Legacy of the M’Zee Chapter 9 (Patreon)

“That fried Fuzhu ready yet?” Vaya asked Jon, who was poking at the aforementioned food cooking merrily on the frying pan.

He carefully spread some spices over it, flipped it, repeated the process on the other side, and then declared, “They are done.” He pulled the pan off the fire and set it on a flat stone Vaya had made for that purpose.

I grabbed my knife and stabbed a piece, putting it onto my plate, after Vaya and Bridget had gotten theirs. “Really guys,” Jon said. “Leaving me the last piece.”

“It is the biggest,” Bridget said, rolling her eyes.

“Uh, so it is,” Jon said sheepishly.

I tucked in, telling Jon, “This is really good.” I cut apart the massive slab of magical venison, thankful that the frying pan included was huge. We each had almost a kilogram of meat as we tried to use up what we couldn’t fit in the makeshift smokehouse Vaya and I had made.

“Thanks,” he said. “Turns out, practicing Alchemy makes learning to cook simple.”

“So when are you going to cook for us, Aiden,” Vaya asked.

“Uh, once I figure out how to make porridge without burning it,” I said, laughing. We ate quickly, joking around with each other but still keeping an eye on our surroundings.

When we were mostly done, Zim landed on Jon’s shoulder and stole a bite from his fork. “Hey!” Jon glared up at him. Some silent communication between them came, and Jon laughed. “Well, thank you for the compliment. You should still ask, though.”

After eating, I took all the plates over to the edge of the pond before starting to scrub them. After the first plate, I looked into the water, trying to see how much I could see. Huh, I thought, there’s a big flow of Wood and Fire Aether at the bottom of the pond, though I can barely see it through the Water Aether. Darkness, this water might be one of the best sources of Aether here!

“Hey, do you see or sense anything in the water?” I asked Vaya.

She looked into it, then shrugged. “Not really. There might be some underwater grass around the edge, but it is too cloudy to see much in the middle. Why?”

“There’s something in the depths,” I said. “I want to check it out.”

“Alright, I will help Jon build up a large fire to help you dry out,” she said, shaking her head. “Maybe if it is safe we could all go swimming. I know Kami would like that.”

“Let’s finish setting up the camp first,” I said, scrubbing away at the last plate. “Though it is too bad I don’t see any fish.”

“Eh, I would rather have Fuzhu,” she said. “We eat immense quantities of fish back at our manor, so I’m more than happy to not eat it here.”

“Good to know,” I said. “I’ll have to make sure to secure a supply of fish from Azyl when I get some land.” She slapped my shoulder, and I fell over laughing. “And we’ll raise Earthen Boar for our suppers.”

“You mean we will have many different Beasts, rotating every week, cooked by the best chefs we can find,” she said. “I fully expect to be wowed every night by dinner, got it.” She held a straight face for all of ten seconds, before grinning.

“Well, I shall endeavor to do my best, my lady,” I said, affecting a haughty accent.

“Hey, stop flirting and help me put up the tent,” Jon yelled out. He was putting up a tent about five meters from the pond, leaving ten before the edge of the forest.

“No!” I yelled back before standing up. “Well, I should help him before he breaks the whole thing.”

Vaya shook her head, “Bridget is putting up the illusion Formation, and I finished setting up the alarm Formation before coming over.”

“Well, maybe we should all go swimming soon,” I said with a grin.

“I will not be swimming,” Sia said, making me burst out laughing.

“Why not?” I asked him as he landed on my shoulder.

“I am a Zarorzel, or Fire Eagle. Not a water pigeon. Pfft, I only touch water to get fish,” he said.

I repeated it for Vaya’s benefit, before I laughed. “I can see that,” I told him. “But us humans like to splash around.”

“Yet another way in which you are strange,” he sent to me, his amusement flowing through our Bond.

I grinned, then went to help Jon. We quickly put the tent together, large enough to fit all four of us and maybe Lampart. I put together a post that Zim and Sia could sleep on inside as wel, but Kami had indicated she did not want to sleep in a tent anyway.

“Alright,” I said, standing on the edge of the pond. I had stripped down to only a pair of shorts worn as underwear.

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” Vaya asked.

“Not really,” I shrugged. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything moving down there, just whatever is absorbing or generating that Aether flow. It hasn’t changed in the last hour, so,” I shrugged again. “So there doesn’t seem to be any danger.”

“Yeah, but I do not think you should go alone,” Vaya said. “So I am coming with you.” She shucked out of her tunic, wearing only a wrap over her chest and a pair of shorts.

I goggled for a second, before saying, “Wow. Just wow.”

She grinned at me, “That is a good reaction. Now, shall we?” She gestured at the water.

I nodded, taking a few deep breaths before diving into the water. A splash next to me signaled Vaya diving in as well. I pushed against the water, swimming deeper and letting my Aether Sight guide me. We swam deeper, quickly going over ten meters down. Wow, this is really deep for the width of the pond, I thought. And whatever spring feeds it is super pressurized. Each stroke was difficult, and I had already started using the General Strengthening Technique to continue to head deeper in.

The mixed flow of Fire and Wood Aether got closer, and then I swam into it. Only, the water around me disappeared and I fell head first towards the floor. A quick flip let me land on my feet, and I stepped sideways and caught Vaya as she fell through the air. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes, thank you,” she said with a grin. I realized I was holding onto her legs and belly with no clothing in the way, and immediately blushed and set her down. “Aww.” She pouted at me, then looked around excitedly. “So, where are we?”

“No idea,” I said, looking around as well. We were standing in an open chamber with stone tile floors. The water above us made a plane, though on the opposite side from where we stood a series of steps led back to it as a way out. The rest of the walls were carved with scenes of battle and wonder. Directly to the left of the stairs, a representation of a planet was surrounded by ten figures, their hands extended to it.

The next image had life exploding across the planet, hundreds of little animals and plants carved on an image of our continent. “Huh,” I said. “Look, there is much more beyond the Illyrian Empire and the Weltreich. I wonder what is above them?”

“I think this mountain range is considered impassible,” Vaya said, following me to the map. “At least, I read that once.”

“I wonder how deep the Illyrians go,” I said. The mountain ranges on either side of their empire met at a point, where they built the fortress fort of Bork, and that was all we knew about them. The map in front of us had them form almost a diamond, but the northernmost area had a gap of nearly a hundred kilometers. The westernmost mountain range, where they bordered on the Topraki, was enormous.

“Let us move on to the next picture,” Vaya said, pulling my arms. It seemed to focus in on the peninsula where Craesti was built, but also including the Weltreich and Monster Island.

“Huh,” I said. “Oddali didn’t used to be near the tip of the peninsula.” I pointed. “There's at least another fifty kilometers beyond it.”

“Here, right here are the ruins we found. It is marked as a city,” Vaya said. “There are a dozen listed. There’s another, deeper into the Zaboj, and at least three are in the Weltreich.”

“I think this one,” I indicated the northernmost one, “Is where the Geist tower the Volk have.”

“So there might be one in the ruins we found!” Vay exclaimed, then wrapped me in a hug. “Princess Aleksandra will make sure we get access to it. We can fully temper, even beyond the day we got. Maybe this one won’t have the same limitation!”

“Look at this next one,” I said. A battle scene was drawn, and the chameleon-like Chaos Beasts were easily recognizable. A dozen other types of Beasts fought against people. Only, I realized after a second, they weren’t human, but elves. “Huh, those are elves. They have pointed ears and are tall and willowy, just like my original world’s legends described them. I,” I sat down, leaning against the wall, my breath coming in ragged gasps. “I don’t understand. What is the connection, and why does my world have legends about everything here!”

“I do not know,” Vaya said, crouching next to me and putting her hands on my shoulder. “But I know that I will stay by your side as long as you will have me.” She leaned in and kissed me, and I kissed her back.

A bit of time went by before I gently pulled away, blushing a bit. Vaya was flushed as well, and both of us were breathing heavily. “So, let’s see if we can translate this story,” I said.

Vaya gave me an annoyed smile, before shaking her head. “Okay. Maybe we will find something that will point to a treasure or hidden knowledge.”

“Well, the image of the elves that sent me into a panic attack probably shows the founding of whatever nation this was,” I pointed. “You can see the Stairway of Determination in the next one, along with three other buildings of similar size. I wonder what happened to that palace.” The image had six elves, three men and three women, standing before an indistinct crowd in front of a palace. Rising into the sky behind it was the Stairway of Determination, only it was at least twice as tall as it currently was, and two other towers of indeterminate usage.

“They look prosperous here,” Vaya stood in front of the next one, showing a full harbor and hundreds of ships sailing into and out of it.

“But not happy,” I said, looking closer. “Look, the dock foreman there is beating a worker, and there are dozens of beggars shown. Why would they put that on this image?”

“The nobles at the top of the picture look happy,” Vaya gestured. Each carving was three meters tall and wide, giving plenty of space to show immense amounts of detail. “But whoever carved this went out of there way to make them look greedy and nefarious.”

“Huh, so they did,” I said. “So we’ve got the creation of the world, the forming of whatever nation this was. One picture of prosperity after defeating the Chaos Beasts, but not everyone is happy.”

“Next we have a group of people meeting in secret,” Vaya said. “This one is the same worker that was being beaten in the other picture. They are doing something.”

“Summoning the Chaos Beasts back,” I said. “That is the same Formation that the Illyrians were using to create the portals.”

“But much larger,” she pointed out. “It looks like it is surrounding the entirety of the building they are in, rather than just one level of a ship.”

“Another fight, but this time the elves are losing,” I said. “And what is that?”

“A Xiangliu,” Vaya breathed out. “I thought they were a myth.”

“I want them to be,” I said, looking at the hydra-like creature. It had a large, snake-like body, coiled up and ready to strike at a battalion of elves in plate armor. Only, instead of lizard heads on the ends of its nine necks, it had heads that looked like malformed babies, with massive mouths full of pointed teeth. The eyes were depicted as black voids, holes carved into the stone and filled with Darkness Aether. Just seeing it made my gut scream ‘danger.’

“The next picture has the city burning, but the Beasts are being beaten back. Except for here, that, I do not know what that is,” Vaya pointed.

“A dragon,” I said. I looked closer, “undead dragon. Look, it seems like part of it is rotting.”

“That makes sense,” Vaya said, “These guys look familiar.” She indicated a section where a Lamia was leading a group of drowned zombies. “So we should be on the lookout for all the other Beasts that are pictured here.”

“The city is a ruin here, and there are only two things still pictured,” I said, looking at the next image. “The zombie dragon and an elf depicted with a glowing aura.” In the carving, the dragon was being blasted to the ground by an Aether attack fo some kind. The elf’s expression was full of hate and loathing. “The dragon is injured, more than it had been, and there are the corpses of fifteen more elves laid out near where the surviving elf would have leapt from.

The next to last image showed that same elf looking around at the ruin of his homeland with tears flowing down his face, a massive ring of runes carved in the ground around him, as he rose into the sky.

The last image showed him with seven others looking down at the world, different areas burning or being consumed by other Chaos Beasts. They had their hands extended, echoing the creation of the world, with Aether flowing into the planet. Each Beast was depicted screaming in pain, partially dissolved, and the fires were in the middle of being extinguished.

At this image, Vaya collapsed. “That, that is the canonical depiction of the sacrifice of the Elemental Gods. The elf is in the position of Fire. Are these images saying the sacrifice happened because of these peoples?”

“Not just them,” I said. “If you look at the second battle, the zombies aren’t just elves. There are people like the Topraki in it, though they are more doglike than those we saw.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “The Lamia also said that she was representing her people, so there must be more somewhere. We know now what some enemies are going to be, and we can work on figuring out how the god’s sacrifice walled them away. Maybe, with better information, we can reinforce the barrier without having to sacrifice our lives, but even if we have to, we can save the world.”

“But Chaos can only be coming because someone is summoning them,” Vaya said, pointing at the depicted image.

“So maybe all we have to do is stop them,” I said. “Come on, let’s look over the pictures again, see if we can find anything that will help us fight them, and then head back to the others. I’m sure they are getting worried.”

“Wait,” Vaya said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “That part, there, looks like a button.” She reached forward and pushed in the pillar that the elf was raising from in the second to last image.