“We’d be happy to. But first, we need something from you.”
“What…do…you…require…?” he asked.
I looked back at Freddy.
“We simply require a bit of your energy. If you would be so kind as to breath life into this key, we would be very grateful,” Freddy said.
“Giving…life…is…no…small…thing…Why…do…you…need…it…?”
“Like you,” Freddy said, pointing at the small tree, “We have loved ones. They are in danger. We need the breath of the forest in order to help them. Will you help us?”
The trees stared us down as they considered this. There was a creaking sound from all three and even small noises from the little one, which I assumed was communication. It was several minutes before they finally gave us an answer. A very, very uncomfortable several minutes as they continued to stare down at us while we waited.
“Your…kind…has…abused…our…gift…in…the…past…”
“That is not our intention,” Freddy replied.
“Un…trust…worthy…your…kind…,” Elder Piney said.
“Unfortunately some of us are. But my name is Froedrick Rolland Herbert Blair and I give you my word, our intentions are noble and true.”
Again a long pause, as they seemed to be discussing it among themselves. Clearly deciding if we could be trusted. I myself was struggling with the absurdity of Freddy’s full name. But I held my jokes for now and waited patiently for the trees to respond. I’m becoming so mature.
“We…will…help…you…,” he said.
“Thank you,” Freddy replied.
Freddy attempted to walk the key over to Piney the Elder, but I intercepted him and walked it over myself. Last thing I wanted was them taking Freddy as a hostage. I held the key up and we got the breath of the forest exactly as you might have guessed we would. He leaned in close and breathed into it. It was an interesting thing to witness. Almost like watching dust dance through sunlight, his breath held a slight greenish glow and tiny spores floated within. The key started to glow green and then subsided. I looked back to Freddy to make sure that was what we needed. He smiled and gave me thumbs up. I walked the key back from Elder Pine and headed back to Freddy and Vix.
“Okay, now what are the chances they let us out of here alive?”
Freddy nodded to acknowledge my concern and looked back up at the trees, “Thank you so much for your help. We ask one more thing before we release your young one. Please allow us safe passage from your forest so we make take our leave.”
Again the creaking sound as they all discussed the proposition. It seemed pretty clear to me that they were frustrated. I think they planned to kill us once we released the little one. But after a while Piney the Elder spoke again.
“Agreed…,” he said.
“Thank you,” Freddy nodded.
“We can trust that,” I whispered to him.
“Absolutely,” he assured me.
So, Vix released the little one and we slowly backed away. Freddy took a second to check his barring before leading us off to the left. I brought up the rear and kept an eye on our friends. But they simply huddled around their young one and paid us no more mind. Once we were a safe distance away, I plucked the pine needles out of my arm and showed it to Freddy. He assured me there were no toxic concerns. I felt fine and I knew with my rapid healing ability there wasn’t a huge threat from poisons. But I definitely notice when my body is fighting off something tough. The last thing I wanted was to be weakened before our next fight.
We walked in relative silence for a while, each of us watching for more tree folk. I’d stashed the blade safely back into its sheath as to not anger anyone else by mistake. If was a little over an hour before we finally found ourselves at the forests edge. The view was spectacular. We stood atop a great hill overlooking the massive canyon that is the Serpent’s Valley.
CHAPTER 11
We all stared in amazement at the grand curvy canyon before us. It was truly magnificent and clearly the kind of thing you comment on. So, after a deep breath I said what needed to be said.
“Herbert huh?”
Freddy sighed and Vix laughed. We’d walked mostly in silence through the forest and I wanted to break any tension. Vix definitely added an interesting dynamic to our trio. I had been trying hard to control my flirting and she was doing a decent job of holding her sexy looks in check. As you might imagine, it wasn’t easy, but we were both trying to keep from making Freddy feel uncomfortable. Which in turn was just making Freddy feel like a third wheel. But after the laugh Vix gave Freddy an “awww” and small hug. He blushed and we all laughed a bit more. It worked, everyone seemed more relaxed and comfortable. I patted Freddy on the shoulder with a smile before turning back to look over the valley.
The Serpents Valley is beautiful, weird, amazing, majestic, and just downright bizarre. It’s an odd cross between a valley and a canyon. From our vantage point we could see for miles in each direction. There was a small river down below, winding back and forth in almost perfect symmetry to give the Valley its namesake. The terrain on each side varied between soft flowing hills and steep cliffs. Our current perch put us atop slopping hills several hundred feet above the valley below. This was why we had such a great view of our surroundings. To the right and the left the slopping hills shifted into jagged cliffs and back again. The cliffs were a beautiful pattern of brown and white swirls caused by the interesting mix of rock and dirt.
The White Mountains ran along the Valley and their varied proximity seemed to be directly responsible for the terrain. When they were in the distance, like our current position, lush hills rolled down to the river. As the river approached the mountains, the hills turned to rocky cliffs, which looked as if they’d been sliced open by the flowing water. As their name suggests, the mountains were very white. I assumed they were going to be covered in snow and thusly named. But, while some of the mountains in the distance seemed tall enough to have snowcapped peaks, there was definitely another reason for the color. They were white rock.
“Freddy, what are those mountains made out of?”
“Beautiful are they not?” he smiled, “while I have never visited them personally, I have read about them in many books. They say they are comprised mostly of limestone. Experts believe this entire area might have once been an ancient ocean.”
“Good. I was hoping for an nice day at the beach.”
Freddy furrowed his brow and Vix shook her head and rolled her eyes. I just smiled. Sometimes terrible jokes gave you the best reactions. They returned to looking at the valley and so did I.
The river flowed from our right to our left and didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry. It was a lazy river, maybe thirty feet wide and lacking any serious rapids. It was quiet and from this far away, I couldn’t really hear it at all. At the base of the hill, next to the river, was an old farmhouse. Clearly run down and abandoned. Apparently someone once lived around here. Made me curious about how many people we might run into on this adventure.
“Are we expecting to run into a lot of people out here Freddy?”
“I apologize, but I can not be sure. While there are many towns and settlements along the river, our route should only bring us to within close proximity to one of them. But please remember reliable information on the Veil and its populations is difficult to come by. Many things change over the years and our information might not be current,” he said.
“No need to apologize Freddy, we appreciate any information you can give us. So, which way to we want to head?”
Freddy looked to the left and then to the right and took a moment to consider his options. He pulled a crumpled piece of parchment out of his pocket and examined it for a moment before answering me. It was clear he wanted to provide us with his best possible guidance.
“I believe we want to head south,” he said, pointing to the right, “up the river. We need to acquire the water essence next and there should be a boiling spring a mile or so up
stream. Unfortunately, after that we will need to backtrack this way as the other three locations we wish to visit are downriver.”
“Sounds good to me. This seems like a nice enough area to visit twice.”
With that I started walking down the hill with Vix and Freddy in tow. The incline was steep enough that we all sort of skipped and hopped down instead of walking. Just made it easier that way. We ended up near the old farmhouse at the bottom. Not on purpose, the curve of the hill just sort of funneled us that direction.
It was a crumbling old structure, mostly a wooden frame with a bit of thatch still fastened to the top in what used to be a roof. Small remnants of the mud walls remained, but not enough to block your view. You could see straight through the building. The house was fairly small, two rooms, maybe twenty by twenty each. I glanced inside and saw a bit of broken pottery and the wooden remains of a table and chairs. Around the side of the house, the skeleton of an old animal pen still stood. Not enough of a fence to impede anything now, but enough to give you an idea of what used to be there. This farm had been abandoned for a while.
“What do you think happened?” Vix asked.
“Perhaps this is a bad climate for growing crops,” Freddy tried.
“Maybe,” I added.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It wasn’t eerie. I wasn’t getting some ominous feeling that something bad had happened. But these people clearly left for a reason. And judging by the lush grass growing all around us, infertile land wasn’t that reason. I looked a bit closer at the house and surrounding area to see if there were any signs of a struggle or fight. I didn’t see anything obvious, which made me feel a bit better. But as I looked around us I couldn’t help but think this house was in a terribly un-strategic location.
Between the Tree Folk up the hill who probably chased you with murder in their eyes every time you tried to chop a tree down and the water spirits who lived up river, this place might be rough. As there wasn’t really anything else to see and we all felt kind of weird standing next to someone’s abandoned home, we continued upstream. I took the lead and kept my eyes peeled for anything that might make a farmer hit the road.
Speaking of roads, there kind of was one, running right along side of the river. Although road might be a strong word. It was mostly packed dirt with the occasional scattering of gravel. It wasn’t well maintained, but since the weeds hadn’t totally taken over, I figured it must still be in use. I guess it made sense, if you had several towns along the river, there would be commerce and travel between them. Unlike most heavily traveled dirt roads I’ve seen, this one was mostly flat. There weren’t well-worn wagon wheel grooves and I couldn’t make out any hoof prints. But, if the river swells or they get a lot of rain here, those tracks could be washed away.
It was a beautiful day and walking along the river was actually quite pleasant. I thought this might make a cool place to go hiking when I wasn’t busy on a mission or something. The urge to grab Vix’s hand as we walked was almost too much to resist. For Freddy’s sake and in an attempt to keep myself from getting even more distracted, I resisted.
It was drifting into late afternoon and the temperature was comfortable enough that we weren’t cold or sweating from the walk. Next to us the river trickled past, almost as if the water didn’t want to disturb this beautiful day. I expected the river to be shallow, but I could see from here that it was several feet deep. The occasional fish broke the surface causing a small splash. We wound back and forth up the river, the hills next to us slowly fading into cliffs. After close to an hour of walking we found ourselves next to a hundred foot high sheer cliff face and Freddy stopped us.
“We are close now. The spring we seek should be around the next bend,” he said.
Vix and I nodded and I dropped the pack off of my back. I wrapped the tri-charred blade up and packed it away. If all went according to plan, I wouldn’t need that one again. Then I rummaged around in the pack until I found the ice blade. It was two feet of translucent blue crystal with a leather wrapped handle. It looked like it sounded, as if it was made of ice. But this definitely wasn’t frozen water. It was a perfectly shaped crystal with small metal ball bearings imbedded into the center of the blade. If you looked close you could just make out tiny runes carved onto each of the little metal balls. It seems super mystical. Vix’s looked the blade up and down before meeting my gaze.
“I don’t suppose you brought me one this time?” She smiled.
“Nope. I told you, magical blades are expensive.”
“Or you just wanted me to stay out of the fight,” Vix sighed.
“While keeping you out of harms way is a nice benefit, it wasn’t the driving force. You don’t want to know how expensive five magical weapons are.”
“One magical weapon and four tuned weapons technically,” Freddy added, trying to help.
“Say what?”
“Yeah, say what?” Vix repeated.
“Technically only one of the weapons we carry would be classified as a magical weapon.”
“You mean these other four weapons aren’t magical?”
“Actually,” Freddy corrected, “the last weapon you used was not fully magical. It was a tuned weapon.”
“Okay, I keep nodding like I have some idea what that means. But unless these things are also musical instruments, I don’t get it. Baxter also said something about them being tuned. What’s the difference and why didn’t we just get five magical weapons?”
“Assuming that we would have even been able to locate five magical weapons, they would have been vastly more expensive. While J Street is an amazing place to shop, as you might remember Kara telling you, true magical weapons are exceedingly rare. It was only because I remembered a previous visit to Gizmo’s where the Rose Horn informed me she had a shifting sands sword that I even knew we could find one there. We were exceptionally lucky to find it, let alone acquire it at such a reasonable price. I was honestly shocked she agreed to sell it for as little as she did. She must have liked you,” Freddy said.
“Everybody likes me,” I tried, and they both gave me looks that made me think they weren’t convinced. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is we got the best weapons we could in the allotted time. I can accept that. But, what does a tuned weapon even mean then?”
“These things can be complicated to explain. In simple terms it means the item has been crafted in such a way that it absorbs enough mana from a particular subject to empower it. In this case, a specific elemental spirit is the source of the mana required. This mana is used to charge the weapon. This is why the blades become much stronger than the materials they are crafted from in the presence of the elemental spirit.”
“?” said my face.
“They have been attuned to the energy needed to provide them strength,” Freddy tried.
“That’s why I felt the charred blade vibrating in the forest?”
“Precisely,” Freddy smiled, “that is the sign of a well crafted tuned weapon. I told you Baxter sold the highest quality items.”
“So basically they’re normal weapons until the mana from their designated target comes into proximity and then they’re bad ass?”
“Correct. It is the elementals themselves that are in fact powering the weapon against them. Fascinating don’t you think?”
“Sure, as long as it works.”
“They will all function as designed,” Freddy assured me.
I looked over at Vix and she just shrugged. I assume she was thinking the same thing I was. The first one worked fine, who cares if it’s actually a magical weapon or a tuned one. Plus, as much as I hate admitting it, Freddy was right. The idea of a weapon being powered by the elementals very own energy to fight it is fascinating. After the encounter with the treefolk, I was actually feeling fairly confident in the weapons ability to fight the spirits. But I still had a bunch of questions.
“Does the ice blade work the same as the charred blade?”
“In the man
ner by which it draws mana from the elemental, yes. But the resulting weapon modification will be different with each blade. For instance, as you probably noted, the charred blade functioned like a hot knife through butter. This is because the mana was directed into the blade and brought its cutting temperature up to a very helpful level. The frozen dagger in your hand functions differently. The greatest ability of the water elemental or water-kin is its ability to flow and change shape. Water is incredibly versatile. So, the weapon in your hand will work by super cooling the spirit. It will in fact freeze your opponent, hindering their movement and fighting prowess,” Freddy smiled.
“It’s a freezing knife?”
“Yes. But only in the presence of the proper opponent.”
With that Freddy took the blade from my hand and dipped it in the river, showing me that it had no effect. He smiled and handed it back. I looked it over again and kept staring at those tiny runes. They just looked cool. Kinda made me sad they weren’t on all the weapons.
“How come this blade has fancy rune studs on it and the last one didn’t?”
“If you’re asking why they are visible, that is a preference of the crafter. Some prefer them hidden while others enjoy incorporating their look into the design,” Freddy said.
“You mean they all have these metal balls in them?”
“No, they all have runes inscribed on them. Runes are the simplest and most common form of mana focus. While there are some extremely rare exceptions, all items of a magical nature contain runes. If you need to achieve a magical effect without a spellcaster there to assist you, runes are the way to go. The runes on the tri-charred blade were simply on the inside. Most likely the weapon had a wooden core, inscribed with runes, and that was encapsulated in fine ceramics by Baxter.”
“Okay, that’s awesome.”
“Indeed,” Freddy smiled, “In fact it is believed the power runes contain is why so many ancient languages utilized them in their writings. Almost as if the runes themselves drew people to create them.”
G.H.O.S.T. Teams (Book 3) Spirits Page 11
