Astral Threads, Ch 36: Elements (Patreon)

The cavern where Sam was walking was heated by the earth until flows of magma ran along cracks in the floor, turning the area into a lake of fire dotted by only the occasional stone island. The currents of heat that twisted through the cavern were enough to melt gold.

Veins of quartz crystal cut across the walls, decorated with flecks of that precious metal, and accompanied by the presence of other ores in sky blue, silver, bronze, crimson, and platinum white. Some of them were veins that streaked the floor with color and others were molten threads that floated on top of the magma. Here and there, the shimmer of a rough gemstone glowed in their midst.

It had taken a day of walking to get to the gate that blocked the path down and another half day to reach this point. It was so deep below Runekeld that no dwarves came here without the greatest need. He shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that it was also the source of magma that flowed upward into their ancient forge. It held the same aura that powered the Heart of Magma, but it was far more intense.

It made him wonder if he should create an enchantment to funnel it upward, but as soon as he thought about it, he dismissed the idea. It wouldn’t be polite to turn Runekeld into a volcano by accident.

He was alone, but it had taken some trouble. He’d parted ways with Krana higher up as part of his promise to not endanger her among the elements. She’d grumbled, but there was no denying that walking into a magma pool was a bad idea.

For him, the heat was a pleasant warmth on his skin, but he’d nearly incinerated his clothes when he entered. Now, a protective shimmer of crystal flame covered them. Strangely, he had no difficulty breathing. It felt like clean air, even though he was aware that it wasn’t. An Astral Titan was born to travel between the stars, and it seemed breathing magma presented no trouble either.

The dwarves had given him what information they could, but it was limited. They only came here in certain years when the magma was low to search for Fire-attuned ores, and only when the seers and prospectors could find a safe route. To enter in other times was suicide for all but the most resistant of them.

The cavern was the origin of many valuable things, so it was lucky that the ebb of elemental energy was when the ores and other items shone the brightest and were the easiest to see. Right now, much of the cavern was covered by magma, but that was fine. He wasn’t here to mine ores.

Crystal flame kept his boots from disintegrating as he walked across the top of a magma flow to the center of the chamber. When he found a good spot, he sat down on a slab of stone. Liquid magma rippled past only a foot away with a low rumble that he could feel in his bones.

The aura of the cavern was a golden-red haze in his vision, drifting languidly above the magma like smoke. It rose up from the ground, flowed through the walls, and swirled around the stone spires. This was the energy that eventually formed the ores and gems the dwarves desired, and the energy that was part of the Heart.

Seeing it like this gave him the deepest insight into the world he’d had so far. Aster Fall was built of elemental powers. Auras were that energy condensed into something like mana, which could flow between everything. If enough of it concentrated in an area, stone would be transformed into powerful ores, elemental crystals would form on the wind, and the oceans would form pearls that held hurricanes inside. It also made him think about what other secrets Aster Fall might have.

Was there an origin to all of these elements?

The question floated through his mind until he pushed it away and focused on the task in front of him. He meditated to center himself and then he reached out to the aura all around. The burning turmoil of molten stone roared through his mind, scorching his awareness in a torrent of violent, exploding lava.

He was no longer in a cavern, but at the heart of a volcano, an infinitesimal flake of stone that had merged into the whole. Ages passed as he flowed through the world, compressed and turned with others like him, and then one day, he erupted, blasting upward into the frozen heavens.

A thread of his attention kept him connected to the element as he drew the aura to him. The energy was intense, but it was still barely powerful enough to take solid form and he had to work to compress it. It was like gathering a cloud. He could feel his ability fraying at the edges.

A day passed and then another.

Finally, a crack of splintering energy flowed through his body as he seized the aura and condensed it into a sphere. A golden-red sphere took shape, tumbling like molten flame between his hands. Trails of bright flame swirled around a molten heart at the center.

Unlike the auras he’d gathered from monsters, this one was much more pure and it blazed with energy. It was also much larger, as wide across as his outstretched hand.

Aura of Magma (Heroic).

It came with a cascade of silver trumpets in his mind as the World Core recognized his efforts. It also strained his mind as he tried to see into the depths of the aura and he felt something shift as his perspective suddenly expanded. The center of the aura became clearer in his sight.

Your Ability: Identify Aura has reached the Heroic Tier. You now have a 75% chance to instantly identify an aura.

Following on the tail of the first proclamation, however, was a much more serious one.

Congratulations, Chaos Smith, for successfully gathering your first Heroic-tier aura.

Be warned that gathering auras from the same place too frequently will harm Aster Fall. Damage to Aster Fall will be dealt with accordingly.

You have gained 100,000 Class experience.

You have gained a Class Level and a General Level. You are now a Level 73 Chaos Smith and General Level 173.

Class Experience: 12,189,500 / 12,400,000

General Experience: 12,271,500 / 12,400,000.

You gain 2 Strength, 2 Wisdom, 2 Intelligence, 2 Aura, and have four free attribute points to assign.

Your Ability: Reclaim Aura has reached the Heroic Tier. You will find it easier to gather natural auras in the future.

He studied the aura carefully, but the differences were primarily in its size and the purity of the energy. It felt like a better fit for the relic than anything he’d ever gathered from a monster. The massive amount of energy the relic dealt with and the concepts it channeled were far beyond regular auras. Looking down at this one, however, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if there was something beyond Heroic.

The relic was a Divine artifact, so was there also a Divine tier for auras? If so, he felt like that would be something on par with the World Core itself. The thought floated through his mind as he carefully placed the aura into his storage.

As soon as he did, he felt a massive shudder go through the miniature dimension. The walls that contained it rippled like they were caught in a storm wind until they tore apart with a terrible crack. Always before, a countering force had swiftly moved in and reestablished the dimension in a larger form.

This time, he could feel the struggle as the walls tried to reform. They weren’t just reestablishing themselves. A qualitative change took place as they grew stronger and denser, becoming more like a real world with depth and their own natural aura that resonated with the void. Eventually, they reasserted the bounds of the dimension and it stabilized with a snap.

Your Ability: Aura Storage has reached the Heroic tier. You may now hold 5,000 auras.

The change was a sign that this aura had gone beyond the bounds of what was normal.

He added the four free points to Charisma, which took it to 258, and then stretched as he looked around, studying the magma. The aura was thinner now, with fewer wisps gathering in the chamber. It would take some time for it to return, perhaps a year or two, and the dwarves might find fewer ores than usual the next time they came down here. He felt a bit bad about raiding their place of power, so he rubbed his chin as considered what to do.

About half a day later, he finally left the chamber, his feet leaving no mark as he crossed the magma. Behind him, a swirling sapphire enchantment in the center of the room gathered loose aura from deeper in the earth and concentrated it before releasing it toward the walls. It was the best Aura Intensifying effect he could manage.

If it worked as planned, it would keep up the intensity of energy in the chamber and improve the value of the ores, perhaps more in one year than they would normally see in ten. The next time the dwarves came in search of materials, they should find something good waiting for them.

As for how long it would last, it depended on the stability of the aura in the chamber. As long as it didn't dissipate, the runes would sustain themselves for a while. At the least, it should be long enough to thank the dwarves for their help.

---

“Don’t waste too much time with the bellisagi!” Krana grumbled at Sam as she stood near the gate out of Runekeld. “A month or two, perhaps, but no more! That should be enough for me to do some studying and for Ayala to feel up to traveling again. Also, if you stay away from the relic for much longer than that, you know the paladin is going to get antsy and want to find you.”

“A Paladin’s call is a rare thing to have focused on a single person,” Ayala was standing next to the seer, but she looked listless and pale as she spoke. “Sometimes they are called to serve a higher purpose and follow a commander. If that is the case, she will always find you again. It speaks well of you, I think, but you must not betray her trust. Once broken, it is the hardest thing to win back.”

She had come to bid him farewell, but she was struggling with the changes to her father as she went through the motions. At least she seemed comfortable with the idea of resting here for a while.

“She has my greatest respect,” Sam said with a nod. “I also have an idea for how to handle the bellisagi. Hopefully, they don’t send anything worse than they have already.”

“Keep the golems close,” Krana said as she pointed to the ranks that were standing behind Sam. “They should be able to deal with most things. That’s the only reason I’m agreeing to this!”

Sam glanced back at the group of black crystal Sky Guards. Ten of them was more than he’d wanted to take, but he’d agreed in the end. The last two were staying with Krana and Ayala as personal guards, since even in the dwarven city there was a chance of small troubles. Once he left the area, they wouldn’t be as intelligent, but they were still capable protectors.

“Your family must miss you,” Ayala said suddenly, drawing Sam’s attention back. Her expression was sad as she looked away and down. “Even situated as they are, they will be thinking about you.”

The images of his parents and Altey jumped into Sam’s mind as he turned to look south toward Highfold. He’d sent his parents an enhanced message scroll that morning to tell them about the trade agreement with Runekeld and the increasing danger of the Flaws, but it took time for a message to arrive. The last one he’d received was three days ago. The repairs were going well, but Ayala was right. They did want him to come back soon.

“We can head there after this, but quickly,” he said as he considered the best approach, “and then to the Clanhold and the Crimson Forest. I suspect Highfold will need some motivation to prepare better defenses and it’s best to encourage that in person.”

He was probably going to have to kick Garild a few times to shake some of the city’s taxes back out of him and then have a meeting with the council to impress on them just how dangerous the valley would become. Cities had often ignored Flaws in the past, thinking of them as distant problems for the wilderness.

The Dimensional Convergence meant they no longer had that luxury. Hopefully, Elder Utala’s warning would carry some weight.

The Ice Sylphs also deserved to be warned in person, but somehow he was the least concerned about them. He was confident that they had barely begun to tap their ancestral defenses and if more Flaws wanted to appear near their village, the Outsiders would get more than they bargained for. He’d probably find a few decorative ice statues the next time he was there and a much stronger hunting team.

A visit would also give him a chance to visit with his family and give the relic the auras he’d managed to collect. Perhaps Ayala would be interested in staying there for a while. Either way, it wouldn’t take long.

“Take care of yourselves,” he said seriously as he looked at them. “You are two of my oldest friends and allies.” He wasn’t as familiar with Ayala as with Krana, but it was better to be generous with friendship than stingy.

Wind gathered around him as he began to float up from the ground and he gave them a wave as he turned away. A signal to the Sky Guard made their wings flare and they launched themselves into the sky, where they took up positions to every side. With an effort of will, Sam shot upward to join them.

Below him, the massive gates to Runekeld stood as silent guardians to a subterranean world that few had the chance to see. Hopefully, the dwarves would be inspired by the Heart of Magma to forge new wonders and extend more diplomatic missions to the surface. Trade would benefit everyone.

---

The wind whipped around Sam with a cutting force greater than a saber strike, but it never landed on his skin. It split to the sides as he flew, walking step by step through the air. The Sky Guard were in a loose ring around him, the closest a hundred feet away as they kept watch for anything out of the ordinary.

The foothills of the mountains were receding and in a few moments he would leave them behind completely. Runekeld was invisible from here, concealed in the depths of its valley far away. A few miles ahead, elemental winds twisted as they marked the border between the Western Reaches and the Storm Plains.

There was something unique about the mana of the plains that he’d never noticed before, but on returning to it now, he could see the difference. It was strange that the mana never left the bounds of this area. As far as he’d heard, the Storm Plains had never changed their size over the years either. Their borders were always exactly the same, the edge as sharp as a knife blade as it cut along the western slope of the mountains.

There was definitely a mystery there.

He paused in the air at the edge of the divide, taking his time to analyze it. Air saturated with mana rippled around his fingers as he ran his hand through the border. It was nearly liquid, denser than made any sense, almost like a ward that defined the limit of the plains. This had to be what kept the elemental storms from passing beyond the edge.

It was also a sign that his senses for magic were more developed than they’d been when he’d left the plains the first time. He’d never seen this effect before. He looked up as he took in the rolling hills and golden grasses ahead of him that stretched into the distance. It was a familiar sight and a pang of nostalgia hit him.

He had lived most of his life to this view, watching the grass stretch endlessly to the far horizon. That was the thing about the Storm Plains. No matter which direction you looked, it was always rolling grass waving in the wind, a thousand miles of golden eternity.

The Storm Plains stretched for just over a thousand miles from east to west and three thousand from north to south. To the north, they merged with the Abyssinian Plains, which were their lesser but still deadly cousin. An enchantment was enough to keep the acid worms there away, but there was nothing so simple to ward off the storms.

There were a few small cities on the eastern side in areas the storms avoided, like Ebonfar, which was the main trading hub for the region. There was also a handful of villages scattered in protected areas like Cliff’s End, but besides that the plains were wild and free. Forests and hills rose up here and there, but the grass and the sunlight always returned.

It also hid the danger that was everywhere. Here, a storm could rise up in moments and take travelers by surprise, burying them in flames or stones, or the grass could come to life and strangle a man walking through it. Despite that, a smile creased his face.

It would be an excellent place to meet the bellisagi.

He had no doubt that they were still trying to find him. They’d already done it once and if they were as persistent as the rumors said, they would come again. If he’d still been the boy who left, he wouldn’t have dared to come back here or to face the storms alone, but he had changed a great deal.

Few things here could harm him now. Even an elemental storm at full strength was unlikely to do any damage. With Elemental Manipulation, the Storm Plains had become a true home. Now, it was time to see what the secrets of this place really were.

He compared the view in front of him to the map from the dwarves and then he turned slightly to the south as he set his course to the closest place of power. The barrier of wind marking the border sent his hair rippling back from his face as he flew forward again. A moment later, he reached up and patted the Star of Life in his vest pocket. As soon as he'd entered the plains, it had begun to hum with a low, resonant vibration like a dragon’s stomach waiting for food.

He glanced up to the sky to check on the weather, but the sky was clear and sunny. All around him, silver threads cut through reality, shimmering slightly as they entered the mana-laden winds, like the elements were highlighting them. Currents of fire and lightning, wood and stone, water and wind twined through the air.