Path of Dragons-Chapter 61Book 9: : Crushing Silence

The water was warm.

Elijah surfaced with a sharp exhale, but after only a second, something sliced into him. He grunted audibly, then felt another dozen attacks slicing through his sides. They only went an inch deep, but Elijah couldn’t stop himself from clenching at the combined sting of saltwater and some sort of mild toxin.

Belatedly, he concentrated on Soul of the Wild and sensed hundreds of manta rays drifting in the current, and they stretched as far as he could perceive.

“Son of a…”

Another flurry of activity that he could scarcely track, and he’d gained a dozen more wounds that filled the sea with his blood. Weakness flowed through him, though not so debilitating as it probably should have been. The message was clear, though – if those rays kept attacking, he would almost assuredly die.

Fortunately, he remembered the message from the other room. In this place, silence was clearly golden. It was obvious that the manta rays were attracted to sound. The only question was whether or not they were also triggered by ethera. Even as Elijah felt Oscar and the dogs enter his sphere of detection, he cast Wild Resurgence.

There was no response from the rays.

With that in mind, he cast Blessing of the Grove as well, then cycled Wild Resurgence on the pack. He’d just finished when Freddy surfaced, letting out a yelp. Immediately, he was swarmed. Elijah still could barely sense the rays, but they ripped the poor dog to shreds. Elijah’s preemptive heals kept him alive as all the other dogs surfaced, and to similar results.

Oscar was the only one that remained silent, and he was a little quicker on the uptake than Elijah, because he used some sort of ability – presumably to communicate with the dogs – and they fell silent a moment later. That let Elijah heal their injuries.

Once they were on the mend, he embraced Shape of the Sea. After the transformation was complete, the dogs and Oscar climbed aboard. It felt odd, having passengers on his broad back, and his mind inevitably drifted back to transporting the pile of dead bodies from Bloodrock Bay to just outside of Ironshore.

How long had it been since he’d given that any thought?

Days, at least. Weeks, more likely. But the second those memories crossed his mind, his mood soured. As he floated there, he cast his attention back to the grove, and he saw Kurik steadily working on the periphery. He was just outside of Elijah’s locus, so it was impossible to determine precisely what the dwarf was building, but it was safe to assume it was deadly.

That was comforting.

Meanwhile, Nerthus was busy onshore cultivating a host of flora that Elijah quickly surmised were quite aggressive. Oddly enough, Biggle was there too.

In the center of the grove were the children who were busy training beneath the boughs of the ancestral tree.

Everything was well in hand, but still, he worried about security.

Those thoughts flashed through his mind in the space of a few seconds, but in that time, he had also determined an appropriate direction. His choice was based only on ethereal density, but he felt it was as good an indicator as anything else. So, with powerful flippers, he sent himself surging forward. As he did so, the subtle undercurrent of ethera shifted, and Elijah lost himself in the act of following it.

In some ways, it was similar to every other ethereal current he’d ever experienced. However, it was also undeniably fluid, behaving like rivers amidst the sea through which it flowed. In that respect, it was almost hypnotic.

Of course, distracting him was the presence of the manta rays. There seemed to be no end to their numbers. There weren’t just tens of thousands. Rather, there were millions. Each one was barely discernible – via normal senses or Soul of the Wild – and perhaps a foot across.

But what they lacked in size, they made up for in sheer sharpness.

And every time Elijah’s flippers slapped against the water, he was forced to endure their attacks. Thankfully, the combination of Wild Resurgence and the immense attribute bonuses from Shape of the Sea kept him going even amidst the barrage of attacks.

He managed to kill a few, but there were always more to replace them. So, he decided to simply ignore them and endure their attacks on his way to whatever lay in the center of the challenge.

To distract himself, he thought back to the whirlpool. It hadn’t been nearly as traumatic as he’d expected. Disorienting, sure. A little panic-inducing as well. But once he realized that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he actually started to enjoy himself a little. In that respect, it was similar to riding a roller coaster.

But being spat out into the open ocean was quite a shock, and he’d been forced to heal quite extensively as he guided the dogs to the surface. Otherwise, they would have been crushed.

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Thankfully, it hadn’t taken long to reach the surface.

The same could not be said for the following journey across the sea. What had begun as a trickle of ethera slowly strengthened until there were dense rivers, all flowing in the same direction. Elijah continued to follow them for hours until the sun began to dip below the horizon and night fell. A silvery moon hung overhead, marking the passage of time.

It would have been quite a peaceful sight if Elijah wasn’t constantly attacked by the rays.

But if nothing else, Elijah was accustomed to enduring immense pain, and with his massive reserves of ethera, he could keep Wild Resurgence going almost indefinitely. It would take weeks for him to run dry, especially with his extensive cultivation having expanded the volume of ethera he could imbibe via the apertures in his mind.

Unfortunately, as days passed, it seemed increasingly likely that he might be forced to test those limits. As he swam, he snapped out and ate the invisible mantas. They didn’t taste good – even to his chelinoid tastebuds – but they did provide at least some sustenance. In the meantime, Oscar and the dogs rested on his back, slowly recovering from the damage they’d endured in the whirlpool, from the immense pressure that followed, and the rays that had attacked them toward the end.

And to Elijah’s surprise, they were all cultivating, using the same techniques they’d established during the last trial. Some of them had even made great progress. Digby’s ethera was barely even perceptible.

It was yet another reminder that the dogs weren’t just normal canines. He wasn’t certain how close to sapience they had come, but he’d seen enough not to underestimate what they could accomplish. Sometimes, it was difficult not to see them as furry, quadrupedal people rather than animals.

Perhaps that was the point.

In any case, Elijah was happy to see their progress. He would have done the same, but the constant attacks from the rays precluded him from stilling his ethera. If he let Wild Resurgence drop for even a few seconds, he would fall behind.

As the days went by, he frequently switched over to False Grove in an effort to conserve ethera. When he wasn’t tapping into it, it refilled on its own, dragging a trickle of ambient ethera into his helm.

On the tenth day, he caught a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It was just a speck on the horizon, but over the next couple of days, it resolved into an island.

Or a continent, really.

With jagged and imposing cliffs, it presented a unique obstacle. When Elijah drew closer, he saw that the images of more water giants had been carved into the face of the cliffs. They were hundreds of feet tall and half as wide, and Elijah knew that if they decided to come alive, he would stand absolutely no chance of survival.

Thankfully, they seemed entirely mundane in nature, and a few had been worn down to almost nothing from the natural erosion of wind and rain, suggesting that they weren’t magical. But he still remained on guard as he approached.

When he was a little more than half a mile away, he saw that directly in the center of the cliff was a narrow staircase that cut through the rock and led to the top. That seemed like as good a destination as any, so Elijah swam forward with some eagerness. He’d grown accustomed to enduring the barrage of slicing attacks from the rays, but he definitely wouldn’t argue with bringing the pain to an end.

Soon enough, he found himself weaving between jagged, mostly submerged spires of rock as the waves attempted to toss him to and fro. With his massive body and immense attributes, he resisted, though he knew that if he’d attempted it in any of his other forms, he would have ended up impaled on one of those rocks.

Even with his size, his softer underbelly took dozens of large wounds. Still, it wasn’t that much compared to what he’d already endured over the previous couple of weeks. And eventually, he reached the base of the stairs.

The dogs leaped onto the steps first, followed by Oscar. Finally, Elijah transformed and climbed free. He let out an audible breath as he continued to heal himself.

But to his horror, the rays leaped free of the water and continued their barrage. It only lasted for a moment until he stilled his breath and froze.

It didn’t take a leap of logic to understand the implications. Sound was still taboo. The only difference was that he could move in relative silence now that he didn’t have to paddle his way across an ocean.

It didn’t take long for the deluge of attacks to fall away.

Only then did Elijah truly rest. Thankfully, the pack remained silent, sinking into their cultivation. For his part, Elijah just relaxed and let the healing – and relief – washed over him. None of his wounds had been individually dangerous, but the accumulation had truly drained his willpower.

As he slowly recovered, he focused on making as little noise as possible. A simple breath wasn’t quite enough to bring the horde of rays down on him, but anything louder than a whisper would do the trick. After a few minutes, he pushed himself to his feet and headed a few dozen feet up the steps. However, it didn’t take him long to establish that the rays were just as prevalent up there as they were in the ocean.

There was no escaping their ire.

So, he and the pack had no other choice but to adjust. With that in mind, he retreated to where he’d left the others, then took a couple of hours to rest and recover. He even ate one of his prepared meals, though when he offered some to Oscar and the dogs, they refused.

With a shrug, he ate and pondered their situation.

Aside from knowing they needed to ascend the steps – which extended almost a mile up the cliff – Elijah only knew that silence was a necessity. Other than that, he was in the dark.

Briefly, he considered using Shape of the Sky to scout the way, but he discarded that idea for two reasons. First, flight wasn’t silent, and that form wasn’t durable enough to endure a barrage of attacks. On top of that, his wings were relatively delicate, and he knew that it wouldn’t take much to rip holes in them. But the second issue was even worse – he couldn’t in good conscience abandon Oscar or the dogs. If they made any noise, they would need healing, and if he wasn’t there, they stood a decent chance of dying to those injuries.

Because of that, he remained in place as everyone recovered to full health. It was night when they were ready to move on, and after getting a nod of confirmation from Oscar, Elijah led the way up the steps.

The cliffs themselves were made of white stone, but blue striations covered the steps. Other than that, there were no obvious characteristics. So, the ascent was fairly boring, save for the tension of remaining entirely silent.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to reach the top.

When they did, everyone stopped to stare at the odd landscape that stretched out before them. If he didn’t feel the rays all around him – barely – Elijah would have remarked on it. But as it was, he could only stare and appreciate it for the oddness that it represented.

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