47 Departing Gift From You (2/2)
The cloak weakly shone a for a second, as if in appreciation and another small tide of warmth enveloped Reed again. It felt like he was wrapped up in the warmest, comfiest blanket in the universe. He gently patted his cloak and said, ”Come on now, Lu'um. Jealousy's an ugly thing ; there's no need for you to feel threatened by my cloak, okay?”
Lu'um disappointedly groaned and said, ”It's already begun manipulating you against me, you fool! Even in a half-dormant state, it's still capable of influencing your mental state. Take. It. Off. Ka'an. Before you end up doing something stupid because of its machinations.” She slowly inched closer to Reed with her guard up, having learned her lesson.
Eventually, after a lot of back and forth between the pair, Lu'um gave up trying to separate him from the cloak, at least for the meantime . She swore to herself that she'd steal the accursed thing as soon as he fell asleep or let his guard down, though.
She remembered the bedtime stories her mother used to tell her about the Last Emperor's adventures and of his beloved magical cloak of wonders that served him dutifully on his quests . She knew that of the cloak's true nature and not of the fairytale description of it that had been relayed to the common folk.
Reed warily kept his distance away from Lu'um and said, ”...Hey, there was something I wanted to ask you about... Do you know anything about Talfano City ?”
Lu'um's thoughts crashed to a halt when she heard his question and her expression darkened in response. Her gaze seemed distant. Her voice rang low and sounded hollow.
”What did Uncle Bernard tell you, my Ka'an ? It seems that his age might've finally caught up to him, for him to have told you about Talfano City .... I might even have to talk to mother about this ...”
Alarm bells madly rang in his head. He instantly realized that he should not have asked. He recognized that he had messed up .
”He told me that it was where he... and my father were born. I was just curious was all, honest. Who wouldn't be, right?” Reed awkwardly laughed as he scratched his head. He had to divulge a piece of truth in order to make the lie sound believable; it was a necessary concession he immediately made to hide the greater truth . The knowledge about the key had to hidden. Even from her .
”I don't know what kind of ideas he's put in your head, Ka'an, but I advise you to discard them. Talfano City's located deep in the Shadowlands , the domain of the Infestation , and is nothing more than an empty remnant of what it once was. There is nothing waiting for you there, except a terrible end...”
She looked at Reed right in his eyes and said, ”Forget whatever Uncle Bernard has told you, Ka'an, or else you might regret it. Last warning .”
Reed raised his hands up and said, ”R-Relax, sweet-cheeks! I was just a little curious; can you blame me? It wasn't as if I was planning on venturing out into some wild-goose chase just because someone told me something...”
”I'm sure you'd stop me if I tried to anyway, right? So, it'd be impossible for me to do it in the first place. Hell, I wouldn't even know where I'd start looking for Talfano City, too...”
He cozied up to Lu'um and whispered, ”....…You spilled my hot chocolate, by the way. I never got an apology for that.”
Lu'um appeared astonished for a moment when Reed had snuggled up to her, but his nonsense blew the wind out of her sails instantly. For a second, she thought...
”There's also something else I've been meaning to ask you: Is everyone on the outside safe? It's been days now since we've come here, Lu'um. I need to go back and at least tell Axtorius that we're still alive.”
Reed had been mulling over this since he'd arrived but never got a straight answer from Lu'um. When he thought about the old goat's worried face, he knew that he couldn't stay here any longer. His people were waiting for him outside; he needed to be there yesterday .
Lu'um summoned a small crystal and said, ”Not a single second has passed on the outside since you've arrived, Ka'an. Citlai exists outside of the river of time, and is, therefore, entirely cut off from the universe.” She channeled a sliver of Anima into the crystal and said, ”Look within the crystal, Ka'an.”
A frozen image appeared within the crystal. It was Sotephor City , albeit frozen in time through some unknown means. The dark and cloudy sky looked fantastical inside of the crystal as frozen lightning bolts hung in the air in mid-descent. It looked like a snapshot of the ruined city's history.
”You already understand that the entire continent of Mulia is underneath the Heavenly Aegis's protection, yes? That was something we created but never completed because of time and resource restrictions because of our war with the Infestation . Its functionality is limited because of this, resulting in the time dilation phenomenon the people inside experience.”
She put the crystal away and said, ” But Citlai is not Mulia ; after we saw that we would not be able to finish the continental aegis in time, we diverted our resources into making a smaller-scale version of the Heavenly Aegis — one large enough to hold our capital for safekeeping with the last of our people. We succeeded, just barely before they breached our final line of defense.”
Reed felt confused; Axtorius had told them that they were the ones who pieced together the Heavenly Aegis themselves, but here Lu'um was telling him otherwise. How was that possible? He scratched his head and said, ”Wait... Axtorius told us that they were the ones who built the dome, not you guys, so someone must be lying about this...”
Lu'um indifferently said, ”Picking up our discarded project and half-assedly completing it does not count as them building it themselves, as much as he would like to tell you. Why would you trust them when they barely understand how our technology works? I mean, for the love of Mu, they venture out into the Shadowlands to pick up our ruined scraps- oh, I mean artifacts, right ?” She opened up a rift and gestured for him to follow. She had something to do.
It led back to the crystal palace, specifically Lu'um room. When they passed over, Lu'um walked over to an old desk and pulled out a tiny steel box . It had a miniature crystal embedded on it and a fancy-looking seal engraved upon it.
”The original plan was to seal the entire continent with a completed Heavenly Aegis and bolster our forces within it since we would've had all the time in the world . We'd borrow lesser beings from lower planes of existence and train them into warrior-servants for our final battle against the enemy, but something else happened instead....”
”In the end, we ended up losing the continent in the chaos and lost control of the people there, for the most part. Lo-and-behold, a couple thousand years pass and now they think they're something when they're still nothing . Mulia is nothing more than an abandoned plan , Ka'an, and the people there are nothing more than descendants of our servants.”
”I know you think of them as your precious friends, but I can only see them as less than common folk — blind sheep in a large cage.” She took the gem box and handed it to Reed.
”This is....?”
”I'd ask you to stay here where it is safe, but I know you'd never be able to settle down with your friends in danger, right? If you want to go, then we'll go. But before we leave, I was asked to give you this by someone very important . He said that you would need it. ”
Reed opened the gem box and found a dirty, rusted ring with a golden head that swirled elegantly. Atop the head lay a raw, unpolished sapphire as the centerpiece. A simple string had been used to form a necklace with it. The sorry thing looked like it'd been put through the wringer. It looked like it might break if one held it roughly.
This thing's going to need a lot of maintenance. Hell, even the ring's jewel hasn't been cut and polished yet. It's just a raw chunk of sapphire. This poor ring isn't even finished from the look of it... He carefully inspected the ring and said, ”So, what does this trinket do?”
Lu'um stared at the ring and said, ”I don't know... I didn't even know what was inside of the box until now. He said that he'd leave an explanation for you if I remember correctly...”
Reed inspected the gem box again and noticed a thin piece of parchment that had been taped onto the roof of the inner case. He plucked it off and turned it around. It read:
I couldn't finish it in time, so I'll leave the finer details to you. You'll naturally understand what it's for when the time is ripe. Don't tell her anything about this note.
From yours truly,
Reed
There no denying it. That was his handwriting, albeit greatly faded because of the note's age. It was even in his world's native language, Vighmor . Reed wondered if he'd suddenly gone senile at the ripe old age of seventeen. He considered it a distinct possibility now.