Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 83 - World Tether (Patreon)

If the World Serpent breathed, Elijah would have let out a gasp.  But the beast upon which it had been based had no such need.  In fact, it didn’t even possess lungs.  Instead, it ran almost entirely on ethera.

Still, Elijah couldn’t suppress the full-body shudder that coursed through him the second he embraced World Tether.  It was like every muscle contracted all at once, but the effects weren’t limited to the physical plane.  Rather, it affected his mind, soul, and core as well. 

Every leaf within his mind shook as if under a heavy wind, while his core churned like a sudden storm had fallen upon it.  His body ached as well.  But his soul was by far the most affected by the spell.

His Mantle of Authority exploded from him unbidden, riding alongside rivers of ethera that snaked out to encircle Fungee’s island.  Suddenly, the landmass’s increased gravity didn’t matter.  Nor did the guardian living upon its surface.  In that moment, Elijah took possession of that island, and in a way that he could scarcely understand.

Until then, Elijah had never even considered that places might have souls.

Or spirits.

But as he watched his soul intertwine with the landmass, he realized just how narrow his perception had been.  He couldn’t see the spirit of the land, but he could feel it as surely as he felt anything through Soul of the Wild.  Soul and ethera attached to that spirit, braiding together until Elijah couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

It didn’t grant him the same sort of perception he felt through the locus of his domain.  He couldn’t feel ever stray pebble as he could on his island back on Earth.  But in some ways, he knew that landmass more intimately.

It was the difference between studying a cell through a microscope and forming a bond with a beloved pet.  Elijah couldn’t help but be reminded of Fungee.

That was when he realized something that should have been obvious.

World Tether was a powerful ability.  There was absolutely no doubt about that.  However, the bond he felt far exceeded what it should have granted him.  But Elijah had raised Fungee on that island.  He’d spent countless hours ushering the fungal colony to maturity.  And in doing so, he’d helped Fungee spread throughout the landmass.

He was as much a part of its structure as the rocks themselves.

And Elijah was fundamentally bonded with Fungee in a way that couldn’t be explained in a simple system description.  It was the connection between father and son. 

As was the case with Callux or Treebie, Fungee wasn’t Elijah’s son by blood.  They weren’t even the same species.  And yet, he saw the fungal colony as more than just an interesting project.  He was more than a pet.  He was Elijah’s child, and in ways that he could barely understand or explain.

World Tether rode alongside that bond, weaving its way into Elijah’s consciousness and augmenting the connection.  Even with Elijah’s mind cultivation, the deluge of emotions that came through the bond was briefly overwhelming.

It wasn’t like what he’d felt with the fungal thralls, though.  In some ways, Elijah felt like he was drowning.  The scope was mountainous.  It was the difference between standing in a light summer sprinkle and trying to hold his own in the middle of a hurricane.

Though even that comparison was ill-fitting, considering it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.  In fact, calling them emotions was selling it short.

Gradually, Elijah adapted, with his soul-encased World Tether leading the way.  And finally, the spirit of the landmass allowed for a full integration.  In those first few moments, Elijah was one with that island in a way he couldn’t fully comprehend.  Over the next few seconds, it faded until, at last, he could acknowledge what he saw before him.

Rainbow colored bands of light encircled the entire landmass, attaching it to Elijah’s sides.  When he shifted, it moved.  When his core churned, it trembled.  And when his mind wandered, the connection began to unravel.

Elijah clamped down with every single available leaf within his mind, and the connection reaffirmed.

Only then did he turn and begin the journey back to Agmar.

It wasn’t like towing a landmass.  He’d done that before, and the act amounted to backbreaking labor that taxed even his endurance.  With World Tether, the island was as light as a feather, and it responded quickly to his every intention.  However, the mental load compensated for the lack of required physical effort, meaning that Elijah had no room for other thoughts.

Instead, he simply focused on moving.

To his surprise, he could travel even more quickly with World Tether active.  It was almost like he existed half in the void and half in the material world, and the distance between two points shrank.

That meant that he reached Agmar in less than half a day.

Of course, using World Tether was one of the reasons he’d chosen to bring Fungee’s island to Agmar rather than simply gathering the remaining Earth craftsmen and transporting them to the dolmen.  But he had to admit that without World Tether speeding things up, he’d have been cutting it very, very close.  Now, he didn’t need to worry as much about the deadline.

He let World Tether dissipate when he caught sight of the orcish city, and he was unsurprised to find that some degree of connection remained.  It dissipated a little with every passing hour, but Elijah suspected that it would take years for it to completely fade. 

What did that mean?

He had no real idea, save that he was intrigued by the implications of what he’d learned.  Hopefully, he would have a chance to test things further.

Until then, he needed to get things done.

So, he found himself back in Fungee’s cave, with a couple dozen Tradesmen standing nearby.  He watched as Root Nexus’s cooldown ticked away until, at last, the spell became available once again.

He wasted no time before casting the spell.  The gate grew out of the ground, the same as ever, and before long, Carmen was directing people through.  When everyone made it, only she and Elijah remained.

“Did you forget about Gunnar?” she asked.

“Huh?”  Elijah responded.  Then, he said, “Oh.  I…I guess I kind of did.  Where is he?”

“Went with Illska and Ok’tarik. He said he wanted to keep an eye on you,” she answered.

“You mean he wants to watch out for me, right?”

She shook her head.  “I think he sees you as a threat.  An ally for now, but an unstable one.  He wants to make sure you don’t step out of line.”

“Thought as much,” Elijah said, a little troubled that Gunnar’s abilities had progressed to the point where he could hide his presence from Elijah.  He suspected that the sniper possessed some sort of ability similar to the lesser effect associated with Guise of the Stalker.  Even in its passive state, it made Elijah a little less noticeable, though that only really worked so long as he remained in the Shape of Withering.  Apparently, Gunnar’s similar ability was quite a bit more powerful.

Not surprising, all told.  Remaining undetected was a big part of what made a sniper effective.  But it was something Elijah needed to keep in mind so long as Gunnar was around.  After all, there was no guarantee they would always agree, and he didn’t want to look up to see a bane bullet coming at him.

“Can you check on Callux for me?” Elijah asked.

“Of course.”

“And tell him that I’ll be home soon?”

“I’ll take care of him,” Carmen said, reaching out to grip his shoulder.  “You know you can come back to Earth, right?  You can tell him yourself.  You can take care of him.”

Elijah shook his head.  “You know I can’t.  I’m on a deadline here,” he said, glancing toward the spatial rifts still inching across the atmosphere.  They were much too far away for him to see, but he knew that Orveth Kaal was still shattering.  The Poet could reverse that damage and keep the planet from being destroyed.  But then, he expected Elijah to step up and claim the world for himself.

To do that, he needed to cultivate his mind.

Fortunately, his single use of World Tether had given him some ideas on how to do that, but he knew that the ability wouldn’t shoulder the entire burden.  Probably not even part of it.  Rather, it was just the first step in the right direction.  Elijah would need to bridge the gap himself because the system certainly wasn’t going to do it for him.

“Just take care of him, okay?” Elijah pleaded.

“I will.  You know I will.”

With that, Elijah nodded, then hugged his sister-in-law.  It lasted for a couple of seconds until Carmen shattered the moment by saying, “You really stink.”

“So do you.”

“Then why are we still hugging?”

Elijah didn’t respond because they both knew the answer.  Family was important.  Human touch was necessary.  And sometimes, people just needed a hug.

After everything that had happened, that was true for both Elijah and Carmen.  And things weren’t going to get any easier, either.  They both knew that.

So, the hug lasted a little longer than normal.

Finally, they broke away, and before she stepped through the portal, Carmen said, “Take care of yourself, Elijah.  There are a lot of people depending on you.  Be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Okay, I’m sometimes careful.”

Her expression didn’t change.

“Fine.  I’ll be careful this time,” he conceded. 

“You’d better be.”

Then, without further conversation, she stepped through the portal, leaving Elijah alone.  A fungal tendril on his shoulder put the lie to that idea, and Elijah acknowledged that at least he still had Fungee. 

He patted that spongey tentacle-like appendage and said, “You be good, Fungee.  Don’t eat too many orcs.”

A few nearby tendrils waved in the air, obviously indignant.  Or maybe Elijah was just attributing that emotion to a creature incapable of feeling such things.  He still wasn’t entirely sure what Fungee was.  Or more accurately, what he wasn’t.  Where the line between a simple beast and a fully sapient creature was remained somewhat subjective and entirely mysterious.

He just knew that he put Fungee on the same level as both Treebie and Callux.  Maybe that was a mistake.  Perhaps Elijah wasn’t entirely sane when it came to those sorts of things.  But that was his reality nonetheless.

So, he spent a few more minutes comforting the fungal colony before finally leaving the cavern and going on his way. 

Thankfully, Agmar wasn’t terribly distant from the outermost ring around Orveth Kaal’s core.  Now that Elijah had evacuated everyone he cared about, he had a little more bandwidth to examine a few things that he’d so far ignored.

The first and most important was his plan for when he entered Silvara.  He knew that it was commonly referred to as the Wilderness.  Sometimes, as the Plane of Nature.  And he expected it to be an incredibly wild place where survival was anything but guaranteed.

For his own well-being, he didn’t have many concerns.  Elijah was more comfortable in the multi-verse’s most wild places than he was in any city, and he was confident in his ability to survive.  That didn’t mean he expected to dominate.  That wasn’t on the table.  Instead, he only wanted to exist, do what he needed to do, then return to Orveth Kaal when the Poet completed his task.

However, he was more than worried about his three companions. 

Illska could take care of herself well enough, but she also had a habit of going off and fighting anything that challenged her.  In Silvara, she would have no shortage of challengers, many of whom exceeded her level of power.  Beasts didn’t really transcend the same way sapient creatures did, but they could display that degree of power all the same. 

If Illska picked a fight with the wrong beast, she would be destroyed.

But maybe that was the point of her being there in the first place.  She wanted to transcend, and Silvara offered what might be an opportunity to do so.

With Ok’tarik, Elijah wasn’t certain what to expect.  Any orc that survived the inner reaches of Orveth Kaal was capable, and none more so than the warchief.  But Elijah worried about him the same way he worried about Illska.  Their attitudes were similar enough that they came with the same risks.

Oddly enough, Elijah was less worried about Gunnar.  The sniper knew how to lay low.  He was the lowest level among them, but he was also the best prepared for the potential situation.

Outside of Elijah himself, at least.

Whatever the case, being responsible for three people was a change for Elijah.  Normally, when he went off into the wild, he only had to worry about himself.  Hopefully, the situation wouldn’t hamstring his cultivation.

The second topic of consideration was almost as important as his worries for his friends.  Because he’d gained quite a few levels from the battle, pushing him to level four-eighty-three, meaning that in addition to gaining World Tether, he’d also been granted another spell.