Astral Threads, Ch 26: Frostbone Crawlers (Patreon)

The jagged walls of the crevasse opened around Sam like a throat swallowing him into the depths of the earth. A quarter of the way down, he swept past Krana in a streak of flame as he continued to accelerate and then the cloudy grey and blue ice at the bottom appeared, growing closer by the instant.

He struck the ground in with a resounding thunderclap that shook the sides of the crevasse and sent a rumble through the large cavern that the crawlers had made. Wind roared around him in a deafening whirl from where it had buffered his impact, and the ice at his feet sank down to absorb the impact, leaving a shallow blue crater around him.

There was no light that reached this deep, but it was as clear as day to Sam’s eyes, which glowed like silver stars. The cavern was about five hundred feet across and it narrowed at the ends. It must have been shaped from an internal crack in the ice here. Tunnels led off in four directions toward the Flaws they’d already closed, but he ignored them as he focused on the enemies in front of him.

The biggest was the one he’d already identified, its body fifty feet long and more than a dozen wide. It was an ugly thing. It was covered in overlapping segments of dirty white armor from head to toe that was pocked with irregular spiky bumps that might be sensory organs. Foot-long tendrils lashed out from the bumps, their tips writhing in the air, and long spikes with angled hooks at the end ran along the surface of the segments in three spiraling rows where they protected the crawler’s back.

Its mouth was a pit of jagged teeth like a leech’s that ground away at the ice in front of it, and it didn’t have any obvious legs. Instead, it moved like a worm by bunching up its body and then extending it again, showing that whatever was connecting the segments, it wasn’t bone. Overall, it looked like a worm mixed with a spike trap.

Armored Frostbone Crawler. Level 120.

There were two more almost as large as the first at Levels 112 and 116, and then five that were about half the size at Levels 60-92. They were scattered across the chamber as they chewed into the walls. They were either searching for something there or were extremely hungry. They twitched when he landed, but they only slowly began to pull themselves away and turn toward the new threat.

“Almost a proper cavern this time!” Krana shouted as she floated down beside him in a swirling sphere of wind. Her landing was much softer than his and ribbons of yellow Earth mana wrapped around her as she raised her warhammer. She glanced at the crawlers and then ignored them as she turned to Sam. It would take them a minute to turn around.

“This trip to Runekeld is reminding me how much I miss a real cave with solid stone walls,” she grumbled as she summoned a wave of earthen spikes. They erupted out of the ice in front of them, creating a defensive barrier in case the crawlers charged. “The relic’s pretty close, since there’s good stone there, but it’s not quite the same when you’re that high in the sky. You walk outside and see clouds under your doorstep. That’s not supposed to happen.”

Sam chuckled, but he didn’t let Krana distract him. She was tired of fighting the Flaws and looking for other things to talk about, but for him, it was different. The song of essence was reverberating in his blood as it drove him forward. He could sense the essence in the Outsiders and his constellation spun faster as it urged him to seize it.

It wasn’t the bloodlust of the past, but instead a resonant desire for the fuel to ignite new stars and forge a path into the darkness. It pulled at him like the call of the void, promising the freedom for his steps to echo on endless paths.

It took him a moment to pull himself back and focus on the present, and when he did, the hunger lingered in his bones as a catalyst of the future. It demanded that he reach the fifth layer, telling him in no uncertain terms that these crawlers would be enough.

Their arrival had placed them near the lower point at the edge of the cavern and the last Flaw was to their left about halfway to the center. The crawlers were roughly in a ring around it, and only one of the smaller ones was near them right now.

The rest of the crawlers were turning their way like slow, spike-covered goliaths, their short tendrils seeking around as they tasted the air. They were slow to maneuver from side to side, but once they started to slide forward, he didn’t want to be in front of them. They were as heavy as stone and it would be like getting crushed beneath a building.

Crystal flame swirled around him as he tracked their position and began to inscribe runes in the air. They trailed from his fingers like intricate raindrops, blending together into a web of power. Threads of astral energy wove around the runes as he flung the web outward. It flew toward the crawlers as it expanded, its edges glittering like silver blades.

By the time it reached the crawlers, it was fifty feet wide. Runes for compressed air and the void hung between the threads, drawing them tight as they hummed with energy. When the spell struck the first crawler, it sliced through its armor with a hiss, leaving it in pieces. It continued on to cut through two more as Sam began forming another spell.

The web didn’t have a name. Since it didn’t feel like the final form of the spell, he hadn’t bothered giving it one. Creating it was mostly practice with incorporating his concept of stars and the void into crystal flame, and he was working on doing even more before he reached a final version.

This time, a sphere of crystal flame and moonlight took shape as he formed the runes for moon, void, and flame, as well as an intricate support structure to pour essence into it. A few moments later, a full moon of crystal flame glowed between his hands, almost like a copy of Caelus, but instead of the bright, clear blue of the Watcher, it was a deep sapphire.

The moon spun from his hands as it headed toward one of the larger crawlers and when it was close to it, it stopped in place. It was about ten feet away as it began to spin faster, its sides flickering as the flame it was made from brightened and darkened. It looked like the phases of the moon changing from light to dark.

Once it had gone through a full cycle, the air around it began to flow into it, condensing into a spiral of mist that grew denser by the moment. The shards of ice and rubble scattered around the cavern spun toward it, their shapes fragmenting into dust as they joined the spiral.

The moon flared brightly as it suddenly exploded into a thousand spears of moonlight that tore across the area. Each of them was a crescent of the original moon and they ripped through the pack of crawlers like a thousand lunar blades. Each of them was tipped with a rune for void and moon and they cut through the crawlers with no noticeable resistance.

“Void Moon works for a name,” Sam muttered as he watched it. It wasn’t quite where he wanted it to be, but it was evolving with practice and it felt like it was on the right track.

To his side, Krana was attacking the crawlers with earth spikes and kinetic bolts, but he was absorbed in his spell work as he considered how he could get the spell to move closer to the feeling of the void.

One of the crawlers charged toward him, but he disappeared in a swirl of crystal flame, his eyes stuck on the moon. A sapphire blade of flame cut back toward it, starry runes flickering along the surface as it sliced through the Outsider and sent the two halves tumbling away. When the pieces of the crawler fell to the side, there was little left that was moving in the cavern. The Void Moon spell had shredded everything near it.

“You’re making a mess,” Krana grumbled at him as she studied the remains.

“I think it needs more attraction runes,” Sam replied absentmindedly as he looked at where the spell had been.

“I’ll start gathering the experience so we can close this Flaw,” Krana said as she began to walk toward the closest crawler. The rainbow darkness at the side of the cavern glimmered in the silence, a void that was absorbing the light of the spells that had just played across the ice.

Sam was pulled away from his study of the spell by the pulse of essence in his blood, which dragged his attention to the essence that was scattered around. His talons slashed through the air and a wave of essence followed as it tore free from the crawlers. There was a low rumble through the area as thousands of motes of essence filled the air, their color changing from dull white to sapphire blue.

For the first time, perhaps because he was so focused on the spell, his awareness of essence this time was far deeper than before. As it left the Outsiders, he could feel the energy changing, becoming star-like as it flew toward him. His presence was what shaped it into that form, stripping away what it had been and recreating it. It was something else for the Outsiders...perhaps ice crystals instead of stars.

A storm of essence flowed into his constellation as he felt the final stars explode into being on the fourth layer, burning like pathways in the night. The essence from each of the large crawlers was close to 4,000, and when it was combined with the smaller ones, the total was almost as much as he’d gained from the rotstriders, just over 15,000.

The essence stars spun through his blood as they filled in the last sections of the fourth layer and completed the rune that spun through his spirit. Then they flowed upward, spiraling into a wider arrangement as they began to fill in a far larger rune for the fifth layer that arched upward toward the heavens. The voice of the World Core rang in his mind as he felt the world spin.

Congratulations, Essence Bearer. You have reached the Epic tier for your current race.

Your Racial Ability: Elemental Manipulation has advanced to Epic.

As a marker of your status, you have gained the Trait: Born of the Elements.

[Manipulating the elements comes as easily to you as breathing. The effect that you have on the elements around you is linked to the strength of your Aura and the energy that you exert.]

...Synergy detected...

...Merging Paths...

Due to your Racial Inheritance, this Trait is reclassified as “Born of the Stars.”

[Your connection to the elements includes an affinity to the Astral Void, the realm between the stars.]

The World Core spoke again, its voice more personal as it echoed in Sam’s awareness.

Essence Bearer, you approach your second Racial Evolution. Be warned that evolving on Aster Fall with your current race will bring a great deal of attention, for good or ill. You must prepare yourself to step into the night sky.

The silver threads that were everywhere in the world suddenly flared to life, more brilliantly than ever before, and pulled hard on Sam’s spirit, nearly dragging him away. It felt like they were opening onto the void, endlessly receding into the distance as they welcomed him. Then, as if they sensed his hesitation, they calmed down again and left him there with a rush of energy burning through his veins.

Essence Constellation (Fifth Layer): 54,670 / 200,000.

You have gained 38 Strength, 54 Constitution, 7 Agility, 72 Intelligence, and 72 Aura.

It wasn’t as much as he’d gained the last time, but it was still an enormous boost. A quick calculation showed that whatever threshold he’d just passed, it looked like it was calming down. Although they’d given less essence than the rotstriders, the higher levels of the crawlers gave more experience, which arrived a moment later.

You are Acknowledged, Guardian. For your effort to protect Aster Fall, you gain one Mark. You now have 22 Marks.

You gain 795,500 Class experience.

You gain four Class Levels and five General Levels. You are now a Level 48 Chaos Smith and General Level 149.

Class Experience: 7,439,500 / 7,500,000

Total Experience: 7,521,500 / 7,680,000

You gain 8 Strength, 8 Wisdom, 8 Intelligence, 8 Aura, and have 18 free attribute points to assign.

Without hesitating, Sam threw all 18 points into Charisma and then he looked at the results. He could already feel the razor-thin line of control that kept his essence calm.

Health: 3930

Essence: 584

STR: 314 Base (+10 with Amulet of Mountain Strength)

CON: 373 Base (+20 with Belt of Emerald Vitality)

AGI: 122 Base (+20 with Boots of Elemental Gliding)

WIS: 246

INT: 578 (+6 with Starflame Bracer)

AUR: 578 (+6 with Starflame Bracer)

CHA: 150

He was right on the line. With his Starflame Bracer, his essence attributes were at 584 and a quarter of that was 146. He only had four extra points in Charisma right now. If it failed, he didn’t think he’d go into a frenzy of bloodlust like when he’d been a Voidborn, but he was almost positive that he would give in to the Call of the Void and try to see where the astral threads went.

The stars were calling to him with an aching pull like his heart was placed among them.

If that happened, he might not be able to find his way back to Aster Fall so easily, or at least not quickly. Then, all of his plans to repair the relic and see Altey grow up would fall to pieces, not to mention the state of the World Seal. The words of the World Core were still resonating in his mind, warning him that he would have to prepare for that shift. The way it had phrased it made it seem like it was inevitable for his race.

Perhaps Astral Titans were all called to the stars in their youth, to journey through the dark sea and slowly gain age and experience as they grew, and then when they were older and more sure of themselves, their Charisma or minds strong enough to balance the energy of their blood, they turned their steps to the path they chose.

He understood the transition innately. It felt like the stars were waiting for him to join them. But he didn't have time for that sort of wandering. Not while he was needed here. Maybe one day he would let himself wander, but not now.

He let out a shaky breath as he clenched his hands into fists and relaxed them again. The crackling changes in his muscles and the rest of his body were swiftly fading, leaving behind a sense of new strength.

His attributes were now roughly double what they would have been without the essence, or perhaps just a touch more. It looked like he’d caught up to some marker and come more fully into his own.

It felt like the Outsiders didn’t follow the same leveling system, and that made him consider whether the levels they had were real or something that the World Core translated. Perhaps it was just an estimate it provided rather than a real level indication. That might explain why he had just gone through a big increase at the epic tier.

Either way, as he studied the changes, he came to the sure realization that he was going to need to do some crafting as soon as possible, and a lot of it. It was either that or hunt local monsters for experience and not essence. He needed to gain some levels and Charisma before hunting more Outsiders and Flaws. He might also need to try making a Charisma item, although he wasn’t sure how well it would work to balance essence.

Across the chamber, the Flaw that had released the crawlers was sealing over in a hazy web of a thousand elements as the World Core repaired the damage, and a moment later a gust of fresh air that belonged more to the heights of the mountain than this crevasse poured through the area as it disappeared.

Krana was occupied with her own leveling, and from the look of it she had just reached Level 112. Sam looked away from her as he studied the walls where the crawlers had been chewing at the ice. They had been occupied there for some reason, but it took a few moments of careful examination before a glimmer of mana caught his attention and he went over to see what it was.

His talons cut through the ice as he swept up a chunk from the wall. He held it up, turning it around until he saw a trace of shimmering metallic dust that was trapped inside. There was a faint silver, blue, and green rainbow mixed into the ice, its presence nearly invisible except for a hint of a slightly brighter hue, but it radiated with a sense of the night sky and the stars touching the earth. The information from Analyze made his eyebrows rise as he studied it.

Pristine Boreal Dust. Quality: Superb.

He’d heard of the material in the Toa’an’s smithing records, but not anywhere else before that. It was incredibly rare, only forming in glaciers where they met the sky and several other requirements existed, including both intense mana and natural auras. He hadn’t expected to see it here. It made sense now why the crawlers had been eating it. Its signature was close to essence and if it had been mixed into alchemical pills, like that one he’d eaten from the Icebloods, it would probably be able to boost his essence constellation.

Right now, however, he had a much better idea.

He looked between the dust and the corpses of the Armored Frostbone Crawlers, whose cores and skin could be turned into various projects, and nodded. He needed to craft for experience and it looked like he’d just found some things to use. He studied the walls of dense ice that circled the cavern and all the areas where the crawlers had been digging as a surge of excitement ran through him. He knew exactly how to test out his new Elemental Manipulation.

“Let’s gather this up,” he said over his shoulder to Krana, who had come up beside him and was studying the dust in his hand. “It looks like there’s a massive vein threaded through here.”

“Pristine Boreal Dust?” Krana said thoughtfully as she looked at the material, her sharp dwarven eyesight identifying it in an instant. “I’ve heard of that once before, in a record that said it had a different name in the past, when it was called Shards of the Aurora. It’s almost never seen, and only ever in the highest mountains. No wonder these things were so focused on eating it. We should try to recover what they ate from their stomachs.”

Crystal Focus flared as Sam focused on the telltale signature of the boreal dust and began to follow its path through the walls. The flickers of color in the dust resonated with an aura that was similar to moonlight and the stars, with colors that flickered through the spectrum of blues, greens, reds, and more. The sense of the sky and the stars that was radiating from it that made it easy to see why it was called Shards of the Aurora. It also made him confident that he’d just found an item to use with his astral concept.

It was time to try out his new forge.