When I awoke, I wasn’t miraculously healed, but I did feel somewhat better.
That was a shame. I’d kind of been hoping the coblynau would be able to use something to fix me up, like a heartgem or some other magical healing, but I supposed that they didn’t have anything of that sort lying around.
I blinked and looked around, and realized that I’d been moved slightly. I was pushed to the edge of the pit, and laying on a bed of moss and lichen.
It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was actually somewhat of an improvement over the hard ground and ice that I’d been sleeping on since I began the trial trail, so I marked that as a win.
I was wearing my clothes, but they’d been cleaned and mended, some sort of thin, silvery thread that looked almost metallic running through them. That was also an improvement, so I made a mental note to thank the coblynau for their assistance. It was a minor thing, but if I’d had to give up on the trial because my clothes got shredded, that would be beyond pathetic. Kene would never let me hear the end of it.
I took a moment to run my mind over my body, searching out what I could. All of my muscles, especially the ones in my leg, ached like crazy, and I was fairly sure that not all of my scrapes and scratches had healed over properly. My arm where the revenant’s obsidian spike had struck me was a dull, throbbing pain, and as I rotated and moved my arm, I realized I didn’t have my full range of motion. Attempting to lift my arm too high, or pull my elbow in, turned the dull throbbing into a sharp, searing pain.
I flicked Analyze Life on and took a good look at my arm.
The muscles were torn, a portion of my bicep ripped in two. The healing potion had closed the wound, and there wasn’t any internal bleeding, but it would take more than a simple regeneration-based effect like a potion to actually fix it. I’d need the muscles to be knit back together, the tendons reconnected. I was confident Kene would be able to do it, given how he’d managed to re-connect the far more delicate muscles around my hand after it had been crushed, but I doubted it would be a pleasant experience.
I continued studying, looking for bone damage, and to my chagrin, I found some. It wasn’t a break, thankfully, but there was a hairline fracture running up and down my humerus. That would be a pain and a half to heal, but between my Magister’s Body, Beast Mage’s Soul, and my Testudinal Reserve, I actually thought I should be able to pull through without permanent damage.
From there, I shifted to examining my feet, where my shoes had melted.
They’d been fixed up as well. The rubber soles were beyond repair, but they’d been replaced with several layers of thick leather that had been treated expertly, and I thought I even felt faint traces of telluric energy moving through them, reinforcing the structure. A moment later, I realized that they’d used some sort of spell, instead of nails, and that was the source of the residue.
Like my clothes, the new soles had been attached with the silver thread.
I pulled my boots off to study the burns from the volcanic heat, and winced. My feet had several thick blisters on them, and wherever there weren’t blisters, the skin was a deep reddish-pink of mild burning.
“Ah, you’re up,” a voice said, pulling me out of my inspection. I turned to see Deep-thing exiting the steps to the village and looking at me.
“We only had about two people injured from the rage of the king. That’s much better than we’d even dreamed to hope. For a long time, we thought the only way out would be collapsing the mountain on top of us all.”
Even though he said it like it was a good thing, it sent a pang of guilt, fear, and even a touch of self-loathing through my chest. I might not have killed those coblynau myself, but if I’d been stronger, or faster, or more clever, I might have been able to take out the revenant with a single surprise blow, while it was weaker.
“Are they going to pull through?” I asked.
“The doctor thinks so,” the coblynau said. “Though there’s a limited amount we can do. Palliate-blacksalt isn’t the ideal solution, but it’s the best we can manage.”
I nodded wisely, though I had no idea what exactly palliate-blacksalt was.
“I also had the doctor place some on your feet and your arm," Deep thing said.
“I’m not too sure about the effects of the blacksalt,” I admitted.
“It is a strange mineral,” Deep-thing said. “It's seeped in the mists of time, and when sprinkled over a wound, it can ensure a wound does not get worse for nine days, and allow the body’s natural recovery to handle the rest. It’s the closest to healing we’ve got now, since the bloodstone fractured while treating the king’s age and ailments.”
A week… It wouldn’t be enough time to complete the Beastgate Trial Trail, but if Deep-thing was right in that my natural recovery could help, then it should hopefully take care of my feet. My arm would still be injured, though. That wasn’t within the realm of natural healing.
"What is your next move?" I asked the coblynau.
“We’re going to be making our way out of the mines and towards the town you spoke about,” Deep-thing said, looking a touch pensive.
“I think that’s wise,” I said, nodding. “If you want to get into a bigger city, take the… Windstream thing. I forgot what they called it. But they’ve got tunnels with wind magic connecting a bunch of their cities."
“Interesting,” Deep-thing said, nodding. “What are you going to do?”
I considered that for a moment, then shrugged.
“I’m going to try and get back to the competition I told you about, though admittedly, I’m… not sure how far I’ll be able to get. If the snowstorm has abated, I’ll head on, otherwise I’ll try and stay in the cave for a bit.”
A pulse of my Internal Pocketwatch suggested that I'd slept for two days, so I hoped that would be enough.
“The snowstorm’s core seems mostly depleted,” Deep-thing said. “It’s likely only got a day or so left before it’s down to a light flurry.”
“Thank you,” I said, and Deep-thing nodded. I paused and then decided to offer.
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"If you'd prefer, you could wait another month or so, let me finish the competition, then Dusk and I could come back and pick you up."
“No, thank you,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’m not meaning to be disrespectful, but I’d prefer the odds of moving on our own. It gives us the freedom to go as we wish and make our way, rather than rely on you, nice enough though you may be."
"Of course," I said, and he seemed to relax a little more, then focused on me seriously.
"On a more serious note, at least for you, you have served and saved our community. In doing so, you suffered harm, which we have done our best to undo, but you are still owed a payment."
"You don't need to do that," I said, and the old man waved his hand.
"You followed the old ways, and helped without asking for a price, and as such, threefold payment is stipulated."
He seemed to trail off in consideration for some time, then waved his hand. I felt a surge of magic, and the earth churned. A moment later, a stairwell appeared. It was tiny, meant for the Coblynau, but led into a chamber that was absolutely massive.
“Come with me,” Deep-thing said. “This is the treasury. We have mined here for a very, very long time, and while the king took much from us as tax, we’ve managed to amass a few treasures. Those that can be used, like stringsilver, are given to the tailors, to make leather from the bats in the deeper, far caverns, or the blacksalt to the healers. But your magic is strange. We felt it in the fight, and we may have a few things that can help you. I think. Though we’d love to give you much, the rest must be sold or traded when we get to lands with other people. You may take three, as I said.”
I glanced around the treasury while muttering my understanding. It was a beautiful mass of sparkling and gleaming stones and metals, and unlike the treasury of the castle that Kene and I had long ago raided, it hadn’t been robbed. As I spread my mana senses through the room, I realized that several of these weren’t magical at all, and I initially dismissed them, before reconsidering.
I had a considerable debt to Orykson that was eating into my purchasing power, and while I had masses of stuff, I didn’t have much liquid funds at all. Some gold might not be entirely unreasonable, especially since much of it had been shaped into items fit for humans, presumably once having been tribute to their tyrant. The largest was the crown that had once been on the head of the king, now retrieved.
First things first, I searched for anything that had life, death, spatial, or temporal mana coming off of it, and to my surprise, found a strange, cut and polished blue gemstone, which glinted with spatial and loads of telluric mana. It was only about the size of an apple seed, but when I tried to pick it up with my good arm, it was shockingly heavy, like lifting a watermelon.
“Spread-crystal,” Deep-thing said. “It slowly but surely grows, but not in the manner of which most crystals do. It has a small dimensional pocket in it, which it expands out into. It’s not very quick, but it doesn’t stop. It’s saturated at third gate, right now, but has saturation points all the way up to sixth.”
I arched my eyebrows. That had some fascinating implications if I used it to construct a temporal basin. Even if the rate of growth was slower than the storage of mana, the near constant expansion would doubtless be useful.
I didn’t pick anything up yet, though, and kept pursuing, stumbling across bars of metal that had the fierce light of fire burning in them, and after a beat, I realized that the blade of the mineral mage, the one who I’d fought in the Idyll-Flume, had been made of this same metal. They’d only had a small amount of it, lined along the blade, though.
“Strikespark steel,” Deep-thing said. “With only a small impact, or a pulse of mana, it will burst into flame. It’s potential is incredible, and it’s frequently used in our community.”
I nodded. I wasn’t a weapon fighter, but I had no doubt that it would have some uses. Maybe I could coat my bones in it...?
A large stone, the size of my closed fist, that seemed to be made entirely out of liquid blood, roiling and rolling wildly, caught my eye next, and Deep-thing’s nose twitched in disgust.
“That is a conquest-gem,” he said. “It formed itself from the condensed blood of countless beasts that came to try and take the cavern, before we had the diverting wards, and when the king was young. Its functions are not known to us, but it has powerful blood magic of a sort. More natural treasure than gemstone, in truth, and not one we know much of."
I arched an eyebrow. I might actually learn a bit of blood magic, if I decided to pursue some more vampiric spells.
I picked up a small, heavy stone that resembled a seed carved out of marble, more than a normal stone. It felt oddly like a halfway point between a stone and a seed, in terms of magic.
“Marbletree,” Deep-thing said. “A potent source of telluric mana that is useful in many telluric potions. It is somewhat alive, so perhaps useful to a beastmage like you? Plants are not so far from beasts, in truth. Slow growing, though. We never managed to keep one alive, not without the sun.”
I tapped my chin with a thoughtful nod. The uses of that were obvious.
I passed by several more items before spotting something I knew – structure-ore. Dusk had consumed several beads of the rare mineral while forming herself, and Orykson had said it would be useful for third gate spells and beyond. They had it in large chunks that were closer to a tomato, and weighed almost a pound each.
Definitely worth considering, but I wanted to see all my options, and my eye was immediately drawn to what looked like tall, spike-tipped mushroom growing completely out of crystal. There was an entire cluster of them, all likely linked to one mycelial network, at about third gate.
“Ninelight morels,” Deep-thing said. “They’re a… mana source? Of kinds. Instead of recharging your mana, they can fuel fungus spells with increased efficacy and power. We’re sure they can grow quite strong, but we aren’t plant or fungal mages.”
That could have endless uses, not only for powering my fungal lock, but for enhancing any other magical mushrooms I came across, like the ones that produced mists.
A chunk of dull gray metal caught my eye next, and I picked it up. It was about as heavy as it looked, and while it had faint traces of other magic, it was overwhelming seeped with ungated energy. Unsure why the coblynau couldn’t make use of what felt so broad an item, I glanced at Deep-thing.
“It’s an enchanting tool, one that can be used to carry mana from one point to another,” Deep-thing said. “But we don’t have much need for it. We strengthen the lines ourselves with a simple spell. I do believe it could be used in ward creation or alchemy too, but I’m even less sure of those.”
I nodded, and frankly had no idea what the cost or use for this kind of item would be, so I moved on.
There was a small bead strapped in leather, and Deep-thing explained.
“A dousing stone, to lead you to valuable materials underground. We can do the same with our legacies, almost all of us. It’s strapped down so it doesn’t constantly roll between treasures. That sample is a stable third gate, and I believe it has saturation points up to fifth.”
I chuckled at the mental image of the small bead of stone bouncing around wildly.
The next item that caught my eye was a stone that dripped with ink. The ink felt strange, almost like a hudau heritage stone, or Edgar’s mana, but it evaporated just moments after it dripped from the stone. I glanced at Deep-thing, who shrugged.
"We're not sure. It cannot be absorbed for power, the king tried and failed, but it must have some use. Our ancestral memory of stone is uncertain, however, and it may not be a stone at all."
I bit my lip. That was a large gamble, certainly.
The next item to draw my attention was the fossilized tooth of some ancient drake. Their mana was deeply strange, and while I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to use it, Deep-thing suggested that it could be used to enhance my own teeth, perhaps even allowing the Testundinal Reserve spell to connect into them.
I'd nearly completed my circuit around the room when I spotted a final curious set of items, and plucked one to examine it. It was a grape sized green sphere that didn't look like stone, or natural at all, but rather like it was made of rubber. To the touch, however, it was solid, smooth stone, and to my mana senses, it felt strongly of solidity and toughness.
"A forger-stone," the coblynau said with a nod. "It can be taken into the spirit, and when used during an ascension, it can enhance the effect of a spell that forges something out of mana."
That could be of great use with Fungal Lock, Briarthreads, or even Material Echo. A thought struck me, and I glanced at Deep-thing.
"If I pick my things, can you carry them to the village, then give them to Dusk, my spirit? Some things are heavy or harder for me to carry with my pack."
"Certainly," Deep-thing said. "Not a problem at all. I know several of our researchers wanted to speak to her anyhow."