Chương 40: Dream?

Arielle considered the prompt on her screen, asking her to choose what percentage of essences she would like. Ten thousand essences split evenly would give two thousand essences each. The question was, did she want to split them evenly? She had been practicing with a lot of Vacu lately, and almost no Vitae. So why not take more of the former and less of the latter?

On the other hand, there was something to be said for preserving her core balance, and just because she hadn't yet found much use for Vitae did not mean she would not use it in the future. The brothers began speaking to each other in Elven again, and Arielle silently shifted the Luxa focus portion of her translation spell to rest on them.

"... taking so long? Why has she not completed the essence selection?" Prince Elarys muttered to his brother.

"I believe she is thinking," the younger prince responded.

"For this long?"

"She thinks very slowly." Arielle ignored them and finally chose her percentages, choosing to go with an even spread of all of them. Whatever she didn't use, she would give away. She was sure that Lyra would appreciate some extra Vitae, and Elric some extra Massa. Although she didn't know how she would give it to them without raising suspicion, she was sure she could find a way. Once she was done, she said, "I'm done."

"Good," Prince Elarys said, and he moved his hand, the essences swirling to form a teleportation circle.

"Make sure you claim your rewards in a timely manner, or you might lose access to them."

"Okay." Arielle tried to study the teleportation circle, but it moved too fast and was far more complex than anything humans had conjured. She'd only barely made out half the structure before she was swallowed by the darkness once again. The next sensation she encountered was a bone-deep chill. Her back was on a cold stone floor. Hushed voices surrounded her, talking amongst themselves in relative panic. She groaned and heard someone whisper, "She's awake."

It took her a moment to adjust to the fact that she was lying prone on a floor, the atmosphere practically whispering in her ears. Above her, five male heads encircled her vision, all blinking at her with identical levels of worry.

"Arielle?" Professor Woden asked in a soft tone.

"Are you okay?" She nodded and then groaned as the movement triggered piercing pain in her skull and a nauseous disorientation. She felt like she'd just been tumbled through the bowels of reality and spat out on the other side with no consideration for her well-being.

"She's going to vomit," Riorke said.

"No, she's not," Lacey said.

"Don't even joke about that. You're okay, Arielle. You're fine."

"Just a warning to you all that if she vomits, I'm going to vomit too," Cuthbert said.

"Stop talking about vomiting."

"[Rapid Healing]" Professor Woden said, and Arielle felt the worst of the symptoms alleviate at least enough for her to sit up on the ground. They all backed up once she did, except for Woden, who held out his hand and helped her back up to her feet.

"What happened?" she asked.

"That should be our question," Riorke said.

"We came back from our respective tours and found you passed out in front of him." He jabbed his hand to the side, and Arielle followed it to gaze at the statue of the Drift. Staring at it triggered a discomfitting feeling. The whispering darkness that she'd heard had retreated. No ghostly presence was behind her anymore. Had she imagined it? Had she imagined going to the Elven realm and retrieving the Elf Prince's pet dragon?

"How long ago was that?" she asked.

"Well, we left you ten minutes ago," Professor Woden said.

"I only just arrived and alerted the rest to your condition."

"Ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"Oh." That wasn't nearly enough time for her to have done all that she did and returned. It should be an hour at least. Which meant it was a dream. Disappointment exhaled from her lips. It was an eerily vivid dream, too.

"Ari?" She turned back to the group, noting that they were still waiting for an answer from her. She shrugged.

"I don't know what happened either."

"You probably just got lightheaded," Professor Woden said.

"It is oppressively stuffy in here." He gave one of his dramatic claps.

"Okay, group, if everyone's done with their note-taking, then we should head back to campus."

"I'm done," Riorke said.

"Me too," Cuthbert nodded. One by one, the group acquiesced, except for Arielle, who said, "I'm not done with my note-taking. I haven't had any time to take notes."

"I don't think you should stay here any longer, Arielle. Not if it's making you sick."

"It's not making me sick," Arielle insisted.

"I want to take notes." Professor Woden looked conflicted, but Arielle was desperate not to leave empty-handed.

"I'm fine. See?" She spread her hands apart to prove how fine she was and Professor Woden bit his lips, still looking conflicted.

"Fine. But I'll only give you a few minutes. If you start to feel worse, I'll take you to the campus healer." Arielle nodded and retrieved her notebook from her satchel, going closer to the statues to study them. There were symbols engraved on the bottom plate of each statue, and she drew them fast. She also wrote down all the things she registered about them, and she asked Woden what material they were made of and who had installed them here.

He told her that there were actually individual names behind each statue, and those people were probably involved somehow in their construction. They were names on the dark back walls, too, and Woden explained that sometimes visitors liked to inscribe names in temples for good luck. Or bad luck, whichever one applied. She didn't give herself time to think, simply writing down everything that she could in that short timeframe.

"Alright," Professor Woden said, clapping once more.

"Let's go." Arielle bit back her protest and sighed her resignation. She hoped that her teammates had written enough down, but she didn't have a lot of faith in them having the focus to notice the correct things. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Except maybe Lacey.

"You can share your notes when we get back on campus," Woden said.

"And this time, we're taking the scenic route, since you're all so opposed to teleportation."

"Perfect," Lacey said as they headed to the entrance. Ari gave one last look at the statues before she went. As they walked through the busy market, Arielle wanted to stop by the bookstore. Woden decided to give them some time to shop, and the group split up once more, some entering the market, some heading to the inn for food, and Ari going to buy the books that caught her fancy. While there, she opened her inventory, disappointed to see it looked the same as before she'd gone on her imaginary adventure.

There was no duplicate screen, no evidence that there was more to it than met the eye. Nevertheless, she searched for a book about elves and bought the first one, 'Elven Tales', that she saw. Ari held her breath as they walked through the busy market, prepared for being assailed by the crowd, but luckily, it didn'thappen much. Perhaps, the presence of the others dwarfed or significantly shielded her own. She was walking between Cuthbert and Riorke, and they seemed to be receiving all the calls in her stead.

As they approached the dock, Riorke finally nudged her in her side.

"Here." He handed her a small colored bottle.

"It's a wellness draught. I bought it from the market. You should take one before you go to sleep." Ari took it.

"Thank you." He nodded crisply.

"Does this mean you've forgiven me?" she asked.

"No," he said plainly.

"Are you still angry?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Are you going to be angry for much longer?" He gave her an arched look and quickened his steps, his long legs eating up the distance between him and Godfrey, who was ahead of them. Lacey, who had been lagging, caught up to Ari and said, "It's okay, he'll come around. Just give him time." Ari nodded and resisted the urge to ask how much time specifically she should give him. She didn't like vagueness as a rule, but it seemed lately that she had to tolerate a lot of it.

It was only when she was back on campus and in her room that she began to ruminate over what had happened. Was it really all just a dream? Did she never meet the elven prince and battle his father's pet dragon? If so, then what exactly had happened to her? She had never fainted before, and even though she'd been smaller than the rest of her siblings, she'd never been sickly. It had felt like something had been in that temple with her. So had it possessed her? Stolen her life force? Was that why she'd fainted?

And what about the other strange sensations she'd encountered since she'd started researching the drift? She reached up and touched her neck, staring at her reflection in the window. She didn't sense anything there to symbolize the vow she'd made with Prince Elarys. She'd assumed there would be ink or some kind of physical symptom that she could use to know what had happened. Had it been real? She sighed and pulled out her new book, but she couldn't focus on the text in front of her. It was bugging her.

She'd never had vivid dreams in her life. In fact, she never dreamt at all. There had to be something more to this. Should she attempt to break the vow she'd made, just see what happened? No, that seemed like an extreme test. She went back to her system screen and recalled the spell that Prince Aerendyl had used to create her duplicate quest screen. It made sense that such a screen would not appear automatically, but if everything had really happened, the elves should have given her a way of accessing her rewards.

Had they not done so to cheat her out of her earnings? It did not make sense for them to do that, and it was furthermore wasteful. Maybe they had simply assumed she would know how to access it. Perhaps there was a spell she could use, but no doubt such a spell would only be known by Archmages and Masters who were typically contracted by elves. She'd certainly never seen a spell like that in her apprentice spell book.

She recalled the shape, but she didn't have some of the components, particularly the purple and blue orbs. Still, perhaps if she drew it out and estimated the major components of the spell, she could reverse engineer an understanding of it. She pursed her lips, drawing the orbs as she'd seen them in her notebook. A lot of Luxa and Vacu, no calor, and a slight bit of Massa for stability. The Luxa-Massa helix came first, and it was the most sophisticated structure.

Arielle examined it, noting that it looked similar to the design of the illusory spell that could reproduce an image temporarily. So that was the duplicating part of the spell. It was connected by the blue and purple orbs to another Luxa arrangement that was in a constellation Arielle did not recognize. Attached to that was Vacu, organized in a reverse cycle arrow. She knew that meant the reversal of something. They were surrounded by more purple and blue orbs, presumably for balancing.

Arielle used logic to piece things together: The first Luxa network was clearly to mirror something with exacting detail, considering how complex the structure was and the inclusion of many enlightenment rings. It was then attached by blue and purple orbs to the second Luxa structure, which was not something Arielle recognized. Which was, in turn, reversed by Vacu. The door opened and closed, and she spun around to find Lyra walking in, holding a bowl of steaming liquid.

"I heard you fainted," she said.

"I brought you some soup."

"Who did you hear it from?" Arielle asked.

"From Riorke. He caught me in the hallway." She put the bowl down on the desk next to the notebook.

"Have you seen the school healer?" She shook her head. Woden had asked her to see her, but she felt fine, and she didn't want the healer to potentially find something strange.

"You should," Lyra said, "On the bright side, Riorke didn't seem as angry as he was before."

"He told me he was still angry."

"Yes, but he's working through it. It won't be long now." Arielle hoped so. Lyra peeked at what Ari had drawn.

"What's that, a new spell?"

"I don't know. I think I dreamt about it."

"You dreamt about it?" She nodded.

"Hmm. Is that Orion?" She pointed at the constellation of Luxa on the page.

"What?"

"Orion. It's a star constellation for the Hunter." When Arielle continued to stare at her unknowingly.

"My mother was really into constellations. She named me after one. Lyra."

"Oh." She glanced back at the page.

"Would the elves have the same constellations as we do?"

"I don't know. Possibly, since it's rumored that they're the ones who created the constellation."

"Oh." She said. Arielle knew about the concept of constellations, and she'd spent a lot of time staring up at them, but she'dnever bothered learning their names. The Hunter. Did that have some significance in the spell? There was another knock on the door that interrupted Arielle's thoughts. Lyra went over to open it and said, "Maus." Arielle turned around.

"Hello." Maus stood at the doorway with a friendly smile.

"I heard you were sick. My mother has some special herbs that she took when she was pregnant with my little sister. She gave me some before I came to campus, and I have a few here for you."

"Aww," Lyra said.

"That's really nice of you, Maus. Right, Arielle?"

"Right," Arielle said faintly, as Maus' expression fell slightly. Arielle almost didn't notice. Her mind was still on what Lyra had told her. Why were the orbs arranged in the constellation of the hunter? What did that mean?

"Arielle," Lyra said, her voice stern enough to have Arielle look up. She noticed then that Maus seemed like he'd been on his way out, and Lyra had grabbed his arm.

"What?" she asked.

"Maus did a very nice thing for you. You seem like you're not grateful and are ignoring him."

"Oh no," Maus put his other hand up.

"She doesn't have to be–""I'm sorry," Arielle said as she got to her feet.

"I just had something else on my mind, and I did not give you the proper amount of gratitude for your kind deed." She put her hand to her chest and bowed.

"Thank you, Maus. I appreciate the herbs." When she straightened, Lyra and Maus both looked disturbed.

"Is she making fun of me?" Maus asked.

"No, I think she's being genuine."

"Oh," he said, but the hurt look on his face still bothered Arielle. He did not approve of the respectful bow. She had to do something more to prove how much she appreciated what he'd done for her. Nothing shows appreciation like a big hug. That was what Celie used to tell Ari when she was younger, to bribe her into hugging her. Arielle swallowed now, already feeling the discomfort spreading over her skin. Nevertheless, she had to do it. She shuffled closer and closer, as the two began to look at her in alarm.

"Arielle," Lyra said slowly.

"What are you doing?"

"You'll see," she said as she reached out her arms to Maus. She felt a little like a cricket doing so, her movements stiff and wooden, but she went through the process in her mind and closed her eyes and held her breath, so as not to see or smell him during the foul act. And then she did it. She hugged him. She patted his back too for good measure, holding the hug for as long as she could stand it, which was really about five seconds.

"Thank you, Maus. You're a good friend." When she pulled back, both Maus and Lyra looked shocked.

"Sure," Maus squeaked as a blush spread on his face.

"I h-h-have to go now." Arielle nodded, and when he left, she returned to her desk. Glad that was done with, she went back to considering the structure in front of her. Lyra muttered something and went into the privy, while Arielle continued working. Reverse of the hunter. Hunters searched for things. They found things. So perhaps a reverse of that was to conceal something? There were easier ways to conceal things, like with the Luxa-Vacu complex of her Warden seal spell.

But perhaps the elves needed something more complex that could not be broken as easily. So maybe to find it, she needed a hunter. She mourned the essences she would lose before she started forming the spell. It was pure Luxa, but she surrounded it by a Massa ring for stability as she created the shape, then superimposed it on her system screen. Suddenly, it shimmered again, and her duplicate screen came back to life, accompanied by several alerts. [Congratulations! You have tamed a Level 800 Beast. Classification: Dragon Child! You have received 80 XP. Incorporate into your human system?] [Congratulations! You have completed a quest! Reward: Ten thousand units of earth-compatible essences, sixteen gold bars, one cryanite, one canthumite, and one luverian gem.] NEW SPELL DETECTED Tier: Unknown Calculations ongoing for [Hidden Ability] Marker...