A Hand-Woven Universe 28 28. What Stone?

The quiet noise of the ocean surrounded Noone like a blanket. Slowly his eyes opened, and he took a deep breath. Noone couldn't see anything, but he remembered sprawling out onto the shelf and falling asleep. Now as he looked up to where the sky should be, pitch darkness pervaded the entire area.

The stone under him was extremely smooth to the touch. Noone rubbed the ground with his hands as decided what to do next. He had no idea how long he had been laying there, but at most he would have half a days' worth of darkness left.

When he sat up he felt his head rush and his body ache with hunger. He waited for the head rush to pass but suddenly his body began to slip towards the edge of the shelf out of his control. His eyes widened violently in the darkness.

Noone shot to his feet and grabbed the rope that was tied to him. When he had mounted the shelf the night before, he had left the bird tied to his waist dangling over the edge. Now though he pulled it up onto the edge, working carefully in the dark.

Finally, after a short battle the body of the creature was laying in front of him. He went about untying the rope from his waist, and then made his way to his pack, feeling through the bag carefully. When he had been collecting materials, he stopped to pick up a few dozen's sea stones and sun stones for water and light.

Normally these stones could be used by infusing elemental energy within one's own body into the stones. They would act as a catalyst and create light or water accordingly. Noone though, did not have elemental energy. All he could do was infuse the energy of his life force.

This was a trick Noone had learned through the countless years of interacting with sea stones. The reason he had been able to feel the cooling sensation the first time he had held a sea stone, was because it was reacting with the subtle aura of life around him.

This aura is around everyone. But to the people of Tapestry, with their elemental energy, they did not pay any attention to the minuscule effect of channeling life energy into the stones.

In fact, he was unsure whether the people of Tapestry could even channel life energy.

After experimenting with the stones across many years, he had barely managed to get any reaction out of them. But over time he got consistent and was able to trigger the stones the way others could with their elemental attunements.
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Soon after he had gone to explain the phenomenon to Liter who pondered on it for a while. A few weeks later Liter came to find him. They went together to go speak to a woman named Trisha, who Noone found out was the wife of Tahmel.

The first thing Noone had noticed about the woman was how beautiful she was. Everything about her seemed delicate but capable. The second thing Noone noticed about her, was how uncomfortable her eyes made him. They were stunning, and deep, but being looked at left him feeling very exposed and he wasn't sure why.

When he watched Liter and her talking it seemed that Liter did not feel the same way, or had been very good at hiding it. Eventually Noone showed off how he channeled his life force into the stones. Trisha had stared at him for a long time. Eventually she took the time to explain to them how she saw what transpired.

To her it felt as though Noone's soul had condensed a portion of itself into the stone. The stone converted his soul into energy and produced an effect. She frowned when she was talking, and continued looking at Noone. The piece of his soul that had been sent into the stone slowly began to recover in his body, until eventually it was like nothing had happened.

At this point Trisha took out a sea stone of her own and held it in her palm. The lines of power on her body and the intensity of her eyes diminished by a lot as she suppressed the attunement energy inside her. She stood there for nearly half an hour, but eventually shook her head. She was unable to trigger the stones the way Noone could.

She explained to Noone and Liter that it was very possible no one else in Tapestry could use the stones in such a way. Everyone focuses on harnessing their elemental energy and gaining enlightenment of their attunements, thus no one else would bother using such an inefficient method to the proficiency Noone had.

For a long time after this made Noone feel like perhaps, if this was possible for him, he would be able to do the things others could too. But after a few more years of trial and error, he had never made any progress.

Now though, he gripped a small sun stone in his palm and focused a portion of his life force – his soul - into it. After a second, the ring like a small bell sung out and the stone began to glow. It was bright enough to light up the whole shelf.

Using the light in one hand he continued to look through his pack before pulling out a small net bag which he put the stone in. The net would allow the light to continue to radiate out, and Noone could tie it up so he would be able to keep his hands free.

He grabbed the pike and stabbed it deeply into the ground beneath his feet. Cracking the stone as a few feet of pike disappeared into it, he hung the net bag from the top.

Noone felt safe in that moment. He knew that he wouldn't need to worry about any other creatures on the cliffs. They were extremely barren apart from the birds in the clouds above.

After eyeing the bird's corpse for a moment, he went back to his pack. Before he could cook the bird, he would need to de-feather it which would take a while for such a large creature.

He grabbed some pre-made food from his pack and a water stone. Using the light from the sun-stone he began to clean his wounds. Starting with his arms and working his way down.

Finally, he got down to his foot, which had been pierced through by the purple spiked stone. Speaking of which…

Noone shot to his feet and looked around eyes wide.

Where… is it?

He grabbed the sun stone off the pike nearly knocking it out of the ground in the process, and began to scour the floor. Every corner of the shelf, under his pack, everywhere it could possibly be…

Nothing.

It was gone.

Noone sat back down and stared into the black void where he knew the ocean was. His mind was blank, but somewhere in his mind, he came to the decision to not think any more of it, and instead to forget any of this had ever happened.

What spiked stone?

He went back to washing off the wound on his foot, which had already begun healing since it had occurred. Adding some healing ointment to It, he then sat down near the edge and began to eat. It had been many days since he had last eaten anything, and immediately his mouth started to water.

After finishing off half a container, he dragged the bird over. Slowly silhouettes began to form as light started trickling through the clouds. Noone sat there plucking feathers, watching the sea and the horizon.

Chapter end