Legacy of the M'Zee Chapter 12

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

So, okay progress this week. Finished a chapter for both Essence Wave and Legacy, so expect another chapter on Wednesday. 

My speed still isn't what I want it to be to write two books simultaneously, so I'm going to start focusing a bit more on Essence Wave 2. My current thought is to write two chapters of it and one of Legacy. I'll do my best to keep ahead enough that I can keep posting one and one and just build a backlog of Essence Wave, but no guarantee. This way, I'm hoping to get Essence Wave first draft done by the end of March, and then Legacy will finish up probably end of April/mid-May. 

That's my goal anyway. Wish me luck! And as always, enjoy!

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

“Are you sure they are okay?” I asked Sia while staring at the pond.

“Yes. Zimnodlot says they are merely resting after successfully processing the pills. Their methodology was very different and more effective than yours. Why did you two not,” Sia started to say.

“Nope, not going there again,” I said, reaching up to pinch his beak shut even though he wasn’t talking out of it.

“Going where?” Vaya asked, walking over from where she was examining a plant at the edge of the water.

“Sia was about to describe how Jon and Bridget gathered together after taking the pills,” I grumbled at her, giving the bird on my shoulder a stink eye. Of course, I ended up marveling at his new plumage, the swirl of colors signifying his evolution catching my eye.

“How did they?” Vaya asked.

“Dual gathering,” I said, blushing.

“Ah. I am not surprised they learned a gathering technique like that,” she smiled happily.

“Jon plans to betrothe her as soon as he can. They are already planning their joining ceremony,” I said, reaching out and taking her hand.

“Good for them,” Vaya smiled at me. “So what shall we do while we wait? Lampart is stalking a bunny of some kind.”

“Sia, can you see if you see anything interesting from the air?” I asked. “What was that plant you were looking at?” I turned back to Vaya while Sia leapt off my shoulder. His wings elongated as he increased in size rapidly, the change coming easier and faster now.

“I think it is related to Watercress, but I have never seen it this color before,” she told me, leading me by the hand. The bundle of greens growing out of the shallows of the pond waved merrily at us. Unlike normal Watercress, at least for this planet, it didn’t have a streak of deep blue in the center of each leaf. Rather, a pale lavender color lined the veins of the leaves.

“That is weird. Nothing about it in the book?” I asked.

“Nope. I am not sure how we could harvest it and keep it alive,” she frowned.

“Probably not worth it, but cutting a few leaves and drying them out should let us at least ask Librarian Narwan once we leave,” I said.

She nodded, then bent over and separated a fifth of the fronds. She released my hand and pulled a small sickle from her pack, then carefully cut the stems about a third of the way from the bottom. A portion got separated out, “I am going to wrap those in waterproof fabric and see if they will last wet,” she explained, then laid the others on a small Formation plate that pulled the water out of whatever was placed upon it. “Can you feed some Fire Aether into this?” She gestured at it. “It will work faster that way.”

“Sure,” I said, grinning at her. “Happy to be able to help.” I sat next to it, the slightly soggy ground making my bottom wet, but I’d long ago grown past tiny inconveniences.

“Slowly though,” she cautioned. “Too fast and you will burn them.”

I nodded before leaning forward to place a finger on the activation rune of the Formation. Falling into my center, I quickly guided a tiny stream of Fire Aether up through my blood vessel meridian, following each split until it reached my pointer finger. I peeled off even smaller snippets of the line, almost like a string cheese stick, until I got a line only three motes thick. Probably going overboard here, but whatever, I laughed internally, then gently pushed the Aether through my skin into the Formation.

It absorbed it hungrily, the runes throughout lighting up with a bright red glow. They flickered, the flow not quite enough, so I pulled slightly more out. The color stabilized, and two of the runes on the far side started to fill in the deep blue of Water Aether. A channel carved into the Formation guided a tiny drop of water away from the cuttings to drip onto the ground. I watched the interplay of Fire, Air, and Wood Aether, the Formation pulling Air into a rune, heating it up with Fire, and then running it through the plants cushioned by a thin layer of Wood. Water Aether and drips of physical water were pulled out, the other types converted as they flowed.

It took twenty minutes before the two runes filled in fully. “Thank you Aiden,” Vaya said. “They are done.”

“That was really neat,” I said. “It seemed to transform the Wood and Fire Aether into Water. I wonder if there is a way to do this with other Aethers, or maybe some combined ones.”

“I have another Formation that uses Water and Wood only to pull the water out,” Vaya said. “But it is not as effective. Fire and Air help pull the Water out of the plant’s cells more effectively. The Wood is to prevent the cuttings from burning. I am unsure why the Formation does not use any composite Aethers.”

“Might be harder to create, so these are done cheaply,” I shrugged. “Or it could be that the Ashkhas got the best ones and we got simpler Formations. Or maybe we just need to feed in a composite Aether to get it to work with composite Aethers.”

“Good point,” Vaya nodded. “I will look to see if there is a good composite to try.” She moved off to the side and started to read. After only a few minutes, though, bubbles rose from the pond, followed closely by Jon, Bridget, and their Bonds.

“How are you?” I asked, moving to check on them.

“I feel amazing!” Bridget shouted. “Is this what gathering was like for you all the time?”

“Not quite,” I laughed.

“Did you know that pill would open meridians?” Jon asked. I turned to him. “Yeah. I think I got three more open, all connecting to individual organs. I feel stronger and more complete. It is so weird and awesome!”

“I’m glad,” I grabbed his proffered wrist. “Now you’ll be able to keep up even better!”

“Now that we are all rested, shall we move on?” Bridget asked.

“In a bit,” Vaya said. “I want to explore the pond a bit more. Did you see any useful or interesting plants or fish?”

“I was not looking,” Bridget said, then she shrugged. “Let me look.” She turned and dove back into the water.

I burst out laughing, then followed. We spent an hour looking for things to harvest, though a good portion of that ended up being used to roughhouse and splash around instead. At the end of the hour, I dragged Jon out of the pool and we collapsed in the sunshine. “I wonder if that is our sun,” I said, pointing up. “It looks the same, but how, why? There are so many mysteries here, and I can’t wait to find out some answers.”

“Well, we need to explore some more if you want them,” Jon said.

I held my hand up for a high-five, and he obliged, then I hopped to my feet and pulled him up. Vaya and Bridget were walking out of the pond, chatting about a large fruit they’d found, so the two of us boys took a second to appreciate the view. The girls caught us, and Vaya put her hands on her hips and gave us both a glare. “What?” I asked innocently.

“You know what,” Bridget said, mimicking Vaya’s glare. We laughed, and after a few seconds, they did too.

“Fine, we should get dry and then leave,” Vaya said, a fond smile on her face. A few applications of Air, Fire, Water, and Ice Aether later, and we were all dry. We then quickly geared up, putting on armor and weapons, and packed up the bags. We decided to head inward more while still traveling sunward around the circle. Lampart, Zimnodlot, and Sia were exploring ahead while Kami and Bridget led the five of us moving into the trees. After fifteen or so minutes, we reached a line in the dirt.

Sia was the first to cross into the demarcated area, and exclaimed, “Whoa, the gravity increases again. Aether is thicker too.”

“Thanks. Be careful,” I responded to him. I told the others, while Sia and Zimnodlot turned around and discovered exactly where the change happened.

We hurried to that location and found the line. I looked closely, but couldn’t see any Aether moving in the lighter brown dirt. Vaya and Bridget moved to either side of me, but couldn’t find anything either. “Well, at least the Aether is thicker,” Jon said after we all shrugged. “Even if we do not find any more useful harvests, we can still gather faster.”

“Knight Kaminski did say that getting closer to the center had more interesting items,” Vaya said, “though no one has ever been able to get to the true center. There is a boundary like this one that cannot be crossed.”

“Probably where the Tower is,” I said with a shrug. “Sia, did you see anything interesting up ahead?”

“There is a clearing half a kilometer ahead,” Sia told me. “I did not see anything in it, but you might want to check it out.”

The others agreed and we moved forward. Twenty meters ahead, Lampart faded out of the undergrowth with a very large bunny in her mouth. Delight danced in her eyes when she dropped it in front of Vaya. “Ooh, nice,” Vaya said. “We’ll skin it once we get some more, okay?”

The large cat huffed, then faded away again. Another fifty meters later, and Kami moved off after hooting at Bridget. “Kami smells something,” she told the rest of us. We followed her over, and the pangolin dug into the ground at the base of a tree. She quickly unearthed a small patch of truffle mushrooms that were solid black with tiny glitters of green and brown throughout their surface.

“Ooh, Black Green Truffles, but they have Earth Aether too. That is rare, great job Kami!” Vaya exclaimed. “Let me harvest half of this. Jon, can you mark it on your map?”

“Sure thing,” Jon said, pulling the large parchment out of his backpack.

Bridget took the time to skin the rabbit, its light brown fur soft and smooth. “Huh,” she said. “First time I have ever seen a level three Core from a bunny.” She laughed. “Weird Aether though.”

I walked over and picked it up. The Aether was the same light brown that the bunny’s core was. Nothing about it shouted to me what it was, even with my Aether Sight. I extended my Aether senses into it. The feeling of Earth came from it, but it was softer, more diffuse. “Dirt, Sand maybe?” I said. “Not sure.”

“Neat,” she told me. She returned to butchering the meat, setting aside a large portion to give to Lampart as a reward.

Ten more minutes passed before we moved on. The pattern continued, with Zimnodlot or Lampart returning with hunted Beasts or Sia, Kami, or me spotting something interesting every couple dozen meters or so. This made the five hundred meter trip to the next clearing take almost three hours instead of a few minutes. Finally, we reached the edge of the clearing.

It was mostly full of hip high bushes covered with a rainbow of berry colors. All of them were shaped like raspberries, but only a few of them were red. The full spectrum of Elemental colors except black appeared, including a single bush at the center whose berries were glowing so brightly white that it was almost painful to look at. “Wow!” Jon exclaimed.

“Some of each plant,” I said. “Stay close to each other, though. Bonds, you’re on watch.”

Kami grunted at me, and Bridget translated, “Kami says she can harvest some of them with her claws and tongue.”

“Okay, fine,” I laughed. “You just want to eat some.” I reached over and scratched her shining scales. “Sia, Zimnodlot, Lampart, can you scout around? We’ve gotten a great harvest so far, so let’s not take any chances.” I looked over to Vaya and winked. “Also, save the Light bush for last. You know, in case there is a watcher who will object to our stealing their berries.”

“Really? You know, if I had not gotten us chased by that Wolverine, we would not have found that Dungeon,” Vaya said. “So really, it was because of me that we got the pseudo-Seed Cores.” She sniffed, putting her nose in the air.

“Yup, sure is,” I said. “Still scary.”

Vaya and I went to our left, while Jon, Bridget, and Kami went to the right. I reached the first bush with bright green berries and dropped my bag on the ground. From it, I dug out a dozen small white jade boxes with preservation Inscriptions on them, each able to hold about two fists worth of stuff. I carefully plucked twenty berries that gave a feeling of growing and life from their Aether and moved on. Fire, Air, Water, even Lightning raspberries were all around, and I quickly filled up the boxes I’d allocated without reaching the other side.

“There is too much,” Vaya said.

“Well, fill a bag instead of a preservation box,” I said. “We’ll eat them over the next few days.” I looked over to see Jon had smears of purple and blue juice on his cheeks already. “Looks like the others are already partaking.” I laughed, then pulled an extra helping of the glowing yellow fruits from the plant I was harvesting.

They tasted tingly, extra tart, but still sweet. The fruit was easily a level three, if not four, and I could feel the Aether in my chest rise up to meet the Aether of the berries. A tiny rush flowed through my digestion meridian, leaving it feeling the most miniscule amount stronger. I ate some more, and the effect strengthened slightly before plateauing. I tried to move the Aether from the berries elsewhere, but it refused to be guided away from my center, mixing into my personal Aether and losing whatever effect it had. Except, my center felt sturdier as well.

I moved forward and pulled some silver berries off the next tree. They tasted more bitter, the tang of iron almost overwhelming the sweet flavor entirely. Again, my center and digestion meridian felt a bit stronger, though now a feeling of being off balance came as well. “Make sure to eat berries of each Aether type,” I called out.

“Well, duh,” Jon yelled back.

“Eat means to put in your mouth, not smear on your cheeks!” I shouted across the clearing. He laughed, then threw a brown berry at me. It missed by almost a meter, not being particularly aerodynamic.

“Why wasn’t this on the map?” I asked him when we met at the other edge of the clearing.

“No idea,” he said. “It might be new. We are right here,” he pointed at the spot he’d just marked. “This has been explored before, but the notes said there was only a single berry bush here that was Fire aspected. The note is from almost thirty years ago, though.”

“Guess people avoided it for a while and it became overgrown,” I shrugged.

“Or something has changed,” Vaya said. “The Aether is thicker than I thought it would be. No one has ever mentioned finding caves with carvings in them. Something feels different about this time.”

“It might have to do with the presence of the Chaos Beasts,” I said. “Considering the person who made this whole place fought a war against them, it might be reacting to their presence nearby by ramping up the Aether density. That could have caused the explosion of plant growth here as well.”

“Either way, more berries!” Jon said with a laugh. “We can worry about weighty topics when we get out of here.”

We slowly ate through a third of the berries available, enjoying the varied tastes and tiny increases in power each of them gave. We didn’t approach the single bush at the center, though. Finally, I finished the last berry I’d picked from an Ice Affinity plant and watched as the Aether from it finished strengthening my digestion meridian and center. The feeling of being out of balance, which had gotten stronger at first and then started to diminish as time went on, vanished as equilibrium was restored. “That was so good,” I said. “Though I do wonder what will happen when we have some of those berries.”

“I want to do some stretches and warm up exercises before we even try,” Jon said. “I am sure something is about to go wrong.”

“Really? You really had to say that?” Bridget asked, frowning at him.

“What?” he gave her a quizzical look.

She just shook her head in disgust. Vaya and I were looking around nervously.

“Oh come on,” Jon said, exacerbated, “just because I said something does not mean it would not have happened anyway.” He did some jumping jacks and active stretches.

With a shrug, I joined him, moving through a martial form for my trisula. Bridget dug out a few Inscriptions from her bag, and Vaya stocked up on healing pills. My belt and pockets already had a couple of small bottles with a single healing pill in it, so that I could swig it down quickly if necessary.

After a few minutes, I said, “Okay. Let’s fill a preservation box each, it looks big enough for that. Afterwards, we’ll grab a few handfuls to eat. Let me go first, with Vaya and Sia watching out for me just in case.”

“Sounds like a plan, boss man,” Jon laughed.

I moved through the bushes, ignoring the scratching of the branches on my arms and clothing. The bush was bigger than I thought it was when I got close, the ground subtly sinking downward until the topmost white berry was at eye level. I extended my Aether senses and pushed some extra Aether into my eyes to enhance my Aether Sight, but didn’t see or feel anything off about it.

Vaya moved up next to me, and I felt her own senses envelope the bush. With Jon’s untimely challenge to the universe on our minds, we spent almost ten minutes checking every tiny thing we could think of. Sia and Zimnodlot flew overhead, looking over the clearing as a whole. Kami and Bridget were exploring the ground around the bush, while Jon and Lampart stood guard.

After we found a whole lot of nothing, with some more nothing on top, I looked over a Vaya. “Go ahead. You’re the best harvester of us all,” I whispered to her.

She nodded, stepping right next to the bush. A preservation box appeared in her left hand and a small set of tongs in her right. She gently reached forward and gripped the stems right above the berry. A tiny blade of Wood and Water Aether snipped through the stem, separating the fruit and allowing it to fall a centimeter down, into the box. Her movements were swift but steady, borne of lots of experience and training. When her first box was full, I took it from her and gave her mine. Jon and Bridget gave me theirs, and Vaya quickly filled them.

After filling the boxes, I took out a large bag, and Vaya proceeded to empty the outside of the bush into it. No pulses of Aether, no alarms, no rampaging Beasts showed up to ruin our day. In many ways, this just made us more nervous. Once the outside was empty and the only berries would require reaching into the leaves, Vaya made the decision to step back. “I am done. This should be enough for all of us to eat the same amount as the other berry types,” she said.

“You feel it too?” I asked.

“Yes. I do not wish to push our luck. Darkness is hiding us, but only if we do not step out of his shade,” she smiled at me.

We retreated to the edge of the clearing. Nothing was happening, so I sighed, “Okay. Let me eat the first berry. Vaya, keep me safe.” She handed me the bag, and immediately a loud roar filled the air.

“Told you,” Jon said.