Legend of Ransera

Sivan didn't dig too deeply into the history of his customers unless they became regular customers, and even then, he was too polite to semble beyond surface things, context clues, and the like unless there was a clear and present danger. Personal privacy was rather sacrosanct in Sol'Valen, and that much he had kept with him through Dalquia and the rest of Ailizane. He didn't see the future, and so he didn't really consider whether it was right or proper to speak so familiarly with Atraxian visitors. There was quite a bit of Sol'Valen he had left behind, and quite a bit of Dalquia he had left behind as well. He certainly wasn't one of the elves of her land, but he held no personal grudge against them, even if he knew he would likely be executed should his feet touch the shore at Tertium.

Khalcifer seemed content to follow Athalia around the shop, speaking to her as flames were wont to do. If Sivan came up, he would flush with excitement as well as the warmth of a hearth fire. Sivan had helped him grow into true consciousness. In some ways, he was friend, brother, father, even god. Khalcifer had only positive thoughts about his bondmate.

"Ah... there are no words, truly," he admitted. "Well, perhaps were I a poet. Wild, certainly. I haven't brought anything back, though. If I make a mistake with an Ecithian orchid, it might die. If I make a mistake with a transplant from another plane... well, what if it brings back some fungus or insect and I don't have the knowledge to contain them? They might devastate the land. It is tempting, but I think not until I have more space and perhaps... safety precautions."

Of course, he was pleased that she so clearly enjoyed his gift. As for flavors, "Well, I like so many. If you should bring me something, let it be your favorite flavor and I will certainly appreciate it."

Still thinking on the Everwilds, he sent a silent thought to Exael, who would let Timon know he could take his time with his luncheon. Still awkward around strangers at times, Sivan walked away from the counter to the door that led back to the yard and to Torin's home.

His hand rose as if he were performing some martial art or ancient calligraphy, eyes intent, lips moving with silent words. The door frame began to glow as runes and sigils, glyphs and pictographs etched themselves in a dusky, golden light. When the angular arch was complete, his hands went through some complicated gestures. He rarely relied upon "magic words" or anything like that to do his magic, but summoning circles were complex, and even if this one wasn't meant to also be an anchor through which he could create a soul-bond with an entity and pull it into his plane, the framework had to be specific and precise.

A complicated, circular glyph—or at least the half visible on this side of the door—shifted like energetic clockwork until it settled and glowed upon the floor, completing the thing.

Sivan reached out and opened the door. Though nothing could pass through save the light that their eyes would see, Hilana could feast her eyes upon a view of at least one section of the Everwild, a beautiful rainforest at dawn.

"The Everwilds," he said quietly, and stepped back.

Sivan shook his head, gazing through the window into another world. Realizing that she was looking through the window as well and wouldn't see his gesture, he added, "No."

Then, he clarified.

"I have never been to the Everwilds properly. I haven't the Rune of Traversion, though I suppose I know the... hm... address well enough that I could enjoin a traveler to take me. No. My Rune allows me to see into other realms, to communicate with the denizens there, and to make compacts by which they can travel here to work for me. Or work with me. There are limits to my craft, but overlaps as well. Just as I can do many the same thing as an elementalist can by asking a spirit to do it for me, I can communicate with other realms similarly to a traveler, but cannot travel the Aetherium with impunity.

"Perhaps for the best," he added with a quiet smile, remembering Torin's traumatic introduction to Semblance, that most mild of initiations.

"Do you see that... ginger-looking plant over there..." He stepped closer to point so she could see. "With the purplish flowers? I can sense its spirit. I could likely contract the spirit to come serve me in some way here, and in the agreement, in the crossing, it would still be the spirit of that flower. Or a spirit of that species... the rules regarding the classification of spirits are mere suggestions, really... but here, I could ask it to concentrate itself in the dirt of my garden and I could tend it as I would a seed and between us, we could grow that plant here. Not quite Traversion, but the effect is the same."

Sivan fell quiet, observing the Everwilds. He wondered if he would ever go there, perhaps with Destyn, whose people purportedly came originally from that plane.

"Actually, that's why I think working directly with the spirit would work best. With communication established, it can tell me what sort of soil, light, and watering requirements it likes best, and, once germinated, any adjustments that are needed..."

Sivan then proceeded to go into a protracted, highly detailed schedule for making such a thing come true. He finally ended it when he realized that he couldn't remember the last time he let her get a word in edgewise.

"...and, well, I always write an...ah...honestly clause? Into contracts with spirits. Celestial spirits rarely lie, infernal spirits often lie, though the cleverer ones mix lies, half-truths, and bald truths like a painter mixes pigments... Eldritch spirits, well, some of them have a concept of truth, but not all, so that can be complicated and pedantic. Wild spirits, though... Hm, many of them are amoral. Not evil, not good, just interested in the continuation of Nature. So, I have to know that I can trust the spirit to tell me if the plant will have any properties that could get out of control. Like predatory root systems or... Sorry, I should... I should stop to breathe sometimes."

He smiled sheepishly, glanced to the sister, who seemed amused and bemused. Khalcifer was often entertaining; it was, in fact, magical to watch him charm children who might otherwise be afraid of magic or elves or anything else. The world was a scary place. He tried to foster quiet wonder and awe where he could.

If his peripheral memory was to be trusted, the sister had been looking at the same set of golems for a while.

"Did you have any questions, miss?" He had been giving Hilana the bulk of his attention; he probably ought to spread it out. Then he could get whatever orders they might have before one or the other was ready to leave.

Sivan didn't realize it yet, but he was going to need a nap and some honeyed tea after the sisters quit the shop. Timon would take one look at him and tell him, or Exael would. He and Torin got so focused on their work that they needed to be reminded to eat and drink and rest, and so it would not be unusual. Timon had heard voices on the other side of the door but hadn't wanted to barge in, or perhaps he saw the magic being cast upon the door and knew better than to walk through it—it wouldn't have sent him to the Everwilds, but it might have done something.

Sivan smiled and, perhaps intuiting as he wasn't reading her aura, he said, "Perhaps someday when you visit again, I can make a contract for you with some Everwilds spirit and you can grow something yourself. I have worked as a summoner before Torin— ah, Master Kilvin opened up his workshop to me."

This dovetailed nicely into her sister's question. With murmured apologies, he stepped past Hilana to help Athalia, leaving the window into the Everwilds open for the time being.

"Ah, yes. Master Kilvin is the runeforger and I am the alchemist, but I have been teaching him artificery, as well. He rather has the knack for it and I am already learning from him as well, but... for the time being, even the things he works on, I am overviewing to ensure quality and safety. He hardly needs it, but we were both apprentices once and that is how we know to learn." He was babbling again. "Ah, yes..." His eyes lit up. "Not only can I make it look more like Khalcifer, but I could contract a similar fire spirit to you... If you feed it aether per the arrangement, it will serve you within the stipulations of the agreement. Then it wouldn't be a golem so much as a... hm, exoskeleton?... for a fire spirit. We would have to teach it how to inhabit the body and work with it, but some of them do enjoy learning new things. We will just have to find one whose temper isn't explosive when things don't come easily.

"Of course, we could also just make you a golem with a similar personality as his."

He didn't know if she would be as interested in customization and ingenuity as her sister was.

The window into the Everwilds was just that: a window rather than a door. He was a summoner rather than a traveler. A great deal of complicated magic would allow him to make a compact with a spirit on the other side and pull it through, but that same magic wouldn't allow him to travel through to the other side. He had learned, through his rune and training, to be able to cast his astral self there in order to communicate with the spirits, but it wasn't the same as traveling and it came with its own risks. The four basic elemental spirits that he had worked with since he moved to Kalzasi had been the sort who already existed on the material plane, though now they were grown stronger, more complex.

"It would just be a matter of meeting several spirits until I met the right one," he explained, trying to be informative without being condescending; he never did know exactly how much arcane knowledge a client came into the place with. "Some fire spirits delight in dancing with a candle flame. Others revel in forest fires. Some notice the sun and..." his hand floated skyward. "Well, I hope they find it eventually.

"Which is to say... hm... blending the summoning with the artificing would be most interesting to me personally, but I am supposed to be a businessman, and I can certainly go in either direction. I would be able to give you better guidance if I know more what you want to accomplish with a little fiery friend, whether automaton or spirit indwelt. The body would be much the same, though with slight alterations to make it easier for a spirit to take control of it."

Sivan seemed perfectly capable of holding up a conversation regarding these, his special interests. But he was normally all too happy to leave the business aspects to young Timon, who was a bit of a wunderkind with such things.