After digging through the internals of the Scarecrow, or Ruin Sentry as Carman started to call it. He stored the components and shell into his storage.
"Ok Ryuzu, let's go and see what it was guarding!" Said Carman, his face beaming as he started walking down the corridor in high spirits from all the new tech he had to deconstruct and decipher.
Ryuzu followed after him, slightly caught off guard by how upbeat he was. "What a strange person." She sighed.
Carman pulled out the feather and followed the way it was tapping. They passed more shelves, each having different materials and sometimes even incomplete mechanisms. Carman took a quick look at a few of them, tossing them into his storage, and moving on.
Eventually they stopped at a shelf full of different canisters, using his elemental sight, Carman could see a variety of colors coming off of each of them. There were colors of the main 7 elements, and more surprisingly.
Moving the feather around Carman found five canisters of the energy sapped from it and pulled them down with Ryuzu's help.
-Ding-
[Quest: Divine Remains complete
Generate rewards?
Yes / No]
'Finally' thought Carman as he selected the yes option, there was no point in delaying it any further.
[Generating rewards]
As the window popped up, all the canisters that Carman had collected gathered around the canister containing the feather Carman held in his hand, the ones that had been in his inventory even being pulled out by the system. The canisters opened, causing the essence contained within to pour out, however before they could spread and disperse into the air, an invisible force contained it as the lid to the feather was opened and the feather flew out, as it did, Carman could sense the Karma radiating from it, but it was blocked by the same invisible wall keeping the essences contained.
One by one the clouds of essence were drawn into the feather, as they made contact with it, they were absorbed into it like water into a Minecraft sponge. As it absorbed the essence, the feather started to gain colors and patterns, the once clear bristles regaining their lost pigmentation.
As it regained it's color, the feather slowly lowered the amount of Karma it was radiating. Eventually all of the clouds of essence was absorbed into the feather, and not a shred of Karma remained.
-Ding-
[Feather of Gale du' Temps restored and purified, generating rewards....]
-Ding-
[Objective completion rate 160%generating additional rewards]
[Host has recieved: 4* Catalyst: Fan of 500 Winds, 3,333 exp, [Ascend] unlocked.
Additional reward: memory fragment of Gale Du' Temps]
Carman looked at the screen in surprise even ignoring the elaborate fan that appeared in front of him, hovering, waiting for him to take it.
'the memory of a dead god, this should be interesting... But how do I access it?' thought Carman as he focused on the last bit of information. 'Maybe I have to touch the feather?'
As his skin made contact with the feather a large amount of elemental energy swept around them, Ryuzu tried to reach out to Carman, but was blocked by a powerful barrier.
Scenes flashed through Carman's mind, pieces of memories of the Divine wind spirit Gale Du' Temps. While they were part of Istaroth, Gale Du' Temps's affinity to the element of Time was boosted, or rather stacked with the affinities of other wind spirits.
In the fragments of moments that Carman could see, he saw time as the deceased wind sprite had, not as a linear flow but a chaotic mess of wind streams, effected not only by each other, but also the environment. All side by side. He saw moments of scenes he recognized and ones that he didn't. Eventually he saw the death of the wind spirit, but before that, he saw an image, a boy with blue eyes and red hair. He was clothed in overalls stained with oil, and he was holding a feather glowing with elemental energy.
He felt resignation but also indifference. And then he felt how the spirit had died, struggling within a large amount of water. Trying to escape but having water crush around him from all sides. The water forming spikes within itself and piecing the spiri's chest, the water full of the rage filled wails of a woman.
Carman came back to his body, gasping for breath. He clutched his chest where the spike of water had pierced the wind spirit. As he breathed, he could feel as the the Anemo energy mixed with the air in his lungs, how it flowed with his breath and circled around him and the feather. Memories of the wind spirit's mastery of its element spread through his mind, his awareness of the intricacies of the element increased.
Breathing in, he focused his intent on the Anemo energy in his lungs, as he breathed out, he willed it to keep its path turning the buffering winds around it into fuel to perpetuate it's motion onward. Carman felt a small part of his will in the gust of air and used it to force the stream to curve around him, coalescing with the other guests of wind into a uniform flow. The Anemo energy carrying his intent until he let it all go, and it burst in a small pop, pushing dust and small objects away from him.
The feather in his hand glowed faintly as a small amount of Anemo energy continued to swirl around it, Carman looked at the catalyst he had received from the quest.
It was a delicate looking fan made up of feathers and carved bamboo. A black silk ribbon was woven between the bottoms of the feathers, woven down the length of the handle and dangled with a small pendent made of a green stone at the end. In the center of the fan, there was a section missing, with an empty bamboo tube where a feather should be. Carefully, Carman worked the feather from Gale Du' Temps in to the weive of the silk ribbon and into place of the bamboo slot. It was a perfect fit, and the feather was pressure fitted into place.
Carman could feel a connection to this fan, it was amlk ost as though it had become a part of his hand, with a flick of his wrist, the fan blew a large gust of wind towards the ceiling. He tried letting go of the fan and it hovered in the air above his hand. He could direct it's movement with his mind, but it always gravitated towards his left hand when undirected.
Carman put the fan into his inventory for the moment, leaving pondering it's abilities and uses for a later time as Ryuzu moved closer to him.
She bent down, resting hands on his shoulders as she looked into his eyes. "Are you okay?" She asked with a serious look.
"Yeah other than a newfound fear of water diving, I'm perfectly fine." Said Carman with a chuckle.
-to be continued.