Chapter 158: Green dawn [4]
A ripple ran through the plain in a wide, slow circle.
By then, Clayton was already as alert as a bird of prey as already in the state of flight response, his senses were honed to the limits under the effects of adrenaline as he searched for any danger without waking Soren.
He would try not to wake him until the situation turned desperate.
He heard it again.
Bzzz!
It passed under shrubs, through stones, and across the stream. On the other side, the garden on the hill answered with a slope of tone that tasted blue.
The ripple touched Clayton’s roots and paused.
A question pressed into his cambium. Not from a mind, but from a law that recognized kin.
’Name?’
Maybe the likes of Torren and the others would have recoiled in shock, or maybe even screamed in the face of this invading existence, but not Clayton.
Clayton was an experienced Trial survivor.
He had interacted with civilizations of the Old Order before. Back in Trial 1, he even destroyed a whole wave of them to buy the ticket to his return back to Earth, and so he didn’t react extremely to the question.
Instead, he thought of an answer.
He did not have a law-name here. He did not want to give the Earth name the Protocols had started carving into him. Instead, he gave a shape instead, a feeling.
He sent out the signs and feelings of a word that meant: Verdant, Sovereign, Seed. A King when needed, and a root when wise.
The ripple held, then moved on, carrying his answer like a leaf on water.
For a brief moment after he sent the signal, he was met with only silence. And Clayton was left to wonder if his message actually delivered to its target audience or he just wasted his time.
But then, the response came, subtly.
He exhaled a sugar into the soil as a courtesy as the microbes thanked him without words, and the shrubs around him lowered a leaf each in polite reply.
After that, the anomaly ended as the night returned to normal.
Eventually, morning grew out of night without a line between. The gold returned, and the bands softened even as the air warmed.
Soren stirred, blinked, and stood. For a moment, he was stunned at how deep and carefreely he slept despite knowing that he was now in Echoterra.
He felt a chill crawl down his spine when he remembered the horror stories that he’d heard about this world.
He threw a weird look at Clayton. ’Is it because of him? Did I sleep like that because I knew that he would watch over me?’
He felt complicated, but he didn’t voice his thoughts out.
Clayton pulled his roots free and stood too.
"Direction?" Soren asked.
Clayton lifted his crown and felt the air. The ripple from last night had left a thread behind. The thread ran south and east, toward one of the bright domain rings he had seen from the lift.
"We’re going to find a throne," he said. "A living throne".
Soren grinned sharply. "The Old Order?"
"Likely."
"Trouble?"
"Certainly."
Soren laughed, short and eager. "Good. Since there’s trouble, maybe we’ll find the others there".
"Kaelin, that bastard will definitely be there".
Clayton almost smiled. "It’s better if we find Kaelin before we find a throne if we can. You and I may be more powerful in a direct confrontation, but Kaelin finds seams, and we will need seams."
As if the name were a spell, a shadow flicked across the path and reformed into a human shape ten paces ahead.
Kaelin stood there, hands up, eyes bright. "Miss me?"
"...!"
Soren jumped.
Clayton did not, but he stared in shock.
They were literally just talking about him, the last thing they expected was for him to suddenly pull out of the shadows and make an aura-farming entrance.
At first, Clayton was almost suspicious. ’Is this an illusion?’
But the subtle signs gave it away immediately. ’Nah, this is Kaelin, that bastard’. Clayton smiled.
Kaelin looked down at his own body and made a face.
Staring at him, Clayton confirmed his conjectures. ’I guess I was right, all of us were made as physical representations of our Aspects afterall’.
At this moment, Kaelin was the perfect embodiment of his Aspect, ghostly and elusive as hell.
His skin was smoke where the light hit it and dark where it didn’t. His edges blurred and sharpened with his breath. "I hate and love this," he said. "It feels like a lie that tells the truth."
In this form, Kaelin’s actual physicality and strength reduced a lot, far below the normal level of a Luminous Seed Awakened but he didn’t complain because what he lost in physicality and strength, he more than gained in stealth, agility, and elusiveness.
His stealth, agility, and elusiveness were all honed to such a monstrous level that even more than Soren, Kaelin struggled to adapt to his powers at first.
But once he grew into them, he realized just how OP he was.
He was fragile than ever before. Maybe a single attack from a sufficiently powerful opponent could end him in a single blow, but for all those concessions that he made through his Aspect, Kaelin was sure that the current him was the greatest spy and scout to ever live.
His stealth was borderline crazy. Kealin doubted that even a Verdant Warden rank Behemorph or Awakened could detect him if he decided to hide.
And if push came to shove, he was reasonably confident that he could avoid the radar of a Prime Synchron rank enemy, even if it was just for a while.
This was how OP the stealth powers of his Aspect became after waking up as the direct physical embodiment of his Aspect.
This was why Soren and Clayton didn’t notice him until he decided to reveal himself.
The only reason why he didn’t take the prank closer to them was fear for his life. Seeing the both of them as physical manifestations of their Aspects, he knew that just like he became more elusive than ever before, Clayton and Soren must have become offensive monsters in their own ways.
He didn’t want to f*ck around and find out, hence why he pulled his prank on them from a reasonable distance where they won’t feel threatened enough to lash out instinctively.
Dying to your friends by mistake... Kaelin had to admit that such a death was perhaps one of the most dumbest in the history of dying.
On another note though, it was what made him survive his first night in Echoterra alone. Nothing of note happened, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and he decided to play it safe.
At that moment, Clayton finally asked. "Can you move?"
Kaelin vanished, then spoke from behind them. "Yes."
He reappeared where he had been again. "Also yes."
"Holy...!" Soren almost jumped again in fright before glaring at Kaelin resentfully. "Maybe a little heads up next time before you do that?
Kaelin simply grinned. "I’ve got a few new tricks up my sleeve".
Then, he looked past them and frowned at the garden hill. "This place has rules baked in."
"It does," Clayton said.
"Going to be a problem?" Kaelin asked.
"For someone, maybe," Clayton said.
Kaelin grinned. "Not us."
"Maybe us," Soren said dryly.
Kaelin shrugged. "Then we’ll cut the problem in half."
Clayton let them have the moment, then he turned south-east. "We still need Veyra and Mirra."
Kaelin sobered. "I felt a pull that way," he said, pointing the same direction. "Like a tight string on a bow."
"Veyra," Soren said.
"Likely," Clayton said.
"Mirra?" Kaelin asked.
"The ground will tell," Clayton said.
And then, they moved.
The moss road quickened under their feet, pleased by a trio.
It hummed a little melody for them now, the kind of tune that helps you walk farther than you meant to.
And yet, they had not gone a mile when the Protocol suddenly spoke.
The sky folded once, and then...
A thin, white line wrote itself across Clayton’s vision, clean and exact.
~----~
[Trial III – Phase: Orientation]
["Learn the region. Learn the law. Learn the wound."]
["Objective locked. Hidden until understanding is proven."]
~----~
Clayton did not curse. He had expected this, but still.
’You couldn’t even surprise me for once? Just Great,’ he grumbled to himself.
"Of course," Kaelin muttered. "No quest marker, it’ll make us work for it."
Soren grunted. "Good. Work makes sense."
Clayton kept walking and the line faded.
He knew what to do.
He would map the law. He would find the thrones that still sang, and he would learn what the wound was here, the dark point the old map had shown, and what was the culprit that had cut it.
He would gather his team, one by one, and when the ground agreed that he understood, the Trial would speak the real task.
Until then, he would do what plants do best... grow, observe, and endure.
He lifted his crown and spoke to the road in its new language, simple and clear.
’Take us to the place that knows why things break’.
The moss shivered, pleased.
It led them on.