Tale of Eldramir

-Three years ago. Not long after Ezekiel’s exile-

The overall trip between Harkem and Sanafalls was roughly a couple of weeks at sea, depending on weather and the possibility of Deep Cruor attacks. But ultimately, little happened before Ezekiel had landed on the island city of Sanafalls.

Being one of the largest of the islands in the Endless Archipelago, and one of the closest to the continent, there was a surprising amount of trade that occurred, though almost all of it involved the other islands with their various resources.

The lack of fanfare during the trip to the Archipelago from the Willowbrush Empire meant that Ezekiel was mostly bored, which led to him feeling down for obvious reasons. They did stop in several ports along the way, but not much else occurred to keep his spirits up.

These ports were mainly minor waypoints created purely for stocking up on supplies, or as minor safe havens should the Deep Cruor attack any of the ships traveling through.

Admittedly, this was a fairly rare occurrence, since most Deep Cruor tended to live in the deep waters of the open oceans, rather than the comparatively shallow areas of the coastal regions.

That didn’t mean that Ezekiel didn’t get to see the results of such an attack firsthand, since the third waypoint they stopped at had a beached ship that was being repaired.

The hull showed signs of the wood being torn apart, along with deep lacerations and other cut up areas, and some that looked like they were crushed by something constricting around it. Not something that he looked forward to meeting, at any point in his life.

However, Ezekiel did manage to get some sparring in with a few of the locals that had traveled from one of the nearby oases, and he confirmed that the desert was a place where he never wanted to fight a Cavern Mage, as well as a Tempest Mage.

He found out the hard way that Tempest Mages were not dissimilar to Cavern Mages when they were in the desert, as they could manipulate the small grains of sand via their wind much the same as a Cavern Mage could directly do.

Ezekiel also spent time getting to know Shine, explaining some of the things that Shine was aware of, but didn’t necessarily have context for with the bits and pieces of knowledge they had inherited from the fragment of Ezekiel’s soul that was used to create them.

He had also gotten some advice from Scarlet regarding some exercises in how to further enhance the bond between them, as well as introduce him to how to get Shine’s mana up to the same Step as his own.

The decision to tell Scarlet about Shine was a difficult one, but it was actually from Shine’s own insistence, and a reminder to Ezekiel about the last time he had kept such a large secret, that ultimately led to Ezekiel talking to Scarlet.

This turned out to be a good thing, because it seemed like Scarlet was just as certain that it should be kept a secret as Ezekiel was but knew that if the upper echelons of the church were aware then they would at least be able to support him if necessary.

Of the various Scholars on the ship, only Scarlet was permitted to know, and it would be determined later who else would be permitted to learn of Shine’s existence.

“To be honest with ye, I’d love to tell the world that there’s a Void Spirit, but I know that there’d be a lot of people tryin to take em from ye. I won’t even be tellin my aunt about this.”

The fact that Scarlet was willing to keep this secret meant a great deal to both Ezekiel and Shine. The fact that she gave him a technique that would help Shine grow stronger was just a bonus.

“To keep em a bit safer, it’d be best if ye shared yer mana with em to get em to a higher Step.” There’s a few techniques ye can use, but it’d be best if ye used em for reference. They’re not made fer Void Mages after all.”

So, for the duration of the trip, Scarlet would spend an hour or two helping Ezekiel figure things out between him and Shine. Little success was met, before they reached Sanafalls, but it did help Ezekiel keep busy, and gave him time to connect with Shine. Both of which he was grateful for.

He also helped out with a lot of the chores on the ship, including cooking and cleaning, and learned as much as he could about how to survive at sea. He figured that, if something did happen to him while he was at the Archipelago, these were things he needed to know.

However, the thing that had surprised him most about what he was learning, was the sheer scope of the Archipelago in question.

It actually spanned the entire radius of the southern hemisphere of the world. Parts of it were even claimed by the Desolate Lands. Something he didn’t think was possible until then.

Apparently “Endless Archipelago” was an entirely accurate name for it. The Archipelago wrapped around the entire world, and due to this was able to access most of the supercontinent that composed the middle and northern parts of the world.

There were literally thousands of islands that made up the Archipelago. The majority of the Archipelago was controlled by either humanity or Spirits, but roughly a third were islands that were under the control of either the Deep or Wing Cruor.

Because of this, it was impossible to perfectly circumnavigate the world for trade purposes, but it still meant that the Archipelago was able to somewhat access the various worldly factions.

It was this knowledge that actually gave him some hope of eventually being able to visit the Temple of the Void in Quintessa. Although, he figured that going there before he managed to break through to a higher realm wouldn’t be too useful in this instance.

Eventually, after learning as much as he could, and keeping Shine a secret from all but Scarlet, Ezekiel found himself slowly overcoming the worries and concerns he had regarding his home.

His maturity, and the fact that he had done such a thing in his past life, certainly helped with this. As did the fact that he knew his family was alive, and he may one day see them again.

Thus, after a couple of weeks traveling at sea, Ezekiel started to feel like he was ready to face whatever challenges the Endless Archipelago threw at him.

Six months had passed since Ezekiel had first stepped onto the docks of the capital island of Sanafalls. The island was a little over six hundred kilometers long, and had a dozen, much smaller, islands surrounding it at various points.

The city of Sanafalls was roughly the same size as Harkem, with the immediately surrounding areas used for what little agriculture was possible in such environmental conditions, being so close to the sea as it was.

The rest of the Island, outside of a few villages here and there, that were also dedicated to agriculture, or other pursuits for businesses and livelihood, were the lands provided to the Spirits.

Essentially, they were the same as the Spirit Lands in Harkem, but much larger and more open. This made the areas more dangerous, as well as more vibrant when it came to the life of the land.

Originally, when he’d landed on the island, he’d expected to be greeted by a few more Scholars, and perhaps introduced to a team that he would be working with, much like he had back in Harkem.

He was wrong. Very wrong.

Outside of being brought straight to the Cathedral, Scarlet had Tommy and the other members of Scarlet’s crew hadn’t bothered to speak to him again, having to go off on another mission, this time with one of the Guilds that they had a contract with.

“Sorry kiddo. I’m one o the more active members o this Cathedral. We don’t got many Legendary Hunters in the Archipelago’s Guilds, so most o the time it’s the Grand Scholars leading expeditions and dealing with wild Spirits or the odd Cruor here and there.”

Needless to say, these words had dampened Ezekiel’s spirits once again when they parted ways.

But Ezekiel tried to stay positive, with the hopes that he’d soon get to work with his training and his progress with his mana.

Unfortunately, outside of a few interactions with a couple of the Acolytes, Ezekiel didn’t actually speak with any of the Scholars in the Cathedral at all.

The only thing he’d received from any of the higher ups was a letter from a couple of the other Grand Scholars informing him that Scarlet had told them about Shine, and that he wasn’t to tell anyone else. Something that he wasn’t planning on doing anyway.

He was then given a room in the Acolyte’s quarters in the Cathedral's property, given a supervisor that he had to report to regularly, and then basically turned into a janitor and general handyman for the Cathedral. He cooked, he cleaned, he fixed mundane devices and acted as a gopher to those who needed something done.

Of course, the odd jobs that he was assigned only ended up being assigned to him when he refused to take the mandatory lessons provided by the church for children his age. He had to demand that he be allowed to take the graduation tests to prove that additional lessons weren’t necessary.

“I don’t care what you think a person my age has knowledge of. I also don’t care if you ‘know that I wasn’t educated’ because of that Cult’s stupid influence in Harkem. I’m more than smart enough to pass any test you give me, up to the level of the Empire’s Academy entrance exams!”

Ezekiel hadn’t made too many friends when he went off on his technical supervisor, who was also the head of the dorms at the Cathedral, but he felt a bit of pride when he saw the man’s shocked expression after he handed the completed tests over.

He was now starting to regret having aced all of those tests, seeing as how he’d probably have more free time if he was taking lessons than the workload he currently had.

He was given a day off for every five days of work, which really cut into his training time. This, in part, made him realize why it was so difficult for people to reach higher Tiers. It wasn’t just the lack of ambient mana, or the use of mana being stored for breakthroughs. It was the fact that people had no time to gather mana like he did when he was younger and was free to do almost as he wished.

As it was, he considered himself lucky that, in the six months he’d been working, not only had he turned eleven-years-old, physically, but he’d also managed to increase his mana back up to Step four.

He hadn’t made much progress with increasing Shine’s mana to the same capacity as himself, but they had finally figured out how to get Shine to absorb mana on his own.

Ezekiel figured out that he just had to open his own mana pool to Shine, allowing them to slowly take what they wanted from his own mana and slowly integrate it into themself.

It was a slow process, especially since Ezekiel’s mana was still influenced by his soul and will, so it felt like pulling teeth at times, but it wasn’t damaging, and in the time, it took for Ezekiel to reach Step four, Shine had managed to get halfway to Step two.

Regardless, by this point in time, Ezekiel was beginning to go stir crazy, as he hadn’t even been able to visit the city since arriving at Sanafalls. Something he dearly wished to do, having long since regretted never being able to explore Harkem before his exile.

Since he knew from Scarlet that there wasn’t nearly as much prejudice against Void Mages here as there was in the Empire, as well as confirmation that there were no Cult of Light members in the city, he figured that it’d be okay.

Something that the dorm head deemed appropriate when he asked for a return pass from the dorm supervisor when he asked to go into the city on one of his days off. Afterwards, he realized that he should’ve been more suspicious of the fact that he was just allowed to leave for a day.

He ended up being greatly surprised by just what he found when he was exploring the city.

Six months, a few days, and a couple of hours after first making landfall in Sanafalls, Ezekiel had finally gotten a chance to explore the city in full.

Much like Harkem, it was divided into different districts, but unlike Harkem, it didn’t have its own dedicated Guild district, nor did its docks district look like it was in disrepair. If anything, the docks were likely the nicest area of the city that wasn’t the grounds of the Cathedral.

Given that it was also the most active part of the city this did make sense to him.

As this was the case, Ezekiel felt it would be best to start his exploration there, as he didn’t want to risk getting into trouble on his first day out.

Of course, this was difficult for him to do when he hadn’t been out for more than an hour before he literally ran into a girl running from a group of people who looked less than pleased.

“Get back here you little bitch!”

“You damned well owe us big time for that bogus information!”

“Stop her!”

Ezekiel was nearly barreled over as the girl slammed into him as he was turning a corner.

She had just dashed out from an alley as Ezekiel was crossing it.

As the two went to the ground, Ezekiel held his head in pain after having it slammed into the taller girl’s chin.

“Are you okay!”

Shine’s voice reverberated through Ezekiel’s mind as he cleared his dizzy head.

“I’m fine. Just a bit dizzy. It’ll go away in a bit.”

Ezekiel pulled himself to his feet, planning on just walking away from whatever was happening when a voice called out to him.

“Mikey! Little brother! What are you doing here? I told you to get out of the city!”

Ezekiel turned his head toward the girl he’d run into. Her eyes were brown with shiny flecks in them, indicating that she was a Cavern Mage. Her hair was also brown, but he figured that was her inherited hair color, as she didn’t look more than fifteen or sixteen years old.

“Quickly! Take this and get as far away as possible.” The girl then shoved a bag into Ezekiel’s hands and ran off once again, ducking into a small crowd to get away.

For a second, Ezekiel was greatly confused, as he had no idea who that girl was, nor why she would call him Mikey and give him a bag he’d never seen before.

“Hey, kid!” A gruff voice filled with malice dragged his attention behind him.

He saw a group of five full grown men, all wearing rough and patchwork clothes, but just from their physique alone he could tell that they would probably destroy him if it came down to a fight.

For a moment, he considered running, but the gray and violet eyes on two of the men made him think otherwise, as there was little to no chance that he’d make it far before getting caught.

“Mikey, was it?” The man in the lead, a tall and muscular man with gold hair a bit of a gut and several rings on his hands, called out to him.

“Ezekiel, actually.”

“What?”

The man and his followers looked confused for a second. Before moving forward again.

“Here.” Ezekiel held his hand out with the bag before the man could say anything else.

He raised his eyebrow at Ezekiel in question, eyeing the sword that was attached to Ezekiel’s waist with a little bit of greed, but he made no particularly overt movements towards it.

“You’re just giving that to us?” The man asked. “You sure your sister would like that, little Mikey?”

“Yes, and my name’s not Mikey, and I’ve never seen that girl before in my life. But please be careful, I have no idea if that girl booby trapped it or not.”

The man stopped reaching for the bag, an angry look on his face.

“You’re saying your sister booby trapped this!?”

“Again, not my sister. Just some weird girl who's trying to use me to get away from you. I’ve never seen that girl in my life, and I’ll show you my Church issued identification to prove it if necessary.”

Ezekiel then dropped the bag on the ground, letting the contents fall out onto the ground.

By this point a small crowd had gathered around.

“I wouldn’t suggest you stay here, though, as the longer you spend talking with me, the longer she has to get away.”

A look of realization crossed the man’s face at Ezekiel’s words.

“Ezekiel, are you sure this is what you should be saying right now? That man looks really angry.”

“It’s fine, Shine. Look at the corner a few alleys down to our left.”

Ezekiel felt Shine exert a bit of their attention in the direction he had pointed out. It seemed like there were several guards walking in their direction.

Ezekiel wasn’t totally certain that they would help him, but he knew that if he got the chance to get his ID out, then he’d be fine. Sanafalls wasn’t like the Empire, where the Church was only an advisory and research-oriented institution. The Church of Ten was the only organization in Sanafalls that had more than one Legendary Hunter amongst their ranks.

“You little brat! You’re just a distraction, aren’t you!”

Ezekiel was physically pulled from his thoughts as the man grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him into the air.

“We’ll see how far your sister gets when she finds out we’ve got you-”

“HELP!!! MURDER! KIDNAPPERS! HELP! HELP! HELP!”

Ezekiel channeled a little bit of mana into his chest, annoyed at the expenditure, as it would mean that he’d be set back by a few days of meditation, but he knew he needed to do this.

Given the increased volume of his voice, the man who had grabbed him, as well as his followers, fell to their knees in shock at just how loud Ezekiel’s scream was.

The reason he had yelled so loud was because he wasn’t sure if the Tempest Mage had put up a wall of air to block out any noise. But if he disturbed the one who put up the wall, then he’d likely drop it if he was in enough pain.

“HELP! SAVE ME! BAD MAN! HELP!”

He continued to scream, even as the likely gang members got back to their feet and regained their bearing.

“You little-!”

“What’s going on here!”

The man was cut off as a patrol team came up to them.

“Sir! Sir! Sir! These men tried to kidnap me! Here’s my official Church of Ten residency card! I’m a ward of the Church! See, see, see!”

Ezekiel ran up to the guard in the lead of the others, holding out a card and a pass that were both given to him by the Church of Ten. They acted as his residency card and personal ID, marking him as a ward of the Church.

The guard took a look at the cards before confirming that they were correct.

As this was happening, the other guards moved over to the gang members to cut off their escape.

“Okay, kid. You’re alright now. Can you tell me what happened?”

While he was annoyed at being called a kid again, having gotten frustrated at the condescending attitude of the Scholars and the Acolytes over the past six months, Ezekiel accurately explained what had happened, to which the Radiant Mage that was leading the gang members was left in shock at having been played so badly by the girl that had run away.

The guard, however, just sighed in exasperation.

“Dammit, Chester, did you get played by that brat Sasha again?”

The Radiant Mage, Chester, looked down sheepishly at the guard that was berating him.

For a second, Ezekiel was shocked that the guard knew the man who’d tried to take him away and was worried that he’d be in more trouble if the guards turned against him for their friends.

“Dammit, Eugene, I really thought that her info was legit this time! She even had maps and logs.”

“I’m less disappointed in you getting fooled by her info, for the third time, and more disappointed at you getting fooled by her distraction as she was running. You should’ve noticed just from his accent that the kid was from here. Let alone her nonexistent brother.” Eugene said as he pointed at Ezekiel.

“Umm. Is this guy going to jail? Actually, what’s going on? Or can I just leave?”

“Leaving would be good. Let’s get out of here before anything else weird happens.”

As much as he agreed with them, Ezekiel couldn’t go through with Shine’s request right now. Technically it might be considered as running from the law.

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, you can go kid. Please don’t think too badly of Eugene here. He’s had a few spots of bad luck and, due to his rough upbringing, he sometimes gets a bit violent. He’ll spend a couple nights in a cell and have to pay a fine. But he shouldn’t be causing you any more trouble moving forward.”

Eugene’s reassurances didn’t do much for Ezekiel, but he figured he could take his words at face value for now.

“Actually,” Eugene turned to Chester, “Give him a voucher. Full ride, to and from, for free.”

“... Okay...”

Looking physically pained as he did it, Chester pulled a small book from his pocket. Ripping out one of the pages, he handed it to Ezekiel, who looked it over briefly, finding himself surprised to see a voucher for one free ride at Chester’s Treasure Chest Transportation.

“That’ll get you one free ride for yourself plus cargo, to and from any one of the islands surrounding Sanafalls. Valid until Void Day of next year.”

Void day was the equivalent of new years in this world, so Ezekiel managed to calculate that it was valid for a little bit less than a year and a half.

“Thank you?”

Ezekiel was still incredibly confused, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I’m sorry that you failed to catch whoever that girl was. What did she do?”

Eugene and Chester looked frustrated and furious at Ezekiel’s question.

“She’s performed a number of cons on sailors using fake treasure maps and rumors of unique and previously unseen Spirits. She tricks a number of people into taking her to different islands, usually for free, or with the guarantee that she’ll get them a big score.”

“She owes me nearly fifty gold for transportation fees, and the maps and logs she sold me to pay for it all were nothing but forged documents that led us straight into a damned bog on South’s End Island!”

Ezekiel couldn’t help but be shocked at Eugene and Chester’s explanations. The girl that had run into him didn’t look older than her mid-teens, yet she was causing this much trouble.

“Wow! She must be one smart lady.” Shine said to Ezekiel.

The two men must’ve seen Ezekiel’s reaction to their words, as they further explained.

“Her father was one of the Guild Leaders of the Depth Divers. A Guild that specialized in looking for underground and underwater Ruins or crystal deposits. So, she has some extensive training in both magic and business.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense then.”

“Yeah. It’s a shame they were forced to disband after a Cruor attack a few months ago. From what I know, Sasha was about ready to join them officially. Was gonna go try to bond with a Spirit here on Sanafalls. Shame she can’t now.”

Ezekiel was silent as Eugene continued to explain. He didn’t have to ask to know that Sasha’s father was likely one of the casualties of the attack.

“Look, kid, you should get going. There’s not much more you can do here. Chester’s sorry about what happened, and I’ll be having a word with Sasha’s remaining family. Maybe they’ll have some information as to where she is this time.”

Eugene looked incredibly frustrated at having to do this. Likely because he’d done it several times already, only to have no effect in catching Sasha.

“If you say so. Thank you for clearing things up for me. I hope you catch her.”

Ezekiel waved as he left the area. Not bothering to stay and watch as Eugene and his team escorted Chester and his employees away.

“That was weird. Is this something that happens a lot to you when you go out?”

Ezekiel had to think for a little bit as he continued walking. He recalled every other time he’d gone out to explore for anything else in his past.

“... It doesn’t tend to happen when I know where I’m going to, and have been there before?”

Ezekiel couldn’t help but trail off in uncertainty. His track record wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t like these things happened all the time, and he probably wasn’t going to run into any of these people again any time soon.

Right?