Excerpt from Alexan’s Third Journal, Tour of the Shadowed Depths

The Erlkin have made me the most fantastic staff as a casting focus!

This staff is simple at first glance, but it turns out the Hollow Home can grow wood typical of all the aether trees. I have no idea how they did it, but they’ve twisted hollow, chime, char, deep, maze and glimmering wood together. And through it is a core of a gem fruit tree. One focus, every element.

It is beyond even me to use this wonderful thing with ease, but I will master it in time.

Teacher Nolsa

Nolsa began the story with a rueful squint to her eyes.

“Probably one of the most frightening experiences I had with Alamia was when I was on my way to fill in at Martyr Lake for the scattering of the seeds. A minor fever had swept through those who usually raised the wind. So the spares were called, including many Gnomes with a seed of wind such as Easil.”

“Oh yes,” Easil said with a nod. “I’ve had to serve duty a few times as well.”

“And you took Alamia with you?” Tal asked with surprise.

Nolsa’s laugh held both amusement and frustration as she continued, “I did! I suppose what happened was to be expected.”

“She does like to go find trouble after all.” Tal hesitated for a moment, then made an assumption, “So when did she start exploring?”

“Oh, it didn’t take long at all, we didn’t even make it to the lake. Alamia slipped my hand at Spiral Terrace Village.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Tal frowned as he wondered how Alamia had found herself in trouble there.

“It might not have been, if she hadn’t seen fit to walk the edge of one of the terraces, walking the fine line between safety and falling into the depths of the forest on the very railing meant to keep anyone from pitching over the edge!”

“Ugh,” Tal grunted as his stomach flipped. He’d once glanced over the edge of the terraces himself, unable to resist the allure of staring into the distance below. After the vertigo resulting from that experience, he hadn’t repeated the action.

“It gets worse!” Nolsa complained with wide eyes, throwing up her hands. “As soon as I called her, she turned to me with her best innocent expression, and promptly slipped! If Easil hadn’t pushed her back in with a gust of wind, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“I did?” Easil asked, caught off-guard.

“You did, and I am grateful for your quick thinking.”

“Oh yeah, I did. I remember now. I just don’t like to think about the idea of someone going over.”

“And she’s still perfectly fine with heights,” Tal recalled, with his own bemused smile.

“Indeed, the experience did nothing to slow the curiosity of that mink.”

The Deep Roots - Unnamed Talkarn

Tal was surprised to see the light of the barrier here as well.

It provided a dim, barely-sufficient illumination to the world through which they travelled. The light was the same diffuse white, although dimmer than what he was used to seeing even during the dead of night above ground. Tal had always wondered if the light of the barrier was transferred entirely from the outerworld or if it had its own illumination.

Down here, at the very lowest roots of Linumbra’s Hollow Home, he’d found the answer.

“Alamia quite liked this place, the underground forest,” Nolsa said as they approached the end of one of the upper strands. Below them was the described forest of roots, some extending down through the barrier, many going sideways into the rock and dirt that held the tree aloft.

“I suppose it is rather cozy,” Tal joked as he hunched over. “This place is better for the shorter-than-average after all.” Even Nolsa had to keep her head down as they walked to avoid bumping her head on the low ceiling of their tight walkway that had formed naturally between the converging roots.

After leaving the farming glade, it had become easier to avoid pursuit. The tunnels after that point broke off into more and yet more branching paths, until Tal was dizzy just thinking of all the ways to get lost.

But Nolsa had moved with familiarity, never hesitating while picking their path.

Eventually they’d arrived here below the tree. The root wall of the tunnel slowly gave away, giving them long windows to look out into the world below the tree. Tal tried not to look into the distance below, even the thought of it made him dizzy.

Looking through another gap between the roots, he could see the main trunk extending downwards towards the center of the barrier. He was lucky to see it. The gaps in the winding walkway that let them see out into the cavern below didn’t give him as good a view as he would have liked. It was both narrow and inconsistent in where it allowed one to look out on the world.

He had also seen a couple of buildings here similar to the Reach in Lisnail. “Did you explore the other places?” Tal asked, pointing at one distant abandoned house visible between the woods.

“Some of them,” Nolsa said as she plucked a green fruit from the wall as they walked. Tal pulled a few more of the earth apples from the wall as he followed. She buffed the fruit on her shirt as she continued to speak, “Some of the old places down here have seen the rot and really aren’t safe to explore. Others have been sealed by their last owners or just by time.” Nolsa took a big bite of the foraged fruit and came to a stop.

Tal leaned sideways a little to see beyond Nolsa. At least it was easier to see past her head now that she wasn’t emitting shadow like before. Now that she was putting the mana elsewhere.

A door of planks, grown through with strands of wood and looking very much stuck in place. They’d arrived, but getting in was going to be a little annoying.

Nolsa took another bite as she considered this obstacle.

“Do you want me to force it?” Tal asked. “I can probably rip some of those roots out.”

“Are you sure?” Nolsa asked, turning her head to look at Tal. “If you could, that would be better than how I would open it. Try not to break the door though, we may still need it.”

“Put me down before you go wrenching on that,” said Easil. “It’s too bad we couldn’t bring your foraging set Tal.”

“Yeah, that would have been nice,” Tal agreed, kneeling and putting his hand to the floor so Easil could climb down his arm. Placing the couple fruits he’d nabbed down at the side of the walkway, he waited for Easil to clear the way and then stood as much as he could, moving sideways to squeeze past Nolsa.

She moved back to give him space.

Tal inspected the door for several moments to try and see what would be easiest to move. The planks of the door had become twisted with time and the force of the roots, but he’d cleared worse in his regular scavenging with Easil. Tal grabbed one root and was able to yank it through the door. Another was dragged out of the way, but the next one he tried wouldn’t break loose. Tal grunted as it budged, but wouldn’t release.

“Hmm, I’m going to have to try harder,” Tal mused almost to himself. He put his right hand on the hollow wand in the wrist pouch of his left arm. Pushing aether through the wand with his hand and then pulling the converted dark mana through his arm, Tal started the process of putting it to use.

Holding it in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t last, and aside from the Sentinel, he’d never been good at holding mana. Instead he imagined the mana hitting his stomach and immediately splitting up. The going was somewhat slow as Tal pushed the image he wanted. He’d done this strengthening exercise before, but the nature of the process made it slow. Like before in the chamber where they’d fought the wyrm, Tal pushed tendrils of dark mana through his arms. From his shoulders all the way to the tips of his fingers, he imagined and pushed the patchwork of mana. At least converting mana slowly would prevent the problem of mana burn.

“Not bad,” Nolsa commented idly after a minute had passed. “Your control is still slow, but I can see the improvement.”

Tal flexed his hands with a wry smile. Somehow he hadn’t expected her to grade him even here. He should have known better.

This time when Tal pulled on the stubborn root, the greater strength and weight granted by the enchantment allowed him to pull it free. Two more heavy strands had grown in place. He didn’t make the shortest work of it but Tal managed to pull them apart without breaking the wobbly door. When he finally pushed, the door moved with a gods-awful screech, but it swung open nonetheless. That done, Tal walked in.

“Oooo, that’s loud,” Nolsa complained lightly, passing by as Tal looked about the room, the fruits he’d placed on the ground held in the crook of her arm. She quickly set them down on a little table just inside the door so she could look around.

Easil trotted past Tal and immediately began his exploration. While Tal closed the door, Easil found what he was looking for and went off sideways, moving straight for a Gnome hole built into the wall on the opposite side of the room.

The view from earlier hadn’t shown Tal much of this building. The tangle of the roots occasionally opened up to wide views, but most of what he was able to see was just more roots.

“First thing is to check the floor,” Tal noted to himself as much as to Nolsa. With the issue of weak spots underfoot, he figured any extra weight might be a bad idea. Tal unwound the dark mana he’d rooted in his arms and slowly forced it out. For a long moment his arms smoked as he released the mana into the air.

Nolsa tilted her head as she watched Tal work, then nodded in approval. “Good release.”

Tal stifled his smile at the compliment and changed the subject. “I couldn’t get a good look at this house from outside, you said it was three floors. Which floor is this?”

“We’re on the middle floor. The top and middle are about the same size, but the roof should have an open platform facing the barrier. Oh, and there’s a nice garden on the bottom floor.”

Easil popped out a small doorway to a tiny balcony set at just above the height of Tal’s head. Just far enough up that Tal didn’t have to worry about cracking himself on the noggin.

“Looks like the tunnels might be good,” Easil reported with a smile, “I’m going to keep looking around to see what might have been tucked away in the Gnome rooms.”

“Okay, I’ll start my inspection too,” Tal replied before they split up.

The house turned out to be most intact, but mostly empty.

A couple of the wall tunnels that the resident Gnomes would have used were blocked. In one place a piece of collapsed wall had fallen into a tunnel, in another the plant life had made it impassable with roots. No more tunnels were blocked, but one Gnome room held a nest of rats that Easil was soon considering how to turn into food.

The stairwells were mostly intact with only a couple of steps having broken away and the floor seemed sturdy through Tal and Nolsa’s inspection. With no exposure to the wind and the rain of the scattering ceremonies, the house had mostly just collected dust.

As for what the house still held, it turned out to be mostly cleaned out on the Erlkin side. There were some larger furniture that was too much trouble to move. Chairs and tables, bed frames with rotted out mattresses of leaves and a couple of the rooms had personal desks.

But most of the small things were gone. Cookware, decorations, clothing and anything else that people used to live their lives had been moved out in a safe and orderly manner. What it did have, was an intact garden that still had a small bounty to offer up after all this time, and a messy little workshop with more than a few broken tools scattered about.

While the view offered up by the tangle approaching the house was constrained, the view from the other side opened right up. Which is where Tal, Nolsa and Easil stood after completing their inspection of the place.

“The view must have been pretty good before,” Tal sighed as he looked out into the gap.

“The old records say that the roots below are full of outposts like this in order to watch the comings and goings of the subterrane.” Nolsa’s face glowed under the light of the barrier as she spoke.

Carefully at first, as a test, Tal leaned on the railing at the edge of the balcony. Easil sighed from where he stood as it held up under Tal’s weight. Easil stood next to Tal on a little walkway following the edge of the railing that would allow a Gnome such as him to also enjoy the view.

“Probably would have been nice to see before that was there,” Tal said, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice.

“Well yes,” Easil replied, “but you wouldn’t be here to see that view.”

“That is a good point,” Tal admitted.

For a long moment silence filled the air. It was Nolsa who finally broke the quiet.

“So tell us about it.”

“About what?” Tal asked, looking at her with surprise.

“The shadow. The message I got from Meyla was that the shadow jumped to her, and convinced her you were in danger. But she was in too much of a rush to explain.”

“It did?” Tal was surprised at first, but it made sense to him when he thought about it. He’d felt Meyla take the thing from him.

“Not to mention that you told me about the shadow too,” Easil added.

“Okay, yeah, you’re both right.” Tal rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think about where to begin.

“Well, to start it off, it’s not a shadow. It’s the Sentinel of the Seal. And it turns out I’m the only one ever dumb enough to eat a part of the sentinel…”

End Chapter