Legend of Ransera

Second Deep: The Otherwilds
80th of Searing, Year 122 Steel

The last time Kala had descended into the Warrens, it had led to momentous things. A season had passed since then, relatively quietly, all things considered. Now, she was back, albeit not so deep as before. It was strange to feel more normal here than up above, but the Goddess' quest had changed her.

The Territory of Earth was idyllic in many ways, though it grew stranger the longer they traversed its expanse. They had nominally come to collect terrasyte—some for Kilvin's Forge, a subsidiary of the Leukos zaibatsu, some for her own magical uses—but she could have simply purchased them. There was something drawing her back, and she had chosen to follow her intuition. A sufficiently high quality bit of terrasyte might make an interesting soul totem, and the bounty of this area wasn't only in its earth stones. They followed the curve of a river, and she was happy to see fewer signs of excavation.

Kaus was with her because of course he was. Ceran landed nearby, then kept his eyes on the sky until Indric joined them.

"No signs of danger, my lady," Ceran reported. There was a deeper relationship between them all now that they had seen such things together, but she had despaired of getting him to treat her familiarly. The other Avialae saw her as the special one, the one to whom Goddesses spoke. They had only seen Atoria because they served her family. Now they served her, whether she paid them or not.

"Found some chitter nuts," Indric offered.

He shook a bulging pouch and it rattled like a musical instrument, the seeds inside the ripe nuts making percussive music. Some could be sold; perhaps some would be planted in the Cintamani Pavilion's gardens or brought to Starfall to diversify the local diet. There was much that could be gleaned from a trip into the Warrens.

They were alert, but relaxed. Not a one of them hadn't proven themselves in the Warrens and beyond. The twins were powerful sorcerers and adept warriors, and even though they didn't need the support, their loyal friends were there as well. They could handle just about anything, they supposed. There was a brief pause for lunch and respite, and then they were on the move again.

"The river dips underground," Indric reported after another scouting. Kala nodded, knowing somehow that she needed to follow it. They descended, the river passing down into caverns lit with phosphorescent fungus and the light of dragonshards reflecting off the faceted faces of mundane crystals.

The boys began to unload the equipment brought from the Pavilion to safely harvest dragonshards: the shard beacons; the aether nets; the runeforged pickaxes, hammers, and chisels.

But Kala's feet brought her farther away, face to face with a wall that, upon closer examination, was made up mostly of crystal only partially revealed from the other stone. In her witchlight, it was illumined, and for whatever reason, she wasn't surprised to see a humanoid form within. She could hear the chatter behind her quiet as Kaus caught her thoughts and said something to the boys.

Kala pressed her hand and her face to the translucent stone. She reached out with her mind as if they were in Atoria. She reached into the crystal, her hand parting it as though it was water, her Rune of Elementalism flaring to powerful life.

Wake up.

The young Avialae felt consciousness flicker in response to her, and then things happened quickly. Had he pushed to come out or had she pulled him free? Perhaps they had worked in tandem; she wasn't certain. One moment, he was a curious discovery, and then he was a living thing bearing her down to her knees with the weight of him and his wonderful wings. She had never seen an Avialae like him, with a single horn and preserved like this. He might have existed down here for any number of years; she tried to analyze the remnants of the magic that had held him in stasis, though it was complex and she wasn't sure she would understand it before it mostly dispersed.

She could feel Kaus closing in on her, the boys likely right behind him. Kaus knew what was going on, alerted through their bond. He wasn't frightened, but this would require all their attention.

"I am Kala Leukos," she said quietly, trying not to rile him while he was disoriented. "You were hibernating in a crystal and I pulled you out. I don't know how long you were there, but we can take you to safety." She no longer considered this part of the Warrens particularly dangerous, but she and Kaus had grown quite powerful in a short amount of time, all things told, and they had the backup of their friends as well.

She was something of a healer, though, and she attempted to gauge his health. He looked to be in a bad way and she thought she might have to stabilize him before they returned to the surface.

"What is your name?" she asked. It was simple enough, and it would give her an idea just how disoriented he was, whether he had amnesia at all. It occurred to her that the crystal coccoon might have been meant to keep him alive and so it might fall upon her to keep him alive now if something was wrong that couldn't be righted whenever he had taken to his long sleep.

"Enoch," she repeated back to him calmly, hoping a calm voice saying his name and a calm presence might ease his confused panic. He spoke strangely for one of the Sky Guard, and she didn't know of any garrisons within the Warrens, but again—she had no idea how long he had been in stasis.

The loss of a bond, she knew, could be quite traumatic depending on its depth. The loss of her bond with Kaus would likely kill him, and if the loss itself didn't kill her, that coupled with his actual death would. She had spent enough time in Atoria that her mind and soul knew how to reach out, and she did so, offering him a light bond to anchor him in the here and now. It wouldn't grant her undue influence over him, nor would either of them suffer more than a headache when it came time to sever it, but it might just help him achieve some sort of equilibrium.

The boys didn't bombard him with names or speech, though perhaps the presence of her small party of winged young men might stabilize him as well. He was older than all of them, at least in seeming. She wondered if he had aged at all in his crystal, though it seemed unlikely in her medical opinion.

"Enoch, we can get you out of here safely and back to Kalzasi. Then we can investigate the whereabouts of your bondmate. I offer you my strength to help you get there." The aetheric hand remained open and outstretched should he choose a light, temporary bond to get through this experience. She was confident of their abilities to get him back to the city, but it would be a great deal easier if he was coherent and biddable.

Enoch took her hand if not her proffered bond. She inhaled softly through her teeth as he used words wildly out of date, words she had read in old stories, or heard on the streets of Atoria. If he hadn't heard of Kalzasi, he might have entered the Warrens from farther afield, or he might just be an ancient. She couldn't know for certain. He seemed weak, so she supposed it might be wiser to find the nearest outpost of the guilds that maintained them down here rather than all the way back to the surface right away, but for the moment, moving wasn't their first priority. They could set up camp here and protect him while he recovered himself if necessary.

"You were encased in crystal," she informed him. "It would take me some time to tell what sort of enchantment contained you, but I can take some time to figure it out. You are currently in the Second Deep of the Warrens... the Otherwilds. This is the Territory of Earth. There is an exit that leads to the surface. Kalzasi straddles it, ruled by the scions of Synnar. Atoria..."

She sighed, then reached into his mind the way she had reached through the crystal to wake him.

Atoria... and then she showed him what she had seen aboard the airship once it had passed through the Boundless Gate. Nessena, the young black dragon, flew ahead of the prow as they plied the Astral Sea. Atoria glowed like a jewel under twin suns. It was no longer on Ransera, and it had been a dangerous journey to get there, but she supposed if he was an ancient, that was where he would have to go. They would be the only ones who could understand him, their mnemosyte library of memories the best way to get him up to speed on all the time he must have slept through.

When she let the vision fade, she took stock of his reaction. It was likely a great deal of unlikely things for him to grapple with, but she could empathize, having found winged women, Synnar and the other Firstborn, and Garel, the Necromancer himself. That Enoch might be one of them wasn't anticlimactic, exactly, but not surprising. Mother Naori had called her to a path and she knew it would be extraordinary whether it was happy or sad.

"I know not," she admitted. "Perhaps a coccoon of some sort."

Kaus retrieved a sizable hunk of the crystal for her to study later. They did tend to work in tandem whether doing so consciously or not; such was the effect of a core bond from the moment of conception.

"Synnar the Firstborn resides in Atoria. His descendants rule the city-state of Kalzasi. I do not know if I can fully suss out what happened to you, but if we cannot do it together, then in time, I can take you back to Atoria if that is your wish. There are greater minds and greater wisdom than my own there, though the way is treacherous."

The way he blinked at them, she surmised his vision had not yet returned fully. Perhaps the mind would require time to reorder the senses if he had been asleep or in stasis for as long as he had been. She reached out and took his hand, and Kaus was close in case additional help was needed.

"Can you stand?" Wherever he could find the answers, they wouldn't be here. If he wasn't ambulatory, they could likely fly him out between the four of them, but it would be safer if their hands were free to defend him. She sensed that he was also Lysanrin; there was a part of his aetheric pattern that was hungry for lack of a better word. Perhaps he would be able to absorb energy from around him to regain his strength, but she wasn't entirely certain how that worked, especially given his unique circumstances.

"We will help you, but you cannot remain here. There are dangers even here in the Otherwilds."