Greetings from Sor Solir — Part 3

At this point, with all of the hunting that Fhyu has done for Angea, he's more invested in this stupid lock than he'd care to be. What was originally intended to be just a quick visit to Sor Solir to pick up some damned silk robes was now little more than a self-absorbed aristocrat hosting a completely awful idea of a treasure hunt in order to dupe a bunch of mindless idiots into searching for things so that he wouldn't have to — and Fhyu had played right into it. Given, nothing he'd done in all of this had been for Mosaic; it had been for Angea, and her alone. But ultimately, with Angea working alongside Mosaic, the end result was still the same. And now here he is, standing on the beach beside her, their faces awash in a gentle glow from the illuminated key, and Fhyu doesn't want to admit it, but he's actually kind of excited to see what the key will reveal.

He doesn't have to wait long.

Surprised gasps quickly overtake the throng of people as the sand tremors gently under their feet, but Fhyu's eyes are affixed on the subtle twitch in Mosaic's jaw as he clenches his teeth together. The bird keeps the smile pasted on his face, but Fhyu knows that something far beyond anyone's imagination is taking place, and only Mosaic knows about it.

Fhyu digs his talons deeper into the sand as the ground trembles even more beneath him, not wanting to look stupid and fall over for any reason. But his attention on that is suddenly redirected to the ocean itself, watching the waters beginning to part away from itself as if it were a living entity. Fhyu can almost feel his own magic seeping out of him at a faster rate, as if the ocean itself were trying to pull him into its depths as it draws back from the shore. Like an artistic masterpiece, the sea continues to draw itself farther apart, only to pull its mass towards the skies, painting living walls of water that stretch themselves towards the stars. Eyes wide, Fhyu stares at the magnificent display of magic and nature fused together, creating a synergy so beautiful and powerful that he almost feels compelled to drop to his knees.

But it's the light in the distance that now draws his gaze. The harsh blue glow around them isn't as important as its source, and Fhyu finds his feet walking towards it almost without his own free will. He walks beside Angea, listening to her chatter with Mosaic, but keeping his own mouth shut. The fact that they're walking towards an astrean gateway is something that most people would never be able to claim in their lifetime, and while Fhyu is inwardly marveling at the situation, he's also finding himself wanting to be very, very far away from here. He's not supposed to be doing this. He swore off exploring. He swore it off the moment he watched Katzya die. He did favours for Angea in the name of relic safekeeping and regulation, but now everything is spiraling out of control, and Fhyu feels like he's going to be physically sick. But his feet keep walking onward against his will, and he seems to be out of any other options.

The farther down they go, the colder the environment becomes. Fhyu can feel the wet sand going from warm, to cool, to icy cold under his feet, but it doesn't bother him. His constantly overly-warm body is unaffected by the rapidly dropping temperatures, and it's times like these that he's grateful for his unstable magic keeping him insulated like this. He watches the summer-dressed guests pass around brightly-coloured beach towels and light jackets to warm their bodies, but none of them seem intent on turning back. It's easy to identify the other fire-specs in the crowd, since there's the telltale handfuls of those who also seem unaffected by the frigidity. That, or they're just pretending. Who cares.

As they approach the bit of oceanscape where Fhyu had been just a couple of days before, retrieving the piece of the astrean key, he's not quite sure that he's actually at the same spot anymore. The bird's blue eyes widen in shock and marvel as he bears witness to the wonder before him. Everyone in the party is completely still, everyone's gaze affixed to the architecture that sits upon floating land. There's already blatant magic afoot here, and there has been ever since they put the key into the lock, but this.. this is..

".. an Interspace," Fhyu whispers, his words in perfect unison with Angea's.

Years ago, when he was perhaps 35 or so, Fhyu had encountered an explorer at a space port, an astrean whose name he never managed to catch. He'd noticed the astrean-made bracelet around Fhyu's wrist and had asked him about it. Fhyu had told him that he'd obtained it in a trade and knew nothing about it. He had invited Fhyu to sit with him and chat for a little bit, and by the time the bird was finished talking, Fhyu knew more about astrean culture than anyone else he knew, including a little knowledge of Interspaces. Not too much was known of them, even that particular astrean didn't know as much as he wanted. He was journeying the stars, trying his hardest to find one of those little dimensional pockets. Desperate to find his people.

Fhyu idly wonders where that bird is now.

Like an automaton, he numbly follows Angea across the bridge towards the temple, idly glancing over the side of the bridge. The drop-off is so vast that he can't even see where the ocean floor now is. It's pitch black down there. He hopes that no one leans over too far and falls. That would be an unfortunate end to what was supposed to be a fun-filled treasure hunt wrought with insurmountably stupid proportions.

He's about halfway across the bridge before his feet finally just.. stop. The crowd keeps moving onward, several of them shouldering Fhyu out of the way, pushing him closer to the bridge's railing, which he weakly holds onto with one hand. Slowly, he turns his face upward, eyes meeting the sky high above, feeling like it's so much farther away now. He wants to continue onward, but every footstep just feels like a knife in his chest, and Fhyu isn't sure he'll be able to keep going. His head tilts back down, staring down at his feet with blurred eyes before simply closing them. His world swathed in darkness, Fhyu can only hear the hushed but excited chattering of the crowd. He can feel the cold warmth of the sun's rays as they pierce the depths of the parted sea. The salt is thick in the air; he can taste it on his tongue as well as smell it, along with the distinct odor of kelp, and the mineral tang of hardening coral. It's a moment in his life that Fhyu will never have the opportunity to create again, but he's unsure that he even wants to let it continue on to its end. Can he? Can he even allow himself to do it? Is he really willing to tarnish Katzya's memory and willfully play into the same kind of lifestyle that was what had gotten his mate killed? It shouldn't have ended like that. It never should have had to be that way.

Two hands carefully taking ahold of his forearms gently startles Fhyu from his whirlwind of thoughts, and he looks down through a thin film of tears to see Angea standing there, giving him a lopsided sort of smile as she lightly tugs on his arms, pulling him forward. "C'mon, buddy," she says, leading him along with her into the crowd, "It's gonna be okay."

He's not sure it will be, but he goes with her.

The inside of the temple is musty and the air is thick. Clearly no one has been in here for quite some time. He idly watches as a few air-specs try to pull in some saturated air from the outside to make it easier to breathe, but it just results in even more frigid, deep-sea temperature air freezing the guests even further as it whirls inside, and it stirs up the dust everywhere. Mosaic doesn't seem happy about it, but he still seems intent on leading everyone to who knows where. Fhyu idly catches a few hallways branching off here and there, but Mosaic is leading them in a direct path forward, most likely towards the center of the temple. The crowd is mostly quiet, and so far, no one's wandered off to explore for themselves. It's a strange place, and Fhyu almost feels like he's not even here somehow. Interspaces have a way of making one feel a bit displaced, even while on solid ground.

It's the main hall that finally jostles Fhyu out of his hazy headspace, and gets him to finally begin looking around in earnest. The quiet whispers of the crowd become louder, excited. The sight of gold and treasure seems to have everyone perking up, despite the frigid temperatures and stale air. Everyone wants a piece of it, he assumes. Fhyu isn't that interested in treasure, even less so since it would essentially be theft, but his eyes are moving between the murals on the walls, the mounted weaponry, and the one open chest over on the wall that looks to be filled with scrolls and similar minutiae.

Still, his gaze on them doesn't linger for more than a few seconds before finally turning back to look at the focal piece of the room, being the magnificent crystal being upheld by serpentine statues. Fhyu may not know much about the particulars of astrean items, but it doesn't take an expert to tell that there's an astrean inside of that crystal. Though, the fact that Mosaic seems to be undoubtedly sure of how to free the astrean is.. concerning. Fhyu and Angea glance at each other for a moment as Mosaic busies himself with the luminahedra, each of them probably sharing similar, concerned thoughts about it. But it's too late to stop the process now.

The crowd steps back the moment Mosaic does, and Angea thrusts out an arm at the front of the crowd, silently telling everyone to keep back. Eyes wide, everyone in the crowd watches as the crystal shatters into a thousand and one shards, revealing the bird within. Fhyu hadn't ever seen wings like theirs up close, taking note of their magic to be able to summon them at will. Quietly, he waits for the bird to address the crowd, watching them as they stare at all of the strangers clustered into their temple.

And then, just like that, they're gone.

Fhyu winds up having to deliver a little healing magic to a satyr cut by the glass that fell from the ceiling, but it's nothing that he can't handle. He's not too spent just yet. He watches as everyone seems excited to wander off now, most of them probably going off to look for other treasures. No one dares try to take anything from the main room, not with Angea in there delivering death glares and punches to anyone who tries.

"I'd really like to go find that astrean," she says to Fhyu, "But who knows where they could've ended up?"

"Probably not far. They've been in that crystal for who knows how long. They're probably still trying to wake up some. Maybe they stopped by the festival for a snack." He says the final bit with a wry smile, and Angea snorts a bit in response.

"Alright, well.. I'm gonna make sure that no one's trying to haul half the temple out of here. Not like I have to keep an eye on you, though. You've never been the grave robber type."

"Nah," Fhyu replies, flicking his wet tail, "I might pick up something or other, but only if it has some kind of historic value to it. I'm not interested in treasure."

"I trust you." Angea begins walking out of the room, having her eyes locked on someone down the hallway who seems to be trying to lug some sort of crate with them, "I'll be back in a bit!!"

Fhyu gives her an idle wave farewell, and turns his attention back to the room. There's still a few folks still in here, all of them looking at something or touching something else. Nothing that would get in his way, anyway. He's not particularly interested in policing the interests of anyone there, but he might step in if he noticed someone trying to make off with one of the chests or something. That's just overkill robbery.

Flicking his tail once again, Fhyu pulls his heavy scarf from his bag, bringing his tail around in front of him so that he could wrap it. He wasn't a fan of using towels if someone could see him, but his scarf was always pretty, and matched his clothing, so it would only look like he was accessorizing. As he sits precariously on one of the coiled serpent statues, he notices two birds walking off an adjoining hallway. One seems to be a Hiros bird, which he's not used to seeing anywhere, and then a rather short bird next to them. The shorter one seems to be almost curling in on herself, rubbing her arms as if to warm herself, but Fhyu can see that she's shivering. The pink Hiros bird seems conflicted, wanting to keep going, but not wanting to leave the smaller one behind.

Sighing, he stands back up, folding his scarf in a sloppy manner as he walks over to the two. He notes that the pink bird is dressed in gear that suggests that she does a bit of exploring, and Fhyu assumes that she's eager to look around before they have to leave. Her crest is odd, but its warm, bright colour makes Fhyu assume she has a bit of fire magic. This other one probably doesn't.

"Here," he says, holding out the scarf to the smaller one, "You should put this one. It'll only get colder the farther in you go."

The bird immediately grabs the scarf, hissing her thanks through chattering teeth, and promptly begins bundling herself in it.

"Thank you," the pink bird also replies, "I would have given her something of mine, but what I'm wearing is all I got, and I didn't feel like being naked in here was an option."

Fhyu snorts. "It's no trouble. It's a warm scarf. I'm Fhyu, by the way. A pleasure to meet you."

"Ceres," the Hiros replies, and then jerks her thumb at the smaller one still fussing with the scarf, "And that's my girlfriend, Shiloh. Honestly, I'd been hoping for something real to explore after all of the hunting shindig we got involved in, but I wasn't expecting anything like this."

"Me either," Fhyu murmurs, glancing back at the center room for a moment, "I don't know how this could have been here for so long without anyone from Sor Solir knowing about it."

"Beats me. I'm just excited to look around; I really want to find some paintings or other kinds of artwork to study." Ceres looks down the dark hallway again, clearly eager to continue their trek. Shiloh's head finally pops out of the mound of scarf, and she looks a lot happier, as well as a lot more cozy. "Didn't you say that you had an idea where they might keep art in a temple like this?" Ceres nods, and Fhyu looks at her with a curious eye.

"An explorer yourself, then?" He asks, "Do you have experience with astrean architecture?"

"Explorer, yeah. Well, self-proclaimed explorer, anyway." Ceres flashes a cheeky grin, snapping her fingers. "I actually study astrean history and culture, and if my memory serves me anything these days, down the western corridor connected to the center room of astrean temples, there's a kind of storage room that they use to keep all of the stuff that doesn't belong with the treasure. Stuff like paintings, books, commonplace items, you know. The cool stuff."

"The cool stuff," Fhyu repeats listlessly, "That's kind of along the lines of what I was hoping to look at, too; I'm not really all that interested in gold. I was hoping to see a little more along the lines of relics."

Wrapping one arm around Shiloh, Ceres beckons to Fhyu with the other in a friendly manner. "You should come with us, then. If we have the same destination in mind, we'll probably find it quicker if we work together."

While Fhyu doesn't really feel like watching over a pair of browlets, he can't argue that Ceres' logic is sound. He then nods in agreement, taking up the rear and following the two, allowing Shiloh to set the pace. Her legs are just so short; nearly 3-4 footsteps from her are equal to just one of his.

The three birds continue walking on down the hallway together. All three of their crests are used to illuminate the area as they go along, painting varying hues against the stone walls of the hallways. Ceres and Shiloh hold hands as they walk along, and Fhyu bites his tongue the entire time. Just when he thought this giant mess couldn't hit any closer to home, it just kept on finding ways to do exactly that. Overall, this trip to Sor Solir has been a nightmare and a half, and while Fhyu does have genuine interest in the temple, he wishes he didn't. Why can't he just go home? It bothers him that his thought of returning home involves his desire to run into Szigfried's arms. Why that, now? They've never done that. Fhyu nearly slaps himself in the face to get him to think about literally anything else.

"Hey, over here!!" Ceres vigorously waves Fhyu over as she dips into a room, having already yanked the door open. The room itself is small, but big enough for a few shelves and a couple of crates and chests stacked on the floor. The Hiros is pulling rolled art scrolls from the shelves, unrolling each one to see if she can find anything that piques her interest, and Shiloh busies herself opening one of the crates that doesn't have a lock on it. Fhyu carefully weaves his way between the two girls, meandering his way over to the shelves lining the far wall. There's not much to look at, and Fhyu assumes that with the scarcity of items in the room, that this temple either was still on the newer side before it was zapped from the normal universe, or the astrean it was dedicated to just didn't have a lot of stuff.

There's nothing that resembles treasure in this room, nothing made of gleaming gold or encrusted with precious gems, so Fhyu doesn't feel guilty about taking a few things. In the name of historical findings, he tells himself. He'll just get with Angea at some point and they can start researching some of them. He tucks a few odd baubles into his bag, along with a couple of dust-caked books and a scroll that looked promising enough. As he turns, he notices the small pile of lucky coins on one of the lower shelves. Fhyu has an impressive collection of them back at home, always having kept one from every location he found it at, every single one labeled with when he'd found it and where. It would be pretty neat to add this one to the collection, with "Astrean Temple Interspace" as its descriptor. Smiling wryly to himself, he tucks one into his pocket after having rubbed off the thick layer of dust from its surface, and then turns back to the girls. Ceres is sitting down on one of the crates, studying a map with extreme interest. Shiloh is sitting on the floor, her attention captured by a small box containing tiny wooden figurines of astrean browbirds. Not quite along the realms of children's toys, but not quite fancy enough to belong in a place like this.

Still, even with the enticing items in the room, Fhyu is still more intent on leaving than he is on staying. Peeking out the door, he looks down the hallway back towards the main temple room. It's a bit far off in the distance, and the rest of the hallway is dark, but if he squints enough, Fhyu can tell that there's not really any movement whatsoever going on in the main room. Either people have left, or something's going on. Either way, it's not boding well. Fhyu doesn't want to be left behind, not even jokingly.

"We should uh.. probably get going," he says, popping back into the storage room, "It's getting real quiet and empty down there."

"Aw crap," Ceres whines, stuffing the map and a few other things into her bag, "I don't wanna die in here or anything."

Not likely," Fhyu comments dryly, watching Shiloh scoop all of the figurines back into the box they were found in, "Angea wouldn't leave me in here."

"You know her?"

"We have some history together."

Ceres stares long and hard at him, and Fhyu narrows his eyes in response. "Not like that."

"I know. Just messin' around." Ceres takes the box from Shiloh, and puts it into her bag, Shiloh clearly wanting to keep it and take it with her, but lacking a convenient place to put it. Fhyu shrugs, stepping back out of the room again, holding the door open for the two girls to exit before closing it behind them. He follows the pair as they make their way back to the main room of the temple, feeling relieved that they're finally getting out of here.

There's a couple of people still in the main room, but the ones that aren't preoccupied looking at their loot are hunched down with their arms wrapped around themselves and shivering. Fhyu turns to head out of the room before something catches his eye. Over against the far wall, where some weapons are mounted, is a small pile of weaponry leaning against a chest. Hurriedly, he walks over, admiring the designs for a moment, before he picks up an ornate dagger. Fhyu's usually not one to mess with fancy daggers inside of temples, but he doesn't feel like this one was used to perform religious murders or anything like that. The hilt is some sort of smooth, white mineral marbled with gold veins throughout, leading up to the blade itself. Fhyu slides it out of its marble sheath, admiring the blade itself. What it's crafted out of, he has no idea, but it's so deeply black and non-reflective of the light that Fhyu almost feels like he's staring into a tiny tear in timespace. Carefully, he slides it back into the sheath, and slips it into his bag. Another something for Szigfried.

Hopefully Angea doesn't have plans to go through his bag and look at everything. He doesn't feel like giving excuses for his curiosity; right now, he just wants to get the hell out of this temple for good.

The thought of finally being able to leave is like a breath of fresh air for Fhyu. It feels like a weight lifted off his shoulders, knowing that he can finally stop this madness and just go back to living his regular life without any scavenging here-and-do, especially not for Mosaic. Never for him. He bids farewell to the girls, inviting them to visit his resort sometime, as a parting note, and he starts heading towards the way they all came in. The parted waters of the ocean, though still strange to the eye, have never looked so inviting before.

Time to finally put all this to rest.