Chapter 8: Cave O’ Whispers

Nodding to Azwold and gnawing on a pickled octopus, she made a sweeping gesture across the graves. Other kobolds scurried, rearranging most of how the mage had arrayed things. The Shaman visited a grave Azwold had missed, and spat black juice onto the dirt. It sizzled down and the ground morphed, cloddy clay shaped itself into a mound.

Damage undone, the kobold Shaman yelled. Azwold tensed. A burly kobold standing by thunked its blade into a tree trunk and made a menacing face. The elder pointed her staff northward, and the tribe marched, vanishing one by one and few by few into the trees.

Azwold watched a huddle of kobolds squabble over his tablet. The skeletal kobold absconded with it as they did. Azwold wanted to chase after it, I could tell. He had implied tablets were impossible to steal. I felt mine in a pocket, safe and sound. It was no matter to me, then.

“Now we’re friends,” I said. “Think I’ll get my hand back from them?”

“We should wait,” Azwold’s eyes narrowed as he watched all but the Shaman disappear into the forest. Patient, she tarried.

“Let’s see where they’re taking us,” he said. “Until then, we’re uneasy acquaintances, at best. They’re still flagged as hostile for me.”

“You’re still breathing. Means they fancy you.”

“They couldn’t kill me if they tried.”

“Ho ho!” my lungless laugh hung in the newfound quiet.

“Glad you’re amused. What about you? Your hand’s a chew toy. Go now.” Azwold motioned with his oar-staff. “You could have stopped the ugly one from stealing my tablet, you know.”

“The theft-proof non-item?” I said.

“In case you haven’t noticed, your questline is all effed up! Don’t worry, I’m not gonna bail… but if I have to run around without tablet access, we’ll never get your stupid bones back.”

I grew quiet. We walked.

“Do you hear something buzzing?” Azwold asked.

“I had bees, but they died in the oubliette,” I said with a touch of sorrow. “But new ones have found me here. The sea washed me free of toxins.”

My ribcage honeybee hive remained an unsolved riddle. The logical assumption was my connection to the [Hive Scepter], but bees forming a tiny colony inside my chest cavity was strange, indeed. They came and went, busy and quiet, so constant and methodical that the oddity sometimes faded from notice. Especially at night, when they slept.

As we plodded along at the hunched creature’s pace, Azwold pondered out loud what the Shaman’s reptilian mind might be like. In the dull lilac glow of squid lanterns, he imagined catalogues of indecipherable knowledge. He could stand to learn from it. But I wondered if it was even possible. The kobolds were still “flagged as hostile.”

They seemed neutral to me.

The creature’s grungy pockets and satchel slings held an abundance of reagents, I wagered. She adorned herself with feathers, strung teeth, polished gemstones, a patchwork of hide skins. An exotic spell craft scent clung to her, as palpable as gems.

“Why does it stink?” I whispered.

“You can smell now?”

“Aye, like a magic perfume,” I said, “but for goblins?”

The mage considered this earnestly. “Shamans have Spirit as one of their schools of magic, too. There’s eleven and you can choose up to three. You can usually tell if someone else is deep into your same skill trees.”

“Interesting,” I said.

When the creature turned to check we were still following, I glimpsed a metallic glimmer hiding amidst her necklaces. The ring; attached to my hand.

I began scheming. Could I persuade the creature to part with my parts? Or could Azwold defeat her? If I understood ‘levels,’ she could obliterate me, but perhaps the mage was capable. If Shaman and Spirit Mage similarities outweighed the differences of alien cultures, mayhap just asking would do. I imagined that we would find out soon if they believed in ‘finders-keepers.’

The trees thinned and we walked out onto a gravelly patch of path. The sea salt breeze and naked moonlight were a welcome change as our trail wended out toward a cliffy outcropping. Azwold kept his gaze averted from the edge. I noted his possible fear of heights, adding it to “can be pushed” in my catalogue of things to remember. My ear sockets told me of the pulse of sea against cliff rocks. It didn’t sound a deathly distance down, but I joined the mage in not looking anyhow.

The Shaman whacked something black and metallic with her driftwood, sending it over the side. Azwold braved a glance as it plunged.

He asked me if I saw it.

“Aye, but all I can say, t’was no lizard cur thing.”

“I guess you might recognize a musket style over a gun like that?” he said. “What are these Telemoon guys up to? This kinda stuff shouldn’t exist in-game.”

We rounded a bend of manzanita and juniper. A towering shape loomed into view from behind dark evergreens. Had the creatures lashed together a lookout tower? No, the geometry of its latticework was too precise. The kobolds seemed clever, but the tower’s metal beams were alien to the landscape.

“What is it?” I whispered.

The path morphed itself into smooth stone steps, curving down toward the island’s northern shore.

“It looks like one of those big power line towers,” Azwold scratched his chin stubble, “It’s gotta be why Telemoon is out here. I doubt they’re trying to modernize the kobold clans, though.”

“Avast,” I pointed. “Yon goblin’s crept halfway down whilst we hem.”

The smooth stone steps dropped away disagreeably steep, but they were wide, which was good. There were no handrails except the rough rock of open cliff face. The further we descended, the slicker our footing became, which was bad. Azwold kept a hand on the stone wall; better than pawing at the wind, I supposed. My progress was clumsy as I followed.

We watched the kobold elder hop and climb its way down, then hobble off the last step and into seawater. She crawled, poking with her staff at submerged steps. Then the creature sloshed out, waist deep, onto an obscured shelf of stone.

The mage and I both hesitated at the final un-sunk stair. I gazed emptily up, shielding my brow with vine fingers. “The wane of the moon hints a neap tide.” I said. “Why then, should their rocky landing be under water?”

“Strange. Agreed. I doubt the ledge should be under even during highest tide. Maybe it’s the Warming? Changing seas. Kinda weird that they’d add that stuff to the game, but you gotta respect it.”

“Mayhap the kobolds relish a splash from time to time?”

“Check their toes for webbing later. Pay attention now. She’s up to something. Look.”

The old kobold beckoned, inviting us to join her. I noticed Azwold’s neck nape prickle. His anxiety-addled descent had masked a unique feeling, but now he felt it returning. He must, because I felt it too. The veil was thin here, the Spirit Realm nearer.

Receded in the cliff face to our left was a shallow littoral cave, and a vertical stone dish several times taller than the Shaman. It was like a radar dish carved from cliff side, so smooth that bits of moonlight glistened from its unshadowed parts. Ocean movements had faded the bottom into a discoloration.

The Shaman waded to an incense brazier on a pole, beckoning to Azwold again. She pulled a tarnished lid from atop the bowl. The air seemed too damp for burning. Azwold steeled himself for the cold, then strode into the knee-high water.

The brazier contained nothing like incense within it. It was more like a serving bowl; slimy, organic objects marinated in murky goo. Azwold made a sour face at the wafting smells, quelling a burgeoning nausea, mayhap.

The kobold reached a hand up like a searching raccoon. But I could see in. I found it confusing the creature wasn’t more selective in which flopping fish part she clutched at. Was the brazier’s pole planted into the stone floor before the kobolds inhabited the island? Or had they built it too tall on purpose? Mayhap the meat’s mystery was a part of it.

The Shaman handed a slimy little tentacle to Azwold, grimy brine dripping. She selected one for herself; a pickled eyeball? She popped it into her mouth like a fat raisin, grimacing, yellow teeth chewing. She nodded to Azwold to do the same. I remembered the Shaman gnawing on octopus parts back in the graveyard. Perhaps this was the same stuff? Azwold held his breath and risked a taste, then threw the nasty thing into his mouth.

When he opened his watery eyes, misty filaments coalesced in the air. That I could share his vision added unwanted evidence of my link with the mage. Intangible tendrils ebbed in from the sea, all veins rolling in like river trails. This cliff side ritual site must be the island’s nexus of power; a crossroads of Spirit Realm tunnels.

As I gazed out, the problem revealed itself; thick rivulets of Spirit Realm pathing were running upwards. The tower was siphoning energy. Telemoon.

“No,” Azwold leaned back, staring up over the cliff at the tower’s top. “We must stop this.”

Sensing his dismay, the Shaman placed a paw on Azwold’s hand. The mage replaced his shock with a renewed focus. The Shaman pointed at her chest, then clasped her paws in front of her snout, closed her eyes, breathed in, then spoke out a whisper. As her claws opened out toward the black distances of sea, Azwold watched a word escape the creature’s mouth like hieroglyphic, smoky air. The vapory word was then smudged apart, drifting toward the tower’s pull. The spirit magnetism had caught hold of a fragment of the Shaman’s meaning.

The kobold had spoken a [Spell: Wish]. If this place was a link to the Spirit Realm, where wishes can amplify and hopes can journey out among the dimensions, then the Telemoon guild was exploiting the world’s essence roads. Sweeping them over to hijack the site’s amplification properties. Transforming a spiritual place into a technological one. Did they comprehend the damage they wrought? Which was worse? Ignorance, or knowledge blended with avarice?

I paused my thoughts. I did not care to become caught up in the mage’s dramas. But a place called the Spirit Realm must be important to one called a Spirit Mage. And I, being a Spirit Mage minion, had no choice but to care.

Azwold’s skin tightened into goosebumps. “I wonder if my tablet’s ever piggybacked on Telemoon signals. I don’t know what they’re up to here, but it sure looks like they’re trying to hijack energy… or info.” The mage’s face paled. “What if they know your quest is wonky? I didn’t think using in-game mail would cause problems. But if they’ve intercepted any? We gotta stop this. Your issues need to stay a secret.”

The Shaman pointed up to the cliff edge. A silhouetted brigade of kobolds stood at the ledge. At the Shaman’s signal, the troupe drew bows, knocked arrows. Azwold looked ready to dive aside, but the troupe turned and shot toward the tower. We watched in amazement as yellow-blue electrical shocks rippled out in concentric, interfering waves where each arrow hit.

A force-field enveloped the tower.

The Shaman regained Azwold’s attention, pointing her staff out over the water. Azwold squinted at a dark, drifting shape in the distance. As he reached for his binoculars, a craft glided out from behind the bend of staircase. His canoe. A crew of four kobold kin piloted it with branch and shell oars.

Azwold looked back to me, still on the last above-water step. I volunteered to stay behind and guard what I had deemed the ‘Cave O’ Whispers.’ This time the mage gave the idea proper consideration. “Nah.” he shook his head. “Maybe if you’d do some actual scouting. But I can’t have you getting lost or losing parts again.”

I bowed with a subtle gloom and clambered into the canoe. The kobolds, however, were not subtle. They cleared the rear, keeping a purposeful distance. Odd, considering they were armed and could trounce me. My knowledge of “levels” and “experience” and such was rudimentary, but having leveled up twice now, I understood that the red “34” in a circle next to each kobold’s health bar meant I was a non-threat to them.

The Shaman grabbed Azwold’s sleeve, cloudy old eyes gazing through him. She reenacted her hand motions, pretending to send out another wish, then pointed at Azwold’s chest.

“But players can’t perform wish spells,” he said, looking to me as if I could corroborate. “It’s too open-ended for a game to account for.”

The Shaman was insistent.

“Fine,” said Azwold, “Umm… I wish Ralos was alive?”

He froze, afeared perhaps, that his wish might disappear into the thieving magnetism of the Telemoon tower. His careless wish dismayed me, too. Ralos was where fate had landed him. No need to disrupt whatever fragile order existed. If I understood things right, the silver spirit Ralos was instrumental in our quest. The foolish mage seemed to love complication.

Azwold boarded the canoe, bolstered by the surly look of the kobolds. They seemed a far sight scrappier than I anyhow. Azwold nodded to the one which looked most like ‘captain,’ and we launched.