I ambled, strolled, and walked. Then I hiked some more. Sometimes I crawled through narrow tunnels, and a few times I even had to resort to carving rock a few dozen feet to progress with the impossibly sharp blade of Delirium of Ruin. Arx Maxima played the role of navigator, telling me where to go, and it was my job to figure out how to get there. Occasionally, I stabbed some nightmare beast in the face, but they died easily enough with a quick slash of my spear. It was, in some ways, a letdown.

My whole life I had been told that the wilds were absolutely lethal, that death lurked behind every rock, that no blade of grass was benign, and that the wilds themselves would crumble around you at the merest disruption. But everything seemed just as solid, every bit as real, as the so-called True World Mithras presided over in Solarias. Yes, there were dangers. Snakes, leeches, worms, even pockets of gas or lethal spore clouds that Arx Maxima warned me away from, but between the blade of my spear and the guidance of Arx Maxima, the wilds felt manageable.

The bodysuit and jacket were maybe not life savers, but they made terrible conditions much more bearable. Not only did the thin fabric keep the silverfish, centipedes, and spiders from biting me while I belly crawled through tiny gaps, but somehow the thin fabric even kept the rocks from ripping my skin apart. They did nothing for the constant sharp, poking terrain being uncomfortable, but I was happy to take the uncomfortable over actual damage. Sure, I could heal myself through Fortress Restoration, but not getting hurt to start with avoided the pain. The boots were life savers. No sane person would traverse the caverns I had, filled with horrifying insects, many of which tried to bite me, without boots.

I practiced juggling objects with Modify Vector. I’d learned the basic use of the skill allowed me to alter vectors, but it had an on-going energy cost to sustain those changes. I could stick a rock to the roof with gravity, instead of the floor, but the bigger the rock, the higher the drain on my energy per second. Compared to summoning a wall or my spear, the energy expenditure cost far too much for the end result. But it could do things I didn’t really understand yet, like draw in fragments from Ars Maxima.

I also used Modify Vector on insects. A lot. The satisfaction that I felt when the first millipede rocketed into a wall where it turned into a smear on the wall felt extremely satisfying. The downside to my vector powers was I seemed to have a very limited range, maybe five feet from my body.

Every hour or so of travel, Arx Maxima would say ‘here’ and I would repeat the process I’d performed to summon her fragments back in the chamber. In the last thirty or so hours of travel, we’d found two more.

“We’re approaching the sentries of the settlement. Remember, they cannot communicate with nor sense me.” Arx Maxima hadn’t spoken in a good half hour, so her voice startled me. It shocked me enough that the rock I had circling me with Modify Vector went flying into a wall, where it shattered into tiny pieces. Rest in pieces, tiny rock I’d picked up two hours ago. Maybe it’d been longer, or shorter. Without a clock and no sun, I didn’t know how to tell time.

“Hey, watch it, fleshbag. That almost hit me!” The voice was deep, masculine, and ornery. It emerged from a pile of stones set near several pillars worked in a language I didn’t recognize. A seven-foot tall, vaguely humanoid figure stood up from the pile of boulders. He was composed of an orange rock with hints of pink, white, gray, and brown. I had to look upward to gaze at his face. His eyes were smooth gemstones, his jaw moved but it wasn’t where the sound of his voice came from. He had no flesh at all.

“Oh, shit, my bad! I didn’t see you there. Are you a Gneissling?” I babbled a little bit. It was hard not to, seeing a huge hunk of stone move and talk. Everything about the natural order of the world had been thrown out. This was one of the inhuman creatures that the clergy of Mithras preached about being the most vile, evil, and anti-human of them all. Did they eat? Did they sleep? What purpose did they have in life? Were they even alive? Maybe they were a form of golem?

“Yeah, yeah. Another fleshy human who can’t tell a pile of rocks from a Gneissling. I’m Feldaaar. What’s your name, sloshy?” Feldaar spoke with a slowness that immediately annoyed me, but I felt like he intentionally leaned into it and exaggerated the leisurely pace of his words to punish me. My inability to see a pile of rocks as a person must have offended him deeply, but I couldn’t think of any apology that wouldn’t make things worse. I felt guilty, but the slowness of his speech still annoyed me greatly.

“Uhh… Emery. I’m Emery, formerly of Havenstone. I was hoping to trade here.” I tried to phrase the last bit as a question. Did rocks even have anything to trade? Leave it to Arx Maxima to send me on a wild goose chase with rock people. “And what do you mean, sloshy?”

I jumped up and down a little, but I didn’t hear any sloshing. I hadn’t eaten anything in a long time. Maybe he confused the rumbling of my stomach with sloshing? I could have tried to cook some of the Mindcrab, but the smell had convinced me to skip it, and the random hostile creatures I’d run into so far had largely been inedible, clearly toxic, or ranker than the corpse of a Decayling that had been left in the sun for a week. My stomach growled. I had reached the point where even thinking about eating inedible garbage made me hungry.

“You can’t hear it? All that water, sloshing around in you? Aren’t you terrified you’ll pop a hole in your fleshbag and it will all leak out?” Feldaar seemed truly shocked that I couldn’t hear the sloshing of blood in my body. He also seemed to be under the misapprehension that humans didn’t have bones, organs, or anything else inside of them than blood. Did he not have anything inside of him? Was he just that orange rock through and through, with a few gemstones for eyes?

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“Feldaar!” A sharp, feminine voice bounced off the walls and echoed as a slightly smaller Gneissling came up the path. This one was blue and orange, with specks of metal, I think copper, and crystal scattered among the blue base of her body.

“Bah, Chrys. You are just in time to take this Emery off to Granix. Wants to trade, he does.”

The new Gneissling, Chrys, was a couple of inches taller than me. I’d say six feet tall. Her body was formed in a breathtaking mimicry of a human females, only unlike Feldaar and his rough stone, her exterior gleamed. If Feldaar was a rock, Chrys was a sculpture of a human woman with long multiple braided hair, sharp features, and an elegance that felt nearly divine. If an artist created such a work in Havenstone, they would have been lauded as a master for centuries to come. Chrys had the majestic beauty of a goddess captured in stone.

Why did a rock-woman have breasts? Very perky and prominent ones. The rising tide of arousal as I eyed the naked Gneissling confused me terribly. Why didn’t she wear pants, or sculpt clothes, if she was going to wander around looking like a naked human? Everything about these rock people felt like a giant red flag, but I needed supplies if I wanted to not starve to death.

“What have you got to trade, human?” Chrys asked with an unimpressed tone.

“I’m a traveling Enkindler,” I answered reluctantly. I still wasn’t sure trading enkindled concepts for goods and services was a path I wanted to take, but necessity required it for now. If I lacked power, and someone else could give it to me, I’d want them to give it to me. I’d also want to give them some form of compensation, I suppose. Maybe I overcomplicated the situation in my mind, due to a life of having no power. It still felt precious, rare, but other people having power didn’t detract from me having power. Being powerless sucked.

“… you’re an Enkindler?” Feldaar asked with sudden hope--and respect.

“I’m Chrysocolla, but you can call me Chrys. Come this way, honored Enkindler, and I will take you to the Rock Lord of Schieferon, Granix.” Chrys gestured towards the path she had come up. Like Feldaar, her attitude changed completely.

“Is Feldaar staying here alone? You weren’t going to relieve him, were you?” I asked with only a little concern.

Feldaar guffawed and Chrys laughed.

“In addition to being an artisan, Chrys here is Granix’s pebble. What’d the old boulder send you out for?” Feldaar spoke at a more normal, rapid, pace now than he had at first. I noticed Chrys spoke at an average pace too. His earlier, slowed words really must have been an attempt to rib at me. Or they were speaking in haste to show respect for me, now that they knew I was an Enkindler.

“After all those distant tremors, Granix has been watching this way. He sensed your coming, as well as hints of a Vesperite or Amethyst class mist-source, but I don’t see any sign of that, you’re an orange. Keep your eyes open, Feldaar, in case a Lord shows up.” Chrys warned Feldaar at the end and turned back to me.

“This way, Honored Enkindler,” Chrys dismissed Feldaar from my concerns and once I walked in the direction she indicated, she fell into step next to me.

I waved at Feldaar and walked next to Chrys, the strange blue silicate-based life form. They had personalities and intelligence, which as far as I was concerned meant they were alive. Even if they were rock. The way the Gneisslings moved felt slightly jarring. A human with the figure Chrys possessed would have some jiggle or bounce, but the blue-green minerals that made her up did no such thing, she looked solid, yet somehow her joints and limbs moved freely. How? I sort of expected her joints to be like those of a doll or toy, but her elbows looked like my elbows.

“So, Chrys. I don’t know anything about Gneisslings. Nothing, in fact. Could you fill me in a little?” I hoped Chrys might provide me with a crash-course in Gneissling etiquette, but any knowledge at all would be helpful.

“How did you make it so far into the territory of the Stone King without running into any other Gneisslings before us? Are you a Mistwalker? Only Stoneheart is deeper in our territory than Schieferon.” Chrys ignored my questions in favor of questions of her own.

“Honesty is always the best policy, my envoy. Many are those who can discern truth from lie. Best to stick to the truth and wield it as a weapon that can be bent without breaking.” Arx Maxima chimed and almost caused me to jump, I’d gotten so focused on Chrys that I forgot she was there.

“I fell through the mists and woke up in a cave. I had to fight my way past a Mindcrab Broodmother to get out of a dead-end tunnel. I didn’t fancy becoming a meal for her brood.”

“You killed Ol’ Snappy?” Chrys asked in shock.

“Maybe? Twenty or so feet tall, big dark burgundy shell? Very powerful mental attacks?” I described the crab to Chrys as best I could.

“That’s Ol’ Snappy. She’s ruled that area of Subterra for longer than I’ve been alive. You survived its mental assault? Must be a lot tougher than you look.” Chrys laughed.

“So, about Gneisslings?” I asked again.

“We’re Gneisslings. We stick to ourselves. We’re born with one bound concept, so we are stronger than most races to start with, beginning at red as we do. Unfortunately, we also have never raised an Enkindler of our own kind, so we rely on wandering Enkindlers to grow further. So, as long as you are well-meaning and earnest in your dealings with us, no faux paus will be held unnecessarily against you. Don’t take that as a license to be rude. While rare, you are not the first Enkindler to come to our settlement, and Lord Granix is blue tier.” Chrys seemed nonchalant about telling me I had leeway in being rude, or even potentially criminal.

“Blue? Orange? What does that correlate too? I’ve only been told the ranks as Ruby, Imperial Topaz, Citrine, Emerald, Sapphire, Vesperite, and Amethyst?” I focused on the colors first of all.

“Blue is Sapphire. Orange is Imperial Topaz. We don’t use the mineral names you waterbags do.” Chrys didn’t label it all, but respectively it was pretty clear that meant red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet for colors, or the equivalent to devotions first through the seventh for the followers of Mithras.

“Alright. Why are you being so candid with me? Wouldn’t you normally be a little more cautious about telling strangers they could take advantage and get away with it?” I gnawed on my lower lip a little, uncertain if Solarias had been a much worse place than this Schieferon we walked towards.

“My first concept allows me to see the truth of someone,” Chrys said with self-satisfaction. “It is why I was sent to greet you. If you were ill-intentioned or of malicious character, I would have been able to tell. You are little more than a kitten, despite the nefarious links you have.”

“Nefarious links?” I asked curiously.

“Look at your shadow,” was all Chrys said in answer.

I looked down. The bioluminescent moss and glowing crystals studded along the path to their settlement provided ample lighting and caused me to cast more than one shadow. Yet each of my multiple shadows had the same problems: I didn’t have long ears, breasts, or the curvy hips of a woman, but my shadows did.