Panicked and no longer in the mood to be stubborn, Ember punted one of Oak’s Elves out of the way like some cheap garden gnome, sending his bruised tailbone skyrocketing through the canopy. The Fire Mage knelt down and took control of the situation.
Onlookers in the vicinity didn’t have bleached chunks of bark, but they muttered scores regardless with sagely nods. Solid nines across the board. Regarding the beautiful punt, Dimi silently shook his fist at the air. He sniffled, shedding a single manly tear as he got out of the way of the gold medalist. He’d be back for another shot at the punt Olympics gold next year.
“You walking catastrophe!” Ember tore away Artorian’s petal clothes to expose his darkening chest. All of Rosewood’s Elves fainted on the spot as they watched their creation being incinerated by a thousand flaming claws. “I warned you that this is something that happens for Ascended! Why are you always trying to do this to me? You and your experimental insanity! Merging Auras isn’t supposed to occur before you have a body that can handle it! This is what happens!”
“Not… insanity. Philosophy!” He’d raised a sputtered finger as blood drooled from the side of his mouth, and she’d slapped him for his coughed daredevil words.
Artorian passed out from the strike, which dropped his Aura control like a rock. Resetting a moment before fading fully, the temporary sunspot stabbed them all right in the eyes. Some Elves screamed, “We needed a solution for that last season!”
That phrase was the last thing the old man heard before fading into obscurity. His condition was stabilized, and it took over a week for him to become well enough to recover.
Chapter Twenty-One
After he was well, and the kerfuffle his Aura merging had created had passed, it was time for Artorian to properly begin the infusion process for his brain. This was the next step, and it was important. He peeked around himself for a moment. Ember leered down from an elevated hill, holding a stick in one hand, and the other pressed to her hip. The stick lit on fire. Crackers and toast.
Nearly all of the Elves in the forest had gathered to watch the process, for multiple reasons. One, it was an important step and they wanted to support their defender. Two, they had never seen someone this old attempt the process. Granted, there was a major downside for the great gathering of Wood Elves... unintended consequences, in fact.
As far as Mahogany remembered, meetings this large had not occurred ever. He recalled there was a reason it shouldn’t be done, rather than a lack of reason to gather. When remaining in close proximity to one another, their consciousness overlapped, releasing the same kind of emanations that drew the Blight to their positions. It didn’t affect them if they remained in the hierarchical structure, keeping a certain distance and spread from others. When they huddled up close during the evenings, however, a more communal effect engaged.
The effects had been gradual. Birch finished some of Pine’s sentences. Elm and Ash synched up completely, even though they had no direct connection to one another. They could just feel the other group, including pending actions. When speaking as one group to another, nothing was different from the usual. They’d figured out mind-to-mind communication over distance centuries ago. But proximity took that effect and forced it on all of them in the enclosed space.
Each Elven consciousness acted as its own transmitter and waystation. So long as they didn’t actively fight against the effect and bunker their minds into a set body, they felt present in an open mental forum where they could speak without needing to be physically present at all.
When Ember had walked into the radius of this effect, she’d been furious with Artorian for making them wait this long. To do what she had instructed him to do in the first place. To everyone else, the ripples she created on their mindspace were severe. Her single-minded focus burned like a bright, flaming blade, cutting through the ethereal pond of their minds and causing steam to form along the way. Elves cleared the path for her long before she was in the area as a result.
The unnatural movements unsettled her so much she asked what was going on. Ember rarely asked anything about social convention. “You mean to say there is a communal mindspace present… with everyone here?”
Elm agreed with the assessment, calm as a blade of grass in front of a rabbit. “When you came through, your mind moved like a fiery torch. We’ve become accustomed to this when speaking directly, but to experience it as a single collective was… something else entirely.”
The Fire Mage considered the words, sat down, and calmed herself through martial meditation. The relief of her restraint washed over the entire congregation. Tension released itself as a large sigh, the pinprick of Ember’s fury no longer slicing through their combined thinking.
When Artorian entered the zone after the communal space had formed, groups of Elves around him received the worst headache they’d ever had. It was a burdensome pain; one the old man didn’t know how to cease for their benefit. They confronted him on the issue quickly. “High Human. What did you do to cause yourself such misery?”
Artorian scratched the top of his head. “Well my boy, I was running through Essence-combination sets. I was inspecting and observing how light functions, and noticed there’s light present that one cannot normally see. I was being thorough, so I tried to overcome a hurdle by inspecting a spiderweb. Those strands tend to be invisible to the naked eye, even up close at times. Cycling light-vision allowed me to see where light wasn’t, and where it wasn’t as much.
“So, I saw the web clear as a red stone laying on a yellow-sanded beach. In terms of black and white, but I saw it nonetheless. Using my sight in this manner too much gives me terrible headaches. I try to limit myself, but I just can’t easily tell when I go over that limit until I cross it. As you can see, by then it’s too late.”
Maple groaned at him. Artorian perked up, as it had been an odd groan. He’d known it was Maple, but that group of Elves wasn’t here. It was… sort of like the Blight, when it spoke to him all that time ago, except friendlier. Without the looming hunger and malice that made it feel like he was part of the buffet.
“Maple? How…?” The old man looked around, and did not see them.
Walnut, Willow, and Tulip all pointed off to the distance where Maple was. Artorian still could not see them. The connection was just spread too wide while they all kept themselves open, increasing the potency of the mental communication network. They hadn’t expected the human to be included, but it seemed to be open to anyone sensitive enough.
The realization that this made them horribly vulnerable to Blight twanged through their network like a badly-plucked instrument string. The thought fearfully marinated, but a mote of light in the mental forum calmed the rising concern with ease. What an odd sensation.
Artorian had altered his Aura to fuel the soothing effect of starlight. The calming, comforting waves washed over the sizable congregation in his immediate presence. The comfort spread and grew, bouncing against other minds in the forum as they too relaxed, even without their physical forms being within the radius of his effect.
Just like that, Artorian found a way to wriggle out of infusing his brain right now. How interesting! The philosopher thought that this kind of connection must be similar in some way to the Choir’s sympathy effect. When they used song to bolster one another. Rather than song as a medium, the Wood Elves must have the original, unfiltered version.
This was just a shared space, one untainted by meaning or function. This was a public meeting place for open discussion, and a unique one at that. Considering how the mechanics of such a space might work, the old man thought out loud,
A great majority of Wood Elves still had the headache, but a response did come.
As normal, Mahogany was always the most collected of them, and his sonorous words pleasantly added to the conversation.
Mahogany spread a feeling of elated invitation, and decided on the spot that he preferred the term for the space that was coming from Artorian.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Trepidation filled the air. Anyone that spoke would be heard by all; not just the spirit they wanted to directly commune with. Everyone. Every single Wood Elf, both young and old in the Forum would hear their words. The taste of discomfort hung within the Forum space, until a mote of fire burst into being.
Artorian knew this mote very well from when she’d spent weeks to months in his Center helping him create, guiding and directing the improvements to his solar gyroscope. It was Ember. Hold the pastry a moment… if she could freely enter this space… couldn’t he?
Desire was all that was necessary. A blooming mote of starlight popped into existence.
His physical form sat to meditate. Artorian was vaguely aware of it, but similar to how he wasn’t present in his body during active cultivation, he wasn’t present there now.
He was in this space. This Forum. A zone that contained and expanded his mind.
A Wood Elf child took the leap, and a mote of dull green popped in. It zipped around in a panic as it didn’t know how to undo what it had just done, but a hearty brown mote popped in shortly after. The dull green mote zipped to it, then hovered around the mental presence of the Eldest Mahogany. With active presences in the Forum, Elves made themselves comfortable and joined en masse, populating the zone as they all began to talk over one another.
The cacophony was unbearable. Ember flared her mote, already knowing how to control herself while in this mental representation of her personality.
The minds in the Forum silenced instantly. The Fire Soul was not someone you wanted to backtalk, not even here. Perhaps especially here. Ember ignored the wayward thoughts of ‘Fire Soul’. She’d deal with it for now. Ember decided to lay down some ground rules since Mahogany was currently forced to provide security for too many people at the same time.
Oh dear, that really stilled the Forum.
One of the motes turned bright blue to match Ember’s color signature, then turned a vibrant yellow. It was their human. Of course, it was abyssal Artorian that figured it out first. This was a candy shop to him, and as usual he had to try all the flavors along the entire rainbow as his mote flashed through the available gambit. Still, the example worked well enough.
Ember turned bright red to say ‘no’. She wasn’t done. Many of the motes turned some variation of green or brown. Ember supposed that was a decently common color choice for Wood Elves, and thought those should be good as neutral colors.
When the motes returned to browns and greens, Artorian’s mote pulsed bright yellow. He had a question. Because of course he did. Ember’s mote flickered from orange to red dangerously fast, but the host of blues surrounding him outmatched her vote. She forcibly calmed herself. It was a shoddy system, but it worked.
Blue lights flickered through the zone.
The form of a shiny marble interior with hanging red draperies flickered in the empty zone. It was horrendous for Artorian to keep the entire thing in mind, but he discovered that after showing a detailed piece he no longer had to do so. The benefit of the communal space was that each Elf had their own memory, and they applied that memory like puzzle pieces atop everyone else’s. The pieces and patches that matched solidified in the Forum.
A warm interior of smoothed, reflective gleaming marble surrounded them. Draped flags hung vertical from the insides of a circular open ceiling where a dome should have been, but the old man had forgotten the roof. It was now just an open space, but what a beautiful space it was.
Artorian moseyed his mote down to the center of the Senate floor, where a big flat plane dominated the space. As he did, the forest-color motes zipped around to find a nice niche for themselves. While their physical forms needed to adhere to a hierarchy, none was in place here, so they freely chose the seats they liked the most.
Even if they could not technically sit. Regardless of being without hands in this space, Artorian mentally rubbed his together. Somehow everyone knew and Ember was immediately suspicious. He turned yellow, and she exploded into shades of a blazing red fury. Whatever he was about to do, he shouldn’t.
Blue flooded her surroundings. She was outvoted. Again. Her regret to institute and suggest this system was clear.
The starlight mote popped, altering its shape and molding into a sizable orb. The luminous sphere then formed a cylinder. While one end of the cylinder remained present in the Forum, the other end… well.
Artorian had done something ridiculous again. Since the Forum was just a communal mental space, nothing was preventing him from coming and going. This was just another technique requiring mental focus, and he’d been practicing those like his life depended on it. Mostly due to rampant fireballs.
Rather than return to his body and sever the mental bond, he held to the Auric connection keeping him linked to the Forum. The change to a unified Aura made clear why Ember called it ‘Presence’. Not only did one feel whole, gaining an incredible awareness of one’s body, you also gained vast insight on any Essence movements within the unified field. Even minute flows of energy could be noticed with the barest brush of attention, and the Forum connection was no exception.
Something had to power and maintain it. Focusing on the string of energy, Artorian found a compound Ess
ence containing seventeen units of water, three of air, and nine of fire that had not been present previously. He was certain this combination had a name, but there was no static push of conceptual thought behind it. He’d let someone else decide what to call it; now was time for the fun part!
Gripping the connection like a rope, he released another excited, “Whe~e~e!”
Artorian spelunked right into his Center like a diver jumping from the highest springboard, Essence connection in hand. The old man tied the ‘rope’ of the Forum effect to his Aura as he heroically guided his resplendent mote into his refinement technique. He mentally squared his shoulders and twisted his hands around the rope.
With all the flair of a street performer, the rope unfurled and gained size, forming a cylindrical tunnel fueled by Essence. Using the tunnel, he connected one zone of Essence to another. He thought of it as a hallway between otherwise closed rooms of a house; an intermediary between the Forum and his Center.
After Rosewood’s lessons in weaving Essence together, this was child’s play. It did cost him a sizable chunk of energy to activate the effect, but that was worth it to him as streaming motes of light bypassed defenses that otherwise kept advanced cultivation techniques invisible to a cultivator’s eye.
Curious motes flashed excited rainbows of colors and enthusiastically zipped around. ‘Ooh’ing and ‘aah’ing at the various interlocking mechanisms, one of the zealous motes touched part of the gyroscope to inspect it deeper, and Artorian felt the transgression. That youngster was unceremoniously kicked from the space like a star falling in reverse.
The Wood Elves had never so intimately seen a cultivation Center not of their own unique designs. Theirs lived and breathed inside of their Core-tree. The tree method cultivated by drawing in energy from the Elves, which acted as the gathering roots for the earthly Essence. After supplying it to their Core, nature did all the refining for them. This allowed Wood Elves to worry less about the building process of their energy gathering, and instead focus on their usage of it, sharpening their skills without the need to pay attention to keeping their Center balanced.
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