Harvesting the Wells

The gestalt wells were flowing smoothly and Sari had started collecting the day’s harvest when the starsight fell. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The zenith feast was getting close and that meant Harbek Valley needed to fill its lumi reserves to their absolute fullest. They’d sent out as many tapping parties as possible with as few harvesters as possible. Hers consisted of just three souls. Sari herself, her friend Gemma and Gemma’s husband, Bertran to stand watch.

Since they’d just started collecting Sari and Gemma were at opposite ends of the harvest fields, gathering the tapping crystals, while Bertran was in the center. Complicating things was the fact that zenith was close. The fields were well illuminated and the starsight aimed straight for them, landing between Gemma and other two, its wings a blur as they drew in lumi and its eyes menacing her hapless friend as her husband and Sari scrambled to help.

Gemma did the smart thing and dropped her crystals immediately. That drew the starsight’s attention and it paused to heave the serpentine segments of its torso over them, giving her time to dive behind a rock outcropping in the canyon wall. The wings on the creature got a bit brighter as it absorbed the lumi within the crystals. Bertran slowed and raised his lens. The starsight was only a few dozen feet away and he had no trouble getting the creature framed in the center of the viewer.

With his other hand Bertran drew a crystal reservoir full of cobalt lumi and slotted it into the lens socket. With a brilliant blue flash the lens focused the lumi into a beam of solid cold that slammed into the starsight, leaving ice forming on its shell. That got its attention.

The creature turned its long, insectile body around with shocking speed, four of its torso eyes focusing on Bertran. Sari caught up just in time to stand in front of him, giving her warder’s staff a full rotation and allowing the crimson and cobalt lumi at either end to mix, creating an amethyst disk between him and the starsight just before the the creature’s eyes flashed crimson.

The air between it and the disk shimmered with rising heat then burst into flame. The short scrubgrass on the ground turned to ash instantly and Sari’s shield began to waver almost immediately. However it gave Bertran enough time to pull out a crystal full of saffron lumi and swap it into his lens. After a few seconds of maintaining its attack the starsight relented and the flames died away, although the air still steamed and the ground underfoot crackled as it cooled.

“Release the ward!” Bertran called, raising his lens.

She spun her staff counterward, reclaiming the remaining lumi in the barrier, then moved out of his way. “Released!”

The starsight’s main eye briefly followed her before turning back to Bertran, though a few of its torso eyes stayed with her. That was unfortunate but predictable. A creature with that many eyes would always have one or two pointed at anything moving around it. However, with most of its attention on Bertran he was able to catch at least half a dozen of its eyes in the blinding yellow blast his lens unleashed.

The starsight’s wings wavered and most of the creature’s body slumped to the ground, twitching. Its eyes lost focus. Sari knew the confusion wouldn’t last long but it didn’t have to. Gemma popped back into view, swinging a bolas over her head. The two weights at the ends burned with crimson lumi, hissing and crackling as they whirled through the air.

At the moment of their brightest intensity Gemma released them and the bolas spun through the air, spinning faster and faster, until they slammed into the starsight and burst into a flaming whirlwind. For a moment the creature’s wings thrashed against the flames. A gleam of freezing cobalt briefly shone within the terrifying red tornado. Then there was a cracking noise and pieces of the starsight’s shattered shell flew out in all directions.

Sari dove to the ground as soon as she heard the cracking noises, covering herself and Bertran with another amethyst barrier. Gemma dove back behind her outcrop. It took almost a minute for the fire to die away and the three of them to relax their vigilance. As she shook herself off and got to her feet she looked up at the rim of the canyon, wondering what the stone walls were hiding. “Do you think there were more of them?”

“There’s no such thing as one starsight,” Gemma said, prodding at the charred flesh and shattered crystals that the creature was reduced to. “The real question is whether that’s the only one that landed in this area.”

“I didn’t see or hear the wingsong that dropped them,” Bertran said, slipping the saffron and cobalt lumi crystals back into his belt. “I was near the center of the gulch so I had a good view of the stars. We must be near the fringes of the swarm. Grab all of the tapping crystals you can get in five minutes and then we’re leaving.”

“Doctrine says to leave whenever anything-”

“I know the doctrines.” He moved back towards his pack, grabbing his long, granite colored cloak and throwing it over his shoulders. “However, if the starsight are swarming there’s a good chance bottomless shadows are close behind. In that case we’ll need as much lumi as we can get, especially the gestalt.”

He was right and Sari knew it. Any more time she spent arguing about it would be better spent gathering as much of the harvest as she could. So she ran back to the edge of the gestalt field and scooped up her basket. She ran from well to well, dragging the covers off, pulling the racks of crystals out and quickly disconnecting them with her syphon rings. There wasn’t time to put the padded blanket between the layers of crystals so she skipped that step. Hopefully they wouldn’t get chipped too badly.

She was in the process of opening the fourth well when a rush of air blew down on her. Sari threw herself to one side, ripping the lid off and holding it between herself and the sky. A starsight looked down from the edge of the canyon, its eyes sweeping back and forth wildly as its wings lashed at the air. However none of them focused on anything. She had just enough time to find that strange before half its wings sparked and were torn away from its body, spinning off crazily. The creature flailed, suddenly unbalanced, and tumbled into the canyon.

Sari scrambled to her feet, grabbing for her staff, wondering if Bertran had illuminated it with his lens. Then there was a shower of gravel and a strange man slid down into the canyon, a black poncho trailing behind him. He wore unfamiliar clothes and a mop of bright red curls bounced around his head.

He had a large, crystalline blade in one hand and he went after the starsight with it, hacking wildly. Every time he swung it the starsight’s body fell to pieces as the blade touched it. It didn’t seem to matter that the blade itself was not long enough to form the cuts it made. Three swings later the creature lay in pieces. The stranger stared at the creature with wild eyes then started to slide the sword into a sheath at his waist.

Sari straightened up, setting the well’s lid to one side. “Who are you? How did you do that?”

The stranger jumped slightly, looking at her as if seeing her for the first time. Which he probably was. He looked her over and apparently decided she wasn’t a threat because he finished putting his weapon away then patted its hilt. “Honestly, I’m not sure how this thing works, though I’m glad it does.”

He picked up a piece of the starsight’s shell and turned it over in his hands, looking quite disgusted by it. Sari picked up the well lid and used it to gently push the chunk of flesh out of his hands. “You shouldn’t touch that. It’s not healthy.” She put the lid back on the gestalt well and dusted her hands off. “I’m Sari of Harbek.”

“Right.” The stranger stopped to wipe his hands on his pants. “Pleasure to meet you, Sari. My name is Patrick Gallagher. Can you tell me where I am?”