“I don’t know, I’ve never seen a crystal like it. And what’s more…” Efrain held out his hand, focusing on the crystal. He envisioned a series of sparks, coursing like a river to crash upon the snow below him. Flecks of light poured out to fizzle upon the surface of the snow. Where it touched the crystal, they passed through, as if the crystal wasn’t there, to disappear within its depths.

“That’s disturbing,” said Innie, who’d backed some ways away from the dark mass.

Now it was Efrain’s turn to hmm in acknowledgement as he stared at the thing.

“It’s absorbing but there’s something… more about it. A distinctly ‘hungry’ feel. I think it might be more accurate to call it ‘eating’ magic.”

“Eating? To do what? Have you ever heard of a creature with these… things?”

“Those are all questions I don’t have an answer to, but-” he stopped, leaning down as he took a round of cloth from his bag. Wrapping the mass carefully, he ripped it from the ground.

“Innie look at this,” he said as he tilted the crystal to show the multiple growths on its bottom, “it almost looks like…”

“Roots. It’s been growing,” she said with utter disgust. Efrain understood, as a fellow creature of magic, his abhorrence for the thing was deep in his being. It shouldn’t exist, whatever it was, however it came to be.

“Innie, can you melt the snow? I want to check for more.”

Innie grunted in irritation, but acquiesced, casting glowing embers with a shake of her coat. The snow began to hiss and melt as the coals drifted to the ground, and within moments the earth was laid bare. As Efrain parsed through the roots and rotten pines, he found several smaller crystals, stowing each away with care. Fortunately, the few layers of cloth appeared to be enough insulation, but even through them he could feel an aura of reaching numbness.

“Efrain,” said Innie, indicating a series of tracks through the now muddy clearing.

Efrain wandered over to examine them - large, circular gouges, as if something had been dragged through the ground. The more interesting thing was that the were arranged in a spiral, converging on one larger pittance near the centre of the grove.

“A convergence,” muttered Efrain as he examined the central depression, “but of what?”

“I’m not sure I want to know now,” said Innie, eyeing Efrain’s bag.

Efrain took one last good look around the clearing, seeing the same signs as he had on his way to Innie’s grove. Deep claw marks in the barks of surrounding, dead or dying trees.

“Whatever this is,” he said slowly, “whatever this is, I’m pretty sure it’s not a fire drake.”

“I gathered,” said Innie.

“So, what do we do next, then?”

Innie was pacing pensively on one of the downed logs as she cast side to side.

“I think we still need answers, or at least I do,” she finally said, “I’m going to find Kalnive. She might know something about these things.”

“Kalnive?”

“She’s an older matron. Her territory is on the western side of the Stairway. You said that you wanted to ‘get out’? Well, here’s your chance.”

Efrain thought about the prospect for a moment, then, deciding that he had already elected for a vacation, accepted. Just to the outer valley, no farther, he thought, then I can come back and sort out the mess back home, and maybe…

“I’ll need to go back to the castle, retrieve some equipment, and lock these somewhere where they’ll never see the light of day,” Efrain said, shaking the bag.

“Agreed. I can come back with you, I just need some time to settle my children.”

They both mounted on Tykhon, who surprisingly proceeded without complaint back to Innie’s grove. She left Efrain at the edge of the clearing, ascending into the air as the numerous small lights swirled around her. He watched the quite spectacular light show in silence.

Ensenrokft, that was the formal term for a wisp-mother’s grove. The word had it’s roots in Kohkeshian, though he seemed to recall it was a mis-attribution for ‘phoenix’. The proper form for the mythical creature would’ve be ‘Ensenkaft’, from ‘fire’ and ‘great bird’, or was it ‘bird of prey’? Either way, both shared similar connotations of rebirth. A stray light that hovered by his shoulder pulled him out of his linguistic musings. It flitted nervously from side to side, seeming reluctant to join the procession before him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Efrain.

“I- I don’t want to join.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s scary,” said the wisp, it’s voice high, and light.It could’ve been either a boy or a girl, it was young enough to make it quite difficult to distinguish.

“Is it?” Efrain said, conceding that he probably had little idea what it was like. Wisps were fundamentally sad creatures, like most ghosts. Children were particularly vulnerably to spectrification, due to how little they could control their emotions. Children who died of the cold could themselves become blazing emanations, ever seeking that last wave of heat from a fire that had never come. Generally they were harmless, if rather mischievous creatures, playing pranks and tricks on travellers that came through ‘their’ woods.

Could be worse, Efrain thought as he looked at the wavering flame, they could’ve formed a demon.

“Are you a newborn?” he asked the wisp, which seemed to shy away at the question.

“Yes,” it eventually admitted.

“I don’t think you have much to fear, here. You’ll not be cold, not with them. Innie’s a kind enough mistress, though don’t ever use that name with her.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll probably set me on fire.”

The child giggled, before tentatively floating up to join the group. Efrain wondered at the morality of the action - in a way, he was ultimately dooming the wisp. From a purely technical standpoint, that was the theoretical function of wisp mother - to disperse magic back into the environment by ‘unwinding’ the grief, pain or grudges of the wisps. Nature always finds a way to maintain equilibrium, he thought as he watched the swirling fire, although…

He laid a hand upon the leather bag, feeling the faintest cold spreading through his finger tips. Now this, this was something new, something he didn’t like. He wanted answers, and to get them, it seems like he would have to go out to the Giant’s Stairway. A grim foreboding settled in the pit of his stomach as he felt the crystals shift at his touch.

Those Kohkesh, they knew more than one would think, he thought as he turned back to the wisps and their mistress. A touch of humour reared its head - the dread he felt was oddly appropriate considering the more accurate translation of ensenrokft. For all the potential double meanings and connotations of rebirth, ensenrokft meant “funeral of the lights”.

The various wisps began to peel away, some alone, some in pairs, others in small groups. Innie drifted down and solidified once more into a cat, jaunting over to hop on Tykhon’s back.

“Done what you need to?” Efrain asked as he wheeled around.

“They’ll take care of themselves, in case we take longer than we expect,” she replied as Tykhon began to pad through the underbrush. The trip back passed by, with the only stop was to show Innie where Efrain had first found evidence of whatever creature had damaged the forest. Night was beginning to fall as they crossed into the castle gates, after which Innie departed to find her favourite alcove to nap in.

Efrain on the other hand crossed past the halls and back into the the northern wing. Once he had reached his personal quarters, he stripped his traveller’s gear, taking his bag and returning to the crossroads to descend into the left passages. The temperature began to drop even further as he stepped lower and lower into the mountain. The hall at the base of the steps was so dark that even he could barely see the door at its end.

The vault, itself effectively indistinguishable from the rock around it, began to buzz its greetings as he approached it. He placed his hand upon one of the nexuses and let magic flow into the groves painstakingly chiseled into the interior of the rocks. Once the rock began to shudder and dozens of glowing lines traced their across it surface, he recited a phrase:

“Twasia Nel Torodue Eka Thalia Morolo, Twasia Tykech Mn’Torodue For Pelisca.”

Xiocledias was infamous in literary canon of the pre-Angorrah city states, due to him writing almost exclusively in local dialects. That particular phrase was in a footnote addressed to a financial backer, in one of his lesser known works, albeit without the various expletives at the end.

If anyone can guess that, Efrain thought, they deserve my treasures.

The wall crumbled as the stone folded and circled on itself, sliding into empty spaces on either side. The particular magework that went into the stone was as much as a work of art as a technical achievement. Efrain glanced up and down as the various bonds broke and reoriented. In its closed state, they would snap together into a grid, reinforcing the rock as if it was simply more of the mountain side. A particularly skilled mage might’ve been able to create a weak point given time, but if they got this far, they probably had already defeated him.

He stepped into the vaulted chamber, the door folding back into place behind him. Crystals poked out of holes drilled in the ceiling, casting a gentle light over the whole scene - shelves, platforms, boxes, all neatly stacked. Small ceramic plates, with names, descriptions, and most importantly, warnings, scratched into them. Despite the existence of a second, larger vault, somewhat filled with gold and jewels, this collection was his true treasure. Some of these pieces were mere curiosities, retrieved from sites in different lands, or offered as gifts. Some of them were artifacts from Pasgrima, found on various markets both above and underground, filled with powerful magic. And some…

At the rear end of the vault lay a second set of steps, leading to an iron door. He unlocked it with one of the triangular keys, custom-made and practically irreplaceable. The cabinets within rattled constantly, as if living creatures were moving within them. Heavy metal crates were chained down, urns and blades were kept in thick glass containers, many submerged under water or oil. He thought back to the quote used to access this place, filled with objects that could’ve been sold for a fortune if they weren’t made useless by their associated risks.

“As one takes, so shall he give, even unto his own end.”

A lovely retort to Xiocledias’s moneylender, no doubt, but to Efrain, it was a important reminder.