--- ELIAX ---
“I’ve lived here for ten years,” Kinthek explained as we approached the strange, floating river, it seemed to be having a hard time doing that at the moment though, the water was trembling in the air and droplets kept falling to the riverbed, “before that, I lived in the bigger city and… well it wasn’t bad there, but they never really appreciated people like me.”
As far as I’d seen they didn’t like him much here either. They seemed like they would leave him in the desert for dead if they had any say in the matter. “People… like you?” I echoed for elaboration. I’d been wondering for quite a while why everyone seemed to hate him, he’d so far acted like it didn’t matter, or that it wasn’t even happening. So it was nice to hear him acknowledge it, that meant he did notice what was happening
Kinthek seemed a bit surprised at the more detailed question, but he explained, “One of my ancestors was a Bloodbinder… Bloodbinders, they ah, they usually go insane.” He touched his hair absently, scratching at his head. “They call my ancestor the Red Curse because he was particularly famous for a Bloodbinder. He went insane and killed all sorts of people. Atharian doesn’t like senseless murder, but it took a long time for any of the priests to manage to deal with him.” Kinthek sighed. “This is stupid. You can barely understand me.”
I glanced at him, annoyed that he was second guessing the idea of giving me information. “Continue.”
He blinked, “Ah… well anyway, they all know I’m probably related to him. He’s one of the only ones in recent memory who went too far and still had enough children left to pass it on. Most other lines have died out by now too.”
I wanted to ask about his relatives then, or at least about what exactly had been passed on—the red hair probably?—but I didn’t know enough words to form the question.
“Hardly anyone from there ends up here,” He explained, “My mother left, she was running away from… my father. But we had a pretty good life all things considered. We lived in the city and my mother worked odd jobs. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was good. At least, till I was fifteen, that’s when he finally tracked her down.” Kinthek shook his head sorrowfully.
I frowned in slight confusion on the specific numbers, but didn’t interrupt, I’d probably just heard something wrong.
Kinthek continued, unaware of my confusion, “I hate him. So much. I might hunt him down one day, or just go back to the sea, find out what it’s like there. I think I’ll probably travel though, it’s easier to be a Red Curse if people don’t have to deal with me all the time.”
I nodded slowly.
“...Anyway! I liked the city, they never even had attacks there on Light day, it was peaceful, it just had the people to get in the way.”
“Light day?” I echoed. They’d mentioned it earlier.
He perked up slightly, “Light day is the only day when the barrier is weak enough that things can get through.” He pointed up at Arendi. “They have all sorts of monsters up there, just waiting to come down here. Thankfully the monsters can’t really live anywhere besides the seas, they need a lot of water.” He hesitated. “At least, most of them.”
As if to accentuate the fact that such a day was approaching, the river—which had been acting oddly for the last hour or so—fell to the bank below and began glowing. Which wasn’t any less weird than the alternative, but it felt strange to see a river that suddenly looked like a river. I stopped in my tracks, giving the water a bewildered look.
Kinthek glanced down at it, “Atharian above, even the water can tell it’s soon! Just a week away…”
--
I pressed my hand against the ground again, frowning as it refused to shape.
I wasn’t particularly good at elemental magic, but I’d done this a million times, so it really shouldn’t be so stupid in this area. I had worked just a few days ago while I was off wandering for goodness sake!
I stood up, putting my hands on my hips and huffing.
Kinthek sat nearby, having completely misunderstood when I tried to tell him I was about to be busy, I’d managed to get… most of the point across, but even after two days of knowing most of what people were saying, I wasn’t much better at explaining those things myself.
I sat back down and tried again, glaring.
“What are you doing?” Kinthek asked. He seemed more curious than critical, though his face was warped with confusion.
“Things.” I responded, scraping up a handful of dirt and attempting to shape it into something with magic. It resisted, but I was able to mold it into a relatively smooth sphere.
Kinthek gave the sphere a wide-eyed look “Don’t do things like that! The earth is-”
He paused as I pressed that ball of earth to the ground and tried to meld it again, nothing happened. I glared at the ground, “It’s not working.”
He blinked at it, “How are you even… I think it’s… well we have a thunder crystal in the village and that’s… Eliax!”
That last bit came as I picked up a rock and started breaking it up with magic. “What?”
“Don’t do that to the earth!”
I blew the dust off my hand and tried shaping it without touching it, it was harder for me but still something I could usually do. I tried pulling that dust back to me. Yet, nothing happened. “Why not?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the bits of earth still stuck to my hand. Perhaps I should try and make a floating base? If earth shaping only worked if it wasn’t connected to the ground then… well this was making my dim idea of hollowing out an underground space like I’d done back on Virna much more complicated.
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Kinthek spluttered for a few more seconds, “The Aremolot do that to the earth! You might attract one of them!”
I tilted my head, “...Aremolot?”
“They’re dangerous beasts!”
I nodded slowly and rubbed the rest of the dust on my skirts. Well, if it made him that uncomfortable… “Okay.” I conceded.
--- FORA ---
“Hey, you!” I shouted, perching atop the city wall.
The lizard person below me— they called themselves Larborak as far as that weird translation stuff was concerned —looked up, eyes wide. When she saw me, she squeaked and made to run away.
Sparks, they were getting scared of me. Perhaps I needed to vary my approach after all? Just like Eliax kept saying? I glared at her, “I just wanna know why everybody’s hiding inside! What’s going on?” According to Eliax it was ‘Light day’ but that didn’t tell either of us anything. Those lizard people— sorry, Larborak —that she’d befriended had made it very clear that everyone was staying in their tents today.
The lizard woman— Larbora, right right —blinked up at me, her hands trembling. “The beasts are coming! It’s Light day!” With that she fled into the tent.
Why in the sparks did they use tents if a beast was coming? I would rather be in one of those buildings if I knew something dangerous was on its way. I frowned at her, tracking my gaze toward the sky. Arendi was high in it, but we weren’t even close to its path. It would dip above the horizon and then set again, only obscuring the sun for a few hours. Eliax had said it was something to do with Arendi.
Light day… what did that even really mean?
I looked out at the desert again, glancing to the side as those two annoying soldiers peeked out of the nearby door. They finally seemed to have figured out that I’d mostly behave if they were just watching instead of trying to catch me.
They were whispering something to each other. I ignored it out of habit, but sparks, they’d probably just yell at me for my earlier annoyance-ings if they knew I could understand them now.
They shifted in their spots for a moment before finally withdrawing. Interesting.
-
The world trembled.
I blinked from my perch, glancing down at the city. There wasn’t a person in sight, they’d all hidden in their tents. Was it just an earthquake? If it was an earthquake, I could partially understand why they wouldn’t want to be in a real building, but… she’d mentioned beasts, and so had Eliax.
I turned and frowned out at the desert, finally feeling my gaze track up to Arendi in the sky. It was just as green as usual, but something seemed different, brighter.
I got to my feet, almost excited really. I’d never seen a monster attack before. There weren’t a lot of them anymore back home, the monster hunters and various adventurers had wiped out most of the bigger ones before I was even born.
The world shook again, but now that I was on my feet it was somehow harder to notice. It wasn’t a particularly violent quake in the first place though. I peered out past the mountains and land as it slowly stopped shaking again, my eyes meeting Arendi again in the sky. The green world was enormous, large enough that I could hardly even see the rest of the sky beyond it.
And Arendi was definitely pulsing.
Awesome!
As I watched, something dug its way out of the earth right in front of the wall. An enormous serpentine shape. Almost like a dragon but significantly less… elegant. It’s head rose up from the ground, curling upward to regard me with soulless eyes. It pulled itself from the earth, four mighty limbs, two wip thin tails, and a mouth that opened wider than three buildings.
I gaped up at it as a huge yawn erupted from it. As it closed its mouth there was an unmistakable boom and a flash of light that filled my eyes.
I was too filled with awe to even contemplate running.
--- ELIAX ---
I paused in bafflement as Kinthek handed me a bundle of the stems—the whole stack had collapsed a minute ago and he insisted that we fix it as soon as possible. I looked as if through the supply tent and southward toward my real self as her consciousness faded out of the world. “Did she literally just die?!” I found myself shouting in Melorian, dropping the reed-like plants and feeling my hands ball into annoyed fists.
I found myself recalling— without any effort —grueling months spent scouring the Between for her body and years spent trying to protect it from the assassin that had simply returned time and time again. The memory was still fresh, seeing as it had only been a few weeks since then.
Really, how inconsiderate could she possibly be??! Was she just trying to piss me off?
Kinthek followed my gaze toward the tent wall, furrowing his brow. “What’s wrong?”
I scowled, “An idiot.” I didn’t have enough words to say ‘my real self got killed again and now I feel morally obligated to track down her body because without her my future is practically nonexistent.’
He picked up the bundle and watched the wall with a worried frown, “It’s almost noon, no monsters yet, they always go for the bigger cities, but… let’s not tempt fate.” Earlier he’d talked about maybe going out to the river today, looking for more of these stems, but apparently—through no way I could understand—he’d learned that there were more imbalances than the usual Light day granted.
I agreed with not tempting fate though. At least it wasn’t Fora in my place, she seemed perfectly willing to tempt the heck out of whatever gods cared to strike her down. It didn’t help that if they did strike her down, she’d just be back eventually. The gods that liked us were a lot less likely to get annoyed at the ones who did that if she would just come back afterward.
I’ll have to track down her body, won’t I? Sparks I hope that thing didn’t eat it…
For now, I followed Kinthek toward a box with a decent amount of the stems in it, “Vespin needs these for his Lifeforce things.” he explained, packing the box tightly. “Once I get him enough of them I’ll be free…”
I wasn’t really paying attention, though I still filed that information away since I’d wanted to know the reason. I was distracted looking at the tent wall. It was a mystery to me how they thought a thin wall of fabric could withstand something like that beast Fora had seen.
Dimly, I thought I felt the ground quake slightly as if in response to my thoughts.
I sighed, and felt Kinthek’s attention drift toward me. “I need… to find something tomorrow.”
He glanced at me, smiling, I’d only ever seen him angry once, when he’d spoken of his father. “Alright, do you need help?”
I paused, blinking at him. That look in his eyes said it all, really. He was almost desperate to be of assistance. It was strange to find someone willing to help, but then again, I’d never been good at actually telling people about the things I was doing. Perhaps I was too used to being disappointed.
“Yes, I think so.”