84: Butting Heads

The not-library was an absolute mess, and it was through no fault of our own. The books were random and almost universally useless — many going so far as to be authorless treatises on exceptionally mundane things. One, for example, was fifty thousand words describing the lifetime of an elvish fisherman's boat. It was detailed, too. Flip to a random page, and you'd find a detailed account of how a rock hidden in the water had scraped the hull, leaving a small gouge in the wood.

The shelves were also completely uncategorised, same as the last room. Except, it was worse here because someone had turned the whole book repository upside down in their search for… something?

I had strong theories as to who'd been here before us, but there was so far no evidence to suggest that Whisperwill was indeed the culprit. Just me and my hunch.

As for Paisley and our… hug, we hadn't gone off to kiss or sleep in the same bed or anything. We had dinner, we made longing eyes at one another, and then we went to our separate rooms to sleep. The whole situation had me so emotionally on edge. I hoped there would be something fun in the expansion for me to get distracted by.

It took an entire day for Willow to walk to the far end of the valley. Noah, Ethan, Paisley and I spent the time noseying around the new room in the not-library, but by the end of the day, we'd read a titanic amount of granular Rell lore and had found nothing else.

We were just about to leave for dinner, when Noah suddenly shouted from the uppermost gallery, “Holy fuck! Guys! I found something that isn't a book!”

He zipped into fairy mode and fluttered down to ground level, landing beside Ethan. Paisley and I arrived half a second later, as Noah was holding up his prize… which was a metal spike.

“It was being used as a bookmark,” he said, holding it out to me while waving the book around in his other hand. “It looks like a tool, but other than—”

I snatched it from his fingers as in my head, dots began to connect in slow motion. “This is a blacksmith’s punch. See the blunt but well sharpened square tip, and the broad head? You use it like a chisel to hammer dents or holes into heated metal.”

As I was holding each end up to explain, Paisley reached out and poked it. “There's a symbol there.”

Turning it around, I saw she was right, but more than that…

“Oh, that’s… come with me!” I said, and without explanation I rushed for the exit.

The others trailed behind me as we left the library, then the tower. Outside, the sun was already hidden behind a mountain that loomed off to our west, but it hadn’t actually set so there was still a bunch of light around. Still, the air was chilly, so I rolled my big sleeves down to cover my arms.

We trouped through the inn complex until we got to the workshop, where I took them over to my smithing worktable. “Now, Paisley, remember how there was a bunch of smithing gear missing, and I only got the small stuff that was left behind?”

She nodded, and the others, who’d heard the story, also nodded.

“This is a full sized punch,” I said, holding up the punch that Noah found. Picking up an identical, but much smaller tool from the secret dungeon collection, I held it beside its larger sibling. “This is the same tool, but for smaller scale stuff.”

They all made sounds of confused appreciation, until Ethan frowned and pointed, “They both have the same maker’s mark.”

“Exactly!” I beamed. “This big punch is from the set that was missing down in that hidden dungeon workshop. Which means that the same person who ransacked that workshop is the same person who was in our mysterious doorway library…”

“The person who wrote your smithing book!” Paisley said, catching on to my excitement. “Holy crap, the same person who had that apartment before you and Elena is… wow. This is all one hell of a coincidence.”

“It’s not, Paisley,” I said, giving her a very pointed expression while I shook my head. “We were led to that workshop, Pay.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing. “Oh, I don't like that.”

God damn, just what was happening with all this spirit forging stuff? Should I attempt to make something? Would that shed any light on why an NPC was messing with us? Hell, would it give us any ideas about who Whisperwill was? So many questions.

Wait.

“Noah, have you got the book that this was marking?” I asked, turning to the other faerie.

He grinned and held it up, his thumb still between the pages. “I figured you’d want it eventually.”

Thanking him — and trying to pretend like I wasn’t embarrassed to have forgotten about the book, I took it and looked at the spine. Refined Petrification, by Lord Madesu of Haelscream County.

Petrification… turning things to stone? Why would Whisperwill be interested in that? Oh, I was really fucking confused now.

“I got nothing,” I said, flipping to look at the bookmarked page. It was some sort of enchanter’s ingredients list.

Looking over my shoulder, Paisley recognised it just as I had. “Oh, hey. A ritual component list. Definitely stone-related— oh, I see, it’s for turning dead wood to stone — but like, the exact type of stone you want. You just have to add a piece of the type of stone to the centre of the ritual and bam, you have a hunk of that stone that looks like a log.”

Well, now that I knew exactly what Whisperwill had bookmarked, I was even more confused. With a sigh, I looked around at my friend’s faces and saw that collectively, we all had no idea, either.

“We pretty much explored that whole book storage room,” Ethan said after a couple of moments. “How about we leave it be, for now? I’m kinda hungry.”

The next day, I decided to get to work on attempting to learn Spirit Forging. Willow was beginning to ascend the mountains now, and it was slow going.

I began by sitting down on the small balcony outside the back of the workshop to read through Whisperwill’s journal again. The main issue I had with Spirit Forging right now was that we were on the move, and going out to find a suitable stump for the forge was an issue. How could I solve this? Had Whisperwill solved the problem?

The cold on the mountains bit at my cheeks, and the slow sway of the tree as it took each step was very soothing. I kinda liked the cold, to be honest. It made the rest of me feel very cosy.

I heard a whirring, and looking up, I caught Noah just as he came in to land.

“Hey sister, what are you up to?” He asked amicably.

I watched him plop himself down opposite me, back against the railing.

Holding the journal up, I said, “Reading.”

“Is it a cute book?” He asked curiously. “God, I was so fucking hooked on yaoi manga and webfiction before I got into this game. I couldn't get enough of the angsty boy kissing.”

I snorted, then gave in and barked a little laugh. “It's about forging. The journal by Whisperwill.”

“Ah, the mysterious prior tenant of your apartment,” he chuckled.

I nodded, but didn't reply, and when he didn't say anything, I went back to reading. Whisperwill had been experimenting with different stumps from different trees, to see if they could get different results. In the end, the only variable that the forge-stump changed was the quality of the item at the end.

Whisperwill had the most success with stumps from devilburn oaks, deepslick mushrooms, silvaser trees, and a few others. They wanted to continue further, but their ideas for tree stumps that would give higher quality were ones they didn't have access to. I, however, technically had access to one of the speculative trees. Whisperwill mentioned the ghoulmother willow specifically as one that might get slightly better results than the ones they tried. Unfortunately, we needed ours un-living, and not re-dead.

Across from me, Noah suddenly made a disgusted sound. “Fuck. Silver Ridge made it over the mountains.”

His mentioning that guild name caused my stomach to twist uncomfortably. The fact they'd gotten over and into the expansion zone when we were only just starting the climb… it galled me. I shouldn't be surprised that they were still competent at the game, but… I let out a long sigh.

“They're not telling anyone what they've found, either,” he continued l. “Just bragging about how 'despite recent drama,’ they're still hot shit or whatever.”

I cringed when I realised, “They're the first, then?”

“Yup,” he nodded. “They were one of the closest big guilds with an overland guild vessel, and theirs was definitely faster than the rest.”

“Airships can only go so high, though—” I began, only to shake my head. “But that's real life. Atmospheric density probably isn't too much of a factor to them.”

Noah gave me a look. “Nah, they did have issues with height. Their max altitude couldn't clear most of the mountains, but they found a low enough pass eventually, and that's how they got through.”

Before I could reply, Noah's pretty, pixie face lit up with a grin, and I looked up to find Ethan stepping through the doorway. “Hey, small people,” he said.

“Hi, tree man,” Noah said with an affectionate smile.

“Ent,” I corrected him absently, then, “Fuck!”

Ethan burst out laughing — having to take extra care to steady himself as he sat on the railing. Noah, who was using the railing as a back rest, glanced between us in confusion.

“Keiko's mum was a Lord of the Rings fan when she was growing up,” explained Ethan. “So Keiko hates it, but she knows a lot about it anyway.”

“Oh!” Noah said with a wry smile.

We all shared a laugh, and Noah explained what we'd been talking about prior to Ethan arriving.

Thoughtfully, our healer tapped his chin. “You know, it occurs to me that when you saw Aquila, Arca, and Tysian in the Grand Temple, he was probably taking the gold to buy fuel or something for their airship.”

Noah’s jovial expression dimmed a little. “I didn't think of that, it kinda sucks — he gets to use his real world privilege to boost Silver Ridge, and then they go and act like they're so cool on the forums.”

Ethan gave a wry laugh. “That’s just how high tier guilds are. They all have a few whales throwing money around — don't let it get to you.”

The faerie boy grunted in thought and ran a hand through his short, platinum blonde hair. There was silence on the balcony for several seconds, until he looked up with a teasing smile.

“Why were you in that guild, anyway? They all seem like complete dickbags. Did you magically transform when you left the guild? Does the guild have like, an assholeification debuff?”

He was joking around, but he also genuinely looked confused.

Ethan and I each gave a shrug, and when I didn't speak, he answered for both of us, “They weren't dickbags to us until Keiko got kicked. Even assholes are nice to their friends, and plus, some are still okay. Especially if you get them on their own — like Tysian.”

“I do feel sorry for him,” I agreed, remembering how downtrodden he'd been during the trade.

“Why?” Noah asked abruptly, and Ethan and I shared a quick, surprised look. The usually playful faerie was looking at us both with a deep frown.

Taken aback, neither I nor Ethan replied, and so Noah continued, “He can't be having that shit of a time, I mean — he’s still dating a bigot, hanging out with bigots, listening and doing nothing while bigots do bigot things. He's part of the problem.”

“That is not fair, Noah,” Ethan said, with a firm, disapproving frown. “Tysian falls more decisively into the victim category.”

Oh dear.

Outwardly, I kept my calm, but I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Arguments like this were always ten times worse when it was two friends going at it, and the romantic attraction between them would probably amplify things.

Noah stared at Ethan incredulously. “He did nothing while his friend and girlfriend were transphobic to Keiko!”

“He did try to tell them off about that,” I said quietly, although really, I felt like I should stay well out of this.

“That doesn't change the fact that Arca—” Ethan replied, his composure cracking a little with frustration.

Noah interrupted him. “—That he let Arca roll him up like a good little doormat so she could carry him away from a conversation that was making her look bad? Yeah, I heard Keiko tell the story too.”

Ethan sat there on the railing for several long seconds, breathing slowly and very rhythmically — he was trying to keep his cool.

“Whatever,” Noah said, getting up off the stone floor. He looked at me with sincere apology in his eyes. “Sorry for ruining your study session, Keiko. See you.”

Then, he walked back into the workshop, and probably out the other side. I didn't know for sure, the door was beside me, after all, so I would've— I let out a long breath. Phew, now I felt all kinds of tense. That had definitely been tense.

“I'm probably an idiot,” Ethan said quietly as he stood up and brushed off his robes. “But, I believe in Tysian. He’s a good guy under it all, he'll come around — he just needs to build up a little self confidence…”

I said nothing, I just stared up at him. We held eye contact for long moments after he trailed off. Nothing Ethan was saying was untrue, but… I mean, Tysian was in so deep, it'd take a lot of ‘self confidence’ to break free. I wasn't going to hold my breath.