Their screams didn't just risk alerting beasts from the Depths. They were already alerting more Pale Ones.
They poured down the hole in a clean stream. By now a small mountain of them had accumulated at the base.
Kael let out a tentative hum, watching them begin to spread.
As though understanding they had entered new feeding grounds they stopped running south exclusively. Large portions of them were moving toward Kael awfully fast.
Lacking any real agility the ravine proved a sufficient obstacle for now, but even that would eventually fill
'I have to move.'
The thought arrived at the same moment as the rumble.
Something emerged from the shadows far beyond the mountain of Pale Ones. Or it should have, if it had any real proportions. Long arms thick as rivers and dark as the night stretched outward. They grabbed a handful from the pile and pulled them back into the darkness.
Then another arm came and did the same.
Something flickered in the Pale Ones. A brief and uncharacteristic intelligence. The ones moving toward Kael turned around and ran brainlessly toward the hands instead.
Kael watched for a moment.
Then he walked away.
When the screams had faded to a distant murmur he found a lone oak and leaned against it, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Yvette had been a real shame. Now he had no real connection to the Whitlock family and all the effort had been in vain. But more importantly. The wave itself. If the ship had been destroyed he would be forced to cross the continent by foot. Again.
"Let's just hope Aurelion moved the ship away from shore..." he pushed himself off the tree "...and is waiting for me."
Much like the surface, the Depths further north had their own distinct character. The floor was painted with flowers that had evolved to survive the cold, and the terrain was hillier, the landscape matching well with the coniferous trees above.
With an exhale Kael turned his focus inward.
He squinted against the blinding light of his inner realm and the deafening roar of his Will.
Raising his hand, a small coin-shaped mote appeared.
"How unfortunate..."
He hadn't been able to dismiss the Datum mote in time when the impact hit, so it had been forcefully dismissed. Or rather it had dismissed itself, having taken a direct hit.
like a frozen lake, small cracks covered its entire surface.
He tossed it back into the river and stepped closer.
The primordial eye wasn't actively correcting his Thoughts anymore, which implied that whatever had compelled him to claw his own eyes out couldn't reach this far down.
On reflection that was more of a given than a revelation. The Pale Ones had stopped too. He doubted they had any natural counter to a mind pathway attack.
His eyes moved to the golden cracks, as he crossed his arms.
'It'll take days for Datum mote to heal, and the only potential safe exit I know is the mine. It'll only take a few hours to get there, so... what to do?'
He didn't really have a choice did he?
Kael brushed the Crimson Arc butterfly from his thigh and returned from his inner realm.
He summoned his military cape and wrapped it around himself, then pulled out a pair of black leather gloves and slipped them on.
There wasn't much he could do except wait. At the same time waiting passively was the one thing he couldn't allow himself to do down here.
A few hours later he stood in the lily field looking straight up. He couldn't see the exit but broken flowers marked where they had landed the day before.
He retrieved Arts of Fundamentals 49 from the Stone Coffin, glanced at it, dismissed it, then summoned the coffin itself and climbed on top of it.
He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out the silver coin, rolling it absently between his fingers.
It was becoming clearer why higher ranks operated on such a different level from everyone else. Not only did their soulbound motes advance alongside them, but the immense increase in their Thought pool and regeneration allowed them to carry motes that weren't strictly useful in any combat sense, but improved the quality of everything around them.
His recent experience was the clearest possible example. A mote weaker in direct power but with an area of effect would have made the Pale Ones considerably more manageable. And taken further, perhaps a mote capable of keeping Yvette alive. None of that had been possible for him, not yet, despite technically having the Thought production to support more motes than he currently carried.
There were two paths that he knew of to carry more. The first was advancing in rank, which naturally expanded capacity. The second was mote food, ingredients fed directly to a mote as a substitute for Thought consumption. Both cost mindstones. Which was why mindstones had no ceiling of usefulness the way gold coins did.
Gold coins had a limit. Spend enough and you had everything a mortal could want. But Luminaires held different values. The number of motes a Luminaire could hold was determined by Thought production, not by physical space. The inner realm itself could theoretically hold millions of motes before running out of room. So if one just had an endless amount of mindstones, as consequence one could have an endless amount of motes.
Money. root of all evil, yet the foundation of countless good deeds.
Kael stood up and walked to the edge, noticing small vibrations in the coffin.
"Now, now. What are you?" He asked curiously.
A bird clung to the side, pecking at it eagerly.
Kael raised an eyebrow.
Peck. Peck.
The moment a small crack appeared on the Stone Coffin Kael shot out a hand and grabbed it.
"How the—"
He had crushed a rank three Luminaire with the Stone Coffin. Strength pathway at that. How was this bird able to chip it?
Kael shook it gently, watching it remain unbothered in a way no wild animal should be.
He lifted it by one wing.
"A Bloodwing crow?"
If not for the metallic underside of their wings they were indistinguishable from ordinary crows. Bird enthusiasts loved to argue passionately over which was more intelligent, most favouring the Bloodwing.
Kael narrowed his eyes at it.
Something was off. On a hunch he poured some of his Will into it.
He stumbled into its inner realm and threw an arm across his face.
Its soul was blinding. Rivaling that of his own.
'Its soul. It could almost fail rank one refinements without taking damage.'
He let his eyes adjust and settle on what lay ahead.
"A river of Will."
A strong one. Its colour was scattered sunlight across moving water, and its current had the force of a northern fjord, the rumble matching it.
Kael walked over and dipped his hand in.
"It's a Dreadborne."
To make it publicly digestible it was often stated simply. Beasts possess Soul and Thought. Motes possess Will and Thought. Humans alone possess all three.
This wasn't entirely true.
Not only were Dreadbornes left out of the equation entirely, but the framing itself was misleading. The truth was that all four, Dreadbornes, beasts, motes, and humans, possessed all three. Soul, Will, and Thought were the absolute fundamentals for life to exist at all. The difference was proportion. Beasts had Will, but so little it was considered negligible. They were still driven by instinct rather than directed by it. Motes also had Soul, though it was an unusual one that people liked to discuss whether it counted. Then came Dreadbornes.
A beast with intelligence approaching that of humans.
That was what they were called.
The Smolten were Dreadbornes. Humans were essentially Dreadbornes with everything turned up a notch.
This crow was one.
Kael, however, had never seen a Dreadborne this small.
With a splash the Bloodwing crow flew out of the river and landed on his shoulder. Its eyes darted around for a moment before it began cleaning itself with complete calm.
It had split its consciousness, just like Kael.
Something cautious stirred in him, but the crow radiated no malice.
Kael held out two fingers.
It stepped onto them and continued cleaning itself.
'Does it see me as a Dreadborne too?'
Just like his motes, this crow lacked the wariness it should have had toward a human.
Not long after, a cicada leapt from the river onto Kael's trousers.
He picked it up with his other hand and studied it. Its body had the yellow of a sunset, and its head had hues of rose red, with translucent wings. If anything, it reminded him of spring and autumn simultaneously.
'Rank four.'
Kael made a decision and let a flicker of his Will loose. The moment the crow sensed it it cawed and pecked at him, and the cicada launched itself back into the river.
Kael retracted the Will and gave the crow a small pat.
Of course. The mote had entered symbiosis with the crow. It tolerated Kael, but it could sense the threat a human Will carried.
Kael raised a finger, letting a golden tendril slither out.
The crow instantly stopped moving.
"Sorry." Kael said, flicking the tendril into its river of Will.
No matter how friendly the crow was he couldn't risk it flying away with something so precious on board. This way he would be able to sense it regardless of where it went.