Cali traversed the trunk as quickly as her injuries would permit, her senses straining to detect the faintest hint of the Vold’s hunger. Contrary to her fears, the climb passed without incident, and as Cali rounded the trunk the platform came into sight. Upon it, Passi and Fen were engrossed in glowering at one another. Neither spreiban stirred when Cali alighted upon the platform, nor when she cleared her throat. In fact, it wasn’t until Cali whistled to get their attention that either seemed to notice anything was amiss. Startled, the pair of spreiban whirled towards her, and pandemonium followed. There was a loud crack as bone collided with bone, followed by the jangling of disturbed antler ornaments. One, or both of them growled. For all their differences, both had the same reaction to surprise.

Staring at the two spreiban, bound together by interlocked antlers, Cali couldn’t help but giggle— though the laughter brought with it sharp twinges of pain from her ribs. The pair looked preposterous, a fact not helped by their stupefied expressions. It took a few moments, but the spreiban extricated themselves with practiced ease, leaving Cali to wonder if such incidents occurred often.

As the pair completed their task and turned to her —without incident this time— Cali stared at the two spreiban.

Fen met her gaze for a moment, opened es mouth as if to say something, stopped, and then stared fixedly at the platform beneath es hooves, while rubbing at es antlers. In contrast, Passi’s gaze had yet to leave es antler ornamentation, where fingers busied themselves untangling strings of beads, attempting to reclaim some shreds of dignity.

Cali was the first to speak. “I made a deal with the primeval ones. I think they wanted to talk to you about my requests, as you’ll be the ones fulfilling them.”

“The primevals did?” Passi didn’t wait for an answer before scampering into the tunnel, fingers hurriedly realigning ornaments as e went.

Fen made no move to follow after; in fact, e made no move at all until the tapping of hooves was swallowed up by the tunnel. Then e shuffled es hooves beneath em, before looking up to meet Cali’s gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me?” E said, pain and betrayal writ large in es eyes.

It took her a second to realize what e was talking about. The primeval ones had declared her to be fheadhain, in direct contradiction to everything Fen had believed. Her first instinct was still to deny it. The notion that she was a fheadhain —some all powerful being out of spreiban mythology— seemed absurd, and yet she couldn’t deny the uncanny similarity between her and the mosaic. Could the fheadhain be her ancestors?

Fen’s shoulders were curled forward, one arm was held against es chest, hand clutching the elbow of the other. Fingers worried at the thick fabric of his shirt. Es whole posture screamed of emotional vulnerability, and Cali suppressed an urge to hug the spreiban or to apologize for the hurt she’d caused. Several half-truths proffered themselves to her brain, explanations, an easy way out. Cali ignored them, Fen might deserve an honest answer, and... this little bit of truth felt safe enough to share.

She knelt down beside Fen. “I didn’t tell you, because I... I didn’t know. I had... I had never heard the word fheadhain before I came here.” Cali paused, and reached a hand out towards Fen’s shoulder, but, let it fall back to her side without ever making contact.

“Look, I wasn’t trying to lie to you, Fen. My people call ourselves human, and the science is pretty clear on that. Sure we look a little different and not everyone likes us for it, but most everyone agrees that just because you’re dæin doesn’t mean you’re not human.”

Saying it aloud, Cali was struck by the similarity between the two words. Dæin... fheadhain. Fheadæin?

Confusion danced across Fen’s eyes. “Hu-man?Then... I was right? Could the primeval ones be wrong... are you kith?”

“I...I don’t know. The planetary origin of my people —the dæin— has always been a mystery. Your primeval one’s might be right, perhaps my people were your fheadhain, before they left Llyr behind, for a place amidst the stars.”

After all, there was the mosaic, that fheadhain woman had looked near identical to her. Maybe Llyr was the birthplace of her people. It would be poetic to end up on the ancient homeworld of her people, while searching for a new home. In any event, the rumoured kith had been spotted near some fheadhain ruins, so she could look for more evidence there to corroborate her “homeworld” hypothesis, while tracking down civilization. Two birds with one stone.

“Do you mean to tell me that you came to us from the stars?” Fen tugged at his bristles, with a motion reminiscent of someone pinching themselves. With some reluctance Cali nodded; that particular element of truth may not have been so harmless. After her confirmation, Fen continued: “If you have come from the stars than the primevals were right. You are fheadhain. I am sorry to have doubted it. You were not what I expected, honoured one.” As Fen spoke the final words e bowed and let out a gravelly chuckle. “Now, I must tell the auld.” With those final words, Fen scampered onto the platform at the top of the stairs, which promptly whisked em away, leaving Cali alone on the platform.

‘Alone’. The moment Fen disappeared from view, a black box materialized.

How tiresome.

The locals are ever so excitable aren’t they.

Tiresome might be a better descriptor of your vanishing act whenever I ask for clarification, than of the locals. After Cali’s sardonic reply, there was distinct pause before words began materializing once more.

But your reactions are ever so amusing.

Oh, do not pout so. You should know full well that I am only interfacing with you because you are equal parts entertaining and intriguing.

I do suppose that I could endeavour to be more forthcoming, if only so that we might speak more.

I was not pouting, I just... ugh. Cali paced the length of the small platform. From the stairs the whistling of air told her the platform was near the top once more. You warned me about reentering the tunnel. The Vold, what is it?

Very old, very hungry, and not to be trifled with. You needn’t trouble yourself with more details than that.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Ah, open dialogue. Isn’t this fun!

Cali rolled her eyes. Somehow, despite its assurance it would be more forthcoming, the box had managed to be less useful and more infuriating than normal. Is this where you tell me ‘if I want to know more I’ll have to experiment, because I love experiments.’

By all the five no!

Are you daft?

Do not attempt to experiment on the Vold!

Did you not, just moments ago, tell me climbing the outside of the tree was “probably” fine, the Vold “probably” wouldn’t notice and that I should test it, because you’d be curious to see the results?

Well...

Hark, the local is returning.

Cali glanced towards the tunnel, from which, the steady sounds of hooves and jangling ornaments was audible. When she looked back, the box was gone. “Damn it,” she muttered, adding a mental note to grill the box about it next time it deigned to appear.

Passi bustled out of the tunnel, es bristles trembling. Es eyes darted to and fro taking in the clearing, noting Fen’s absence before honing in on Cali. “Is it true then? Are you leaving us?”

Cali nodded.

“But, but... you can’t. I— our enclave needs you!” Passi scrambled forward, fingers clutching at the hem of Cali’s shirt. “Please, I beg you to reconsider. You have seen our Gyntaf, how it suffers.”

Cali shook her head. The prospect of staying was unappealing. Doing so would be inviting the spreiban to use her like a tool to solve their problems. Unappealing wasn’t a strong enough word for the revulsion Cali felt at the thought. “No. I have business of my own on Llyr, do not attempt to impede it, lest you anger the primeval’s and myself.”

Passi shrank back as if e had been struck. “I... understand. We shall begin the preparations immediately; let us away.”

----------------------------------------

Passi had run off to begin overseeing the preparations, leaving Cali with a handful of wardens and instructions to return ‘the honoured fheadhain’ back to her abode. Aia was notably absent from the honour guard, and upon inquiring Cali discovered the head warden was preoccupied, investigating last night’s bachyn tån attack. The mood among her escort was subdued, though every so often Cali caught one of the spreiban wardens staring at her with undisguised awe. Among those staring, she recognized several members of the Auld, evidence that Fen had already spread the word of her “fheadhain” identity amongst them. Besides that, the journey passed without incident.

As soon as the front doors of her temporary abode were shut, Cali made for the pile of blankets in the corner and eased herself into them. The dull pain from her ribs that accompanied each breath was driving her crazy. Despite her request, would she be ready to travel in several days?

The trip down from the primevals’ glade had been silent and strained, but when they’d re-entered the enclave proper, Passi had been all smiles and bustled off to start making her requested preparations. Cali had little doubt the spreiban would have the supplies ready for her departure; she just had to make sure that she was ready.

While she lacked any magic that could help with the healing process, or the time to derive the equations for a new spell, the cøras system had HP and the like. Maybe some of those points she’d gained for “discovering” the primevals’ grove could help speed her recovery. And, of course, there was only one way to find out. Experiment —unless that troublesome black box was feeling cooperative.

Cali stared into the blank space the box usually appeared in, but her occasional companion failed to materialize. She supposed that that had been too much to hope for. Turning her attention past the veil, Cali discovered the cøras menu indicated that she had indeed gained a dozen new XP to spend, and a single AP. Which suggested that rate of gain for the former was prodigious compared to the later.

Still, when she’d assigned her previous AP, there appeared to have been side effects, the loss of circular arrow from besides her DP. Which, based on how slowly her DP seemed to be recovering compared to the rest of her stats, suggested those circular arrows might represent the recovery rate.

Considering her present condition, HP recovery seemed like a priority, and given how critical her magic was going to be for surviving the jungle’s dangers MP recovery wasn’t far behind. Which left DP and SP recovery; she wasn’t sure if recovery rate could hit zero, or go negative but that didn’t seem like something she wanted to risk, meaning DP wasn’t a credible option. Which left SP, stamina. Stamina had plenty of recovery already, so she could probably afford the hit there, even if she was hiking through the jungle.

She’d assigned the last point of AP to green, and it had effected her DP, thus, if the same pattern held true for the rest of the colours then the blue one would have a detrimental effect on stamina recovery, while also boosting mana and health, which was perfect.

And if she was wrong? Well, at least she could still assign her XP in an attempt to correct any downsides.

The moment Cali made her resolution, one of the points of the star for the blue symbol started to flash. She confirmed her choice with the pop up and...

[https://imgur.com/a/E94id8x.jpg][https://imgur.com/24yDzCe.jpg]

Contrary to her expectations neither her health, nor health recovery rate had increased. Hadn’t the damnable box told her that each element effected the stats on either side of it? Oh well, hopefully her XP would let her boost that. At least everything else had worked as predicted; her stamina recovery had decreased and her mana supply and recovery had both increased dramatically. It felt like she’d grasped a piece of the puzzle of how the cøras worked.

The moment those words crossed her mind the black box materialized.

Bravo!

Looks like you’re starting to get the hang of things.

Oh there you are. Before we were interrupted I believe you were about to tell me why you ran that little experiment with the Vold by having me climb the outside of the cysug tree. Don’t worry, I’m sure we won’t be interrupted this time.

The box’s only response was to vanish. Cali groaned.

She was either going to have to force the issue by bringing it up every time it showed up, and hope that its interest in her outweighed its unwillingness to talk, or give up entirely so that she could keep getting answers to other questions. Cali mulled over the options for a several minutes, and had yet to reach a conclusion when the box reappeared.

I’ll tell you about XP.

It was a blatant attempt to change the topic.

Practically a bribe, considering how tight-lipped the box had been about the cøras system before, and how useful the knowledge would be given her current unspent stash. Fine. Tell me about XP.

Over the course of the next hour, Cali managed to extract a few useful pieces of information from the box. Firstly, that XP spent on HP, MP, SP and DP had a multiplicative interaction with the elements. Moreover, it told her that once XP track for every attribute was full, she could begin to purchase skills with it. Though it had refused to disclose what skills might be available to her.

At its urging, Cali had spent her XP, adding 4 to HP, 2 to MP and 3 to both SP and DP; the box insisted the system was all about attaining balance, and that letting any one attribute get too far ahead in XP was undesirable. Though, as with skills, it had refused to disclose the consequence of an unbalanced distribution. When Cali had attempted to press the issue, the box had insisted it was time for her to rest. When she’d continued to press, it hinted that her recovery rate would increase if she slept, and that that was her best bet of being ready in time for her expedition, and vanished.

With the box gone again for the time being, taking the answers to her questions with it Cali elected to follow its advice and drifted off to sleep.