After Theo took her time to collect everything that she could from the glade, the group made their way back to the area where the fairy ring teleported them. The Traveler then brought them back to the fairy ring with their magic, and everyone thanked the spirit before Tahir let the bond fade. Thankfully, their camp remained undisturbed, and they continued their rest without any further incident that night.
With no other sign of the plants or whoever controlled them nearby, the group continued on, trudging through the dense forests for part of the day, and continuing Murabi’s training when they found spaces large enough to accommodate them. Tahir suppressed the urge to ask if he could speed up his training toward the incredible feats he witnessed at the glade. By Murabi’s estimate, Tahir’s aura control just slightly lagged behind Hasio’s for the best out of the group, but Tahir’s experience using magic put him as the first one that Murabi would start teaching alongside Theo due to her special circumstances, but only when he thought Tahir was ready.
So Tahir continued to focus on honing his aura control, along with picking another spell from Zorhe’s spell book for him and Meti to learn. Another week passed like this, which felt slow from day to day, but Tahir knew from his twenty-two years of life before he unlocked his own aura that they traveled across the landscape incredibly quickly. Far too quickly for him to complain, and he knew that increasing his aura pool and the ability to control it would only make them faster.
During this week, Tahir also tested the effects of using aura along with mana to summon all of his available spirits. The fire spirit increased his body heat and heat resistance significantly. The air spirit made him much lighter - so much that he could practically float, and fall from great distances without hurting himself on the landing. His speed also increased with the air spirit, to the point where he could match Hasio’s aura enhanced speed if he summoned both the air spirit and the Traveler at the same time. The earth spirit made him heavier - to the detriment of his speed without using aura to balance it, and his skin took on a rugged appearance and seemed thicker. He also developed the ability to feel tremors in the ground, which he could even use to track Hasio’s movements while invisible. With the water spirit, he waited until they found a large pond for him to test. Once they did, he found that he could actually breathe underwater, and could swim much faster than he’d normally be able to.
With the Winged Serpent, Tahir grew patches of white scales on his neck and arms, and his eyes changed to a serpentine kind. He couldn’t tell what changes mentally the spirit’s bond had on him, but he did recall his thoughts repeatedly flashing back to memories of Zorhe and his soul magic while he had the Winged Serpent active. Tahir made sure to record all of his findings in a journal he’d bought shortly before leaving. If he did find someone to teach him more about spirit magic in Isanthyr, he’d like to be able to give them an idea of what he knew about the magic, and what the research he originally read left out.
Besides Tahir, Theo showed the most drastic change with her training. She could cast spells better than Tahir with his bonded spirits from any element she wanted, and she didn’t have the limit of having to switch between spirits to get the affinities she wanted. They didn’t test her limits before she would become unbalanced in the interest of preserving her medicine, but they could only assume that the aura control she cultivated increased those limits significantly. Her only flaw was that both her spellcasting and aura abilities all came from the same pool, unlike Tahir and Meti who used aura and mana separately. If she had to devote a significant amount of aura to her aura shield or increase her physical abilities, it would take away from her ability to cast her spells. This issue was mitigated by the fact that her aura pool seemed closer to Murabi’s then Hasio’s or Tahir’s, but an issue it presented nonetheless.
Finally, after another week of training and travel, they reached the gates of Isanthyr in the morning. Even before they saw the city, Tahir could tell they approached it by the way the trees steadily grew larger in size. From the trees he knew to grow dozens of feet into the air, to towering monoliths that easily reached hundreds. As they ventured closer, they were able to make out the city from a distance. Isanthyr was built around a close cluster of these massive trees, with thin and spiraling architecture built on and between these trees, giving the entire city multiple layers.
Approaching the city, Tahir caught a strong floral scent that dominated other scents in the space. In the path leading up to the city, flowers of all colors lined the path and wrapped around trees, and a pair of elves in full plate armor without helmets stood at either side of the arched gates to the city. They regarded the group with a neutral expression, which Tahir supposed was the best they could get for a group of humans and an iskarai. They made sure to take out their passes and hold them up to show they had access to the city, and one by one the guards asked to examine their passes.
“Everything here seems to be in order.” One of the guards said, while he handed Tahir his pass back. “Though I was told to expect groups of three for the Redclouds.” He stated with a raised eyebrow.
“We’re a special case.” Murabi replied quickly. “Feel free to take it up with Fenian if this presents an issue. On another note, we saw something in the woods about a week out that we’d like to report, anywhere special we should go for that?”
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The guard glanced at Murabi, and then shared a look with the other guard across the gate before he spoke. “You can report what you saw to the embassy, which is also where you’ll be staying. Follow the main path here through the gate until you reach the main square. The embassy building is made of red brick, you can’t miss it.”
“Many thanks.” Murabi gave a short wave, and motioned for everyone else to follow him into the city. Following him inside, Tahir took in the sights of the city. From the ground floor he could look up and see any number of structures built along the trunks and branches of the massive trees, and the incredible amount of pathways and stairs made of silvery white metal connecting them. From what he could tell, Isanthyr didn’t look as large as Balrech from a distance, if he had to guess, he’d say it could probably fit a similar population across the many different stories. He knew that Isanthyr didn’t have nearly as many people, however.
As a group of newer people walking through the city, none of them being elves, their presence drew a bit of attention as they made their way to the main square. In a primarily elven city, it came as no surprise that Tahir saw more elves than he’d ever seen in his life. Most of them were high elves, tall but lanky, sporting brown or blond hair, blue or green eyes, and skin tones ranging from incredibly pale to bronze. Many of them watched the group pass by with varying ranges of curiosity and interest.
He saw a number of other types of people as well. A number of dwarves, iskarai, beastfolk, even a few humans - most of which saw fit to wave or give a short nod of acknowledgement. “Well, it doesn’t seem to be a fully elven city.” He said, to no one in particular. Of course he knew that the city didn’t only have elves, but he had no idea what the process of being allowed to live in the city might be. Let alone becoming trusted enough for them to grant him access to the ley line crossing like he and Meti had discussed.
For now, they had time to figure out what he might be able to do in that regard. They reached the center of the city and the embassy, and found that they were the last to arrive. Tsekani’s group used long distance teleportation magic to reach Isanthyr about a week after the sponsorship meeting. Talibah’s group arrived a few days before Murabi’s, though with their smaller group and at least seemingly pure aura focus, that they could travel much faster made sense to Tahir. With all of the groups from the Redclouds gathered, they would meet together with an organizer from the elves to figure out how they were going to tackle the ruin the next day.
“How’d they react to what we found in the woods?” Tahir asked. After taking a moment to find and set their things down in their rooms, they met back up in the central area of the embassy, which also acted as a kind of lounge area.
“Concern, but not a whole lot of it.” Murabi answered with a shrug. “They gave me a standard ‘we’ll look into it,’ which means we probably won’t get any update until we’re about to leave. Not that we even have time to press the issue, since we’ll be meeting up with everyone else tomorrow - don’t worry about the fact that we’re jumping right into things. You’ll probably have the time you need to see the city proper. For now, resting after that long trip will be paramount. I’ll leave you to manage your own training in the coming days, but if you get any questions feel free to come find me. I think I’ll want to see how this first part of the ruin goes before I decide if I want to go to the next leg of the training.”
With that, he left to go get something to eat, leaving Tahir, Meti, Theo, and Hasio in the lounge. “A single night’s rest isn’t ideal after three and a half weeks of traveling.” Tahir remarked. “But at least it’ll be in a bed.”
“Small victories.” Meti replied. “Once we do get a free moment, what do you think you’re going to do first?”
“Depends on how much time we have. I mean I do have someone to find.” Depending on how well known the person that Fenian referred Tahir to, he might spend a significant amount of time tracking them down. “If it’s short, though, I’m sure I can get someone to direct me to a library.” He’d run into a couple of issues if the vast majority of Isanthyr’s library was in elvish, but between his own knowledge of draconic, and a number of other languages his various spirits allowed him to understand while bound, he’d be able to make something work. “What about you?”
“We’ll be finding a space to work.” Theo answered. They hadn’t been there long enough to ask, but the embassy likely had some space for Theo and Meti to do their alchemy and smithing respectively. Even with Meti’s forgeless smithing, small enclosed spaces like personal bedrooms didn’t make for the best workspaces. “If we have more time we’ll try to go around some of the shops here to see what we can find. It’ll be kind of hard for Meti since she can’t really go in and ask for elven smithing techniques, but I can at least buy some potions and sell some of these herbs that I’m probably not gonna use. I can also ask around and see if anyone knows what those seeds do.”
“Quick question - can either of you understand elvish?” Tahir asked.
“I can!” Theo answered quickly. “Master Callipho taught me elvish and dwarvish since they're his main trading partners and lot of the books he referenced were written in them. Oh- do you need me to translate?”
Tahir shook his head. “With how much I’d want to read once I get going I couldn’t ask that of you - but if I find a book on alchemy or smithing whenever I visit a library I’ll try to get it for you. On another note, what about you, Hasio?”
Hasio shrugged. “I’m considering people watching.”
“People…watching?” Tahir repeated.
“You can find out a lot about a city when people don’t think you’re listening.”
Tahir didn’t like the implications of that, but couldn’t deny the logic.