----------------------------------------
Getting up to his room and shutting the door, Tristan made sure to lock it. Felicity looked around in a panic, “Where’s my treasure!”
Tristan pointed to the two bags, and she dove for them, pulling the drawstrings on the top open before letting out a sigh of relief. “Good. We still have all of it!”
“I didn’t know fairy dragons were greedy,” Tristan said as he walked to her, grabbed the bag with the suspected-artificed items, and made his way to the desk.
“I’m not,” she replied haughtily. Re-tightening the bag, she threw it into the storage dimension, and then flew over to land on the desk next to the primer Tristan was referencing. “I know how the Mortal Realm values all the different coins and jewels. Sure, they are pretty, but ultimately not very useful to me.” She pointed at him, “But for you? We need to be rich. You know, in case we have to flee the country.”
Tristan sighed, “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.” He went to pull the first of the items out of the bag, but paused. I was almost tapped out of essence entirely before dinner, he thought. I don’t want to risk exhausting myself here. I need to spend my nights in the Fey Realm where I know I won’t get assassinated. Diverting his focus to his ring, he went to the bed and sat down. “We’re going back to do this. Please, put my armor and weapon back in storage.”
Felicity opened the storage space once more, did as he asked, and then shut the portal. Flapping over to him, she put her paw-claw on his hand with the ring, and he saw a light glow. A rainbow light that shimmered slightly. “I know this thing takes an hour, but what if we put a bunch of essence into it? Maybe speed it up?”
Tristan shrugged and kept spinning his crucible, “Not sure.” Focusing his attention on the ring, he tried to do what he had done earlier with making the crucible move faster and fast. He could feel the cooling energy spread through his torso and tried to direct it to his hand. The enormous rush of energy made him feel giddy and he couldn’t help but grin that he was using real magic. This is just still…so awesome, he thought.
The ring began to glow brighter and feel warmer on his finger. But, Tristan felt his energy waning, and had to slow his crucible’s spin down once more. The concept seemed to work, however, as after only thirty minutes, the world turned white and he found himself on the dirt circle in front of the Queen’s Wood.
Felicity pulled her paw-claw away and flitted up into the air, looking around at the other fairy dragons who were going out and about. Clapping her fore-paws together, she cleared her throat. “Lord Tristan and his super amazing and spectacular fairy dragon are here!”
“Up yours!”
“Oh? Super special?”
Other jests, insults, or derogatory comments were tossed Felicity’s direction, and with expert adroitness she responded to each with her own bit of verbal repartee.
One of the fairy dragons flew down in front of Tristan, bowed his head slightly, and looked up to meet his gaze. “Are you staying the night? Shall I prepare your quarters?”
Tristan nodded and stood up, “Yes, please and thank you.” The fairy dragon nodded, and took off flying. Seeing his movement, and having overheard the conversation, a few of the creatures that were bantering with Felicity flew after him.
Felicity landed on his head and made a pleased noise between a squee and a grunt. “Perfect. They respect me now.”
Tristan began walking into the tree, “It didn’t sound like respect.”
“Oh, the jokes weren’t that bad this time. In the past, they were a lot worse. You remember the one they told when you had me by the neck on your first visit?”
Tristan chuckled and nodded, recalling the joke vividly. “It was quite funny.”
Going into the tree and down to his quarters, he was pleased to see that the tub was being filled with hot water, new clothes were laid out for him, and the bed had been seen to with freshly laundered sheets. Going to the desk nearby – a piece of the tree’s root that seemed to have been shaped to form a flat surface – he poured out the three items and set the bag aside.
“Felicity, you said there is a ton of ambient essence here, right?”
“Yup!”
“Can I…replenish mine? I know essence elixirs exist, and even non-imbued potions can sometimes have essence-recovery, herbal properties…but could I…suck in the ambient essence to replenish my own?”
“Yup! Just picture that sphere in your chest spinning the other direction. Have you ever stirred your soup and seen a vortex appear in the center?” Tristan nodded, and she continued. “Visualize pulling in the essence instead of pushing it out. Imagine the spin in the reverse direction, making that vortex like the soup.”
“Can I pull it in and push it out at the same time?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Felicity shook her head, “I don’t know. That’s a Matriarch question.”
Tristan nodded and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he tried to get into a rhythm. Closing his eyes, he visualized the silver crucible in his chest with the icy-blue cracks, and gold and crimson flecks. Normally I spin it left, so if I spin it right…he tried to spin his essence crucible the opposite direction and visualized a swirl. To his surprise, he could see streaks of purple, green, dark blue, and pink being sucked into the spiral…and his chest warmed up.
He could feel the cooling effect of his essence trying to counteract the effect, and he was sure that he would have been burning hot if not for the naturally cool crucible. Is it because of how much I’m trying to take in all at once? Maybe if I slow down the spin…He tried to do just that, and the multi-colored energy that was swirling down into his visualized crucible slowed its speed; and the heat ceased.
After a few minutes of this slower refilling, he felt energized and full of stamina. As if he could run for miles. Opening his eyes, he sighed with relief. “Seems like that worked,” he said aloud.
Felicity looked at him with a slightly-cocked-to-the-side head. “Umm…that did something. Go look in the mirror.”
What now? Tristan got up and walked over to the mirror, gasping as he laid eyes upon himself. His illusion was gone, and instead of having just silver hair, the tips of his locks gradually shifted to the icy-blue and then a deeper-blue color. His Elven ears had lengthened slightly as well – extending well past the back of his head at this point. “What caused that?”
Felicity rapped the desk with her knuckles to draw Tristan’s attention back to her perch. “Probably taking more Fey Realm essence. It’s making you more Elf-y.”
Tristan walked back to the desk. “Well…at least the disguise works still.” Just have to make sure my new ears don’t hit anything. “Felicity, open the storage dimension.” She did so, and he reached in, grabbed the primer on artifice, and read through the instructions for Discern Artifice. “Can you get me some writing supplies?”
She flew out of the room as he reviewed the instructions, and her flapping heralded her return as she was joined by another fairy dragon carrying a pile of enormous, triangular leaves that had been dried out to be similar to parchment. He also had a small, hollow, wooden pen that had an ink reservoir on the top. “Anything else?” the fairy dragon accompanying Felicity asked.
“No, thank you.” As the dragon flitted off, Felicity returned to her perch, and Tristan set each item out in a row with a sheet of the leaf parchment next to it. “Alright, here we go.” He glanced sideways at Felicity, “I can avoid the whole ‘ice the furniture’ side effect by doing what, exactly?”
“Just don’t vent your essence. Make sure none of it is escaping anywhere you don’t want it to.” She laid her head down and watched him intently, her tail flicking back and forth with anticipation. “Come on! I want to see what my loot does!”
Placing his hands in the appropriate gesture, and swirling his essence crucible, he tightened his essence channel down his arm so only the trickle went to the pen, and the rest went to his left hand, placed on the ear cuff. As the essence churned from him, he felt his hand moving on its own. And when his hand stopped moving, he released the flow of essence. Taking a look at the parchment, he read the effect out loud for Felicity’s sake – since she was looking at the text upside-down.
> Whisper Seeker
>
> Aural Sensitivity Enhancement (Second) [Alteration]
>
> Enhances the aural senses to allow for better hearing of whispered words and phrases.
“That is helpful,” Felicity stated as Tristan finished reading the effects.
“What is alteration?” Tristan asked as he set the ear cuff on the parchment and pushed both aside.
“A spell type that makes adjustments to a body,” she replied.
He nodded and moved on to the second object; the bangle. Repeating the process, he then read aloud the notes.
> Resonance Bangle
>
> Discordant Melody (First) [Sound Elementalism]
>
> Causes a loud, clattering, banging noise that grates on the ears; disrupting the ability to hear.
Last, he moved on to the gold thread socks. His essence was at about half capacity. So after this I should be at about a quarter.
> Insulating Socks
>
> Discharge Shock (Third) [Lightning Elementalism]
>
> Any lightning elementalism effect that is active or is cast at the user while the spell is active, will be negated if it is the Order or lower. Once per twenty-four hours.
Tristan put the last piece of parchment down and looked over at Felicity who was staring at the bangle with unabashed desire. “Alright, you get the bangle. It will help with you going around and being a distraction.”
She squealed with delight as she snatched the bangle and put it over one of her antlers; the horn seemingly warping around to form a small ring that held it in place. “You going to use the socks?”
Tristan nodded, “Yeah. I get the socks; you also get the ear cuff.”
“Why?” she asked with genuine surprise.
“You’re my little spy. A spy needs to be able to hear whispered conversations.”
She snagged the cuff and slipped it around the base of her ear. It didn’t quite fit right, but her shapeshifting activated, and the flesh slightly distorted to enable the cuff to sit perfectly. “Thanks! I can’t wait to use this bangle! I think I’m going to do it now.” She flew off, leaving the room.
Tristan just shook his head and closed his eyes, focusing on spinning his essence crucible to the right and sucked in more essence until he was full up. Going to the mirror, he checked and saw to his satisfaction that he was not becoming more Elven. Maybe it was the last bit of exposure needed to be a full Elf, he thought. As if my Human heritage wasn’t pushed all the way out? Shrugging, he made his way to the vault door that had stymied him before.
Kneeling, he slid his knees into the grooves before the door and placed his palms on the same places as before. Okay. Deep breaths. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, visualizing his essence crucible. I want to get the most essence possible out of me. And The Matriarch said it all had to be in one go. So…spin it as fast as I can.
He did just that, focusing on spinning it to the left as fast as possible. It began to pick up speed, and he felt the essence surging in his torso go from the soothing coolness to a frigid, icy, bone-chilling cold that normally would have chilled him to the bone. But the cold no longer bothered him thanks to his bloodline, and he surged the essence down his arms and into the vault door.
Opening his eyes, he saw that the essence began to fill the spiral, extending out until it met the edges of the wood. “Yes!” he shouted out as he felt his limbs shaking, exhaustion taking over as he sagged in place.
The enormous wooden door opened from the center; the spiral slowly opened like some weird flower, and he saw the inside of the vault.