Path of Stars, Ch 27: On the Ice Drake (Patreon)

The stars flickered with rainbow light as the Ice Drake cut a wake through the Blue Star system and began to accelerate. Before long, the Titan Hall was invisible in the distance and the blue sun was slowly growing smaller. Sam stood at the prow of the ship as he looked toward the astral thread ahead of them.

It was faster to travel alone, but the ship would reach the thread in about an hour and then they would leave this system far behind. The thought was already nostalgic. If he’d had his way, he would have continued to craft and hunt from here until he reached the Third Star or higher. Instead, he had to replace that desire with the intention to destroy the Outsiders ahead of him.

The wood of the railing crackled beneath his grip and he forced himself to release it before it shattered. A wave of his hand sent essence into the repair enchantment on it and the cracks began to seal together again. A long breath calmed his mind and he looked down at the results of his forging.

The Starforged Astral Bracer was once again on his left arm where it belonged. The dark surface of the bracer rippled with intense patterns of red and blue starlight that constantly changed. Sometimes they were pinpricks in the dark metal and other times they were flares of light that washed across the surface. It was meditative to study it, and every time he did, he felt the resonance of the Void.

The Earth mana that he’d used in the original creation had given it a property of Adaptive Stability, which allowed him to safely merge new materials into it, and he’d taken full advantage of that. He analyzed the result again.

Starforged Astral Bracer. Unique Aura Artifact. Heroic.

This bracer was forged by an Astral Artificer to link the stars in their course. It burns with the fire and ice of the Void, which are visible on its surface and capable of entrancing the viewer. It holds enchantments to clear the mind and to orient oneself among the stars. It also strengthens the connection between the user and the current dimension.

Enchantments: Starfire, Astral Ice, Astral Entrancement, Clarity of the Void.

Earth-Blessed Bonuses: Adaptive Stability, Increased Charge Regeneration.

Charge: 250,000 / 250,000 (*Regains 5,000/day).

Overall, reforging it had been a smooth process. The Starfire and Astral Ice abilities in it were stronger than ever. The fire crystal ore that he’d taken from the lizards had merged into the starsteel base with relative ease. Previously, the bracer had been aligned to both Astral Ice and Fire, but the fire ore had almost upset the balance until he’d added an Ice-attribute core he happened to have. It was from the same cloudwolf that he had turned into his cloak.

As for the other enchantments, since he had a more direct ability to use astral energy in his spells now, he’d removed the old Astral Focus enchantment and replaced it with Astral Entrancement. After the success of the illusions against the Void lizards, he’d decided to create something that could be used more quickly. The enchantment was built to entrap opponents in an illusion, distracting them for as long as it held.

All they would be able to see was stars flowing through their vision and streams of Ice and Fire. It would look like they were just floating in the Void and their senses would be confused.

The Clarity of the Void enchantment hadn’t changed it much, except that it was stronger than before. It was still designed to stabilize his mind and protect it from outside influences. It would also help to anchor him in the current dimension. He was hoping that it would be useful for speeding up the Dream of the Void.

The bracer had once had some small +40 boosts to Intelligence, Aura, and Charisma, but he’d decided to remove them in favor of something more useful. He’d replaced that part of the enchantment with a stronger essence storage capability and an increased regeneration rate, which made it twice as fast at restoring its charges as his cloak and other bracer.

It felt like a fair trade.

Reforging it had taken up most of the three days at home, but he had started work on designs for a new set of astral armor, one that would have four pieces: a belt, a pair of boots, and two arm bands that would go above his biceps.

In between that, he’d also helped Laimar repair his damaged armor, restoring it to an almost new condition. The Wild Spirits had an interesting smithing style, one that he’d been happy to study. They used metal like it was the bark of a tree, weaving together different alloys and types into a layered structure for increased defense. They also patterned the outside of the armor with an enchantment that looked similar to leaves and bark, all of which had a slight Wood affinity.

It was one of the more complex enchantment styles he’d seen and it got a rare nod of approval from him. He’d offered to enhance it for Laimar, both by directly upgrading the materials and by infusing it with a better aura enchantment, but the man had been worried about changing things and declined.

Sam grinned at the thought. Maybe he could convince him over the next few weeks before they reached their destination. As soon as he’d seen the armor, he wanted to tinker with it, and he’d only held himself back with great difficulty. As he turned his thoughts back to the present and looked at the stars again, Alora walked up and stood beside him.

Today, she was dressed in a suit of elegant silver chain mail, which he’d never seen before. The metal looked so light that it was floating on her shoulders and barely creased the clothing beneath it, which was another tunic and breeches combination. A three-quarter length white cloak flowed down her back to just past her knees and her hair was in a silver-blue braid on top of it. It looked like she was ready to fight.

He approved. They would need to fight soon and the more ready she was for that, the better. She seemed capable, but he wasn’t sure she was ready for what her home might look like when they arrived. Of course, no one would be, really, if they were expecting their home to be destroyed when they returned.

His thoughts turned to Aster Fall and his family, and he shook his head. Perhaps it was enough that she was willing to go and see. It showed courage. She had a depth to her though, as well as that connection to the elements of the Void. Whatever they encountered, he was confident that she would make it through.

Besides that, the enchantment on her armor got his attention, but before he could ask about it, Alora took the initiative.

“What thoughts does an Astral Titan have about all of this?” She asked as she waved her hand at the stars in front of them. “Has the galaxy followed the path your people predicted?”

It wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask, but the question was a good one. He studied the stars for a moment before he replied. The division between the Chaos Wild and the stable galaxy was unique, like a line showing the past and the present. Things here were more true in some ways, but also more brutal. He felt like the Titans had left it that way on purpose, as a reminder of where they had come from. That was what the Path was all about.

Even if he’d had the ability, he wouldn’t have changed the Chaos Wild. It was a part of things. For stability, people could go and live on the other side. For him, this felt like his domain, the place he was most comfortable. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the same time, he had no intention of ever bringing his family here.

He didn’t think she was asking about the Chaos Wild, however. Her question was more about him. She wanted to know about the Outsiders and if his views were the same as hers. Perhaps she was worried he would change his mind when they arrived, or that he would damage the Wild Grove. When he spoke, it was those questions he answered.

“Everything exists in a fragile balance,” he said quietly. He raised his hand and a sphere of ice appeared, glittering with translucent light. Around it, a spiral of flame rose up, rotating like a corona, but it didn’t burn the ice. “Between your Wild Grove and Aster Fall, there is some connection. That’s the main thing on my mind. I’m worried the Outsiders will upset the balance there, the one your people keep through your bloodline and your Wild Tree.” He shook his head.

“I need to repair that balance, for your sake as much as mine. So, be reassured that we seek the same thing. At the same time, whatever we find at your home, be ready to face it with weapons and spells. The time for convincing your family not to open the Grove has probably long passed.”

“I know,” Alora said with a faint sigh. “I won’t allow them to harm the Grove. I should have gone home years ago and tried to stop this. Instead, I ran away. Balancing the energy there is my responsibility, but I felt like the times were changing and there was no place for me any longer.”

“Are you the only priestess of your family?” Sam asked with some surprise. “There’s no one else who can do that?”

“There’s my great-grandmother,” Alora said slowly. There was a troubled look in her eyes. “She looks young, but she is ancient. Even more than my father, she is the true guardian of the Grove and the oldest Priestess. I also have a couple of cousins who are Priests, but it’s a rare class for all of us. They should still be looking after things.

“Unfortunately, my grandmother has been half asleep for a long time, in a special room cradled by the roots of the Wild Tree. Many believe that is ill or has reached the end of her lifespan. That’s why the main guardian is my father instead, even though he is not a Priest. He’s the strongest in the family after her.

“I’ve only seen her awake once,” she added, “when I received my initial class centuries ago. She was there when I got it and she taught me my first skills, but she only stayed for a few days and by the end she was already asleep most of the time. If she had been able to teach me more, I’m sure I would know about all of this.” She paused for a moment, clearly thinking about her grandmother, and then she shook her head.

“She must still be asleep, since if she were awake, I doubt she would have allowed any of this to happen. But I won’t really know what’s going on until we arrive and I can see the Grove for myself.”

“I have some aura spells that might help her, if it’s a weakness of some type,” Sam offered. Either Aura Regeneration or Intensify Aura could potentially return some strength to her grandmother’s spirit, if it was damaged somehow. Sleeping so much was not something that should happen for a Fourth Evolution or higher, which was what her grandmother had to be.

Perhaps it was something to do with the Wild Grove though.

“The Titans have always had mysterious abilities,” Alora said as her mood lifted a bit and she smiled. “You said you’re young for a Titan, but you are just as mysterious as the legends say. I have no idea how you travel so quickly or how you created those items at your forge.”

“I wasn’t always an Astral Titan, you know,” Sam said with a chuckle, letting her change the subject. “Until some years ago, I was just living my life on Aster Fall. Then I stumbled into something much larger than myself, a conflict between Outsiders and Titans, and I changed as a result.”

“Changed how?” Alora asked. She sounded curious. “An evolution?”

“A racial evolution, yes,” Sam agreed as he thought back over his history. It had been a long journey. “It started in an Outsider outpost, an abandoned one that was connected to others beyond Aster Fall. They tried to invade once and left it behind as part of their defenses. It barely had any mana left, but my father and I accidentally activated its central enchantment core.

“When that happened, it teleported me outside the world. I encountered something there, a trace of foreign energy and astral chaos that transformed my race. Eventually, after another encounter later with some astral energy from a Titan relic, I evolved into an Astral Titan like you see now.” He simplified the story, but it was enough to explain the basics.

“You were something else before you were a Titan?” Alora asked, her interest piqued. “How is that possible? I’ve never heard of anyone changing their race before.”

“It isn’t possible under the current nature of the galaxy,” he agreed. “It was an exception, a memory of the ages from a time when primordial energy and astral chaos existed. The Titans were born from that energy themselves and they have been searching for it for a very long time. I was caught up in their work, long after they had moved on to another place. Before that, I was a human, like the rest of my family.”

“A human?” Alora sounded puzzled, but then a flash of recognition passed through her eyes. “Humans are one of the most populous races in the galaxy, but they are well known for their adaptability. It sounds like you are also an example of that. Your family must be exceptional.”

“They are,” he agreed. She didn’t seem to be bothered by the idea that he wasn’t always a Titan, which left him pleased for some reason.

“When I look out at the stars,” he added, “I wonder what the other Astral Titans would think to know that it worked. It was one of their dreams. I hear their voices out there, echoing from sun to sun. All the words and memories of the ages that have long disappeared.”

“That sounds like a heavy burden for someone who didn’t expect it,” Alora said as she looked closely at him. Her words were not what he expected. “You’ve inherited the entire history of the oldest race in the galaxy.”

“There’s nothing else that I can do,” Sam said as he turned toward her. “The other option is to give up and hide. Do you know what’s nice about those voices though? With them, I’m never alone, not even in the Void while walking through the Chaos Wild. When I see the stars, I see dreams drifting in the night.”

“It sounds like they’ve adopted you,” Alora said with a smile. “Even if you weren’t a Titan before, you are now. Your words about the Void are more mystical than anyone else’s that I’ve ever heard, except for maybe my grandmother’s. That’s how an Astral Titan would speak.”

Sam had to chuckle again, since she had a point. Perhaps all the memories were rubbing off on him. At the same time, with her easy acknowledgement of him as a Titan, a question that he’d had for a long time, slowly loosened in his mind and disappeared. A status that said he was an Astral Titan was one thing. People believing in him was another.

There was no need to say anything more as the two of them looked out at the stars together. Alora edged a little closer, standing next to him at the railing as they looked out into the distance. The scent of jasmine drifted through the air.

He looked down at her, his thoughts shifting back to his younger years when he ran around Cliff’s End and teased the girls. He tried to imagine her in the clothes of a village girl, or running around the mountain meadows of the Moonlight Relic, and a smile flashed across his face. Then his eyes settled on her armor and he looked forward again.

*****

The Ice Drake continued on its course for the next three weeks, soaring across system after system in a streak of blue-white light. Every few hours, Sam found another astral thread that headed in the right direction and he walked off the front of the ship, opening the way as he pulled it onto the thread after him.

In between, they sailed through the Chaos Wild, slowly heading northward and deeper. The Wild Spirit’s world was in a distant system that was just past the edge of the Borderlands. Except for a race like theirs that could withstand the chaos winds, it would have been a difficult place to live.

The Ice Drake lived up to its name. At full strength, the enchantment that moved the ship radiated a fierce aura of Ice that pushed them through the Void. It left a trail of frozen wind in its wake where ice crystals formed, which spread out behind them like a great tail. If Elsanar or one of the other Ice Drakes had been here, they would have been pleased to see it.

There were a few systems where the distance between the astral threads was longer and it took a day or more to cross. In those, Sam made a few side trips to chase down any Void beasts he could find, which resulted in a pile of new materials and auras, as well as six more levels, bringing him up to 264.

It was harder to find good opponents in the Third Evolution while traveling, but there were a few of them scattered here and there, including another Frostscale Cloudwolf and a Soulseeking Shrike, which he’d only seen once before. Both of those seemed to be solo hunters in the Wild.

He assigned the 72 free points to Wisdom this time, bringing it up to 926 after the other attribute gains from the levels. Soon, it would be over a thousand as well, and he was looking forward to any changes that came from it. After that, he’d probably go back to working on Charisma again.

As the ship hurtled through the Void and the days passed, the Silver Nagas started to become restless and often dueling with each other in the cargo hold as they trained their new abilities. It became so dangerous for the ship’s stability at one point that Sam was forced to reshape the enchantments on the hold to withstand their practice.

The crashing force of a 20-foot tall naga slamming into the side of the cargo hold after being hurled the entire distance of the ship was not something that had been built into the original cargo plans.

One other thing also occurred during those days, which was that Sleset came to him and repeatedly asked to duel with Laimar. The nagas wanted to test out the strength of their allies. At first, he was inclined to refuse, but it wasn’t his place to make Laimar’s decisions for him, so he passed the word on.

As it turned out, Laimar was only too happy to work off his boredom by playing with the nagas, and he quickly became friends with most of them, primarily by throwing them the entire length of the cargo hold, which the nagas found to be greatly amusing, at least when they weren’t the ones to be thrown.

Despite his earlier injuries, the Knight Guardian was a force to be reckoned with, and that was clearly the best way to make friends with the nagas. About a third of the nagas were females, but it made no obvious difference in their behavior.

Now and then, the nagas looked passionately at Sam, hoping that he would duel with them as well. He ignored them until it built up to a point where they were all staring at him whenever he walked into the cargo hold, and they even started to make bets with one another as to how much farther he could throw one of them than the knight could.

At that point, he pulled the ship over on a random asteroid and proved for a fact that he could throw a naga more than twice as far as Laimar, which settled all of the bets, and then he crushed the asteroid into fragments with an Astral Rift, demonstrating that if they really wanted to duel with him, the ship would definitely not be able to handle it.

Obviously, this only encouraged them to look forward to the future battle with even more eagerness. Even Alora couldn’t help but laugh at the zealous snakes. Their legends of serving an Oathlord were so powerful that their eyes were full of stars. If they hadn’t been so dedicated to him, he would have worried that they’d attack the next thing they saw.

The only other thing of true note that happened during those weeks was that the voices of the Titans whispering to Sam became stronger. There was a clear shift from the First Star to the Second while on the Path. There was no direct pressure pulling him into the Dream of the Void, but it was becoming more distracting week by week and he frequently found himself staring off into the distance, studying the stars as he drifted from one memory to the next.

Many of the whispers were useful, telling him about abilities, the Void, beasts that lived in it, and more, but it was also a clear reminder to hurry up with what he was doing. He still had to get back to Aster Fall after the Dream.

He spent most of his time on the prow of the ship, ready to pull it onto the next astral thread, and frequently Alora came up to keep him company, sharing small stories of her earlier years. It encouraged him to do the same and he ended up telling her a great deal about life on Aster Fall, including about the Moonlight Relic and some stories of his family.

The only area he avoided completely was the name of the Moonlight Relic and locations within the kingdom around it, since he considered those to be essential to his family’s safety. It was nearly impossible for anyone to visit Aster Fall, but he couldn’t set aside that basic level of caution, just in case some being in the Void was listening to them.

Over time, the two of them began to keep each other company and to talk more easily. It reminded him that it had been a long time since he’d had anyone to talk to besides the Titan Star, and he enjoyed it quite a bit. Her stories also gave him a lot of insight into the Wild Spirits and their Grove.

And then, just over three weeks later, they arrived in the system that held Alora’s homeworld.