Chapter 1715 - Hands And Eyes (Part 1) (1/2)
”That's how I recognized you, Elphyn. You are identical to the pictures of you from over 600 years ago.” Faluel said.
”Please, call me Solus. The name Elphyn means nothing to me. Can I see those paintings? Even if I recover no new memory, I would still love to have a portrait of my mother.”
”I can try and borrow them for a while.” Faluel replied. ”It's not safe bringing either of you to my mother's castle. Silverwing may be wrong about your relationship, but every one of Menadion's friends would react the same way she did.
”The tower half technically makes Solus a slave and even as Elphyn she lacked the malice necessary to overpower someone as shrewd as Lith. No offense.”
”None taken.” Lith said. ”By the way, how was your vacation and how are you doing with the Hands?”
”Are you asking me because you want to know if I unlocked properties that you are not aware of, because you want my help crafting something from that Dragon's corpse that I heard you took away, or both?” Faluel asked.
”Both.” Lith shrugged. ”I was just trying to be polite and not go straight to business.”
”My vacation was great, thank you. Too bad that when I got back, I discovered that someone exploited my absence to make a mess of my turf. We'll talk about that later.” She snarled. ”As for the Hands, I'm sorry to say that I've made little progress with them.
”At least until I talked with my mother.”
A flick of her wrist and a smug grin made the Hands appear.
Menadion's artifact looked like a pair of thick silver working gloves that covered Faluel's arm up to the elbow. The Hands had one mana crystal of a different color on each fingertip and a sixth in the middle of their backhand.
The crystals went from red on the little finger to blue on the thumb, in a pattern similar to the mana core's progression, but the green was replaced by bright silver while the gemstone on the backhand was black instead of violet.
”You should already know about this and this, correct?” Faluel took control of the world energy flowing inside her lair, making it hard to cast elemental magic and deactivating every piece of equipment without a power core her apprentices wore.
”Correct.” Lith nodded, feeling his auxiliary cores growing weaker. ”Yet I had no idea the Hands could affect spells as well.”
”They can do it only if the place, like my cave, has arrays that limit the flow of world energy. Otherwise there is just too much elemental energy to control it.” Faluel said. ”What my mother taught me is that each gem on the Hands grants their master control over the single elements, like this.”
Faluel stopped drawing the world energy, flooding the Hands with her own mana instead. Each gem produced a small circle of their respective color that grew in size until they filled the cave.
”How did you cast six elemental sealing arrays so quickly?” Lith was flabbergasted.
”Could you please stop doing that? I need the Sage Staff to keep my strength.” Solus panted heavily.
Now that the world energy was blocked, the Sage staff was no better than a regular walking stick.
”Sorry!” Faluel dispelled the arrays, conjuring more but of a different kind.