The Great Core's Paradox

A near-forgotten fire roared to life in Elara’s heart. Anger. Hatred. Disgust. All sparked by a single word.

Virtun.

It wasn’t the word that did it, though. She thought the word plenty. Had heard Orken’s Council say it plenty, too, back when the Seekers were making their reports. It was just a word.

Except, in this case, it was more than that. It was the ones that had ruined her city - coming here. Soon.

Elara didn’t know whether to feel. Should she be excited at the idea of confronting the members of a city she hated? Terrified? Eager? Worried? Because she was all of them at once, and she was too confused to force the feelings to stop.

It wasn’t until her body started shaking that Elara noticed the world was still moving on without her.

“-ara. Elara! Can you hear me?” Doran’s finger snapped in front of her, the other hand shaking her like a ragdoll. “Shit, I think she might have done something to herself, Erik.”

“I’m here,” Elara said, still in a confused and muddled daze. “I’m alright. I think. I just…need a moment.”

It took more than that for her to finally compose herself, but the other two Seekers were more than gracious enough to give it - and when she was done relaying the reason for her stupor, they nearly fell into one themselves.

“...huh,” Erik said slowly, as if carefully tasting the words on his tongue as they formed and finding the flavor less than palatable. “That’s…not good. You know, that reminds me of what Julian was saying earlier about the White Towers. What was it…”

Elara thought back, straining herself to remember. Julian, one of the diplomats that had brought them to Erandur, had talked about the White Towers somewhere in the midst of describing the city’s makeup. Something about a Core. Her eyes widened as the memory of his speech flooded in.

Especially after the White Towers managed to make some sort of agreement with another city in exchange for a Core a few decades back. They’ve lorded it over us ever since. Claim that they’re the ones who made the sacrifices - I couldn’t tell you what those actually were, they seem pretty tight-lipped on that end, but I assume it involves the xenlite or the mines somehow - and that means they have no obligation to share the benefits.

“The agreement,” she said to herself. “The Core in the White Towers. It was from Virtun?”

That didn’t make sense. Virtun had ruined Verdant Grove in an attempt to get their Nature Core, provoking her city’s collapse. Their greed had forced so many from their homes, ended lives, caused the mists…Why would they just give a Core away if they were willing to kill so many to acquire one?

It just didn’t make any sense…but no. That was wrong. They had tried to trade for the Nature Core originally, she realized. Elara was too ignorant of their dealings to know what the offer had been. Not that it really mattered what it was. Even if they had offered another Core - even if they had offered two Cores - Verdant Grove would have never agreed to trade the Nature Core. Its power was too ingrained into the city’s livelihood and culture.

It was just that, apparently, refusing that trade wasn’t actually an option.

…Maybe the White Towers’ Core was from Virtun. The idea made more sense than she had initially thought. Elara’s mind raced, thinking it through. Virtun was a central city - a strong one, apparently - and Cores formed more commonly in the central areas of the World Dungeon. Because of that, they probably had Cores to spare - but what do you do if you have two of the same type? You could keep both, Elara supposed, and churn out more enchanted equipment with the extra Core’s mana. But what if you had three? Four? Or what if you had other Cores that were just plain better than that Core’s type? Do you just let the Core go unused and collect dust, like a trophy on a shelf?

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No. Likely not. Might as well trade it away, and get something more useful out of it - like, if Julian was right, literal decades of another population mining xenlite for you. A gem that prominently featured on Elara’s own Virtun-originated armor.

They could have gotten the xenlite they used in their armor somewhere else, but Elara doubted it. The details matched up too much to be a coincidence. Elara relayed her thoughts to the other two Seekers.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Erik agreed. “Besides, it fits. My father did always say that the more central cities were particularly cutthroat. It was the reason he moved out to the edge in the first place. Too tired of the politics, the ruthlessness they held to in the pursuit of Cores and power. Even said that they liked to pen agreements with one hand and hold a dagger in the other. Guess he was right on that.”

“So they’re assholes,” Doran spat. “That’s not exactly surprising new information, here.”

“No, I guess it’s not,” Erik said. “But it still matters; it means that the talks with Erandur as a whole will be more complicated than expected. One of the key agreements we wanted was an alliance against Virtun. If the White Towers have a decades-long deal going with them, they might not be as willing to ally against Virtun as we hoped they would.”

Erik cocked his head. “Or maybe they would? It could be a chance for them to break the deal they made and still keep the Core. Could be a win-win. We’ll have to see.”

In a few short minutes the trio hashed out a plan. The entire time, Elara could hear the two men from before - who she carefully avoided looking towards, for fear that they would realize she could hear them - fretting in a way that made it clear they were positively sweating with anxiety. It was obvious that Elara, in her Virtun-made armor, had been mistaken for a warrior from Virtun. Even from a distance, Elara’s panic-induced shift into shadows would have been unmistakable to anyone that had seen the ability before.

So they would lean on that misconception. Hard. She just had to pretend to be one of these ‘shadowguards’ for a little while. As long as she didn’t talk too much and give herself away, Elara imagined that she could keep up the charade long enough to figure out what exactly was going on. With Elara’s recently-amplified hearing, it would be child’s play to listen to the White Towers’ reaction to the presence of a Virtun shadowguard. From there, she could adjust her behavior accordingly. More importantly, she’d have the opportunity to hear the things that were said about Virtun behind closed doors. Because, with how distraught the voices she had heard earlier were about her early arrival, they would definitely be talking. Quite a lot.

Unfortunately, the plan required Elara to split off from the others for a time. They still needed to keep searching for Orken’s wayward snake. Investigating the White Towers’ connection to Virtun was important, but the Little Guardian was even more important. If he was at the White Towers, Elara would find him. If he wasn’t, which was far more likely with the null-water that surrounded the cluster of towers, Erik and Doran’s time would be better served elsewhere.

They separated after a few moments of well wishes, Elara continuing towards the White Towers, where a boat was already beginning to cross the null-water in her direction, while Erik and Doran headed towards one of the few remaining clusters of towers that they hadn’t investigated yet.

The boat had nearly arrived by the time Elara stepped to the White Towers’ shoreline, rowed by a group of men that spent the entire journey across the null-water quietly cursing her for arriving without any notice. Other mutterings had given her a little more information to go off of, but not nearly as much as she wanted.

“...lone shadowguard, this time. Wonder what happened that one got sent ahead so early? They’ve never done this before,” one man said.

“...looks like a woman this time, doesn’t it? Feeling like trying your luck? Could be a good lay if she’s as crazy as the rest,” another needled.

“Skies, no! I’m not trying to die any time soon. How about you do it if you think it’s such a good idea, asshole.”

“Quiet!” the rest of the men in the boat chorused, the entire group turning on the chatty members of the boat. They fell silent.

Carefully avoiding reacting to those last few comments, Elara took a tight rein on her emotions and body language, exerting the full force of her mana-given bodily control. She needed to do this right - and that meant not giving away that she could hear so well. No reactions. Luckily, the closed-face helmet helped with that.

Elara let out one final sigh, listening to the sound of her breath crashing against her visor like a tumultuous wave, and readied herself for their arrival. If the information she heard was right, Elara had two weeks to finish up at the White Towers before Virtun appeared and everything came crashing down.

But if everything went well, by the time they got to Erandur…

The city might be different than they’d be expecting.