[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 60: One More Light

“Kai’s alive!” Komachi said excitedly. She always had a soft spot for him.

Sam could never figure out why.

The way the big Hawaiian Cleric scooped up the bolting Komachi into his large mitts bespoke a tender kindness that he never outwardly showed.

His cat practically lost her mind with exuberance, like one of those dogs where their owner finally came home after being gone for years.

Whereas Raiko’s reaction, or really lack thereof, was the opposite. She hardly noticed.

That gave Sam pause. He waved a hand in front of her face.

She didn’t notice that either. For some reason, that chilled his blood.

“Raiko?”

He reached out to her shoulder and lightning crackled between them. Sam actually took some damage to his… MP?

Raiko cursed, brought back to a dazed awareness.

Matt looked over. “That looked like it hurt. Is she okay?”

Sam shook out his hand and frowned. “I don’t think so. She’s been separated from her body for a long time. I doubt even she knows how that’ll affect her.”

“Yes,” Kai said with a snort. “All attention must go back to the pretty white haole. Can’t have the savage islander native getting any limelight.”

“She white? Isn’t she an as—“ Komachi began to say.

“Are you about to call me an ass?” Raiko snapped.

“…Well now I am! Ass!”

“Komachi,” Sam chided. Which had less of an effect on her since Kai was petting her with hands that could palm a basketball.

Komachi ignored everything but Kai’s attention.

“At least you still care about the native sons and daughters of Hawai’i,” Kai said softly to Komachi.

She nodded eagerly.

Which, Sam noted mentally, she would do no matter what. So long as she was on the receiving end of some high-quality attention, food, pets, or really just about anything edible.

Sam looked over at Raiko. “You good?”

She stared, thinking for a moment. “No. Well, for a little while I’ll be fine. The debuffs are…becoming harsh, to say the least.”

Kai folded his legs and sat down near the campfire. He looked at the others, but did not seem inclined to speak any further.

“Welcome back to the living,” Raiko said to Kai, unable to hide her weariness.

Matt gave her a level look. “Kinda racist.”

“Is it though?”

After thinking about this for a moment, Matt shrugged. “As a well-off white man from the Midwest, I’ve never been able to pull that off.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “So, Kai, how are you feeling?” If Raiko wanted to gloss over what was wrong with her, Sam wasn’t about to press her.

Least of all because he knew there was little he could do about it. They were already—hopefully—headed toward her Skyshard. Nothing more could be done to get there any faster that he knew.

“I am feeling better now, thank you.” He looked up from Komachi’s green adoring gaze. “Did one of you rescue me?”

“That would be the hero of the hour,” Matt said, hiking a thumb Sam’s way. “Turns out he saved quite a few people back at the starting island. You and I were just lucky enough to be unconscious at the time.”

Kai wrinkled his large brow. “How is that lucky?”

Matt ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “Firstly, they could have left us behind. We were, for all intents and purposes, dead weight. Secondly, the person who saved us also happens to be a hell of a lot stronger than anybody else I’ve met. They have their own Skyshard that we’re traveling to, a good amount of starting loot, and an idea of what to do next. Can’t say that for most people, even back on Earth.”

The big Hawaiian looked at the fire, then at the rest of them, then back at the fire. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, or perhaps he was staring at the [Archflame Coal] within the flames.

Sam was pleased to see that its Heat level was back to full now. Rather than sputtering out when the rain hit it, the flames seemed to surge ever-so-slightly, as if it was feeding off the Water mana.

Probably because it is, Sam thought, the coal seems to feed off of all types of mana to restore itself. Now I just need to make sure it has a safe place, so it won’t ever go out.

Not an easy thing to do on such a small Skyshard, but maybe he could dig out a little shelter from the wind. It may be able to pull mana from a little spritz of rain, but a full downpour might just extinguish it and Sam didn’t want that.

While the buffs from the [Archflame Coal] were no longer as significant as before, Sam felt confident that they would grow as the Archflame did. For now, it was still just a coal, but once it was established, what would it be?

Sam was eager to find out.

“Thank you,” Kai said softly. “We have not always seen… eye-to-eye. You did not need to save me.” He looked over at Matt. “You certainly did not need to save the haole. But you did.”

Sam wasn’t sure whether he was praising or admonishing him.

“How did you end up separated from the group?” Sam asked.

Kai drank some water from a potion bottle Komachi gave him before speaking further. When he finished the bottle, Komachi squeezed the [Water Concept] to refill it.

“I was looking for my sister. She ran off, and I followed. When I tracked her to a small cave, the entrance collapsed.” He paused and frowned to himself at the memory. “I do not think it was a coincidence. Luckily, I found a crack in the wall that led to a small Dungeon. I fought quite a few things, but the area where the Dungeon exited was old. Many mechanisms did not work, including the door I was trapped behind.”

“A Dungeon led out there? Like, capital D?”

“Yes, I received a quest for it and a small treasure chest for besting the guardian at the end.”

“So you probably do not need any of that armor.” Sam motioned to the unclaimed armor and the club.

Kai’s eyes lit up. “In fact, much of my armor was damaged in the last battle. I… underestimated the fiend’s strength. It will not happen again.” He looked up defiantly, challenging anybody to say otherwise.

When it was clear nobody would, he moved a hand toward the club. “You are offering this to me?”

“If you want it,” Sam said. “We have no use for it, and you just said you could use it.”

“I would have thought the haole would suggest you sell it for money instead of helping your allies.”

“Oh, we have plenty of money,” Matt said with a grin. “At least, once we find a merchant who can exchange it for the currency of this world.”

“Rels,” Sam answered.

Matt thought about it for a moment. “No weirder than dollars, pesos, yen, or euros. Rel it is, kinda rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Rrrrel.”

Kai threw an odd look Matt’s way. He turned his attention to Sam. “Thank you. I will make the most of this gift.”

Sam nodded. “I know you probably want to get back to Leilani,” Sam said, wincing at the way Kai flinched at his sister’s name. “But we have no idea where she is right now, and even if we did, no way of directing this little chunk of land toward her.”

“I will stay,” he said, strapping on his new armor and inspecting the club.

“For good?” Matt asked. He seemed skeptical.

“You saved me. I have a debt to repay. If you wish me to leave, just say so.”

“No,” Sam said quickly. “You are more than welcome. And if we’re able to find Leilani and the others, they’re welcome to join us, too.”

Kai looked around. “There is not much room for the others.”

“We’re going somewhere bigger.” Sam looked at Raiko.

She nodded.

“And in the meantime, we’re on the lookout for a bigger Skyshard I can claim.”

Kai’s face darkened like a thundercloud. “You cannot claim land.”

Sam sighed and held up the [Sourcestone] from his Inventory. “The Shard that governs how this world works seems to disagree.”

“May I see it?” Kai asked, still doubtful.

Sam felt an instinctive need to pull back, and it took a considerable amount of effort to stop any expression from showing on his face. Instead, he tossed the [Sourcestone] to Kai, who caught it in one hand.

The man’s expression went through several evolutions before he reverently got up and handed it back to Sam as if it were a fragile antique. “I stand… corrected.”

That was as much of an admission of fault as Sam had ever heard from him.

“This world works differently, Kai,” Raiko said quietly, drifting down by the fire. “You are not stealing from anyone. If anything, Skyshards appear to need people and creatures to grow. Much like the shattered Shard itself.”

“Yes,” he said. “I can see that this world has a far more symbiotic relationship than ours did.”

“And you actually have the power to do something about it,” Sam pointed out. “You know, instead of corporations paying everybody off and getting to do whatever they want.”

“I will not squander my gift,” Kai assured him. “But why do you wait for another… ‘Skyshard’ you called it?” Sam nodded. “Why do you not place it down now?”

“He wants something bigger. Much like his sword. And his—”

Komachi chuckled.

“Thank you, Raiko,” Sam said. “You said it yourself, Kai. This land is small. If we’re going to make a home for the others, shouldn’t we have something larger?”

In truth, Sam was already planning on placing the [Sourcestone] here. He said that he would if they could not find something better, and they hadn’t. There was no use in waiting longer, but he was curious what Kai had to say.

Getting him on his side would be difficult, and if he went along with his advice—something he’d do anyway—then it would help to mend some fences.

Kai shook his head. “You do not understand.”

“Then educate me.”

“That stone, it is a seed. Can you not feel its life begging to get out? Yes, this island is small. But so is the seed. This island is already your home, whether you recognize it or not. The land knows you. A connection is already formed. Why throw it away simply because it is not perfect? Make it perfect, Sam.”

“That is the most I have ever heard you speak in one go,” Sam said, stunned. “How are you so certain about this?”

“Make us whole, Isaac,” Matt whispered just loud enough that Sam could pick it up.

Sam shivered. “The irony that it’s you quoting that is… unsettling, Matt.”

“What can I say? Always liked horror.”

“If your limbs start turning into bone spears, I’m cutting them off,” Sam promised him.

“Aw man, but then I’ll just have bone nubs!”

“Good?”

Everyone else looked either uncomfortable or amused.

Kai cleared his throat. “I have acquired the Nature affinity,” he said, by way of explanation. “I… hear things from nature.”

Sam had heard of weirder things in the last few days. There was no reason to think otherwise, but he couldn’t resist the thought that there was a better Skyshard just out of view in the dark.

What if he claimed this Skyshard only for one with mountains, rivers filled with salmon, freshwater springs, and idyllic beaches appeared the very next time they looked?

Then you’d know an island you can harvest for Tiles,his thoughts spun back at him. He had nearly forgotten about Breaking that water source back on the previous island.

There was no walkthrough, no tutorial to tell him what the ideal strategy was. His gut told him to put the [Sourcestone] here. Everything else was his head getting in the way.

He could be trying to figure out the best way forward when it was possible to unsocket a Settlement Core whenever you felt like it, and going without a proper Skyshard in the meantime was just holding everybody back around him.

But he knew, perhaps due to his doubled Insight, that the [Sourcestone] wouldn’t be so easily removed. And to do so would do more harm than good.

No matter what, placing the [Sourcestone] upon this tiny island would be the equivalent of starting from scratch. From nothing, to maybe one day greatness.

It had a strange sort of appeal, he had to admit.

But this wasn’t just owning your own house, apartment, or the like, it was your own sovereign soil.

Or so Sam hoped.