Air Sigil Acquired

Silax went back into the hall to check on Elara, she remained unconscious not showing any signs of waking up. She would need longer than a few hours to be healthy enough to leave this place.

Her face was illuminated by the colorful lights of the hall which accentuated her attractiveness. Silax gazed at her face, he was mesmerized by her beauty.

He had finally made up his mind on the thought that had crept into his mind since the moment he left the white chamber. He had deliberated over it, trying to decide if it was the best course of action, and if he was okay with it.

The Orenda-Sigil in his Nexus made it that he couldn't create sigils on his own, he would have to take from others their source of power. Taking from others wasn't what he struggled with. It was the information that came with the sigil that made the decision more difficult.

 The bearer of the sigil he consumed wouldn't survive the process. Perhaps he wouldn't struggle with the decision if it was a random person, but he had come to like Elara. They had survived a great ordeal together, and that created a special kind of bond.

Silax pushed away those thoughts, his resolve was stronger than that. Getting stronger was what was important.

He placed his hand on Elara's forehead, a dark energy began to flow from his hand into her head. She began to twitch, and he could see her eyes move about under her eyelids.

Silax closed his eyes, and he appeared in Elara's Nexus. Her Nexus looked different from his. It was a bright orange, and it had a warm feel to it. This was due to the fact that her first sigil was the Orenda-Sigil of fire.

In her Nexus floated two Orenda-Sigils, one for fire, and another representing air.

The fire sigil was blurry, and Silax couldn't make out the details. The air sigil was much clearer, and the energy that invaded the Nexus was drawn to it.

The energy became tendrils that wrapped themselves around the sigil. The sigil began break apart as the broken pieces were sucked up by the tendrils. As more pieces of the sigil broke apart, cracks began to appear all around the Nexus.

The fire sigil was affected by these cracks, it began to break apart and the pieces drifted towards the cracks. The cracks were like a rift in space, pulling in everything around them.

By the time the tendrils were done devouring the air sigil, only a small segment of the fire sigil was left. The Nexus was decimated and looked desolate. The bright light and warm feeling were gone.

Silax opened his eyes and saw Elara seizing uncontrollably, she was drenched in sweat, and her ears and nose were bleeding. The spasms continued for a while before they began to subside.

The possibility of Elara surviving crossed Silax's mind, but then he thought of the quality of life she would live. Her Nexus was damaged, and she had probably sustained some untreatable injuries from the process of consumption.

Elara's eyes suddenly opened, and she looked eyes with Silax, she tried to speak, but she couldn't open her mouth. Then as abruptly as she had opened her eyes, the light in them vanished.

Silax's gaze was fixed on Elara's eyes, the glint in her hers were gone. He saw the moment in which she died. The look in her eyes were stamped into his memory.

Silax sighed, then used his hand to close her eyes, as he did, he said in ancient elvish:

"Woven from nature's embrace, you return to its hold, your sacrifice grants strength, a story yet untold."

Silax got up and took off her cloak, he was about to cover her with it, when he noticed something sticking out from it. He turned it around to take a closer look.

At the spot where the hood and the cape met, a hidden pocket had been sewn into it, and in that pocket, a parchment had been hidden.

He pulled it out and unfolded it, on the parchment was the drawing of a sigil, the Orenda-Sigil of fire. Below the drawing was a detailed description of the sigil

Silax looked back down at Elara, she seemed more mysterious to him now. She seemed to have had secrets of her own.

Silax picked up the cloak and laid it over her, using it to cover her body. He left her side and went to the well at the center of the room.

He didn't feel comfortable staying next to her.

Silax took another look at the parchment before placing it in his bag, together with the other items he had acquired on this expedition. He was in no mood to study the sigil.

'I wonder what her origins her. She never mentioned the name of her hometown, and the rites of Yahvi she spoke about, the amount of detail she gave on it is something I've not heard or read anywhere. I only came across it once, and there was barely any information given on it, it's as if nobody knows about it.'

'Then comes the matter of her sigils, I initially thought the air sigil was the dominant one, due to her complexion. After seeing her Nexus, I'm sure she must have inscribed the fire sigil first. Although elves can inscribe the sigils of another tribe as their first sigil, it is almost never done.'

'Her traveling on her own as a hunter is already weird enough, but having a drawing of a sigil raises some questions. Where did she get it from? If her first sigil was a fire sigil, how had she acquired her air sigil?'

It was forbidden for any elf to recreate the sigils or record them. Each sigil and its runes are passed on by word of mouth from a Warrior to an Initiate.

The power levels between spiritualists were different, depending on their number of sigils and their mastery of said sigils. Each stage was denoted by different names. 

The first stage was an Initiate, this was an elf who had just one sigil inscribed. This was the first stage in the Orenda system of power. The next stage was a Hunter.

To become a Hunter, the elf had to first have their sigil saturated with orenda. There were three saturation levels for each sigil. The first level allowed an Initiate to be able to inscribe another sigil, making them a Hunter.

The next stage was called Warrior. To become a Warrior, the elf had to saturate their second sigil. This enabled the elf to accommodate another sigil in their Nexus, turning a Hunter into a Warrior.

Every elf can only accommodate three sigils, so the criteria to get to the next stage, which was a Shaman, was different from the previous three stages.

Initiates were not allowed to leave their tribe, so Initiates could only be found in the four regions where each tribe dwelled.

As for Hunters, they could leave, but only under the supervision of a Warrior. No Hunter was allowed to leave their tribe without being under the care of a Warrior.

This fact was what troubled Silax. Either she was someone who stumbled across two Orenda-Sigils, which was very unlikely, or there was a Warrior who would be waiting for her return.

That was also not likely, because there was no way a Warrior would let their accompanying Hunter go on a journey without them.