Lillene

Enjoy!

The more Serenity looked at the crystalline spheres set into the octagon, the more he realized that they were almost dungeon cores. For all that they felt like dungeon cores, there were several things that didn’t match. First of all, they were identical and completely spherical. Normal dungeon cores tended towards crystalline shapes, which meant they’d shape like crystal growth or fracture; spherical was possible but highly unusual.

Second, there was something off about the way they handled mana. Serenity didn’t think that was the lack of even a ley line; it seemed more fundamental. It might have been caused by the pattern they were set into, but despite Speaker Hulvex’s words, the pattern was clearly not a rune or a spell. There was no spellform and the rune wasn’t carrying any mana.

The more he looked at them, the more he decided that these weren’t dungeon cores at all, at least not natural ones. They had to be manmade, probably for exactly the purpose they were being used for: as a repository of some sort. That eased his reflexive horror, at least; not only had they not been removed from a dungeon, they wouldn’t have had a natural spirit that was extinguished in the process.

“So why are we here?” Serenity knew it was to show him the Eight, but he didn’t know why that was important.

Speaker Hulvex looked down. “The last Legacy is Samvi’s. The others… I thought they were dead until a few hours ago. Samvi called me down here to tell me he felt something he’d never felt before and directed me at the point where you were found. Since then, well, he was able to tell me only a little, but it is obvious; the other seven are no longer dark and while Samvi is exhausted, he has not faded; I believe his stone is the brightest I’ve seen in years. I have to know, how are you reviving them?”

Serenity blinked at the Speaker’s pleading. It was unexpected; he knew nothing about the Eight and certainly didn’t know he was doing anything to help them!

Even so, they were almost dungeon cores and Serenity did know a bit about dungeon cores. If he took a good look at them, maybe he’d see what Speaker Hulvex was talking about.

All eight were spheres slightly smaller than a baseball, but they were in different shades. There was a pale green, a pale blue, a light pink, a dull orange, a dirty white, a yellowish cream, a color that was either aquamarine or turquoise but so pale it was impossible to tell which, and a lilac. The lilac had the most color, which made Serenity wonder if that was what Speaker Hulvex meant by “not faded.”

Magesight confirmed his guess: all of the dungeon cores had some moving mana, but there was significantly more in the lilac sphere than in the others, possibly even more than all of the others combined. “I assume the purple one is Samvi’s?”

“Purple?” The Speaker looked confused. “They’re all white. Samvi’s is the brighter one.”

Why was Serenity seeing them in colors when the Speaker saw only white? All Serenity could think was that it must be something about being a dragon; it certainly wasn’t his magesight. That showed the iridescence of Arcane affinity for all of them. Serenity waved his hand over the lilac orb. “This one?”

Speaker Hulvex nodded.

Serenity didn’t know how he could have revived them, but the basic problem was obvious. “They need mana. Put them on a ley line or even better on a nexus.” The Speaker still seemed a little confused, so Serenity clarified. “The spot where the marshal found us would work.”

Speaker Hulvex shook his head. “We’ve tried feeding them mana. It doesn’t help.”

Serenity shook his head. Mana was really too general a term, wasn’t it? He meant natural mana, probably combined with essence. For that matter, he ought to study it more himself. He knew how to use the mana in a ley line but that was all he knew; if he’d ever studied it in deeper detail, it was lost over his long years as the Final Reaper or when he returned through time. He thought he knew, but the more he dug the more he realized it was all surface level. 

“It’s not the same thing. Give it a try. Oh, and watch out for dungeons. You definitely won’t want them too close to a dungeon. I’m not sure if you’ll need to separate them or not.” Serenity actually kind of wanted to see what would happen. Would the Eight share the mana or was that impossible? Would the stone they were set on make a difference? For that matter, could the stone even be moved?

“You can’t do anything now?”

It was positively indecent for a grown man to give puppy dog eyes, but Serenity wasn’t sure what else to call the pleading expression on Speaker Hulvex’s face. It wasn’t as powerful as it was on a child’s face, but Serenity still didn’t see any particular reason to resist. He tried not to sigh at his own reaction. “I can try.”

The Speaker’s smile wasn’t even close to as rewarding as Rissa’s, but there wasn’t any real reason to expect it to be.

Serenity reached out to the purple stone; it was the brightest and the only one Speaker Hulvex claimed was recently active, so it was the best first choice. If it worked, he had the best chance to find out. He pushed some of his mana towards the stone, treating it like a mana transfer; it would have to accept it, since there were no designed inputs.

The stone took the mana he held out to it like a sponge, but it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe it needed essence, too? Proper dungeon cores used essence and this was sort of like a dungeon core. Maybe that was what he felt?

The core responded almost immediately to the essence. The lilac color deepened and seemed more lively. At the same time, a thread of the essence Serenity was providing spread from the purple core to the two next to it along the lines Serenity had dismissed as not being runes. 

Serenity watched the setup as he fed in more and more essence. A little stayed in the purple stone, while more spread to the two next to it; once they brightened a little, a thread made it past them into the two beyond them. Serenity had to cut off the essence flow before any made it to the last stone; he couldn’t risk running out of essence any more than he could run out of mana. It might well be even worse for him. He was an Essence Dragon, after all.

Almost immediately after Serenity released his hand and stood back, a shimmering purple-hued cloud emerged from the now-darker purple stone. It solidified into a representation of a man dressed in simple but well-made leather armor. He was weaponless, but there was a worn spot on his belt that probably normally supported a sheath.

Speaker Hulvex bowed to the spirit. “Samvi. You honor us with your presence.”

Samvi looked at Hulvex, nodded sharply, and turned his attention to Serenity. “You. You are the one I saw before and again now. You helped us; what payment do you require?”

Serenity shook his head reflexively, then reconsidered. “Can you tell anything about the state of the world? We’re looking for a possible attack, but it starts off small and we don’t know what form it takes. If you can watch for something like that, it would help.” 

Samvi shook his head. “If we had the ability to do that, we would. Unfortunately …” He gestured towards the diagram. “I will return to sleep soon, to save what energy I can for an emergency. Watching the world would only drain me.”

Serenity took a good look at the diagram and saw that while the essence was still draining from the purple sphere into the ones next to it, it was slower than it had been. The sphere had already lightened in color, like it was bleeding the color away. It was still darker than the original lilac, but not by all that much. The spheres next to it were clearly brighter than they had been. Serenity wondered how long that would last; it might not be all that long, especially if they tried to be active. The spirit’s manifestation seemed to require quite a bit of essence to maintain.

“Can the platform be moved?” Now that he’d seen it move essence around, Serenity suspected that it was actually necessary for the artificial dungeon cores. Perhaps he should call them legacy cores, since they seemed to hold the legacy of their creators?

Speaker Hulvex shook his head. “It was built into this cavern for a reason.”

“Are you certain that will help?” Samvi seemed to ignore Speaker Hulvex and spoke directly to Serenity.

Serenity nodded. “You’ve been slowly losing energy the whole time, haven’t you? Able to draw some in but not enough to make up for any large expenditures. I’m surprised your creator didn’t include a way to draw more energy.”

“She did,” Samvi asserted. “She was gone before we found out that it had side effects. The last time it was used…” He shook his head. “Her remnant maintains that it was an accident, but I don’t think it was. She destroyed the siphon and actively tries to avoid manifesting, even pushing the energy she needs to remain away. We’d need her help to make a replacement and she won’t give that help.”

Serenity frowned. “Side effects?” 

Samvi nodded. He didn’t seem to want to say what they were. At least, that was what Serenity assumed when the remnant spirit turned back into a cloud of purple smoke and disappeared into his core without saying anything more.

Speaker Hulvex was less reticent. “It’s nothing if only a little is siphoned or it’s spread over a long period of time. That was fine when half the world followed the Eight and came to pay their respects once in a lifetime. That is why the city exists, after all, a resting point at the river and the pass that is only a few hours’ journey from here, even on foot. Only it grew fat on the trade of those who came and became a place to go even if you were not paying respects to the Eight. Fewer and fewer could make the trip, but there were still plenty until the war started.”

Serenity tilted his head and waited. War rarely changed things for the better, at least in the short term. It certainly sounded like this was no exception.

“The Eight protected the entire region, but they could not protect beyond that. I have not been beyond the Cavern, and I doubt I ever will; in many ways, that is the root of the problem. The Cavern cut the main route for travelers; far fewer come and it is less every year. The year after the Cavern’s creation, we found out what that meant. The Eight were drained and there were few visitors, so they had to take more than they ever had from us. That was the first time we saw Siphon Sickness.”

Serenity was already starting to get a bad feeling about what Siphon Sickness might be. Actually charging the spheres required essence, not mana. Running someone out of mana wouldn’t hurt them if it was through the use of Skills from the Voice; it protected people against harm. Serenity’s situation was unusual, where he had a soft limit that could cause issues in the long term. 

Forcibly draining someone of mana, whether it was with an external Skill or (more often) an enchanted item could cause permanent damage; the most common was difficulty in using magic unless the mana channels were repaired. The Voice didn’t protect others from Skills, only the user. Serenity suspected that being forcibly drained of essence might be equally bad, but he didn’t know what it might be. Unlike mana channels, he’d never seen essence channels in anyone other than himself. 

Not that he’d ever looked for them in anyone else. 

Lillene

Yeah, Hulvex has no idea how much information Serenity can get just by looking at something.