When I returned, the cave was bustling with activity and filled with good scents: it was almost time for dinner, and someone was cooking a whole lot of meat on the upper level. I found Hassina and offered her my hands.
- 448 927 Essence!
+ 3 [Boon]
+ [Behemoth 1]
+ 1 Limit! (27)
“I take it that you were successful,” said Hassina after her eyes briefly widened, presumably from seeing the key boons. “Where’s Zirilla?”
“Scouting the other side of the mountain,” I said. “She’ll likely be out late.” We’d both agreed that we didn’t want any of the other scouts flying around in unknown territory whose peaks I hadn’t already scoured of powerful enemies. They weren’t as fast as us.
“All right,” she said. “These boons… any thoughts?”
I shrugged. “Maybe give them all to Mirio,” I said.
“Mirio?” Hassina asked, sounding surprised.
“I don’t have any skill cores available,” I said. “Otherwise there’s a [Surge 3] in there that I’d like, and an [Elemental 3] that I’d like too. But there’s no point in holding onto what we can put to use now. And I’m going to want to bring Mirio hunting, soon.”
Hassina nodded as understanding dawned on her. “You want to give him the [Behemoth 1].”
Like Zirilla, Mirio had a powerful tier 4 class. His class cores were [*Wild], [*Mind], and [*Sight]. It made him an extraordinarily potent telepath: many skills made with [Wild] and [Mind] overlapped with one another’s use, strengthening each other. Most psychic attacks could be made against a creature within one’s magical gaze, not their claim, and so with [Sight] allowing him to psychically detect and assault things at great ranges, he would be the ultimate hunter’s companion—finding creatures at range, then complementing my fighting skills with a psychic assault.
General-use skills tended to be more effective the more specific they were. [Animal Bond] was stronger than [Wild Bond]. As such, [Behemoth Sight] and [Behemoth Bond] would be powerful skills indeed, and they would only be improved by being paired with similar skills.
And if there was one thing that I wanted our single [Behemoth 1] skill key doing, it was detecting threats at great ranges—spotting them before they spotted us.
“Now, for this to work, Mirio needs to able to fly. Which means he’ll need a conjured animal.”
“Oh,” said Hassina, her face falling.
[Wild] keys fused with [Mana] keys tended to make skills that conjured translucent animal spirits. They had their uses, even if I’d never been fond of that skillset.
But flying on one, unassisted, would be extremely expensive in terms of mana. And while all of us could benefit from the mana-rich air using a mana-absorbing skill like [Primeval Mana Hide], Mirio would be needing to be bolstered by a lot of skills if he wanted to fly continuously—more than our windcallers, certainly.
“Can’t he just—” Hassina paused, seemed to consider her words, then continued. “I know you don’t like doing it,” she said. “But can’t he just dominate a broadwing and fly that? I’ve heard rumors about what Mirio can do. I know he’s only eighty—”
I laughed. “Everyone knows he’s only eighty,” I said.
“Sorry,” said Hassina. “I didn’t meant to—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “And you’re right: Mirio’s a potent psychic, one of the best I’ve ever seen. He could mentally yoke a beast in a few hours, I’m sure… but he’d have to spend effort, and mana, to keep pushing on its mind and keep it under his control. And there’s still potential for a moment’s loss of control, even with a psychic like Mirio, which could be devastating in battle. Especially on something that flies.”
“I see,” she said, her expression falling.
“I know you’re stretched with distributing skill keys,” I told her. “I know everyone wants more than they’re getting, right now. But see if you can get Mirio in the air by the end of the week.”
“We can do it,” Hassina said. “It’s just that we’ve still got so many unused skill cores across the population—a skill made of 3 rank 3 keys could have been 36 skills spread across the population.”
“I know.”
“But behemoth detection is essential to survival.” She drew out a lump of chalk and moved back toward her number-covered slate along the wall. It had grown so big she’d had the earthmovers shape her some steps and begun writing on the ceiling. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to go eat whatever smells good and get some rest. If you see Mirio, tell him to focus on increasing his limit.”
I left, then found Valir eating with some of the troops and sat down with them, regaling them with a play-by-play of how Zirilla and I had killed the behemoth before they told me of their hunts for the day.
All the while, my mind kept thinking of the day to come. Tomorrow I’d meet with the elemental again—and we’d know most of what we need to pick a spot to settle.
----------------------------------------
A gust of air elementals already awaited me when I arrived at the peak the next day, now having traded my [Animal Sight] pendant for an [Elemental Telepathy] pendant of fused quartz. There were a dozen of them that I could sense with my claim, all of them engaged in constant motion: circling each other, diving, tossing flurries of snow and weaving about.
But these weren’t what most grabbed my attention. Two other elementals floated nearby, somewhat apart from and above the flock of air elementals. Unlike their brethren, they moved slowly, hovering in a broad arc that circled the others.
Each of them had a set of what might have been mistaken for a cluster of eyes: a constellation made of six or seven coin-sized pinpricks of light that crackled and burned in the wintry air. These were the only parts of their form that were visible.
Storm elementals.
I approached with caution, and soon found myself surrounded by the air elementals, who circled me where I stood on the ground, creating a wide ring of blowing snow. The storm elementals waited beyond them, watching—but they didn’t attack. That, at least, was a good sign.
I unclipped my pipes and began to play, once again stretching out tendrils of air that wavered around me as my melody rose and fell. The elementals didn’t interrupt me, and so I didn’t stop, playing for ten minutes, then twenty, and soon what felt like it must have been an hour. My music was stitched together from various songs I’d learned across the years, but my air manipulation was entirely improvised.
Then, at a sign I didn’t recognize, the elementals around me all stopped their play, rising up into the air and letting the snow rise with them, then gently fall all around me.
Fear flowed into and through me as I looked up to see the two storm elementals drift down toward me with purpose before stopping only six feet away, one slightly behind the other.
The closest of them sucked a patched of snow up off the ground, then ran it through their eye cluster, the snow hissing into steam instantly. This steam it funneled into a new shape: one that mirrored my own, far more distinct than the snow-form that my elemental friend from yesterday had made.
I raised a hand; they raised a foggy hand in return.
I probed forward with my [Elemental Telepathy], touching their minds as lightly as I could and waiting to see if they would initiate contact.
Then a felt a Verse-translated voice flow into my mind, thought-words flowing into one another.
You, it said. What are you? Unlike with beasts, whose emotions were often easy to determine, it was difficult to sense whether the question contained any hostility.
I am an elf, I said simply. My name is Aziriel.
Aziriel, the elemental repeated. Your sounds are fascinating to us and our lesser kin. Many sounds we know, and can make… and many things fascinate us, truly… and yet these sounds, this fascination, is new.
I am glad, I said. For I have all kinds of sounds that I could show you. This instrument is but one instrument, one maker-of-sound, yet I could show you many other instruments that make sounds as different from these as snow is from rain, as lightning is from fire.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Then we are glad, said the second storm elemental, moving forward, then filling its form with steam in much the same way its fellow had. This one took the form of a twisting helix. For your music delights us. As we listened, we remarked to one another: it is as though we move with your music, even when we stand still. It is… most pleasing.
I might have grinned. So far, so good.
I have played for an hour, I said. And I will play for an hour more. Then I must go on.
A pause. We will be saddened to see you leave, Aziriel, said the first elemental. Your music is pleasing.
I smiled. It likely didn’t even occur to them that they could try and make me stay: it was in the nature of air and storm elementals to always be moving, to go on. I had never known air or storm elementals to bind or imprison other creatures—kill them, yes, but never lock them away or enslave them.
In a day’s time I will return, I said. Or, if you wish, I will meet you and your kin in a higher place. I could bring more elves, and they could bring more instruments, and we could show you much music. We hoard music, for we love it: a thousand days could pass and we would have shown you not a thousandth of the music we know.
Ah, said the second elemental, filling my mind with a long hiss of what I hoped was pleasure.
This is good. As long as you play, our kind will listen, I think. Though I may not always attend you.
Nor I, said the first elemental. For to return to the same place each day is a feat that even the sun itself cannot perform with perfect precision, and our nature is to fly, to move without care. But I will come tomorrow, I think, and perhaps the day after.
I am glad, I said. And I will play again now—but before I do, may I ask you questions? I am curious about the sky, about the storms, about the air… but most of all about air and music.
The satisfaction of curiosity is the stuff of life, said the first elemental. Ask.
I considered my words carefully, wishing to frame my request in the way that would most speak to their sensibilities, that would be most relatable to them.
The elves are passionate creature, I said. Keen and curious. We wish to explore and to experience new things. But above all, we wish to feel that sensation which cannot be rivaled by any other—we crave flight.
Ah, said the second elemental again. You are right to. For in truth, we are glad that the earthbound dwell so far below the mists we do not see them, for to see them is to think of them, and to think of them is to be riven with sadness.
To see the sky, yet never flow through it, added the first elemental. That is a horror we wish to never think not upon.
Here is what I ask, I said. And if it offends, or is uncouth, I apologize: but we elves are curious creatures, and questions such as these are in our nature. As music may delight you; so too does flight delight us. Yet the slaughter of the sky-beasts gives us little in [Air], and the [Air] to be found in the sky is not ours, but yours.
I paused. I’d come to the topic as delicately as I could, but now it was time to ask and reveal my true purpose. Can we each correct the other’s lack? Can a bargain be struck, where we each give the other new experiences, new pleasures, and yet lose none of these things ourselves? Will you trade us [Air] for music?
The elemental before me—the first storm elemental—broke up, its elf-form wavering and shifting, becoming nothing but a cloud before forming into a swirling ring that made a perfect circle. I had no idea what to make of the sudden shift: was it expressing some emotion that I had evoked in it?
Trade, it said. We know of this. We understand it. We trade to Lord Akkakesh.
At the speaking of the name, the first elemental sent me an image—turquoise lightning splitting the sky, thundering with three distinct cracks: Akkakesh.
And yet, the second elemental said, its twisting spiral of steam beginning to spin more quickly. Akkakesh would not allow this, I think. I yearn for music, I do—but to feed a gust of elves would siphon his [Air], and elves may yet multiply and siphon more [Air] still.
Wait! A third voice had joined the others. In my mind, it was gentler, lighter than the storm elementals. I turned, and saw that one of the air elementals had absorbed some snow and shaped itself into a tall, narrow pillar of whirling snowflakes.
They do not consume the keys as we do; what is given shall stay given. They do not ask that we sustain them, merely clothe them. Have I the right of it, Aziriel?
But the first storm elemental spoke before I could answer. This is the one who came to you, a day ago, they said. Of many who witnessed on high, they were the one who showed courage and descended to listen more closely.
Ah, we are glad of their intervention, said the second elemental.
I am too, I said. And they have the right of it: the [Air] keys we would ask would be taken and kept, used forever—not consumed.
The second storm elemental slowed its rotation. That is different, they said. Though a group of elves that multiplies and keeps keys may yet be the same in his eyes as a group of elves that does not multiply, yet consumes them. Do elves multiply, Aziriel?
We do, I said. Slowly, and yet we do. The aspects of the world will replenish themselves thirty times over in the time it takes us to double our numbers, but still—we will double our numbers.
The first storm elemental—the one in the form of a ring—broke apart into many rings of woven steam threads. It is for Akkakesh to consider, they said.
Will you tell me of Akkakesh? I asked them.
Akkakesh is lord of these skies, they said. Many—
They were interrupted by a bolt of turquoise lightning that ended in the sky some hundred meters above us, bathing the world in a flash of light.
Instantly I began to reach out with my gaze, trying to sense any long lines of mana moving downward to kill me… but I sensed none. Instead, a third storm elemental hovered down from where the lightning had ended—this one nothing but a constellation of nine sizzling eyes.
They made mental contact with me as they approached the ground, though not in the typical fashion of lightly touching my mind and waiting for a response—they pushed themself into my consciousness, bold and forceful, not caring if I took this to be an attack.
I speak for Akkakesh, they said, hovering down to float on a level with me, mere feet away—an uncomfortably close proximity. Our lord has witnessed and heard all. You ask now of trade; he is the only one who can answer. So I come.
The other elementals backed away from the new arrival to form a sort of ring around us. Then, acting in concert, they did something very curious—they each froze in midair for just a moment. I took the gesture to be a sort of bow or kneel, the elementals all pushing against their nature for a second to show their obeisance.
Perhaps you can trade music for [Air], said the voice. But to beseech the sky is no small thing. Those of the land are not equal to those of the sky. Trade among us would thus be an abomination… and yet….
The elemental paused, and I waited, listening to occasional falling snowflake sizzle as it struck the eyes before me.
I watched you take the highest peak, they said. I watched you take it with lightning. Pale lightning, frail lightning… and yet mighty indeed for such small things as you and your ally. I saw them channel the bolt alone, saw you correct what had gone askew… yes.
Their words kindled a small flare of hope inside me. They’d seen us fight the behemoth: they’d seen Zirilla hold the chain of mana together, seen me rejoin her and push it back into shape—and they’d hopefully been impressed.
I know much, they said. See much. Yet though I am so old that the lifespan of the typical creature who walks across the surface is to me as the length of a day is to them, I know that I am a hundredfold more ignorant than I am knowledgeable. The world is vast, and plentiful are its curiosities.
You are one such curiosity, elf Aziriel. New to me, you are. Land creatures who yet seek the highest point of land there is and take it with the power of lightning, and seemingly for no purpose other than to do the deed itself—for essence and keys can be got in many places. You have… merit.
The elemental drifted a few feet further away from me. You have merit, they repeated. I will allow you to beseech me atop the Skytusk, the mountain you claimed. Play the greatest of your music there, and I will judge your deal.
I let a relieved sigh escape my mouth. Thank you, Lord Akkakesh.
I will gather my most curious for the event, they said. When can I expect your offer?
His question dampened my relief, a little. It was hard to estimate how long it would take us—not when we were aiming to move to a new settlement and establish ourselves there. Then there was the matter of preparing defenses for the concert, of getting everyone to the mountain’s peak, of casting the spells and carving the stone to give us the right acoustics….
Sixty days hence, I said.
Sixty days, the elemental echoed. As you wish, then. You will begin when the mist that wreathes the peak has wholly reddened. Until then you may amuse these others as you wish.
The elemental left without a word of farewell, blowing out a wave of snowflakes as it soared into the air. I watched it go, the others around me drawing closer.
“Well,” I said, at a loss for how to feel. But I could hardly complain.
Things had gone about as well as I could have expected.