And Caverns Echoing

“Just out of curiosity, what do you look like in Soulspace?”

The path to the caverns was a smooth one, a transportation line running alongside it, the tracks glinting in the sunlight as they cut through groves of sprawling trees with twisted trunks, branches carefully trimmed back. With the distraction from his ever-present headache, it was actually quite pleasant.

“Me, or any Divination?”

Seih cast him a sideways glance, weighing his answer carefully. “No preference.”

Voice tilted his head, a deliberate movement that didn’t look quite natural. “Have you spotted a Divination in Soulspace before?”

So much for being coy.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Everyone’s eyes glow in Soulspace—the only thing unusual was the colour. He was... androgynous. Blond. Hard to tell the age, but he looked young—somewhere in his teens—and felt old.”

The other nodded. “It’s possible. For us, it’s easier to adapt our appearance, apart from the eyes. If we appeared in our true forms you would not be able to comprehend them, similar to how an Arachnid manifests. And so we must create a representation of ourselves.”

The eyes.... Hm. “So you’d look mostly the same as you do now.”

“I would, yes. Much like you do.”

“Which means there’s no telling if he is actually a Divination.” Just because he seemed off didn’t necessarily mean anything. Phantom feelings weren’t definitive proof.

Voice hummed. “What name did he give you?”

“Amotas.”

Something flickered in the other’s eyes, a hint of something that passed quicker than he could catch it. “Interesting.”

“There aren’t many from Coletti with access to soul relays,” Seih noted, turning more of his attention to the structure rising out of the side of the cliff up ahead, the craggy face of the mountain continuing above it. It was more utilitarian than anything else, but still impressive, if simply because of the way it melded seamlessly with the rock of the cliff itself, as if it had been carved rather than built.

“No. Have you tried using it to contact him?”

He idly rubbed at the central scalelet of his SB crown, the dull ache behind it springing to life again. “Not yet. Things have been... busy. Haven’t had a need to.”

A distinct twinge sparking behind his eyes distracted him from Voice’s reply, and he cursed softly under his breath. I thought we were over that. Maybe it had been his own aura shoving aside the echoes in some kind of soul-based adrenaline rush that was now fading. Shaking his head, he met Voice’s unreadable expression with an apologetic one of his own. “What was that?”

“Unimportant. If I may ask, what sort of experiences were you looking at? And how many?”

He squinted, mildly befuddled. “Only three. Mostly contact or observation of the Dark-kind. And... one—” He shook off another blink— “one that dealt with... someone who’d been infected and become a Shadow.”

“...Was it from the perspective of the one who had been infected?”

Again, he wondered where this was going. “Yes. It was actually in his final moments before....”

Wait. A cold twist dropped to the pit of his stomach, a jolt blanking him out for a brief instant as if to emphasise the thought that had just occurred to him. “Absorbing an experience like that wouldn’t carry over the... anything infecting the soul, would it?”

“No, but the reason you’re flickering would be because of it.” At his look, Voice elaborated, “Flickering is a sign of stress upon the soul, usually caused by too many experiences absorbed from too many differing sources.”

“So I’m not infected by Darkness then.” He couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice, and he didn’t bother trying.

“No. I can detect nothing unusual in your soul aura.”

Good. That was good. He let a silent breath slip free of his lips. Probably just a sign not to dive into any more experiences for a while, not that he planned to.

They moved up to the front door, the receptionist promptly ushering them through into the care of an overseer who seemed eager to show him around, her eyes bright, a genuine smile on her face. She rattled off a litany of information about the site itself—the main incubatory of Firemount, being in Fire’s Abode—but if he had to admit it, he only listened with half an ear, his thoughts musing elsewhere as she guided them towards the mines themselves, Voice now silent and practically invisible.

He’d possibly learnt more about the Divination in the last few minutes than he had in the last two years. And more about what Divinations were capable of than he ever had, despite their constant presence.

Like the ones he could see in the caverns, tending to glittering crystals growing from walls, floor, and ceiling, their eyes glowing, but only dimly. Most only ever moved by rote, but there were some who seemed to have an indefinable spark of life, their gazes brighter, like the steady light of the scalelets.

“...This is a Water scalelet cavern, and as you can see, the bases are quite mature. These ones are actually very proficient.” His guide gestured to encompass the entire glittering cavern in front of them, extending almost twice the length of the Ripple’s atrium beyond the railing of the viewing platform. “Which is surprising to most people, considering we sit on a hot spot of Fire energy. But of course, Firemount is really an amplifier of all elemental energies. It amplifies them exponentially, boosting the growth of any scalelet to an extent no one else can match, with far greater quality.”

Much to Petrah and Arathnea’s displeasure, he thought to himself, nodding along as they moved on. “So it should be easy enough to start the new cavern?”

“Oh yes! The thing is, the more you have of one, the more that scalelet tends to grow, if you follow. So, since we have a lot of Light, especially with the Scale itself centred here, the Light scalelets we have tend to grow at an accelerated rate.” Their footsteps echoed dully off the walls as she threw a smile back at him, her braided hair flipping with the movement. Her shorter tunic, covered by a vest to keep the cooler underground air at bay, was half-tucked into a pair of flowing pants cuffed at the ankles—a style he’d seen Brei eyeing more than once. It complimented her figure nicely.

Brei would also murder the woman if she ever found out he’d thought that.

He nodded. “From the numbers I was given, it only takes a few weeks to populate a new cavern.”

“Exactly. By week two it should be almost as developed as the one you just saw. But with Light scalelets, not Water.”

She brought them to another, larger cavern, stopping with one hand on the rail and waving towards the incredibly well-lit space. Pure white, almost milky—yet somehow still clear—crystals jutted in irregular rows as tall as a man, glowing with a light that should have been blinding and bright enough to send spikes through his still-aching head, but somehow came off soft, instead. It almost seemed to make the ache in his skull less noticeable, not more.

“The new cavern is twice the size of this one, and is nearing completion already thanks to the efforts of the Earth movers. As you can see, it’s quite productive.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He leaned on the rail, gazing out over the Divinations moving across the cavern floor to carefully chip off scalelets and collect them. “And how much would you say the production would increase with a cavern twice this size?”

“Well, currently we have five caverns of this size within Fire’s Abode, and six across the other Dominions for a total of eleven. So it would give us a—roughly—twenty percent increase.”

“Enough to support the increased demand?” He turned to regard her.

Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “I believe we could have met it even beforehand by trimming the scalelets more aggressively, but this way we have less chance of over-harvesting. So yes, it will be. At the current rate, anyway.”

That was the thing. The figures he’d put out depended on demand not going above the rate estimated, and didn’t account for extra scalelets potentially being sent to Loh or anywhere else, mostly thanks to the rest of the council dragging its heels. Turning his attention back to the cavern, he tapped his fingers against the rail, still feeling a little off in a corner of his mind, a “flicker” threatening at the edges of his awareness, like a hiccup or a sneeze. “If it did, you’d have to start trimming more, then?”

“Well... I’ve heard things about what’s going on up north. If everyone starts relying on us for Light scalelet production....”

He closed his eyes. “We might not have a choice.”

She hesitated noticeably. “If it does come to that, we should have the resources to build more caverns.”

“If the council ever loosens its claws,” he growled. And forced his own fingers to loosen, pushing back from the rail with a sigh and shoving aside the brief blink. Forcing out a smile, he relaxed his muscles. “But there’s nothing you can do about that. Hopefully we’ll know over the coming weeks how things will turn out. In the meantime...?”

She nodded, another hint of hesitation in the movement, but her smile was brighter than his own, if not by much. “Well, the new cavern itself is just this way....”

As she led them off, he pushed aside his renewed headache and the urge to sigh, giving the Light scalelets below one last glance.

With any luck, they’d have more to rely on in the days to come.