Elysia
Chapter 30: The Whisper and the Web

The Cleansing of Astor sent a psychic shockwave across the continent, a silent scream that was felt not by the common folk, but by every being whose power was tied to the deeper currents of the world. For the Alliance, it was a terrifying spectacle that dictated a new, hands-off policy. For Nyxoria, it was a thrilling confirmation of her beloved’s true nature. For Malgorath, in his deep, dreaming prison, it was the first real taste of a power that could match his own—an unexpected and unwelcome variable.

And in the Aurora Palace, it was a lesson.

Following the event, Elina found that her relationship with her guardian had subtly shifted once more. The lessons continued, but their focus changed. Elysia seemed to have accepted that the outside world, with all its chaotic variables, could not be entirely ignored. If her sanctuary was to remain pristine, she needed a better watchtower. And Elina was to be her watchman.

Her training was now centered in the Chamber of the Scrying Basin. Under Elysia’s guidance, Elina learned to expand her consciousness, to listen to the whispers on the wind not just as a passive act, but as an active one.

“The mistake your Alliance makes,” Elysia explained one afternoon, as they observed the swirling star-stuff in the basin, “is that they look for fires. They search for grand troop movements and overt displays of power. They are preparing for a war of swords. But Malgorath is not a general; he is a disease. You do not fight a plague by waiting for the patient to develop a fever. You must learn to detect the first, faint cough.”

Elysia gestured to the basin. “Focus, Elina. Do not look for armies. Look for… patterns. Listen for the wrong notes in the world’s song.”

Elina closed her eyes and did as she was told. She cast her senses outwards, no longer as a vague sense of empathy, but as a focused net. She ignored the loud, obvious ‘noises’—the marching of Alliance troops, the fervent prayers of the growing Aurora Cult, the silent, simmering obsession from Nyxoria’s grove. Instead, she listened for the smaller things.

She felt the strange, sudden prosperity of a remote mining town where the miners had unearthed a vein of ‘unusually energizing’ ore that made them work without rest. She felt the subtle shift in a powerful merchant guild, whose leader had suddenly become more ruthless and ambitious after acquiring a 'lucky' new gemstone. She felt the quiet despair of a farming village where the crops grew beautifully but tasted of ash and sorrow.

Individually, they were small, unrelated events. But as Elysia taught her how to view them from a higher perspective, Elina began to see the threads. She saw the ‘lucky’ gemstone, the ‘energizing’ ore, and the ‘blighted’ seeds were all subtly tainted with the same faint, corrupting energy.

“He is not spreading his forces,” Elina whispered, her eyes wide with understanding. “He is seeding his influence. He’s not just building an army; he’s taking control of the world’s economy and resources from the inside.”

“Precisely,” Elysia confirmed, a flicker of approval in her eyes. “A far more efficient strategy than open warfare. He is building a web. The Alliance is busy swatting at the flies caught in it, while the spider remains untouched.”

This became Elina’s new duty. Each day, she would spend time scrying, mapping out the subtle, growing web of Malgorath’s influence. She was no longer just a gardener of plants; she was becoming an intelligence agent, a silent guardian mapping the spread of the world’s disease from the safety of her haven. The work was grim, but it gave her a profound sense of purpose. She was protecting Elysia’s peace not just by keeping their home calm, but by being her eyes on the world that threatened it.

While Elina was learning to map the web, the spider at its center was also learning.

The name ‘Elysia’ was now known to the scattered consciousness of Malgorath. The utter and absolute erasure of his Crimson Blight infestation in Astor was an act of power so far beyond the capabilities of the summoned Heroes that it forced a recalculation in his ancient, malevolent mind. There was a new piece on the board, one that could not be overcome with brute force.

And so, his strategy shifted. If he could not conquer his new rival’s territory, perhaps he could tempt a different piece to do his work for him.

His consciousness, a formless, insidious will, extended itself not towards the World Tree, but towards the pocket of contained darkness within its forest. He sent a whisper, not of command, but of temptation, towards the dome where Nyxoria resided.

He had felt her power, the passionate, chaotic energy his forces had learned to mimic. He now offered a partnership.

In her twilight grove, Nyxoria, who was idly tracing patterns on her blood mirror, suddenly paused. A faint, insidious whisper echoed in the silent air of her prison. It spoke of shared power, of breaking free from her cage, of a common enemy who valued tranquility over the glorious chaos she represented.

‘Join me, Crimson Queen,’ the mental voice of Malgorath whispered across the dimensions. ‘Together, we can shatter this stagnant peace. I will give you the world, and you can have your precious Zane.’

Nyxoria listened. A slow, contemptuous smile spread across her lips.

“A partnership?” she said aloud to the empty grove, her voice dripping with disdain. “With an amateur who so crudely imitates my art? You are a disease, scavenger-king. I am a symphony.”

She could have accepted. The offer was tempting. But to ally herself with a being she considered so utterly beneath her was an insult to her pride. More importantly, it was an inefficient path to her true goal. Her game was with Elysia, and Elysia alone. Malgorath was not a potential partner; he was a useful tool, a pawn to create the chaos she needed to draw Zane out.

‘Your offer is noted,’ she projected back with cold amusement. ‘And discarded. Do not presume to contact me again.’

She severed the connection, leaving Malgorah’s consciousness reeling with surprise at the rejection. Nyxoria leaned back on her throne, a cunning gleam in her crimson eyes. The game was becoming more interesting. Both sides now saw her as a potential ally or threat. They did not understand. She was not a piece in their game. She was a player, waiting for both kings to exhaust each other before she made her final move.

In the formless, chaotic void where his consciousness dreamed of ruin, Malgorath felt the rejection. It was not a loud, defiant roar, but a cold, dismissive severance that was, in many ways, more insulting. He, a primordial king who had brought empires to dust, had extended an offer of partnership to the only other power in this realm he deemed significant, and he had been rebuffed. The Crimson Queen, this creature of passion and shadow, had called him an amateur. An imitator. A disease.

A cold, ancient fury, devoid of the hot passion that fueled Nyxoria, stirred in the depths of his being. He had underestimated the vanity of these lesser immortals. He could not tempt the Crimson Queen. And he could not, for now, risk a direct assault on the tranquil, absolute power that was the Aurora Palace.

Therefore, his strategy had to shift once more. If he could not gain a new ally, then he would create a new, undeniable crisis. He would accelerate his original plan. He would force the hands of the mortals, creating a conflagration so large, so loud, and so chaotic that its flames would be impossible for even a reclusive god to ignore.

His will, a formless and insidious thing, flowed through the subterranean veins of corruption that webbed the continent. He bypassed the larger, more heavily fortified fronts and focused on one of the quieter threads, one of the subtle infestations Elina had been monitoring.

The prosperous mining town of Silvervein. It was time for its fever to break.

In the Chamber of the Scrying Basin, Elina was performing her new, daily duty. The initial awe of her new skill had been replaced by a grim, focused diligence. The patterns she traced in the swirling starlight were not just academic; they were the encroaching symptoms of a world’s sickness.

Today, her attention was again drawn to Silvervein. The unsettling feeling she had sensed there before was now intensifying at an alarming rate.

“Lady Elysia, please look,” she said, her voice tight with urgency.

Elysia, who was observing from a nearby crystalline seat, glided to her side. The image in the basin sharpened, focusing on the town square. The prosperity had curdled into madness. The miners, their bodies and minds fueled by the corrupted silver ore they had hailed as a blessing, were no longer just energetic. They were frenzied. Fights were breaking out over trivial matters. Their eyes held a feverish, paranoid gleam. Worse, the corruption was beginning to manifest physically. Dark, crystalline growths, like jagged black jewels, were beginning to sprout from the skin of the most afflicted townsfolk.

“It’s happening too fast,” Elina whispered in horror. “The corruption… it’s erupting.”

“A predictable escalation,” Elysia commented, her voice a calm, analytical counterpoint to Elina’s distress. “The parasite has consumed its host to the point where it no longer needs to hide. The disease is now entering its fever stage.”

She showed no signs of alarm or intent to act. From her perspective, this was still just a distant, mortal problem running its logical, albeit unpleasant, course.

At that very moment, in the Elven capital, the same scene was playing out in the Great Scryer, sending the Alliance high command into a frenzy.

“A full-blown outbreak in Silvervein!” Commander Borin yelled, pointing at the chaotic image. “The town is strategically vital! It supplies over a third of the silver for our northern legions’ weaponry!”

“We have to intervene,” King Theron declared, his face set in grim lines. “Dispatch the Third and Fourth legions. And send the Heroes. I want Kaito to form the vanguard and Aiko to prepare wide-area containment spells.”

Orders were given, and the Alliance military machine began to move. But Archmage Gideon was not looking at the unfolding crisis. He was staring at the swirling energies at the edge of the scrying image, his face pale and deeply disturbed.

“Gideon? What is it?” Queen Lyra asked, noticing his strange demeanor.

The Archmage took a moment to compose himself. “Your Majesty,” he began, his voice low. “I must report a disturbing anomaly we confirmed this morning. It pertains to the day of ‘The Cleansing’.”

He gestured to a younger mage, who brought forward a report. “After the Ruler Elysia departed from the Sunstone Terrace,” Gideon explained, “our scrying connection to the area should have normalized. It did not. For nearly an hour, the image in this very basin was… stuck. It played a loop of the same thirty seconds over and over again: the moment of our initial shock, the Commander falling to his knees, the King’s declaration. We re-calibrated the Scryer three times, but the loop continued before finally fading.”

“A magical glitch?” Theron asked.

“I do not believe in glitches of this nature,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “A magical echo of a powerful emotional event is possible, but this was too stable, too perfect. It felt… intentional.” His eyes were filled with a new dread. “I believe that was not a malfunction. It was a message. The Crimson Queen, from within her prison, was demonstrating her power to us. She was toying with us. She showed us that her power is not just physical; it is one of psychic warfare, of manipulating perception itself.”

The implication settled like a shroud over the already grim council. They were not just fighting Malgorath’s brute force and Elysia’s terrifying indifference. They were now also subject to the whims of an imprisoned, god-like being who could poison their very senses and turn their greatest fears into a weapon against them.

Back in the Aurora Palace, Elina watched in horror as the first of Malgorath’s newly manifested abominations—miners twisted into hulking crystal-and-flesh monstrosities—began to attack their fellow townsfolk. The screams were faint, but she could feel the wave of terror clear as a bell.

“Lady Elysia, they are suffering,” she pleaded, turning to her guardian. “People are dying. The Heroes are on their way, but it will be too late for some. Can’t we… can’t we do something?”

Elysia’s expression remained unchanged. “I corrected the imbalance that directly threatened our home,” she stated, her logic as cold and clear as the crystal around them. “The subsequent, predictable pest control is the responsibility of this world’s gardeners. It is not my concern.”

She was re-establishing the boundary. Her one act of intervention had been to protect her sanctuary. This event, however tragic, was outside that purview. It was a firm, necessary lesson in detachment.

But as she continued to observe the scene, her eyes narrowed slightly. She watched the way the newly formed monsters moved. They were not rampaging mindlessly. They were moving with a crude but effective tactical precision, immediately targeting the town’s guard captain and its mayor, decapitating the leadership to maximize chaos.

This was not the work of a mindless, spreading plague.

Her vast consciousness subtly expanded. She felt for the energy signatures. She felt the pulse of Malgorath’s ruinous power, as expected. But she also felt another, fainter echo, a familiar resonance that she had felt just moments before her "weeding" of Astor. The lingering echo of Nyxoria’s psychic rejection of Malgorath’s offer. She connected the dots in a fraction of a second.

This is not Malgorath’s escalation alone, she realized. The precision, the timing, the theatrical cruelty of it… this has her fingerprints all over it. She is pulling his strings from her prison.

Nyxoria had rejected Malgorath’s alliance, but she was now using him as her own, unwitting pawn. She was using his forces as a paintbrush to create a masterpiece of suffering, designed specifically to cause Elina distress, knowing that Elina’s pain was now a direct disturbance to Elysia’s peace.

The game had just escalated to a new, infuriatingly indirect level.

Elysia did not let her fury show on her face. She simply looked down at Elina, who was watching the unfolding tragedy with tears in her eyes.

"You are right, Elina," Elysia said, her voice quiet, causing the child to look up in surprise. "The weeds are growing too fast. And a gardener must sometimes tend to the soil beyond her own fence to prevent the seeds from blowing over the wall."

She raised her hand, and the image in the Scrying Basin changed. It no longer showed the chaotic town square, but focused on a single, terrified family hiding in the cellar of their home, a crystal-horned monster clawing at the door above.

"You wish to help," Elysia stated. "You cannot fight them. But you can give them a shield. A moment of peace in the midst of a storm." She looked at Elina. "Sing your song. Not for the land. For them. Pour your [Verse of Serenity] into them through the basin. It will not save them forever, but it will hide them. It will calm their fear. It is a small act, but a precise one."

Elina’s eyes widened. She nodded, her expression hardening with resolve. She closed her eyes and began to sing, pouring all her will and her magic across the miles, a tiny beacon of tranquility in a sea of chaos.

Elysia watched her, a new, cold light in her eyes. Nyxoria wanted to play a game of manipulation, using the world’s suffering as her chess pieces. A very inefficient, very tedious game.

And Elysia had just decided it was time to teach her rival a new rule.