"Then Umbral is what's associated with passive Aether?"
"Aye, that's what they say."
"You obviously do not believe it, sir Telent."
"Bah... It's a matter of inequivalence. Take the Calamities for instance."
The seasoned Hearer took a sip of his drink. Whatever it was, made him react with a simple minded content.
"Thank the Twelve they are over-"
'They aren't over.'
"But we used to call the ages of chaos and destruction, Umbral Eras, did we not? Pray tell, what image evokes from the word Umbral?"
We were chatting within the cooling shade of the Conjurers' guild. They had a garden type patio off to the side that I couldn't see in game. It was a stone chamber with a massive hole in the ceiling where sunlight rained down and illuminated vast swaths of flowers and herbs.
I played with a crooked but tough ashwood wand in my hands. A welcoming gift from the guild. I didn't need it, but I had hoped to study how it worked. Just like I had for my first Thaumaturge's wand.
"Darkness, Hidden, Secrets."
"And yet the Calamities have been anything but."
It was true. I wondered why there was such a strange discrepancy.
I tugged on the small leaf that was hanging onto the wand in my hands. It was stubborn. It felt like I was pinching a bit of rubber. How strange.
In the setting of XIV, magic was tied to the 6 elements. Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, Ice, and Wind. The 7th "element", Unaspected, represented when the elements were balanced. In-game, it just represented magic that the developers couldn't be fucked to label properly.
In addition to the elements, apparently, they could assume the character of Astral or Umbral polarities.
A fire spell of Astral alignment would turn into a wildfire and the same spell with Umbral alignment would instead act as a microwave.
XIV never made use of this setting. One class, the Astrologian could touch aspects of Astral and Umbral, but it didn't turn into anything important within gameplay. However, this very aspect of polarities sounded like exactly what I needed to convert my Astral Fire to Astral Ice. Or rather, I could turn Astral Fire, into Umbral Fire.
"Could we have it wrong?"
"Unlikely. Perchance, the calamities were named as such before the second took wing. Before they could identify what Astral and Umbral truly meant..."
Telent tapped the smoother side of his cup. He did that when chewing on a thought.
"Have you viewed light through a stained glass, sir Telent?"
"Mm."
"And have you painted upon a canvas?"
"Mm."
"When all the differing colors of light, provided by the glass, meet and meld into one, what do you think that color is?"
"I know it to be white, lad. What are you getting at?"
"Almost there sir."
"grunt"
tap-tap-tap
"And when all paint on your palette mix into one mess, what is that color?"
"Black or a dark brown at any rate."
tap-tap-tap
"I suppose it depends on the way the paint was made..."
tap-
He stopped.
"...Indeed."
"Anyroad, despite both examples having colors combine, one produces light and the other produces dark."
He took another sip of his drink. I didn't know what it was. I couldn't smell anything beyond the flowers surrounding the guild.
"....Hells, that's absurd."
"Did you catch my meaning?"
"Aye... It's-"
"Unproven."
"But interesting."
I pulled a trick out of my artist hat. Light combined to become white. Colors combined to become black. Depending on the lens in which you view black and white, they could flip.
Then what of Umbral and Astral? Could it be possible that the polarities could also flip?
"Are you a scholar, young Winter?"
"No sir. I dabble in matters of the ink at most."
True. Gridania has given me the room and peace to actually engage with books. A somewhat enjoyable pastime.
"A shame, you remind me of those Sharlyans. Their wit as magnificent as their pride insufferable."
An angry swig this time.
"You flatter me sir Telent."
"I assure you that I do not. Such a strange idea can only be birthed from an estranged mind. Huhuhu."
'...'
E-Sumi-Yan wasn't at the guild and wouldn't be for a few more days. While he was gone, I was busy snooping through texts for answers to how Aether worked. What it even was.
While I studied, a Hearer, one of the Seedseer Council who voted to determine the direction of the city-state, noticed my readings and we exchanged our thoughts.
I had two problems that I wished to solve.
One, I was worried about the Primals. Even if I were to find a way to be shielded from their influence, which I thought to be impossible without the Echo, I couldn't fight in an area that was made only of their Aether.
It would be like water splashing a sponge. I needed a way to carry Aether with me.
I had an idea to hold Aether within a stone or Crystal of some kind, however they don't hold much, they are fragile, loud, heavy, and directly break my rule of no specialized equipment. I had two blades to wield. I didn't have time to flip hand signs or throw crystals.
Of course there was the crystal used in 2.0 to kill an Ascian, but I didn't know what it was called. I likewise didn't want to draw attention to it by describing its qualities. I didn't know who would go hunting for the inventor.
My second problem was healing magic. This body was strange in many ways, but I did not have super healing or regenerative powers hidden within. I would need a spell to heal. The wisdom that echoed in my head said "healing without the blessing of the elements would use your life in exchange." An obviously undesirable effect.
These fuckers were going to kick the bucket come the 7th Calamity. I needed a way to heal even with the elements severely weakened. Paladins could heal, but only slightly. In addition, I had no idea how long it would take me to reach that level of power. You unlock Paladin in-game at level 30. I could barely kill a Goobbue, let alone whatever Paladins tended to fight.
I needed something I could practice and use now rather than later.
That's where my research came into play. I felt comfortable in my heart, flipping through old dusty archives and testimonials. A habit carved into my bones. Or rather, my bones. This body liked books, holding swords at strange angles, messing with Aether, and really liked fucking women.
Those habits drew me to a book on the elements. And my current meditation with Telent.
"All magicks are Aether, lad. Some tend to fluff their plumes and call it exclusive. Others'll wag their tails and attribute all to 1 of the twelve. All for true, but not all whole true."
Telent looked off into the distance. The cup adjusted unnaturally in his hands.
"To heal, is to mend life. To mend is to weave Aether. All is of Aether after all."
Telent stood and stretched slightly. I sat still to hear his cynical wisdom. A welcome thing in a nation of nationalist zealots.
"To think of healing as the act of mending a wound is the trouble. Healing is patching holes in your cloth. A poor healer uses any cloth that covers the hole."
"A proper healer uses the right cloth for the whole article?"
"Good lad."
The cynical Hearer left me with those words. I sat still to digest them. Telent had delivered wisdom in a clear and obscured fashion. I was thinking of healing as I would with any medicine of potion. Stop the bleeding. Re-align a bone. Mend a torn muscle. However, real healing didn't touch the body directly.
I looked down at my hands with a strange revelation. Did I not bleed blood? I was corporeal. I had to eat and sleep. I felt exhaustion and pain. I had good days and bad days. If I cut my finger I'd feel it and say "ouch."
But the implication was that the cut on my finger wasn't truly there. My body didn't contain bones, muscle, fat, and sinew. It was a shell that held a pool of Aether. When I cut my finger, it's not blood that leaked out. It was Aether. When I broke a bone, that was similarly a string of Aether snapping.
When I drank water. It wasn't truly water. It was Aether. When I breed my women, it's not semen. It's Aether. And when a baby is born, it is simply Aether given "life".
How could these two things be true at the same time? It were as if a layer of unreality stacked on top of me. A spirit that sat in my skin was overlapping with my biological functions.
I came from a world of science and reasoning. Even if I myself wasn't a scientist or stem student, I understood the underlying reasons as why human bodies behave the way they do. But now I wasn't human was I? No one was. They were Hyur. I was just another magical race on the star of Eorzea. A dragon could spit fire and I drank water. Why did my body work? Magic. Why was my blood red? Magic.
Why would I turn into Aether when I died? Wait. Did I? Some do. But the undead were prominent. Graveyards existed. People had funerals. Only those who die by expelling themselves of all Aether, end up turning their bodies into raw Aether. It was like a construct had collapsed in on itself.
I gripped my hands strongly and let my nails bite into my skin. Is this skin? Or just a construct of Aether? What on earth was I? What have the Twelve created? Was my blood real? My mind? Was I a soul inhabiting an Aetheric construct? Are souls also Aether or something else?
I drew my thoughts back to the counsel sir Telent provided me.
It's akin to patching the holes in cloth. In a way, I could heal now, couldn't I? Sewing cloth was a very apt comparison for me as I manipulated strings of Aether. So I had to learn to sew my strings back into the stream?
Not a simple prospect. I not only had to enter meditation, but then I had to perceive "holes" in the Aether to "patch". The "world" looked to be made up of streams and rivers of Aether. I myself showed nothing.
What hole was there to patch? Where would I see a leak? Could I walk into a clinic of the desperate and dying then ask "May I meditate whilst holding your hand?".
My melancholic thoughts stopped suddenly.
...
No I couldn't, but god dammit it did sound fun. I could pretend to be a priest and join them in prayer or something...
...
No, no I couldn't...
No! I can't in Gridania...
But in Limsa, where there was a variety of pirates and scallywags who deserved a thrashing within the taverns alone...
I had to contact Thancred. He'd love this.
---
Today was magical for Kan-E-Senna. She had become fast friends with a new sister. Friends were always something that the young Seedseer lacked. Her responsibilities kept her bound to the will of the elements and they were as whimsical as they were dangerous.
To have one as energetic as Minfilia, it made her heart warm with appreciation.
They were currently in Kan-E's dining room drinking a strange juice blend that Minfilia called applemelon cider. It tingled on her tongue a bit. But it was not bad.
"So you'd say it rains here often? It must be difficult to prospect the forest..."
Minfilia was chewing her lip in hard thought.
"Indeed. The Black Shroud lack not in metals and ore, but the moisture tends to halt mining efforts ere long."
"It's easier to simply work the trees then?"
"Only in as far as the elements allow. The Hearers have a special party that works with the Botanists' guild to allocate gathering and harvest times. The woods can be...fickle in matters like these."
They were discussing Gridania's industry. Kan-E's new sister "yearned for the mines" as she said. She was interested in Botanists and the ways in which Gridanians obtained steel for their lancers.
Kan-E took another sip of the applemelon cider before answering, letting it fizzle slightly on her tongue.
She had only scratched the surface of Gridania's administration and hated every second of it. But she had gleaned plenty of how her city-state lived in harmony with the Twelveswood.
To explain it further, first she would need context.
"Pray tell, how does Ul'dah handle ore provisions?"
"Well, outside of obtaining a permit, the restrictions are loose as long as you know the right kind. I have a friend who holds a senior position within the Miners' guild..."
Kan-E listened carefully, though surprised, to Minfilia's lesson on Ul'dahn policy. The deserts were barren and difficult to control. As a result, plenty in the region had "struck it rich" by uncovering things hidden by the sands. Precious ore, gemstones, aether-imbued metals, every resource outside of a tree, could be dug up from the sands of Thanalan.
"But is it not dangerous? If everything is unregulated..."
"Indeed. Tis no surprise to find the odd body buried in the sands. However, I do not worry. I have another close friend who's the daughter of the Gladiators' guild. She dispatches some of her most trusted to protect me while I run amok. Hehehe~"
"Run "amok"?"
"A term our Winter uses~ I do believe it to mean go wild. I find it quite suitable!"
Run amok. Their Winter indeed used strange terms didn't he?
Kan-E drank another mouthful of her cider. She wondered how it would be with a bit of ice.
"In addition, our Winter made me this!"
Minfilia pulled out a stone. It was white and covered in lettering she didn't understand.
"What is it?"
"A Return rock! I rub the surface a bit and it instantly pulls me through the Aetheryte Network and back home! Winter called it a Hearthstone."
"...!"
What?! Such a strange thing! The implications of such a tool...!
"Wow! Where did he get it?!"
"Hmhm! He made it!"
Minfilia said that whilst puffing her already large breast. The world started spinning. Winter had personally created this thing?! How did it work? How did he do it? What other talents was her man hiding?!
"I got it just before my second expedition. I was still unfamiliar to Ul'dah and it's dangers."
---
"Thanny Cranny~"
"Do NOT call me that."
"How would you feel about helping me with something scholarly?"
"Upset."
"How upset?"
"Do you wish me to hide under your bed and yell whilst you sleep?"
"You said you were drunk!"
"Little Winter, not once have I been so drunk that I would incorrectly choose a room. Scaring you is fun is all."
"DON'T SAY THAT WITH A STRAIGHT FACE!"
"Tis the truth."
"..."
"...Come here, Archon. It's for Minfilia."
"...tch. Very well. Ready yourself."
"DON'T DO IT!"
...
"You've lost your senses, Little Winter."
"No, I haven't! Look! Runes act just as any spell! We just need the right instruction to provide the Aether."
"You cannot "instruct" Aether! And these are just runes aren't they? Letters is all. You could write upon the rock normally and get a similar effect."
"You can instruct Aether! It flows like water where there is none. A dash of quicksilver here could block the circuit! And no! These runes aren't just common letters! They are part of the instruction. The Aether responds to their lettering!"
"Circuit?"
"Uhhh...hells how do I explain this..."
---
"And that's how they made it~"
It couldn't get anymore vague than that. As far as she could tell, their Winter understood most of how to create it, but needed help with creating the "rune", lettering that dotted the surface of the rock.
Kan-E had seen a number of textbooks within Master Yan's study, and some of them may have featured these very runes. But to combine them into a usable spell...
"Soooooo~"
Kan-E sensed a foreboding chill in the air.
Minfilia joyfully scooted her chair from the other side of the table and deposited herself to Kan-E's left. She hugged her arm and gazed with upturned eyes. Eyes her younger brother would use when he wanted something he should not have.
'AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!'
She knew what Minfilia wanted to talk about. If she used the Hearthstone, perhaps she could escape!
Sigh
Yet she didn't. With a physically noticeable flush, she began the story of her day with Winter. All the while, Minfilia would interject with her retelling of what Winter did upon returning to the dorms.
Both women were flushed with a mix of secrets and excitement. They told their hushed stories over room temperature cups of applemelon cider.