understood things correctly.

Regardless, all it took was the push of a button to operate the thing. Before she knew it, she was walking through her front door.

“Hey, Patches,” the healer greeted the lazy cat that took up half of the couch.

It was an evolved orange tabby, with fur so soft and fluffy, it was hard to keep herself from immediately digging her hands into it.

A lot of domesticated animals had become feral after the apocalypse, but the arrival of Tamers had made it possible to have such creatures as pets after only a few short years, even if they were much larger, on average, than they had been before everything changed.

Her ex-husband had always been more of a dog person, so Avery hadn’t had a cat since college before she got Patches. It wasn’t until Kaylee moved out several years earlier that Avery finally broke down and purchased her feline companion from a local Breeder/Tamer.

The tabby flicked its tail in acknowledgement, not deigning to show any further reaction to her presence, though Avery suspected the cat understood far more than it pretended to.

From experience, Avery knew that it wouldn’t be long before the large animal changed its mind and started demanding attention, so she quickly moved into the kitchen to get dinner started.

“Screen on,” Avery said, activating the television. The Alliance called it something else, but to the people of Earth, it would always be a television.

To her annoyance, the topic being covered was the impending ascension of Anya Oracle and her husband, Councilor Lance.

Not caring to watch the ongoing coverage, Avery instructed her Interface Assistant to switch the channel to something else as she removed a cutting board and a set of knives to begin preparing dinner.

Avery wasn’t sure why so many people seemed so excited about the loss of two important people within Alliance leadership. With the number of still-empty seats on the Council, she would have expected the public to be more wary of losing even more.

Then again, with the war over and the Collective being gradually assimilated into the Alliance, now was probably as good a time as any.

Avery removed the ingredients she’d purchased for her meal tonight. With [Stasis] storage, she was able to keep ingredients perfectly fresh indefinitely. Though it would have been easy enough to hoard years’ worth of food, Avery liked her routine of visiting the grocery every week or so.

As she washed the vegetables she planned to prepare, Avery thought of her eldest living child. She was a Tier Ten and drawing closer with each day to ascension. It wouldn’t be too much longer before she was seeing news articles about Trinity Emie ascending.

She did not look forward to that day.

But it should still be at least a few more years away, and Emie had promised to spend some time visiting before she took the last step.

It was such a crazy thought.

Her hands moved almost automatically as she started the almost meditative process of preparing her meal.

She could have easily used the device Emie had created way back before she entered the dungeon, but the food it made never quite tasted as good as what she could make with fresh ingredients.

It was still nice to have for the evenings when she didn’t feel like cooking. Unsurprisingly, those days were becoming more and more common as she aged.

Though she looked nowhere close to her true age, the years certainly weighed on her mentally. If only Emie’s rejuvenation treatment worked to roll back mental age…

With that thought, Avery realized that she hadn’t sent Emie a message in a few weeks. She’d meant to, but it was always hard to know what to say. There were only so many times she could repeat the same thing without it seeming disingenuous, but she didn’t want her daughter to think she didn’t care.

“Start voice message to Emie,” she instructed her Interface Assistant. After releasing a silent sigh of frustration at her lack of connection with her daughter, Avery started recording as her hands continued the familiar motion of preparing dinner.

= = =

Zavira found herself frowning as she watched the Oracle and her husband disappear in a flash of light.

Shaking her head, she turned off the screen. The Oracle’s manipulations were so blatantly obvious to anyone who knew what was going on that it disgusted her. Zavira hoped Kai figured out how manipulative his sister was sooner rather than later.

Her grandfather had muttered a few unkind words when news of the Oracle’s ascension was initially released a week earlier. Having kept in regular contact with his friend, her grandfather knew that his oldest friend had decided to challenge the floor trial early due to his sister’s machinations.

Zavira wasn’t sure Emie even knew how soon he planned to enter the trial. If she did, she certainly hadn’t mentioned it yet.

The last she heard, Emie planned to challenge the trial the same day that her former mentor did. If he really was planning to challenge it before the next message exchange – and with his sister ascending, it seemed pretty likely – it meant that Emie could very well be in the trial that moment.

Though she knew there was no chance of Emie dying in the trial – at least, not if the dungeon stuck to its previous trial parameters – the thought of her facing another trial twisted the half-dwarf’s stomach.

Just because Emie couldn’t die didn’t mean that the trial would be pleasant. In fact, many trials only ended when the challenger ‘died,’ which was an extraordinarily bad experience in most cases.

Even if Emie performed exceptionally well, she didn’t think Emie would make it all the way to the pinnacle from the trial since she’d only reached level one hundred a few subjective years earlier. Then again, who knew what strangeness the dungeon might have planned for the very last trial?

Maybe she’d see her friend sooner than she thought.

Though she’d gained a couple of levels since leaving the dungeon, Zavira honestly didn’t think she’d ever actually ascend. With the rumors about what the next realm would be like, Zavira wasn’t sure she would want to ascend, even if she had the option.

Maybe she’d feel different in a few more centuries, but for now, she was happy with her life.

She had no desire to grind out levels and push herself until she reached the pinnacle of strength, only to give it all up and start over somewhere. The thought of losing her power was daunting, as it was for most people who reached her level.

She definitely understood her grandfather’s position a lot better now.

It wasn’t just the aspect of starting all over that bothered her. Most of her resistance to the thought came from her family.

Zavira wanted to be there to watch her children grow and start their own families. She wanted to be there to celebrate her descendants’ achievements, and she wanted to continue being an active part of their lives – much like her ancestor was for those who came after him.

Maybe one day she’d change her mind and decide to see what the next realm had to offer. But for now, she was happy with what she had.

She only hoped that her friend could feel as content with her choices.