Sleep was as fleeting as the USS Enterprise warp speed. One would think that a broken leg would be enough to knock a guy out cold for the night, but the pain did precisely the opposite. Not to mention, Armael gave Noa far too much to think about.

He laid between two evolved trolls, heavy pelts draped over all three of them to stave off the nighttime cold. Most trolls slept without any form of blanket, rather, this was a way to protect Noa, Tin, and Armael from the cold, each staggered between evolved trolls to share the heat.

Noa resisted any form of movement, not that he had much mobility in the first place. Armael had splinted his bad leg to his good leg in the absence of “suitable scabbards” as his mentor had put it. At least the pain was enough to distract from the ache of his total immobility, and the rocks he slept laid on.

Someone had to be there. They had to know I was coming up the mountain, Noa thought, considering the idea that he really was being targeted. He listed names in his head over and over again. Finbar, Caradec, Olwen, Eliaz, Lila... About the only suspicious one would be Finbar, and yet, he doubted that. All the others were too invested in his success as a healer or church member, which...

Well, that left a whole list of people whose names he didn’t know. The merchant Armael purchased provisions from, the people who walked into the church that may have caught wind of the plan, and any number of people would have known the day prior. Essentially, Noa assumed the entire town knew!

This is a fruitless investigation to have with myself, he thought, but it nagged him. It had to be the monarchy, didn’t it? No, it could be peach farm owners for all I know... Maybe he shouldn’t have been starting a chain reaction of strikes throughout the kingdom. That, he suspected, probably bred a lot of enemies.

Eventually, Noa managed to lull himself to sleep, or maybe it was the sheer exhaustion from the injury. Either way worked for him, but when the trolls on either side of him started moving, he found his rest to be sorely lacking.

Blinking blurriness away, he looked towards the mouth of the cave, sunlight seeping through it.

“You look like death, kid,” Armael said, kneeling beside Noa.

“I feel like it,” Noa croaked. He shivered when his mentor pulled the pelts up off his legs, his broken one exposed, save for the straps securing it to his other one.

“My aether is replenished after a full rest, but I’d wager yours isn’t if sleep was fleeting,” Armael explained.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Noa grimaced, his mentor shifting his legs.

“Stop whining.”

“Great advice,” Noa rolled his eyes. “You know, seatbelts.”

“Seatbelts?”

“Yes. They’re straps you put in vehicles or modes of transport. Prevents you from flying out of your transportation and breaking a limb or two,” he said, feeling Armael’s aether finally soothe the area. “Definitely need seatbelts when traveling with trolls.”

“I’ll be sure to inform them,” Armael said, looking distracted. Well, good. Noa wanted him focused on doing a good job with his leg. It only felt cold at this point, the pain completely gone. “All done.”

“What?” Noa asked, “Already?”

“Yup, untie your legs yourself.”

Pushing himself upright, Noa looked down at his legs, the missing pant leg a bit of an odd sight. Armael had cut it up to about his mid thigh which would have been far more uncomfortable if he happened to be surrounded by anyone but trolls.

“Nice tattoos,” Armael patted his bare leg, and Noa reached down, starting to undo the first tie.

“Uh, thanks. So what now? I’ve lost my aether stone, and I don’t have a lot to begin with, neither will Tin. So what’s the plan?”

“Fortify ourselves here. The trolls will build defenses at the cave front. Tin, you, and I need to collect aether for aether stones. I’m hoping that if we do take on more attacks today, we can evolve more trolls,” Armael explained.

“Weren’t we supposed to send evolved trolls back to Briag?”

“That was before our situation became so grave. We can’t afford it, not after yesterday’s battle, and certainly not if a [Druid] is around. Even being in this cave is dangerous, but I’m banking on the fact that whoever it is, their aether is limited too.”

“That’s a big risk,” Noa said.

“It would be just as risky to climb back down the mountain side,” Armael said.

“What exactly can [Druids] do?”

“They form connections to the environment, bonds that can be tight enough to control swaths of creatures, bend plants, and roll stones. Breaking a [Druid’s] connection requires one of three things━another [Druid], depleted aether, or enticing all the spirits away,” Armael explained, standing up and wiping dirt from his robes, which did the tattered garb no good.

“Great, so how do we entice spirits?” Noa asked, finishing his last tie. He bent his leg a few times, just to be sure it was actually put together.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Usually with something they find attractive.”

Me. They find me attractive, don’t they? Noa thought. Or rather, whatever the hell is haunting me. “Could my amulet do that?”

“For lesser and common spirits, perhaps, but if this [Druid] is controlling an entire pride of lions, he has to have at least a greater, possibly even a master spirit under his thumb,” Armael said. “Either way means both good and bad news.”

“Okay?” Noa asked, pushing himself up to his feet. He cringed as the blood rushed from his head, and promptly sat back down. It was going to take him some time longer to wake up.

Armael sighed. “You kids are in no shape to fight today,” he said.

“What’s wrong with Tin?”

“Fear, anxiety, death. Tin is learning to cope with these things.”

Noa turned his head, looking for where Tin laid, safely hidden under a pile of fur hides. He was, comparatively, smaller than Noa, and also quite a bit younger. “So what’s the good news of a high level spirit?”

“More aether.”

Oh, that was also bad news.

“Let’s begin gathering aether,” Armael moved away, collecting his bag from nearby, along with a thick hide. When he came back, he folded the hide to sit on, and collected bread from his sack. Splitting it, he offered Noa half. Then he pulled out some aether stones, mostly sapphires and emeralds, sprinkled with a few rubies.

“So, how does this work?” Noa asked, biting into his chewy bread. What a terrible meal to be discussing important things over. Or maybe a good one, given that Armael didn’t eat. Narrowing his eyes, Noa thought, You just want me to stuff my mouth to shut me up.

“First, you need to understand the differences between each stone. Different stones can hold different amounts of aether. For instance, opal, as you might have seen lighting the church and some homes, only holds about a hundred aether.”

Numbers. Actual numbers, Noa raised his brow, briefly recalling that his aether on his stat sheet did have a numerical value.

“Opals are lesser aether stones,” Armael continued, “and are essentially useless after the base classes, and even then. Sapphires are common stones, emeralds greater, rubies are master level, and diamonds deific level.”

“Like spirits,” Noa noted, refraining from taking a second bite. That stuff was stupid hard to chew!

“Yes, and spells.”

“I’m picking this up fast,” Noa smiled.

Armael blinked. “Kid,” he started, “You’re a decade behind; you’re not picking anything up fast.”

“Well that’s not my fault!”

“Sure it is! This is common knowledge.”

“I didn’t have a choice about the rock I lived under,” Noa murmured.

“The cave ceiling looks nice,” Armael rolled his eyes, rolling them right back into a glare at Noa. “Shut up and eat your bread.”

With a huff and frown, Noa bit into his barely edible meal. Seriously, where did Armael get this bread? I need to have a conversation with the baker...

“Common stones hold two hundred aether, as I’m sure you’ve discovered,” Armael went on, pointing to the sapphires.

It was true, Noa mostly had only used sapphires for his casting, occasionally other colors, unless... How many ranges of color were sapphires? Were they always blue?

“Greater stones hold four hundred aether━I sure you see the pattern here.”

Noa nodded.

“Good, that pattern is mostly applicable up to greater stones. Master and Deific stones can hold varying amounts of aether based on the cut, but we just need to fill these,” Armael motioned to the stones before him. He picked up a sapphire with a square cut, and handed it to Noa.

“You will need to use [Aether Sense] and [Aether Shaping] to collect Aether. First detect Aether with [Aether Sense], then pull and gather it with [Aether Shaping]. Finally, compress it into your stone. This, for you, is going to take quite a bit of time,” Armael warned.

“How come?”

“You can only collect the same amount of aether as your highest level spell. As in, you’ve not gained enough experience to gather more aether at once.”

“And... how much aether is that?” Noa asked, feeling a tad sheepish. How come he hadn’t put two and two together to figure out how much aether his spells cost? I had one hundred aether total when I first started out, and could only cast four spells... he recalled. “Lesser spells cost around, erm, 25 aether?”

“Yes,” Armael nodded. “Tell me you have at least one common spell already?”

“You’re in luck.”

“So are you, kid━I don’t have to whack you.”

Noa rolled his eyes.

“Now fill that stone.”

Holding the sapphire up, Noa narrowed his eyes. [Aether Sense] was, as far as he knew, always active since he learned it. He’d gotten so used to the heavy weight of aether from his amulet, he wasn’t sure if he even felt it, or rather, that he must have felt it all the time. Yet, he could still feel shifts when others used aether. Maybe it’s like pulling aether from a stone for a spell, he considered.

Internally pulling, Noa felt the aether resist. It wanted to do its own thing, and he was impeding on it, as his senses told him. Logic, on the other hand, said that aether wasn’t sentient, but that spirits were, so that didn’t make sense, unless the spirits were aether-possessive.

With another pull, he could feel the aether giving. Something clicked, and Noa knew that he had to use [Aether Shaping] immediately, or rather, he had to give direction to the aether he was pulling.

The air in front of him sparkled.

Cool.

Noa smiled, watching the aether gather, twinkling through the air as it circled around the stone he held. Pushing it into the stone was, by far, the hardest part. The stone resisted far more than the aether did when he initially pulled from it. That actually, despite the difficulty, seemed like a good thing━the aether couldn’t just escape the sapphire without being pulled from it.

Bit by bit, the aether slipped into the sapphire, giving it a dim glow by the time he was done.

“I did it!” he exclaimed, smiling.

“Good job, kid,” Armael said dryly. Noa looked over and... the priest was halfway through his second sapphire. Figures.

“This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?” Noa asked.

“Uh huh. Just remember, blood thirsty lions out there. No pressure.”

Noa deadpanned. I’ll “no pressure” you.