Perhaps there's some kind of event. An early seminar, perhaps?
Whatever the reason, it gave them the opportunity to leave the hall unnoticed.
Once they were outside, both of them squinting in the bright sunlight, Tiri tugged on Coll's arm until he followed her around the corner and behind a topiary hedge pruned in the shape of a wyvern.
"I need you to do something very important." She began to rummage in her satchel. "Remember the purple Core? The gnomes?"
He pursed his lips. "I didn't hit my head that hard."
"Good. You know how I said it was odd that we found them in such a shoddy cave? Well, I've been researching the history of gnomes, and I think I've found the location of the last-known gnomish civilization. Or at least the general vicinity of where it was rumored to be. They were very insular, you see, and— are you even listening?"
"Ye-es?"
She sighed. "It doesn't matter." She pulled out the sheaf of notes she'd written while in the library. "Take these to Benin. He'll figure it out when he reads them. There are notes in there from spell theory books that should help him come up with a means for you to communicate with the Core this time, too."
Coll reached out and took hold of the papers, but she didn't let go. A soft breeze had picked up, and she had a sudden vision of Coll in the middle of a field somewhere clumsily chasing down the precious papers he'd somehow managed to let loose.
After a moment's thought she bent over her satchel again. She unwrapped the blanket from Lila's journal, taking care to place the precious book back in her bag, then wrapped her own papers in the blanket, knotting it tightly before handing it over to Coll. The papers would crease and probably tear, but at least they'd arrive in one piece.
"Both of you need to go immediately to the purple Core with a warning. The Guildmaster is hunting it. The gnomes aren't safe."
"The Guildmaster is hunting it. The gnomes aren't safe," repeated Coll.
"Right." She met his eyes. "This is really important, Coll," she said. "Warn the Core. I'll join you both there soon. I just have a few more things I need to look into here."
"What things?"
"I'm not sure, but I think there's something deeper going on here, and the Guildmaster is somehow involved. I should only be another day or so. I just need to make sure we're not missing some vital piece of information. But we all need to hurry."
He nodded. Then he lifted his head, sniffing the air. The scent of bacon was wafting through an open window. The warrior looked longingly toward it.
Tiri smacked him on the arm again. "Coll! Go! Warn the Core, but then don't go anywhere until I join you. I need to be completely sure."
He nodded again, rubbing his arm as he turned to leave.
"Oh, and Coll? Tread carefully."
He frowned back at her. "You think it'll be dangerous?"
"Maybe, but I meant it literally. Please, please don't step on any gnomes. It would be a terrible shame if they survived the Cataclysm only to have the last remnants of their race extinguished by your boots."
Fourteen
From Any Direction
Corey
The stone wobbled, then fell to the ground. One of my acolytes gave it a sideways glance as it rolled past him, then shrugged and returned to his worship.
Ris'kin reached a hand-paw toward the shrine again.
“Stop that!” I said crossly.
Her ears twitched. She yawned. Then, slowly, deliberately, she tipped the next stone from its place on the shrine and watched disinterestedly as it followed the other down the hillock.
I expected my high cleric to reprimand her behavior, but Gneil didn't even look up. His shoulders were slumped, his head bowed almost to the ground.
Is he asleep?
"You're the worst high cleric ever," I told him.
The last red light of sunset caught in the facets of my gem, throwing spots of purple-pink light across the dark mossy walls. The glowworms on the ceiling were starting to flare awake; their soft green luminescence was a counterpoint to the white-yellow fireflies dotting the sky above like a precursor to the night's stars.
"What a lovely evening." Ket sighed and stretched, then reluctantly flitted away from her sunbathing spot atop my gem. Together, we looked down at Ris'kin, sulking beside my shrine. "What's up with her?"
"She's annoyed I wouldn't let her go with the latest scouting party."
Another stone went clattering down the hill. If she carried on like this there wouldn't be a shrine left for her to demolish.
"How petty." Ket glanced at me. "I wonder where she gets it from.”
“Rude.”
“She’s your avatar. Literally the embodiment of your will.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Ket narrowed her microscopically small eyes. I couldn’t see it, but I knew she was doing it. “I’m sorry, it sounds like you're griping about the time I saved all our butts. Tell me again how else you could have saved Gneil from that kobold back when he was your only worshiper."
I didn't reply. I didn't need to. Making Ris'kin into my avatar had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and at the time I'd been disgruntled it was the only choice I'd had.
But she'd proved her usefulness many times over, even sacrificing herself to protect the tribe, and Ket and I both knew that I wouldn't change her for the world.
Well. I wouldn't swap her. I'd changed her plenty—all for the better, and all thanks to a little ability called Evolution.
She'd started as a humble forrel. Since then I'd evolved her many times, adding aspects of different animals to enhance her original squirrel-fox build: she now had the regenerative abilities of a salamander, the toxin resistance of a badger, and now the extreme elemental resistance I'd gained from Binky's evolved blueprint. Ris'kin had proved vulnerable to the
