Shield, do dryads use tal? Dallion asked. A lot, I an.
I suppose you also think that we walk around naked, dressed only in flowers, the armadil shield said. In so cases, youd be right. Its been a while since an owner had made such a request. You never know, though. Its always the quiet ones.
Shield Dallion wasnt in the mood for that type of conversation. After spending so much ti with the armadil shield as his gear, he had gotten used to this type of talk.
No, its not that unusual. During the war we had to adapt our technology to be multi effective. The guardians in this world seem more traditional, but that wouldnt exclude the use of tals.
How many of them used tal not from this world?
The armadil shield said nothing.
The point of interest was a fair distance away. If Dallion gave it his all, he probably could reach it within fifteen minutes, give or take. That ans that it would likely take him about an hour to et up with Agnii. That wasnt going to make the crafter pleased, but then again, the ship was going nowhere without Dallion. Besides, March, Vend, and Eury were nowhere to be seen.
Reciting the nas of the Moons, Dallion leapt to the nearest roof to the tower, then continued on towards the mysterious tal. The entire trip there, Nil kept talking, explaining in greater detail that just because sothing was made of weird tal didnt an it was useful. Examples of ancient teapots were ntioned on more than one occasion, including a terribly boring story about how a war had taken place due to bad intelligence on the empires part. Apparently, one of the early emperors had been left with the impression that a neighboring kingdom was hiding so treasure of otherworldly origin, resulting in a seven-year warand the utter annihilation of the kingdom in question. In the end, it had turned out that the item was nothing more than a kettlemost likely from Earth if Dallion would venture a guess.
Dont worry, Nil, Dallion had reassured the echo. I promise not to start a war if I find a kettle.
The building the mysterious tal was kept in turned out to be a smithy. That wasnt particularly good. After going through the rooms in search of the item, though, it turned out that the prize was hidden within the wall andjudging by the sizewas a safe. That was far more promising.
Lets see what we have here, Dallion thought, and summoned the Nox dagger.
Carefully, Dallion slid the tip of the blade along the wall in the area of the safe. Cracks followed, soon forming a rough square. After several more passes, Dallion casually slid the blade over the inside of the entire surface, then gave it a strong kick. The material shattered, revealing a large tal box with three dialsa combination safe. It wasnt a model Dallion had seen in the past.
What do you think now, Nil? Dallion asked in a smug fashion, as he slid his fingers across the cold surface.
Theres no accounting for luck. However, you still havent achieved anything. True, you found the box, but its still closed.
Not for long.
Dallion slid the tip of the Nox Dagger along the surface. However, this ti, nothing happened.
Indestructible, Dallion thought. It stood to reason that soone whod gone through all the pains to hide sothing in a safe made of other-worldly tal would make sure it couldnt be destroyed by the first crackling that passed by. That made opening it slightly more difficult, though not that much.
Gen, Dallion thought. Can you tell Lux a thing or two about gears?
Already ahead of you, the echo replied. This wont be an exact science. Youve only seen YouTube videos of that.
That was true. Despite his early fascination with safe cracking and lock picking, Dallion hadnt gone beyond watching a few weeks of videos online. He was ashad to admit that his fascination was entirely due to video gas, where he was annoyed at his inability to open chests due to miniga limitations. In this case, he was hoping that Lux would get a better understanding of things and be able to work as an automated safe cracking device.
Dear boy, sotis I wonder where I went wrong, Nil sighed. You have so much potential, not to ntion two familiars with extraordinary abilities and you use them to pick locks.
Soone has to do it, Dallion joked. I thought you admired ingenuity? You never know when sothing of the sort will beco useful. What if Im imprisoned sowhere and need to escape?
If anyone locks you up in a room, youll have a lot easier ways to escape than resorting to this.
The firebird erged on Dallions shoulder, then slid into the safe through one of the dials, like a trail of blue fla. Before Dallion could start giving instructions, the safe door swung open.
Wow, Dallion blinked. That was impressive, to say the least.
Proud of its achievent, the bird flew out of the door returning to Dallions shoulder. Chirping filled the room, followed by incessant flapping around. All the praise during the recent fights had gone to Luxs head; he was acting like a child waiting to be complinted for a job well done.
Yes, Lux. Dallion laughed. You did a good job. Im sure that Nox thinks so as well.
A semi-annoyed ow sounded from Dallions echo. By the sound of it, Nox thought that the younger familiar had a lot to learn. That didnt sour the mood of the bird one bit. Beaming, brighter than usual, the firebird cald down, returning to Dallions shoulder yet again.
Now, the ti had finally co for Dallion to see his prize. There remained a slight fear that the safe might be empty. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case at least not exactly. Within the thick tal walls there was a small square ingot of tal, the likes of which Dallion had never seen before, as well as a glowing crimson sphere of light.
The mont Dallion reached for it, the sphere darted towards him, disappearing into his forehead.
Shield! Dallion jumped back, but it was too late. The sphere was gone. Has anything entered my realm? he asked out loud.
Everything seems fine, Gen replied. Ill check to be sure.
Damn it! Dallion cursed. Taking a deep breath, he tried to remain calm. For a few monts, he feared that a protector might have invaded his realm. The worst part was that he didnt dare link to it, since that might be part of the trick. It was possible that the sphere acted like a trojan virus, waiting for him to establish the connection before it could do so real damage.
Nothing seems out of the ordinary, dear boy, Nil said. He too had spent a while going through Dallions realm along with the guardians. While caution is a virtue, you would have been warned that sothing had invaded your realm. This remains an awakened realm, after all. Were not in the real world where you have to rely on feeling alone.
Then what was it?
That remains a mystery. Maybe a practical joke, or maybe
You have received Centors Boon!
A blue rectangle erged in the air.
Follow the instructions to fold the Moon Platinum into the destiny it holds.
Dal, take ingot from the box, the armadil shield said.
Why? Dallion asked, still staring at the rectangle.
I think I know what you found. If Im right, youre one lucky kid.
So details would have been nice, but knowing the restrictions of the world, Dallion just did as he was asked. There were a few grains of doubt that erged within him, but so far the shield hadnt led him astray, so he decided to trust him.
Slowly, he took the unknown tal from the safe. A bouquet of markers ergedindication how Dallion was supposed to fold it into shape. It resembled a complex origami, but unlike the sky silver instructions, Dallion could actually follow them.
Is it supposed to be so easy? He wondered.
Cautiously, he followed the first few steps. The piece of tal changed shape appropriately, as if it were a ball of putty or an extrely strange and complicated rubix cube. Once Dallion was done with half of the instructions, more appeared, letting him know he wasnt finished.
This was unexpected, but also enjoyable. The markers seed to know his limit, making sure to provide just enough instructions at a ti for him to follow. Minutes passed. The piece of tal turned and twisted. Dallion stopped wondering what he was creating and just went on with it, more eager to reach the end than anything else.
Finally, he did. The mont of joy was short-lived, though. The item flashed. The tal he was holding changed into a multitude of other talsseven, to be exact. And as for the item itself, it was sothing that Dallion had already seen.
You have created Tears of Vermilion
Dallion felt as if a lump of ice was stuck in his throat. The last ti he had seen such an item was when the Mirror Pool had forced him to find out whether it was killing their mbers. Dallion had entered the item, of course, only to find out a very lethal island snake guardian. In fact, he too would have suffered permanent effects if it hadnt been for the armadil shield. What was such an item doing here, though?
In its current form, the item resembled a ring. Only once it was activated would it change into its real form. Dallion still wasnt certain what its function was in that form, but he knew it was important enough for the Order of the Seven Moons to be involved; not to ntion that there was soone out there willing to kill indiscriminately to obtain it.
Lets go back to Agnii, Dallion thought, placing the ring in his coin pouch. Were late as it is.
No one in Dallions realm uttered a word. Even Lux had stopped chirping. Sensing its owners fear, the firebird returned to the realm, where it remained close to Gen in order to get a sense of what was going on.
The truth was that the ring had brought back concerns Dallion had put away. Being one of two people who were present at the leveling up of the other ring was alarming enough. Having found one on his own filled him with mixed feelings.
It took Dallion half an hour to reach Agnii. The crafter captain wasnt at the main square, deciding to start preparing the ship at the piers. Most of the other party mbers didnt seem to bother too much. Few of them had any crafting skills, so all they could do was carry whatever materials the woman wanted. It was an open secret that none of them particularly enjoyed that task.
Finally here, Agnii said as Dallion approached. Enjoyed the sightseeing?
Dallion wanted to reply that he didnt, but only smiled instead. Didnt think thered be so much left of it, he said. How co it wasnt destroyed?
The usual reasons. Luck and good materials.
Sa goes for the ships? Dallion glanced at the nearby vessel. It looked just as a seventeenth century ship should look minus the sails and a few masts. Not that they were brokenrather, they had never been put in place. It was as if the builders had constructed the parts, but left them unassembled for so reason.
The ships were gone when we got here. We were lucky to find so spare parts. This Agnii tapped the side of the hull never was a ship. Its just a lot of spare parts put together. I spent months figuring that out, while March was busy killing any nasty on this side of the sea. And when she was done, she started fighting things off the coast as well.
You assembled all this?
Impressive work, to say the least.
Yep. And its seaworthy. All of them are. We left them here during the last expedition to be sure they wont sink. Nice to know that so of them havent.
It was difficult to tell whether that was a joke or not. More than likely so had, though not overly much. The only thing of importance was that the ship they used on this expedition didnt share such a fate.
You think your firebird can handle that? Agnii asked.
Think so, Dallion replied in absentminded fashion. Not sure about the steering.
We have a scout for that. Eury will take care of it when she returns. Until then, I want to do a few test runs. Nothing big, just a few miles here and there with us inside.
No problem.
Want us to start now?
No ti like the present. The woman nodded. Let just do a final check and well be off.
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