by Turtle Me
“Yup, exactly!” I laughed drunkenly, nearly overcome with exhaustion and flush with success at having won.
After the giant millipede had died and its organs began to fail, I was able to see Regis slowly being pushed out toward the beast’s backside. Rather than trying to break its outer shell to pry Regis out from within, I let nature run its course.
“Anyway, welcome back,” I said with a broad smile, patting some of the ooze off of my companion. “How do you feel?”
Regis lowered his gaze. For a split second, I was worried he might pass out, but he looked back at me with his mouth curled up into a grin and the dark flames dancing around him. “…Like crap.”
Despite how exhausted and miserable we both were, everything seemed a little better as we laughed at our own childish jokes.
With the giant millipede dead, it felt like I had reached another new milestone in growth.
After a short break, we began reaping the rewards of our victory. Rather than the hills of aether crystals inside the cavern, I focused my attention on the millipede.
It only took a fleeting glance to realize that the aether beast corpse was the highest and most potent source of aether in the entire cavern. Climbing on top of the giant millipede, I got to work consuming the aether from its body.
As my aether core developed, so did the rate of absorption. Still, considering how massive the beast was, and how dense the aether within it, absorbing it all took several sittings.
While the process of absorbing aether was fairly straightforward with my newly-forged core, it took more than a third of the aetheric essence from the millipede in order to test out the next step of my development.
Luckily, I had more than enough material to work with, so I was able to experiment and tweak the process—enhancing its efficiency and building my body towards eventually being able to do something even asuras of the Indrath Clan can’t do: manipulate aether directly.
Since there wasn’t exactly a manual for what I was doing, I broke down the process into three stages and named them absorption, tempering, and lastly, the purging stage.
After absorbing aether, I found that filling my core to the point where it was nearly overflowing—and very painful—forced the aether inside me to more quickly condense and refine itself.
The purging stage, however, was the most important, and required my utmost concentration. All at once, I needed to expel nearly all of the aether I had crammed into my core. While the surge of aether was spreading throughout my body, I needed to trace the paths that that aether used to move, and then slowly guide the rest of the aether to use those same paths.
Every time I purged the aether from my core I was slowly training it to travel through more efficient “passages” within my body, rather than just spread aimlessly.
I focused on training the passages within my arms first. I realized that, while my technique and experience were able to make up for the loss of speed, they couldn’t make up for my loss of power.
The main problem was how widely the aether was distributed within my body when I released it from my core. I wasn’t able to create enough force to do major damage without nearly exhausting most of my aether unless I used Gauntlet Form.
Without solving the problem of aether loss, I couldn’t hope to move forward, so Regis and I stayed put. Several days passed as I repeated the process of absorbing aether from the millipede corpse, tempered it within my core, then quickly purged it.
Progress was incremental, but after consuming nearly eighty percent of the millipede’s aetheric essence, I finally felt like the time spent had been worth it.
Holding my hands out in front of me, I released aether from my core. I let it simply distribute evenly throughout my body while trying to feel the aether passages strengthen inside my arm.
Then I did it again, but I focused more aether on my arms. This time, I could feel around a ten percent increase in aether to my arms compared to the rest of my body.
A smile crept onto my face as I looked down at my hands, clenching and unclenching them.
“You look like you’ve just discovered fire. What are you all excited about?” Regis asked as he floated toward me.
“Can you sense something different?” I answered back, spreading my arms. I let the aether distribute evenly around my body at first.
“The aether around you became a bit less pink,” he noted, not impressed.
“Not that.” I smiled as I coalesced more aether into my arms. “This.”
Regis’s white eyes bulged. “You can control aether now?”
The faint shroud of aether around me dissipated as I relaxed. “Not completely, but it’s a big step forward.”
“Looks like eating all of that millipede dung paid off.” Regis snickered, the flames around his body flaring with mirth.
“I was consuming the aether from the millipede’s body, not its crap,” I started. “…not yet, at least.”
“Well, I have some good news on that front,” Regis said mysteriously.
I raised a brow. “Oh? What is it?”
“Nuh uh uhh,” Regis chimed. “I’ll tell you after I’ve had my twenty percent share of aether from the giant millipede.”
“Fine. I saved about a quarter of the aetheric essence for you anyway,” I replied. I met my companion’s eyes and grinned mischievously. “For being eaten and expelled from the giant beast’s rectum, your master bestows upon you a five percent raise.”
“This one is unworthy!” Regis exclaimed, his wide white eyes rolling in his shadowy body.
After finishing off the last of the millipede’s aetheric essence, reducing its corpse to a hazy gray color, Regis was easily able to withstand Gauntlet Form three times without hurting himself.
I had expected more, but Regis was content with his growth—especially the growth of his horns, which were now about as long as the first joint of my pinky finger.
“Why do you care so much about how big your horns are?” I asked.
“Why do human males care so much about how big their genitals are?” he quipped back.
I stared down then looked back up at Regis. “Sorry I asked.”
I followed Regis through the massive cavern, which was about the length of a city block, and he led me past a particularly large hill of aether crystals. After we had reached the peak, the hill dipped to form a crater where a particularly vibrant pile of aether crystals had been gathered around four large spheres, each one a slightly different shade of milky purple.
“Don’t tell me those are—”
“Yup,” Regis finished. “I don’t know how, but that giant millipede had her some babies.”
“But that’s not what’s important,” he continued, floating down into the crater. “Look at those crystals surrounding the eggs.”
Sliding down the side of the bowl of aether crystals that functioned as the millipede’s birthing bed, I focused my gaze on the vibrant set of crystals, which were glowing much more brightly than all the other crystals in the cavern.
When I saw what was held inside the crystals, I realized that my initial theory about what was happening to the rock that the millipede had swallowed, when it was gorging itself on two-tailed monkeys, had been correct.
Trapped within the aether crystals, which were much larger and brighter than the other crystals, were various pieces of equipment, weapons, and other items.
From the way the suits of armor and clothing were positioned within the man-sized crystals, it was evident to me that there were once living people inside each of them. Just like how I had seen the monkey being consumed and its very life sucked out of its body, these people probably had met the same fate after being swallowed whole, leaving behind only their possessions.
It was a cruel way for anyone to die, but at this moment, I couldn’t help but be overcome by greed. I looked down, examining the torn strips of cloth and leather that I had been passing off as clothes, and then back up at the
various pieces of armor and equipment gleaming within the crystals.
“Look at your eyes, all sparkling,” Regis teased as he scanned the aether crystals himself. “Lucky for us, it seems like mama bug feasted on quite a few mages.”
“Have some respect for the dead,” I scolded.
“All of my respect disappeared when I popped out of that bug’s anus,” Regis replied, chortling.
I was itching to get my hands on some of the equipment trapped within the aether crystals, but there was something more important I needed to take care of first.
Using Gauntlet Form, Regis and I destroyed all but the last millipede egg before absorbing the aetheric essence from them.
“Why are you leaving one alive?” Regis asked.
“There’s a pretty delicate ecosystem within this floor. I don’t want to completely destroy that,” I replied, moving on to the first large crystal.
It took several hours to absorb enough aether from the crystals in order to break through to the items within, but the thought of having something more to wear than what I had ripped apart and tied together kept me going.
Unfortunately, while the man-sized crystals that contained equipment numbered over a dozen, most of them weren’t usable by the time I had broken through the crystalline shell they had been stored in.
What was left, however, were a handful of masterfully crafted items that no doubt belonged to powerful mages and warriors, or—at the very least—rich ones.
I looked at the weapons first.
There was a golden spear with red runes running down its shaft, an unstrung longbow, a longsword with a gem imbedded on its pommel and a crack running down the length of the blade, and a staff with a shattered gem in the tip.
Regis frowned as he hovered over the weapons strewn on the ground in front of me. “Well that’s anticlimactic.”
Remaining hopeful, I picked up the longsword first. It was perfectly balanced and felt good in my hands, but when I imbued aether into the sword, the crack that ran down its blade grew bigger and began to splinter.
I struck the ground. Smaller aether crystals splashed away from the impact, and the sword shattered into pieces. Shaking my head, I tossed the handle of the broken blade away.
Next, I picked up the spear. Imbuing aether into this one had a particular effect: the runes began glowing purple.
Regis’s eyes widened. “Ooh! Do we have a winn—”
The spear exploded into pieces in my hands, hurling me several feet back and charring my leather vest.
“I guess I spoke too soon,” Regis concluded.
“Damn it,” I cursed, gathering myself and walking back to the small pile of equipment.
The remaining weapons didn’t fare much better. The runes on the bow indicated that it used mana to create a string and fire arrows, making it completely useless for me, while the staff with the shattered gem proved to be even less stable than the exploding spear. At least the spear would’ve taken someone by surprise had I used it on an enemy…
I moved on to the rest of the items I had taken out of the aether crystals. Unfortunately, I faced the same problem wearing the plate armor that I had with using the weapons. Because all of the higher-tier pieces of armor were forged to better conduct mana, aether caused them to quickly break down or even explode.
What I was left with was clothing made from fine cloth or leather.
“Looking good, princess,” Regis teased as he circled around me.
My new outfit consisted of a loose white long-sleeved shirt that I tucked into a pair of bracers crafted from thick, blackened leather. Over it, I put on a gorget that was made from the same material as the bracers. Despite my rather lean frame, it fit well, resting snug over my shoulders and coming up to my chin.
After some testing, I realized that the shirt and the leather pieces of armor were surprisingly durable. They didn’t have any runes or indications that they were artifacts, so I didn’t need to worry about my clothes bursting apart from a bad reaction with aether. Always a good thing.
Along with a pair of pants, some soft leather shoes, and a sturdy bag that was able to securely hold Sylvie’s stone and my water pouch, the last item held a bit of sentimental value to me. It was a rather elegant cloak lined with a soft white fur around its hood.
It was slash-resistant and incredibly warm, but I liked it simply because of its color. While it was white with fur on the inside, the outer cloth was a soft teal color. It reminded me of Dawn’s Ballad, but more than that, it reminded me of the simpler times when I first found Dawn’s Ballad in the back corner of the Helstea Auction House.
Putting on the cloak, which came down just above my knees, I found the weight of it to be pleasant. I swirled the cloak dramatically and realized there was something hidden inside its inner lining. Fishing around, I found a hidden pocket and pulled the item carefully out.
“I thought you’d gone through all of the weapons,” Regis said, studying the dagger in my hand.
“I thought so too,” I muttered, entranced by the small weapon for some reason.
The sleek, brushed-silver handle was just long enough for me to hold it in one hand, my fingers fitting perfectly into a series of slight grooves. Attached to the end of the handle was a ring—most likely for my index finger, if I chose to wield it blade down.
Gripping the handle tightly, I pulled it out of its sheath, revealing a flawless white blade with an insignia of a hexagon with three parallel streaks inside it carved near the base.
“Woah. What is that made of?” Regis asked, studying the glistening white blade.
I held it close in front of me. “It looks like some kind of… bone?”
“Are bones usually that shiny and white though? It looks almost crystalline.”
“This is my first time seeing something like this too,” I confessed, unable to take my eyes off of it.
“Try it out. Imbue some aether into it,” Regis said impatiently.
I was afraid to; I didn’t want to damage it. But when I did, to my surprise, it was able to withstand and even conduct a small portion of the aether.
“Do you think the person who had this knife knew how to wield aether too?” Regis asked, astonished at the sight of the faint purple aura leaking from its white blade.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Most likely, this dagger is just made from something that was able to wield aether—maybe from some beast found in this dungeon.”
Regis’s mouth curved up into a sinister smile. “Wicked.”
I looked back at the last millipede egg, wondering if I should feel any guilt over killing its three siblings. I had definitely lost something while down here. A part of me was scared and wanted to latch onto whatever remaining shred of humanity I had left, but a larger part of me knew that in order to survive here, in order to reach my goal, I couldn’t falter.
“Ready to go?” Regis asked.
“Just a minute.” Gathering my hair, which had grown far past my shoulders, I tied it loosely near the base of my neck. Gripping the ponytail, I cut it off just past the knot, letting the locks of pale wheat hair fall to the ground.
Regis nodded in approval. “I’ll admit, that was pretty manly.”
I took one last look at the putrid remains of the giant millipede, then turned towards the tunnel back up to the jungle. “Let’s go.”
266
A Quiet Strength
ELEANOR LEYWIN
I met my mother’s gaze and tried not to roll my eyes.
She let out a sigh. “Oh, don’t you give me that look. You’re too young…”
Forcing what I hoped was an understanding but slightly incredulous smile, I said, “Mom, you can’t seriously think we’ll be safer if we just hide down here and let others fight for us than if we join them? The council needs every soldier they can get—”
“Ellie,” she said in her mother-knows-best voice, “we’ve done our fighting, and we’ve paid our pri
ce. Your father… Arthur…” Tears welled up in her eyes, but she didn’t wipe them away. “Down here, we have some semblance of peace, and we have more time together. Time, Ellie. That’s all I want… time with you.”
This wasn’t about me, I knew. It was about Arthur. He’d never been home, never been around. Our parents had so little time with him, not that it was entirely his fault.
He hadn’t asked to be stuck in the elven kingdom for years, though it had been his choice to run away and become an adventurer almost as soon as he’d returned. It had been his choice to join the academy and live on his own, and he’d agreed to go off with that Windsom guy, disappearing again just when we—his family—needed him the most.
When he came back from the land of the deities, he became a Lance and fought a war. Then he was gone.
“Life down here is barely a life at all, Mom. It just feels like we’re stuck in that moment when an enemy’s sword is at your neck and your whole life flashes by.”
My mother smiled ruefully and looked away. “You’ve been spending too much time with Tessia.”
“Kathyln’s words, actually,” I said, wrapping my arms around my mother and resting my head on her shoulder. “She’s pretty poetic—when you can get her to talk.”
We stayed like that for a while, my mother’s hand running through my hair. When I pulled away, there was a hesitation on her part, as if she didn’t want to let me go. But then, I supposed she didn’t.
“It’s just a council meeting, Mom.” I gave her a serious look. “You should be going to them, too.”
My mother shook her head and walked to the little table where we ate our dinners. Then she sat at the table and ran her hand across it, almost like she was petting an animal. I think it made her feel more normal to do something as everyday as sitting at the dinner table and arguing with her daughter.
“I just don’t understand why they need you there,” she said, circling back around to where our argument had started. “Surely Virion and Bairon can handle making decisions without the input of a thirteen year old girl.”
I held back a sigh, knowing I was treading on thin ice to get her to agree. “Like I said, Tessia has asked for me to tag along.”
