/ Dawn / 6:10 AM / Muse day, Fourth day 4, Year 522 AC / Waxing Crescent / Zhorath's Cave / Late Spring / Cold, clear dawn light; ember glow/
"Kaida," she repeated, testing the name. Her voice was still rough. "Zhorath." She looked at the elderly Dragonborn, and recognition dawned, cutting through the confusion. "The Guardian of the Cleft. Althaea spoke of you. She said you were a myth."
Zhorath gave a single, slow nod but said nothing.
The woman pushed herself up more carefully this time, using her arms to brace herself. She looked down at her own hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. The network of blue-white lines was now only the faintest silver tracing, like a fading scar.
"What happened?" she asked, her tone shifting from fearful to intensely curious. "I was at the base of a monolith. A shatter of the Spire. I was taking readings… the harmonic resonance was off the scale… and then…" She trailed off, her brow furrowing as she tried to grasp a memory that slipped away like smoke. She looked at me. "You were there. I saw… lightning. Not from the sky." Her eyes dropped to the flute in my hands, then back to my face, noting my scales, my height, my features. "And you brought me here."
Her hand went back to her pendant, her thumb rubbing the dark blue stone. It remained dormant. "How long have I been… out?"
Zhorath spoke, his Draconic rasp translated seamlessly into Common for her benefit. "A night and part of a day. Your spark was being drained. Kaida broke the tether and brought you to shelter. You were fortunate."
"Broke the tether?" she whispered, her scholarly mind latching onto the terminology. She looked at me with intensity. "You interfered with the Spire's siphon? Directly? And you're… unharmed?" Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you, really?"
She was clearly awake, alert, and her thirst for knowledge seemed to be overriding her physical weakness. She awaited my answer, her gaze flicking between me and her pendant, as if trying to solve a complex equation.
I replied, "Well I'm unsure of the answer to that question myself, that's part of the reason why I travel. But to answer your question I am half-dragon. I am unharmed due to my natural attunement to lightning. You were lucky; if it had been any other element, I would not have been able to help you."
Her grey eyes seemed to widen slightly at my reply. "Half-dragon," she breathed, the words filled with scholarly awe rather than fear. "Chromatic blue lineage, given the lightning affinity. A living blend of mortal and elemental essence. Extraordinary."
She struggled to sit up fully, leaning back against the cave wall behind the furs. Her movements were stiff, but determined. "And you just… "happened to be travelling through the Howling Cleft when I was being consumed by a rogue elemental siphon?" There was a hint of scepticism in her tone, but it was tempered by genuine curiosity.
Her fingers traced the lines on her own forearm - the fading evidence of the spire's hunger. "The Spire… it wasn't always like this. Althaea's notes suggested it was a stabiliser, a focal point for the region's storm ley lines. "Something changed. It became a drain." She looked at me intently. "When you broke the tether, did you feel its intent? "Was it mindless hunger, or was it… directed?"
Before I could answer, her eyes dropped back to her pendant again, and she frowned. "It's dark. It hasn't been dark since Althaea gave it to me. It's supposed to resonate with concentrated storm energy." Her gaze flicked back to me, sharp and calculating. "You were playing a flute when I woke. And before, in the cleft… your presence made my pendant glow. You have storm energy within you, but it's contained." Personal. Not drawn from the ley lines."
She took a deep, steadying breath, as if marshalling her strength for a difficult question. "You saved my life. Thank you. "My name is Aeris Clement. I am - was - Althaea's research assistant. She sent me to take readings at the Spire while she investigated the source of the disruption upstream in the leylines." Her expression darkened. "She hasn't reported back in ten days. And now the Spire is actively predatory."
She looked from me to Zhorath. "Do either of you know what could have caused this? And… have you seen any sign of Althaea?"
Her question hung in the cool dawn air of the cave. She was weak but fiercely alert, a scholar adrift in a suddenly dangerous field of study, grasping for answers.
As I handed her the note I received from Althea I said, "Unfortunately this note is the only thing I know about her. I am mostly just up here due to curiosity. My guess would be that someone pissed off the elemental forces of nature and now it's imbalanced and biting back."
Aeris took the note with trembling but precise fingers. Her eyes scanned the words, her lips moving silently. When she saw the broken seal, she let out a sharp, pained breath. "This is hers. The wax, the script… 'The veil between the elemental currents grew thin.' "She knew. She KNEW it was happening, and she still sent me to the Spire." There's a flash of betrayal in her grey eyes, quickly buried under layers of worry.
She read the last line aloud, her voice barely a whisper. "I cannot return - they are watching." Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the parchment. "Who is 'they'? What was she into?"
She looked up at me, my theory seemingly snapping her back to the present. "Someone 'pissing off the elemental forces' is a quaint way to put it, but… not inaccurate." Her tone was dry, academic. "Ley lines are delicate. They can be poisoned, blocked or… redirected. "If someone intentionally misaligned the flows feeding the Shattered Spire, they could turn a stabiliser into a siphon. "A battery into a vampire." She gestured weakly to her own chest. "As I learnt first-hand."
Zhorath stirred, the furs rustling. "The mountain's hunger is old," he rasped. "But it has been sleeping. For it to wake so violently… suggests a catalyst. A recent wound."
Aeris nodded, her mind racing. "Althaea was tracking anomalous energy spikes upstream from here, near the Glacial Crown peaks. If someone is tampering with the source… "they could be responsible for this. And for her silence." She looked at me, a desperate, determined light in her eyes. "You can withstand the Spire's energy. You have strength. And you're already here."
She took a shaky breath, visibly pushing her weakness. "Will you help me?" I need to find Althaea. And if she's in trouble because of this… "this sabotage… we need to stop it before the entire Howling Cleft region becomes a dead zone, draining every spark of life and magic it can reach."
She held Althaea's note out to me, her expression earnest and fierce. "Curiosity brought you here. Let purpose guide you further."
Zhorath watched this exchange, his ancient face unreadable. The first true rays of sunlight now fully illuminated the cave entrance, promising a clear, cold day in the high mountains.
I responded, "I am not so sure about purpose, but I will help you. In exchange I'd like you to tell me stories of your world. I was raised by giants in the northern mountains so everyone and everything is new to me."
A slow, genuine smile touched Aeris's lips - the first I'd seen on her. It transformed her sharp, worried features into something warmer, something beautiful. "A scholar's currency is knowledge," she said, her voice gaining strength. "That is a price I am more than willing to pay. You have a deal, Kaida Stormwing."
She carefully folded Althaea's note and handed it back to me, then began to slowly, gingerly gather her belongings from where I'd placed them nearby. "Where to even begin?" she mused, her fingers brushing over her cracked warm crystal. "The world below these peaks is… vast. And complicated. Factions, cities, academies, wars of ideology fought with ink and spell as often as with steel."
Zhorath gave a low, approving rumble. "Stories for aid. A fair price. The old ways." He rose with a creak of scale and joint. "The way to the Glacial Crown upstream is treacherous. The winds will be fiercer, the paths lesser. You will need supplies." He moved towards the back of the cave, where the shadows hid stored items.
Aeris watched him for a moment, then turned her grey eyes back towards me. " Since you asked, I'll start with the most relevant piece: the Elemental Conclave. You have the blood of a blue dragon, so you've felt the call of the storm. The Conclave is an alliance - sometimes stable, often fractious - of traditions and orders that seek to understand, harness, or commune with the raw elements. Althaea is loosely affiliated with them. I am… was… her apprentice."
She paused, taking a sip from her waterskin. "But they are not the only players. There are monasteries that view elemental power as a test of spirit, mercenary companies that weaponize it, and empires that would mine it like ore. And then there are those, like the supposed 'they' in Althaea's note, who might seek to corrupt it for their own ends."