After sending out a hunting party I returned to Zraih’s forge, it had been too long since I could study the effects of aether and this seemed the perfect place to start back up. I sat on the ground and slowly began pulling aether through the forge’s flame, being careful not to channel any intent or will into it. “Zraih can you let me know if this has any effect on your forging please?” I said as small cerulean wisps started to drift lazily through the flames. The only response I got was an irritated grunt, but she never slowed in her work.

It was almost an hour later when Zraih finally responded “You've made my metal funny.” Carefully letting the aether return to its natural flow, I stood and went to get a better look. Zraih had almost finished the little bearded axe head and, sure enough, the metal was off. It was almost hard to really see what was going on, the metal looked normal at first but, if you stared at it, you could almost make out movement underneath.

“Did it forge normally?”

“It did but looking at this thing is giving me the creeps.” was Zraih’s answer.

“Okay, if you don’t mind can you finish it, carefully. I’ll stay right here just in case.” and it wasn’t long after we were both staring down at what was easily the most disturbing tool I'd ever seen. “So, I'm going to go outside and hit something with this, do you want to come?” I asked and then we were off. Once outside and a suitable distance from our cave and Zraih keeping a healthy distance from me at that, I swung the hatchet at a small sapling, and it cut it same as any other hatchet would. Curious I swung it at one of the nearby trees and was left to stare as I heard “the fuck did you do to my hatchet?” from Zraih off in the distance. The hatchet had left a gouge in the tree easily three times longer than its head and what looked like almost twice as deep.

“Best as I can figure all the spare aether in the forged seeped into metal and your intent to make a good cutting tool shaped the aether.”

“This is why nobody likes you wizards you know, always breaking things in weird ways.” Zraih grumped at me as we turned to head back home. She wasn’t wrong we wizards had earned a nasty reputation, side effects or not some people couldn’t resist abusing the aether. Hell, we had different stars in the sky every night from some ancient wizard mucking about trying to mess with time. One of the reasons I appreciated the goblins so much was they didn’t know or care about any of that, they just wanted a chief that did right by them.

On the way back we ran into the hunting party who were quick to show off they had managed to snag two more of the shag deer with their bows. I took one of the deer to carry back myself, enjoying watching the goblins frustrate Zraih with questions of what kind of tools she was making. When we got back and parted ways, I went to hunt down Viess, Ultai, and Sazz to see about squeezing in a quick bit of bath time fun before dinner.

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I was halfway through my dinner, enjoying the company of a certain three thoroughly cleaned goblins when a low note rang out seemingly from everywhere. The goblins began scrambling trying to prepare for whatever was happening, while the sound droned on sending vibrations through cavern. The sound gave me a clear sense of foreboding that I could mirrored on Zraih’s features. When nothing happened and the sound finally died down, I was able to calm everyone and explain what that was all about.

That sound was a warning sent out from the Ephemeral Valley, the kingdom that was home to the wizards' academy. A warning from the Ephemeral Valley always meant one thing, someone had used aether in a war. A rogue wizard in a war could cause untold problems, and if they were at all clever, they became almost impossible to rein in without massive collateral damage. An unknown aether enhanced item with enough power to gain the academy’s attention would be equally troubling. I'd have to head back to the kobold city in the morning and find out any information I could.

After a night without much rest headed back towards the city through an eerily quiet forest. When I had to set camp for the night the darkness felt more pressing and ominous than normal, a side effect of the Ephemeral valley’s warning no doubt. I reached the city early the next morning after another restless night.

The kobold city was a mess of activity, some people were panic buying, while others were tearing down their shops to head back into the mountains. No one seemed to know exactly what had happened, but the most consistent rumors were that The Wild Elves had invaded from the south, massacring a town in a single afternoon. The Wild Elves were a particularly violent kingdom obsessed with survival of the fittest, they felt it was their noble and holy role to cull themselves and others through constant war. Some of the other rumors were even more horrifying, saying things like people had been held in place by the aether while the army simply mowed them down, and other darker things I could only hope weren't true.

I started my march back home not slowing even as night fell. I channeled a small amount of aether into my eyes so I could see in the dark and just hoped the side effects would be minimal. It was just before dawn when I made it back to the cave and the sentry goblin cave startled cry when she saw me before tearing off deeper in, not an encouraging sign for me.

When I made it to the main cavern everyone but Zraih was already waiting for me. Ultai, Sazz, and Viess all ran up to me looking concerned before Sazz asked “why eyes spicy?” I explained everything to the tribe and made it abundantly clear there wouldn’t be any more hunting or foraging trips without me. I headed to Zraih’s forge to fill her in and when I got there I was rewarded with a very pleasant yelp, before she screamed at me “Your eyes are leaking aether you fucking ghoul.” which did explain some things. I explained the situation again before grabbing the handcart and heading back out with Sazz, Ultai, Viess, and Grak.

Without the ability to head outside as safely anymore we were going to need a way to get vegetables, I was busy shoveling dirt into the cart while the goblins were gathering every root vegetable and edible mushroom they could find. I wasn’t certain but I was hopeful the light from the entry dome would be enough for us to replant the root vegetables, and dirt was really all our cave was missing to be perfect for mushrooms.

Once we got back and had everything planted, I had Ultai follow me to the forge. I had Zraih begin forging herself new tools while I fed aether to the fire again, she was going to need the extra oomph for what I had in mind.