Waking up with his head feeling split open in the infirmary was unfortunately seeming as though it was developing into a habit. Blinking away the headache he saw seated before him a bashful looking Cobalt with her usually proud head hung down in shame. The look was honestly unnatural and uncanny on her, frankly it was not something he expected to see short of the world ending. A quick glance out the window confirmed indeed the world had not once again been swallowed by the Age of Ash, and so John needed to ask.
“What happened?” He wheezed weaker than expected, coughing out black-tinged saliva.
“Well I uh… I might have pushed you too hard in your spar and you might have um… electrocuted yourself…” Cobalt admitted quietly.
Memories started to put themselves back into place, though the recent past was still a blurry mess of jumbled sensations mostly obscured by pain. “So that’s what happened… ugh…”
He tried to sit up straight but was immediately punished by a searing pain in every one of his joints. Looking down he saw new lightning patterned scars all across his body, though far less extensive than his admittedly unreliable memory and current pain suggested it should have been. Nonetheless it was disconcerting to say the least.
When she saw the attempt at movement Cobalt perked back up and began to yell out a duststorm of words at him. “Don’t move too much, you still need at least another day to heal! Though I must admit you are healing awfully well for someone that apparently had internal burns around every single meridian that doesn’t mean you should push yourself more than you already have! While I would love to discuss how a secondary minor regeneration mutation or perhaps an electrical resistance side-effect may have influe-”
“Slow down Col, Spirits…” John insisted.
Cobalt suddenly stopped in her tracks and stared at him with a blank expression.
“Is.. ack… some… ahem… thing wrong?” He coughed.
“Col… is that a nickname?” She asked quietly, eyes suddenly seemingly twice their size.
“Uh… I urgk… yes?” He answered hesitantly.
Cobalt lit up more than when she was physically glowing evidently giddy with glee, practically vibrating in her chair as she ran a clawed finger through translucent hair. Her patterns shifted rapidly from the usual plain white to various bright combinations of scale and skin. “Nobody has ever given me a nickname before… Col… sounds like Coal, I think I like it!”
Too tired to question things further John simply continued. “That’s good then. But uh… how long have I been here?”
“Long enough for me to wake up too, well done sleepyhead! You managed to outdo someone who spent three days doing nothing but stare at crushed rocks and drink dubious potions!” A familiar mocking voice made itself known as Magni entered the room.
“Spirits no…” He heard Cobalt groan, initial giddiness apparently drained by Magni’s mere presence.
To avoid unnecessary pain John turned his head extremely slowly, and saw his friend with half his face hastily bandaged with only two sapphire blue orbs exposed. He thought about asking what happened, did he perhaps hit his head?
“Oh before you ask, yes I did hit my head, no that’s not why I am wearing a blindfold now and yes I can read minds! Glad to get that out of the way!” Magni answered preemptively with the greatest shit eating grin.
“Oh… ok…” John stuttered out, caught a little off guard. “But to my original question… how long was I out this time?”
Cobalt simply sighed behind him and gave a more helpful explanation. “A little under 24 hours, again much faster than expected given the extent of your self-inflicted shock. Though I must deeply apologise for my contributions to the conditions that led to it…”
“It’s alright… besides Elder Aurelium kracked your ass for it didn’t he?” John stated with a shit eating grin of his own.
Cobalt gasped, alabaster skin turning ruby red. “I- that’s besides the point! I am trying to explain and apologise of my own accord!”
“Oh he did didn’t he~” Magni teased with a shit eating grin of his own.
“I hate you guys! You court death with your insults upon this proud young mistress!” Cobalt grumbled.
Though John did not miss the small and genuine smile on her face.
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With both John and Magni recovering from mostly self-inflicted injuries the group decided to do some less-intensive recreational activities as a sort of apology to their bodies once John was ready to walk again. John was officially still barred from leaving the Sect of course… but knowing someone who has literally lived here her entire life has its perks.
“See Dad thought he sealed up these caves pretty well, but he gets lazy. Right before the… advanced interrogation chambers… there is a little crack too small for any of the bigger members of the Sect to squeeze through which leads right into a part of the cave system that was once connected to the entirety of the Lead Cave! I’ve never travelled that far but I have read that the underground river there leads straight to Greywater!” Cobalt explained as they reached an admittedly small break between natural rock and imposing masonry.
Magni inspected the small hole. “How did they not notice this for so long? The airflow alone should give it away!”
John snorted. “Not everyone has your senses dozen-eyes!”
“Well at the very least your old man should have noticed, doesn’t he have some spooky eye mutation shit too?” Magni countered.
John didn’t actually really have an answer for that. Perhaps he knew and simply didn’t say anything like Cobalt, in fact he could certainly imagine there were uses for access to a secret network of cave systems.
“Does it really matter? Now are you rock-skulls gonna argue about this all day until the walls crumble of boredom or are you coming in with me?” Cobalt asked, evidently irritated.
“We weren’t gonna do that Col!” John defended for the two of them, but mostly for himself.
Cobalt nodded sceptically. “Uh huh… whatever boys, just don’t take too long.”
“Well since this is your natural habitat after you my friend!” Magni mock-offered with a dramatic bow.
“If you are thinking of chickening out Magni you can go fuck yourself!” John laughed, squeezing with practised ease into the crevice.
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“Well someone has to be the responsible adult of the group!” Magni scoffed, awkwardly adjusting himself to follow shortly behind.
The combination of ARTOS and the growth of his body made caving more difficult than in his memories but years of experience took the reigns as he made it into the small passageway. All that was needed was a few minor adjustments here and there from his usual technique before he was moving almost as fast as he remembered he should have been able to. Based on the annoyed grunting shortly behind, Magni did not have such an advantage, causing John no shortage of amusement. Ahead Cobalt lit up the torch she brought with her and illuminated a wide opening just beyond the narrow entrance. It was just about wide enough for the trio to stand shoulder to shoulder and continued down in a sort of spiral deep into the earth, water carved contours extending far past the range of the artificial torchlight.
“Come on boys! And watch your step, it gets quite slippery in here!” Cobalt said cheerily, leading the way into the deep darkness.
Now was the real test for John’s atrophied skills.
Slippery floors were a common hazard for Ruin Rats, when his feet touched the cold cave water a shiver went down his spine igniting a trail of sparks along its path. Thankfully the path down was much easier than expected, probably due to claw marks in the solid stone which indicated Cobalt had been hard at work making the place more navigable. As they continued their descent however the modifications became more and more scant, and if it wasn’t for his experience in these situations or Magni’s impossible perception the two of them would have probably fallen on their face at least once even with their beyond-mortal physical attributes. The cave continued to wind, narrow, widen and branch until they reached an extremely large opening where a huge underground river rushed through the middle of the cave lined with mysterious pink shapes. A closer inspection revealed them to be strange eyeless creatures that almost looked like gilled rattlebeasts with their vestigial legs, except they somehow moved even more slowly than the already usually dopey creatures.
“What are these things? They barely have a psychic presence at all!” Magni noted, poking at one with a finger.
“I call them Ohs! Based on the sound one of them made when I tried to eat them, but they don’t taste very good. They are cute though, and more importantly they are some form of Spirit Beast which means…” Cobalt explains, trailing off too allow the others to pick up the pieces.
“There is a Si deposit nearby?” John asked.
The torch became unnecessary as Cobalt’s skin lit up in the dark matching the expression on her face. “Bingo! This is the main reason I dragged you guys down here, I wanted to share my secret little cultivation spot with you guys!”
“Isn’t something like this meant to be a big deal secret?” Magni asked, raising half of his eyebrows.
“It is but you are my friends! So I trust you!” Cobalt exclaimed with an innocent cheer which made John’s heart do something funny.
Goddammit… your emotions are loud John. I know it might be hard but can you quiet down your thoughts on little princess murderball here? John “heard” Magni’s voice in his mind.
Hey! I… stop listening in my head if it’s such a big deal! He complained in his thoughts.
I wasn’t trying to, make it harder! Try putting a mental barrier around your brain or something, your arm seems to have figured it out already! Magni continued to berate in his head.
Wait when you said ar- John started to think before his thoughts were interrupted by an Oh slapping into his face with a wet thud, followed by a similar one for Magni. True to the name the strange creature made a weak “oh” sound followed by collapsing into a pile of goo on the floor and crawling into the water to reconstitute.
Cobalt looked and sounded exasperated as she practically pouted. “Now as I was saying, shall we continue with the tour?”
“Sorry… yeah…” John answered bashfully.
“Aye aye princess!” Magni replied with his trademark shit eating grin.
The group continued down the river until they came across a geode of lightly glowing purple crystals that was clearly exposed by Cobalt’s efforts given the clean claw cuts that separated it from the surrounding stone. A well crafted trap kept a large swarm of Ohs from entering the geode, itself decorated with various carvings and bone trophies.
Cobalt beamed with pride, extending her arms widely. “And here it is! My little secret, but I guess it’s our little secret now!”
“Wow… how did you find this Col?” John asked, genuinely impressed.
“I sniffed it out! My nose never lies!” Cobalt answered, hand on her chest and turning her head up with pride.
“Imp indeed… though those formations… did you carve them out yourself?” Magni asked.
“Yes?” Cobalt answered cautiously.
Magni took off his blindfold revealing several sets of eyes glowing a faint purple in the darkness. “They are good for someone without psychic senses… but they aren’t good enough. Would you kindly allow this humble junior brother to share some pointers?”
“Uh… sure?” Cobalt responded.
“Great, now John, Cobalt, both of you can make your hands into sharp things right?” Magni asked.
Both of them nodded. Cobalt extended her knife claws while John reshaped ARTOS into a bladed instrument.
“Great! Now get ready, we might be here a while…”
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Several hours later John safely disposed of a build-up of sweat somewhere far away from the underground river and returned to a geode glowing brighter than the torchlight. The Si in the air felt denser. It wasn’t exactly as though there was more Si around, but it was better distributed in the air surrounding the geode. He could already feel his still slightly charred meridians naturally expanding to take in the new Si source. The once slow and nearly sessile Ohs were in a frenzy, necessitating Cobalt dig out a bigger trap in order to prevent them from accessing the geode. Intricate runes and patterns were carved into the crystal walls, surrounding a massive symbol that looked like a slightly warped version of the mark of Cultivation. Three wavy triangles surrounding a sphere of carved crystal in the heart of the chamber.
“Wow… Magni this is… what do you call it…” Cobalt began to praise, nearly breathless with awe.
“Fucking Imp? Yeah I know! You may now bow down to this unrivalled expert!” Magni declared with an impossibly wide grin which stretched from leftmost eye to rightmost.
“It is cool Magni, but respectfully, go krack yourself!” John laughed, prompting a rock being telekinetically chucked at his forehead and an even more raucous laugh from Magni.
“That’s enough you overgrown children!” Cobalt scoffed, yet with a wide smile of her own. Her posture was visibly relaxed, free from an invisible tension that he had not even known was present until its absence. It was strange, but certainly not in a bad way, but tiny changes in everything from body language to tone of voice gave off a completely different air to what he had come to expect.
He felt another piece of gravel hit the back of his head and shot Magni an annoyed expression.
What? You should have expected this when you got distracted! Come on John, you know me! Magni psychically broadcast.
I guess you are right… John thought, sighing with his physical body. By the way, what did you mean about… you know… my arm?
Ah right! The psychic signatures are really so similar they would be hard to tell apart if not for the psychic wall built around the metal plates especially. It’s really quite impressive, the only one with anything comparable to it in the Sect right now is Old Man Aurelium. Magni explained. Really I expected you to know it considering it’s attached to you and all.
Yes… interesting indeed… John mentally noted, staring into one of the eyes lining his arm
The two of them got Ohs thrown at them again. John didn’t manage to dodge once more being unceremoniously covered with pink rapidly regenerating goo making a pathetic “oh” sound while Magni quickly erected a psychic field in order to prevent the same fate from occurring to him in the nick of time.
“I should have seen this coming.” John deadpanned.
“You really should have!” Cobalt grinned.
The three of them laughed freely, knowing this was one of the soon to be very scarce periods of downtime prior to the Tournament and the arrival of Sect members abroad as well as minor Sects participating. All of them would be expected to put on proper faces to represent the Sect, Cobalt more than all of them. So all three of them knew deep in their hearts this little bit of carelessness… this small freedom… they needed to cherish it.
And they would have no idea how right they were…