The abilities of dark elves to control the wind was actually one of the less understood things in this world. I’d really become something of a test case for it, the first actual example of someone with the dark elven bloodline pushing the ability as far as it could go.

It was generally the rule that dark elves were a real ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ when it came to elemental proficiency. They had only the most basic access to each of the four main elements, but came nowhere near the ability of the bloodlines known to specialize in it.

In the case of dark elven wind magic though, it was something they were known to never really make use of in the first place. Really, the only reason anyone in this world even knew they had a wind proficiency was because gray elves like me could use it. Even then, it had never been tested to it’s limits.

For me, wind was the one element I had practiced the most out of the four I had access to on my dark elven side. Rimir had apparently gotten no end of amusement over the fact I was better with wind than I was with fire, which dark elves were known for. It should be no surprise though. I’d been trained in wind magic by a great fairy, the race known as the fourth best in the world at utilizing the element, after Rocs, Jin and the dragons of Basmu. Two of those three were literally wind elementals.

This had a way of making me feel completely inadequate in my ability to manipulate the wind. Setting the impossibly strong wind bullets generated by my kata aside, all I was able to really do utilizing my bloodline was to have some control over the direction and intensity of the wind, and create some localized wind currents. A circular wind current the size of an entire city would be completely beyond me. At best, maybe I could kick up a small dust devil.

This made the task of corralling all of these floating seed pods down toward the city significantly more difficult. I was currently dedicating a large supply of magic to the task of maintaining a constant light updraft straight from the position of the city in order to slow their descent. With the weight of the seed pods though, that really did only slow them.

Meanwhile, all the control I had for their direction came in the form of simply flying in a large circle around the city and allowing the updrafts I was using to keep myself airborne to also push the seeds closer to the center.

It took some time to circle the entire city, and the seed pods continued to drift slowly downward the entire time. I took stock of their positions after completing one large loop. Not all of them were over the city, but I would not be able to complete another loop in the time it took for them to start dropping below the top of the wall.

That will just have to be good enough then. Some would fall outside, and a lot would even fall right on top of the crystal wall. Actually, that could be interesting to see what happens considering the command I gave them. They might even start breaking down the wall, albeit at a pace too slow to really matter.

Well. With that settled, I took note of mother and Eirlathion’s position. I’d kept half an eye on them the entire time I was making my circle, knowing that if I’d ever lost sight of them it would be really hard to find them again in all of these pods that were suspended in a very similar manner to the way they were.

With their position noted one more time, I increased the strength of the updraft filling the winged leaf-glider my living weapon had become, lifting me high above all the fluff. I didn’t want my wind currents to disturb them as I flew right through the center.

I flew straight into the afternoon sun. This was another reason I couldn’t waste time making the seed cluster tighter. If I lost my opportunity to use the sun for cover, the enemy in the lookout towers would know exactly what I was doing.

After gaining sufficient height, I completely stopped the effects of my localized gusts, maintaining only the powerful stream of mana that fueled the city-scale updraft.

I allowed myself to simply glide across the cloud of seed pods toward mother and Eirlathion. And then, as I was directly over them, I folded my wings and allowed my living weapon to also produce dandelion fluff. Due to the bit of downward momentum I’d picked up before the transition, I was falling a little faster than they were, and quickly caught up.

The two of them were looking at me with strange faces as I reached their level.

[Asaren, what is the purpose of this?] Eirlathion asked, indicating the seedpods that were everywhere. [I can assume they are for cover to hide us, but why did you fly around as you did?]

[Every single one of them is a living weapon.] I told him. [I took more than just the main three sentient nature spirits when I took the bio mass from that grass forest. I also took the spirits from each and every individual blade of grass. And now, I am putting them all to use.]

[All of them?!] Mother sounded quite stunned to hear this. Eirlathion, meanwhile, knitted his eyebrows.

[I take it you have a reason for this?] Eirlathion asked. [You said before we came in here that you were going to scout the enemy with a probing attack. Did you discover something that demanded this?]

[Yes.] I said. [It is those red waves we’ve seen coming from the towers. They are some kind of detection magic. They seem to be looking for uses of the territory spell, and I think they are also used to communicate. Also, you were right about the dark gnome enemies down there. They are way too powerful to fight. These seeds should help us to avoid being detected by them so we can sneak through until we can find the boys.]

Eirlathion gave me another long assessing gaze as he processed this information. [I am not even going to ask about how you are able to control this many individual nature spirits…]

[I can’t, actually.] I cut him off as he was about to go on about something. [These are sub-sentient nature spirits. They cannot understand complicated commands, especially after being sown out like this. But, the simple command I gave them is something that should be easy for them to understand. All I told them to do was act like the seeds they are, and to absorb earth energy.]

[Hmm… clever.] Eirlathion nodded. [Anyway, we have been observing from here as well. It seems as though the residents of the city are gathering around the temple. It would be a good place for the boys to hide, but it would also bring trouble to the people if they were discovered there. I do not think this is where they are. There is also the boat out on the water. It would normally be the best place to escape from an earth mage. But, in these conditions…]

[I do not think they are in either location.] I said. [Actually, I think we should consider it likely that they’ve already been captured.]

Both of them looked at me seriously upon hearing this.

[Don’t worry, though.] I said. [That would make things a little more complicated, but we can still get them back. This is also part of what these seeds are for. Here is my plan.]

And so, I quickly briefed them on our roles.

After the seed pods had drifted further down, I used my wind magic again to generate some cross-winds, and create some air turbulence. This shook the seed pods, and caused the majority of them to burst and spray out the smaller seeds everywhere. I didn’t mind the few that didn’t burst. They just gave us more cover to blend in as we could easily be taken for un-burst seed pods.

Once this was done, I leveraged my wind magic one more time, making the air completely still. There was not even the slightest breeze to disturb the dusting of fist-size seeds and man-size seed pods that were slowly drifting to gently touch down on the surface.

I retracted my dandelion fluff before I hit the ground, allowing myself to fall the rest of the way. Mother and Eirlathion took my lead and did the same. We had all discussed what we were going to do already in the air, so we did not waste any time talking. We were in enemy territory now, and we had no time for pleasantries.

Each of the three of us went our separate ways. Eirlathion toward the section of walled-off river to make contact with the boat, and mother toward the center of the city where she would work her way into the crowd of people at the temple.

I, meanwhile, slipped into a back alley where I would be constantly on the move going everywhere in the city.

Three of the six towers built up energy. A moment later, that energy shot straight down in another red wave. However, unlike before, this wave did not sweep across the city. It simply stopped when it reached the ground. The energy from the wave had been devoured by my little plants that had been dispersed throughout the city.

The confusion and distress I felt from the lookouts was so palpable I could have probably detected it even without the fire kata's spirit effects. The other three who had not sent a wave before decided to give it their own try. They charged up the energy and sent it straight down, only to meet the exact same results as their companions.

I watched as several smaller waves rippled across the wall, and I couldn’t help but grin in satisfaction when I saw that the wave seemed considerably dimmer near the top parts of the walls which had also been seeded. However, I was actually somewhat shocked to see the tops of the walls rapidly becoming green in response to this.

Seems those little seeds became a bit more greedy for earth magic than I thought they would.

The emotions of panic increased, and more earth energy rippled across the walls. Then, suddenly, there was a series of loud cracks. It was like the sound of distant machine gun fire, a cacophonous chaos of overlapping sound.

Loud does not even begin to describe it. Each individual sound was like a thunder-clap as though the lightning had struck right outside in your front yard, and they were coming several a second and were resonating off the walls of this sealed-in town. The sound alone was enough to be considered an attack as it constantly assailed the eardrums, giving those around no choice but to press their hands tightly over their ears and buckle down until it had passed.

This alone made me wish my control over wind magic was stronger. Resistance to sonic attacks is exactly the sort of thing it would be good for.

This catastrophically loud sound finally culminated in entire sections of the upper parts of the crystal wall shattering and cascading down in an avalanche, all of which was directed toward the outside of the walls. In the wake of this, the crystal wall had transformed into a wall of knife-like jagged peaks. The crown-like appearance it had before now seemed more like the teeth of some great monster ready to bite down and swallow this whole town whole.

I slowly pushed myself to a standing position, still rattled from the high decibel levels I’d just been subjected to. I pulled some healing berries out of the pouch I’d previously received from Eirlathion and bit down on two. I still had my hearing, but my ears were ringing something fierce. I couldn’t have that at a time like this. For one, I knew from my medical training that ringing ears really did mean I was loosing parts of the higher frequency range of my hearing. For another thing, I could not have the distraction when I needed all my senses sharp.

After a short time of the healing effect going to work, the ringing in my ears cleared up. I took a quick breath, and then I looked up just in time to see three of the lights in the towers go out. I could not see it, but I felt the consciousness behind those now dimmed lights descending down through the towers and into the ground.

Well. It looks like things are progressing quicker than I had planned. These guys are decisive, and they react quickly to new situations. They definitely know what they’re doing.

I felt a sudden wave of self-doubt as I wondered if all my planning would even amount to anything.

… no. I had to believe in myself. This plan made the best use of the resources we had available, and had the highest likelihood of being able to locate the boys.

But then, the words of that demon still itched in the back of my mind. I would need the key of earth to make it through this. But what the hell is the key of earth?

All I could figure is that it had something to do with the five elements meditation. Some higher level application of the kata, I would assume. And, he said I should have access to it already.

Well then. The five elements meditation is a combat meditation. This means it reaches it’s peak in the middle of combat or other critical situations. Perhaps the best way to get that key of earth thing might be to just throw myself into this.