Adventure in Ayremus

Chapter Seven: Bonding

"Touchportal?"

My name had never sounded so clear and bright as it did now. The soft tones of her voice ringing in my ears like a wind chime.

"How did you find me?"

I looked up at Ruby, her face lighting up as we locked eyes, her crestfallen expression wiped from her face.

"I used the ether to point me to that rune; needless to say, I was a bit too late."

Ruby laughed and pulled me into the hut, "I've been trying to get it to work, but it's nearly impossible to control." She instantly read my facial expression and continued: "You have the others don't you."

"Goodness, you know me well..."

I swung my pouch onto the table and let the runes clatter out for her to see. Her face lit up even more, and she instinctively reached out to take it, but I hastily activated all the runes, including hers, and commanded them to fly up into the air, just out of her reach. She shot me an irritated look, so I said: "You haven't explained to me, why did you run off? Was I not worthy enough for you?"

Ruby's happy expression instantly dropped from her face. She stood rooted to the ground, her mouth trying to form words while her hands made slight twitchy motions. As multiple emotions ran through her mind at once, her lingering gaze dropped to the floor. Her stalwart form completely broke down within a matter of seconds, and she hurled herself into my arms. "I'm sorry, so sorry. I thought way too highly of myself before. I figured I had a lot of courage, but I couldn't even bring myself to come back to find you."

I, too, was washed with emotions as I cradled Ruby in my trembling arms. I didn't reply, but we both knew that her actions were forgiven. We relied on each other way too heavily. I was blessed with a vast influence over the ether, but not knowledge or memory. That empty spot was constantly being filled in as Ruby droned on about the hundreds upon thousands of books she has read. I allowed her a brief moment of silence and reflection before returning to the task at hand. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her rugged tunic and plucked the runes out of the air as I carefully lowered them to a reaching distance.

It was at this moment where I noticed that the runes fitted together, the runes were like a small jigsaw puzzle. I placed the runes together and stared deeply into the engravings etched deeply into the stone. The runes glowed slightly to my every touch, slowly binding itself together with an unimaginable amount of force. In no time, the six runes that I held became one unfinished piece. Ruby, who had been ruefully lying on her side, finally propped herself up and yelled out in glee. "Its the stone tablet that the first bearer of the ether wrote on and enchanted. It is somewhere in this book." A book appeared from within the depths of Ruby's bag, and she quickly flipped through the rotten and moldy pages before she came to a part of the book that was strangely creased and folded in all sorts of ways. "The first bearer can control the whole tablet, or split it up into smaller runes that can be bound to other people to provide them with a stronger control of the ether." My mind flashed back to when I saw Dronn float into the Alteria throne room. I had noticed a crystal that he had on a chain around his neck that had glowed an unsightly color. At that point in time, I could not care less about his fashion sense, but now, that was a problem. I looked back at the unfinished tablet that Ruby was holding and noticed that the official crystal seal was missing from its place.

"I bound one of the runes to Dronn?" I started, surprising even myself with the sudden outburst. "Yes, you did. Wrote that you even assured your trust over him through tests; however, being greedy for power, his faith wavered away from you very soon and ran into hiding. I speculate that Dronn ran off so that you could not unbind him from the rune."

I slammed my hand on the table and rested my head on it while Ruby looked on ruefully. "What about the last rune? There are eight of them, right?"

"Well, I overheard that one of the wizards that work for the Dark Army has it bound to him."

This time, I jumped up in shock. "You mean the army that ripped Alteria to shreds? How did I make such a horrible mistake in the past!" I yelled so loudly that even the hut shook with my discontent of the situation. Ruby pulled me in for a hug, slowly tugging me down into a sitting position. I solemnly obeyed and looked deeply into her eyes. "You did not falter once, they were the ones that made the mistake, and such, you shall right them from their wrongdoing."

"You're our only savior now."

The words rocked my world, I felt a sudden urge to rectify the use of the ether. It should be used to aid people and bring them together, not tear them apart. I returned the embrace that Ruby gave me and felt her recoil slightly. "How do I bind this to you then?"

Ruby looked up at me in shock, she definitely did not expect me to entrust her with such a responsibility so quickly. I stared down into her eyes, which seemed to glow even brightly in the dim lighting of the room and said: "Haven't you wanted that so badly?"

She nodded hesitantly, "Its quite simple really..." The door creaked open behind me as a gust of wind blew through the canopy of leaves and through the house; as if it was as impatient as I was. Ruby finally dropped her motionless stance and signaled me to follow. The floorboards creaked under our weight as I swept my hands behind me, pushing the unfinished tablet back into the pouch and towards my waiting arms. We walked outside, and Ruby slammed the door shut behind her, then proceeded to open up the dense forest line that had barred anyone or anything else from wandering into the hut. I noiselessly followed her tracks as she took a side trail, this one leading towards a weird rocky outcrop. "I need you to lift this up... there." She pointed upwards to the top of the cliff face and stepped onto the stone slab that had been carefully hidden in a crevasse in the ground. I waved my arms around to resume control over the ether again, which now was a routine, and left my humbling gaze on Ruby. She had noticed that the tablet had risen out of my pouch and was floating a few feet behind me, and she was biting her lip in awe and jealousy. I felt the immense weight as the enormous slab of rock rose slowly out of the ground with us perched precariously on top. The rock landed with a slight bump and we got off, Ruby just had enough time to stop me before I walked off the edge into the abyss below.

"Wow."

The environment was serene and calming as the sun rose again, welcoming another day's worth of work for the villagers. My keen eyes picked out civilization after civilization peeking out from the copious amount of dense forestry, the former embellishing the otherwise dull-green expanse of land. Each town or city seemed to live in its own area; and area of expertise. The mining towns were built out of boulders, and they were mining out and storing extravagant materials from the bowels of the earth. The lumber settlements chopped, then replanted trees in a very formal fashion; their houses all built out of the different forms of wood they could find. The cities that took farming to their limits dwelled on fertile lands and harvested plentiful amounts of food every season. The only time they contacted each other was to seemingly trade resources, in which was the job of the merchant cities, whose buildings were lopsided, built with whatever they could trade. They made their living traveling the dense forests and moving materials from city to town to settlements. Even so, they moved so little at a time, prioritizing food over anything else. My judging gaze left the smaller places and roamed onwards to the pinnacle of the entire landscape. The magnificent central city took up most of the place, it seemed to crush the very forest surrounding it with its colossal size. The buildings were constructed lavishly and adorned with a plethora of other materials. The houses all had a very similar theme and material palette; however, they were built without a standard form in mind.

"Wow." That word described everything precisely, I could easily tell why Ruby took me up here. The sun climbed higher and higher, and a ray of untouched sunlight landed directly in the center of a small hand-drawn circle. Another shaft of light soon appeared once Ruby stepped into the light facing outwards. This one now directed itself to a podium, one fit for...

"The tablet." In one swift motion, I had balanced it on the little podium. The shaft of light danced around it and then vanished. Ruby turned around smiling with glee, and maneuvered the tablet into my pouch, showing me that the ritual had worked.

She hugged me tightly, "Thank you."