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Chapter 4: Lanterns
🕑 Added 2024-08-26 10:00:03 +0000 UTCThe Hardune were not the only people to shine on Riloth 19th. Many of the heroes of the Last Dragon War made their debut on the world stage, and many more folk tales were born.
Cork the Many is a pack rat, blessed with intelligence by his Assuine Blessed mother. Through his efforts, he saved a the Village of Eval and in doing so stopped the summoning of a major demon.
-Day the Heroes by Erol Vondermin
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“I told ya he'd be late,” Rakin said smugly as Kole burst through the door onto the roof.
“You say that like any of us didn't believe you,” Zale said, waving to Kole.
“I learned a new spell!” Kole proclaimed proudly. “Thunderwave for 10 Will!”
Kole decided it would be best if he left it there. There was no need to mention his ill-advised test and the adventurers.
“Of course he did,” Rakin said, rather unimpressed.
“That's great!” Zale said at the same time, genuinely happy for him. “That’s going to be useful in whatever replaces the dungeon.”
“Any news on that?” Kole asked, receiving a shrug in reply.
“You know Tigereye isn’t going to tell me and give me an unfair advantage.”
While Tigereye was Zale’ mentor for the adventuring track, honesty in fairness in competition were not only important to him but central tenets of his worship of the demigod Ganik.
Kole finally took in the roof and noticed their group was far from the only one present on top of the tavern that served adventurers. While there were a few people there their own ages they were all accompanied by some adventurer or another, while Kole’s group was the only group of non-adventurers.
Each group had their own paper lanterns of drastically different designs. While the ones Zale had gotten for the group were simply rectangles with a candle within, the variety Kole saw suggested that designing your own lantern was a major part of the holiday.
Kole recognized the plain ones Zale had as the basic ones on sale at some of the street stalls they’d walked past on their travels that day.
The nearest adventuring group and lanterns that looked to be giant origami birds with no provision Kole could see for a candle, while another group had what appeared to be a perfect glass sphere two feet wide. Others existed somewhere in between those extremes and Kole’s, the majority simply being painted versions of the standard design.
“So what do we do?” Kole asked Zale, taking his own.
“Can we design our own next year?” Amara asked speaking over Kole and marvelling at one paper lantern that had no candle provision but was covered in runes.
Zale nodded.
“Yeah. I usually do, but it slipped my mind this year,” she explained. “And now, we wait for the fire to be lit in that tower, and then we all light our own.”
The lantern lighting was meant to symbolize the efforts made by the early discoverers of Basin to spread its location to those still trapped at sea. In a great gesture of commonality and goodwill towards all, most of those who discovered Basin unloaded those who wished to return to land and took evidence of its bounty out to sea to show others the way to dry land. In the decades of flooding, all old allegiances had fallen away, buried under the seas with the borders that defined them. Aside from those that resorted to piracy, the world had become a more peaceful place as ships worked together to survive.
“Where’s Doug?” Kole asked looking around until he spotted the boy’s antlers in the corner of the roof.
“He’s with Mouse,” Rakin said derisively
“Stop that,” Zale said, swatting his head, “I know you have your issues with Harold, Gray, and Esme, but Mouse is a perfectly lovely girl.”
While generally gentle and kind—outside of battle at least—Kole noticed that Zale often went out of her way to swat at her pseudo-cousin.
“Fine,” Rakin said with a sigh, “There’s just something odd about her.”
Zale went to speak, but then stopped and looked over to the pair, and then shrugged.
“Be that as it may, she doesn’t deserve your attitude,” Zale said, conceding the point.
Kole hadn’t interacted much with the girl, but she did seem excessively, well, mousey.
Kole spent some time looking over the other lanterns and looking around the rooftops around them. The lanterns on the other rooftops also variety greatly in design, but while the lanterns atop the Griffin’s Roost employed a large degree of magical construction, those on other rooftops appeared to be more mundane.
The rooftop across the way from them rose a few stories taller, and all the lanterns appeared to be larger and richly painted with scenes Kole took meant to represent the bounty of Basin.
He examined the lanterns closely, and then the people holding them. His eye’s grew wide as he recognized a face—one he’d expected to never see again, before he spotted a second familiar and equally unexpected stop up beside the first.
“Corbyn?” Kole said aloud, dumbfounded, before turning invisible out of pure instinct, not caring about revealing the ability.
Oh, Flood! He cursed internally at the sight of the boy and his father beside him. OH FLOOD! he cursed again, looking around to see if anyone noticed his disappearance A quick glance revealed that no one was paying attention to him, but he ran behind a hanging cloth divider set up to give some semblance of rooms on the roof before turning visible.
“What are ye doing?" Rakin said, walking around the covering with Zale and Amara following.
“Corbyn Oldhill and his father are across the street,” Kole whispered.
“Who? And why are ye whispering? They some sort of Sound primals or something?”
“Umm, good point,” Kole said in a normal tone. “No, they aren’t.”
“That’s the bully right?” Zale asked, the one whose father paid for your living expenses and then took all your stuff?”
Kole nodded.
“Why do you think he’s here?” Zale asked.
“I don’t know. To enroll? To experience the holiday? To find me?”
“Ye think yerself that important do ya?” Rakin said, smirking.
“Yes, well no.” Kole began.
He grasped the ensouled locket of his mothers he wore under his shirt.
“But this might be if it's what they are after.”
“How do they know you’re alive?” Amara asked.
“What do you mean?” Kole asked, confused.
“Well, when you disappeared, the school sent a letter home telling your family they died. Based on the letter from Meech, they probably found out.”
“My family thinks I’m dead!?” Kole asked suddenly really regretting neglecting to write to his uncle.
“You didn’t know?” Amara asked, puzzled, but then paled as it dawned on her. “Oh... did I not mention that? Umm, I think Kelina had told me to tell you to write to your family, but... I might have forgotten.”
Kole rubbed his face with both hands and held back saying something that might upset Amara. She’d gone through a lot of late, and even aside from that she wasn’t the best at executive functioning.
“It’s fine,” he said with a sign. “I’ll write him tomorrow. He can’t think I’m any deader, right?”
Rakin laughed, and Amara took the joke as a sign she wasn’t in trouble, though Kole could tell she didn’t understand the humor from her expression.
Actually, I don't see why it's funny either, Kole realized and experienced another pang of guilt.
“So, they think you’re dead?” Zale said, more a question than a statement. “Then they probably are looking for the amulet. I’ll check with Kelina when she’s back from her holiday and see if they asked after you.”
“Do you think she, or the school, would have told them I was alive?” Kole asked, not having even considered the possibility before Zale's comment.
“Definitely not. Mother has strong opinions on privacy she ensures the school follows,” Zale assured him.
“That seems out of character,” Kole pointed out, though he was relieved.
Zale gave a slightly pained smile and played with her hair.
“Well, sort of. She doesn't respect anyone's privacy, but she's a firm believer that everyone else should respect each other's privacy. I'm fairly certain she runs a planet-wide network of spies and informants, but she's never admitted to it.”
“Why the ‘strong opinion’ then?” Kole asked, learning even more things about Zale's mother that both terrified him and made him a little relieved she was missing in another realm—hopefully applying her decades of experience in spying and subterfuge subverting an enemy invasion and not tormenting her daughter’s potential suitors.
“‘It's bad for business,’” Zale said, mimicking her mother's cocky smile and manner of speaking perfectly.
Around them, the groups began to move around and handle their lanterns. Kole turned to the tower to see a light lit and saw as it slowly began to float into the sky.
Zale passed out their lanterns and Rakin followed her, lighting each with a poke of his burning finger.
All over the city that he could see lights began to flicker to life, first sporadically but then quickly every rooftop and window he could see was aglow with lights of all colors.
A few rose rapidly up into the sky, powered by something more than a mere candle, but they were followed by a rising tide of light and soon covered the sky.
Everyone watched in silence as the sky was lit ablaze. It reminded Kole of the time his parents had woken him in the night to see the migration of the glowing jellyfish as they passed over his dome.
He'd not thought about that night in years, and the memory brought a tear to his eye. He looked around quickly, wiping the tear away, hoping that no one saw, only for his eyes to meet a similarly misty-eyed Zale.
She stepped closer and placed an arm around him, and they stood there together in their grief, watching as the lanterns slowly disappeared into the interior of Basin.
He felt the sudden urge to say something to Zale to reassure her that her terrifying mother would be okay, but no words came. Instead, he stood there, content in the knowledge that he was no longer alone, and knew that Zale felt the same.
He heard a quiet sob behind him and saw Amara too was crying—a common occurrence this last week that had started to week. Zale reached out to her and offered her a hand as well, but Amara shook her head, forcing a smile of gratitude even as she stepped away from the touch.
Gus climbed up from behind her onto her shoulder, and they turned back to the sky, each remembering something of their past.
They all returned home after the lanterns had disappeared over the horizon. Some magic had been spun to pull the lights away from the city, and Kole assumed—well, hoped—that someone out there was going to ensure they didn’t start the ground of fire. Having grown up underwater, the idea of a wildfire was completely unknown to him, but he was intelligent, and saw the potential dangers.
By the time they got home, it was very late. Kole was weighing his options on what bit of magic he should work on next when Zale gave him a disapproving look.
“What?” he asked, turning around to make sure she was looking at him.
“You aren't planning on studying tonight are you?"
As that was exactly what he’d been planning, and he sensed that it would be unwise to admit as much, he lied.
“No?”
He lied poorly that is, stating it more as a question than an answer.
Zale raised an eyebrow, and Kole repeated more firmly.
“No,” this time, probably not lying.
“Good,“ she said with a mischievous smile. “We have a lot to do tomorrow, and it starts early.”
Zale walked into her room, and as Kole walked to his own, his mind raced over what could be in store for him.
Training? Holiday stuff? Special holiday training?
He checked the time and saw it was almost midnight, and decided maybe it would be best if his second ‘no’ hadn’t been a lie.
