Dross spun out, still wearing his tiny black crown. He gave the trench a glare. [For now! But soon, I will have my full power restored, and then I will operate greater devices than this!]
“Yes,” Lindon said. “Of course.”
Mercy wiped her face with her sleeve, trying to stop sniffling long enough to focus. “All right. What’s the technique?”
“It’s a hunger Ruler technique.” Lindon looked over the room with admiration. “I never thought it was possible, until Dross and I found this room in the labyrinth. But it brings out…I suppose they’re echoes, or Forged imitations, of people the labyrinth has fed on.”
“Demonstration!” Eithan cried, and Lindon didn’t need any more encouragement. He eagerly placed his hand against a script panel on one side of the trench.
Mercy assumed he would use his pure madra to active the technique, since his hunger arm was broken, but she sensed no madra from him at all. She supposed he was using his authority as a Sage, and she felt as uncomfortable as she always did.
Sages were always old, even when they didn’t look like it.
Yerin noticed her discomfort and asked about it, but it was hard to explain.
“It’s not…it’s nothing big, but Sages are always old, at least on the inside. A Sage my age is just wrong. It’s like he’s a young man with an old head, you know?”
Mercy had tried to control the air with her soulfire to stop Lindon from hearing their conversation, but the aura was so thin that she was afraid he’d overheard. Especially when he looked depressed out of nowhere.
She desperately wanted to apologize, but what if he hadn’t heard her? Then she’d have to explain…
Yerin was giving her an odd look. “Huh. Used to say the same thing.”
“What?”
“Well, a baby’s head on a man’s body,” she said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “So not the same; the complete mirror opposite. Been a long time.”
She was speaking fondly, but Lindon was slumped against the panel, and he looked like he was about to collapse in shame and depression.
“I’m so sorry!” Mercy called.
Lindon waved it away.
Yerin winced. “Oops. Should pay off that debt later.”
Finally, Lindon caught the unfamiliar technique, and Mercy saw the disgusting white hunger aura begin to swirl. It took on a shape in the center, made all of shades of white and gray, until it looked like a person leeched of color.
A familiar person. A very familiar person.
Mercy’s breath stopped as she saw the hair, pulled back into a ponytail with strands of sticky shadow madra. The familiar build, the stance, the expression. The bow, made all of liquid black threads woven together, with a dragon’s head that hissed. She was sure the woman’s bright eyes were actually purple.
As the image had started to form, Mercy had at first wondered if this was herself, but every detail that settled proved that wrong. This was her mother, centuries ago. She looked to be Mercy’s age.
[We scoured the memory of this place, and we found that it had fed upon your mother,] Dross said triumphantly. [This is a triumph of great effort and skill.]
“The labyrinth?” Mercy asked.
“What you feed on becomes a part of you,” Lindon said. “The energy your mother gave the labyrinth is gone—it was consumed long ago—but the memory of her remains. It’s powerless, but we should be able to learn from it.”
“I…I never knew she came here.”
This was a startling revelation. Mercy knew, of course, that she didn’t know everything about her mother. It would take her a hundred years to read all the stories of Akura Malice, and it wasn’t as though Malice was very forthcoming about her past.
But she knew Mercy had been here, around Sacred Valley, and she had never said anything. She had even warned Mercy away.
Why?
Lindon pulled open a nearby box, which he must have removed from a void key earlier, and aura gushed out. Instantly, hunger aura swarmed over the natural treasures, and Mercy could sense some of the ghoulish spirits coming nearer. They would be crawling through the floor now.
He began spreading natural treasures around the room, quickly increasing the power of the ambient aura.
Mercy realized what they were trying to do, and she braced herself on Suu. “Do you really think we have time for this?”
“Doesn’t take more than a breath,” Yerin said. She patted Mercy on the shoulder. “Might sting, though.”
Eithan had taken his own handful of natural treasures, and he called out from the other end of the room. “You have four people here who have all successfully completed their Overlord revelation, and you have your own mother to learn from. How could you have a better environment?”