Path of Dragons

Elijah sat on his treehouse’s balcony, his feet on the banister as he cradled an earthenware mug his hands. The sun had barely risen, so there was still a slight nip in the air, but he’d decided to temporarily use the bearskin as a blanket. He raised the mug to his lips and slurped at the tea. He didn’t know precisely what the leaves were, but the drink bore a striking similarity to coffee. He’d even managed to get some sugar in Ironshore, so he could make it precisely the way he liked it.

He sighed.

It was a peaceful morning, but the day’s tasks loomed over him like an ominous specter. He’d completed his various projects – though the soap was still in the process of curing, which would take a couple more weeks at least – but he still had one thing he wanted to accomplish before moving on.

Yet, a niggling fear remained in his mind, and it centered on the fact that Ironshore was still all but defenseless. Certainly, they’d managed to repel the orcs, but there were so many unique factors that had gone into the defense that Elijah knew it was unlikely to be replicated in the future. The planned wall was a good start, but there remained the issue of personnel. The city simply didn’t have enough combatants, and the ones it did have were woefully inadequate for the task.

But was it his problem?

That was the question that continued to assail his thoughts. By all rights, he’d given them enough. And he’d already agreed to help if they were ever under attack. On top of that, he’d planted the ancestral tree sapling in the center of town, which would hopefully give them some reflection of the benefits he enjoyed in his grove. It would also prevent any spontaneous Voxx manifestations or the opening of any dimensional rifts. But could he do more? Could he put them in a position to defend themselves?

Elijah wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but the issue was certainly on his mind.

However, he cast it aside as he finished his tea and pushed himself to his feet. After depositing the bear pelt on his bed, Elijah dressed, then gathered the Serpent Healer’s Crook and his pack before descending from the treehouse to the grove below. For a few minutes, he walked among the flora as he pulsed Nature’s Bounty. He didn’t think it was strictly necessary – according to Nerthus, the grove was entirely self-sufficient, and it would continue to grow more powerful of its own accord – but the process calmed him in a way little else could.

Besides, he didn’t think it could hurt.

Like that, he spent the next couple of hours. In some ways, that was an even larger part of recentering himself than his various projects. Elijah had very nearly died in the battle against the orcs, and though it wasn’t his first brush with death, he hadn’t escaped unscathed. The grove was important as a coping mechanism, and without it, he knew he’d probably be much worse off, at least from a mental perspective.

After he’d been there for a few minutes, Nerthus made an appearance, but aside from expressing his admiration for Elijah’s new staff, he didn’t really have much to say. And given that Elijah wasn’t really in the mood to talk, it wasn’t long before Nerthus retreated to his tree. Elijah did take a moment to wonder what the tree spirit did with most of his day, but that didn’t occupy his mind for very long before he turned to one of the many other subjects he needed to address.

The cave.

Nerthus had indicated that he needed to check it out, and after using his locus to inspect it, he had come upon a plan. According to everything he’d read so far about cultivation, it required incredible ethera density. The cave was a good start, as its ambient ethera was far thicker than it was even in his grove. However, Elijah expected that he could make it much better.

And given that he had a little time until his soap cured, he figured he would use that to his advantage. So, without further ado, he gathered a few pounds of berries and a couple of jugs of water into his pack, then set off across his island. He took his time, enjoying the forest for what it represented. Once, it had seemed so inhospitable – and to outsiders, it probably was even more so now – but to Elijah, it just felt like home.

After a while, he reached the rocky shore closest to the cave’s entrance, then shifted into his lamellar ape form. Of his two alternate forms, it was the best suited for swimming. So, once he’d transformed, he waded into the surf and then dove into deeper water. With his Ring of Aquatic Travel, he wasn’t forced to breathe, which was always a strange sensation that took significant adjustment. Though, after spending so much time in the Sea of Sorrows, he quickly adapted and embarked on his initial quest.

The first step was to reach the cave and inspect it. So, after a couple of minutes of swimming, Elijah found the entrance, then squeezed through. However, he quickly discovered a serious issue – his lamellar ape form was too large to fit – so he backed away before retreating to shore. Once there, he shifted back to his human form and deposited his things on the beach.

It wasn’t ideal for what he had planned, but he’d just have to adjust going forward. So, he dove back into the surf and swam down to the entrance to the cave. Once there, he slowly followed the underwater tunnel, squeezing through a few truly narrow passages and using One with Nature in lieu of his other senses. And eventually, he reached his destination.

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The density of the ethera hit him like a brick wall. If he were to compare it to the ethera on the surface, he would have said that the cave was to the surface as the grove was to Ironshore. That was to say that it was more than twice as thick, which boded well for what he had planned.

There was a large air pocket in the cave, which allowed Elijah to swim to the surface, where he saw the familiar green glow of the crystals embedded in the cave’s walls. They seemed slightly larger than the last time he’d visited, but he wasn’t certain if that was a faulty memory or if they’d actually grown. Neither would have been terribly surprising. And in any case, the answer wouldn’t change his plans.

After swimming around for a bit and inspecting the cave, Elijah swam through the tunnel and back to the open ocean. It was a little odd, going back the other way – the last time, he’d used the teleportation function of Ancestral Circle to leave – but he managed it all the same. And soon enough, he found himself back on the beach, where he sat down and drank deeply from his jug of water. He also ate a few berries.

One thing was certain – Elijah had his work cut out for him. Yet, he was so entranced with the idea in his head that he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he found reasonable faults. So, after leaving everything on the beach, he swam back out into the ocean, keeping going for nearly a mile before diving down to the seafloor.

There, he discovered the vibrant ecosystem he’d hoped to find.

Huge stalks of coral, colorful fish he couldn’t identify, and waving kelp were only the beginning. He also saw many examples of the mutated purple shore crabs that seemed to love his beach so much, equally massive versions of other familiar marine life, and more than a few gigantic sharks. He even saw a couple of whales off in the distance.

It was such a striking environment that Elijah very nearly forgot his task. By education and experience, he was a marine biologist – if a somewhat apathetic one – but that seafloor hammered home the notion that his education was largely useless in the new world. Certainly, the scientific methodology was still just as pertinent as ever, but the knowledge he’d spent so long memorizing was woefully outdated.

It was a little depressing, knowing he’d wasted all that time in school.

But it was also exciting because there was so much more to discover. Briefly, he considered returning to his habits as a biologist and starting a project to catalogue the changes. That only lasted a few moments, though, until he remembered how much he hated the tedium that came with any scientific endeavor. He’d long regarded it as a necessary evil, and he had no desire to return to that hellish boredom.

Still, he’d always enjoyed the exploration aspect of the job. The discovery of new knowledge, seeing things no one else had seen – that was the idealized version of marine biology that had pushed him into the field in the first place. Now, he had an opportunity to do just that, but without the downsides that came with being an actual scientist.

He wanted exploration and adventure, not charts and academic papers.

So, after treading water for a few moments, he swam down to the seafloor, intent on collecting some plants. Because he had a theory that he wanted to test, and the only way he knew to do that was to transplant a few plants to the cave. So, he gathered a few streams of kelp, making sure to persevere every part of the sea plants, and then headed back to the cave.

The following passage wasn’t ideal, mostly because of the tight fit, but Elijah managed it well enough. Once he reached the chamber, he swam to the bottom where he spent quite a lot of time arranging his kelp so as to give it the best chance of survival. Of course, if his theory was invalid, it wouldn’t matter.

Once he’d finished, he settled into the silt at the bottom of the cave and flared both One with Nature as well as Nature’s Bounty. The latter was intended to help the plants take root, while the former was meant to help him ascertain whether or not the plants could survive. Normally, they couldn’t – not without sunlight. However, he theorized that the light from the green crystals would help fill the gap.

Along with ethera, of course.

With that ephemeral fuel, nearly anything was possible. If it could prompt such massive mutations in the animal – and plant – life, he felt certain that it could help a plant survive in a cave without sunlight. So, he continued to flare his spells, settling into a meditative pattern that, if he was honest, was quite calming. It wasn’t so different from what he’d done in Druid’s Park, though with the added oddity of being underwater.

Hours passed into more than a day, and despite Elijah’s growing hunger and thirst, he refused to retreat until he’d given it his best shot. It was only after two days that he finally opened his eyes and let a smile spread across his face.

He’d done it.

The kelp had taken root.

Now, he needed to gather a few more varieties of plants, and he’d have a working ecosystem. Then, the real work could begin. So, he quickly swam from the cave and back to shore, where he slaked his thirst and sated his hunger before heading straight back out to sea. Once there, he engaged in the long and arduous task of slowly transplanting plants to his sea cave.

That took almost three more days before he judged that it was full enough. Then, he headed to shore and finished his berries, drank some water, and went back to his treehouse, where he spent the night sleeping. After that, Elijah returned to the sea cave and spent the next week – periodically heading to shore to drink and eat – enhancing the cave as much as possible.

He knew it wasn’t a finished product. It had taken years for the grove to fully develop. Yet, he knew that the ethera density would speed things up to some degree. So, he hoped it would soon become something he could use for cultivation.

But unless he wanted to babysit it for a few more weeks, he’d done all he could for the time being. Now that it had taken root, he felt that it was best to simply let it develop on its own. Besides, he’d finally stumbled upon an answer to his question concerning the defense of Ironshore. It would require a little initial investment on his part, but it would hopefully save him a lot of headache in the future.

So, without further ado, Elijah left the underwater cave behind and headed toward land. He intended to spend the night in his own bed, but tomorrow, he would go to Ironshore to tell Ramik his plan. Hopefully, the goblin mayor would agree that it was for the best.

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