Eventually I came up with a plan to block being spied on in the bath. As tempting as it might seem to conjure a wall and block the mirror off, I realized that the better option was to just drape a towel across it. I swear I heard an annoyed harrumph come from one of my shadows after that. I kept the towel on the mirror until I had finished my cleansing in semi-peace. I had no idea how much Amaranthine might be able to pick up from my shadows, but certainly it had to be less than she could from the mirror.
Sometime later, a knock on the door to the suite woke me. The rock framed bed, with a mattress I assumed to be sand or the like, had lulled me into a nap. I patted myself down to ensure I hadn’t lost any of my wardrobe between the bath and a quick nap and opened the door to find Chrys had come back with a magic sack.
“You even slosh in your sleep,” Chrys said accusingly when I stepped out of her way to let her sweep into the room.
“I don’t slosh,” I snipped back.
“You do, but anyway, here’s some food. We think the mushrooms are edible. If they aren’t, I can heal you. Everything else we know with certainty to be edible by you walking cisterns.” Chrys shot my denial down, and her remarkably deft hands pulled item after item from her dimensional bag and set them on the table.
First came a few more stonefruits, then mushrooms, a dead salamander, two large wine bottles of what looked like sparkling blue spring water, young fronds of a fern, and finally a fish.
“Fish?” I muttered under my breath, wondering where the hell they found a fish in all these caverns.
“You killed Ol’ Snappy and her brood, but didn’t think to check the waters of Subterra for fish?” Chrys asked incredulously, and I felt my cheeks burn a little.
“Didn’t really think about it,” I replied with a shrug.
“Let me show you how to crack the stonefruit,” Chrys offered to me. When I nodded, she grabbed one of the rocky melons, twisted them in her hands until the stone sort of cracked, then used a tool I hadn’t noticed piled under the stonefruit to cut the fruit in half. I could only describe the scent that overpowered the room as a mix of raspberry and strawberry, but the delicate flesh inside of the rock was somewhere between a sugar crystals and the flesh of a watermelon in texture, and it practically glowed a luminous blue.
“I just eat it?” I asked stupidly when Chrys handed one of the halves to me.
“Yes. It’s naturally energy-fortified, more effective than most alchemical potions. We consume them to aid in Lithomorphosis. One of our few trade-goods that you meat sacks journey to Subterra to acquire, they apparently do wonders for the constitutions of spindly mages.” Chrys answered candidly, and then watched as I stuffed my face with fruit.
It tasted better than it smelled, and it smelled fantastic. The high sugar content, mixed with the natural energies that had soaked into the fruit shot from my tongue through my body in a euphoric dance. I almost groaned, before I stopped myself and focused on getting all of the blue flesh of the stonefruit into my mouth and letting as little of its invigorating juice touch the table as possible. I didn’t realize I had resorted to ravenously sucking the juices from my fingertips until Chrys coughed. The blue-green beauty’s face was contorted into disgust.
“You organics are truly barbaric when you feast, so filthy.” Chrys chided me, but for all her words, she it felt like she was staring at me a little too intently. If Gneisslings gem-inlaid eyes were actually part of their sight. Now that I thought abut it, it seemed like a large stretch on my part to think that Gneisslings would see out of such ornate embellishments on their forms, and that they weren’t there to mimic organics in some way.
“How do you see?” I asked, which clearly wasn’t the question she expected.
“You are too filthy! Err. See? We have multiple senses, but primarily we detect pressure, chemical presence, vibrations, and thermal. A combination of thermal and vibratory are what creates our sense most comparable to human sight. Why? No previous wanderer has asked such a stupid question.” Chrys seemed uncertain how to deal with her displeasure about failing to convey her senses to me, or maybe she really was annoyed that I’d ask that. It didn’t seem like that rude of a question. Perhaps she was displeased not with herself but me, for failing to understand her?
“I don’t really get it. How do you see through heat and vibrations? You know, it doesn’t matter. I was just trying to sort out if you looking at me with your face meant you were actually looking at me, that’s all.” I looked awkwardly at my feet, when I realized how self-centered that came off as.
“Mmm.” Chrys hummed at me and didn’t answer my real inquiry. “So, I came to barter with you. I’d like two concepts, and as many others as you can reasonably do for our people while you’re here. We would prefer you remain for at least a cycle – what the surfacers call a week - doing this. In exchange, Rock Lord Granix will give you the Mask of the Beast.”
“What is the Mask of the Beast?” I asked dubiously.
“Agree to this request, Emery. What they call the Mask of the Beast is, in actuality, the Dragon-mask of Azazel. It once belonged to one of my Emissaries.” Arx Maxima jumped into the conversation.
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“The Mask of the Beast is a gold-colored metallic mask that looks like a draconic being. It is a powerful artifact, but like many powerful treasures, it bears a powerful curse, too.” Chrys warned.
“Curse? Hardly. Owner-identification, certainly. I know the means of making it accept you.” Arx Maxima crowed proudly, talking over Chrys who couldn’t hear her.
“Those who wear it grow extremely resistant to all forms of energy attacks, including magic, as well as physical attacks. It also allows the wearer to influence or control living beings a number of times per day. The more closely bound to the mask you become, the more powerful the effects it provides. Our records suggest the physical resistance starts at around a quarter, or equivalent to powerful armor in the tiny form of a mask.”
I felt my eyes grow a little wider. That level of protection couldn’t be achieved with regular armor, and coming from a simple item like a mask struck me as rare. Arx Maxima saying it belonged to one of her old followers cinched the deal for me.
“I’m on board. I’ll stay for a week, do your two concepts and as many of your fellows as I can comfortably accommodate.” I didn’t know how to even Enkindle someone else’s concepts and attributes, but doubtlessly Arx Maxima could guide me or give me enough hints to get me there.
“Are there any limitations on the types of concepts you’re willing or able to enkindle?” Chrys didn’t beat around the bush, she went straight to business. I didn’t understand the bluntness for the question.
“I’m a bit new to Enkindling, is there a reason for Enkindlers to have limits on what they can or will do?” I asked in response to her question.
“Some Enkindlers are said to be limited by themes, and others aren’t limited at all. Some can only grant so many concepts per year, and some require sacrifices to fuel their powers. Others limit what they will grant due to personal beliefs and ethics. Concepts involving lawlessness, invisibility, far-seeing, mind control, or undeath are often considered uncouth.”
“Mind control sounds bad, I think.” The others all seemed like they had valuable applications. The mists were an eat or be eaten kind of place, and the more powers you had to do the eating, the less being prey you had to endure. That was how I rationalized it, at least.
“Excellent,” Chrys replied happily. “Shall we start now?”
“Ask her what concept she wants to embody, at which point you will try to meditate and imagine the concept. If it is a sapient concept, you will have to convince it to bind with the person. If it is unintelligent, if you can find it you can bind it. Given your astral affinity, no basic or even rare concept should be beyond your reach. Azazel could enkindle hundreds in a day at the height of his power.” Arx Maxima provided vague instructions to me before I could even ask.
“What concept are you seeking?” I asked Chrys.
“I seek to enkindle the great Biolo Gy to my agility,” Chrys answered me without hesitation.
“Biolo Gy?” I asked.
“It is the study of you soft, fleshy creatures.” Chrys seemed confused I didn’t know that.
“Uh, do you mean biology? Like anatomy?” I asked, and Chrys made a warding gesture.
“Ana Tommy is the concept assassins use to always strike vulnerable targets on their enemies,” Chrys responded to my question about anatomy. Clearly, somewhere along the line, some phrases in our shared language had branched. Did their misunderstandings of names have power, despite that?
“Check for both concepts before you enkindle one. What we know to be true may not be the most powerful concept with the individual you are working with.” Arx Maxima spoke her advice with an edge of uncertainty she normally lacked. “Too long have I been absent from the world. We shall apply the scientific method to discern the truth of how similar concepts resonating with the individual.”
“Right,” I said with a sigh. “Let me see what I can do.”
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing until I cleared my mind of the weirdness of Biolo Gy and Ana Tommy, and only the black void of nothing filled my mind. The flickers of bright green colors faded, and I reached a quiet place.
I cast out my mind, and mentally called out for Biology and Biolo Gy. A series of lights flew towards me, and it felt like I had to dodge through a school of fish. Razor sharp scales cut my astral-self, and a particularly peckish fish bit my insubstantial arm, leaving a wispy wound that slowly filled itself in. More concepts flew past me, some called out for me to bind them to someone, others fled from me and my connections to Arx Maxima.
I found myself drawn to a laboratory. A man made of metal, glass, and shiny materials loomed over a creature restrained on a table. Each of the metal-man’s ten fingers were different tools. Scalpel, syringe, a saw, and seven other tools I didn’t know the names of, and based on the dried blood and remnants of flesh upon them, I didn’t want to know.
“What do you want, Enkindler? Can’t you see I’m busy?” The monotone, flat voice of the metal creature sounded artificial, and far away, despite only a dozen feet between us.
“Someone wishes to embrace your concept, wise BIolo Gy, and so I came to gauge your compatibility.”
“Tell me about this individual,” Biolo Gy demanded.
“She is a Gneissling artisan who already possesses the concepts of Sympathy and Copper, but now she wishes to add to her repertoire,” I gave a brief description of Chrys to the strange scientist, but he cut me off before I could get very far.
“Silicate life form? I must find one to study. Yes, yes, enkindle my glorious domain upon her, and let her rise to the heights of science.” The metal-man laughed, and even that came out flat and monotone. I considered the other concept I had ‘caught’, the non-sapient concept of Biology was so vast as to be useless. Intuitively, I knew that it would be far less powerful than the scientist for Chrys. Biology as a concept was too broad.
So, how did I go about burning the scientist onto Chrys? I focused on pulling Chrys into my awareness. As my mind expanded, I sensed her four attributes. Essence and Vitality were already bound with a hunk of copper and four inter-connected rings. I wasn’t impressed with the artistry of whoever had bound either of the concepts for her previously.
I touched the empty spot for agility, and envisioned the metal man, the scientist and his strange tool-filled hand, and then flash-fire burnt the image into Chrys’s agility spot. When the imaginary puff of smoke drifted away, a picture-perfect representation of Biolo Gy filled and bound the scientist to the Gneissling.
“That was fast. You can take your hand off me now,” Chrys brought me back to the room with the annoyed tone to her voice.
Sure enough, my hand rested on her inner thigh. High up on her inner thigh. She felt slightly cool compared to my flesh, and the blue-green rock of her body didn’t give against touch at all. I couldn’t resist poking her thigh, before pulling my hand away. She really was made entirely from rock.
"Enjoying yourself?" Chrys didn't sound annoyed, so much as confused.