Zalia stood out the front of her cave, staring upwards at the stone pillar extending from the island to the ceiling far above. Climbing up the pillar with her increased strength and the help of the weight lightening Zephyr herb would be easy. Somehow making her way across the ceiling of the giant cavern to one of the other islands would not. She’d had a few ideas on how to traverse the space between islands. One was to use the feather fall effect and gusts of wind supplied by Zephyr rituals to float across once she had reached the top of the pillar. This held obvious downsides being that she would run out of Zephyr quite quickly and she couldn't even guarantee she would make it.
Another idea she had was to make her way across the ceiling by climbing across it in a similar way to how Boreal did, though she would have to practice the technique significantly to manage it. Finally, she realised that she was going about it in a stupid way. Because of her Iron rank Herbal magic skill, she could replicate any Tin rank herb effect in a ritual without needing to use any of the herb whatsoever. Two of her Tin rank herbs were Manifest and Dodge-vine. She had used the combination of the two in many ways before, mixing it with Snow-leaf to make icy armour, creating shields similar to Protection of the Wilds, things like that.
There was no reason however, that it couldn't be used to create a bridge across gaps. She considered just going straight across from her island to the other but thought better of it when she looked out at the hundreds if not thousands of shades floating around. Closer to the ceiling there weren't nearly so many of them. It seemed like the shades didn't like being near to anything solid, for whatever reason. The ceiling would also provide the fallback of being able to have something solid to build her Dodge-vine and Manifest bridge off of. The material created by the ritual was only temporary and she would have to attach it to something every so often. The large stalactites growing from the ceiling would provide perfect points to do just that.
She had no idea if the other island would have dangerous creatures on it but she had to have a look anyways. She was actually feeling a lot calmer here than she had back in Endaria. There was no politics, deceit, betrayal or, most importantly, people. Despite that, it was still not a very nice place to live. The red tinged atmosphere, sulphurous air and corrupting aura definitely lent motivation to her goal of leaving. There were much nicer places that shared this place's lack of people and politics.
She started climbing, Boreal following close behind. For the first part she just jumped nimbly from rock to rock, climbing with ease until the base of the pillar steepened into a rough rock face. At this point she started making a staircase circling around the pillar into the sky. They climbed the seemingly endless stairs as swirls of glowing herbs brought a vine-y path into existence in front of them, the plant withering and falling to dust not far behind.
Long ago, when she had first joined the Morning’s Shade, Zalia had told Hildebrandt, Matthias and Hidey that her Herbal magic would become one of her most important and diverse abilities. Her words spoken then became true now. She climbed tirelessly until she reached the very ceiling of the endless cavern. She looked down across the land below from her new vantage point. She could see many other floating islands now, each of them suspended from the ceiling in the same manner. The ground below each island stretched endlessly into the distance, so far distant from her now that she couldn't make out any detail.
As she kept up the ritual beneath her, refreshing it constantly to stop it decaying, she started using her rock shattering method to dig out a small place to sit. It took a long time to heat and cool the rock enough times to break off a section large enough for her to sit in but it would be good for later. Having a space she could rest in up here might save her life later down the line. Boreal helped by pushing ice into any cracks that appeared and expanding it, splitting any cracks further open until they were done. They stepped off the vine construct beneath them and sat down, Zalia letting out a sigh.
Congratulations! Healing presence has reached Iron 18.
“Another level closer,” Zalia thought.
It wasn't long now until she discovered what Bronze rank would have in store for a few of her abilities. She summoned a piece of water lily stem and crunched it down, savouring the feeling of refreshment that it provided. She passed a little bit to Boreal as well who seemed to enjoy the crunchy stem much more than she did grey creature meat.
Zalia looked out across the jagged ceiling, trying to plot as much of a path as she could from where she was. If she wanted to go back and forth from the other island, it might be worth trying to mark out a good path for herself. She just needed some way to go about doing that. She summoned her blade as an idea came to mind. The sword was extremely sharp and ignored armour quite well. While it couldn't cut straight through stone it could definitely leave it marked without damaging the blade at all.
She resummoned the vine bridge and stepped onto it, stretching as she yawned.
“Let's do this,” Zalia said to Boreal, cracking her neck.
She started moving as quickly as her vine ritual would allow her, zig-zagging between stalactites and marking each with a slash of her sword. They made slow but steady progress across the gaping abyss below, not entirely worried as she had the backup plan of Zephyr and her double jump from Mobility if necessary. Twice she had to backtrack as a passage led to a dead end, no other outcropping or stalactite close enough to bridge to. Each time, she slashed through her marks again making a cross so she didn't go by that path the next time she made the trip.
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Eventually, she reached one of the large pillars holding up the island that was her destination. She took another rest here, making a similar indent into the stone that they could sit in.
“I really need to get a better way of digging through stone,” Zalia thought, remembering Larel’s ability to punch through basically anything.
The woman had made a new “doorway” in a wall by simply punching it, revealing the secret room that had held the first ritual site they had discovered. For the first time in a while, Zalia thought about that day atop the tower where everything had gone so wrong. She was still worried for Zen but only now considered that Larel could have been in trouble as well. She had been fighting Hidey when Zalia had been taken to Cormaine after all. She didn't owe the woman any loyalty as such but she had broken them out of jail.
“No point worrying,” Zalia reminded herself for the hundredth time.
Whatever had happened had already happened and there was nothing she could do or have done about it.
Zalia looked down at the island beneath her. Unlike the previous one it wasn't forested whatsoever and held what looked to be the ruins of some ancient city. The buildings stretched across the entire width of the island, most of it crumbling but some in relatively good shape. Looking down, she could see movement here and there that didn't seem like the shades floating around. It looked like something or someone did live here.
She was really hoping they weren’t hostile but didn't go so far as to believe they wouldn't be. Maybe they were a peace loving people that lived in literal hell?
Getting down was going to be much harder, she would have to forgo using her bright glowing bridge making on the way down to avoid being seen. It was risky enough to have bridged here in the first place and it was possible she had been seen already. She lightened herself with Zephyr and started making the long treacherous climb down. Boreal for her part just used her neat ice trick to provide herself with as many good holds as she could ask for, cruising down next to Zalia.
It took almost an hour and a half for Zalia to finally reach close to the ground. Blending into the stone with her Stealth ability, Zalia waited for a good moment where she couldn't see any movement before lightly dropping down the last part and crouching amongst the rock. She didn't hear any calls of alarm or anger so she probably hadn’t been seen. Boreal was stealthier even than Zalia, able to move between shadows like a miniature teleport. She simply jumped into a shadow, popping out of one lower down before jumping through another to appear next to Zalia.
They peered around over the rocks they hid behind, looking at the decaying city around them. The structures were definitely all built in a similar style, giving a sense of continuation through the city that made Zalia think it used to be host to a large population. She finally saw one of the inhabitants and her heart skipped a beat. The creature was of a race she recognised, one of the Bathar. It shambled through the city, its vacant eyes and stumbling gait reminding Zalia of how she had found Juniper. The best word she could find to describe how it looked was undead.
She mentally cursed. It looked like the creatures here would be hostile after all, though they were at least thoughtless enough that evading them could be done with relative ease. She considered her next move thoroughly. She could go back with the information she now had, find another island with less danger. If she was going to find something helpful though, an old city might be a place where she could find such a thing.
So, Zalia and Boreal started making their way through the city from shadow to shadow, ducking behind and into buildings. She searched a few of the more broken down ones first but found nothing of value, the buildings mostly fallen to pieces let alone anything they had once held within. To her relief it looked like most of the Bathar were Tin rank, a couple being Iron. She didn't see any that were Bronze but didn't find the possibility unlikely.
As Zalia exited the most recent ruin she had been exploring, she was a little careless. Boreal noticed the Tin rank Bathar before she did and immediately pounced on the creature. Despite her carelessness she still reacted with speed, summoning her blade and slamming it into the creature's head as it dropped to its knees from Boreal’s attack. Her daily practice lent her incredible speed but before the Bathar died, it managed to let out a loud screech and a shiver made its way down Zalia’s back.
There was a moment of silence, a pause as Zalia and Boreal waited. Her blade was still stuck through the creature’s head as they waited in silence. She thought for a moment that they had managed to get lucky but her hopes were dashed as she heard a series of eerie high pitch yet hoarse screeches across the city. They both reacted immediately, Zalia ripping her blade as she kicked the Bathar in the chest, Boreal beginning to sprint away. Zalia quickly followed and they made their way at speed through the city ruins, dodging a few of the slower creatures they passed. It felt like they had kicked an ants nest as hundreds of the Bathar exploded out of buildings, some rising from rubble or debris like they had laid there long enough to be buried.
Before long they were surrounded and Zalia was forced to use Nature’s wrath. Hardy grasses exploded out of the paved streets and grasped onto the Bathar around her, forming soft appendages that caused the undead Bathar to scream when it made contact. A few of the lower rank ones immediately fell thrashing as they tried to fight off the odd grasping grass. An elemental ally ripped free from the stone beneath, immediately smashing its fists down on an unsuspecting Bathar. Nearby, some type of murky water feature exploded as a sludgy, amorphous water elemental overflowed its bounds and began submersing Bathar.
Using the two elementals as a distraction, Zalia ran into an alley and jumped, using her one air step to jump higher up to a wall. She then jumped off that wall and used another air jump to reach the roof of the opposite building. Boreal followed by swiftly climbing the side of the building with her ice. They began quickly fleeing across the rooftops, jumping from one to the next in a quick above ground escape. One Bathar saw them but from the sky their crow friend swooped down and slammed into its face, clawing until its foot slipped off the edge, causing it to fall. The crow flew back up into the sky above and fled.
From where the sounds of the elementals fought the undead Bathar, Zalia saw the shades above take notice and begin spiralling down in a cyclone of darkness. She didn't watch for long before running once more, searching for somewhere to hide.