“Well, fuck me,” I grunted as I watched my shadows. It didn’t take a genius to realize whose shadows I was looking at. I only knew one person with long ears, who had any conceivable reason to be my shadow. Amaranthine Sadow.

“You wouldn’t survive that experience,” Chrys quipped to break the silence.

“Do Gneisslings even have sex?” My brain required I ask. Chrys had a statuesque figure sculpted to vie for inhuman levels of beauty, but she wasn’t a creature of flesh and blood. Why would they have sex? Could a creature of stone even procreate?

“Do we need to? No. We reproduce via fragmentation, but we can sculpt our forms, so where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Chrys said, and although she didn't completely lose control, she began to cackle at me before regaining her composure. It was very clear she wasn’t flirting with me or making an offer. She seemed to briefly consider the activity as an intellectual challenge but dismissed it quickly as an easily solved trial.

“Oh,” I said a little dumbly. I stopped my mind from going down a rabbit hole of sexual depravity and daydreaming before it started. My eyes focused on my shadows.

“Your shadows aren’t the only link you have, just the most obvious. You have a link to something from the far wilds, unstable and ravenous, multiple connections to something that screams of antiquity, predating the Gossamyr, a tight bond to a powerful Mistlord, and even a faint tie to that idiot Mithras.” Chrys discussed the state of my conceptual bindings, pacts, and past with a casual disregard for privacy that irritated me. Her casual dismissal of Mithras, who not that long ago stood as the champion of humanity in my mind, raked the fresh memories of his betrayal across red-hot coals, which flamed the dying emotions back to life.

How many people in the wilds were going to be able to see into who I was so effortlessly? I felt more exposed now than I had before Arx Maxima found me pants. Had anyone in Havenstone had abilities like this, that I didn’t know about? Had there been people able to read emotions, thoughts, the past, that hid their powers?

“Come on, sloshy. Lord Granix awaits,” Chrys said with a nudge of her elbow. The casual contact reaffirmed that yes, she was made of earthen materials, not flesh and blood, but left me wanting to touch her. The blue-copper-green mineral that she was made of was beautiful in and of itself, and I had never seen its like.

“I don’t slosh when I walk,” I snapped, but I had fallen into step with her when she resumed her pace. We passed a more obvious checkpoint, with another Gneissling who towered five feet higher into the air than I did. Their black, rocky form gleamed with sharp edges of obsidian.

“That’s Obsydadean, or Dean. He doesn’t leave guard duty very often, like Feldaar.” Chrys said after we’d made it beyond the checkpoint. “Unlike Feldaar, he’s got multiple bodies, so you’ll see him around.” The casual revelation that Obsydadean had multiple bodies threw me off enough I nearly tripped on the flat, smooth stone of the path.

Chrys made a sound like water sloshing while I righted myself.

“I don’t slosh,” I vehemently protested. The sound effect had been surprisingly good, though. Were all Gneisslings skilled at imitating sounds?

The tunnel opened into an immense chamber shaped like a discus. I estimated the height of the cavern to be somewhere around one hundred feet, and I couldn’t even guess the diameter. The chamber had multiple stairs descending into the floor, and doors shaped into the exterior walls, but not a single building occupied the main chamber.

One Gneissling, bigger than all the others, dominated the center chamber of Schieferon. Composed of rose-colored rock flecked with black, I assumed the fifty-foot-tall figure to be the Rock Lord they had mentioned earlier. Power radiated off the giant in palpable waves, and like Arx Maxima’s crystal, he produced occasional streams of indigo mist.

“That’s Lord Granix,” Chrys confirmed my suspicions when she pointed at the large figure and immediately led me in his direction.

The amount of below the surface stairs surprised me, until Chrys explained.

“Those are dens, our homes. We use the communal center of town to gather and grow as a community.”

“Grow?” I eyed the size differential between Chrys and Granix. The closer we got, the larger and more intimidating the Rock Lord appeared.

“Lithomorphosis. We use temperature, pressure, and mineral compounds to become improved, refined versions of ourselves. Lord Granix has lessened the crucible to accommodate your weak flesh. You humans rupture and burst from the levels of pressure we typically enjoy, and your ability to withstand heat is truly sorrowful.” Chrys sounded almost pitying about my inability to handle pressure or heat.

Compared to a rock, no organic life could handle the same levels of heat and pressure.

“Human! Welcome to Schieferon, greatest settlement of the Gneisslings other than the capital of Terra!” Unlike Chrys with her nearly perfect beauty, and her perfectly sculpted body, Granix looked humanoid, sure, but he had blocky edges and a rough, unsmoothed finish. If they didn’t reproduce sexually, why did they have gendered forms? I didn’t ask, but the thought rambled through my head with Granix’s booming voice.

“Thank you for your warm welcome, Rock Lord,” I politely inclined my head in respect and deference, but Granix waved one of his massive hands through the air, causing a large gust of wind to flow through the cavern. Only days ago, that wind would’ve thrown me around the chamber effortlessly, now I simply leaned into the wind and resisted it.

“Think nothing of it, little one. What is your judgement, Chrys?” The immense gemstones that had been polished for Granix’s eyes swiveled to Chrys.

“He is an Enkindler, a human, and has ties to both the likes of Corvusol, Sadow, and Mithras, too. Additionally, our new friend killed Ol’Snappy on his journey here. He seeks trade and resupply, and then to depart our realm. His name is Emery.” Chrys summed up my intentions and named my associations with much more precision than I had expected from her eerie abilities.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Ol’ Snappy is dead?” Granix mused thoughtfully. I could almost imagine him putting together a team to go claim the crab cave, but then, was it worth it? It didn’t seem like Gneisslings wanted for much here, but surely they had needs of some sort, or the notion of trade would be comically irrelevant to them. “How did you create such tremors, then?”

“I dropped around a half million pounds of rock on her, and then speared her.” I wanted to sound confident, like someone who had just slain a legendary named monster that even rock people left alone. Only I couldn’t help but wonder, why hadn’t Granix killed Ol’ Snappy? I had no doubt he could have crushed the Mindcrab easily, and there were probably other Gneisslings who could have done the deed too. So why had they ignored the crabs? I desperately wanted to ask questions, but my answer made Granix utterly forget Ol’ Snappy.

“You ‘dropped rock’ on her?” Granix demanded clarification.

Oh. Shit. They were rock people.

“Well, one of my concepts allows me to create walls. I created a large amount of them above the Broodmother.” I definitely didn’t want them to think I’d collapse huge sections of their caves. That was probably a taboo I wouldn’t escape unpunished, Enkindler or not.

“Create a wall for us, please,” Granix requested. I felt eyes on me, and when I swept my gaze across the chamber dozens of Gneisslings had peeked up out of their dens to listen to our conversation. Their eyes burned into me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable.

I imagined a ten by ten wall, then pulled it into reality. Chrys gasped at the smooth, slightly shiny finished gray rock wall, while Granix lifted it up in one of his immense hands, turning it over as if it weighed next to nothing. I couldn’t even imagine how strong Granix might be.

“What a strange material. What do you think, Chrys?” Granix asked when he brought the wall back down to show to his pebble, which I assumed meant Chrys was his daughter.

“It looks like the blessed EternaStone of the ancient world. It has no ties to elsewhere in the Gossamyr.” Chrys answered Granix with hesitation, and uncertainty. I imagined her squinting at the stone, but her gemstone eyes didn’t have eyelids.

“Don’t ask me. I envision it, then make it real. I have no idea where it comes from,” I pre-emptively answered the question before they could ask me, but Arx Maxima chimed up while I finished my declaration of ignorance.

“It is EternaStone from my sub-space vaults. Hundreds of thousands of planets were converted for safekeeping and reformation post Cosmogenesis.” Arx Maxima informed me of the truth of the origin of my walls. I had feelings about the answer she told me, and none of them were good. Not that I was going to stop using the walls, though. Aurelian’s memories told me planets were, once upon a time common things. They existed only as a dim memory, the lofty goal of the True World. Did they not exist anymore because Arx Maxima had destroyed them all?

“And you can create this material on a whim?” Granix asked as his large fingers flexed, he attempted to break the wall. He failed. Delirium of Ruin might be significantly sharper than I realized.

“Yes, I can create it. I cannot disperse it though, once it is actualized it is here to stay. Here, have a few.” I conjured two more, and this seemed to greatly please Granix, as if I had given him a great and valuable gift. I could only describe the look that Chrys stared at the walls with as covetous. I would have to make a few of them for her later.

“Welcome to Schieferon,” Granix proclaimed happily. “Chrys, see the human to the visitors lodging and provide him with stonefruit and any other necessities we are capable of accommodating.”

The huge Stone Lord continued to turn the stone wall over in his hands. His rough features weren’t sculpted with the detail that Chrys had, but I could tell he was deep in thought. Apparently that was my dismissal, and Chrys brought me to one of the doors carved into the walls at the exterior of the chamber. Inside the walls, the rock had been scoured away to form a series of cave-homes, and she took me to the most ornate one. She produced a copper key to open the doors, and then gave the key to me.

“I’ll acquire you some additional stonefruit, there should be a few in the kitchen already. Our gatherers may have acquired other humanoid food recently, I shall go check with them now. Is there anything else you might require in the meantime?” Chrys asked politely.

“No, that should be good. Is there a bath?” It hadn’t been a priority before, but my skin felt greasy, and the stink and stain of dead crabs still covered me. I suspected Gneisslings didn’t have a sense of smell the way I did, since none of them had commented upon my stench.

“The bathroom is fully operational. Have you excreted too many liquids, and seek to refill your ballasts?” Chrys answered before she asked a strange question. I looked at her blanky for a few long moments, before she laughed awkwardly and left.

Ballasts? Did the Gneisslings really think we were essentially water containers?

My temporary abode consisted of a kitchen, parlor, bedroom, and a bathroom. Sitting on top of the table were round stones that looked almost like melons. They looked so melon-y, in fact, that I rapped on one with my knuckles. It was stone on the outside but sounded hollow. I assumed this to be the stonefruit the Gneisslings had mentioned before, but I didn’t want to pull out Delirium of Ruin to hack away without knowing for sure. Despite the protests of my stomach, I forced myself to head to the bath.

The bathtub already had steaming, warm water inside of it. The Gneisslings had redirected a natural hot spring to pass through the tub, which really seemed to be more like a small pool. I quickly stripped down, hesitating only when I looked up at the mirror.

The person in the mirror was not me. Instead, the faceted, glistening crimson eyes of Amaranthine stared back at me. Like our last encounter, she wore a black cloak of raven feathers and the armor of a melee-caster hybrid. Even the reflection struck me with the sledgehammer that was her glamor, my eyes unable to resist drinking in the beautiful long limbed fey.

The smug, haughty tilt of the reflection’s head complimented the almost mocking, but completely amused, smile that pulled her red lips upwards. One of the claw tipped fingers of her left, no right, hand tapped against her red lips as she openly appraised me. My inexperienced brain warred with how to react to this situation. Should I be proud of the faint blush to her cheeks? Should I be ashamed at the arousal that suddenly coursed through my body, while I drank in the fine features of her face and the seductive curves hidden (barely) beneath her armor? That was when I realized I was naked, and I vaulted into the tub and sunk down.

It felt like my cheeks might burn off my face, I felt so embarrassed and awkward.

“Can she see me?” I asked Arx Maxima, who had floated into the hot springs pool and floated on its surface, as if she too, could relax and wash away her worries.

“Yes, almost certainly. A Fey of her power, she can doubtlessly see through the eyes of her reflection if not her shadows. To communicate, however, would require both of you opening to one another. Unless.. no, what are the odds of that?” Arx Maxima answered my question, then a happy sigh escaped the golden crystal. A few of the tiny fractures and cracks in her form seemed to mend before my eyes.

I sunk my whole body into the hot springs, leaving only my nose and higher above the waterline, and stayed in a position the mirror couldn’t catch my reflection.

Why could she see through her reflection, but I had no ability to see through mine? The situation was grossly unfair. For one thing, how was I supposed to make myself presentable if I couldn’t see myself in mirrors? Worse, Amaranthine’s beauty hit me like a battering ram. Any chance glimpse of her reflection was dangerous. I had made a terrible mistake. Would she appear naked if she were in her bath, or would she always appear as I thought of her, in the armor and cloak? I pinched myself.

“It seems a cold bath would have been more appropriate,” Arx Maxima noted with a patronizing laugh like Mom and Dad had used whenever I was about to get embarrassed.