Glade 45, 124
"The air is so thin here..." she croaked.
"It's okay Memaw, they gave us that gem there, remember?" The young man pointed at the wind dragonshard hanging on a simple chain around Memaw's neck. It was glyphed to provide Memaw more air, flowing in gentle streams into her lungs, so high up here in the mountains. The elderly woman nodded, "Yes, such nice gentleman. Strange to see so many men without shirts, it's so cold here..." She pulled her cloak tighter around her, some leaves and bugs falling out of her hair.
The pair of Fae slowly wound their way through the Great City of the North, in no rush. They would stop, grab a bite to eat from a cafe, peer into the windows of shops with their finest crafts, mundane and magical. But still, the snaked through the city in a direction that suggested this was a purposeful trip. And before so terribly long, sometime in the afternoon, the found themselves staring up at the columns just inside the doors of the Skyforge.
The two stared in wonder at the foreign and well crafted beauty of the building. Their eyes slowly crawled across the many astounding crafts on display and watched the hustle and bustle. One look at their foreign cloaks, made of jute and linen, with flowers and leaves tucked in, suggested them to not be from Kalzasi. Eventually after enough perusing, the pair made their way to the service counter in the back.
They were greeted politely by the young man behind the counter, asking how he could be of assistance.
"Well... It's a bit of a long story..."
She started into what would grow to be an hour long story spanning at least two dozen generations. The story consisted of an heirloom that had been the family for as far back as their oral history seemed able to remember. No one knew how the family first received the heirloom, what it was, if anything, or anything more about it. And then she spoke about how her grandson had brought home a lover of his, a nice young man gifted with the ability to see auras. And when he had laid eyes on the heirloom, his curiosity was piqued, for he could see nothing. It wasn't that the box had no aura, it was that he saw nothing. Under his magical gaze, it no more existed than the idly fancy one might have in the wee hours of a sleepless night.
By this point in the story, a half dozen craftsmen had wandered over to listen in. The elderly Fae reached into her robes, pulling out a small leather drawstring sack, setting it on the counter with unsteady and shaking hands. She drew on the strings and let the sack fall open, revealing the family's heirloom.
It was a cube, covered in a wide variety of runes that gently glowed blue.
"My grandson here asked me to help him to learn the secrets of our little trinket. We've traveled far, talking to many people, and every road seems to lead us to here. All of those stumped by this bauble pointed to the Skyforge to solve this mystery." She smiled softly, looking at the cube fondly, "Can any of you help us?"
And, of course, the young and eager women and men that had gathered quickly began offering opinions and ideas. Semblance and Kinetics were used only to find a complete lack of nothingness available to them. One young lass, a linguistics student looked at the runes but had never seen any language like it before.
An older man turned to the elderly Fae, "Do we have your permission to run more invasive tests on this? I cannot promise results, and while we will be as careful as can be, we might end up damaging it."
The sweet old lady tapped the cube, her mood and energy seeming to grow with a bit of a satisfied smugness, "Only if we don't have to pay for any damages you incur from this."
The man cocked his head, then his grin grew coyly. This challenge was growing exciting. "Come with us, let us head to the workshop."
He picked up the cube and led the woman and her grandson down, with the rest of the craftsmen following in a gaggle of arguing geese. Another hour passed, and the cube was sitting atop a cracked enchanted anvil and the entire space was covered in the debris of broken tools. There was an acrid smell of burnt aether and eyebrows lingering in the room. With each failed attempt, the Fae woman laughed as though she were just a child and her grandson was busy talking up a pair of Avialae across the room.
So far, no tool had so much as scratched the surface, no magic had discerned any information, and the story of the little box was spreading like wild fire through those associated with the Skyforge. The man who had brought her down walked over to the Fae, "I know when I am bested, I don't know what you have there but whoever made it is a far better craftsman than me. But there's two here in Kalzasi that might be able to crack it. If they haven't heard about this mystery yet, I'll send some assistants to fetch them. If Torin and Talon can't solve this, I'm not sure any mortal can."
He was covered in multicolored soot, his eyebrows were gone and the feathers on his wings were singed but he was content and excited by this mystery. "Apologies, I never caught your name, got so drawn in on this. I'm Braum."
The woman smiled wide, revealing her sharpened teeth, "And I am Nytsedia and my grandson is Nysten." She watched another craftsman break another enchanted hammer on the cube, "And it's my pleasure to watch you break things."