NOVEL NEXT Book Five: Diplomacy - Chapter Eight: Aspected
I’m very tempted to turn the descent into a race, and I think Bastet and Lathani would be happy to join me, but my more sensible side stops me at the last moment. Even forgetting about mundane dangers of accidentally tripping over something and falling face-first down the rest of the tunnel, who knows what’s waiting at the bottom for us?
I do scramble down with more haste than grace, more than a little envious of Bastet who not only is far more balanced on four legs than I am on two, but also has her wings to help her keep or regain her balance.
Fortunately, the samurans have more difficulty even than me. Well, the two Pathwalkers do – Shrieks, despite his massive size, is far more agile on his feet than I might have assumed. Then again, I’ve learned not to underestimate the burly samuran because of his size. Still, I manage to catch up to them before they make the bottom of the tunnel.
“Lathani, wait!” I tell her – the nunda juvenile, of course, is the fastest of all of us and looks to be about to start the exploration all by herself. Fortunately, she listens to me even though I don’t use the Bond to compel her. She’s definitely matured a bit as, despite the obvious impatience in her ears and tail, she stays put until we join her.
You’re all so slow, she complains as we get down onto the flatter section.
“Not our fault you’ve got far too many natural advantages,” I say mock-indignantly, nudging her shoulder with my hip. She’s grown again, I realise abruptly. Distracted from her curiosity, she licks at the back of her paw and strokes at her ear.
I am perfect, she ‘admits’. I’m not going to stand for that and tweak her ear so she jumps with a short yelp-like sound, batting at me with her paw and overextending so she almost topples over.
“Perfect, huh?” I tease her. She snarls at me and looks about to jump me and start wrestling.
Are we going to investigate this cave or not? The sound of Bastet’s ‘matriarch’ mental tone stops both of us in our tracks. We look over as one to see the other four looking at us with a mixture of impatience and amusement. I cough with a hint of embarrassment and step forwards.
“Let’s go,” I say to the group, my ears still slightly warm. A head nudges my hand as I stride forwards and I can’t help but rub at those super-soft ears. Pleasure and what I can only identify as love comes over the Bond from Lathani. Without questioning myself too much, I send back my own feelings to her. And if there’s more than a little bit of familial love there too, who’s going to know? Apart from Lathani, that is.
Focussing my mind back onto business, I look around at the cave which seared itself into my memory the first time I came here.
It’s different. That’s the first thing I notice. Fortunately, not in the way that matters most.
Shrieks and Tarra both draw in identical breaths of shock as they see the sheer number of Energy Hearts coating the walls, ceiling and even floor of the chamber.
The chamber itself is even bigger than before, as if the Pure Energy has continued eating away at the stone even while it coats it in condensed Energy. Maybe it has – not all of the Energy Hearts are fixed to the walls; some are where they might have fallen if the material to which they were clinging was eaten away.
Either way, there are definitely even more than there were the last time I visited, which is what I was most worried about. Here’s a way to help more of the Unevolved to become Evolved. If River’s quick development when he was given practically unfettered access to these Energy Hearts before was anything to judge by, there ought to be at least a few more Tier twos among the village before we go down to the samurans’ meet-up in three months or so.
How can there be so many? asks Tarra, finally enough past her shock to speak, though not enough to move. River, after pausing for a moment in surprise at just how many of the things she can see, has already started collecting the loose Hearts to pile near the entrance. Shrieks, getting over his own surprise, starts helping her without a word.
“It’s a good question,” I respond, carefully starting to walk across the Energy Hearts covering the floor – not missing the almost convulsive movement the herbalist makes, as if to stop me. “I don’t know. Kalanthia thought that the Energy Hearts before were created by the pressure prior to the explosion last time, but there was no pressure this time. Unless the weight of the rest of the Pure Energy counts,” I muse more to myself than to my companions.
Explosion? the herbalist asks, sounding baffled. Oh yes, I don’t think I’ve ever discussed this in detail with her.
“River, can you explain?” I ask. My Companion easily agrees, and I hear them talking to each other as I step further into the cave. Like Tarra, I was worried at first that I might break the Hearts by standing on them, but they’re surprisingly sturdy. Probably because of how it’s less individual hearts, and more like patches of them all merging together. A bit like how cookies grow to touch each other in the oven. In fact, I might even need a pickaxe to get them all out of here.
Stopping about midway into the cave, I look around slowly. It’s definitely bigger. Is that why the Energy tunnels are thick with earth magic? Does that stop the Pure Energy from eating away at them? Or perhaps it’s caused by the Energy eating away at the stone: there was that crack which alerted Raven to the presence of the Pure Energy to begin with.
It would be good to know why exactly there are so many more Energy Hearts this time: if they’re caused by pressure, it’s a bit dangerous to try to manufacture them. If they’re caused by unmoving Pure Energy, however, and if Pure Energy can’t eat through stone which is sufficiently saturated with earth magic…. Maybe plants and animals aren’t the only things I need to try farming.
Though that’s for later: for now, we have plenty of Energy Hearts here. Curious as to what they look like through my non-physical sight – I might as well just start calling it ‘magic sight’ by this point – I close my eyes and activate it.
Immediately, I feel a migraine looming. The Energy Hearts are so bright. Not quite as bright as the Pure Energy was – actually, significantly dimmer, really – but it’s the difference between looking at the sun and looking straight into a bright light. Both are painful even if one is far more permanently damaging than the other. The difference here is that the Pure Energy had been contained only in one area; the Energy Hearts are everywhere.
Before I have to turn my sight off, I do notice something interesting, though. Switching off my magic sight, I rub at my eyes for a moment before opening them. Looking around thoughtfully, I crouch down to the ground.
“Aingeal, can you come closer please?” I ask, sending the little fire elemental an image and desire for what I want him to do. It happily shifts forwards and bobs close to the Energy Heart at my feet. Moving slowly forward, I get the fire elemental to shift with me.
Interesting. The Energy Hearts are different colours, to both my magical and physical sights. The ones before were shades of red, mostly deep crimson. These ones are red, and yellow, and green, and brown, and purple, and white, and- I’m not in a musical, I think to myself with a bit of amusement, stopping that train of thought in its tracks.
Anyway, they’re different colours, and from what I see in my magic sight, each is different there too. I’ve used my mana sight to look at both Energy Hearts and Cores before, and have never seen huge differences. Both have the Energy contained in a sort of…ball. Even when the object itself isn’t spherical.
It’s like my own Core. The Energy is held inside by Energy; there’s no physical structure to it at all. Just like I could have repaired my Core before with the Energy held within my Core – if it hadn’t broken my Core more to get the Energy out than it healed – these Hearts are made up of Energy as much as they contain it.
However, each of the energies within are slightly different. Two, I recognise well. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that they’re the red and brown ones. The magic in the red Heart shifts around inside restlessly, whirling one way and then the other, though somehow each movement reinforces the shape of the Heart even as it battles it. The brown Heart is almost the opposite. The magic within it is calm, quiet, still.
If they’re not fire-aspected and earth-aspected Hearts, I’ll eat my hat. And I don’t even have a hat to eat. The implications send my mind racing.
Last time, all the Hearts I harvested were fire-aspected. That’s why I suspect that both Bastet and River have received fire-related Abilities. That River also received a poison-related Ability after having absorbed so much of the danaris’ poison-aspected Core is just more evidence that the aspect of the Cores is important for the being’s Evolution.
But the fact remains that last time the Hearts were all fairly uniform where this time they’re not. I don’t know why; all I can do is make a guess based on what Kalanthia has said and what I’ve observed myself. What if last time the explosion is what gave the Hearts their fire-aspect? And without that, they are more ‘natural’ this time.
What if Pure Energy is a combination of all the other different types of energy? Magic energy, at least? Like white light is a mixture of all other waves of light. It would explain the odd combination of colours I noticed in the stone of the tunnel down, and the sheer variation of colours I see here.
An interesting thought.
Standing up carefully, I step further into the cavern. By this point, Tarra has joined River and Shrieks in collecting Energy Hearts, though she seems to be inclined to tuck them into the pouches she has hanging from her belt. I’ll definitely need to talk to them about how things are going to go from here on out.
Though I need to think for myself how to do it now that it’s not just my little group involved. There are lots of plans to make, that’s for sure. And I probably shouldn’t do it all unilaterally – that seems like a good way to put my foot in it.
Getting deeper into the cave, I see the shimmer of Pure Energy up ahead. Idly feeding Aingeal some fire mana, I head towards it. The little fire elemental loves fire mana, though it’s happy enough with my personal mana too. I tried feeding it a little earth mana on the way here and it rejected it with enough force and bewildered hurt to make me decide never to try it again.
The Pure Energy isn’t in a pool this time. Instead, the shimmering is reflecting up from the stream running through the tunnel below. Once more I feel a mixture of being drawn to the liquid at the same time as being repulsed by it. For now, I creep away.
We have Energy Hearts to harvest, conversations to have, and plans to make.