Chapter 8 - Setting the Stones

In Shosoth, the scent of kobald industry below filled it. Much of the workspace on the ground below was open to the air. Like many of the smaller towns on the outways skylands, it was not near the edge. Trash and refuse were piled across its dense buildings. The verticality of the land caused shacks to be stacked up on each other, which shared these piles of garbage. Thusly, its odor was sulphurous, organic, and putrid.

The Murky Prospector was nearly fully refreshed and shone in the sourcelight, encased in its new hardened shell. They would remain anchored until this work was finished, and by Kuthe's insistence that Cowel's connection to Prism be better solidified before taking flight.

Cowel sat cross-legged in the refreshed cargo hold on top of the well-hidden vault door that would be housing Prism from now on. His newly acquired green gemin rested in his palm. It was smaller than Prism, a mere pebble in comparison, but it was dense with energy. The gemin released surges of bright green light. Touching his face, these beams were cool and breezy. He was confident they smelled of mint, and they freshened the stale air around him. Edven and Alanea stood at the entranceway with their own palm clutched gemin, awaiting their turns.

Kuthe's voice trilled in a low rumble of unintelligible kobald words before speaking to Cowel. "Setting a gemin is not about force. Pressing harder into a material does not make it set sounder. It is about the act of invitation. To take part in your spirit and understand its natural state. What it desires and its presumptions of your character are connected to its predispositions." He closed Cowel's hand around the stone. "Green gemin have a tendency to be more trusting than others, but this is not always true. It is not always 'set in stone'."

Cowel nodded and his brow crinkled as he contemplated. During the renovations, he had spent days with Kuthe absorbing the kobald's immense knowledge of gemin. He knew how he was supposed to respond and what materials they preferred.

For his own green stone, which was associated with the natural world, he would need natural materials. They had plenty after the renovations on the ship, a ton of wood hull plating boards and strakes. This bunch of this loose material was on a floatskid in front of them. There was one other similar pallet with a mixture of fine raw stone slabs sourced from various traders in the skies around Shosoth.

Cowel closed his eyes and focused forward. The green gemin in his hand jumped in the flesh of his closed fist with a lasting vibration that spread up his arm and into his chest. Within the stone was a deep, primal hunger and a desire to create life. This was a sensation he had not experienced from Prism, which was always surrounded by entropic thoughts and confusion.

"I think it wants to expand." Cowel mellowed as his voice was hoarse from days of talking to traders and to Kuthe.

"Good." Kuthe affirmed. "Now present a vertex of the stone into the material. This will be the path that transfers energy. Single points of contact are more effective."

Cowel opened his eyes and pressed a corner of his octahedral stone into the old wood, splitting its fibers. The wood softened, and the gem depressed into it as if it were wet paper. Lasers of bright green light shone through the wood, revealing its natural translucency, and escaped through its splits, cracks, and seams. Within two blinks of the eye, damage to a few of the boards faded. They began to grow new young wood flesh and bark. The boards curled and turned until they were in the shape of a creature.

A blinding green light filled the room as the transformation completed. Crawling out from a cavity left behind in the transmuted material was a serval-like feline, waist high when sitting. Its entire body was covered with wood-colored, fine, and soft plant fiber strands. At a distance, it would be difficult to tell it was made out of wood at all, if it wasn't for its hard pads clicking against the floor as it paced around the room. Its tail and ears had a few green leaves around them.

It sat proudly with its feminine face staring into Cowel's eyes and walked around him as if to inspect his body. After a few rotations, it stopped and rolled onto its side. Strangely, it was hovering about arm's length off the ground, as if this was completely normal cat behavior.

"A green keygemin..." Kuthe observed with a sharp mouth agape toward the creature. "...taking the form of a predatory animal. That is very interesting. She knows why she is here and has chosen her form well."

Cowel eyed it with excitement as if being gifted a new puppy. "How did I take care of it? Do I feed it or..."

Kuthe laughed with the memory of a fatherhood long ago. "No, young Cowel. Keygemin consume the energy of the stone that lies within them. The gemin that manifested this creature can sustain it for a thousand years. It is especially powerful... and valuable." He approached the creature and preened through its thin coat with his claws. "She will find a place to sleep only if she chooses to rest, and keygemin do not produce waste."

Alanea and Edven held their jaws open. They had seen keygemin before, but had never witnessed the setting process. It was commonplace to hear stories about it not going so seamlessly. This was in part due to both the gemin's color and their prior history. They did not know it, but Cowel's gemin had undergone setting over a hundred times. Something that was easy to do, with wood being so abundant.

The captain stood straight from leaning her boot up against the brand new, well-finished steel doorframe. "So it's like a pet with no maintenance."

As the keygemin lay in the air, the wood on the pallet was continuing to repair itself and sprout new growth. "I did not say that... but it is your turn, captain." Kuthe fanned his arm toward Cowel's former seating position.

She held the rather round stone in her hand. It was as cold as ice, but did not impart such temperature into her hand as ice would have. Alanea was not so well composed and hesitated as she bent down to sit.

"This is a blue gemin." Kuthe said gently. "Do you know what material it wants? Reach into it, concentrate, and feel what that might be."

Alanea did not quite understand the task at hand. Her spirit was not as well focused on the stone. "I thought that... for the ship... that it could use steel... for protection."

Kuthe chattered his teeth together in disapproval. "Steel is strong, but a blue gemin seeks flow and adaptability. Metal is not as malleable as it would like to be. What does it whisper to you?"

Alanea closed her eyes and began a spiritual struggle. She saw what he thought was white around steel. Cowel, who was now more in tune with a pair of stones under his purview, could feel her unease rippling through the gemin she was clinching.

"I don't know. It's blue, right? Water then. It wants water?" The captain guessed aloud.

"You have much training and attunement before you can become a true keygemite." Kuthe's teeth continued to chatter. "You will not always have me around here to hand answers to you. You need to know what it needs."

Kuthe reached out toward Alanea, who felt his approach and opened her eyes quickly. "What you need, Miss Sulhoat, is something that flows. A cloth, and not thick like a canvas or tarp. It must remain mutable and changeable. It must also be yours." He motioned toward Alanea's closed quarters. "Have Edven retrieve one of your garments, captain."

"I would rather he not!" Alanea objected and kept her locked cabin private for her own reasons.

"The material it wants to set with is your own cloth, and I'm sure you would rather the stone not take it from the nearest place it can." Kuthe grinned as he tried to purse his lips to whistle, failing utterly.

Alanea drew and threw the latchkey from her pocket and pitched it at Edven across the room, who managed to catch it before it struck his face. He returned with two mostly leather coats, a ballgown the captain used for a formal occasion once, and two silk pillowcases. She selected the sky-blue and cream colored ball gown for sacrifice.

"I think the last time I wore this I still lived in Kuchester, right out of school. I'm sure it doesn't fit anymore." The captain could come up with a dozen different excuses to destroy this dress. She then had a reason to.

Alanea took a deep breath and, in a single decisive motion, placed to the stone against it without instruction from Kuthe. The blue gemin ripped the stitching and fibers of the garment apart, and needlelessly stitched itself back together. Separating the fibers strand after strand until it formed itself into a doll just over a foot in height. This doll, being created from the fabric of the dress, was also sky-blue and cream color.

It took the shape of a humanoid figure with long featureless legs, distorted and long. Its arms reached nearly to the stumps of its feet with wing feathers formed from pleats in the fabric. Atop the humanoid form was the head of a barn owl with six eyes. Two pairs above where the normal eyes would be, and each decreasing in size, narrowing to the top of the head. At its crown were two horns pointing upward, drawing close together. Its beak and horns were soft, with the entire doll stuffed with single, collapsed threads from the ballgown.

"A blue keygemin..." Kuthe examined while walking around Alanea, who was then sitting with the creature. "...feeds on your own fears and doubts. The things that are holding you back." The kobald bent down to become level with the doll. "I wonder why it chose this particular form. Hmmm?"

Alanea stared into the doll's many false eyes, and to her dismay, they blinked. This startled her into releasing her grip from it. The blue doll floated away within arm's reach, grabbing what remained of the fabric and began to control its fibers, transmuting them into a smaller version of the dress it destroyed. It then put this dress on and curtseyed in it while facing the captain. The doll then waved, giggling with a feminine voice reminiscent of both Alanea's and an owl's.

The captain stood and backed away from it a few steps. "I... hate... owls."

Kuthe leaned toward the captain and chortled with a dry heave. "I am sure this keygemin is aware, I am also sure you two will get along. It means no harm, though they are mischievous." He shooed the captain away from the center of the room toward the owl doll. "Move, we have one more left to set."

The owl keygemin did not have a mouth to smile with, or it would have. It hugged Alanea's arm while floating at chest height. This was not at all what she expected, and the coldness she initially felt toward it vanished instantly. She then hugged the floating magical plushie.

Edven, emboldened by their successes, stepped forward with his hands trembling. He was barely able to grip his comparably large cube, about the size of his own closed fist. Edven prepared to move the floatskid that collected the slabs of stone. To do so, he placed the heavy beveled cube on top of the slabs so that he could have both of his hands free.

This action alone was enough to cause the gemin to begin setting.

Edven stepped backward twice and bumped against what remained of the wood on the other skid. "I!... I didn't do anything!... It just..."

"A keygemin can manifest whenever the gemin so pleases." Kuthe interjected, walking toward the transmuting stone with his mouth wide as if to chomp into meat. His lizard lips tightened across his teeth as he grinned in mania. "It needs only your spirit, Edven! A gemin will do this to protect its possessor... or... when it knows it can overpower them." His head snapped quickly toward Edven. "We will soon see which of the two it is!"

The gemstone chose various stone slabs from the floatskid to transmute. Among them, marble, lapis, jade, and granite each forming a different part of its complex body. Then... the wood of the floatskid too.

"Oh my! What a sight to behold!" The kobald couldn't contain his excitement and was the closest of the four of them to the transformation.

The yellow gems that kept the floatskid aloft fell to the floor. Soon they rolled across and were picked up into the transmuting mass. This was quickly followed by steel around the doorway leading into the cargo hold.

Kuthe chittered his teeth. He had never seen such a transformation. "Keygemin can use anything they touch to create their form. Sometimes they desire more than is provided to them, and it can be quite dangerous! hahaHaHaHAHAHA---"

"Shouldn't we stop this?!" The captain pleaded as she watched her newly refurbished cargo hold become consumed.

The kobald snapped his head toward Alanea. "---HAHAHA! No, you can't! We can only watch what it becomes!"

Eventually, the gemstone stopped consuming the metal from the door. Within it spun a complex clockwork mechanism formed of steel and stone. It stood up from its sitting position and, too, was humanoid in shape. Standing, it reached nearly floor to ceiling. This was not terribly high on an aeroship, but was at least two feet taller than Edven.

The keygemin took two slow and heavy footsteps toward Edven. Alanea was glad the floors were recently replaced and could support its weight. The mechanized golem opened four holes in its face that appeared to be its eyes, revealing the four yellow gemin it had consumed from the floatskid.

Booming through the ship at a volume that caused everyone to flinch, its face lit up in a brilliant golden light as it spoke a single word.

"Mission?"

Edven was not in a mental state to answer such a complicated question. "Huh... wait what?"

"What is my mission?" The keygemin did not blink its stone shutter eyes. Its volume was unreasonable, and had a deep resonating voice as if bellowing into an echo-prone, narrow-walled passageway.

"Uh... your mission is to..." He looked toward the others for answers, and found none. "..." His eyes darted around the room to lay upon the vault that the mechanical man was standing upon. "Your mission is to protect that vault." Edven pointed directly downward below the mechanoid.

A flat beam of light, a laser, emitted from the keygemin's face. It swept across the deck floor as the creature examined it closely. The beams began to trace the objects that lay below the floor. Their outlines were then visible to the others in the room.

"Acknowledged. No person may access this vault without your permission." The automaton placed his arm perpendicular to his chest to salute.

Edven expanded upon the instructions, realizing the issue he'd created. "Everyone in this room also has access to the vault. Nobody else."

Flat beams again emitted from the face of the stone and steel automaton. "Acknowledged."

Alanea clapped her hands together. "Okay, great. It's not going to kill us!" She and Cowel both let off a long-held nervous laughter. Kuthe, who was not nervous, also joined in on the laughter to get into the team spirit.

Edven approached the automaton, who looked down at him as their distance closed. Completely enamored by the machine within, he tried to examine its inner workings. It was impossible for him to grasp, and had thousands of moving parts. Many of them were smaller than pieces of fine jewelry, ultimately a mystery.

He looked up toward the metal man's face. "You should probably keep your voice down. Stealth... is important to our mission."

Muffled artificially, the machine... "Acknowledged."