Contract: Seal of The MoonKnight

The morning came quicker than they anticipated. They spent some time with Mara and then headed up the mountain. The higher they climbed, the more the mountain felt eerie. There were little signs of life, leaving only an unsettling silence. The air was thick, tasting of wet rock. Elysia found herself walking with her shoulders hunched.

Baro, usually the height of the group’s mood, had fallen quiet, his usual stream of commentary drying up. He just watched the shadows between the trees, his hand never straying far from the handle of his axe. It was Keito who finally stopped, kneeling to inspect the trail.

"The ground here is too hard," he said, his voice low. "It's dry, brittle. The moisture is being leached out of the very soil." He stood, his gaze fixed on the path ahead. "We're close to the source of the problem."

His words proved true as moments later when the trail ended at the edge of a wide chasm. The chasm was a deep, jagged hole in the mountainside, its bottom lost to the shadows. There seemed to have been a rope bridge around previously, but what was left was only a few splintered planks on their side, and some string.

Baro let out a frustrated breath. "Of course. Why make it easy?" He scanned the distance. "Forty feet, maybe more. Too far to jump, and a climb down and back up would take the rest of the day." He looked at Elysia, his expression not demanding, but hopeful. "You got any magic tricks for this?"

Elysia’s stomach fluttered, but it wasn’t the fear of her past. It was more nervous like, the apprehension of a test she wasn't sure she could pass. She nodded slowly. "I can try."

She walked to the edge, the drop looked scary. She wouldn't let the fear win. She had a purpose now, people who were counting on her. Closing her eyes, she reached out not with her hands, but with her mind, searching for the water Keito had told her was all around them. She found it, in the damp air, in the deep veins of the mountain, a faint and distant pulse.

The gem on her forehead glowed. Focusing all her will, she pulled. She pictured water flowing from the air itself, a swirling torrent gathering in the space above the chasm. It came, swirling from mist into a thick river of liquid that hovered in the air. But it was just water, unstable.

"It won't hold," she said through gritted teeth, her arms trembling with the effort.

"Then don't just form it to be a bridge," Keito’s calm voice cut through her strain. "Tell it what it needs to be. Make it solid."

Solid. The word echoed in her mind. How could water be solid without being ice? It couldn't. But maybe… maybe it didn't have to freeze. Maybe it just had to be more. She pushed with a singular focused command.

Compress.

A low hum filled the air. The swirling river of water began to glow from within as it squeezed in on itself. The molecules compacted with immense pressure until the water was as hard and clear as polished glass. The shimmering, liquid bridge solidified, its surface rippling with energy but as firm as stone.

The effort sent a wave of dizziness through her, and she staggered back, Keito’s hand instantly on her arm to steady her.

"Go," she gasped, her vision blurring. "I don't know how long I can hold it."

Baro didn't need to be told twice. He ran across, his heavy boots thudding on the strange, shimmering surface. He reached the other side and turned, giving them a thumbs-up. Keito guided Elysia across next. The bridge felt wierd under her feet, like walking on a perfectly still wave. The second they were both safely across, her concentration broke. With a sound like a deep sigh, the bridge dissolved, collapsing into a waterfall that crashed into the chasm below and vanished.

The path on this side led straight to the mouth of a cave, a dark hole in the rock that reeked of stagnant water and something else, like meat left too long in the sun. Half-hidden in the mud near the entrance was a small, carved wooden bird. The sight of it sent a cold shiver through Elysia. The missing children had been here.

"This is it," Baro said, his voice low and angered. He gripped his axe. "Whatever's in there, it's not coming out alive."

They entered the cave in a tight formation, Baro in the lead. The entrance was covered with a gross smelling slime. It opened into a larger cavern where a deep, underground river once flowed. Now, only a trickle of black, sludge-like water oozed through the center. But it was the far side of the cavern that drew their attention. The rock wall shimmered, and for a moment, it looked like the entire cave was collapsing. Behind was a waterfall of clean water pouring down from a fissure in the ceiling, only to vanish into a glowing, unnatural crack in the floor. Something was stealing the mountain’s water.

Suddenly, the ground bucked beneath them, as if the entire floor of the cavern was giving way.

"It's a sinkhole!" Keito yelled.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the cavern floor. Baro, who had been closest to the center, was suddenly on a shifting island of rock. "Go back!" he yelled, pointing his axe toward the entrance they'd come from.

But there was no time. The floor beneath him crumbled, and with a roar, a huge section of the cavern collapsed inward, creating a new waterfall of rock and debris. Baro was swept away in the landslide, his final shout swallowed by the grinding of stone. Elysia screamed his name as she and Keito were thrown violently backward by the shockwave, landing hard into a narrow passage that was created during the cave in. A final collapse brought more of the ceiling down, sealing the passage behind them.

They were in absolute darkness, the thunderous noise replaced by a ringing silence and the drip, drip, drip of water somewhere nearby.

"Baro?" Elysia called out, her voice cracking. There was no answer. He wasn't on the other side of a wall. He was gone, swept away into the depths of the collapsing mountain. A soft grunt of pain beside her snapped her back to the present.

Keito.

The gem on her forehead flickered, casting a faint blue glow into the dark. It was enough to find him. He was slumped against the rock, his leg twisted unnaturally, the bone pressed against torn fabric.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, dropping to her knees beside him. Her throat burned with dirt, her hands hovering without knowing what to do. Blood seeped over his armor, and anger bubbled in her chest at how powerless she felt. She couldn’t just sit here.

Fix it.

​The thought wasn’t hers, not entirely. It was a desperate command from some deeper part of her. A strange warmth flooded through her palms. She looked down. Her hands were glowing.

Keito’s breath slowed. “Elysia…”

She didn’t know what she was doing. Her hands pressed over his broken leg. The moment she touched him, the air shifted. Moisture gathered out of nothing, tiny shimmering threads of light weaving themselves into a veil of water over the wound.

Through her palms, she could feel everything… the jagged edge of the bone, the torn muscle, the pulse of his pain. The water seemed to know what she wanted. There was a grinding sound under her hands as the bone slid back into place. Keito grunted, his back arching, but he didn't pull away…. Trusting her… The light of the water sank into his skin, and like a thread being pulled tight, the wound beneath began to close.

​When it was over, the glow in her hands faded, and she snatched them back in a panic. For a long moment, neither of them moved. They just stared at his leg. The cloth was still torn and bloody, but beneath it, the limb was whole. He slowly bent his knee. He flexed his ankle. A ragged laugh broke from his lips.

​He pushed himself up, using the wall for support. He put his full weight on the leg. It held. He took a clumsy step, then another, and his foot caught on a loose stone, sending him stumbling. He caught himself before he fell, leaning heavily against the rock.

​“Always so damn clumsy.” The words were meant to be a joke, a way to break the stunned silence, but they came out bitter.

​“You’re not clumsy,” Elysia said, her voice quiet. She was still looking at her own hands, trying to understand the power that had just moved through them.

​He gave a short laugh. “Try telling that to the training masters.” He slid down the wall to sit, the tension finally draining out of him. “The other kids I grew up with… they called me ‘Keito the Klutz.’ Said I had one foot here and one in the spirit world, and that’s why I was always out of step.”

​He wouldn’t look at her, just stared into the faint light of her gem as if seeing something far away. “My father was a moon spirit. My mother was… human.” He said it plainly, the words worn smooth by years of private repetition. “And the Silver Wardens… they didn’t care that I was clumsy, or that I didn’t fit. They only cared that I was my father’s son.”

​He finally met her eyes, and the look in them was heavy. “I can’t wield great power. All I inherited was a sliver of his strength. Just enough to draw a bit of moonlight and bind it to steel. I can make a blade’s edge harder for a few minutes, or convince a shield to block a blow it should have missed. That’s it. That’s all it’s ever been.”

​He looked down at his hands. “But they didn’t see a trick. They saw potential. A weapon. Because I was so desperate to belong, I followed every order without question. I trained until I collapsed. They mistook my discipline for control. They think I'm holding back an ocean of power, but all I've ever had is this one single cup of water.”

​The confession hung in the air, raw and honest. He fell silent, the weight of his own words seeming to surprise him. Why did I tell her that? The thought came out of nowhere. He had guarded that truth his entire life, the secret shame of being a disappointment wrapped in the armor of a hero. He had never told another soul, not even Baro. But looking at her, at this quiet girl who had healing hands and a strange look in her eyes. The words had just… come out. He just felt a pull, an inexplicable need for her, of all people, to know the truth.

​As he stared at her, wrestling with the feeling, the blue gem on her forehead answered his unspoken question. It flashed, the light growing warmer, brighter, more intense than before. It seemed to react to his vulnerability, to the sudden, fragile connection that had just formed between them in the dark. ​The light washed over the cavern. Shapes shimmered in the air, strange script written in iridescent color. It floated between them both and they both looked at each other…

“A contract,” she said, her voice steady. She turned to Keito. He studied her face. She didn’t look like the frightened girl he’d seen before. She looked certain. He nodded once.

Their hands met, fingers lacing together. They both begin to float into the air… The surge that hit them was quick and shocking, energy rushed through them both like a flood. On his hand formed a crescent moon, and for the first time the pull inside him wasn’t tearing him apart…it settled into one point.

His eyes flashed silver and his voice spoke out.

“I accept!” and a bright flash blinded both of them and they fell onto the ground. Elysia looked over at Keito and he stood up fueled with power. He looked at the cave in in front of them and unsheathed his Longsword.

“Crescent Moon Slash!” He yelled out and his sword glowed with the light of the moon and he slashed forward as four arcs of light left the blade and flew towards the cave in. In the next moment the debris was cut through and opened a way for them to get out. He turned back to Elysia and extended his arm out to her.

“ Come on let's go find our teammate.” He said smiling at her.

She didn't know what just happened but she smiled and grabbed his hand, shed have to figure out what that contract meant later. Right now she has to find Baro.