The Celestial Forge
By: Schin Ka’Tharos
CHAPTER 11
(Part 2)
Along with the revelation of the state of my soulcore came the understanding of where my pain was stemming from. Yes my body was broken but the pain within my soul was the true source of my agony.
“-Hey! -Schin! Snap out of it!” Ciara's shouting shattered my trance. My eyes shot open and I gasped for breath. Why had I stopped breathing?
“Thought we had lost you.” She was crouching over me. Concern played at the edges of her stoic mask. With her this close to me I could make out the features of her face more clearly and saw that the mark under her left eye was an intricate thin lined design that looked almost like a branded tattoo with slightly raised skin underneath the ink.
“Adeon, give me whatever Celestial Rending’s you have. “ She said as she leaned back.
“Here is everything I have on me. Both Arcane and Celestial are mixed together though.” Adeon reached into a layer of his robes and produced a money purse. He tossed the pouch to Ciara who wore a disapproving stare.
“What?” He shrugged.” I haven't had a chance to sort through it since…earlier this week.” .
She dumped the contents of the purse out onto a blanket she had laid out next to me. Rendings of various values and grades tumbled out. A majority were Arcane, especially the higher grade ones. She picked through the pile putting all of the Arcane Rendings back into the money purse. She stared at the remaining pile of Celestial Rendings thoughtfully and absently traced her fingers over the markings under her left eye.
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“I don't think you are in a state capable of using these lower grade Dregs, the Cinder percentage is too high in them and you probably wouldn't be able to handle soulforging them.” As she said this she scooped up and dumped all but five Rendings back into the purse. “We are left with these.”
“Damn, that’s still a lot of money sis.”
You must understand, my knowledge of Rendings and the monetary structure of Ildara was fairly limited at that time. In my early years I had spent most of my time with Grandfather and while he had taught me the basics of the system we never used nor needed money. My only other major time away from the Unending Waste and Grandfather was my time Jaspen and if you're unfamiliar with Jaspen, suffice it to say they do not use Rendings for various reasons.
For those of you reading from Jaspen or similar lands I will briefly explain Rendings for the purpose of this story. As I have previously stated, the Celestial Rain changed the foundations of cultures, economies and structures. Everything revolves around the heavenly manna because it is, in a sense, power physically manifested. In the years following the Great Celestial Rain, the very first falling, a group of Forgers discovered techniques that allowed them to externally spellforge the Celestial Rain in a limited capacity.
These secret techniques allowed the group to take the raw shards that fell from the sky and split them apart into small pieces of what’s now called Rendings. They could achieve precise equal sizes and some level of refinement. This allowed them to take the raw material of the Celestial Rain and create Rendings of uniform quality of varying value. Ga’els new monetary system was born and they would later go on to form the Merchants Guild which now holds tremendous power throughout most of the five continents.
Thus in those earliest moments with Ciara, given my limited knowledge of Rendings I asked seemingly simple-minded questions. That and my head was a fog due to the agony I was enduring.
“What exactly is the point of all of this?” I muttered through clenched teeth.
“Simple, you desperately need Celestial Essence. You will soulforge these as a stopgap to stabilize yourself and once that happens then…well let's first get you stable.” Ciara held out the five Rendings to me. “Did you break something in your head? Why are you giving me that stare?”
“You’re just going to give me these Rendings to consume? Why? Why are you doing all of this?” I gestured slightly to the bandages that encircled my torso. “You said you're both not good at healing. You’re either lying or you used up some incredible resources to get me as stable as I am. I know how bad I was before I lost consciousness after crashing here and the fact that I can move at all means you did something special.”
While I tried to steel my voice and lend a weight to my words my strength was already waning and my words were growing whispered and faint.
“I am grateful to you, I am. But I’m sure you can understand why I am at least…curious that you spent days nursing a stranger back to health at great cost to yourselves and now wish to spend what seems to be an additional significant amount of coin. Why are you doing this?”
NEXT CHAPTER...
Chapter 12