Path of Dragons

Dappled sunlight fell upon Elijah’s face, eliciting a feeling of peace that he’d so seldom experienced. Sometimes, it felt like he was being pulled in a thousand different directions. In most cases, it was his own fault. He’d taken so many things onto his shoulders that the combined weight of his responsibilities – self-imposed or externally motivated – was almost enough to crush him.

But he endeavored to persevere, continuing on to the best of his abilities.

That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t made mistakes. He had, and plenty of them. So many, in fact, that he had no interest in enumerating them. The most recent was the apathy that had enveloped him after completing the Temple of Virtue, an attitude which had wasted precious time that he couldn’t get back. But there were smaller mistakes as well, like his failure in scheduling that had cost him more time. Now, though, he was on the verge of getting everything back on track.

But first, he wanted to taste the fruits of his labor.

To that end, he’d spent part of the previous day hiring a Chef in Ironshore to roast his coffee beans. The haughty goblin – Moag was his name – hadn’t come cheaply, but according to Ramik, he was the most effective cook in the city. Luckily, the goblin was as efficient as he was expensive to hiire, and he’d finished the project in only a couple of hours. Before Earth had been touched by the World Tree, roasting coffee beans typically took no more than fifteen minutes, but apparently, things changed once ethera was added to the mix.

Elijah wasn’t so bold as to try to tell a Chef how to do his job. So, he’d resolved to trust the goblin to do the task he’d been hired to do. And the moment Elijah had smelled the product – which Moag had ground for him as well – he knew that the goblin had hit a homerun. Even a whiff of the stuff gave him a jolt of energy and vitality, which boded well for the future effects.

Still, Elijah had forced himself to wait until the next morning to sample it, largely because he wanted to share the experience with Carmen and K’hana, who remained on the island. After gathering the pair and boiling some water in his kitchen, Elijah put his looted French press to good use.

He’d never used one before – all of his coffee had come from electric coffee makers in the past – but it wasn’t a terribly complicated apparatus. Regardless, it wasn’t long before he’d managed to make three cups, which he’d liberally sweetened with honey provided by Nerthus’ apiary.

Thus armed, he’d headed out to the balcony, where the two women waited. Carmen and K’hana had taken to one another quite well, which was nice, considering how Elijah had basically ignored the elf since returning to the island. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d been a little preoccupied with his Core cultivation, getting his coffee taken care of, and training with Miguel.

As it turned out, both Colt and Kurik had entered the tower the day before Elijah returned to the grove, so he’d taken it upon himself to keep his nephew occupied. He wasn’t the outdoorsman that Kurik was, and he certainly couldn’t hold a candle to Colt’s expertise with weaponry. However, Elijah was light years beyond either one when it came to cultivation. So, with Nerthus’ help, he’d begun to train Miguel so the young man would be ready to take the leap with his Body, Mind, and Soul as soon as he gained his archetype. The spryggent had even offered to help in a similar – if less powerful – way to how he’d assisted Elijah.

Apparently, doing so required Nerthus to sacrifice some of his own power. It was a temporary impairment, and when Elijah found out about it, he’d told Nerthus to save his strength. However, the spryggent had insisted, saying that his power was meant to be used in such a way. Doing so would only be possible if Miguel ended up with a nature attunement, though.

Even so, Elijah’s lessons would help the young man regardless of his attunement, so the lessons persisted – despite Miguel’s disdain. He was an active young man, and at present, he didn’t have the temperament to enjoy sitting in a glade for hours on end. He’d have much preferred to be practicing his sword skills, traipsing about the wilderness, or playing with whichever animal he’d happened upon that day. Still, he was his mothers’ son, and he possessed the willpower to move past his personal feelings and commit to doing what was necessary.

Miguel’s attitude reminded Elijah of Alyssa.

At present, the young man was sitting next to the ancestral tree as he attempted to meditate. But Elijah could tell that it wasn’t really working. He was too twitchy.

Elijah sighed. He knew it wasn’t the process of a day, teaching Miguel to connect with nature. For his part, Elijah had something of a cheat with One with Nature, which, in addition to letting him feel everything in the effect’s radius, also allowed him to connect with that ephemeral structure that underlay everything.

For Elijah, it was like looking at a lake. Most people only ever saw the surface, and even if they appreciated it, didn’t truly perceive everything below. Elijah’s own perception didn’t extend to the bottom – in the analogy, he could barely see a foot past the surface – but even that was impactful on his psyche to the point where he sometimes questioned if he would have taken the same actions if he hadn’t felt that influence.

In any case, when Elijah found his way to the balcony, he said, “Ladies. Coffee is served.”

Then, he handed the steaming mugs to their recipients. K’hana asked, “This coffee - is it like tea? We do not have it on my world.”

“Better,” Carmen said with a grin as she sniffed the mug. Elijah had done the same, verifying that there just wasn’t anything like the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Perhaps it was a learned response, but the smell always brought a smile to his face. “Plus, I’m pretty sure this is going to be special. What quality did Moag say it was?”

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“He said, and I quote, ‘Food and drink is not meant to be graded, only enjoyed.’ I pressed him, too. He wouldn’t give it up,” Elijah stated. “Don’t you have an identification skill?”

“Only works to full effect on things I’ve made myself,” Carmen answered. “I can usually get a name from stuff related to blacksmithing, but with this? I get nothing.”

“Pity,” Elijah said. “Well, we’ll just have to wing it. Cheers.”

Elijah brought the cup to his lips, then took a sip. Flavor erupted across his tongue. The normal tastes were all there. It was a bit nutty. Bitter, too. But it was more than that, and in a similar way to how his grove berries differed from normal berries. He took another sip, enjoying the way the flavors played across his tongue.

“Yep. That’s the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,” he said. The honey gave it a slightly different flavor than if he’d used sugar, but even that was somehow more – and in every way – than typical honey. He took another sip, then asked Carmen, “What do you think? It’s good, right?”

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed this,” she answered.

Elijah then asked K’hana the same question. But the elf didn’t have the same reaction. She said, “It is…good.”

“Ouch,” Elijah said, clutching at a mock wound in his chest. “That bad, huh?”

“Ah…no…”

“It’s okay if you don’t like it,” Carmen said. “Coffee isn’t for everyone. I wasn’t an immediate convert, but Alyssa…well, she always loved the stuff. So, eventually, I did too.”

Over the next quarter hour, Elijah and Carmen finished their coffee. So did K’hana, who’d asked for more honey so she could choke it down. But it was only after they’d finished the contents of their mugs that they got a shock.

“You’re seeing this, right?” Elijah breathed, looking at his notification.

You have consumed a Complex-Grade beverage. The following benefits will be applied: +5 Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Ethera. +10 Regeneration. Duration: 24.2 Hours

“That’s incredible,” Carmen muttered. “I never…I thought it would be like your grove berries. But this is so much better.”

Elijah couldn’t disagree. And even K’hana was impressed, claiming that attribute-enhancing food and drink was incredibly rare. She’d never consumed anything with those effects, and she admitted, “I have always thought the stories of such foods were myths. This is a great boon.”

“I wonder what the limits are. Like, could I feed this to Miggy?” Elijah asked.

“Maybe once he gets his archetype,” Carmen said. “But I suspect it’s similar to equipment. He can barely even lift Crude-Grade gear right now. Anything higher, and it’s too much for him. The same is probably true for this coffee.”

“Do you think I could make something with my berries, then?” Elijah asked. “And what happens if you drink two different types in a row? Do you get two buffs? I assume that if you drink a second cup of coffee, it’ll just reset the timer or something.”

“One drink and one food enhancement at a time,” K’hana said. “That is how it was in the stories we were told.”

“Ah. I’ll have to test it out at some point,” Elijah said. Though he knew that, with the amount of effort that had gone into his coffee, there was little chance of stumbling across something similar, at least in the short term. Perhaps as the ambient ethera on Earth continued to climb and those with appropriate skills gained levels, it would become more common. Either way, he was more than satisfied with his choice to use the Miracle Seed to satisfy his long-gestating caffeine addiction.

After a little while longer – during which he enjoyed a second cup of coffee, claiming that he wanted to test the resulting buff – he said, “Well, I think this little vacation is done. My spell is going to reset in a couple of hours, so get your things together. I’m going to say goodbye to Miguel, and as soon as the spell’s off cooldown, we’re headed back to the Circle of Spears and then to Seattle.”

The next two hours went by without incident, except that Miguel expressed – and in quite a fervent manner – that he wished to accompany Elijah to Seattle. However, Elijah’s reasoning remained just as valid as ever, and he refused to take his nephew into such a dangerous city. For all he knew, the situation there had devolved into open warfare, and no matter Miguel’s skills with weapons, he still didn’t have an archetype. As such, he was incredibly vulnerable. Despite that flawless reasoning, Miguel wasn’t happy about Elijiah’s refusal, and he stormed off into the woods.

“He’ll get over it,” Carmen said when Elijah expressed some concern over the exchange. “He’s a kid. I know he’s been through a lot, and most of the time, he acts more mature than his age. But he’s still a child in a lot of ways.”

“I know,” Elijah said. But he didn’t enjoy being cast as the bad guy in anyone’s story, much less his nephew’s.

Soon, his cooldown was up, and he once again cast Roots of the World Tree. After the gate manifested, he and K’hana stepped through and into the oasis. The heat of the desert hit them both like a solid wall, and in seconds, Elijah felt sweat trickling down his back.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The two covered the distance between the Circle of Spears and Seattle much more quickly than they would have if Miguel had come along. K’hana didn’t have high Strength or Dexterity, but she had enough of both to allow her to move through the desert at superhuman speeds. So, it was only half a day before Seattle came into view.

As they passed the landlocked ships, K’hana stared at them in awe. She’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the ocean back on Elijah’s island, but even that had been enough to elicit no small degree of anxiety in the elf. And seeing the ships – along with Elijah’s explanation of how they worked – brought some of that back to the fore. She said, “My world has no oceans. Even that oasis would have been considered a great treasure. To see such large vessels that can cross thousands of miles of ocean…it is hard to imagine such a world.”

They only paused for a few minutes so the curious – and anxious – elf could inspect the hulking derelicts before they moved on. As they drew closer to Seattle’s gates, Elijah suggested that K’hana wear a headscarf so that her ears were hidden. Her incredible beauty would still be on display, but without the tapered ears of her race being visible, the hope was that she could avoid undue notice. K’hana consented to follow Elijah’s lead, so when they finally reached the city, she’d covered her head and ears. In addition, she’d wrapped the same scarf around the lower half of her face.

However, that proved unnecessary, because the gates were entirely unguarded. Even as they cautiously passed through, Elijah heard a massive explosion coming from the area on the other side of Mercer Mesa.

Clearly, the tentative peace of Seattle had already been broken.

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