The Memoir of Captain Enlizo Crask
Part of the upcoming series - "The Explorers of Obalan"
“…
Five months it took us, from the coast of Renvis to Topuat Island.
We set sail as soon as we heard of the treaty declaring the war between the Orchadians and Noctilians as over. Even if only a tentative peace, it was an opportunity that we had to seize.
It was fifteen years prior when we heard from a cartographer, who had been in the Noctilian territory about a clear rock with interesting properties, and after exchanging correspondence with some locals they were very intrigued that we even had an interest in these rocks as they were of no particular worth to them, just an odd mineral with curious phenomena.
I have sailed alongside some of the most violent Mages in Renvis, and for them to imagine, even for a second, that there is something out there that can sap their power? A frightening idea, and our rulers agreed. But while the conflict lasted we were not going anywhere, and as time passed there was less and less interest in our expedition. Enthusiasm and caution gave way to scepticism and denial, questioning the value of our sources and the verity of these claims.
But I, for one, did not think we could afford to be wrong, and when the opportunity arrived I put my estate on the line and got the funds myself. Every silver stacker was invested into this ship, and we may be eating modest rations, but this crew is unrivalled.
Men and women of every ilk decked this ship, sea battered sailers, decorated officers and prodigal mages. Together, we didn’t just crash through the waves, we tamed the sea with the bow of our ship. I will never forget the night when then master of Aquar Magic, Elcheon, ripped apart a wave so large that they still tell tales of his feat.
And soon we arrived at the foamy shores of Topuat. Nothing can ever come close to that first swig of fresh water to wash down the saltiness of the sea winds. Being absolutely invigorated by our arrival, a dozen of us set out inland that same afternoon, keen to meet our acquaintances. We knew they live at the basin of the large peak at the centre of the island, so within a couple of hours we had the small town in sight, with its houses popping out of the face of the mountain like mushrooms on a tree trunk. Our arrival created a small commotion, but in no time we met with Luan, a tall, young Noctilian, with battish ears and eyes as large as the moon. We smiled at each other and embraced like old friends. We first started corresponding with his father, but so much time had passed that he had since died, and luckily Luan was just as interested. As is our custom, we gifted him a cask of our local Ipozo Honey, renowned in the continent of Daia and beyond.
We stayed for a couple of nights to rest, adjust to their nocturnal routine and acclimate to the island, and just before the sun set on our third day, we all headed out on our hike. It was not too far and at that time of the day it made for a very pleasant walk, we got to appreciate and ask about all the different plants, bushes and trees sparsely growing on the mountain side, and even spotted a small group of Lele’s, a local grey furred primate, lazily snacking on some fruit. It all looked so unfamiliar but exciting, I already knew that when I returned home I'd talk everyone's ears off about this place.
Luan dipped some bread in a jar half full of the Ipozo honey that had him absolutely delighted. And as we tread, he tells me an anecdote of how he and his friends used to throw these glassy rocks off a cliff to see them pop. For a moment, what was until then an unshakeable determination started to waver. I believed that these stones had the power to bend a nation to its knees, and here the children used them for entertainment because they make funny noises. The voices of the sceptics rang loud in my head. My hands were sweating, the nerves got to me, and as I leaned on a boulder to push myself up, my hand slipped and I fell on my side. It knocked the wind right out of me, but it got my head in the right place again. It took a moment for me to gather myself but as soon as we turned the corner, you could see it. On the side of the mountain we saw it, a small vein of translucent crystalline glass, shimmering in gentle tones of violet, with jagged edges protruding out of the pearly quartz.
My heart was pounding as if a wild buck was trapped in my chest, but we all just stared in disbelief.
“Let me show you” - said Luan.
He grabs a stone and knocks a chunk of the glassy mineral, then washes it with a yellowish oil he brought in a flask, we move away from the vein, and he asks his friend that accompanied us to cast a flame.
“Ao.”
“Kao.”
“Yao”
Mind, heart and body he recites, touching his chest with his right hand, then with his open palms to the floor he makes a triangle touching his thumbs and pointers, and an ember pops between his hands followed by a small but intense flame. He had an interesting technique, this was something to explore later. Luan approaches the stone and the flame gets sucked into it just as fast as the mage can cast it. Our eyes brightened up, there is something to this after all.
For five minutes he kept going, and could not get the flame to be larger than a pebble before it got drained by the stone.
“A piece this size could be drinking for another two hours before it starts leaking” - Luan explained.
It did make sense that this would not keep up forever, we did not expect them to have infinite capacity. He then smiled at us and chucked the rock at our feet, it clinked, followed by a resonating hum and then split letting out a small but loud burst of flames.
The Noctilians were rolling on the floor cackling at how we all jumped at the same time, dazed by the flashy flare.
They really did find these stones amusing, it turns out!
We couldn’t help but laugh along, but we were mostly impressed that besides the split, the crystal was mostly intact.
This was good, my doubts had mostly faded, and now it was time to test it ourselves, but to my surprise, our mages were apprehensive. It was all well when it was hypothetical, but now, what does it mean?
Will this make them weaker, or nullify their Magic altogether? Will it cause pain or maim them in any way? Is it worth risking decades and decades of training and successful careers to test this stone?
Fortunately, Ember Master Renora from our company had no such qualms, arrogant as she is, this was not surprising. She would not abide that this stone could contain her powers, and she let us know so from the start.
As she stepped up we stepped back, and while Luan brought another oiled quartz we all kept our distance.
Placing a fist over her forehead and another over her stomach.
“Amus”
“Chor”
“Chorus”
Then, striking her fists together, a waterfall of embers bursts like a hammer striking hot metal. A steady flame pours from her fist and she stepped forward. Even at five paces from the stone, a strong flame like hers was gets pulled in, she kept a slow flow for a minute and the stone gobbled every bit.
“Ready?” - Renora shouts back at us.
And a stream of intense flames flies from her blackened fist. This is a spectacle to see, this level of power is uncommon to say the least, it takes a master to do a short burst, and she maintains it for an extraordinary length of time, over a minute at least. But the stone absorbed less and less, and she was able to overwhelm its pull easily by the end of it.
I was dismayed.
This could perhaps work as a deterrent, but it would not be the weapon I hoped to fear for so long. I told myself that it was still worth making this journey, even if Renora’s smug face was not helping at all.
Now the other Mages wanted to have a go too, and each of them managed to eventually overcome the pull of the quartz. We did, of course, throw them all off the cliff and enjoyed all the different kinds of magic bursting out in a blast. That is, until we threw Renora’s stone. It let out a thunderous boom, and lit up the side of the mountain in what looked like a tree made of fire. In a second we were left with ringing ears and sandy eyes.
It was time to call it a night after that one.
We woke up the following night and gathered to discuss what to do next, the line had moved, but this was not a wash by any means, as this rock still had many viable uses to explore.
We settled in and the crew got to work. The ship needed repairs and supplies, so we set up a stall by the coast to trade goods with the locals, and it took no time for the beach to turn into a small, bustling market.
We are so far away from home that it is inevitable that we clash with their culture and customs, but our boatswain Theresor had no tolerance for missteps from our crew. Not when there is so much on the line.
The townsfolk happily shared their cooking and music, and we organised for curious adults and children to visit our ship.
Noctilians are very different from our Caplium crew, but familiar in many ways.
They are typically tall, with slender limbs, and their elders have noticeable pudgy bellies. Very large round eyes helped them see in the dim night light, and we must have been asked a thousand times, “how can you see with such teeny eyes?” Explaining that we are nearly blind in the dark never stopped bewildering them.
And to me, their most curious feature were their large ribbed ears that could span from a couple of hands to almost an arm's length. They kept trying to explain how their ears helped them to see, but I’m still not sure if I understand how.
But while some learned and mingled with the locals, I had been researching the stones with my officers.
We considered the different applications, first as an explosive, but it was erratic at best, being prone to catastrophic failure. Also, it did seem to have a natural discharge rate, losing power as cold or heat, making it unsuitable for long term storage in its charged state.
Master Pentacoz, a Crystallographer from Hakibar was exhilarated to be around these rocks, or crystalline quartz as he would often correct us while twirling his quadricurly moustache. He shared a lot of insights about their geological curiosities and would do a strange little dance each time we discovered a new vein, but specific material properties would have to be studied upon return. He did say, encouragingly, that it is not the hardest of rocks crystals and that we will be able to cut and shape it. This was very promising.
We did find some success using the crystals as protection, providing a very efficient deflection, even from our most aggressive Mages. You may not escape completely unscathed, but you would surely live. This new perspective felt like a much welcome change in the wind of our expedition.
After a productive week had gone by, we started getting used to this very strange way of living. What felt odd and peculiar was now just routine. Their houses, carved on the face of the mountain, seemed inhospitable and primitive. But they provided a welcoming, cool and dark place to rest while the sun blazed. The passages, intricately carved and decorated with mosaic patterns, connect the houses together, creating an intimate sense of community. We knew we should leave our hosts to return to their regular living, so we started making preparations to depart, starting with loading as much of the crystal as possible. All in all, it made for a most jubilant voyage, or it would have, were it not for the last night.
Well into the night we celebrated merrily and drank as if the world was ending, a fist fight broke out amongst my crewmates over who’s rock had made the loudest boom when throwing their crystal of the cliff, but it was quickly dealt with by bringing out a humongous roasted bird. The fighting ended when they realised everyone had left to go eat. They were on deck swabbing duty as soon as they set foot back on the ship.
But while we ate, someone pointed out: “The biggest boom came from the Master of Ember, the Mage Renora, by far!” Gushing over her flaming fists, and within moments, everyone was chanting for a demonstration.
A sober Renora would not care for this flattery, but a couple of flagons of booze softened her sharp edges, and we all roared as she put on a spectacle.
“Amus”
“Chor”
“Chorus”
The sparks fly and f-wooooosh! A fountain of fire bursts from her hands.
And a second was all it took, a young child watching from a bit of scaffolding slips in the excitement and falls into the scorching flames. She jerks her arm away, but the flames grab the wooden scaffolding and light it on fire, she halts her flaming fist, it is however, too late. There’s havoc, someone grabs her, thinking to stop her, and so she can’t reign in the fire, making it worse. People are running in every direction. Master Elcheon and the other Aquar Mages make quick work of the flames once the crowd clears, but this officially meant we had overstayed our welcome.
The aftermath was as expected, the child had some serious burns and the father was heartbroken over his boy's health. There is no argument that it was an accident, but after the loss of two barns and an injured child, it left a bitter taste. Our stay was not without criticism, and this just gave them the proof they needed not to welcome strangers. Luan was more understanding than we could have asked for, letting us know he would try to bring us back to their good graces. And that was when, as a surprise to everyone, Renora declared she would stay behind.
She didn’t say it in so many words. I always thought her strong sense of justice would not let her inflict pain like this to a child and then flee to the other side of the world. She would make amends on her own terms.
Still, I felt like there was an ugly truth we left unspoken, so I had some last words for her.
“You know what is coming, yes? … Once we leave.”
“I think so.”
“One day, maybe it is us, or perhaps a different flag, but someone soon will come back to rip those crystals off this island. If you want to do right by them, then you help them to prepare for that day.”
“I did wonder to myself what will happen after we left. I’ll do good by them, leave it to me.”
“Is there anything you want me to tell your mother?”
She took a moment to ponder.
“Tell her, I’m healing. She will understand.”
And so we left the foamy shores of Topuat, with a bittersweet melancholy that still lives in me today.
The story of the crystals, however, did not end when we sailed away, it actually kept unravelling for decades after. Pentacoz made breakthroughs soon after our landing, but there were many iterations before the crystals took the Spherical shape we all know today.
They all failed one way or another until we realised that it was through the edges and corners that the crystals split or leaked the magic, but as a Sphere though, you couldn’t crack it even if you dropped the moon on it.
Within a year of my arrival, we had no shortage of coin being thrown at us. The realm of Renvis was funding both previous and future expeditions, and after receiving a letter from Renora, we started preparing for the next one. She’d taken the child as her apprentice after making amends with the family and falling in love with Jag, the father. The young man seemed to be a very promising mage, trying to tame the fire that scarred his body, a very virtuous purpose. Together with Luan, they convinced the locals to start collecting the crystals on their own terms, instead of waiting for someone to come and do it for them. This was honestly a relief for me.
But before we could set sail again, Pentacoz insisted on meeting up, and this was the day that both my life and the world were changed.
I had barely dismounted my cervitt when he was shouting from his window.
“There are more! We found more!”
Even his curly moustache was dancing with excitement.
With all the ruckus, it took us the better part of an hour before we could have a coherent conversation, but he eventually explained:
“The crystals from Topuat had exceptional properties, immediately noticeable. But once we found how to refine them, I worked on other known crystalline quartz. The absorption is far, far less dramatic, so it is natural that without refinement no one had noticed how they too hold magic. You do know what this means, right?”
“Sure. Less travelling, no?”
“Not only that, my friend. We will put magic in the hands of the common people. A fire so intense that it can ignite wet wood in the harsh winters of Hiertoc, or pristine water to wet the parched throats of children in Dumis. Yesterday, this was only a luxury of the magically talented, but tomorrow it will be a gift they can share with everyone else.”
At this point he was standing on the chair, bent over forward as if it made his point come across more clearly. And it could not be clearer.
In no time, they made a big point of parading us around, and even declared the original stones from the island to be called Crask Crystals. It’s a bit wordy if you ask me, but it has a nice ring to it.
Thirty years later and the Spheres have spread to all corners of the world, be it on the waist of the soldier keeping its country safe, or on the hand of a child charming a flower to bloom. They are as much part of our lives now as the clouds in the sky.
I guess there are worse legacies to leave behind.
Enlizo Crask, the Crystal Captain.
…”