--- ELIAX - CLONE, THE YEAR 789 ---
“Fora. We can’t find her anywhere.” Hivren’s voice was shaking over the recorded communication crystal, Eliax could tell that he’d been crying. “The queen sent out a request for people to look but it’s been two weeks and—” his voice cut off with a sob. “Just let me know if you got this, I’d like to- to hear a familiar voice.”
Click.
“There’s been no progress; after you didn’t respond I was hesitant to contact you again. I— I figured you were mad at her still. I’m sorry for that, I’m sure Kureia is sorry too, wh-wherever she is right now.” His voice seemed a bit stronger in that one, like he was getting used to the concept of his wife being gone.
Click.
“I… Fora, they— they found her. It’s been two whole months and I— I still thought she would just walk in the door one day, you know? I thought that she must be out there somewhere. Kureia was strong… I figured—” He sobbed lightly for a minute or so. “The funeral is in four days, I’m sure you could- you could make it if you get this.”
Click.
“Fora, are you alright? Did you make it to another realm like you’d been hoping? Or… or are you just ignoring me?” He paused, “I know I haven’t been the best person, I was never the best friend or the best guardian, but please, just respond if you’ve been getting these… I need to know that you’re at least alright.”
Click.
Eliax paused, thinking over the recordings again and again. She’d lost track of how many times she’d listened to them in the last ten minutes. Eventually she sighed and put the whole device back in her dimensional bag, next to a book of laws she’d been trying to find holes in and a sack of rations, it was still ready to record the next message that was due for any day now.
The trail was almost over.
The trail was always almost over. But this time. This time she was making progress, she would find out why they had killed her, get vengeance, and then she could finally rest easy, knowing that everything was dealt with.
Eliax grinned triumphantly at the package when she peeked out my door, grabbing it without a second thought and hurriedly closing the door again, trying to look as suspicious as possible the whole time.
There was a note accompanying the dull brown packaging, and after almost a year of being far too invested in secret codes, Eliax could read the underlying meaning without even thinking about it.
Foralen dei Imal,
I would kindly request that you halt your current path of questioning, but I’ve done that seven times by now and I think we both know how this will end. I’ll send another assassin, you’ll have actually been a clone this whole time, and then we’ll be back to square one again. Instead of capturing your clone again and torturing her for information as to your whereabouts as I’m inclined to do, I’d like to offer a compromise.
Contained within this package is a one way gatestone. We both know that you’ve expressed great interest in traveling to other realms, and I think the realm this will take you to would suitably keep you occupied for however long it takes you to finally die.
Use the gatestone, leave Virna forever, and we will stop hunting you.
— Sincerely, the society of the Mis-born Dragon, which kindly requests that you leave us alone
My clone smirked at the note, took a picture of it with her recording crystal, and cast a simple fire spell to destroy it and any tracking spells it might contain. After a moment of trying to see if the package itself would leak acid and kill her if she tried to open it, Eliax tore at the paper, pleased to see a bright green stone, exactly the shape to fit into a particularly strange construction I kept finding in the between realm. The runes were similar to a specific one near here, and I knew my sparking runes.
After confirming that it was in fact a gatestone, the clone that was Eliax put it in her dimensional storage, determined not to use it until she either died again or found a way to get rid of this society.
The fact that they’d sent her something like this just meant she was getting closer. Not too close because then they would have started to throw more and more resources at me to make me just die already. But she was close enough that they were starting to sweat. They figured it was worth the chance that I might leave Virna.
They underestimated greatly how stubborn we could be.
How helpful of them to give me the resources to start tracking down Yumorath though, my clone would have to send them something for their troubles. She pulled out a sheet of empty paper and a pen, using my most beautiful calligraphy to write a response to their message.
I appreciate the gatestone, I’ll be sure to put it to good use. However, you can’t make me do anything, so good luck with those bees.
— Fora :D
The clone wondered how long they would search for the bees before realizing she’d never actually sent them.
--
Eliax frowned through the shop windows, wondering how long it would take to simply look around. It shouldn’t take forever, but she was an expert at glancing straight over important details because she was too focused on an odd butterfly or something.
After looking in for a moment and deciding that she’d just have to deal with it if the Mis-born Dragon decided to come knocking, the clone that was Eliax pushed open the door of the abandoned crystal shop.
The owner had gone missing a week or so ago, straight from under Steris’s ancient nose. She’d even had him being watched after it became clear that it was mostly artificers and historians who’d been going missing over the last year. And yet now he was gone.
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The authorities hadn’t found a body yet, which meant he was still alive. I’d learned early on that the Mis-born Dragon preferred to try ‘correcting’ kidnapped individuals, but so far they’d only succeeded with one of them, and now she was as tightlipped as they came.
Eliax examined the immaculate crystals that rested innocently behind the glass, the crystal devices were something that this particular artificer had managed to popularize before they finally tracked him down. He’d made his mark first, which granted him her respect.
Opening the cabinets behind the counter, Eliax found them conspicuously empty. They must have contained the artificers notes and speculations, which the Mis-born Dragon would have destroyed any trace of. But they were getting sloppy lately. Last time she’d been able to find a whole notebook filled with historical evidence for the cataclysm. So Eliax was expecting to find something.
She watched as bright runes of drifting magic appeared in the air. It was odd to think about, but apparently the amount of people being born with magesight was declining sharply, almost as sharply as the amount of soul affinities. The fact that these runes might only belong to me in just a few short lifetimes was strange. But it meant that the likelihood of the Mis-born Dragon using magesight to find hidden compartments was slim to none.
As such, when Eliax immediately saw a bright Alpitha rune hovering innocently over a section of wall, she knew that she had struck gold.
She grinned at it and peeled away the wallpaper, seeing a metal safe door, the keyhole prominent. Since she had no idea where the key might be, and since it would undoubtedly alert something if she tried to pick it for some reason, Eliax simply made a miniature gate and reached her hand through the wall, feeling around for anything interesting.
The clone came out of it with a handful of crystals, a small journal, and what looked like a wardstone, sparks. Wardstones were hard to come by these days, supply and demand or something. She thought for a second before deciding this was far too valuable to put in her regular storage.
Though… If she was going to open the other storage, she should probably put some other things in there while she was at it.
The clone frowned at the wardstone for a moment before placing it gently on the counter and reaching into her pouch for the gatestone. Eliax set it beside the wardstone and piled on a few of those quick aging potions I’d accidentally gotten addicted to for a whole week. Sparking alchemists shouldn’t sell things with thinweave root in them to teenagers…
After going through her bag for ten minutes and realizing that her pile was almost as big as she was, the clone decided that she would have to take several trips.
Eliax needed to stop procrastinating opening this for so long, what had it been, three months? She set down my bag since she couldn’t bring expanded spaces inside expanded spaces, the last time she’d done that, the god of spatial balance had started appearing in her dreams and he really hadn’t seemed impressed.
After trying to decide for five entire minutes what to bring with her on the first trip, the clone ended up just grabbing the two stones and an armful of more important objects before setting them haphazardly at her feet.
She situated everything, drew a quick magic circle with some chalk, and pressed her hands together, “Places beyond, places between, thoughts of worlds, thoughts of dreams… Give me your secrets.” Eliax closed her eyes as a sudden wash of light enveloped everything, and then blinked as the small room came into view.
The walls were entirely made out of a silvery blue crystal, which I’d painstakingly hollowed out fourteen months back right before Kureia had first gone missing. The crystal would always disappear after it was no longer connected to the wall, so I’d gotten a pretty large room in. Over time it had started to turn gold, the same color as the rune that described my magic. Eliax suspected this was a result of her actually being here, observing the space that represented her own thoughts.
She put the objects on some of my shelves, which were getting rather full at this point. After shuffling things around somewhat, deciding a few things she’d need in her other storage, and making sure there was nothing that might explode for being left inside, my clone exited the between.
Eliax picked up another pile of things that needed storing and repeated the process.
-
She appeared in the mortal realm again, the pile finally gone. It probably hadn’t been the best idea to do this out in the open, but she’d much rather have everything in her permanent storage than rely on the dubious possibility that was survival.
As such, Eliax wasn’t surprised per se when someone spoke from the other side of the room, she’d half expected to be tracked down again. She did still jump out of her skin, as was common practice when one is confronted in an abandoned shop by a glowing white figure with deep red eyes.
“Are you by chance, Foralen?”
The clone blinked at him for several moments before examining him again, frowning at the even more white rune that floated around him to her eyes. With practiced ease, Eliax identified it. Selective shifter, with a hint of justice, whatever that means. “Who’s asking?” She thought about leaving out of principle, teleporting away and being done with it, but she had a suspicion he might end up in my nightmares if she didn’t at least learn his name. He was as creepy as Aeinar’s own eyes…
He tilted his head slightly, frowning, “I am called Netun. I’m a friend of one of your friends.”
“Which friend?” Whether the clone was leaving immediately or not heavily depended on this answer.
He smiled slightly, “Turste.”
Eliax blinked at him, that name having been near the bottom of the list of possibilities, was he even alive still? You could never tell with possessor entities. But she had started using that as a code word with Niun before he’d been disappeared. “Really? That’s weird, I thought he was fairly dead.”
“You never can tell with Sandfrost.”
The clone raised an eyebrow, remembering how resilient the mushrooms were. That could either be a confusing metaphor or he was hinting that there were others like Turste. “I feel like being burned to a crisp would get rid of it entirely. It works in Aubinere when trying to curb infestations.”
“That didn’t work for you, so why would you assume it works for everyone else?”
“I feel like the universe has proven over and over that I’m the exception, not the rule. So perhaps you should provide meaning to your words before I shank you? This is just an option though.”
His smile grew, “Alright then, Foralen. We have a common enemy and a common goal, we both want the society of the Mis-born Dragon to stop by any means possible. They’ve been harming innocents, warping the truths of the universe, and they’ve taken people from both of us that we either want back or want vengeance for. I propose an alliance.”
Eliax sighed, stepping up onto the counter so she could perch. Perching always helped me think, and such a thing transferred to clones. “That’s all well and good, except you’d die and then I’d feel bad.”
His expression turned bitter, “You aren’t the only one they’ve been having trouble silencing. They took nearly a decade of my memory, and they took one of my friends just last week. But as of yet they haven’t figured out how to take my life.”
Eliax tilted her head at him, “How do you know Turste?”
“We have a shared past, he and I. And though he’s been catatonic since the fire, he remembers something no one else at the moment can.”
“Great, help me finish ransacking this place for clues and then we’re set.”
His lips drew to a line, “I don’t ransack my old friends' homes.”
“You do today.”