Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 28 - Cradle (Patreon)

The earth parted before Elijah’s intentions.  The resulting furrow was only about ten inches deep, but it stretched off into the distance.  Even as he carved it, one of Fungee’s tendrils snaked forward, depositing seeds along the way.  They were each coated in fungal spores which had already bonded with the seed structure.  When they sprouted, that connection would continue, with a mycelial network integrating with what would hopefully become a tree.

In the Shape of the Magus, Elijah hopped forward and started the next furrow, which was only six inches away from the last.  Already, he’d dug hundreds of identical trenches, and he had hundreds more to go before he was finished.  Glancing up, he saw Imal in the distance, shovel in hand as she dug what would become a pond.

She didn’t need to carve the entire thing.  Instead, she only needed to get it started.  Once she met that standard, she would summon streams of water to flesh out the water table.  After that, the plan was to reroute a surface stream down into the subterranean cavern they’d helped develop.

The chamber itself had existed when Elijah had stumbled across it, but over the past month, he and Imal – and Fungee – had spent hundreds of hours terraforming the space to best support Fungee’s development. 

And unless Elijah missed his guess, another month or so would be required to finish the job. 

They could have done it slightly quicker, but now that Fungee’s island was safe in the shadow of the much larger landmass, there wasn’t quite as much urgency.  Because of that, he and Imal had fallen into a familiar rhythm that lacked some of the frantic pace that had characterized his initial efforts to find somewhere appropriate.  As such, they’d both taken the time to rest, recover, and, most of all, to deepen their already-strong bond.

And to Elijah’s surprise, Imal had taken to the project like she was part Druid.  She lacked a nature attunement, but she clearly enjoyed the task.  When he’d asked her about it, she had revealed that his first impressions weren’t entirely accurate.  She was ambivalent about the work itself, but she was a goal-oriented person who enjoyed the satisfaction that came from the results of physical labor.

Elijah had often felt the same, so it was nice to find that Imal had a similar streak in her.

Beyond her was the rest of the cavern, which was almost entirely bare.  And past that was the opening through which Elijah could see the first island.  It remained tethered to what would hopefully become Fungee’s new home via thousands of thick, spongey tendrils.

Elijah continued along for a few more hours, planting various seeds as he dug one furrow after another.  But he didn’t push himself too hard.  Instead, he stopped before he’d exhausted himself.

Because he knew that even if he could keep going almost indefinitely, it wasn’t healthy.  Psychologically, it leaned on his obsessive personality that, in turn, funneled all his thoughts into a single vector.  When he did that, Elijah had difficulty focusing on anything else, often letting important things pass by without even realizing it.

Physically speaking, the lack of rest wasn’t really all that impactful anymore.  But there was just something about getting a decent night’s sleep that made him function better.  Maybe it was all in his mind.  Or perhaps it was just muscle memory.  But it felt better, and that was all Elijah needed to know.

The biggest hit that came from leaning on his obsessive nature came in the form of the social aspect.  After spending so much time alone, it was so easy to dip back into the necessary state he’d employed just after the World Tree’s touch settled on Earth.  Or even worse, to revert to what he’d been during his time on Gorveth.

Back then, that might’ve been necessary for his survival, but things had changed.  It wasn’t good for him to even dip his toes into those waters.  Not unless he truly was alone.

And as Imal’s pleasant presence kept reminding him, he wasn’t.

After showering under Blessing of the Grove, they both retreated to their temporary camp site.  There, Elijah had set up his tent, and Imal had deployed a cooking stone.  It wasn’t quite as homey as having a fire, but the enchanted stone was probably better for their purposes.

At least they wouldn’t inadvertently start a brush fire.

“Are you getting used to it, yet?” Elijah asked, referring to her adaptation to the increased gravity clinging to the island.

Imal sighed.  “Starting to,” she answered.  “I don’t know how you’re walking around here like it doesn’t even bother you.”

“Because it doesn’t.  The surface is much worse,” Elijah pointed out.  “You really need to work on your body cultivation.”

“I’m a mage.”

“Doesn’t matter.  Everything is important,” he persisted.

She rolled her eyes. “You sound like my master.”

“He must be a smart guy,” Elijah said with a slight smirk.

“He was.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

She shrugged.  “Miss might be the wrong word.  I didn’t really like him all that much, but he’s probably as responsible for me being here as anyone else.  I owe everything to him,” she explained.

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Elijah said.  “You would’ve been successful no matter what.”

“That’s not even close to true, but thank you.  It’s a sweet thing to say.”

Elijah insisted that he was serious – because he was – but Imal wouldn’t accept it.  So, the conversation naturally shifted to other things.  Stories from their childhoods were the dominant topic, but they both talked about their friends, family, and other pieces of their separate histories. 

For his part, Elijah focused mostly on Alyssa, Carmen, Miguel, and little Eli.  He talked about Nerthus and Nara, Kurik and Ron.  And a bunch of other people from Earth.  He described Seattle both before the world had changed and after.  He told her about Hawaii and Fremont and all the wonders he had experienced after setting out from his grove so long ago.

Meanwhile, she talked about her parents and upbringing as well as the little pieces of happiness she’d found in her poor childhood. 

Pointedly, neither of them spoke of their various experiences in towers or Primal Realms.  Not because those weren’t big parts of their respective lives, but rather because they were the least interesting bits. 

Eventually, after a shared meal, the night wound down, and they ended up in the tent.  Sleep came a little while later, and the next day, they repeated the process. 

So it went for nearly three more weeks until Elijah declared that it was time to take the next step.

That involved sheering off the top of the old island and exposing the forest.  To do that, Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Magus and dug hundreds of tunnels through the solid rock.  Those, along with the already-present fragmentation, made it simple enough to remove the bits he wanted to move. 

Not easy, but that was just because of the weight. But the idea was uncomplicated.

Once that was finished, Elijah dragged what was left into new cavern.  The second it was inside, it fell to the ground with a massive thud.  Whatever magic kept those landmasses afloat ceased to work inside the huge cavern.  Imal tried to explain the theory behind it, but she was far from an expert.  As a result, Elijah resigned himself to a lack of understanding.  At least concerning the internal mechanisms.  So long as it worked consistently, he was fine with that.

Once the island was inside, moving it was much more difficult.  It required efforts from all three of them.  Elijah provided the most brute force, while Fungee eased that burden through rolling tendrils.  Meanwhile, Imal used her own strength – lesser though it was – to assist as much as possible. 

In the end, it took the better part of three days to shift it into the center of the cavern, where it settled into the cradle Elijah had prepared for it.  When it was all said and done, the thing looked like a small mountain inside a subterranean cavern.  More importantly, it was surrounded by purpose-grown glyphs that not only accentuated the vital ethera, but also served to enhance the structural integrity of the cavern.

Using Shape of the Magus, Elijah extended the tip of the mountain all the way to the top of the cavern, creating a support pillar.  Fungee grew his tendrils around it, further reinforcing the column.

With that done, the next task was to seal the opening, which required no small amount of power.  For once, he managed to run his ethera dry, and on multiple occasions.  Moving earth was an energy-heavy endeavor, and he had a lot of rock to manipulate.

In the end, Elijah was forced to take multiple breaks along the way, and eventually, he adopted a rotating schedule that saw him doing the less ethera-intensive tasks while letting his regeneration refill his core.

At the same time, he continuously used Grove Conduit, which imprinted his signature onto the chamber while also providing him with a boost to his ability to regenerate ethera.  Hopefully, the impact on the grove wouldn’t be too dire, but he trusted that Nerthus could take care of it.

After all, he’d already built those battery plants.  Surely, he would have long since upgraded them.

Regardless, the process was longer and more tedious than Elijah could have anticipated, and it reaffirmed the notion that he was not a born mage.  Dealing with elemental forces was fun at times, but it lacked the nuance that he associated with his Druidic spells.  Those came naturally to him.  Meanwhile, even with the pseudo-attunement granted by Shape of the Magus, manipulating elemental flows was much less intuitive for him.

Gradually, everything came together.  The new version of the forest began to grow, helped in no small part by the presence of Fungee, the Root Nexus, and Elijah’s repeated uses of his Breath of Life. 

And by the end of the second month, it had reached a similar level of ethereal density to that of the first iteration of the cave.  That was only possible for a couple of reasons.  The first was that Elijah had learned a lot from that first attempt, and he’d adjusted his process by incorporating some of those lessons.    

But much more impactful was the presence of the old version, which functioned much like a starter.  The hard work of getting everything to take hold had already been done.  Elijah’s job with the new chamber was just to expand and improve it.

As he worked on that, Imal continued to craft the waterways.  She built streams, ponds, and waterfalls, even creating a contained marsh that took up a third of the chamber.  The addition of her expertise with water really helped take the entire project to the next level. 

But if Elijah was honest with himself, he would have admitted that her real value came from simply being there and keeping him from plunging over the cliff into the solitary obsessiveness that tended to plague him in those sorts of situations.

Then, after the fourth month, Elijah was comfortable enough with their progress that he finally declared it complete.

Standing in the center of the dolmen, he looked out over the new space. 

“I can’t believe how quickly this all came together,” Imal remarked from her position beside him.  “I’ve been living with magic all my life, but this is…it’s bigger than I expected.”

“Just wait until Fungee really gets going,” Elijah said.  He had some ideas about how to help him develop, but he didn’t think he’d get a chance to see them through to fruition.  Sure, he could come back once he left the ancestral world, but the reality was that he fully anticipated that Kirlissa or Mano might have something else planned. 

In any case, Elijah was more than satisfied with the chamber’s development.

But now, it was time to head back to the Vengeance to reunite with the rest of the dragons.  Hopefully, it would be smooth sailing for the rest of their time in Orveth Kaal.

He said as much, to which Imal replied, “I think you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Me too,” he acknowledged.  Even if the dragons did behave themselves and continue to cooperate, Elijah got the feeling that they weren’t done with the orcs.