Legend of Ransera

Third Deep: The Haunted Reaches
80th of Glade, Year 122 Steel

"This is it," Kaus said. "Set up a base camp."

"Yes, sir," Ceran and Indric chirped in reply. They were all so young, perhaps so foolish, but here they were. Kala was quiet for a moment as the dear mercenaries began to go about their business. They would be leaders eventually, but they were still more comfortable taking orders from the twins, and they always at least seemed more confident. Their native bond gave them both a silent well of strength that lent them an air of confidence. Perhaps if the lads bonded fully and had each other on such a fundamental level, they too would develop that confidence that would inspire their company.

Kaus pulled his longsword out of the aether, making sure he was capable of doing so. Since the reception and the magic-eating clouds, he liked to live on the safe side of that question. Kala let her senses expand. Maps, perserverence, and luck had gotten them this far, but this was a realm within the Warrens that wasn't well documented. Here on its fringes, but properly within its borders, the real dangers hid. But, of course, so too did their objective. She didn't know what the Monument would feel like, but the mysterious G had hinted that the next steps required the entity's guidance.

Soon enough, she was melting runes into the white sand packed hard here. Her scrivening encircled their small camp. Fire had chosen her, and so Fire she used. When the circle was closed, she poured Fire into it. Kaus poured his own element into it: Air. Then she added Earth, he Water.

"Ceran," she called softly. He looked up immediately. She pointed out runes that she had laid at what she felt were the cardinal points, though compasses were funny here. "When you two are on watch, if you need to activate our defenses, just pour aether into one of these spots and they will answer you. Some of them will be activated by anything seeking to cross them, but that way, you can bring them up fully."

He nodded gravely. "Understood."

When he glanced at Indric, he smiled, and the archer smiled back. While not a mage himself, he trusted his partner. Either she or Kaus would have to give Ceran further instruction, however. The Warrens had tested all of their skills already. There were some injuries, but nothing Kala couldn't handle with the skills she had picked up at the Tranquil Gardens—so far.

They were well equipped with weapons, magic, magical artefacts, and supplies. Indric's bow had brought down edible game. Even Kala had, though she had cheated, using Air to fly her arrows more unerringly toward her target. This helped prevent the early depletion of their supplies, and she had made sure with her Semblance that there was nothing poisonous about the things they ate, nor nothing magically afflicting, and so far, so good. From her supplies, she brought forth a small vial that glowed faintly, though more brightly here than it did at home. Crouching by one of the cardinal glyphs, she poured it directly onto it, and the scrivened geometry absorbed it. She had soul darts, too, as well as her various soul totems, as these things were more likely to be helpful here.

The ghostwine had been brewed with a soul totem made of illumite, and the runes took on a faintly golden glow. She could feel her shoulders relax a bit, and she could see the boys relax slightly as well. In this monochromatic grayscape, it was difficult to imagine hope or joy, but her little elixir carried the faintest warmth of the sun's glow even down here. This made her all the more determined to help any restless spirits she encountered find peace in the Shepherd's embrace. Places like this felt wrong.

She sat while Kaus helped the others set up camp. It would be simple, though she didn't know how long they would abide. The Fire in her wards also did something to mitigate the bone-deep chill of the air hereabouts, but she thought she would create a bit of a witchfire when it was time for the boys to take their shift sleeping. She wanted them to rest well so they could be effective sentinels when she and Kaus took their turn.

Ealain came out of her pack, the little silver figurine that Torin had runeforged for her. She liked that the silver lady looked like a dancer; she was flattered that he had thought of her as the Silver Lady while existing more in the Aetherium than in his own body. "Ealain," she said, and the dancer sprouted wings of air and aether and took flight from her hand. She closed her eyes as a flash of silver rose skyward. It was easier to see from her perspective without doubled vision. The boys were used to this, used to her scouting ahead rather than letting them fly first. Her bauble only had a range of two hundred yards or so, but she had learned to just skirt the edges of that limit. Her vision rose to its apogee and then began to descend in an ever widening spiral, always staying at the bounds of her range, then ghosting over the sand to rest in Kala's hands within ten minutes.

"Nothing," she said for their benefit, tucking her device away. "A wasteland of sand or bone. The Desert of Souls, I suppose. But it seems as though we could navigate to the other Hidden Reaches from here..." She paused. "But given how those explorations end, I would imagine it is not so simple as it would seem." The black sun and the pale mists seemed to distort things, both to the mortal eye and the Rune of Semblance. The Rune didn't lie to her, but there was so much going on here and not enough context to understand it.

Kala pulled out an old note from early last Ash and began to read.

"Lady Kala."

Kaus had read it before, but the other boys looked up. To their credit, they had agreed to follow their benefactors even here without a full explanation. But the time had come.

"It warms my heart to see that the daughter of Akshara has such respect for the history of our people. Such questions you ask! My Guiding Lady has given me leave to gift you with a token of Her wisdom. Treasure it well and use it to point your quest on the path you seek. The Doorway to the Skyborn future rests within the ruins of Sol’Valen’s Dreaming past. A heading that only a Monument can mark. -G."

She folded it up and put it away. Then she lifted her wrist. Saedene's relic gleamed in the strange light.

"When we first arrived in Kalzasi, before our Warren March, the Ara Saedene came to us at the Temple when we were paying our respects to our father's spirit. She gave us a hair from her head, which Talon Shinsei worked into this." She let her hand fall back down to rest in her lap. "The next time we saw her, she gave me a quest. I believe it is from the Crystal Lady. I began to research because she spoke somewhat cryptically... And then this note came from someone going by G, who apparently knows our mother. It seems to imply a connection with the Masked Queen, or at least with the Ara who has acted as Her herald, though it could be... someone seeking to stop us. I believe the Boundless Gate that Saedene bade me find was one of the Hytori Rift Gates, and I believe on the other side, we will find Her... and the women of our race. Avialae women with wings. The Monument, then, might guide us to it. But they say nobody can find it unless it wants to be found, that it can call to people in their dreams. I don't know that it has called to me or not, but I propose to take the first shift sleeping in case it reaches out through my dreams. We have come this far, so perhaps it will notice us."

They nodded, eyes wide. If they hadn't worshipped the twins before now, they certainly might now. A whole race. The mysterious Goddess who had helped their forefathers escape the bondage of the Gelerian Obelisk. A divine quest. For orphans, she had given them something like a family. And now she was speaking with Gods and monsters from fairy tales.

She smiled, then glanced at Kaus. He didn't need to speak for her to know that he would sleep soon, too.

Kala got up and laid out her bedroll, meditating with her eyes closed until her mind was calm and her body relaxed, and she slept.

The Haunted Reaches were quiet—too quiet. But Kala had been raised with a certain sort of discipline that availed her to magic, blades, and other endeavors requiring self-control. She calmed her mind, she slept, and she woke. There was a woman waiting for her eyes to open. Though she felt a thrill of alarm, her logical mind told her that if the woman wanted to harm her, it could have been done by now. She rose and immediately surveyed the camp. Her boys were fine by the looks of them, their auras gently pulsing with good health. Though they were of an age with them, Indric and Ceran seemed so young when they slept. Even Kaus—she wondered if she looked so young, then realized she likely did. They said she had an old soul, but she was young, and small, and could only hope that her shoulders were wide and strong enough for the burden the Goddess and placed upon them.

The wingless Avialae nodded in response to the woman. A parlay was certainly in order, especially if she felt the boys needed to be subconscious for it. Kala didn't know that she could completely hide whatever might happen from Kaus' waking mind even if she wanted to.

"You are G?" she guessed. The woman wasn't known to her, but the mysterious G had been the person who put her on this path when she had merely guessed that there might be a Rift Gate to find.

Then again, the woman might have been the Monument, and this a dream. Kala was no fabled dreamsailor to know for certain when she was asleep and when she was awake.

"I came to the Monument's realm hoping to find it. Much of what I know of it is likely false, but this seemed to be the best course of action if it wasn't going to reach out to me in Kalzasi."

Not G, not the Monument, but someone she knew. If it was Saedene, she thought she would feel it, that numinous gravity that the Ara brought when she was nearby. It occurred to her that she might be some avatar of the Masked Queen, but she contented herself for the moment with the fact that this woman knew more of her environs than she did and she was more likely to find the information she was after if she complied. Maps were all but useless here, after all; there had to be some other way to navigate. Kaus had said he might fly ahead, but she had worried that the magics here might confound even their soul-deep bond.

Kaus was calmed by her own demeanor, and the Silver Wings took their cue from the twins. When she nodded, they all began to pack up their camp, and she helped them. That made quick work of it, and they followed the strange woman aboard. Kaus' eyes fixed on the sway of the woman's hips as she climbed, then shrugged to his sister as Kala hoisted herself up to follow. Ceran and Indric flew up to meet the strange woman aboard her strange airship. Kaus waited for Kala to leap over the taffrail, then launched himself up to meet the party.

Kala's senses were opened through her Rune, cautiously curious about the woman, her ship, and the fabric of this eldritch place.

"Yours?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but there was steel in it. The woman had claimed her, not that she had come hear to offer any fealty to the Monument. She was on a quest for the Most High, after all. She didn't know that the Crystal Lady would smite any who stood in her way, but she did have a divine mandate behind her.

"Do you know why we have come, then? Will you help?"

Kala returned the strange elf's smile, her mind turning to the possibility of underwater realms inhabited by people like him—elves who belonged in the sea, just as she belonged in the sky. Perhaps if she hadn't been born to privilege and responsibility, she might have been like this woman, captaining an airship if the Gods didn't see fit to gift her with wings of her own. But she turned back to the situation at hand.

Kaus was calm, his native ebullience stilled by the gravity of the situation. The Silver Wings were still, though their insides were awash with emotion. It wasn't that they hadn't believed Kala, but to have strange things happen to corroborate her stories was another thing entirely.

She knew the name of this ship, but not the name of its captain. The woman knew her name, though, and her secret desire, perhaps. But that bore little weight on her mission. Naori Herself had given her a quest; if she was successful and was offered a boon, she would ask for wings. But she wouldn't bargain for them. If the Crystal Lady called, Kala would answer, whether she was rewarded for her service or not.

"I don't know that we are ever ready for what the Gods require of us, captain," she replied. "I am here. The choice has been made."

"Where my sister goes," Kaus added, "I go."

"Here, here!" cried one Wing; "And us," the other.

They wouldn't have been so deep in the Warrens had they not been dedicated to the cause and to each other. She didn't know that Indric and Ceran were particularly religious, but they did believe in the twins.

"If you can take us to the Boundless Gate, then we are ready," Kala said. "Or bring us closer."

At least the captain seemed to confirm Kala's theory that the poetically named Boundless Gate was one of the Hytori Rift Gates of legend. Or—at least—the captain believed so. It was gratifying to have even that much validation of her beliefs. But regardless, she had faith that whatever the Gate was, it existed and she would find it.

Startled by the fulness of her pronouncement, Kala followed, Kaus at her side. The boys followed as well, though when the captain's commands got things quickly moving, they were only too happy to move the bulk of their gear toward the secure location a crewman showed them before attending their lord and lady.

Her Rune filtered all manner of strange aetheric patterns into her senses from the magic holding their ship aloft to the people and the world around her. Strange mist and eldritch creatures roiled ahead through a portal—a Gate? There was clearly danger ahead, and only uncertain allies. Her hand came up to hold the Stormspeaker amulet, the other to touch Saedene's relic that dangled from her wrist, lest these mists prove as noxious as Zaichaer's weapons.

She could not see whether Naori waited on the other side, nor the winged women, the missing element of her people. But she could hope, and if the Goddess offered her a boon for her service, she could sacrifice her hope of wings to bring their blessed Shinsei and his husband home safely. There were needs greater than her own, and privilege came with responsibility.

Kaus' stance widened, his wings half unfurled to compensate for the bucking of the ship's deck, but Kala, a dancer, found her center without any seeming difficulty. But balance was not perfection achieved; but rather countless adjustments and readjustments, constant adaptations to outside forces as one mastered oneself. Her eyes were open as she looked into their future.

The wind whipped her words away: "Verily, I come, Goddess."