“Did it see them, sister?”

“I doubt. They have remained hidden since their callback.”

“Let us hope they are, still. They must not be freed.”

“Not yet, sister. Soon.”

If anyone was residing in these caves, it most certainly would know we were here with it by now. The sudden burst of emotion I’d thrown at Valentina, had echoed against the gray walls of these caves, dragging itself I don’t know how far into its depths. At least someone – or something, for that matter – was bound to have heard it; we could just hope it wouldn’t have any malicious intent.

We very carefully sought our way further into the cave, with only very limited light to guide us the way. There was the slightest ambient lighting coming from the green bundle of roots dwindling down from the ceiling, being held up by vines entangling it, but it wasn’t even remotely strong enough to give us any vision.

That’s where Valentina came in; her soothing purple glow might not have been very strong, but it was at least bright enough to give us a sense of direction.

Every single sound that didn’t come from Val or the Subject was eerie in this darkness. There was crawling of bugs over the cave walls, the howling of wind breezing past the hanging vines, the occasional streaming of a small river running besides us – the one that ended in the waterfall on the surface. I might’ve even heard footsteps on occasion, quiet and swift, but we didn’t encounter anything of that description… Was my mind just playing tricks on me? Maybe I was just overthinking it…

Regardless of whether or not I was, floating through these caves was nerve-wracking. Especially with both of us on our own, both as vulnerable as one another on these alien Forgotten Lands… But there was something in that eeriness that kept me going. A drift for adventure, maybe… Finally being able to discover on my own, to be amazed or to amaze… The opportunity to finally prove my worth.

It didn’t take long before the darkness of the cave’s depths was broken – ten minutes, maybe fifteen; an orangey hue began flickering in the distance, seemingly from behind a corner. I held up my hand in front of Valentina to make her stop, even though she’d probably noticed it too by then.

I brought one of my fingers in front of where my mouth would’ve been. Footsteps, certainly real ones this time.

They were slow-paced and almost sloppy, but – more importantly – coming closer.

“We need to hide, Val!” I wanted to say, but I didn’t. There was a slight, naïve chance these footsteps weren’t coming specifically for us; we couldn’t give ourselves away if so.

Luckily, she was bright enough to come up with the idea herself; it took her a moment to process, but soon after she saw the light, she dashed behind my head and dimmed her brightness.

I, on the other hand, didn’t have that reflex. Even if there was any spot that could possibly conceal me in this cave, I was paralyzed. Not so much by fear as by a strange sense of panic. What could I have done? Run back outside the cave and jump off the waterfall…?

And then what? Hope I didn’t get torn to bits by nightly creatures on the Lands, like a handful of Subjects before me?

Surely that would’ve been a fate way worse than whatever was behind the corner…

The light behind the corner was getting brighter as the footsteps were becoming louder. Mere moments later, the source of light appeared in the distance.

Some sort of reddish orange crystal was floating in mid-air. No strings attached, just hovering there.

A hand crossed this corner with the light, being held open in a strange way right behind the crystal. It seemed like an old hand; long, thin fingers that looked like it was just bones with some skin attached to it, and wrinkles running all over the back. The nails on them were rather long and worn out. The skin was on the pale side of things, but nothing that looked particularly unhealthy – except… you know… it was missing one of its fingers.

The footsteps stopped for a minute, as a voice echoed against the overgrown walls of the cavern.

“I was certain…” a cracking humming sound followed, almost annoyed, “It must’ve come from here… somewhere.”

The voice was very clearly male, and clearly very old. The words seemed to be directed to someone, but I was certain I only heard one pair of footsteps… Maybe a floating companion…?

The hand slowly moved left and right with the crystal loosely following the movements.

He let out a deep sigh as he took another step forward, before finally turning around the corner.

“Why, would you look at that…” His eyes jumped wide open when the light of his crystal hit me, as if he didn’t expect anyone actually being here.

He was, in fact, old. Wrinkles covered his face. His eyes looked faded with a lingering hue of emerald deep within, possibly from a time long ago. His head was balding, with long, white hair on the sides of it, running down until it hit his shoulders; it paired pretty well with his light gray beard. Unbelievably long; about 4 feet, reaching just above his knees.

He was wearing robes, green ones. The same green as the color his eyes must’ve had once, and the same green as the light from the roots hanging above us. They were very worn down; the color had faded in certain spots, tears were all around the edges.

A warm smile appeared on his face as he welcomed me.

“Hello there! Who might you be?” he reached out his right hand towards me.

“Who asks?” I didn’t do the same.

His warm smile quickly changed to a frown. He lowered his hand.

“Now… that’s not very polite, is it? My name is Feldir. I come from Ghelindor, Capital under the Mountain. We mean you no harm, friend.”

“My apologies, sir. I didn’t mean to be rude.” I looked down, slightly ashamed of myself. “I am Kate.”

This time, I was the one extending my hand to shake his. The smile on his face appeared as he grabbed mine.

While shaking his hand, I noticed more of the strange crystals all around him. Green, yellow, purple. One of them was faintly blue, but mostly gray. Like the one he was holding in front of his hand, these were shining bright with their respective colors – excluding the blue one – and were just floating in mid-air. I shook my head mildly.

“Essentia Crystals,” he said as if he could see me staring at them. “Earth, Air, Magica, Water, Fire. Very powerful magical artifacts.”

“How did you…?”

“I’m an old man, Kate. I know many things,” he chuckled quietly. “But tell me, why is a Starchild like you roaming around these caves on her own?”

“Starchild, sir?”

His eyes widened again; his jaw dropped, but not enough to open his mouth.

“You’re not of the Starfolk…?”

“I’m completely alien to the Lands, sir.”

He shook the disbelief off his mind by shaking his head.

“I’m sorry. You just… you very much resemble them…” he took a short pause to calm his confusion. “So, what brings you here, Kate?”

“I’m looking for information about the Lands, sir. I was told there’s a civilization here?”

“Information, you say?” his eyes lit up, “Follow me, we’ll make a stop at my library before going to Ghelindor.”

He turned around and made the intention to walk, but stopped himself before even placing down his foot.

“Actually, wait…”

“What’s the matter, s–”

“Shhh, shhh…” he placed his hand before his mouth and looked around, while squinting his eyes. His free hand disappeared in his robe.

The tunnel went completely silent. The only things that were still audible were the buzzing of the Subject, the old dwarf breathing and Valentina’s glassy sounds.

Out his robe, he took a square piece of purple-tinted glass, surrounded by some silver and gold lining, and held it in front of his right eye, closing his left.

“Can I ask you to not move for a bit?” he asked while he was busy scanning my shell and head.

“Interesting… Very interesting…” he mumbled to himself.

“What is, sir?”

He lowered the thing from before his eye and stored it in his robe again.

“Well, my Essentiograph tells me there’s a high amount of powerful Essentia floating around your head…”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t what you mean…”

“Don’t worry. I do.”

He reached out his free hand towards the yellow crystal, causing it to glow slightly brighter. A gassy substance seemed to seem out of it, making its way into his hand.

Mere seconds later, he pointed towards me and made a strange hand gesture, like he was pushing something swiftly aside with two fingers. A gust of wind appeared from nothing, blowing against my right side with enormous force. Luckily I was floating steady enough to resist moving to it. Valentina, however, wasn’t so lucky. I felt the mild frost on the back of my head disappear as she was being pushed to the left, coming clearly into vision.

“Would you look at that… A Wisp…”

Valentina tried to move back behind me, but something kept her from doing so. Feldir was holding his hand in a twisted, almost crooked, way pointed at her. His purple crystal was shining brighter than the rest, as some of the gassy liquid seeped out of it and flowed onto his shoulders, over his arms, into the back of his hand. Loud-pitched noise of despair and sheer panic echoed against the walls of the tunnel.

I moved in front of Val, blocking her from this… curse…?

“Step aside, please. I’ll take care of this thing.” A smile appeared around his lips.

“No.”

He sighed. “Kate, you don’t know what you’re doing. This thing is a Wisp; a concentration of Essentia, solely created to be –”

“No. I know exactly what I’m doing. This isn’t just ‘a Wisp’; this is Valentina. She’s not a thing, she’s my friend.”

His tongue clicked as he shook his head. A silent laugh escaped from him as if laughing at my ignorance.

“Kate, listen… Wisps are clots of Essentia, nothing more. They don’t make friends. They don’t even feel. There’s a reason as to why the Hunters don’t mark them…”

“You listen here, old man!” I started shouting at Feldir. Not because I was so much angry, but because I felt like it would protect Val more – even though it probably didn’t. “Valentina is my friend. Hell! She’s probably the only reason I am still alive! I made a promise to protect her, and protect her I will!”

Valentina’s blue glow made place for a more yellowy one. I couldn’t tell if it was happiness or awe, or a combination of both…

Feldir was taken aback by my screaming at him, and the smile on his face quickly faded away for another frown. Irritated, maybe.

“I don’t think you underst–”

“No, sir. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. She’s more than just a Wisp to me. She’s a companion, she’s a partner. Both of us are in this adventure together. She’s in it with me; I’m in it with her. If you want to take care of her, you’ll have to get through me first.”

He squinted.

“You know full well I could just end your entire existence right here, right now.” The words were ominous and dark. “I am in possession of massive amounts of Essentia. I could use any one of them to obliterate your body in uncountable different ways.”

“I would like to see you try.” I looked straight into his eyes.

The gassy fluid stopped seeping from the purple crystal when he lowered his hand.

“I could,” he said. “but I won’t.”

His voice calmed down, but the stern look on his face remained.

“I admire your sense of duty. I admire that you’re willing to sacrifice your life to save the one of your friend. I admire you dared to stand up to someone who could obliterate you right there on the spot. Honestly. And for that, I won’t siphon her Essentia. You have my Dwarven word for that.”

I nodded briefly. Valentina rushed close behind my head, slightly sticking out on the right side. A soothing breeze blew against the back of my shell while her yellow color was shining on it.

“But you cannot keep this us. Valentina here is one of the last remaining Wisps on the Lands. Part of the rarest variant even, she stores–”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I interrupted him quickly. “but from all the things on the Lands, Val might be the biggest mystery for me; one I’m dying to understand. But also one I’d like to figure out on my own. So please, sir. Skip the explanation and cut to the point; you’d do me a massive favor.”

“As you wish,” he nodded. “The point is, she’s very coveted for her Essentia storage, and once that’s depleted, that’s it. No more Valentina. Not on the Lands, not on the Ethereal Plane.”

I turned around to look at Val.

“Don’t worry, sir. I’m not going to let anyone touch her.” She blinked yellow. “If she goes… I go with her.”

There was a moment of well-needed silence that started off with a big sigh of Feldir, probably annoyed at my ignorance or naivety. A calm few seconds without screaming or tension or anything. Just my buzzing and Val’s glassy sounds… and then a cough of the old dwarf standing a few feet in front of us.

“If you be so kind to follow me to my library, ladies… It won’t even take fifteen minutes to get there.”

We were strolling through the tunnels, following this almost ancient dwarf and his red crystalline lantern… thing. It was mostly silent, maybe a little bit awkward, until he started speaking again after about ten minutes.

“Oh, I forgot to mention: the Library of Infinite Knowledge isn’t your standard library, Kate. There’s some distinct rules you’ll have to abide by.”

“The Library of Infinite Knowledge?” I laughed at the name, mockingly. “That is, uh… quite the ambitious name!” Valentina next to me let out a brief squeak as she flashed yellow.

“I know, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” There was a certain smugness in his voice I couldn’t quite place.

“You are actually claiming this library of yours is holding an infinite amount of knowledge…?” I wasn’t convinced… at all.

“I am. And that’s exactly why I have regulations on it. There’s a price to pay for infinite knowledge.” He stopped walking forward and tilted his head downwards. His fist clenched as a silent sigh escaped him.

“Are you alright, sir…?”

He quickly shook himself free from his thoughts and resumed his pace. “You get six hours in the Library, and one free book – and one only – to take for an indefinite amount of time. After that you leave. No exceptions.”

Despite that not sounding like how a library functions in the slightest, I chose to just let it pass. Rules are rules, I suppose, and the chances of me convincing him to make an exception for us were… well, basically null.

Taking a left at the next T-section revealed a light coming from two of those red “Essentia Crystals” at the end of the tunnel. They were hovering in a cut-out spot in the wall, next to a giant wooden door which was reinforced with iron and overrun by vines.

“Here we are!” Feldir shouted in excitement.

He picked up the pace, almost running now. It was frankly amazing how fast an ancient Dwarf like him can move forward…

The closer we got, the more apparent it became that there was no doorknob or handle or even a real keyhole to open the door. The only thing present was a strange locket located in the center, from which all vines seemed to originate.

“Take a step back, ladies.”