--- HIVREN ---
“-he’s not going to reconsider this stupid idea of his?”
Hivren shrugged helplessly, knowing exactly how his uncle was. “Sorry, I don’t think so.” he held out the letter in question and the illusionist took it with a frown, scanning the paragraphs with her strange eyes. Hivren had once asked her how she even knew his uncle, but he only ever got vague answers from both of them and sometimes a far-off look.
At one point she set the page down with a sigh, massaging her temples and muttering. “Harrel you idiot…” after a bit she glanced back at Hivren, “I’ll do the commision, but only because I don’t want him to go off without anything.” This was another thing Hivren had noticed about her, she cared about the life of someone more than whether or not what they were doing was right.
Hivren paused, frowning, “You really think he’d do that? Without a team? Without supplies?” Hivren himself had received many lectures from his uncle about what not to do if he decided to go adventuring, and that was at the top of the list.
Aymiae raised an eyebrow, “Yes. Yes I do. Your uncle thinks he’s immortal. Sparks, I used to think he might be, he just has a way about him.” That was far too true. Hivren could easily see him taking down three dragons by himself and at the end simply remarking that one of them owed him money.
There was silence for a long moment. Eventually, Hivren remembered the bit that wasn’t included in the letter, “Well, he’s sending a bunch of thinweave roots in a few weeks, I can get it for you. Harrel said he won’t be leaving for another month or so.”
The woman nodded absently, frowning at the letter, “When you see him next, tell him he needs to let me know this time if he survives so I can kill him myself for not telling me last time.”
“Let’s both hope this is the last of his expeditions…”
--
Hivren found that when he didn’t understand something, it was best to figure it out before it bit him in the backside. He’d learned this through years with parents who didn’t tell him things, and the skill was surprisingly transferable because by this point, he’d looked up countless facts in libraries and archives.
He tried not to think about that one time he’d decided based just on the tea she was drinking that his aunt was pregnant. After that it was an embarrassing couple of months in which he was proven completely wrong. Since then, Hivren never shared his theories with anyone unless they seemed dangerous to keep to himself.
As such, Hivren found himself in the library, looking up the magical and mundane uses of thinweave root. It hadn’t specified in the letter what uncle Harrel needed the potion to do, but he’d clearly needed it plenty of times because Aymiae hadn’t even asked for clarification.
The first book on plants wasn’t very helpful, it only stated that thinweave ‘isn’t edible unless cooked in a pot of pure verdant essence’ but everything was edible if you did that. The next book only told him where it was found and a general description with some badly done renditions, which was interesting, but not particularly helpful.
After five books of getting roughly that much, discovering that it was used for weaving by some old societies, and eventually moving to the alchemy section, Hivren finally picked up a book that seemed more promising, he located the index, searched for ‘thinweave’ and eventually found his way to the magical attributes section for the roots.
Thinweave root: Increases the effects of any sensory-arts. When combined with Ori leaves, it strengthens illusions beyond mortal abilities and away from simple light/sound. Certain combinations can even fool dragons.
Uncle Harrel wasn’t just going on another expedition, he was going to the dragonlands. Hivren stared at the page for quite a bit, remembering belatedly that his uncle had some sort of unknown vendetta against the place.
Hivren just wished he knew why.
--- ELIAX ---
Eliax stepped into the library and felt herself relaxing. This was the first time she’d entered a new building in an entire week and felt nothing from the resonance. If anything it seemed bored, which was something Eliax had noticed a while ago, the resonance didn’t like reading.
Naturally, she’d long since decided to like reading just because of that, which made libraries one of the only places where she knew anything about herself.
She smiled and examined the rows of books, nodding at the librarian at the desk and trying to get a feel for their sorting system here. Most libraries had different systems, especially when they were so far apart, but Eliax had a lot of experience getting used to different ones. She'd probably lived in almost every city in Sanaria in the last ten years, Estin sure didn’t like staying put.
She’d been half sure he was on the run from someone, but regardless, it gave her the ability to examine the layout for an hour or so and have a pretty good idea of where to find everything.
She found herself humming as she flipped through a history book, only to find it was severely outdated. There was nothing on the last fifty years. It didn’t mention any battles where everyone on both sides turned to dust, so she tried to find newer books. It did make her feel slightly better if these memories were from more recent times.
Eliax also didn’t find anything from before the Melorian empire was formed, which wasn’t weird in the slightest. She didn’t think there were any records left from before that, maybe the dragons had something with their hordes of knowledge, but she wouldn’t bet on it.
She picked up another stack of potential sources and moved to the back of the shelf, glancing at the volumes on affinities and innate magic.
Eliax paused and made an undignified squeaking noise when she ran straight into something squishy. She grimaced and looked up just in time to meet the eyes of the weirdo from the tavern the other day. Sparks she’d forgotten that humans were squishy. If anything in the world was unnatural, it was definitely that. People shouldn’t be squishy, they should have exoskeletons or scales or something. Humans were probably hurt by everything around them, what did they do if they got poked wrong? What protected them from rocks and stuff?
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The human, oblivious to her train of thought, gave her a moderately startled and concerned look, “Eliax! Sorry! I thought you noticed me.” He backed up, looking slightly ruffled.
She sighed, “That was my fault. Nice to see you. Goodbye.”
He didn’t take the hint.
“Hey, what’re you looking for? Maybe I can help out?”
Eliax glanced down at her three books, “I think I’m good.” But you’re noooootttttt. The tiny voice inside her head insisted. It wasn’t even something she could blame on the resonance…
The human, thankfully, didn’t seem to care that she didn’t want help. “What are you looking for?”
She sighed, but the tiny voice was very happy with this situation. “I’m looking for records on a specific battle.” She frowned, there were humans on that battlefield too, weren’t there? It couldn’t have been an inter-tribal dispute or anything like that. It had felt too official. Had they been wearing two different colors? She couldn’t quite remember… “It ended with both sides turning to dust. Or being sent to Aeinar I think.”
The human blinked at her and glanced at her books, “Oh, well that would’ve taken you all day, you’re looking at the wrong section of the library.”
Eliax gave him a rather unamused look, “How? This is history, wouldn’t it be in the history books?”
“Err… no. Most historians don’t believe it actually happened.” He smiled slightly, “There was only one reported witness, you see. The one who killed them all and led her kingdom to victory. The entire battlefield was ash when she was done.”
Eliax felt bile rise to her throat. “The Hero.” She said it more bitterly than she’d intended, but really, her opinion of the woman couldn’t be lower.
The human nodded. “The Hero.”
Eliax sighed and let him lead her to a more obscure corner of the library. She would have found it eventually, but her hatred of the Hero probably would have led her to ignore it even if she’d gone through the entire library already. She might never have opened any of the books with titles like ‘Foralen Dei Imal, the Hero’s legacy’ or ‘Never forgotten, the twenty year anniversary of the Hero’s rise to fame!’
She eventually conceded when the human happily took a book as if at random from the shelf of propaganda and opened to a page near the middle, pointing out artistic depictions of a battlefield of ash.
It was…sparks, that was almost identical to what she’d seen in the memory. It was clearly made by someone who hadn’t been there, but it was the same event. It showed a man staring hauntedly at the viewer while his face disintegrated, a haunted look in his eyes that Eliax knew had been there during the battle itself.
“You see.” The human started, “Foralen couldn’t find any way for them to win, so she cast an enormous spell over the entire battlefield, catching every enemy in the radius.”
“That kind of magic is impossible.” Eliax pointed out.
“That’s also part of the reason the historians don’t believe it even happened.” Eliax stared at the picture for a long moment as he talked animatedly about the events leading up to the battle, “We don’t know how she made the choice, but it single handedly won the queen the succession war. The Hero came back to Reiaran and told everyone these words. ‘They’re all dead. Every last one of them. Tell the widows and mothers and let them mourn.’ After that she left and was never seen again.”
Eliax frowned at the pages, she’d apparently been there. This was weak evidence for her having been the hero as far as she was concerned, there was no way that she could have cast a spell that big and there’s no way she would have. Besides, just because there were no other documented survivors didn’t mean there weren’t any at all.
The resonance had retreated far beneath the surface through the entire conversation, Eliax wasn’t sure how long it would take to come back out.
“Huh. Well I think that’s all I needed to know. Thanks I guess.”
The human frowned, “Hey wait, do you want to do some games with a couple friends? We go to Nightwind tavern most nights.”
Eliax paused. She didn’t want to. But she did know that the resonance liked this kind of thing. It might be more useful if she was around people. The time she’d hung out with Illila was probably the most productive with memory surfacing.
Although on that note…ugh…Illila would probably be there. Eliax wasn’t really avoiding her, but she was definitely annoyed that she’d told the school about her dimensionalism. She knew it was illogical since there was no way that Illila knew that the school didn’t already know. But still.
Hesitantly, Eliax smiled, “Sure, is this right now, or later?”
The human blinked, apparently not expecting her to even consider the idea. “Yeah, I was just going to head over there in a minute, did you need to finish whatever your project is?”
Eliax felt her smile strain, “No…It’s going great…”
She really hoped he forgot the whole ‘looking into the memories of her past life’ thing.
--
Nightwind was just as rowdy and energetic as the last time she’d been there. Even though it was barely past noon, people were already drinking and jeering at each other. More of them were older men this time around. Men who kept glancing at the doors as if scared someone was going to burst in and yell at them or something. Eliax suspected their wives didn’t appreciate them drinking.
The human led her to a table a bit further from the bar than the one she’d chosen last time. There were three people there already, a fairly decent looking Tuvei who was grinning ear to ear, a girl by his side who looked completely unimpressed with everything, and another guy who mostly seemed distracted. The last one was fairly large for a Tuvei, almost Hivren’s height probably.
Eliax examined them and sat down next to the girl, deciding she didn’t really like any of them. Oh well, she was already resigning herself to several hours of pointless nonsense. She let her magesight rise up, examining their surface abilities discreetly.
The human took the last empty spot and clapped her on the back in a friendly way, “This is Eliax! She’ll be joining us today. What are we playing?”
The first guy she’d processed looked her up and down, “Nice, gotta know all the ladies.” He grinned. He was an Empath with a slight affinity for lightning spells. It was a lot lower than Estin’s lightning ability, but Eliax hadn’t seen it for a while, it pulled a pit from the depths of her stomach.
The girl beside him elbowed him in the gut, “Jiuhen, you have one warning remaining.” Jiuhen? Wasn’t that the name the necromancer guy was contemplating revenge on? An Empath too, like he’s said…huh.
He glanced at her sheepishly and then focused back on Eliax, “I’m Jiuhen and this is my lovely girlfriend Givei!” Givei had mostly sky magic, but it seemed like she was working harder at her weaker affinity, enhancements.
Givei glared at him, looked Eliax up and down, and then glared at her too.
This was going well.
The human sighed, “And the quiet guy to the side is Raendus, he’s head of the local Echoball team.”
Raendus groaned, “Well I won’t be for long if I keep coming to these, my grades impact if I’m allowed to play! I don’t know why I keep letting you guys talk me into this…” Raendus…that name also seemed familiar, maybe the necromancer had said it? Raendus seemed to be a shifter, though a very very bad one. That was his only affinity, but he had the feel of a fairly decent mage anyway.
Jiuhen nudged him with an elbow, “It’s because you’re stressed, my friend! We’re all stressed! School is stress! Life is stress!”
The human nodded, he pointed at himself, “And I’m Hivren in case you forgot.”
“We’re playing Yellowpass.” Givei informed them, setting down a deck of cards. “Everyone sit down, I’m not explaining the rules again.” She glared hard at Eliax and started shuffling the deck.