[Divine Quest: The Sky is the Limit

Hello there, ‘Sweetie’, was it?

Memory and her cutesy names… I much prefer ‘Iris’. Well, at least it’s less gaudy than ‘Sanguine’. So, good job this time!

I’m a bit annoyed with you nonetheless. I mean, come on! I dangled a nice little treat right in front of you. Your daughter is a Champion Soul and you aren’t even a tiny bit curious to find out who her Patron is? Just because I told her to keep it a secret for now? Are you serious?

I thought you’d be way more inquisitive after needling Memory about you. But no! Mademoiselle simply decides to trust that her daughter wouldn’t betray her.

Tsk… Should have known not to bet against Memory.

Anyways, since I ran out of patience and I don’t want to keep my little Iris from having her fun any longer than I need to, I have a Quest for you.

Please, help her with her own task. And keep her alive this time. It won’t be easy. She is supposed to contribute Air Affinity to our little breeding project.

To be fair, you prepared her better than I expected. Memory is such a little cheat! Nobody was supposed to figure out magic to this degree yet!

Well, I think you would have helped her regardless but here is a little incentive. As payment, I’ll leave a nice little Trait for your next life with your exasperating Patron. You sure as hell could do with a dose of Curiosity.

Best Regards, the very same.]

I had to read through the message a few times before I finally closed it, to make sure I understood it correctly and didn’t jump to conclusions.

This was a Quest from Iris’ Patron. And they were called Curiosity. Not only that, the only reason to keep that a secret from me in the first place was to entice me to needle the info out of my daughter? To win some kind of bet with Memory? It wasn’t even anything important. Were they kidding me?!

And speaking of Memory, she totally knew that this was coming even back when she visited me in my dream, right? ‘Delightful little bundle of Curiosity’ my ass!

I looked at Iris again. She was still attentively watching the handful of tiny scalamander larvae, cooing from time to time and licking over her sparkling eyes. This was my daughter alright. Even if she really had been Sanguine before, she wouldn’t remember any of it. So, although it might have been the same soul inside of her, Sanguine was still gone and Iris was someone new.

At least I thought so. I had no reason to assume otherwise. Iris was Iris. I wouldn’t treat her any different than before.

I wasn’t sure if I liked Curiosity any better than Memory. At least she seemed to care about her champion’s happiness? ‘Seemed’ was the keyword here, though.

It was ‘our little breeding project’ after all. They were totally in cahoots with Memory and Hunger on that one. How was she supposed to get that air affinity? Befriending some storm elementals? They were always wandering around. How would she be able to… ah!

Of course, this was why this part fell to Curiosity’s champion. Iris was whining all the time that she would prefer to go off, exploring.

Still, the mating season always fell on the beginning of the dry period. There were no storms at all at that time of the year. Another type of air elemental then?

I eyed the mountains towards the south. There could be some proto-spirits living in there somewhere. Chasing each other along the cliffs, maybe? Then I recalled that Trigger had left in that direction last year. What were the chances that it didn’t piss something off?

The reward seemed… useful? I wouldn’t know. Not until next life. If Memory even decided to hand it over to me that was. But Curiosity was right about one part at least. I wouldn’t leave my daughter to her own devices just because of that.

This year, I had my girls take care of the new generation of children. Yes, even my own clutch. No favouritism here. There were few enough viable eggs that they could have been considered one single large spawn package in the past. So I let my daughters practise for the future.

At least that was what I told them. I simply wanted my peace and quiet and not a repeat of last year. Let someone else be the ‘Nurse’. I was perfectly fine with being the genius ‘Teacher’ and ‘Matriarch’.

Well, it mainly fell to Siria, Iris and Rose in the end. Pyra was still a bit grumpy that she’d have to choose a ‘boring boy’ to mate with eventually and couldn’t have someone ‘cool like Vigil or Trigger’. Ruby and Garnet were still continuing their excursions and food-runs and Nibble was mostly busy with her mushroom farming experiments.

All the more surprising was Junior’s interest and participation in child care. How had he put it? ‘We have to teach others if we want to keep the fire burning.’ I mean, I could absolutely support this argument. Still, it made me a tad uncomfortable whenever I saw the appraising looks Rose shot at her smallest brother these days when he was hanging around the larvae.

Was this my fault? First Pyra, now Rose. They shouldn’t have any interest of that nature in anyone for a couple of years longer. And even then only for a short while once every year. So, how the hell did this happen? Maybe I shouldn’t have focused so much on describing desired criteria for a potential mate? Otherwise, I had no idea what could have caused this behaviour.

When I had asked Rose about it, she informed me calmly that she simply wanted the smartest one when the time came. I had retorted that she had another two years left before she needed to worry about any of that and there was no need to rush. She only had pouted and responded that ‘the others could try to steal first place’.

I hadn’t known what to say to that. And I soo wanted nothing to do with this particular topic afterwards. At least I wouldn’t be here when it inevitably happened. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Finally, Iris took a break from her swooning over the little ones. So I stopped my retrospection and wrote for only her to see, ‘[Hey honey, I just got a Quest from a certain Curiosity. Ever heard of her?]’

I didn’t know what reaction I expected. Shock over the sudden reveal of her secret? Guilt over not coming clean sooner? Something like that. It definitely was not the open joy and relief I was bombarded with.

‘[Finally! I’ve been waiting for ages!]’ Iris excitedly bounced up to me. ‘[I’ve been asking her for so long to finally let me tell you!]’

Wait, wait… what? She was asking her?

‘[But she said it was a]’ my daughter paused, gaze unfocused. A sign that she was looking at her profile. ‘[a matter of principle?]’, she continued and tilted her head. ‘[Curiosity didn’t want to tell me what she meant by that, though.]’

Why? How?

She seemed to notice my shocked expression and stopped her excited wobbling. ‘[Mom? Is something wrong?]’

‘[How are you talking with each other? And why was this such an important secret that you had to mope around for half a year instead of just telling me?]’ I approached her, exasperated.

She ducked away. ‘[Sorry, mom! I really wasn’t supposed to tell by myself.] [Something about getting something for me? I don’t remember. It was in an already completed Quest.]’

‘[So you talk through Quests?]’ I didn’t know how this could be called a ‘conversation’ though. Memory did the same but it was more like listening to monologues, lectures and commentary.

‘[Yes! I ask a question in my Notes and then she sends me a small Quest.]’ Iris began to wiggle left and right. ‘[Like finding something new and interesting or getting better at magic] [but most of the message is just her answering and talking about other stuff.]’ She flicked her tongue over her sparkling right eye. ‘[She’s soo nice! The other day she even helped me to find that spawn lake!]

Why the hell wasn’t Memory doing that?! I mean, this didn’t sound too complicated, right? Instead, I only got those freeform quests with objectives that took years to complete! Not fair! Could I change patrons, please?

Well, on second thought. Sanguine probably had the same thing going on. And her randomly running off to find new and interesting stuff was what got her killed eventually. I also wouldn’t be able to access knowledge of a previous life and wouldn’t be the genuine genius that I am now.

Still, why did Memory let me roam around on my own with only vague directions? She wouldn’t even have had to show up in a dream if she communicated like Curiosity, complaining that it was oh so expensive.

I definitely had to ask her about that when I’d see her next. I absolutely would not pay her back for that dream if she didn’t even have to use it!

Probably.

Who was I kidding? She’d just take it out of my ‘savings account’ anyway, right?

I let out a self-deprecating huff and focused on my surroundings again. Iris had shoved herself right in my face, staring into my eyes with worry.

Surprised, I croaked and jerked back.

Small ice symbols formed between us. ‘[Mom, you totally spaced out there.] [What’s wrong?] [Did Curiosity write something bad?]’

I shook my head to clear it. I could ponder that topic later. ‘[No, honey. Everything’s fine. Let’s talk about that Quest of yours, okay?]’

She immediately perked up at that. ‘[Oh yes!] [Yes!] [Yes!] [Finally! So much exploring and fun! But]’ She turned towards where she’d left the larvae earlier. [first, you’ll have to show me everything you did to raise us! I want to be the best!]’ She turned back to me, noticing my nonplussed expression. ‘[Um… please?]’

I sighed. What had I expected really? It’s not like I wasn’t already doing that. And the more serious they took it, the less work for me, right?

A little bit over a moon later, I was lying in the shallow part of the lake, digesting my latest meal of juicy grilled scorpion with baked mushrooms. Earlier that day, Nibble had proudly declared that her cooking proficiency was now at ‘novice’ and I had to admit, it showed. Or tasted? Anyway, it was delicious!

I would have been in absolute post-feast bliss if Rose and Siria weren’t currently busy arguing, loudly croaking and splashing around right next to me.

‘[That one is mine! I already gave her a name and all!]’ Siria was pelting her sister with tiny ice pebbles.

‘[But I saw her first! And you already have Millie. Why can’t you let me have at least one clever girl!]’ Rose was sheltering a bubble of water with a female scalamander larva inside. It wasn’t one of mine and I didn’t remember which clutch she was from. Although, she tasted like she was from one from my birth pond.

‘[But I already got her a little bit used to me. And now you’re ruining everything!]’ Infuriated, Siria turned to me. ‘[Mom! Rose took Sizzle away from me!]’

‘[I didn’t! She was swimming around! And her name is Fumia, not Sizzle!]’, Rose retorted.

I had about enough of this and shot a bubble beam at both of them. ‘[Girls! She isn’t a toy! She is your little sister!]’ I wrenched control over the small water bubble from Rose and cradled the little terrified larva. ‘[There is no reason to fight over her. Especially not with her in the line of fire.]’ I glared at them.

They avoided my gaze, falling silent.

‘[That’s what I thought.]’ I croaked to get their attention back to my writing. ‘[You’ll have to be more responsible. If you absolutely have to make a competition out of it, fine!] [But you have to keep it amongst yourselves and stay considerate around the little ones.]’ I let go of the little larva but she kept clinging to me.

I approached Siria and Rose, and caressed both of their faces with one hand each. ‘[How would you have felt if I had pitted you against each other as babies? How would you feel about one another now?]’

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

They exchanged a few glances. Then huffed nearly inaudibly.

‘[I’m sorry, mom.]’

‘[Sorry, mom.]’, both of them wrote at the same time.

Little Fumia-or-Sizzle peeked her head out of the water behind my shoulder and chirped. I gently pried her off my scales and plopped her down on Rose’s head. ‘[First, decide on a name together. I’m assuming she showed talent since you’re fighting over her?]’

They nodded. ‘[She’s real quick at learning to read.]’ ’[She used water magic to move faster.]’ Siria and Rose wrote simultaneously. Then they did a double-take at each other’s replies.

I chuckled. ‘[See? Just work together on this, would you?]’

They sheepishly agreed.

In the late evening, Vigil came back from another visit to Dancer. I promptly dropped what I was doing and went over to meet him before one of my kids could seize his attention.

‘[hello] [Sweety] - [how?] [are] [you] [doing]’, the spirit greeted me when I approached.

‘[Good evening Vigil. Any news from Trigger yet?]’

He let out a puff of smoke. ‘[no] - [amusement] - [I] [told] [you] [last] [time] [that] [I] [would] [come] [to] [you] [first] - [as] [soon] [as] [I] [hear] [from] [Trigger]’

I grumbled annoyed. ‘[Why are you still writing like that? We both know that I know that you know the proper version.]’

Vigil's eyes and the cracks all over his grey skin flared a brighter orange-red at that for an instant and the temperature around us rose a bit. ‘[I] [like] [it] [better] [this] [way] - [why?] [should] [I] [change] [it]’

Yeah, yeah… He had to be all individual and stuff, just because. No need to get defensive about it. Geeze.

Anyways, if I ever wanted to find a solution for our current fertility problem, I really needed Trigger to point me in a general direction to seek out the Swamp elemental. I just hoped the forgetful hot-head could remember at least that much. I couldn’t very well scour the whole forest until I found the ‘nesting site’ of those tiny lizards on my own now, could I? That would take years!

And I was convinced by now that they had something to do with each other. It would be far too much of a coincidence otherwise. When Memory was helping my kids with their fire control… somehow, she sent them Energy instead of keeping the fire in check herself.

So, if a whole species was hit with a fertility curse, how big were the chances that there was someone else but the goddess named Fertility behind it? Okay, I might have asked Iris to consult Curiosity about it. But I totally thought so even before that. I just asked for the affirmation to make sure. I was a genius after all!

In any case, Fertility would have had to channel this curse through some mortals, too. At least I assumed so. I didn’t see why she’d be able to act differently than my own Patron. First and foremost, this was a game for them. I couldn’t imagine that it would be a very fun one if everyone played by different rules.

And my prime suspects for the mortal Energy-anchors of her curse were those tiny lizards with their huge nesting community. I had suspected them having a champion soul amongst them before, after all. Their described behaviour simply diverged too much from every other member of their species I ever had encountered.

So, I wanted to find them. To end this more or less cold war between us. One way or the other. Vigil already had agreed to come with and back me up.

But the elemental who should know the way, the culprit who started this stupid conflict, had only returned once since it began to explore the mountains instead of the swamp, only to complain about not finding enough stuff to burn. It had to be coaxed into trying to reach the other side of the mountain chain a second time. This had been three or four moons before the mating season started. Back then it had been more important to me to not provoke the Swamp to return after it finally seemed to leave us alone.

If I’d known back then about the fertility drop…

But I didn’t. And so I was forced to wait for Trigger to visit again. Vigil wasn’t exactly thrilled about my constant pestering. I would have sympathised if I wasn’t slowly but surely losing my patience. Maybe I also wanted an excuse to leave for a while again. Seeing some of my daughters being all caring and ‘playing house’, especially since it was mainly out of competition and not genuine feelings of affection, just drove home my own deficiencies.

I desperately had wanted a family. So why did I have to force myself so much to feel about them as I thought I ought to as their mother?

‘[why?] [are] [you] [not] [asking] [other] [elementals] [in] [the] [swamp forest]’, Vigil interrupted my pondering. ‘[I] [am] [sure] [they] [could] [help] [searching] - [if] [they] [do] [not] [already] [know]’

I stared at him. Of course! Why had I been so stupid? Simply asking around should be fine, right? Ripple knew Tide and they lived days away from each other, even at the ridiculously high speeds that Ripple was moving up and down the rivers. And now that I thought about it, the river elemental even had known about the [forest] being angry before I had visited it last time. How had I forgotten that? I thought I was supposed to have an excellent memory!

‘[Why didn’t you say that sooner?!]’, I demanded.

‘[you] [did] [not] [ask] - [always] [asking] [about] [Trigger] - [have] [I] [seen] [?] - [have] [I] [heard] [?] - [Trigger] [Trigger] [Trigger] - [very] [irritating]’ The spirit produced some steam and blew it in my direction.

‘[I’m...]’ I wanted to justify myself but I knew that Vigil was right. As I said before. I simply hadn’t sympathised with the spirit. ’[...sorry.]’, I lamely finished my sentence.

Vigil’s glowing cracks pulsated again, mirthfully. ‘[it] [is] [fine] - [I] [will] [watch] [after] [the] [babies] [while] [you] [search]’ The glow intensified. ‘[the] [new] [babies] [and] [the] [big] [babies]’

I snorted. ‘[Thank you, Vigil. That would be awesome.]’

A few days later I reached Ripple’s stream again, the first stop on my expedition. Iris was with me. This time she refused to stay behind and ‘babysit’ her siblings again. I refrained from reminding her that she wasn’t any older than them. She wanted an adventure and it seemed like Curiosity had given her the go-ahead.

I also hoped to, maybe, receive a little bit of help from her Patron as she had given before on the search for the other scalamander mating site.

Ripple - in elongated pike form - was ecstatic to meet her. And Iris was fascinated by the usage of different pigments to dye the water, immediately beginning to pester the river elemental for tips and tricks in water magic art. It was difficult to get my inquiry across.

Once I did, however, Ripple turned serious and contemplative.

‘[not] [supposed] [to] [tell]’, it admitted. ‘[no] [more] [hurt] - [not] [enough] [?]’

Iris croaked loudly. ‘[But they’re still hurting us!]’, she protested. ‘[First, the Swamp killed who knows how many of my siblings] [and now they keep us from having enough children in the future!] [How is that fair?!]’

Ripple was at a loss, not comprehending most of the message. Iris noticed and turned to me. ‘[Mom, help!]’

It took a while but finally, Ripple agreed to at least send us in a general direction. Referring us to other river elementals it kept in contact with. It didn’t accompany us, though, stating that it wanted nothing to do with our quarrel.

So we journeyed onwards. Iris excitedly took in anything new we came across. The further we got away from home, the more energetic she became. I, however, got more and more agitated, feeling like we were closing in on ‘enemy territory’.

Every water elemental we met knew at least a few words of my magic script. And they all had heard of [Sweetie] before. On the one hand, that was really helpful for communication. On the other, it was disconcerting to be confronted with this network of gossipers you’ve never met before and who only knew about you through stories from acquaintances or acquaintances of acquaintances.

Iris was delighted that her mother was ‘famous’, though, and jumped right in on the tittle-tattle.

Anyhow, by the end of the moon, we finally got close to our target. It had been a bit of an odyssey but we never wandered too far off course. We had encountered a few pockets with unnaturally lush vegetation before but no proto-spirit responded to our attempts at communication while we explored them.

This time, however, the forest all around us simply radiated life and there was no end in sight. The further we moved forward, the denser the flora became. Thick mosses and vines everywhere and the moisture in the air was just shy of forming fog. I felt terribly vulnerable… and surrounded.

‘[We should return and bring help.]’ I turned to Iris. ‘[This has to be it. I can’t see very far with all these plants around us and I really don’t want to be ambushed.]’

She seemed reluctant at first. ‘[We could just burn it all down?]’

‘[You mean you could burn it all down? I don’t have any fire magic. Did you forget?]’, I chided.

Iris watched the overgrowing ferns all around us with trepidation. ‘[No, sorry mom. You’re right.] [Let’s go home and bring a few of the others.]’, she easily relented.

Well, I had been thinking about bringing Vigil mostly, but I doubted Pyra would want to stay behind for something like this. She probably was already grumpy that Iris and I snuck away without her. I just didn’t think she’d have been the best choice for a more or less ‘stealthy’ recon mission.

We returned only half a moon later. Using the rivers and with a clear destination, it had only been a matter of how fast we were willing to move. Rose, Siria and Nibble had stayed behind. Nibble didn’t want to leave her fungus experiments for too long. Rose and Siria were still competing who chose the ‘better’ offspring. So neither wanted to miss the metamorphoses, even if one of them staying behind would have been completely sufficient.

Furthermore, some of the little ones had been smart enough to notice what was going on and had clung to their two caretakers to keep the ‘big sisters’ from leaving. How could I have argued with that? I could not. It was the power of puppy-eyes.

But everyone else was here now. Iris, Junior, Pyra, Ruby’s group of three, Garnet and Flint, the no-girls-allowed group of five and Vigil. Including me, 14 magical scalamanders and a genuine volcano spirit were lurking in the dawn light, staring at the lush wall of green in front of us.

‘[Remember, we’re here to talk. Show force but don’t go overboard.]’, I reminded one last time.

‘[Sure, mom.] [Just a bit of fire to make us a clearing and get attention.]’, Iris answered.

‘[And then we wait for them to attack us] [so that we don’t have to feel bad, when we cook them, right?]’ Pyra threw in.

‘[No!]’, Junior interjected. ‘[We’ll try to talk. Well, mom and Vigil will try to talk.] [We just defend. Don’t mess this up, please?]’

‘[Yeah, yeah, squirt.]’ Pyra threw a swooning gaze at the volcano spirit. ‘[Everything will be fine. Vigil is here after all.]’

I wasn’t so sure about that. We were weeks away from his home and place of power. So, if we didn’t plan on burning a huge chunk of forest to the ground - which was, of course, an option in case negotiations broke down - Vigil was a little bit limited in his usual repertoire.

Cinder had been watching the overgrown swamp around us for a while now. He was shaking but kept quiet. Ruby and Fir were trying to reassure him. Spruce was continuously scraping and scratching the ground. The other boys tried to calm him down.

Maybe I should have left them both at home as well, considering their previous encounters with the Swamp monster and their resulting injuries. They wanted to come with, though.

Vigil must have noticed my worried glances. ‘[Do] [not] [worry] [Sweetie] - [I] [am] [here] - [I] [will] [protect] [our] [babies]’

I suppose I should have been touched? But all I could think about were all the possible implications of the word [our] there and my initial reaction was more something like: Eww! No, thank you.

On the other hand, the spirit had raised them together with me. And was probably even a better parent than I had been. As sad as that was. He also was there when the last clash with the Swamp occurred. I wasn’t.

So I just looked up to it and wrote. ‘[Thank you. I’m counting on you.]’

We started with levelling any and all plants around us. Everything flammable was burned as quickly as possible and the ash spread across the new clearing. Then we build a plateau of mud and charcoal, drawing all the remaining moisture from it, and Vigil reinforced everything with volcanic stone.

We were close to the end of the dry period, so we had to be careful to not start too big of a fire at once. Instead, we continued to enlarge the clearing by freezing the plants and breaking them apart, transporting them to our newly forming primitive hill fort to serve as fuel for fire magic.

When we didn’t receive any reaction after a whole day of work, I started to get worried again. Why didn’t they come? The smoke must have been visible days away. And we were practically right at their doorstep.

‘[Maybe they are afraid?]’, Junior suggested.

‘[Or maybe they have to send someone to fetch the big guy first?]’, Garnet proposed.

‘[Or that Swamp guy is hiding and whimpering after the trashing it got from Vigil last time.]’, Pyra added gleefully.

‘[It] [had] [killed] [babies]’, was all that Vigil had to say.

The following day we began to systematically burn lanes into the thickest parts of the swamp forest. Well, the kids and Vigil did. I coordinated and helped with dowsing when needed and throwing up earth over the hot ash.

Again, no-one came to challenge or meet us. But when we returned the following day, there clearly had been attempts to reclaim as much ground as possible over night. New greenery sprouted everywhere along the charred and fertilised ground. No direct contact was established, though.

So we repeated our destructive forays until, a couple of days later, we happened upon a huge glade around a swampy lake with a grove of mangrove-like scale-trees in the middle.

I noticed countless tiny lizards hiding in the centre of the lake and a handful of dark-green and brown elementals scudding away from where we broke through the tree-line. They were imitating the forms of several different insects and an enlarged version of the tiny lizards, but they couldn’t hide their proto-spirit nature.

‘[Don’t pursue them!]’ I hastily wrote in front of Pyra to block her path. She had been about to run after them and nearly collided with my water script.

Everyone else was slowly fanning out, taking in and getting familiar with the new environment while Pyra pouted.

Once we were all in position, I nodded towards Vigil who had volunteered to lead initial negotiations. He took a few steps forward, but before he could do anything else, the water in front of us exploded in a fountain of mud and vines.

The Swamp elemental was attacking all of us at once. I threw up walls of packed dirt around me and solidified the ground below, establishing an area of absolute control over water and earth. I was unable to wrestle control of the vines, so I stopped trying and just blocked and cut them whenever they tried to close in.

When I was about to reach the limit of things I could focus on at the same time, I could feel it. A strange and potent energy entered my whole being. It washed over my mental strain and helped me to concentrate, accelerating the intent process of spells I had practised the most, sharpening my focus.

It felt warm and… familiar.

Meanwhile, my children turned down the heat and froze everything around them as had been the plan. Thankfully, Pyra fell in line, too. Vigil, on the other hand, boiled away at the attacking elemental, trying to nail it down to force it to stop. It didn’t budge, though, and slipped away again and again. All the while continuing to throw ranking vines and roots at us.

Iris, Junior and Garnet produced paper-thin blades of ice that cut through those like butter. Pyra, Flint and Spruce burned the remains while everyone else tried to maintain the perimeter of ever-decreasing plant matter.

Why was it so difficult to not destroy everything here? If we had wanted to do that, we could have just burnt the forest wholesale. But who knew what our adversary expected from us ‘evil fire creatures’ once it gave up?

We waited patiently, though, and rotated through the allocated defensive tasks to keep everyone more or less fresh, while Vigil slugged it out with the Swamp monster.

None of its allies came to help. They only watched from afar and cowered in fear, shaking.

Why did I feel like the bad guy here?

Eventually, the Swamp slowly ran out of steam, while Vigil looked not much worse for wear.

Finally!

Maybe we could talk now? You know? Like civilised people? Like we could have done before one side started a vendetta against an only peripherally related party?

I looked around, finding only barely sapient natural magic constructs and more or less intelligent prehistoric animals.

Yeah, I definitely was expecting too much, wasn’t I?