A grand ravine lay before me, the cloud layer that I’d seen earlier obscuring both its depths and its heights—though I was much closer to the lower layer now.

But what had amazed me was further to my right: stretching the entire height of the ravine on both sides was what appeared to be a frozen waterfall made of luminescent flowers of all colors, a towering band of rainbow light that coated both walls of the ravine from cloud to cloud. Behind the flowers was a black twist of vines, a colossal growth of something like ivy, and I could see the shapes of small insects moving in the air between the luscious vine-walls, each about the size of a wagon wheel.

I moved further along the ledge, the insects in the air ignoring me as I approached the vines. I came within twenty paces before I saw a yellowing bone stuck into the vines, barely visible beneath the glowing tangle. But as I looked, I could see more of them, along with the occasional desiccated corpse of a quadruped, trapped in the vines.

I tossed a rock toward the tangle—and watched as some nodules on the vines opened and new vines emerged, smooth and covered in thin, glittering needles. These extended to feel their way toward the ground where the rock had fallen, prodded it, then retreated back into the rougher vinescape.

Then I spotted the largest insect that I’d seen yet making its way toward me.

Insects were typically easier to manipulate and control than other animals their size using [Wild Bond]. What was more, their minds were bad at extending or maintaining a magical claim. The best way to kill them was to extend your claim through their bodies—for most creatures an almost impossible feat—and then instantly kill them by using something like [Frost Magick] to freeze the water in their brains.

The bug approaching me was the size of a small pony, and it was like a cross between a wasp and a mosquito, with long legs that dangled beneath it and a serrated sucker extending from its face. Its wings hummed thickly in the air, a sound that beat unpleasantly at my ears.

I reached out to get a sense of this one with [Wild Bond], gaining a clear insight into its mind quite easily—hence why I knew to dodge the stinger it shot at me a moment later, twisting and leaning away from the trajectory of the missile, which bounced harmlessly off the rock behind me.

I pulled a stone from the ground and launched it at my new foe, watched it strike the creature’s wings with a fair amount of force—and watched the creature teeter in the air, but remain upright, the sound of its flight altered by its torn wing.

“Interesting,” I said, pulling free my bow as I twisted to avoid another stinger. I shot it just above its serrated sucker, my arrow planting itself firmly between the creature’s bulging, faceted eyes and sending it falling into the cloud below.

+ 612 Essence

No [Air] key, though. Perhaps if I stayed and killed a few—but then creatures which created bodily projectiles usually used [Life] skills to regenerate them, meaning its class core was probably [Wild], [Life], or [Body]. Creatures who used [Air] tended to do a lot more gliding.

I spotted a dark shape moving through the air toward the glowing wall of flowers. At first I thought it was the largest insect I’d seen yet—but then I realized it was many, many insects carrying the form of a furry quadruped, a horned animal that looked something like a stockier antelope. I watched, fascinated, as they brought it to a patch of vines, moving forward to set the creature there.

The light-green creepers I’d seen earlier had enveloped their new catch in seconds—along with one of the flying insects that had brought it, caught in the sudden onslaught. But its fellows didn’t seem to mind—all of them, along with many of the other nearby insects, quickly darted in to stick their suckers into the flowers, presumably sipping up nectar like hummingbirds.

They’d offered the plant an animal as a distraction. The poor beast was probably just paralyzed by the venomous stingers of one of the larger bugs I’d just fought off. As I watched, I wondered what was in the nectar. I also wondered why their suckers were serrated—did they occasionally cut away some of the vines?

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Then I heard the low buzzing noise that blanketed everything begin to intensify, and I looked around and saw, with dismay, a squad of the pony-sized guards were coming toward me. They were clearly part of some insect hive, but not a telepathic one like the insects I’d found underground had likely been—just an ordinary one. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to find them with [Wild Bond].

I had to think: would I have enough arrows for all of the guards? If I did, was it worth it to spend many arrows like this?

It felt like a waste, given how easy it would be to kill them with the right powers—but I decided to try anyway, just in the hope that one might drop an [Air].

I was sure that their stingers had a paralytic venom, and while I was normally immune to venom, the sheer volume of essence and the high level of most of the wildlife here had me worried. I spent almost a third of my mana just pushing and packing the soil in front of me into the form of an earthen fortification, then knelt behind my chest-high wall and shot my arrows.

The wall turned out to be unnecessary: seven arrows dropped all five of the massive flying insects from the sky, each of them giving me just over 600 essence—but only one key:

+ 108 Essence, [Missile 1 / Life 1 / Insect 1]

- [Missile 1 / Life 1 / Insect 1]: [Missile 1]

“Hm,” I said, both satisfied that I was clearly getting stronger and disappointed at the lack of [Air] keys. [Missile 1], however would still come in handy. As an aspect it generally only started to shine when paired with other aspects at rank 2 or higher.

Like [Armor], [Missile] wasn’t a subtype of [Primeval]—combining it with one of my [*Primeval 5] cores now wouldn’t grant me the pure skill of the [Missile] aspect the way that that it had with [Earth], [Life], [Wild], and [Body]. Instead I’d get [Primeval Missiles], and while that would strengthen my earthen slugs and arrows, I had a much better use for a [Missile 1] key.

I just needed to coalesce a [Mana 1] key or, more likely, an [Earth 1] key—then I could craft a very sloppy bow enchantment.

Regardless, I had a decision to make: stay and try for more keys here, or leave and try to find a key that could help me deal with Palefang. If he came to kill me now, my plan was still to back them up into the sleeping army of insects and hope that woke them up.

Suddenly I heard the buzzing sound of wings begin to intensify and watched as seemingly all of the flying insects, even the nectar-harvesting drones, were coming toward me. The hive had decided it was time for me to leave.

I didn’t want to run out of arrows just to harvest these for essence: I’d already reached my limit, and was likely to have abundant essence until the other elves arrived.

I let out a humorless laugh as I ran along the cliff’s edge, trying to get away from the approaching insects. This world was so steeped in essence that even singular monsters could give me a level worth of essence at level 12.

Ahead of me, past a few dozen members of the converging swarm and spotted through the narrow gap where the ravine ended, I could see a few of the massive trees I’d seen earlier—the valley from before.

My psychic sense skated across the minds of the insects as I ran by them, reading them in case they attacked. But they had no way of engaging at range, and while they could fly fast, they could hardly fly as fast as I could run across terrain that I could map perfectly with my gaze.

The ledge cut in and out, but I could sense the cracks in the cliffside, the strength of the jutting stones that I bounded across as I picked up speed and left the swarm behind. With [Wild Bond], I sensed life moving out of the way at my approach—and a few things that regarded me with wary, predatory intent, all of them too slow in deciding to attack me.

Blurred colors shifted over my face as I ran, the many-hued glow of various fungi and plants painting everything in strange shades, the red of the clouds dominating all. Not for the first time I was stricken by the utter strangeness of the world around me.

Ahead of me, the ravine opened up and more of the forest became visible. I chose the nearest tree, confident that I could leap to it and use my spear to get a good hold.

But as I ran along a slanted outcrop of rock, ready to jump, I sensed something that made me fall to my knees, hold both hands out to stop myself, and skid to a halt. A small crevice opened up beside me—and inside it I could detect an unnaturally dense concentration of mana.

I turned my head in time to see a tiny, white-furred creature let out a growl—then coalesce several shards of ice in the air before it, each as long as my forearm and as thin as a stiletto.

It threw them at me.