Khai wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the giant cavern he’d found through the doorway. It was by far the biggest room in the base so far, more than triple the size of the large hub area above, following a similar domed shape, the cave walls were covered in the fuzzy moss, various colours dotted the walls from blues to greens to a few faint patches of a deep blood red scattered about the floor.

Most noticeably however, was the large lake that took up the far side of the room. The sounds of lapping water brushing against the mossy stones filled Khai’s ears as he made his way through the room, he paused as he reached the waters edge, letting the sounds wash over him. Eyes closed, he struggled to put the memories of his life before out of his mind. The memories of years spent living near the waters edge with his village. They were gone now he reminded himself, he couldn’t change that and he couldn’t have stopped it anymore than a tidal wave. But that didn’t take away the gnawing feeling of guilt inside him. He was the last surviving member of his village, the only one left from so many generations that had lived there.

Putting a hand to his necklace, he whispered a silent prayer to the Spirit. “Return to the earth and sea in peace, I will see you all again one day” With no one else left, he wanted to keep traditions alive however he could, if that meant reciting only a small part of the rites for the lost, then that would be enough for now.

Wiping his cheeks dry, he looked back toward where he’d left Jorn. The Rhenor was watching him, a solemn expression on his normally cheery face. “I won’t pry into it, but you’re part of my forge now lad, if you ever decide you want to talk about all that” Jorn gestured to where Khai stood in a slightly wavy motion “Then I’ll be here, if you want that is” He gave Khai a gentle smile.

Wiping away the last of his tears, Khai knew the pain wouldn’t go away soon, it would likely hurt even more tomorrow when it felt more real, but the kind words from Jorn had helped him. “Thank you, I appreciate that” Khai said, and he meant it.

They both stood in silence for a few moments, unsure of what to say next. Khai looked around the rest of the cavern as he waited for Jorn to initiate a new conversation. Next to Jorn, in the corner of the room nearest the door must have been a kitchen, or a blacksmithery, or possibly a tannery. Random chunks of metal with tools strewn across the tops could be seen scattered across the space, further supporting the blacksmith theory. However, Khai didn’t know for certain but instead of a forge or other heating apparatus, there only seemed to be a stone oven in the corner. Hides and treated leathers from animals that Khai didn’t recognise were hanging from hooks across the wall. Completing the workshop, a neatly carved stone countertop jutted at waist height around the edge of the wall, sporting various sharp tools and potential weapons in various states of completion.

As Khai started to walk closer to the shop, he noticed the barrel filled with vegetables near the counter side. Unable to wait any longer he looked back toward Jorn, who had been watching Khai wander around through the mess of tools with his smile back in place. The Rhenor spoke before Khai could ask any questions. “Yer wondering what all this is right? The whole place is just a big mess right now, but I bet ya I know where everything is. Controlled chaos I like to call it, it’s taken me a good few weeks to get it all set up like this” Jorn looked full of pride as he described the messy corner.

“This is my forge, If it involves tools, blades or anything you use to hit someone with, It’s my responsibility to get it working. It also doubles as a kitchen for when everyone’s too busy to do a big meal up topside.” Jorn walked over to the empty furnace, his smile widening. “Now, yer probably wondering” Jorn raised the pitch of his voice, doing an exaggerated impression of something vaguely resembling Khai’s voice. “But there’s no coals, no fire, how do you do all this metalwork if you can’t heat things up” Jorn let his voice return to usual, continuing before Khai could voice his protest at the sound of his voice. “Well that’s an easy one lad, grab that messy looking blade on the side there and bring it here” Khai quickly spotted the worn, tangled blade. It looked as if it had been repeatedly hit with a hammer before being partially melted and left to cool.

Khai passed the blade to Jorn, who had taken a seat on a stool by the ‘forge’. “Watch closely now lad” Jorn said, taking the blade by the metal tip and holding it in front of Khai. The blade quickly started to change colour, moving from a dull grey to red, before quickly starting to turn a bright white colour. Just as quick as the colours changed, the blade quickly started melting, leaving drops of pooling metal on the floor.

Stepping back from the molten metal, Khai looked back up at a grinning Jorn. “How did you do that? Khai asked, looking between the congealing pool of metal on the floor and the glowing metal still left on the charred handle. Jorn tossed the melted blade into the closest barrel of liquid, letting of a hiss of steam as it sank to into the brown water.

“I had a feeling that’d surprise you, you never seen a Khaor used before lad?” Jorn asked, wiping his hands on his vest.

“No I..we didn’t really have anyone that had one on the island. Grandda knew about them but he never really made much sense when he mentioned anything to do with magic.” Khai replied. Jorn nodded at Khai’s admission of his lacking knowledge, hand absently scratching at the stubble along his cheek. Blowing out a long breath of air, Jorn got up quickly.

“Well then, lets get you learned up on how it all works. No point training ya if you don’t know the basics, start chopping what’s in that barrel over there and throw into one of the empty bowls. I’ll teach while you get started, looks like it’s steamed greens again tonight.” Jorn said, a slight tinge of disappointment in his voice.

Khai began to chop, all the vegetables were familiar to him so he didn’t need to focus much on the task. This gave him plenty of spare focus to listen as Jorn began his disposition.

“First off, do you know the 6 Elementals?” Jorn asked. Khai nodded, making an affirmative sound.

“Okay, that’s a start then. Everyone has an affinity to one of the 6 elements, I won’t go into the why because that’ll take too long. Hey, keep an eye on where yer putting that knife, you almost just took a finger off” Khai quickly returned his gaze back to the task at hand, listening to Jorn behind him.

“Now, just because you got an affinity, that doesn’t mean you have a Khaor. Once you’re old enough, maybe 16 or so, you can start tryin’ to get a Khaor, get yerself some fancy elemental abilities. Most folks have to get their hands on one of the elemental aspect, shiny stone looking thing. You hold onto one of those beauties and send some words to the appropriate deity, and if you’re lucky they’ll let you attune to them. If they’re not interested, the stone crumbles away and no attunement for you”

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“So if you pick the wrong elemental, that’s it? No attunement?” Khai asked, careful not to take his eyes off the blade this time.

Jorn gave a quick laugh. “Ha, not quite lad. So long as ya have someone with enough mana nearby to help fuel the connection, you can use as many aspects as ya like. Though most folks don’t tend to have many of the things just laying around like that. The stones being pretty important and all, they tend to be up there in price”.

“So, if you don’t come from a rich family you can’t get an elemental aspect? That seems like a terrible way to do things”

“Aye lad it is, but if there’s something others want, you can always bet on people making some money on it. Thankfully, that’s not the only way to get a stone. If ya go looking in an area of high elemental something or other, you might find one of them stones. Lots of folks make a living wandering around to find the things, people call em Seekers.”

Khai nodded along with the new information. He’d almost finished with the pile of vegetables now.

“You mentioned there was another way to get an attunement? And why is affinity important, does that mean if you’re pre-set to the Air element, you’ll only be able to get an air ability?” Khai asked.

“I’m getting to that lad don’t worry. The other way to get an Elemental attunement is if you do something spectacular, doin’ something real heroic-like that gets the Elementals to take notice of ya. If one of them decides you’ve done something worthy, they might want to have a little chat with you, offer you an attunement personally. That’s extremely rare mind you, but I’ve heard of it happening once in my lifetime.”

Khai almost slipped with the knife. Did that mean Spirit had given him an attunement? She’d mentioned something about a blessing but was that the same thing? Teo had made it clear there was something about his Khaor that was linked to Spirit, but he didn’t feel any different than before, shoudn’t gaining an attunement to a powerful elemental deity make you feel something new? Khai decided now wasn’t the time to ask about his possible attunement, he wanted to try and understand the basics first before making any assumptions, especially if Spirit had been missing here as well for so long.

“As for yer other question, affinity is important but you can work around it. Take me for example, Rhenor are known for their affinity for the fire Elemental, Ignea. Not only does this mean I had a better chance of getting an attunement of fire, it also means that I can develop the abilities I gain faster, but we can go into that later.” Jorn waved the words away, as if he wasn’t the one who’d brought up the concept.

Multiple sets of footsteps told Khai that the others were joining him and Jorn in the room.

“You’re already giving him the ‘Elements and me’ speech? He’s barely been here half a day Jorn, give the guy a rest.” Vash called out as he wandered into the room, followed closely behind by both Hoke and Henny. Each took a seat one one of the large rocks scatted around the edges of the workshop.

“It’s a good speech, you’d learn a thing or two if you actually paid attention when I gave it. Maybe then it wouldn’t have taken you so long to get to Onyx rank” Jorn verbally jabbed back at Vash, the other boy quickly blushing. Khai put the last of the chopped vegetables into the bowl onto the counter before speaking. “Onyx rank?” Khai asked the group.

“You don’t know about the ranks? How far out was this island of yours?” Vash asked, incredulity in his voice. A quick hit around the head courtesy of a passing Leena had him grumbling as the others laughed.

“There are seven known tiers that an attuned can go through” Leena began, taking the bowl of vegetables from Khai and continuing with the preparation as she spoke. “The tiers are pretty confusing to remember at first, starting from the lowest you’ve got; Coal, Onyx, Lapis, Ruby, Opal, Diamond and finally Tanzanite. Though you almost never see people above Diamond rank, I’m pretty sure its just a myth” As she passed Hoke he made an attempt to steal some of the chopped vegetables, a rap on the hand by Leena without her looking had the boy giving an exaggerated pout as he rubbed his hand.

Khai’s head spun at the sudden assault of information that Leena had quickly recounted. Rather than Jorn’s slow and steady pace, Leena raced through the speech almost too fast for Khai to keep up. Khai had heard of coal as a source of fuel before, the others however were unfamiliar. Presumably they were increasingly rare or useful resources of some kind. He’d ask more about that later, the information overload was already starting to make it hard to remember everything he was being told.

His unfocused attention must have been visible to Leena because she was stood still, arms crossed over her chest with lips pursed and eyebrows raised. Vash let out a laugh, breaking the sudden silence. “First day and already annoyed the queen, that’s a new record for sure.”

Leena swiveled to face the others, only to find them all attempting to hide a smile. Letting out a short huff of air, she turned to Jorn, who was not attempting to hide his amusement. She rolled her eyes, “Some heat please”. Jorn held out one meaty hand palm up, allowing Leena to place the large pot on top. As she collected some water and poured it into the pot, it quickly started to steam. There was no melting or change of the metals colour this time. Jorn must be able to control how much heat he releases at a time, can all Rhenor do that or is it something his Khaor gives him?

Jorn stepped in before Leena could raise a complaint. “I’ve been talking the lads ear off as it is. I’m sure he’s had a long enough day without us pouring all this on him tonight. It never hurts for you lot to hear the basics now and then” A quick glance at Vash went unnoticed by the boy. “So we can go through all the rest during tomorrows training session.”

“Thank you” Khai said softly. He turned to Leena. “Sorry Leena I was listening to you, thank you for trying to explain things I just…” He wasn’t certain how to explain what he was feeling. “I want to learn everything I can about all of this.” Khai gestured to Jorn casually boiling the large pot of vegetables with his hand. “But I don’t know how much more I can take in right now before my brain tries to melt like that knife earlier”.

Leena followed Khai’s gaze to the cooling puddle of metal on the floor. “You melted another knife?” She said accusingly to Jorn. His smile had turned to a look of sheepishness, it looked out of place on the large Rhenor’s face.

“It was one of the bad ones, all twisty and blunt, basically scrap metal, honest to Ignea” Jorn held his spare hand in a fist to his chest, almost spilling the balancing pot as he did so. Khai laughed at the exchange. Exhaustion was quickly dragging at his body, he was ready to sleep for a very long time after today.

The group ate the vegetables in mostly silence, with the occasional comment toward one anothers eating habits and only one argument between Leena and Vash that Jorn had to put a stop to. Both Hoke and Henny remained quiet throughout, the only sound occurring when Hoke tapped the table near Henny twice. This apparently meant he was asking for her leftovers and she accented with a smile, pushing her bowl towards her silent brother.

“Come on then, off with you lot now.” Jorn said to the group. “Boys, show Khai his bunk and make sure he’s got enough pelts. Those bunks are a killer on the back without it.”

Vash and Hoke nodded. Vash nodded his head towards the side room. “Come on Khai, we’ll get you sorted. Two of the fluffiest Coatie pelts are set up with your name on it” He smiled at Khai and walked off to the bunk-room. Khai followed, barely registering any more being said before dropping onto the bed he was told was his own. Sleep found him almost instantly.