Zalia moved quietly through the trees until she found herself where she was aiming to get. She had seen it from far off, an ending to the trees that looked like the world just ended. Zalia now stood, looking out over a clifftop at the surrounding lands and realised that she was standing atop a giant island tethered to the ceiling with the many giant stone pillars.
“Well damn,” Zalia thought.
This was going to make things a little harder.
She took a few steps back from the edge to think about what to do. It could be that the island was actually safer because of its relative isolation, maybe there was nothing really living here because it was so high up. Looking out over the land far below, she finally caught a proper look at the floating island far away and further above. It was like her own, tethered to the ceiling with the large stone pillars though it hadn't seemed that way from where she had seen it before. Now that she was out of the trees she could see that there were a few more similar islands far off into the distance as well, though too far to be of any concern to her right now. She could now see that the closest island did have buildings like she had expected, some kind of odd constructions that may be natural but she thought to be made by something or someone.
Zalia turned away from the edge and moved further into her island to continue exploring. Surely there was something here that she could use. She could float down to the real surface using the Zephyr herb but wouldn't have any way back up. She didn't want to do that, keeping access to the safe cave she had found was important. She added finding a way down and back up to her mental list, planning to add it to the wall list later.
She thought back to the fight with Juniper and wondered again what a crow was doing here and how it had survived the corrupting aura. She hadn’t ever seen one in Endaria and had not seen one for a very long time in her own world either. To find one here of all places was strange. Deciding it was not only improbable but impossible for it to be a normal crow, she thought it must be some kind of magical creature. Maybe it was something from this world that had disguised itself.
She travelled all the way through the centre of the island to the other side, a feat that took her a good hour to accomplish even at her speed. She had just wanted to see how big the island was and the whereabouts of her cave. Now knowing it was somewhat central but off to the side, she knew she could find it from anywhere on the island but looking up at the pillars that rose up into the sky, able to identify the correct one. Looking up into the sky she thought about the person she had seen flying overhead once in Endelbyrn and once again wished for a similar ability.
Mobility was close to Bronze ranked already and she wanted to get it there soon to see if it would provide her with such. She doubted it would but it was worth a try. Then again she didn't really have any way of quickly increasing its rank other than her already existing daily routine.
As she travelled in a circular pattern around the island, Zalia found an old decrepit looking altar. It was hard to read what exactly was written on it or to discern what the carved pictures were but she got a feeling of mystery from it. The altar was a small chunk of wood, the top split and curved up and outwards in either direction before coming back in to the sides of the altar. Each of the sections had what looked like feathers carved into them. Wings maybe? It was hard to tell.
There were words written in a language she couldn't read on the front, the majority of the letters so faded and torn by time that even if she did speak the language she wouldn't be able to read it anyways. She brushed her hand over the top of the altar, feeling an instinct similar to when she had first met the starlight wolves in Endaria. She couldn't help but remember the crow she had seen once more and decided to pick up the small altar, taking it home with her.
She returned to the cave, pushing the small altar ahead of her through the smaller tunnel section before lifting it once more and bringing it into her new home. She thought about widening the passage to make entering the icy cave easier but decided it could be a good defensive measure if she were ever attacked by bigger creatures. She placed the altar gently on the ground and looked at it. She felt like she should try and fix it, some instinct telling her it was important. She didn't really have the tools to do that though and so left it there to go explore some more.
She spent the next few days exploring but found nothing else of interest. Just as she had thought, there was no other life on this floating island either due to the shades floating above or its isolation from the land below. She was about to give up on finding any way down other than using Zephyr when on the third day she made a discovery.
She was sitting in front of the altar she had found on the island, trying to figure out the strange instinct she experienced when looking at it. She had tried all kinds of things from cleaning the spongy dirt off of it to performing a couple of harmless herbal rituals but nothing changed. She read through all of her abilities and the description of Healing presence got caught in her mind. It allowed her to actually heal flora as well as creatures, so she tried pushing the healing into the altar. It wasn't flora as such but it had originally come from a tree so, why not?
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To her surprise it worked and the small altar slowly healed, the writing and carvings on the front repairing and roots growing from its base into the stone beneath. Finally, as her healing stopped and the altar stood reformed, she could see the depictions carved into it. The two pieces coming from the top and curving around it were indeed styled as wings. The front had depictions of creatures, objects and mysteries clouded in shadow. Amongst it all, the recurring image of the crow appeared in different sizes and shapes but all being unmistakable. The wings were those of a crows, the creature showing up in the background of different images carved across the altar.
Zalia didn't understand who or what the altar was dedicated to but she did know that the crow she had seen amongst the high up branches of the trees couldn't be a coincidence. A memory of something the starlight wolf had said to Zalia came to mind,
“My power has waned much since the days past, not many still revere the old gods. Those of us who remain wish to see nature preserved and you have shown yourself to be someone who would do such. Do I see wrongly, Zalia?” the wolf had said.
Looking at the altar she had a feeling that it was dedicated to just one such god of old. But why was it here? How could the altar of a god of Endaria come to be in Cormaine?
Cormaine was what many on Endaria considered to be the afterlife for those who do bad in life, a hell as such. She had never heard anyone speak of any comparison to something like heaven and she had a chilling thought. What if Cormaine was just where everyone went when they died? What if somehow this god had died and come here?
Maybe Cormaine wasn’t even an afterlife at all, just some world closely linked by magic to the world Endaria sat upon.
Realising she might be able to help the growth of the water lilies in the pool, she started pushing healing into them as well. She turned away from the altar and gathered a bit of stone creature hide, some various herbs from her stasis and placed them at the foot of the altar. Boreal even made a little ice sculpture of a crow there as well. Once they were done she felt a hint of acceptance mixed with surprise. She couldn't explain where those feelings came from or how she knew what they were; it was just… instinctual.
She watched the altar but nothing happened. Shrugging, she walked off and left the caves once more, getting back to work. She had explored most of the island but there was just a little bit left that needed to be seen. She didn't expect to find anything there but it was worth looking anyway.
As expected, there was nothing of interest there and she left, going back home. When she arrived, she found Boreal playing with the crow from the treetops. They were running around, chasing each other and being a general nuisance.
“Um,” Zalia said.
The crow immediately stopped and Boreal crashed into it, balling it over. Boreal got back up and looked like she was about to pounce again but saw Zalia and stopped as well.
“Friend!” Boreal said to Zalia.
With the word came images of the ice sculpture crow cracking and growing until it became the little creature Zalia saw before her now. The crow looked at her through one eye, its head tilted to the side. It let out a low croak.
“Hello to you too,” Zalia greeted.
It hopped towards her, inspecting her inquisitively. Deciding she wasn't a threat, it went back to roughhousing with Boreal, the two of them rolling across the floor in a mock battle. Zalia shook her head and went back to her list on the wall. She thought about what she could do to get to one of the other islands, maybe even down to the ground. A rope or vine ladder was a bad idea since it was so far making something would be hard and take forever. Let alone making something sturdy enough.
As she thought about it, something made her turn around to look at Boreal and the crow. The sound of their battle had stopped dead and Zalia saw why. Boreal was rearing up to jump on the crow that was on the ground on its back yet they were both frozen, unmoving. With a twitch the crow looked at her and spoke,
“To go across, look up, not down,” it said in a hoarse, croaking voice.
In a flash, Boreal unfroze and they continued the fight. The crow didn't look at her or even seem to notice it had spoken. Boreal didn't seem to have noticed either.
“What the hell was that?” Zalia thought.
To go across, look up, not down. What did that mean?
Realisation struck,
“You’re a genius! We can climb up the towers to the ceiling of the cavern and traverse along it to the other islands!” Zalia exclaimed, looking at the crow.
Both it and Boreal looked at her confused but Zalia was too happy to care. It might take a long time but it was definitely a more reliable way of getting to the other islands. She just needed to figure out an easy way of traversing the ceiling of the place. It was quite rocky with plenty of various downwards pointing spikes and other rock formations sticking out of it. She could probably find a path across using some Zephyr, her double jump and the strength and dexterity she now had. Boreal could probably just walk upside down across the ceiling using her strange wall climbing method using ice.
Zalia looked at the altar in the room and realised whatever god it was dedicated to might not be as dead as she thought. It had just spoken to her through her and Boreal’s new friend.