Astral Threads, Ch 34: Star of Life (Patreon)

The world shimmered with green pillars that rose upward on every side. They weren’t trees, but rather columns of lightning stretching between earth and sky. Only their shape was similar. Despite that, they held a resonant aura of lightning and wood, as if a storm had created a memory of what was.

On the far border of his vision, walls of sizzling green fire arced into the distance, creating a barrier that contained the world. The sense of hunger pulling on him was coming from the center. Between the lightning-branched trees in the middle of everything, a great crack ran across the ground, splitting the forest in half with a dark void.

There was nothing inside. It was only an emptiness that the energy was falling into. As he watched, the crack became just a little larger as the edges decayed and fell inward. Somehow, it felt like the process was accelerating.

What is this gem? The thought floated across his mind as he looked around with a serious gaze. Everything here said the Star of Life was devouring itself to last a little longer, but he didn’t know why.

It was clearly some type of natural core. The energy here cycled in almost the same way as inside a monster core, sustaining itself with the aura that was part of it. There was plenty of mana inside, which was probably why the dwarves had felt it was powerful, but the aura that made it up was failing.

The crack was a representation of how the Star was consuming itself to last a little longer, just like the forest was an echo of the truth in the energy it held.

The Star felt like the heart of a storm, a wild existence from the Storm Plains where Lightning, Wood, Wind, and Fire all spiraled together into an elemental assault that lashed the ground and sent beast and man running in terror. It felt familiar. He’d grown up in that land and walked through the wind that tasted like ash, where lightning jumped from tooth to tooth as he breathed.

The Storm Plains were saturated in energy like this.

He had a choice to make, but since there was no threat, he decided to help. Aura flooded out of him. He wasn’t sure where to direct it, so at first he just released it into the area, working to intensify the energy and stop the forest from crumbling away into the crack. A hundred points of essence changed to emerald green and flowed into the trees.

A few branches became brighter, but after a moment, some threads of aura were pulled away. They wavered in the air like wispy tendrils of fog as they flowed across the ground to the crack. When they reached it, they disappeared, their energies fading.

For some reason, the gem’s aura was still draining away. Sam frowned as he studied the problem. Most of the aura he’d just given the gem was still there, but at the rate it was disappearing, it was only a stop gap. Even as he watched, another thread of energy from the forest drifted toward the crack. It was from a different area this time, but the end result was the same.

His essence had been nearly full, but he could only give the forest another 500 aura before tapping his storage. He wasn’t sure if that would be enough to turn the tide. Even if it provided the gem with energy for a while, it might not fix the underlying problem. There was no way the gem could have survived seven hundred years like this, so either it had just run out of aura when Boren picked it up or being moved had somehow disturbed its equilibrium. Perhaps it had been in a fragile balance.

It was probably the environment of the caverns. Everything about the gem spoke of open skies and life, which were very different auras than those around Runekeld. Being down here probably stifled it and whatever it had done to survive had just been interrupted.

If he wanted to help it, he needed to do something else.

He hadn’t used his Aura Regeneration ability much yet, but that was the one that came to mind as he turned his attention to the crack. It was as good a time as any to test it out.

He reached out to the sense of the storm in the forest, the mixture of Lightning and Wood, and began to attune himself to the concept. More than his other abilities, Aura Regeneration required him to understand the layers of the aura and where they belonged in the world. He needed to know what he was working with.

If the gem had been something else, he might have needed longer, but he had grown up on the Storm Plains. The wild mana and elemental storms that lashed the hills there were part of him. He had breathed the wind that tore down the mountain slopes at the edge of a storm front and sheltered in the elemental forests beneath flaming leaves and drifting smoke. He’d hidden in his room as a child when the sky turned to stone and assaulted the land with a rain of granite.

This gem wasn’t all of those things, but it only took him a few breaths to find what fit. His aura changed, taking on the sense of lightning and wood as well as a healing sapphire flame. Then he reached out to the densest point of energy.

The forest wavered like a wind was blowing through the trees. Branches made of lightning flickered as the trunks bent and sprang upright again and the area around the crack shook. For a moment, it seemed like he had destabilized something, but then threads of his aura appeared, covering the area like a crystal blue net. Lightning and Wood twined along the strands.

He was still finding out the best way to use the ability, so he poured out more essence to support it. The net grew denser and the forest wavered. The trees grew taller, their limbs branching higher as the lightning they were made from intensified, and the crack shuddered as the web of energy leapt across it.

By the time he’d spent all of his essence, the crack was still there, but it was covered in a dense network of sapphire lines that were anchored into the forest and the ground was stable. The aura was no longer being pulled away and the trees looked healthier. The hunger had changed as well, becoming more an insistent demand for energy than a last struggle to survive.

That would have to do. He could work on it some more when his essence returned. He pulled his mind back out of the gem as he returned to himself, still standing in the middle of the council chamber.

The Star of Life was glowing in his hand, its green more intense now. It didn’t feel sentient in the same way that the Heart of Magma was, but it was definitely some form of living energy. He hadn’t known that things like this could exist. It felt almost like a fragment of the Storm Plains had been condensed here. As he analyzed it, the only information that came back to him was what he had already guessed.

Star of Life. Storm Core.

“Where did you say this was from?” he asked as he looked up at Boren. He wasn’t sure how long he’d taken while working on the Star, but everyone was still standing close to where they had been and Boren was watching him carefully, which meant it shouldn’t have been too long.

Oddly, Krana had moved away from him and was watching him with caution, which meant something had happened. A few of the councilors were also staring at the gem, as if they wanted to say something. It looked like they recognized it.

“Are you alright?” Krana asked with a frown as she looked at him. “For a moment there, you were radiating pure mana, like an enchantment that was collapsing. It was burning around you in arcs, so intense that it felt like if I stood there, it would blast me away.”

“I’ll be more careful,” Sam said with a grimace of apology. “It was a side effect of working on the Star.” That must have been when he’d sent his aura into it. He’d needed to keep his mana balanced, so he’d automatically dispersed it around him.

“I’ve managed to stabilize the Star,” he added to Boren, “but the energy inside was falling apart. It seems like something damaged it in the past or perhaps it needed something to support it that wasn’t available here. Was there any other information left with it?”

“Not that has lasted through the years.” Boren shook his head regretfully. “It’s just an item recorded as being taken in payment. If there was something else once, it’s long gone now.”

“But that’s the Star of Life...” one of the councilors muttered, clearly consternated by what he was seeing. “It’s been the crown jewel of the Crafting Hall’s gem collection since it arrived! The display is going to be completely imbalanced now! Scholars theorize that it holds the secret to lightning in it. We can’t just give it away!” He started to move forward as if to take the gem back, but a warning glance from Boren made him freeze in place.

“Perhaps the elementals who left would know more,” the master smith continued, ignoring the councilor as he turned back to Sam. “They’re rare visitors here, at not even once a century, but they have long lives and the ones who traded it might still be around, although they’re difficult to speak with.”

Sam also paid no mind to the councilor either. They hadn't been taking care of the gem, so there was no problem in relieving them of it, especially in trade for the Heart. If it stayed for much longer, it would crumble to dust. The real questions were what it was for and what to do with it.

“Which elementals?” he asked, curious. He didn’t know of many nearby, especially a group that would need ores, but he’d heard that some wandered the mountains. It reminded him of the metal elemental he’d seen in a vision once while sheltering in a forest on the Storm Plains. That one had been fighting an Outsider.

“We call them the Steelsword Elementals,” Boren answered, “since their limbs are as thin as a sword, but they’ve never given us a name they use for themselves, if they have one. They live in the mountains to the north of here. I’ll have a map delivered before you leave.”

“I’ll look for them,” Sam said with a nod. The name fit with the elemental he’d seen in the vision. Perhaps they were from the same group. Even if they couldn’t tell him about the gem, they might make good allies if he could find a way to communicate.

He lifted up the Star to look at it more closely, now that it wasn’t going to fall apart. It was glowing steadily, but it was still low on energy. He could keep channeling his aura into it and speed up the regeneration, but he had the feeling that if he wanted to restore it properly, there was only one place that would happen.

It had been born from the Storm Plains. He was pretty sure that it needed to be taken into an elemental storm to renew itself. If he did that, it would be the first time he’d walked into an elemental storm under his own power and relied on his abilities to keep himself safe. He’d always hidden from them before. The idea sent a crackle of excitement down his spine.

The Storm Plains were a power in their own right and they were filled with natural runes and auras. The strike of lightning and the rolling fire from the mana storms might be just the place to learn more about his abilities.

“Thank you, Master Smith,” he said as he inclined his head politely to Boren. Expectation filled him as he looked at the gem. He still wasn’t sure what this gem was or why the elementals called it the Star of Life, but it had probably come into existence naturally, like a fulgurite left behind by a lightning strike. “It looks like I’ll have to visit the elementals and the Storm Plains.”

He looked at the Star a last time before he tucked it into his vest. He didn’t put it in a dimensional pocket, since it wouldn’t do as well sealed away from the world. It continued to send a sense of hunger at him, but now that it was in his aura, it felt more content, like a cat purring. Apparently, it liked it there. He probably tasted like fire and stars and reminded it of home.

“You’ll do it more honor than our vaults have, I’m sure.” Master Smith Boren shook his head and then he sent another warning glare at the council, as if daring them to contradict him.

The councilor who had protested looked like he wanted to add something else, but he withered in the face of Boren’s look. It was clear that the Star of Life was valued by the dwarves, but if the Master Smith in charge of the Crafting Hall wanted to take it out of the vaults, apparently there was little they could say about it.

Either that, or Boren just intimidated the heck out of them.

“Let me tell you something, Titan,” Boren added with a grin as he went back to ignoring the councilor. “The world’s the hardest metal there is. You have to hammer it into the shape you want and often it’ll break your hand just to try, but if you’re the one holding the hammer, you’ve got a simple choice: to hammer or give up. It’s better to let the hammer fall. You never know what might be waiting for you in the steel. That’s something a few more dwarves need to learn.” He glanced at the councilor as he spoke.

“Now, I’m right glad to have met you and I’ll take good care of your Heart of Magma,” he said as he rubbed his hands together with a sound like grinding gears. “No one’ll move it without stepping over my dead body! The forge is going to have a burst of new life and I’m looking forward to what will come from it in the future. We’ll start a whole new school of smiths around it!”

“Honored Smith,” Esana interrupted politely from the table where the councilors were still waiting. Her voice was as warm as ever and her words pulled Sam’s attention back to the other tasks at hand. She also paid no attention to the dwarf who had been complaining.

There was an expensive-looking roll of parchment in her hands as she walked forward, which she held out to him. He could see the outline of the continent and the Western Reaches on it, as well as a scattering of points that had been marked. They were in a spectrum of different colors and surrounded by dwarven runes, which seemed to indicate what type of location they were.

“We have the map of elemental places that you asked for,” she continued, “as many as we could find in our archives, although I can’t advise going to any of them. One of them is below Runekeld in the old tunnels, and you will have access there whenever you wish. Please make sure to not let my daughter be injured if you go together.” She paused as she looked at Krana with a hint of worry.

“Now, if you are ready,” she added, “I will lead you to Elder Utala, who is the head of the seers and my many-times-great grandmother. The walk there will take a couple of hours, since it is much deeper within the tunnels of Runekeld, in a secure area where few are allowed to visit. Please be delicate when speaking with her. She is very old...perhaps the oldest dwarf in all of Runekeld.”

“Thank you for all the help,” Sam said formally as he accepted the map. “I will protect Krana as best as I’m able. She’s a good friend.”

“Bah, I’m the one protecting you and keeping you from getting into trouble,” Krana grumbled as she looked between Sam and her mother. “Don’t you claim any different!”

Sam just sent her a grin as he looked at the map and memorized the locations. Then he tucked it away in a dimensional pouch. The dwarves had found quite a few interesting spots. There were about three dozen places within the kingdom and a few outside of it. The Storm Plains had an astounding seven points and there were a couple more in the Broken Lands to the west, although he suspected there would be even more if he went looking for them. That area was an elemental swamp.

Another half dozen were arranged along the slopes of the northern mountains and others were scattered throughout the Western Reaches, some clearly marked as being below ground in mines or caverns that the dwarves had explored at some point. By comparison, the eastern side of the map only had a handful of places, probably since that was the area with which the dwarves were least familiar. The Crimson Forest was one and there was another near the capital at Veritan, but the rest he didn’t recognize.

Altogether, it gave him plenty of spots to search for auras. The map floated in his mind as he began to plan out the route to the future until a short cough from Krana brought his attention back. She was waiting for him next to her mother.

“Please, lead the way,” he said. “And thank you for the help. The future might rise or fall on this information.”

Hopefully, the seers would be able to tell him why the Harbinger had rung in Highfold. So far, he only had a theory that it was related to the increasing number of Flaws, and at the very least, he wanted to confirm it.

The Star of Life hummed with a quiet resonance in his vest, as if it were agreeing with him.