Sineater

The beautiful, and still embarrassed, Elf gathered magic.

“Connecting now.” Starna pointed her staff at the wall and a circle about a foot in diameter splashed onto it. The shimmering light pulsed within the circle as she channeled magic into it.

“Hello?” My cousin’s voice broke the silence in the room, though I couldn’t see her. “Can you hear me?”

“Alessa.” I smiled as the light focused in and my blonde cousin’s blue eyes filled the circle on the wall.

I could see behind her as she moved whatever object Starna had connected to and placed it somewhere so that she could sit while looking directly at us. I could tell that she was in her room and that she was fully dressed and the lights were all on. It didn’t appear that we’d woken her.

“Were you sleeping?” I scooted over on the bed so that Starna could sit next to me. The Elf went rigid as I patted the place next to me, then turned to face my cousin without moving from where she was standing.

“I almost never sleep anymore.” Alessa let a little whine creep into her voice. “The kingdom is in shambles and even though the rebuilding is going smoothly, there is so much to do and approve. I’m hoping things calm down once we get my administrators in place and accustomed to their jobs, but until then, sleep will be a luxury.” Her face got stern. “But if you’re contacting me at this time of night, the situation must be dire.”

“Honestly, it could probably wait until morning, but I thought it better to tell you now given that it could escalate quickly.” I looked over at Starna who was doing her best not to look at me.

Since Starna didn’t seem like she was going to give a report, I started speaking again.

“There was an Exindo city below Iron Forge…” I paused as I realized that the Dwarves had said that the forge was below, which meant that this wouldn’t be Iron Forge, but I didn’t know what to call it. Honestly, it didn’t matter much for my report as I was sure that Alessa would understand what I meant.

“The uh, Exindo got wiped out during the Great War or right afterwards, the Dwarves don’t know. But they’ve been searching the city ever since and they found a strange white door in the floor of one of the larger buildings. That was what they wanted us to come look at.” I took a deep breath before I added the last part. “And they wanted us to come look at it because the Cult of Kinwell sent a squid to try to get in it.”

“A Squid?” Alessa’s nose scrunched. “Underground?”

“I think they are talking about an Illithid.” It was the only thing that made sense. At least I hoped that was what they meant. The only other thing that I knew of that had a squid face was a Cthuhlu and I doubted they would be able to take down one of those. The monstrous avatars of Kinwell had powers that no one on the planet could compete with. Supposedly there had been one on the planet during the Great War and that was why the Elders had shown up. While I knew that my Sineater abilities were strong, I doubted that I’d be able to keep myself alive longer than it would take something that powerful to crush me, physically or magically.

“Do you know what’s inside?” Alessa seemed worried about the mention of the Cult, but she pressed on.

“The door isn’t protected by magic, not from the outside anyway. It’s very strong. Vin wasn’t able to even chip it.” I looked over at Starna, who was still standing stiff as a statue. “I think there is a powerful elemental inside. Possibly a sentient one with magic.”

“A sentient Elemental?” The queen sounded shocked. “Why do you think that?”

“There is something that is collapsing any attempts that the Dwarves make to dig up the box that it’s in. If it’s that strong, then it has to be stronger than any of the Dwarves.” I let that implication sink in.

“If the Cult is really after it, then we have to keep it out of their hands.” Alessa affirmed. “How much protection do they have on it?”

I thought back, but there were barely any Dwarves on that floor that I saw.

“Almost none.” I shook my head. “Either the Dwarves don’t think that it’s much of a threat or they’re trying to keep their people away from another potential fight with something that strong.”

“We’ll have to fix that…” Alessa started shuffling through papers beside whatever she was using as a medium to receive the spell. “I know I have a contact for the Remnant around here somewhere…Aha! found it!” She read through the paper. “It says that in order to get in touch with the Remnant, I should contact Queen Banrion.” She looked at Starna. “Is that okay?”

Starna was still in a daze over something. I hadn’t thought that the old Dwarf’s comment early would mess with her that much, but apparently it had.

I reached over and tapped on Starna’s arm. “Hey. Alessa asked you a question.”

“Huh?” The Elf seemed like her mind was a world away.

Something was definitely bothering her.

“Alessa asked if you were okay with her contacting Queen Banrion.” I rephrased the question to try to summarize it.

“Sure.” The blushing Elf nodded slowly with her answer. Her face was still flush, but not the deep shade of blue it had been earlier. The answer had a little more emphasis, but I doubted she had heard what she’d just agreed to. I turned back to my cousin and shrugged.

As soon as we finished the call with Alessa, I was going to have to find a way to snap her out of it. But for now, I was going to focus on the rest of the report.