Legend of Ransera

1 Ash 121
Nushen Peak, Astralar Mountains

The Blue Star picked them up after breakfast. The flight from Starfall only took a few hours, and they debarked near some ruins in the shadow of Nushen Peak. It was their base camp for luncheon. Kala explained how the village here had been ravaged when her House had first come to Starfall and everything had been terrible. The refugees from this place had come to Starfall, and while it was now largely safe enough that they could have resettled it, hundreds of years had passed. They had called Nushen the White Goddess, the people having a bit more animistic a view of the world than was common, but she stretched up high and white, her shoulders permanently swathed in snow.

From the base camp, though, the climb wasn't terrible, but there was no safe place to debark from an airship any higher than this. Their meal gave them a chance to acclimate to the higher elevation, higher still than Starfall. They split the weight of supplies and equipment between the three of them, but Kaus laughed and took off on his own, calling down from on high, "Last one there is a..." but whatever they were was lost to the rush of wind.

"There's a field of illumite up there," she explained, her smile wearing away as she started up the rocky trail in her fur-lined boots. "Enough that if we are careful about collecting it, the supply is sustainable. So we'll make camp near the summit, and then collect it at sunrise, which will maintain its potency. Feada needs some, but we ought to have enough for me to make a soul totem and for you to have a bit of some local magic to play with at your forge."

While her shoulders were perhaps half as wide as Torin's, she didn't shirk her share of the weight. There were pickaxes, hammers, and chisels, as well as aether nets. Everything was alchemically treated to protect them from any energies that might escape in the mining of the dragonshards, even though illumite was perhaps the most benign of them. They were still quite powerful and too much power with nowhere to go could be dangerous to fragile mortal creatures.

"Do you have any ideas off the top of your head what you might do with dawnstone?" she asked. Even if he began spitballing on the spot, she was curious how his mind worked around such things. And it would pass the time before the altitude made undue speaking a challenge.

Kala spent much of that first leg of their journey feeling as though she had gone soft down in the lowlands. Her lungs began to burn much earlier than they had the last time she had been high up in the mountains. But even still, she had an easier time of it with her Starfall upbringing than Torin seemed to. It was strange to see someone so well-muscled struggling, but he was keeping up and she was quite aware that there were different kinds of strength. She was only too happy to take a brief rest, not wanting to overexert herself or him to the point where they could not do what they had come to do up near the White Goddess' crown on the break of the morrow. That it took him that long to give her an answer was good and right to her; she wanted his first impressions of things, but she appreciated thoughtful responses as she always tried to give them.

She nodded slowly and offered him a sip of water from her canteen. Dehydration was dangerous up here where the air was rarefied.

"I would not have thought of that," she admitted with all due humility. "I like the idea of lanterns before your shop. They advertise your craft." Smiling, Kala added, "And here I thought I would be the practical one. But in all seriousness, not only what you have already mentioned, but I imagine they might even be some small protection should the Mists rise up. To keep you and Timon safe, and I suppose anyone who shelters behind your doors." The way into the Warrens was right there in the middle of the city, after all. It was a constant threat even if they did have contingency plans.

"I am hoping that a soul totem made from illumite will help me work with purer intentions," she admitted. "It would seem counterintuitive for what many consider the dark arts, but I think it will work better for healing and such." Of course, she was tempted to seek out her father's pact weapon to see if she couldn't commune with whatever sliver of his soul remained within it. Power always tempted.

The climb and the atmosphere made most of their journey a silent one. Kala was comfortable in silence with Torin, though they had not known each other long. But the exigencies of the journey required the focus of their minds and their bodies. Kaus dropped down a time or two while they were resting to converse with them. He brought glowing reports of a field of illumite ripe for harvesting. While he wasn't taking the slow road up, he had verified that all the mining equipment was present and accounted for, and had cleaned up the campsite in preparation for their arrival. And then he was off again, gliding along on thermals or whatever he did when he was flying. She only cast one wistful glance after him.

There were hours of daylight left when they arrived at the campsite. The small cabin had a pitched roof to keep snow from piling too high in a blizzard, and there was some snow despite the time of year. There wasn't much at the campsite, winds taking much of it away, though there were little pockets of snow where the sun rarely fell. The cabin had four bunks, so nobody would be sleeping on the floor.

"With two elementalists, we don't have to burn the goat dung to keep warm," Kaus noted with a laugh.

It was markedly colder up there as well, and the weariness crept in on them, except for Kaus. They had food and water, and now they had merely to rest until dawn.

"Thankfully," Kala said, "we don't need much survival skills as long as the cabin is secure." They enjoyed the vistas for a time, marveling as the sun set over mountain peaks, the snow catching the light and throwing it back in new forms. Soon enough, though, they retreated to the growing coziness of the cabin, and ate their food.

"Usually, a team of four is up here for weeks getting a proper harvest. The best quality is mined in that first hour of dawning, so they don't do a lot of work. But they also don't mine too heavily. It's a gift to be stewarded, and overmining would mean there would be nothing for future generations. They grow back so we only take what we need. Feada said she doesn't need much, but at least you know we can offer you quality illumite for future work." She smiled.

2 Ash 121
Nushen Peak, Astralar Mountains

Torin and Kala both woke to the smell of cooking. Kaus felt none the weaker for the thinner air, and so he was fully rested and awake before dawn. Kala smiled and he turned to smile back at her; for all that they spoke more in the presence of others, the majority of their communication went silently through their bond. She quickly stripped her bunk and remade it with fresh linens. The outpost would be left in as good or better shape than they had found it. Such was the way in the realm of House Leukos and the Lady's children were even more responsible for its stewardship than her subjects.

As soon as they had eaten, they were off, the oven turned low so the pyrolyth inside would keep the room cozy for their return but would not cause a fire. The small field of illumite gave off a welcoming glow as they approached, brighter for the fact that the sun had not quite crested the mountains to the east. While Kala and Torin sat on a boulder unbundling the various hammers, pickaxes, and chisels, Kaus walked the perimeter of the field, lighting the violet-blue shard beacons. Even with an unaided eye, one could almost see the glow of the dragonshards warping as the runeforged beacons pulled at the latent aether that the dawn stones were emanating. It was just a strange trick on the eye now, but it could be quite a bit more important when they were trying to harvest the shards.

When Kaus had completed his circuit, Kala stood up to hand him his set of tools and then start pulling out the aether nets, which were tied in such a way they could connect them to their belts until they were needed. Their hands were going to be full while they did some delicate work.

Her hand touched Torin's shoulder to catch his attention as he was bent over the packs.

"Torin," she said, voice hushed, almost awed. "Look."

The sun was rising over the jagged peaks to the east. It was glorious. The light was different up here somehow. Perhaps a scientist or an artist could articulate how, but Kala could not. And then, if one looked at the dawn stones, they seemed somehow to shine brighter for the virgin sunlight rather than be dimmed by comparison, as if they drank it up and transmuted it into their benevolent, crystalized power.

Perhaps it was the thin air, but it almost felt to Kala as though they sang.

The twins murmured a response to his implied call. Though when compared together, Kaus was the more ebullient of the pair, he could be somber as easily as Kala could be jolly. They could present a united front, or be entirely different people depending on the situation. Here and now, they seemed to move and speak in a strange tandem, including Torin as best they could into the dance.

Ysadrin's season had passed, but Her light illumined the illumite. Etaiss' season had come and they asked for Her blessing on their harvest.

Their work was slow. None of them were experienced miners, though they had done their homework, and Kala, at least, could See what she was doing and how it affected the dragonshards. As Kaus had lit the shard beacons, their perimeter was secure and they began their slow, painstaking work. While Torin began to work on a promising twinned shard, Kala smiled and arranged an aether net around his work so any false move wouldn't send a blast of aetheric energy into his face. The nets themselves were runeforged rather than treated with alchemical oils, and they were old. Mistress Feada might have crafted them, or even her predecessor. The illumite field grew slowly here on Nushen Peak's pale shoulder, and so the equipment was well cared for but infrequently used.

Then she left him to his toil and knelt before a shard Kaus had deemed worthy of harvesting. They had also looked for those shards that were easiest to release from their rocky grips. It seemed to her they had done a good job of locating the best quality for the least amount of work, which meant they could take their time within the limited amount of time they had before dawn moved too far into day and their catch would be less potent.

A flurry of conversation passed between them and, through the core bond, Kaus had a ghost of her ability to sense the aether. They set to work, hammers and chisels making delicate, plinking music. This was not work that required Torin's well-earned strength, but did require his keen attention to detail and care.

Eventually, Kala set down her tools and held onto the dragonshard while Kaus finished. They did not want to drop the things, even if they weren't the most volatile of dragonshards. She handed it to him with a shared smile and then went to look for something in particular: potent, clear, and small enough to be swallowed. She also hoped the one she was meant to take would sing to her in particular.