The light of the midday sun glistened on the slightly wet skin of a lone frog, basking in the half-shade of the little glade it had come to call its home. Above it, thick and large leaves still dripping with dew provided it with shelter, and the ground below was dark and moist. It had rained the night before, a quick shower that had wet the earth to just the right degree, making the day as glorious as it could ever get. The frog made sure to enjoy it. It was late fall, and winter was not the most enjoyable time to be around. But the days were still fairly long, and when it was sunny the temperature was still pleasant.

All of it was ruined when the frog’s peace was disturbed by the stomping feet of three adventurers who, in their careless trudging of the forest without any regard for peace and quiet, almost trampled it to death. It jumped out of the way, annoyed, now needing to find a new home for the day.

Ishrin and the rest of the party were blissfully unaware of the frog’s predicament. Lisette was leading the way, now holding the column of water with the needle in her hands like it was the most fragile and precious thing to ever have graced her person. She was also examining the residual magic on the needle with her mana sight, trying to burrow into the secrets that animated it with zeal. None of which, however, lessened her concentration on the forest itself. She was ever aware of potential threats.

Melina watched the rear, making sure nobody or no monster could jump them from behind. Ishrin just walked without a care in the world, looking at the trees and the crystal formations, the rocks and the scenery in general with his little pixie. She was even more captivated by the environment than he was. However, Melina could tell that he was not being airheaded. He truly didn’t see any danger in not paying attention, as if he knew very well that nothing was going to surprise him here.

How, she did not know, but she did know that the fact infuriated her. She was a bundle of nerves after meeting Syrma, feeling like every shadow was a killer in disguise. Not Ishrin, though. There was another peculiarity about him as well, one she could not be silent about for much longer. In fact:

“Ishrin what is that?” She asked, pointing.

“It’s a steel ball.” He replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, while factually true, was not what she wanted to hear.

She frowned. “I can see that. Why is it floating around your head with Liù chasing it?”

“I can answer the first part of the question: to train my telekinetic abilities. I did a ritual called touch from afar to unlock them, but I need to practice. As for Liù, she’s just having fun, I think. You should ask her.”

The foxgirl hummed. “And how about you relaxed attitude? It’s almost as if you knew for a fact that nothing can surprise you.”

Ishrin shrugged. She ground her teeth.

“Is it your magic vision? Is it somehow better than ours?”

Ishrin’s right eyebrow went up, imperceptibly. “Magic is not all there is, Melina. There are other forces in the world.”

“I know that,” stated the foxgirl, losing her cool a bit, “magic is but a tool.”

“That’s not entirely correct either, is it?” Ishrin mused. Behind him, where he could not see, Melina was getting visibly irritated at his attitude. “Magic is reality itself, deep down. Or deep up? Huh. Anyway, to answer your question: it has to do with the same ritual that granted me telekinesis. It also opened my eyes once again to the many forces of the universe. It’s not very precise yet, but eventually my sight will allow me to see pretty much everything.”

Silence fell on their group after that. Ishrin had not been privy to either of his companion’s facial expressions during their talk, with them walking in a line, so he couldn’t really tell what they were thinking.

I sure hope I didn’t say anything wrong.

Emotions were difficult, and dealing with a girl with which there was a beginning of a romantic attraction was doubly so. With Liù, the wife and not the pixie, it had been much different. Liù had been the one to do pretty much all the work, Ishrin simply following along by picking up her not-so-subtle hints. He still remembered the day she literally pushed him against a wall and made her interest in him known.

After she was gone… he had never been a very sociable person to begin with, and it only got worse. It didn’t help that within a century or two most of the people on his planet saw him as a monster to stop at any cost. He still had a few friends in his old universe, but he had to admit that there was a pattern among them all: they weren’t exactly normal people. Normal people were… weird. With was all he could say about it, lacking more experience in the matter.

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After his reincarnation and after meeting Lisette and Melina, he was very much motivated to change. He wanted to experience friendship, connection and love, which was why the silence upset him. At the same time, he was old and—some could say—wise, and even he understood that perhaps sometimes silence was a viable option.

He was still mulling about silence and a possible opener to break the strange ice that had formed between them when they reached a large clearing, surrounded by stones. The stones were shaped like crude statues of animals and people, covered in moss and vines. They were set in a circular pattern, all pointing inwards. The hunched backs of the humanoid statues and the feline muzzles of the animal ones all seemed to stare at a singular point at the center of the ring of statues.

Yet, there seemed to be nothing of note there.

“Do you think it’s the entrance to the other realm?” Asked Melina. Ishrin was glad she seemed to be back to her normal self, although he was left wondering what exactly her normal self was like.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

“Me neither,” supplied Lisette. “Which is strange. If magic is the basis of everything, of reality itself like you suggested, at least you should be able to sense the opening.”

She paid attention. It shouldn’t have surprised him, given how interested she always was whenever the topic of magic came up.

“Magic is just a tool.” Said Melina dismissively. Ishrin felt irritation at hearing she say that again, but he couldn’t tell whether she believed what she said or simply said it out of spite.

He tried to see if she was looking at him funny, but her face was unreadable.

“Ishrin, can you read the poem again? The part where it talks about the glade.” She asked.

Ishrin perked up. He summoned it from his inventory and read it out loud.

“The glade was still in the morning air,

And the owl and the dove rested at peace

For the ring of light watched the heir

His son and his niece.”

“It seems like the poem has instructions on how to activate these statues.” Lisette said.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Melina said. “The owl and the dove…”

She moved from statue to statue, cleaning them of the overgrowth of vines and moss that blurred their features. There were two statues she spent the most time on, and indeed they looked like an owl and a dove looking towards the center of the clearing from two opposites points in the circle of stone figures.

“They have latent magic,” Ishrin said. “But they are not active.”

Melina looked at him sideways.

“There must be an activation sequence.” Lisette said.

“How about a ritual?” Melina said.

Shaking his head, Ishrin decided he wasn’t emotionally equipped to decipher her behavior. Instead, he did what he knew best: he tried to come up with an actionable plan.

He looked around.

There were tall trees all around, crowning the clearing with their tall branches and even though the sun shone high in the sky, their canopy blocked most of the light plunging the place in perpetual shadow. Yet, the flowers on the rich soil seemed to glow brightly, and the moss shone with dew glistening in the still misty air like a pale morning of winter.

Something caught his attention. While the dove and the owl’s stony figures occupied diametrically opposite places in the circle of statues, the other two points of interest didn’t hold any statues. In their places along the other diameter of the circle, the only other significative diameter of course, for out of the infinity of possible lines that cut a circle in two once you know one then only another one becomes important while all the rest are worthless… well in those two places there were small pillars of stone, cylindrical and tall, with something at the top. A gem, one white like glass or frosted water, the other clear like crystal.

“What’s the path that the sun takes in the sky?” He asked.

“Do you think it might have something to do with it?” Melina asked.

This time, Ishrin tried a different approach. Rather than just replying with a short sentence, he chose to relay his observations and his theories about what he had seen. Melina listened with rapt attention, humming along and studying the same statues and pedestals that he had examined. He told her about the flowers and the dew, showed her the diameters, and she nodded. She looked pleased, and her smile made Ishrin smile in turn.

“The sun rises over there,” she said, still smiling. Smiling at him, he realized. “And sets there.”

He followed the arc she made with her hand. It didn’t intersect with the pillars, nor with the small holes in the canopy that they were just now spotting. There were three such holes in apparently random positions.

Melina shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

She didn’t look angry like she did earlier, despite their apparent failure. Ishrin wanted to think about why that was some more, but instead forced himself to think about the problem at hand.

Lisette sat on a rock. “I am not very good at riddles.” She said, drooping.

“Don’t worry! We are a party, we cover each other’s weaknesses, don’t we?” Melina said.

“Cover each other’s…” she echoed.

Ishrin kept staring at the canopy. The three holes were almost perfect circles, unnatural ways for plant matter to develop, and indeed all three were marked by faint yet very visible traces of bright green magic. It was Liù, however, who provided the clue he needed to figure out the riddle. Looking at her, he was stuck with a thought about her light, and thinking about light and crystals made him think about refractions and reflections. Technical knowledge from worlds where technology could do things so wonderous to even put some of his best magic to shame. He remembered when, for a brief period of time, he had traveled with the Technocrat. Back when the man was still sane, and together they tried to come up with ways to integrate magic and technology.

Ishrin shook his head. The Technocrat was dead.

“The heir, his son and niece, the poem says.” He muttered, then showed the holes in the canopy to Melina. “Are there a trio of stars in these relative positions?”

She pondered about it for a while. Her face lit up with understanding. “There are!” She said. “But only in summer. It’s fall now.”

I smiled. “Well, this quest either requires a lot of patience…” I said. “Or special means.”

“I do not have patience.” Lisette said. “Please tell me that you have special means.”