by Ryan DeBruyn
If they weren't related in any way, did that change his feelings for her? Every part of him agreed that it did. He had been avoiding thinking of his feelings for her for so long. Now, he went through every interaction they ever had. From start to finish.
Her becoming his guide. Her laugh, when she played with Azoth. Her becoming his co-leader and gaining the druid class. Right up to her storming away.
Still, now the situation was muddy. He didn't know how to apologize to her. He fixated on that thought as he wandered, eventually weaving back through the tightly pressed buildings, then trudged back out into the open space still available to expand.
A black mound in the darkness made his mood tick up slightly. He triggered his Dark Cloak. He hadn't realized he was following his connection to the Chimera. Still, once his Dark Cloak increased his night vision, he could distinguish the massive sleeping form of Azoth.
He sat with his dozing friend and considered the future. From his vantage, he could see people moving around in the Longhouses. An upward head tilt allowed him to trace the lines of their newest tower and its spherical top. The Grotto was thriving, and tomorrow, the population would swell. It should have been a buoying thought, but the added responsibility made their other tasks all the more meaningful.
He pulled out the Enchanter’s Kit. They needed to start being able to produce gear for themselves. As he turned the objects in his hand, he was reminded of his previous attempt. And failure. What did he have that might add new information to this Enchanting problem?
A wave of euphoria flowed through his body as he remembered the locked gear. He pulled out the pieces of Rat-Hide gear and laid them out.
Slowing his breathing, he began his Meditation with ease. He studied the gear and found the typical patterns of swirling Ether he had observed in other Enchanted equipment.
He pulled the chest piece closer and studied the pattern. It was just like letters in an alphabet, but an alphabet he was only partially familiar with. Part of this pattern was definitely the Rune of Protection. However, the letter for Protection was more extensive and more stylized in some ways, while also linking to two other letters he didn't know.
Hesitantly, he reached out with a tendril of his own Ether and let it join the flow of the writing. He felt a phantasmal tug on his heart and almost released it, but soon, his Ether was following the path serenely. He could almost sense something, like a taste without substance. Like a sound without noise. A texture with no touch.
He allowed his Mediation to pour Ether into the channels of the gear, and the odd feeling grew. Then something began to crackle—almost fracture. He opened his eyes to inspect the equipment in the visual spectrum. It was similar to what he had seen Lingren do. Lingren had released the spell and let it work, and so Rocky let go of his external Ether. His pool dropped by one-hundred and sixty points, but the gear appeared to absorb it.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill.
Enchanting
● Enchanting is the study of runes and Ether flow. Many of the runes used in early Enchanting were found naturally in the wild. Each point in Enchanting increases the rune shaping of the individual by 1%.
Current level: Weak level 1.
He Analyzed the gear and was excited to find a change.
Rat-Hide Cloak
● This cloak is exquisitely crafted and seems to be far stronger and durable than most other materials.
Ether Pool: Large
Current Ether Pool: 01 / 110
Enchantments: 2 Locked, Protection V (40%)
Protection V (40%)
● This protection Enchantment increases the gear's resistance to damage by forty percent on top of the material’s inherent Ether protection.
Find a shop or person capable of unlocking the gear to discover more.
He hadn't unlocked the entirety of the gear, and his elation dipped. He had to admit, he’d only studied the one Enchantment rune. He was confident that if he knew the other two, he could unlock the whole piece.
Not exactly a leap forward in Enchanting, but definitely a teachable step for citizens. His brain whirred with excitement from the discovery, and an idea began to take shape. His new enchanting skill seemed to hum, and he knew he was onto something.
He entered Meditation again and coerced a tendril of his internal Ether to coalesce. Opening the reservoir on the pen, he fed the tendril into the opening like it was ink. He pulled out a plain leather tunic and wrote the Protection rune onto the material. He continued to feed a stream of his Ether into the pen and watched it trail out the other side, much like using a ballpoint pen.
He felt his excitement rising as the letter seemed more solid. It even had a tube-like appearance, a thicker layer of Ether separating the interior from the exterior.
He finished with a bit of a flourish and released the tendril and Meditation as he opened his eyes. As he watched, the rune burned a perfectly black line into the tunic. It took longer than he expected, but it began to smolder and then catch fire. His head drooped as the euphoria fled. He carefully grabbed a corner and pulled the burning leather away from Azoth, carrying it over to a patch of rocky ground.
He returned to his previous state and watched the Ether tear the material apart. He was missing something, a medium that both adhered the Ether to the leather and protected it. What was he missing?
Something he could make with the mortar and pestle.
He meditated on the issue, and sighed as the Ether fire dwindled. His Ether began to escape the gear. He watched it float up into the air, and he was almost blinded by something in his peripheral vision.
As the tower glowed with a churning energy, his small patch of Ether dulled and was sucked into the spire.
Craning his neck, he walked toward the tower, continuing to Meditate as he followed the Ether’s path. His Ether joined a spiral running down the outside of the tower before circling the dome languidly. He couldn't tell where it went after that, but he wanted to find out.
The doors opened automatically on his approach as he traced the lines of Ether converging onto the floor. The glowing lines ran in a large conduit down the center of the hallway. He followed the line to the mostly-vacant central Guild Hall, and the line began to spiral around the room.
The river traced the outer edge of the room, eventually joined by three other arteries. The spirals condensed, and the Ether within seemed to brighten and accelerate as the flow was obstructed. It reached its culmination point under the elevator shaft. Rocky watched with fascination as the energy flashed and almost disappeared.
Something pulsed up the tower and down into the ground simultaneously. He opened his Territory interface and climbed onto the elevator. The pulsing continued, almost like it was the Grotto’s heartbeat.
He clicked the Control Room option, and the elevator doors closed. Each twentieth pulse seemed to add a Territorial Etherience to the funds available. Perhaps they could get Amber back faster. He continued to watch and calculate. The pulsing happened once every three to four seconds, and the extra tick of Territorial Etherience was every twentieth beat. Approximately one extra point every minute.
The doors opened to the empty Control Room floor. Smith must have sent his people home for the night. Rocky didn’t exit the elevator and waited a moment. There. Right after the pulse below, the altar pulsed. He approached the place of power and waited. There it was again!
He started to feel nauseous as he saw the object continue to pulse in time with each beat from below. If one of the directions the energy translated was to his Territory, what was this other direction? Was Michabo receiving half of the tower’s Etherience conversion of ambient Ether?
He placed his hand on the altar and said, “Michabo, are you there?”
A voice sounded inside Rocky’s head. “Yes, we are here, Barkclay. You do realize that communicating like this takes Etherience, right?”
“Why is some of the tower diverting its Etherience to this altar?”
T
here was a pause this time before Michabo’s response, “All places of power take a small supply of the Territory Etherience to sustain. The spirit realm has upkeep…”
Rocky snapped out of Meditation. “It seemed to exist all this time without any Etherience. Now it needs some of the Grotto’s?”
The silence stretched before Michabo sighed mentally, a strange sensation to hear. “We had quite a store of energy. Resurrecting you and your three companions have exhausted that collection. Regardless, that is the function of this tower. We are only taking a portion of the extra Etherience, thanks to this fantastic filter.”
Rocky’s blood began to boil. Michabo had asked all of the Dungeon party to donate their Etherience. Even if it was at a poor conversion ratio of ten to one—he himself had donated more than they currently had in the Territory.
“I have work to do, Barkclay. Not everyone can stand around all day.”
His nostrils flared at the insinuation and he screamed at the altar.
“Get back here, you bunny-eared jerk! I’m not done asking questions.”
Michabo gave no indication that he had heard him. “Michabo, I need to understand what happened to all that Etherience we gave you. You said you had a huge store and used that for our resurrections. What about all the donated Etherience?”
Silence answered him.
His ears were so hot, he thought they might create their own solar gravity. He felt betrayed by the Native Spirit. There was something Michabo wasn’t saying—something covert, perhaps even sinister.
Since he was already in the Control Room and he needed a distraction from his fuming rage, he chose to dive into another one of Michabo’s claims. He found the right workstation and pulled up the Hall of Fame.
The screen changed, and in a prominent gold outline, a list of the top ten creatures to ever set foot on Gaia appeared.
Top Ten Highest-Level Individuals of All Time
Zeus – Legendary – Level 76
Thor – Legendary – Level 75
Rudra – Legendary – Level 42
Ra – Legendary – Level 38
Buddha – Legendary – Level 32
Selapheliel – Legendary – Level 30
Uriel – Legendary – Level 29
Raphael – Legendary – Level 27
Azrael – Legendary – Level 4
Hercules – Epic – Level 99
Each and every name seemed to be mythical in nature. He wondered if the stories of these powerful beings had outlived the disappearance of Ether, or if dug up relics recalled them from the annals of history.
Other sorting options existed, and he clicked on the filters to remove the males from the list. The list repopulated and he scratched his chin. The levels were significantly skewed, but there were Epic classes amongst them.
Top Ten of Highest-Level Females of All Time
Athena – Epic – Level 92
Shiva – Epic – Level 92
Aphrodite – Epic – Level 72
Isis – Epic – Level 71
Freya – Epic – Level 52
Gabrielle – Epic – Level 12
Medusa – Master – Level 29
Katerina– Master – Level 27
Hel – Master – Level 23
Selaphelia – Master – Level 21
Alarm bells sounded in his head. He clicked on the names displayed on the women’s list. A date appeared for the time that the level was recorded. For Athena, it claimed, ‘Time since last record: 2,005,738,138 orbits.’
He clicked through the list and noticed a distinct difference in times. All the women who were in the Epic ranks had been recorded nearly two billion years ago. All the women in the Master ranks hovered around the one-billion-year mark. It was hard for him to believe that not a single woman had grown into the high Master ranks in a billion years.
He scrolled back to the men’s list. The powerful Legendary class individuals’ records were demarked right around the same time. In fact, Azrael and Sela’s last records were only a few million years apart. He wasn’t sure, but he got the impression from Sela that Azrael had been much older than that.
That brought the Sela issue to the forefront of his mind. The conversation came full circle as he considered omitting this information from her. The decision would be easy, but he honestly didn’t believe she could be part of whatever Michabo claimed. Whatever that was.
Rocky fooled around for a few more hours at the workstation before finally giving up. His eyes had begun to close, and a few times, he startled himself awake when his chin hit his chest. It was time to get back to his apartment.
He had gained new information, but it just added more questions. Plenty of women were listed as having successfully entered Master class in those billion years. Still, a vast number seemed to not have any record after level one.
He had also discovered that the top ten of all time had four individuals from the Cathodiem guild in his searches. Selapheliel, Uriel, Raphael, and Azrael, were all part of the auspicious guild. They all had records that started two billion years ago, and newer recordings that dated only a billion years. Were they immortal? Or was the system mistaken?
He arrived at his apartment and chose to doze until the sun came up. He had already used an Elixir of Shortened Sleep, so he thought of it as a nap.
When he woke up, he would ask Sela.
Chapter Eighteen
Rocky’s eyes flew open. He was wide awake. He could only compare the feeling to memories of childhood—waking up on Christmas morning to brightly wrapped presents promising toys. Only today, he got a lifesize starship.
His bright mood soured at the memory of his two discoveries from the previous night and his failed Enchanting attempt. Deflated, he hopped out of bed and got into the shower. He stood under the hot water, hoping it would wash away some of his trepidation. His blood turned cold at the prospect of his conversation with Sela. Still, he knew he had to speak to her and hoped the hot water would warm him up to the task.
Opening the door to his apartment suite on the third floor, he tentatively knocked on Sela’s door. The knock echoed inside, but no other sound came from within. After waiting half a minute, he left the Town Hall building to search for his guide elsewhere. As soon as he emerged from the building, the smell of food made his mouth water. He decided to look for Sela in the Mess Hall, and maybe get some breakfast while he was at it.
On his arrival, he scanned the tables and saw a few people he knew, scattered in pockets throughout the room. Sela sat at the center of a table, engaged in deep conversation with others. She was red in the face and doing a poor job of hiding her glare.
He joined the line for food and continued watching the exchanges. One of the individuals at the table directed his hands toward Sela and spoke animatedly. Sela opened her mouth and closed it again before slowly turning to someone else, her jaw clenched tighter, her face a little redder, and her eyes narrower. The vein in her forehead throbbed and grew larger with each response.
He was next to be served and focused his attention to the buffet. One of the cooks offered him some crispy meat, held up by tongs. He nodded, greedily remembering the last time he had eaten the ‘bacon’ substitute. “Could I have double?”
The cook laughed and gave him extra, saying, “It seems everyone’s appetite is increasing. Are you sure I can’t get you thirds of our rat bacon?”
Rocky’s stomach flipped, but only for a second—it was still ‘bacon’ after all. At this point, he didn’t care what he was eating, if these cooks could make it taste this good.
By the end of the buffet line, he was juggling two plates heaped with food. He was surprised to find something that looked like eggs in the mix today, and a sweet-smelling toast. The cooks had outdone themselves, attempting to create a breakfast similar to pre-Ether-wave standards. Rocky wondered if today was a bit of celebration for the return of food stores.
He was looking for a seat when he felt eyes on him. Sela was watching him. He glanced back in
her direction and saw she was ready to explode. He chose to save the people around her. “Sela, we need to talk. Could you join me, please?”
She could blow up at him if she wanted. He deserved it anyway.
She nodded and disentangled herself, abandoning her empty plate at the table. They moved off to a private corner and sat back down.
“I am so sor—”
“Stop. Let’s just leave it behind us. They gave you so much meat,” Sela said as she snagged a piece for herself. Should he try again? Her throbbing vein returned.
Rocky decided to let it drop. He let out a half-hearted growl, and Sela forced a laugh before stuffing the bacon into her mouth.
Still chewing, she sighed. “Honestly, everyone thinks I have all the answers. Then when I do have an answer, some people want to keep reverting to, ‘Make the Ether go away,’ or, ‘Can we go back to our previous way of life ever?’ I honestly feel bad for those people. They won’t ever truly fit into this world if they don’t accept it.”
Rocky batted away her hand as she went for another piece of ‘bacon,’ and she glared at him. Maybe he shouldn’t poke the bear?
There was no denying she was right, and he hoped people would stop looking for ways out. If everyone pushed forward together, the future could be bright, but they definitely wouldn’t have everyone—at least not immediately.
He wondered what sort of drain these non-contributors caused the Grotto. On the other hand, more people in the Territory meant more Territorial Etherience. So, for now, in the name of Amber, he let it slide.
He fended off another move she made for his toast, and said, “Rocky doesn’t share food!” around a full bite. She laughed a little truer this time. He would give her the entire plate of food right now if that meant she would forgive him. However, he would settle for her being playful.