It was ac-tu-al-ly only a few min-utes af-ter they walked away from Sis-ter Futi that Ki'el's to-ken pulsed with qi. The three of them had bare-ly be-gun think-ing about what to do next, and Ki'el had be-gun think-ing about the space ring that the three of them shared, which Xam was tak-ing care of, and the only thing with-in it that mat-tered to her: the Aether Sword that Sobon had left her.

  But no, she made her apolo-gies and turned back, to find Futi half fac-ing one of the wall glyphs, her eyes glow-ing bright-ly from with-in. She turned as Ki'el ap-peared in the door, that light not dim-ming as she spoke.

  "Ah, my apolo-gies, Young Sis-ter Ki'el. As it hap-pens there is a re-quest that you may be well suit-ed for, if you are in-ter-est-ed."

  And that is how, half an hour lat-er, Ki'el found her-self in a pond, fetch-ing and wash-ing riv-er stones.

  Some-how, when Sis-ter Futi spoke of the task, she made it sound like some-thing no-ble and use-ful. An Out-er Dis-cio-ple had some need for a large num-ber of medi-um sized, plain rocks with min-i-mal qi, and if there should be any qi, it should not be Wind na-tured. There should be min-i-mal or no con-t-a-m-i-na-tion with any-thing else--moss would need to be re-moved, and any-thing more than a thin lay-er of riv-er slime was too much. For their pur-pos-es, it was not ac-cept-able to break a large rock into pieces, and shap-ing the stones with qi would de-feat the pur-pose.

  And so a dif-fer-ent out-er dis-ci-ple helped Ki'el bal-ance on a fly-ing stone rod as he took the two of them down far be-low the Moon-stone Is-lands and to a near-by riv-er. This dis-ci-ple spoke only briefly with her, his tone blunt and his eyes dis-tant, his face youth-ful but sug-gest-ing sev-er-al more years than it showed. When Ki'el in-tro-duced her-self, he only glared and did not speak, and Ki'el thought that more than ar-ro-gant, the man's face seemed un-in-tel-li-gent, as though he did not have the room in his mind to hold what-ev-er he was think-ing of and a con-ver-sa-tion at the same time. This dis-ci-ple grudg-ing-ly de-liv-ered her to the ground, promised to fetch her some hours lat-er, and then left, leav-ing Ki'el alone near a for-eign riv-er with only a sect-pro-vid-ed space ring to hold stones in.

  It was not a small riv-er, ei-ther, and Ki'el found af-ter some quick div-ing that there were more rocks of the size she was search-ing for deep-er into the riv-er than at the edges, and so she spent her time div-ing and re-turn-ing to the edge, over and over, build-ing up a large pile of rocks. In truth, Ki'el did not find the task ob-jec-tion-able, not at first and not hours lat-er, when she had ac-cu-mu-lat-ed what she deemed to be a good quan-ti-ty of fist-sized riv-er stones. The riv-er wa-ter was not quite the same as sea-wa-ter, but she felt more at home in the riv-er than she had felt even in Sobon's home in Emer-ald Val-ley.

  The space ring she was giv-en was more dif-fi-cult to use than she ex-pect-ed, and did not look like the ones by Lai Shi Po, and so in-stead of putting each stone in once she had it, she made a stack of them on the edge of the riv-er, and once the stack was a good size, she set to check-ing them, wash-ing them, and only then putting them away, find-ing that she need-ed to fo-cus in-tent-ly but care-ful-ly on mov-ing each stone in.

  She was cu-ri-ous to find that per-haps one in twen-ty of the stones that she had picked up out of the riv-er had what she sus-pect-ed was too much qi for the as-sign-ment, and for now, she sim-ply set those aside. Only once she had col-lect-ed per-haps a hun-dred stones did she look at the pile of qi laden stones and touch them, con-sid-er-ing them with her qi sens-es, or per-haps more cor-rect-ly, her aether sense. She did not know which was which, not ex-act-ly, but as she stud-ied the stones, she felt that the en-er-gy that col-lect-ed in the riv-er stones was not like her aether rings, but it was also not like the en-er-gy in her qi core. In-stead, most of it felt...

  Ki'el felt her thoughts in-ter-rupt-ed when at last the gift of her mas-ter Sobon ac-ti-vat-ed in her mind. It was an odd thing, and when it had been of-fered to her, it seemed a dif-fi-cult con-cept for the Tidal Coro-na--a pow-er-ful for-eign thing that Ki'el did not un-der-stand, most-ly--to try to ex-plain. Its best trans-la-tion of the gift was some-thing like an add-to, ar-ti-fi-cial-mind, and now it stirred.

  { Start-up, Phase 2 of 3, is ready to be-gin } a small win-dow in her mind told her. { This start up phase re-quires in-ter-ac-tion and can be de-layed. Do you wish to con-tin-ue? }

  Ki'el con-sid-ered, but when she could feel no sign of qi or dan-ger near her, found a place where she could sit with her feet in the riv-er, and fo-cused on the win-dow. [ Con-tin-ue. ]

  { Start-up Phase 2 re-quires you and to un-der-stand sev-er-al terms in or-der to in-ter-act prop-er-ly. The for-eign phrase (aug-ment) you trans-lat-ed as (add-to) is more cor-rect-ly (a thing added in while you re-main whole), specif-i-cal-ly, you will not suf-fer for it be-ing there. The for-eign phrase (aether AI) that you trans-late as (ar-ti-fi-cial-mind) is not in-cor-rect, but specif-i-cal-ly, it is (a com-plete mind with-out pur-pose or ego), specif-i-cal-ly, a mind that does not nat-u-ral-ly re-quire free-dom or in-de-pen-dence. }

  Ki'el frowned at those thoughts. They were all very clear in her mind; Ki'el could imag-ine that if she had been asked to ex-plain them to some-one, she might have used sim-i-lar words, but per-haps not quite the same. The flow of its thoughts was very sim-i-lar to her own, but clear-ly not hers. It was not that hard to tell that it was there, now that it was ac-tive, and there was no pain or dis-com-fort. She felt a lit-tle con-fu-sion... but she had known it was there, and ac-cept-ed it.

  { Dur-ing the first phase, I stud-ied your mind in or-der to do no harm while at-tempt-ing to join you. Dur-ing the sec-ond phase, you will need to show how you wish to in-ter-act with me. Un-til you are more com-fort-able, I will do noth-ing un-less you ask, and I will only do what you ask, even if I can do more. I be-lieve this is what you wish. Do you agree? }

  Ki'el was tempt-ed to speak out loud to it, but caught that in-stinct be-fore she did much more than breathe in. Both with-in the sect, and be-yond it, she did not want to get caught hav-ing a trea-sure as for-eign as this thing, as she was still wor-ried what oth-ers would think and do about it. So she only took a deep breath, feel-ing the cool wa-ter around her feet and an-kles, and let it out. [ Yes. ]

  { There are sev-er-al re-quests you will be able to make of me. I can help you re-mem-ber the rock and its aether. I can help you re-mem-ber what Sobon said about aether. I can help you vi-su-al-ize things. I can at-tempt to un-der-stand it and tell you what I think. I will not do any of these things un-less you ask. }

  Ki'el con-sid-ered. [ How do you think this match-es what Sobon said about aether? ]

  { Sobon spoke of Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion aether as pat-terns that ei-ther flowed end-less-ly out or end-less-ly in. These stones show those kind of pat-terns. }

  Ki'el had been on the edge of hav-ing the same thought be-fore the... aether AI? in-ter-rupt-ed her. She looked back at the pile of stones, not-ing that there were some of each there, stones that seemed to drink in the lo-cal aether and stones that seemed to leak it, but none of them were strong sen-sa-tions. In-stead, the ones that leaked aether only felt like a small swelling of the world around them, and the ones that drank only seemed to shrink the aether slight-ly.

  But... if the nat-ur-al en-er-gy of the stones was aether, and not qi, how did qi users make use of them?

  { Some of those an-swers ex-ist with-in me. You do not rec-og-nize the phrase (data-base), but it is a store of knowl-edge that Sobon left for you. Much of it was giv-en to her by oth-ers, but there are some places where he left her own thoughts. }

  That made Ki'el's blood stir. [ I wish to know what Sobon left me. ]

  { Most of Sobon's thoughts are about spe-cif-ic things, and you will hear them when you ask a ques-tion that she can an-swer. But she left you a note. I would have told you when we were done, but I can tell you now. }

  Ki'el closed her eyes, feel-ing the wa-ter, and took an-oth-er breath, in and out. [ Tell me now. ]

  [ Ki'el. ] Sobon's in-ner voice was there, still with an echo of Alas-si's voice to it. Be-cause Ki'el had known Sobon when he had first land-ed on the world--or, she found out lat-er, not when he first land-ed, but the sec-ond time--and been in the body of a squir-rel, she still did not think of the woman whose body Sobon had lived in re-cent-ly as Sobon's true form, and some part of her did not like hear-ing that woman's voice as part of the mes-sage. Still, she fo-cused on the words, and the feel-ing of the per-son be-hind them.

  [ I'm sure I didn't say much lead-ing up to when I had to leave. This is per-haps the only way I could pos-si-bly tell you the truth, and I'm not sure you're ready for it all yet. For cer-tain, you will not find many of the se-crets use-ful for many years, if you ever do. ]

  [ I need to tell you one im-por-tant thing, Ki'el, and that is that you have been more im-por-tant... to me, per-son-al-ly, than any-one else I've met on this plan-et. I was alone on a vi-o-lent world. Be-fore any-one else found me or did any-thing mean-ing-ful to help me, you gave me hope that there was any-thing at all on this damned world worth fight-ing for. What-ev-er hap-pens, if I can do some-thing to save you, I will. Liv-ing with-out some-thing to fight for is not liv-ing, Ki'el. ]

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  With-in the mes-sage, Ki'el could feel buried thoughts and feel-ings, ones not un-like the things Lui had man-aged to pry from Sobon by the end. Ki'el knew that she was still too in-ex-pe-ri-enced to know much, but these buried thoughts were clear-ly things that were heavy on Sobon's mind.

  [ But more than that, ] Sobon's men-tal voice cleared, but it was not as though a fog lift-ed, but more like it was placed be-hind walls, caged. [ I wor-ry that the world may need you. It's un-kind of me to ask, but I hope that you will find a way to be-come tru-ly strong. Strong enough to face the strongest peo-ple in this world, by my side or with-out me. I be-lieve that you can do it, and if you are will-ing, I will do every-thing I can to teach you. ]

  Ki'el could not de-scribe the feel-ing that went through her at that thought. It was like watch-ing a beau-ti-ful thing hap-pen in the dis-tance--a wa-ter-fall, a bird div-ing and catch-ing a fish, a leap-ing dol-phin--but it rolled through her, crash-ing through her in ways she would nev-er have ex-pect-ed some-thing could. She found her bare feet clench-ing in the riv-er mud, and her fin-gers caught on the edges of the rock she sat on. It seemed a very wild thing for Sobon to say she want-ed, and wilder still for her to tru-ly be-lieve.

  And Ki'el could not im-me-di-ate-ly find it in her to ques-tion Sobon. If her mas-ter be-lieved she could reach the same heights that Sobon could, then Ki'el im-me-di-ate-ly thought it must be so, even if it made no sense to her at all. And if Sobon said that she should...

  Ki'el felt her heart beat-ing heav-i-ly, felt the sun-warmed rocks on her hands and the cool wa-ter on her feet, and lis-tened to the rest of the mes-sage while hold-ing her breath.

  [ I... could tell you why now, but I think I'd bet-ter wait. If I'm wrong, you'll prob-a-bly know by now, but if I'm right, it's a se-cret you'll have to keep close, and per-haps it's just bet-ter not to be think-ing about it. So fo-cus for now on learn-ing and grow-ing, and just know that I'm wait-ing for you. As-sum-ing I'm still out there, when you're ready to hear the se-crets, just ask the Coro-na to con-tact me. We'll prob-a-bly talk by re-lay be-fore then, but I don't think we'll meet in per-son for a long time. And we prob-a-bly won't even do that for a while, even if I'm right. ]

  [ There are com-pli-cat-ed things go-ing on, but leave those to me for now. Take care of your-self, Ki'el, and I hope you nev-er feel alone. ]

  Ki'el only let out her breath and sucked in an-oth-er when the pain in her chest got to be too much. I hope you nev-er feel alone, she heard in her mind, and she un-der-stood what her mas-ter was re-al-ly say-ing. I know that pain, and I hope you do not feel it.

  She looked up at the sky, at the Moon-stone Is-land sect in the dis-tance, and al-though she prob-a-bly could have found a way to send Sobon a mes-sage, in-stead she sim-ply whis-pered, "I hope you do not feel it ei-ther."

  Over the next hour, Ki'els "aug-ment", or "aether AI," con-tin-ued to demon-strate what it could do a lit-tle bit at a time, com-mu-ni-cat-ing only through the lit-tle box in her mind, and then all at once, it sim-ply switched to say-ing some-thing else, a larg-er box ap-pear-ing all at once.

  { Start-up phase 3 is now ready. Dur-ing this phase, I need you to trust me, as I will at-tempt to put thoughts into your mind. I will not put in any-thing you do not ask me for, and I will do it very care-ful-ly. If you wish to wait be-fore try-ing this, we can. Do you wish to con-tin-ue? }

  Ki'el had gone from sit-ting on the rock to wad-ing fur-ther into the riv-er, but not so far that she was swim-ming, not now. She paused and turned her head, frown-ing. She... did not like things in-trud-ing into her mind, but she had al-ready ac-cept-ed this aug-ment, and she trust-ed Sobon com-plete-ly. [ Yes. ]

  Al-though it took a mo-ment and there was a first at-tempt that did not quite work, af-ter only a mo-ment, Ki'el found her-self pic-tur-ing a young Il-lan girl much like her-self, and she un-der-stood from the im-age that it was the aug-ment. The girl held out a hand, and in the hand was a thought, an in-tent, and Ki'el knew that she could name the aug-ment if she wished. And then the girl closed one hand and opened the oth-er, and in it was a short, con-nect-ed se-ries of thoughts, sug-gest-ing that she could choose to have an an-swer giv-en to her as a whole thought if she wished, but it would not be done un-til she was ready.

  A mo-ment lat-er, the girl dis-ap-peared, and Ki'el let out her breath in a dis-ori-ent-ed huff, squeez-ing her eyes shut. The im-age had giv-en her a slight headache; it was not more than that, but she didn't like the sen-sa-tion. It was... not so strong that she hat-ed it, not yet, but she def-i-nite-ly did not feel like this was some-thing she want-ed right now. "Do not do that," she said out loud, tak-ing an-oth-er breath.

  { I will not do it un-til and un-less you ask. Some things are more eas-i-ly ex-plained with a whole thought, but it will nev-er be the only pos-si-ble way. }

  Ki'el took an-oth-er breath and let it out. She shook her head. "I think that is enough for now."

  { I will not do any-thing more un-til you ask for me again. } A mo-ment af-ter Ki'el had read the last mes-sage, the men-tal box dis-ap-peared, and Ki'el felt... more or less nor-mal.

  Still, she stood there for a long mo-ment in the riv-er, and when it was clear that the aug-ment was in-deed not com-ing back, she turned back to the small pile of nat-u-ral-ly aether-in-fused stones by the riv-er. Al-though she did not know what to do with the stones, or even if there was any-thing re-mote-ly use-ful to do with them, she went over and sat by them. Al-though some part of her was dis-pleased that some-thing else touched her mind--and was still there, though it did noth-ing--Ki'el forced those thoughts from her mind, try-ing to think of what she would have done, what she would have thought, if the whole con-ver-sa-tion had not hap-pened.

  Sobon had talked of the end-less flows out and in as only an-oth-er kind of cy-cle, like her left and right pow-er cy-cle rings, but it did not make sense, not ex-act-ly. It felt odd to her that she could find ex-am-ples so eas-i-ly in na-ture of things that showed the same out-ward and in-ward flows, but when she sim-ply sat and touched the stones for a time, con-tem-plat-ing them, she could sense some-thing.

  It was like a mem-o-ry in the stones, only, a mem-o-ry with-out self. If Ki'el put one out-stone and one in-stone next to each oth-er, the mem-o-ry of the two was the same--the end-less flow of the riv-er, some-times pulling at the stones, some-times push-ing at the stones. Only, the two stones had to-geth-er split that one mem-o-ry, so that one stone re-mem-bered the push-ing, and one stone re-mem-bered the pulling.

  The two to-geth-er form some-thing more, Ki'el mused, re-leas-ing the stones, and feel-ing her stom-ach rum-ble. She looked up at the sky, re-al-iz-ing that it had some-how got-ten much lat-er in the day than she had ex-pect-ed, but there was no sign of the sect Out-er Dis-ci-ple who said he would re-turn to get her.

  So Ki'el pulled out her sect to-ken and at-tempt-ed to fo-cus on Sis-ter Futi, puls-ing a sim-ple mes-sage with in-tent when she thought she was touch-ing the oth-er woman's spir-it. [ Not picked up yet? ]

  There was only a heart-beat be-fore an ir-ri-tat-ed qi pulse came in re-ply, and with-in only a few min-utes, an-oth-er out-er dis-ci-ple ap-peared, this one a some-what more adult-look-ing woman who had shaved her head clean ex-cept, for a long pony-tail at the back. This woman was rid-ing what looked like a wo-ven mat made from a sin-gle liv-ing tree sapling, with its roots in a soil ball at the cen-ter. As she ap-proached, Ki'el no-ticed a rock hov-er-ing above her palm. "You are Ki'el?"

  "Yes," she said, gath-er-ing her-self up. "You are--"

  "I'll bring you back." She low-ered the mat all the way un-til Ki'el could sim-ply step on it, and then it lift-ed off very quick-ly and eas-i-ly back to-wards the Is-lands. "Apolo-gies. Broth-er Zhon is very bad about hold-ing to promis-es like that, but keeps ac-cept-ing re-quests that he should not. What did they ask you to do here?"

  "Gath-er-ing riv-er stones, with-out qi."

  "Ah." She looked up. "Don't re-sent the work. Some-day you too will find just how nice it is to be able to ask peo-ple to do some-thing ab-surd, so that you can con-tin-ue your work. You can call me Sis-ter Pin." The woman, stand-ing on the mat, clasped her hands and made a half bow, turn-ing her head down-wards, and Ki'el matched the woman's pos-ture re-spect-ful-ly.

  "Sis-ter Pin. A plea-sure." Ki'el straight-ened, and the oth-er woman did so as well, im-me-di-ate-ly. "Thank you. Is this float-ing tree yours?"

  "Yes." Pin knelt down and gen-tly touched the soil ball at the cen-ter. "I have raised it for the last three years, but only re-cent-ly have I been able to chan-nel my own qi through it. It is tricky, be-cause it was not a spir-it plant to be-gin with, but that is my Way. Now it is able to com-mu-ni-cate with me, a lit-tle."

  Ki'el could sense that, in-deed, the plant had some-thing like a spir-it through it, but most-ly what she felt was Sis-ter Pin push-ing her own qi through her feet and into the tree, where it ac-ti-vat-ed some kind of ar-ray stone with-in the root ball. That stone, plus the arrange-ment of the plant's wo-ven and twist-ed trunk, seemed re-spon-si-ble for the fly-ing ef-fect. "It is im-pres-sive work."

  "When I was still in the Less-er House, I thought so too, but in truth they ex-pect every-one to make use of the Fly-ing Stones. The ar-ti-fi-cial merid-i-ans with-in the tree are not a good match for it, I think. We're here."

  Ki'el had been split-ting her at-ten-tion be-tween the tree mat and the ap-proach-ing is-land, and was not tak-en by sur-prise when Sis-ter Pin came up right next to the Less-er House. She stepped off and bowed, match-ing Pin's ear-li-er ges-ture. "Thank you very much, Sis-ter Pin."

  "You seem to have a good soul, Sis-ter Ki'el," Pin re-turned the ges-ture. "Good for-tune to you, and don't let the Less-er House up-set you. We all had to go through it."

  Ki'el nod-ded and straight-ened, turn-ing away, and by the time she had reached the door, Sis-ter Pin was long gone.

  Ki'el, when she turned in her space ring of stones, was only told by Sis-ter Futi that she had re-ceived sect points for her work, and then was im-me-di-ate-ly of-fered an-oth-er job weed-ing an herb gar-den, which she took with a bit of con-fu-sion. Rather than be-ing picked up by an-oth-er out-er dis-ci-ple, she was di-rect-ed down a se-ries of paths through the trees. When she fol-lowed the di-rec-tions, she found her-self sur-prised to emerge into a small clear-ing, still on the same small is-land that con-tained the Less-er House, where a clear-ly not-young man was sit-ting on a box, smok-ing a pipe in front of a small hut. He did not have a clas-sic Djang look, but one that Ki'el did not quite rec-og-nize.

  All around the hut, in every di-rec-tion, were rows and rows of low plants, all shad-ed by the for-est around them.

  "You are Sis-ter Ki'el. A plea-sure to meet you, I think." The sect broth-er who was smok-ing there seemed to put his pipe out with less than a ges-ture, and tucked it into an in-ner pock-et of his vest. "Sis-ter Futi does not warm up to peo-ple quick-ly, but she doesn't hate you, and she sent you here, so she thinks you can be trust-ed not to screw this up. I am Both-er Arex."

  "Most-ly, what I ex-pect you to do is no harm. If you have even a mo-ment's ques-tion as to whether some-thing is a weed, do not pick it. Some of these herbs have been grow-ing for years and still look like sin-gle half-grown blades of grass or pop-py leaves. Don't weed an area un-til I point out which plants are sup-posed to be in it, and if there is any ques-tion at all, ask first. Is that clear?"

  Ki'el nod-ded, and got to work, won-der-ing just what oth-er tasks she would end up do-ing, and when ex-act-ly she would have the time to be-gin to com-pre-hend the com-plex-i-ties of qi and aether, and the mys-te-ri-ous aug-ment that her mas-ter had left her.

  Soulforged Dungeoneer, I would always have to go in and customize the formatting of the tables because huge boxes with only a little text in them looked awful, but also, I have no idea whether those resized boxes were good for everyone else. As a person who is selfish and stupid, I didn't feel like it was worth it back then, but I stuck with it for as long as I was using those boxes (which I avoided where I could). For now, I don't see any reason. While I could technically create tables in my source and copy-paste them in with all the rest, I feel like it would be a bad experience, especially since it won't be gamelit mechanical text that deserves to be broken out.

  The Aether Sword, though not as quickly, both because Ki'el does not need to rush, and because she can't do everything Sobon could.