Chapter 260 - The Ritual Of Healing
Another big thank you to (Merkur1) and Julian Weber. You guys are the reason why this is going good.
The Wiki: https://dragonborn-saga.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonborn_Saga_(Novel)_Wiki
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In the next two days, Alina and I made a lot of experiments. At first, I traveled to Darkwater Crossing and started catching mice. It was hard to find healthy ones but as there was a farm there is surely a good band of mice and who is better than a master mouse catcher like Nefertiti to catch those pesky little things.
As we returned the mice to Alina, she started examining them and cutting parts of their bodies to study how their Astral Bodies react to be mended and destroyed. The poor mice almost went extinct because of us.
We then moved from mice to large animals. We were not using the size of the animal as a factor but the type of the Soul itself. There are souls from Petty to Grand and all were different from each other.
At the tenth day, we started the inhumane human trails on bandits.
The thing is... we kept it all away from Jullanar to not give her false hope in case if things went not as we expected. We just wanted to be her nice family and all.
Still, we faced a problem.
Energy! Even though we live in a world with Free Energy called Magicka, it sometimes is not enough and we need to harness more resources to make Magicka. They only way we can do so is by looking for a place abundant with Magicka and lo and behold, we actually live in a one.
The Eldergleam Sanctuary houses the oldest living being in Tamriel and that is the Eldergleam Tree itself. The tree listens to Alina and can lend her power as long as Alina is close to the tree but I am not sure how will that work. If it can't be recorded on data in front of me and all can be calculated in a scientific fashion, I feel like I am losing my touch.
"And that's why I always said you have a faith problem." Alina said.
"I know. I have faith in numbers more than some whimsical original spirits that like to pose as gods."
"... I am sure that you were a Dwemer in that past life of yours."
"Guess who is the greatest scientific race ever since the First Era."
"Guess who got themselves to disappear from this world with a poof."
The only salt between me and Alina is religion. I respect what others believe in but I have my own opinion of God. Even the Original Spirits don't call themselves Gods so what wrong did I say? I respect the Original Spirits and understand them for what they really are, the egos that represent the forces of natures.
I am not even wrong. The Psijic Order viewed its own guidance to the world as a way to not let the mortals empower the malevolent Original Spirits. A book called 'The Old Ways' said: [We recognize the multiple threats that a strong tyrant represents -- breeds cruelty which feeds the Daedra Boethiah and hatred which feeds the Daedra Vaernima; if he should die having performed a particularly malevolent act, he may go to rule in Oblivion; and worst of all, he inspires other villains to thirst after power and other rulers to embrace villainy.]
The notion of God in my eyes is more almighty than beings that feed on the feelings of mortals.
The difference between my point of view and the Dwemer is that I don't scorn the Original Spirits or see them as rivals. On the contrary, I respect both Aedra and Daedra as the Manifested Egos of the Natural Forces. One can think of Sheogorath as Madness itself in the form of a man and so is every Original Spirit.
Back to my argument with Alina, we agreed on using her powers of Kyne's Favored to heal Jullanar.
***
This night was a full moon and Nefertiti chose to stay in the form of a large cat. The amount of ways she can change herself into now is actually weird. I always ask myself if she is still a cat but I find it very offending in the end. How can such a fluff come from a being other than a cat?
Anyway, I was sitting with Jull in the middle of the sanctuary and I told her about what we were working on this few days. Still, she wasn't surprised.
"How do I say this? I just had a feeling you guys were doing something important for me. You would always say these unfathomable words to each other and everything turns to numbers and magic theories and I don't understand a single word, but you guys were always looking at me like you wanted to say something so I figured out that you would come clean sooner or later."
Oh! I love it when she is a thoughtful girl.
"We are starting." Alina came down from the summit of the Eldergleam Sanctuary. She was… how do I say this… dressed in some sort of fashion I am not really into.
It was a mix of wolf skin dress, hawk feathers and bear claws bear claws accessories and a circlet made of flowers. She was also holding a staff made of an old tree and hand drum.
"What is all that?"
"My stuff." She said.
"You look like a druid."
"That's what I am going to do actually, druidism."
I want to say it makes sense but it doesn't. Anyway, it seems that Alina will draw strong energy from nature that way.
"How do we start?" I asked.
"Just get ready with the needles and follow my pace. Jull, you drink this." Alina said as she gave Jull a wineskin to drink from.
"Cheers… pft! What is that?" Jull took the wineskin and drank from it before spitting out half of what she drank.
"Wine… and tree sap." Alina said.
"Bleh! Say that it tastes like this before I drink it."
"Just lie down now." Alina pushed Jull on the ground and started preparing her things.
She started by going around Jull in circles and tapping with her staff on the ground. She then started singing in a language I am not really familiar with and tree roots started to grow beneath and around Jull. It looked so strange that I kept watching the strange magic happening in front of me with curiosity but I never figured it out at all.
The tree roots that grew beneath Jullanar started carrying her up. It was akin to a bed made of branches but it was really alive and… don't know what to say.
The tree bed rose almost half a meter up until it stopped. Jullanar was a bit dizzy from the mixture Alina gave to her and started dozing off.
"Was that a crucial part of the process?" I asked Alina.
"No… I was just showing off but it rather felt appropriate to do."
"..."
That's why I don't like religious stuff in this world. No one is sure of what they are doing, to begin with.
Sigh!
"Hand me the needles."
I gave the box to her and she started a fire on top of her staff, she started to heat the needle for a short instance and carefully stuck them under Jull's skin.
She finished with all the points we needed to link and I started to check on them.
I used a small Light Emitting Screen as a scrying medium and checked all the needles locations on Jull's Astral Body and how they are matched on the Physical Body.
It was a delicate process but it would give us the peace of mind needed for the next step and ensure that we are doing nothing wrong.
"No problem here, go ahead."
Alina nodded and started to draw power from nature… or rather, she started beating the drum with her staff while singing in that weird language.
When I thought it was just that, Alina started making animal sounds. It started with the wolf, then some kind of birds, the something that sounded like a monkey (even though there are no monkeys around Skyrim), then a horse… well, she started making weird sounds over and over again while beating the drum and I was trying to guess what animals were they… wait! Weren't we just trying to heal Jull?
I was really about to say something but I started sensing it, a large flow of energy was coming from the surroundings rushing towards the center of the rituals.
"Jon, try to contain that energy and handle it yourself. I still think we need more."
"Fine."
I started to act too. With the screen in front of me, I started containing the energy and channeling it through the needles. The Mithril was indeed the perfect material to supply energy through and I was unhindered by it but I found it hard to contain such a pool of energy with my own. The energy Alina could summon was really potent and strong, enough to cause me another Astral Damage like the one I had a year ago.
The process of reconstructing the Astral Body of Jullanar was done by observing the condition of her other eye and trying to sculpt another astral formation over the other side by arranging the Acupuncture Points and the Energy Channels with the energy I am gaining while trying to hold it all in place and reconstruct the damaged parts.
All was going well until I noticed a weird activity in my Haven Cube, in 'Space 51' where do I keep the contained stuff, the container that was housing the shadow material [Greed] started to react strongly to the natural energy from outside the cube. That being was actually trying to break through the containment and jump out of the Cube's Space.
"You motherfucker. Do you think I will allow you?" I cussed at it but I had no time to deal with it at all. "Nefertiti, take the ring. [Greed] is going to break free, take it away and contain it."
"Bad black thing? Hooman, give me." Nefertiti, who was watching from far away, came running in her Beast Form and took the Cube, she then ran outside the sanctuary with it.
"Will Nefertiti be okay?" Alina asked.
"She will. She can channel energy directly from me so she will be able to stop it on her own."
I was busy trying to fix Jull's Astral Body and I had to take my time no matter what happened in the world right now. I even started to use the energy much faster and Alina was having a hard time keeping up with me.
"We are almost done here." I said.
"Yes, all we need to do is to heal the wound that will open any time soon."
On Jullanar's left eye, blood started to flow out. This is because of the unmatching that occurred between the Astral and the Physical Bodies.
"It is your turn now. I am going after Nefertiti." I said as I switched places with Alina.
We were already in the safe process where we only had to keep healing the wound to match the Physical Body with the new changes on the Astral Body. It is a smooth process and the best to do it is Alina.
I regained my power by a Magicka Potion and started running towards the Sanctuary's Entrance.