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Burning limbs all but refuse to haul you into your fishing boat for what exhaustion demands is the last time this night. Collapsing onto your back, you nearly knock over your "treasure," heavy salt air burning overexerted lungs.
Even with the help of a tamed sea beast and the life-saving enchantment bestowed half a world away, repeated forays into the oppressive reaches of the Indigo Deep take their toll. Yet you continue well into the night, only giving up at the body's most fervent of cries, resting half as much as you truly require before setting out again.
When wild breaths finally slow enough to allow a sitting position, the calm sea's reflection of a thousand glittering moonbeams holds no interest, and you reach instead for the pail of earth dredged up from the ocean floor. Tipping it toward the light, you dig and swish and sift eagerly, searching for a sign -- an unusual chunk of rock, the sparkle of age-smoothed crystal grains, anything. Each minute that passes with naught but sand to show for your efforts is as a dagger in your breast, and soon the pain threatens to see more salt water added to the pail.
Diving, searching the dark depths with such limited light as you can produce, going as far as you dare in any one direction, returning with a sample to check under the light, moving the boat -- fruitlessly the cycle repeats no matter the time or weather. Surely there should be some remnant found by now....
If this were the right area.
Would that you could simply hire help to cover more ground, but with no crew to be had on this world that might be capable of assisting you so far beneath the waves save the Sahagin -- and their allowance of safe passage thanks to a kind word from Novv being miraculous enough already -- this path is yours to walk alone.
An agreeable wind offers kindness to your depleted stamina by way of a swift journey back to Aleport; the local sailors would thank Llymlaen for bestowing such a blessing, but that the seas remain at all for them to enjoy is not by Her grace. Such thoughts occupy your mind and blur the passage of time and malm until sea-numbed hands grip rope, tying secure knots that have become a comforting ritual, bringing closure to the day's efforts no matter their fruitlessness.
Finally, gathering your scattered belongings and opening your pack to arrange them, it catches your eye, gleaming vibrant purple from its protected corner, a place of honor all to itself. Packing can wait a moment; the crystal's edges dig sharply as you clutch it to your breast, trying yet again to "read" the purported inscription and making as little progress as with today's search.
"Is this your vessel?"
Eyes snap to the source of the voice, finding a stem Maelstrom officer looking down at you. Perhaps he thinks you mean to make off with another's livelihood; a polite smile in hopes that he may recognize your face and allow your peace is all the response you hope he needs.
The day does not see fit to finally grant you one hope as it wanes; suspicions not assuaged, he yet stands over you in silent demand of an answer.
"Yes. Mine apologies if the late return caused a disturbance." Attentions return to the crystal's smooth surface; fingers pressing hard in search of any tiny groove--
The officer clears his throat, and a sigh is impossible to stifle as his gaze is met again; his stubbornness brings a tightness to your chest. "What were you doing out there?"
"Fishing." The lie comes easily enough; you did arrive in a fishing boat.
"Out so late, and no catch to show for it? And with neither rod nor nets visible?" His narrowed eyes betray unhidden scorn, disapproving of the fib more than --
-- more than what exactly? "Have I broken a new curfew I was unaware of? I'd be happy to make amends..."
"It was reported that a vessel matching that description," he jabs with a finger at your boat as if attempting to pierce the hull, "was adrift in Sahagin territory, its occupant having gone overboard. Those waters are unsafe; you are not to go there again."
"I assure you, there was no --"
"You are not to go there again!"
The raw emotion in his voice stills your world; this is no Maelstrom officer that stands before you. The revelation stuns you to silence, posture unconsciously shrinking in shame, gaze averted, unable to meet the open anger that burns like....
Like their end of days.
Never before had Elidibus disguised himself to speak to you. His refusal to answer your call upon your return to the Source had been distressing if predictable, but that he denies you his honest company, even if spent in anger, as he bears down--
"This is important." Your small voice barely rises above the water lapping at the dock, and you tighten your grip on the crystal as if it could comfort you.
"If the Sahagin claim the life of a hero such as yourself, there would be war within the fortnight."
"The Sahagin..." He maintains his guise, then. "I have an agreement with the Sahagin."
"Your shortsightedness--"
"Arrest me if you must. I will resist, and not a soul in this town would help you in opposing me." Your trap silences him. To regain the upper hand, he will surely --
But he closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Very well. Abuse your power. I shall bring your behavior to light." The sight of his back as he chooses to relent rather than reveal sends your stomach plummeting.
The loss of him is too vivid a possibility to bear; breath itself leaves your control for a moment. He must know -- what you saw, what you promised, what you hope. "Wait... please, wait."
Boot thuds halt with a protracted sigh, and he barely turns his head toward you.
"Please... You know nothing of my goal. Look." Though the possibility of its confiscation is difficult to face, if it could keep this from being the last time you meet... you reach toward him, making a peace offering of the concept.
He turns, eyes narrow as if accusing the luminous thing of being complicit in your many crimes. "A crystal. What trickery is this?"
You hold it out to him yet further. "No trick. Please, take it."
A sour expression remains as he snatches it away, but his protestations fall immediately silent, and you glance away to allow some small measure of privacy.
After a long moment, his voice -- his own true voice -- rises deep, measured, and dangerous, "Where did you get this?"
Silence hangs thickly between you at your hesitation, its answer unbelievable at best. "Amaurot."
"You lie." Immediately you lurch toward him, yanked from your feet by some aetheric rope or tether; when your feet leave the ground, rather than stumble, they freeze rigid mid-fall. His fetters squeeze around your torso until breath refuses to enter your body.
Yet if this breath is to be your last, he must know. "Not a lie... look...."
Instantly your mind splits into heat and white, senses too overwhelmed to worry over your falling breath, reliving every moment since your departure in the space of seconds as he all but tears memories from you. Successes and failures, smiles and tears, challenges issued and answered... and every emotion, impossible to separate from raw fact, relived deep and desperate.
As Elidibus witnesses your first steps into the trench -- into Amaurot -- your body finally fails, and all focus fades to black. Yet in the black you dream on, reliving its wonders.
---
The cold returns first; not a numbing, deadly cold that ends in only a final desire to lie still and retain the last vestiges of warmth, but the biting, bitter cold of life that tempts a body toward a hearth and hot meal.
The pain comes next where hard ground and soft flesh have met for too long; as you gingerly try to move to relieve them, other freshly mended injuries make themselves known, and you groan. Breathing hurts.
Sound returns next, gentle waves lapping at the dock. Beside you, a familiar voice swears, a defeated whisper caught by the breeze.
With effort you open tear-sealed eyes -- sight itself causes something akin to pain after such an ordeal -- and see a white blur sitting near, leaning against the nearby building. Satisfied, you allow the pain to subside in favor of the dark for a time. "You stopped."
"For better or worse, you are the only other who has borne witness to our history." He speaks more slowly than usual, each word bearing the burden of fresh memory. Because you've destroyed so much -- the implication hangs thick in the chilled ocean air.
"I'm sorry." Opening your eyes once more to find him looking down at you, you cannot help but imagine him there in the city, appraising a lost child like all the other giants.
"I cannot offer forgiveness of wounds so new. Yet... I see that he forced your hand, and I felt the depths of your sorrow for it." Acceptance, if not forgiveness; it is more than you had any right to hope.
The night sky holds Elidibus' gaze now, its full moon far higher than when you docked. You push yourself into a sitting position in spite of aching muscles and throbbing ribs, joining his rest against the building but allowing some small distance to remain between you. "What did you do to me?"
"As near to possession as I may come with your protections. I meant to learn all I could before you met your end." So matter of factly does he state plans only minutes abandoned... but you could expect no less from Elidibus. "I was not prepared to see so much."
His melancholy all but calls to you, gently twining only your last two fingers with his, the smallest request for permission; he allows the contact, continuing to speak as if unaware. "He so enjoyed the dramatic and unpredictable. 'Tis no surprise he would expend such effort... The perfect stage and the perfect lesson for you."
The question you've asked yourself since seeing it all -- why didn't you tell me -- dies on your lips in the face of his grief, and you adjust the subject. "I was awestruck. I want to tell everyone. I need only a scrap of proof and a tale to set the scholars' curiosity aflame...."
"And how much would your tale omit, I wonder?"
You have no answer; you've wondered much the same. The sacrifice required to save the star should be remembered and honored, yet you cannot spur a faith that would make an enemy of Hydaelyn.
He laughs a bitter, dry laugh at your predictable hesitation. "'Tis moot; there is nothing left of our home on the Source. The fourth ardor saw to what little the first three left."
"Then why keep me away? You might have kept your distance and let me waste time and resources on the search."
"Even the ever-changing laws of man hold fast their respect for the resting places of the dead."
Your heart sinks with the depth of your transgressions; a stray breeze blows hairs across your face as you nod in silent promise not to return, and he rewards your understanding with a gentle squeeze of your hand.
A chaste gesture, but nonetheless a possibility of your bond's eventual mending.
Elidibus' robe rustles as he shifts position a moment, then he holds your crystal before you, passing aether through it and illuminating faint scratches within. "These imperfections in the lattice are the inscription the clerk spoke of. You can feel the aether settling into diagrams and instructions if you are capable of holding the patterns in your mind."
As the charge fades, the color returns to its clear, uniform purple, and you take it from him with your free hand. "I had thought it damaged and was being careful not to split it from the inside...."
"It is, but deliberately and with great precision. Mayhap enough to set your scholars to work?" The faintest ghost of a smile graces his lips for but a moment.
"Elidibus...." Desired questions form a pit of tight anxiety in your gut. A forbidden art used nigh universally as a destructive force in this age and yet capable of so much beauty when careful minds keep to simple concepts....
"Would you teach me about Creation?"
His low chuckle surprises you, uncertain what you've said to amuse. "I shall consider it."