“NO!” A spirit objected immediately. “We are not going to use the ‘Appraisal’ to trade with them.”

“Why not? It’s something new that the Fire Hive doesn’t have. We can use it.”

“What do you mean why not?” The spirit asked incredulously. “It’s a failure. We all agree it was a failure. We can’t even see any numbers with it. All we get are a bunch of letters we aren’t even sure about.”

“That’s not quite true.” Another spirit argued. “We already discussed this and we believed A is better than B, which is better than C, which is better than…”

“But we’re not sure!” The spirit argued back. “We’re not sure if A really is better than B. That’s just what we think!”

“Yes but the Fire spirits don’t know that and they don’t know the ‘Appraisal’ is a failure of a spell. We ask for the ‘Eye’ first then we give them the ‘Appraisal’. By the time they figure it out, it’ll be too late for them to do anything.”

“We are not cheating them!”

“It’s not cheating. There’s an actual trade just…we get more out of the trade than they do. That’s not really cheating.”

“How is that not cheating?”

“We do give them a new spell they don’t have. No one said anything about it having to be a good useful spell.”

“HOW IS THAT NOT CHEATING?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” another joined in the argument. “Before you guys continue, aren’t all of you guys forgetting something important?”

“WHAT?”

“Do any of you want to be known as losers who did nothing but digging?”

With that, the argument stopped and most of the spirits within the hive came to an agreement. The spirits weren’t in total agreement of course but the majority of them had no desire to be known as losers by the Fire idiots. Once the argument was settled, the trade of information began and it was quick. The hive was actually surprised by how the ‘Eye’ works.

Unlike normal creatures, neither of the hives actually sees, hear, taste, smell or hear. Both hives were crystals and neither of them had the body parts needed to perform such functions. Made of spirits, what the hives actually did was to sense their surroundings. There are spirits everywhere in the world and what the hives did was to sense the spirits around them and used them to see, hear, taste, smell and hear their surroundings. However there was a limit on how far they could do this and what the Fire Hive did was quite ingenious. They cut out their other senses.

The ‘Eye’ really was just that. It was an eye for the Fire Hive to see beyond their volcano and that was all it was. What the Fire Hive did when they created the ‘Eye’ was to cut out all their other senses from it. For the hive, it had never even occurred to any of the spirits within the hive to cut out their other senses. That would be the equivalent of one of their creatures volunteering to be deaf and mute.

That was exactly what the Fire Hive did.

The Fire Hive discovered that if they cut out the other senses, they could make the ‘Eye’ go beyond the hive’s area of influence. The idea wasn’t prefect. The further the ‘Eye’ went from their hive, the more energy it took to maintain it and the fact that they can’t hear anything was a great disadvantage. Even right now, the Fire hive can’t hear anything any sound coming from the underground forest and the Kin.

To the Kin surrounding them, the ‘Eye’ and the Creator were just floating next to each other. Even though they understood that the hives were speaking to each other, no sounds were coming from the ‘Eye’ or their Creator. To the Kin, the hives were speaking to each other on a higher plane that was beyond their understanding. In a way, the Kin were right. The ‘language’ of the two hives was not through sound or action but through their ability of understanding each other using the spirits around them. It was the only way they were able to communicate with each other and now with the ‘Eye’, the Fire Hive had discovered a way for them to ‘understand’ each other no matter how far away from each other they were.

Not only that, the ‘Eye’ was versatile. According to the Fire Hive, they could add other abilities to the ‘Eye’ like hearing and smell though this would cut down on the distance the ‘Eye’ could travel. Usually when they were just looking around their volcano, the Fire Hive would have all the senses active. To the spirits of the hive, the ‘Eye’ was great and many of them were ready looking forward to roam around their mountain. With the spell under their belt, the hive then proceeded to give the Fire Hive the ‘Appraisal’ spell. To the hive’s great surprise, the Fire Hive…

*THIS IS GREAT!*

*Right, right, this…wait, what?*

*This is great! What a wonderful ability! Instead of numbers, you guys found a new to make things so much easier. This is wonderful!*

*Uh…um…right?*

*Right! You guys really haven’t been lazy. You actually found a way to improve on things. This is truly a wonderful improvement!*

*Right…right…so you guys don’t mind letters instead of numbers?*

*Who needs numbers? It’s not as if there’s a great different between 15 and 16. More to the point, who could remember all the numbers of all the creatures? It’s not as if we write everything down in a book. This is so much better!*

*So you guys…like this spell?*

*We don’t like it; we loved it!*

*Oh…that’s…great. We knew you Fire id…geniuses would love it.*

*…*

*Fire Hive?*

*…*

*Fire Spirits? You guys still there?*

*…*

*Did we lose connection? Anyone still there?*

*We’re here! Okay, we had discussed this and we have decided to give you all a new spell for this ‘Appraisal’.*

*WHAT?*

*This spell you gave us is so good and useful, this trade is just unfair. We’re giving another spell to make up for it.*

*WHAT?*

*We said this spell you gave us is…*

*You…uh…WHAT? WHY?*

*The trade should be fair right? We’re giving you another spell to make thing right.*

*Uh…make things…NO! There’s no need.*

*No, no. no. We insist! The trade needs to be fair.*

*Uh…No. There’s really no need.*

*We insist.*

*…there’s really no need.*

*We insist.*

*No…please, don’t!*

*We insist.*

*…really...it’s not necessary…*

*It’s totally necessary! Fair trade is good for everyone right? This trade should be fair.*

*…if you guys really insist…*

*We do. We most definitely do! Now this is the spell we used to change the land around us. We call it the ‘nothing-untouched-killer-explosion’!*

The Fire Hive immediately went on to inform the hive on how the spell works. The spirits within the hive could only listen on in silence and amazement. They could not believe the Fire Hive was just, on the basis of fairness, giving them a new spell. As the Fire Hive was going on about the new spell, one of the spirits within the hive just had to comment.

“Wow! Compare to them, we are such asses!”

End of Book 1

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