Chapter 84: 84 – Stormtrance

“Thunder n’ fury, did that just hit us?” Strol wondered.

“The circle deflected it,” Zelsys replied.

“Whoever built this place was a better aethermancer than a cabin-builder. Did any of the stones go boom?”

“One cracked, it’s still glowing though.”

“Damn, this place has better wards than most bunkers. Guess we don’t even need to stand guard tonight.”

She gave him a strange look, but Strolvath deflected her implicit accusation by saying, “You two can feel free to sleep in shifts, but I’m fuckin’ tired. Besides... It’s bad luck to stay awake in a storm such as this one.”

She didn’t feel any real suspicion - it didn’t feel like he was lying, but… A half-joking question still pressed its way onto her smiling lips, “What, are the storms here cursed?” 

A laugh came, but it was sour. “You could say that,” he agreed. “Some genius in the capital figured we could rig the weather in our favor for the first major battle of the war. I’m not privy to the details of the ritual, but since they did it the lightnin’ here seeks out the brightest souls in the area. Doesn’t do much most o’ the time since trees still have the biggest souls in the forest. Even a human soul and the soul of a tree aren’t that different far as the storm is concerned, but folks like us...”

Strolvath reached for the lightgem, and flicked it to make it flash, making a faux-thunder sound with his mouth. Coincidentally and much to his amusement, a lightning bolt struck just outside the dome and sent a tree bouncing off the barrier.

“Walkin’ lightnin’ rods,” he said, still chuckling in surprise. “Ubul couldn’t even step foot on the battlefield for most of the battle ‘cause he had to hide beneath his indestructible polearm, using it as an actual lightning rod.”

“And how’d that turn out?” Zel asked, expecting an even more extreme answer. “Perhaps Ubul’s mythical weapon had absorbed the lightning?” she wondered, conjuring the most absurd circumstance.

Strolvath laughed again, this time genuinely, as if he were just getting to the best part of a joke, “Once the storm died down, the polearm had taken so many strikes it tossed a lightning bolt the first time he swung it! It didn’t hit anyone, but fuck me I’d pay to have a photo of that.”

A raised eyebrow, a faux-disbelieving question to try and coax actual information out of him, “Why only once? Wouldn’t such a legendary weapon take on the aspect of lightning?”

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“If it hadn’t already been infused to bursting with the essentia of earth, probably,” Strolvath agreed. He gave her cleaver a strange look, then turned his gaze aside when he realized what he’d just done and continued eating his soup.

Inspired by the story, Zelsys finished the rest of her second portion and took to trying to manifest some sort of offensive Fog-breathing technique using her Cleaver, but… Nothing happened. The greatest effect she managed to achieve after over a dozen tries was to force it into a more exaggerated version of its existing shape, its teeth and the point of its blade briefly extending before they retracted to the sound of creaking metal. Strolvath observed, but said nothing. He looked like he had something to say, but also thought it would be foolish to say it.

Soon enough, the soup was gone and they had turned in for the night.  She couldn’t sleep, still. Even lying there beside Zefaris she couldn’t bring herself to drift off, and when she was confident that the markswoman wouldn’t wake, she cautiously stood to her feet and walked outside. Zel stepped over a puddle on her way to the barrier, a brief shower of droplets hitting her head, but she ignored it. 

What little could be seen outside the window had fascinated her already, but seeing the barrier at work up-close was truly entrancing. The rain couldn’t cross the barrier directly, yet the grass and bushes inside were perfectly healthy. Perhaps, it was because some of the water could cross over when it had already hit the ground and simply flowed in between the stones. 

A lightning bolt cut through the night sky and struck one of the trees just outside the circle, the violent discharge causing most of its bark and branches to slough off the main body. Thunder roared. Another bolt. Another. And another.

Tree after tree fell to the raging storm, and small fires started in the distance, quickly choked by the curtains of rain. Zelsys wanted a better look - she’d never seen such a storm. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever seeing a storm, despite knowing what it was. In her trance, Zelsys approached the barrier to watch more closely, and felt the tangible static that surrounded it. 

The air was tense, miniscule sparks came into existence as quickly as they vanished just beyond the barrier right in front of her… And nowhere else. Before she could react, a lightning bolt cut through the sky and struck the barrier right above her, once more careening into the forest. Another of the stones cracked.

Zelsys noticed, but she didn’t take this as a warning to go back into the cabin. She felt no fear from the forces of nature turned malicious as a weapon of war - she only felt the thrumming of her cleaver and a desire to climb higher. She set her sights on one of the cabin’s corners, the one closest to the puddle. Her gaze went a little higher, and what she had hoped for was indeed there.

A gap in the barrier. The circle was just barely too wide to cover its entire perimeter.

The Cleaver had no intelligence of its own, yet it still had a want.

It wanted to serve its chosen user, so it changed its shape to best fit her. 

Zelsys lowered herself, taking a deep breath and compressing her legs like springs. An exhalation and a jump that ripped the ground, trailing Fog on the ascent. She grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled herself up with another exhalation.

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