After getting over my anguish at having to deal with shark-men again, I saw a dogman nearby and approached. My sanity was quickly called into question.
"Hey!" shouted Christina. "We're not mad!"
"Sorry, bit of a bother," said the dogman. "The name's Thornton Lewis. I was researching the District of the Stars when something happened to the portal. It looks like you fixed it."
"You can leave freely now," said Mindy.
"Well, I have my own business here, I can't abandon my research," said Thornton.
"Maybe," I said. "We're trying to get into the Stellarium to restore the Grand Astrolabe."
"Good luck with that," Thornton said. "It's a madhouse down here, that's for certain. It's the sharks, they're causing most of the trouble. They call themselves the Piscean Guard, and they claim to serve the Crustacean Empire, whatever that is."
"So these crabs aren't some gang of thugs, they have a government," I muttered.
"They've prevented us from our main work, surveying the region and learning what we can about Celestian culture," said Thornton. "If you want to rediscover the secrets of Celestian magic, then you must become one of us: An explorer!"
"I think we can vouch for our exploration credentials," I said.
"There's more to exploration than merely battling foes!" said Thornton. "Allow me to teach you a few things. First lesson: Observation! Based on where it stands, that broken monolith..." He waved to a stone pillar which had been toppled. "Is undoubtedly the key to enter the area beyond."
"Okay," I said.
I flew over the pillar and studied it. It was smashed recently by large gouging marks. I went back and repeated what I had seen.
"So the monolith was smashed by some heavy brutes," Christina said.
I had to admit, Thornton had a point. Wizard City looked like some magical town; Krokotopia was clearly ancient desert in culture due to the pyramids and tombs; and even Marleybone and Dragonspyre had a theme about them. Clearly, one's city structure told a lot about their lifestyles.
"Needless to say," said Thornton. "If the monolith had recently been broken, it is most likely the work of the Piscean Guards. They are crude vandals, always chopping up the Celestial artifacts and architecture, using pieces of stone for currency."
"Are we done yet" groaned Mindy. "I hate school."
"Oh ho, far from it, young lady," said Thornton. "There is still much to learn. Sometimes being an explorer is investigation, and sometimes it's throwing a bit of muscle around."
I got what Thornton was implying. "We mug the Piscean Guards to get back the pieces of the monolith which were stolen, right? Leave it to us!"
Christina was having a bad day - the Guards were Balance-element, so she was stuck using Spectral Blast and Hydra while we wiped out the sharks with our vomiting frogs. They crumpled quickly.
"Glue?" asked Mindy.
"The Celestians used far more advanced technology than that," said Thornton. "The Stellar Protectors run on power motes."
"Stellar Protectors?" I asked.
"They're those suits of metal powered by cores of energy, guided by who knows what?" he replied. "The power motes should provide enough energy to fuse the pieces of the broken monolith together. Could you go and collect power motes from inactive Stellar Protectors? No need to damage an active one!"
"We'll be right back," said Christina.
We managed to find a few inert robot-golems, which looked pretty alien to me, and carefully removed the motes. We got a few of them.
Thornton then directed us to the Star Forge to power up the motes. I was directed to use it because I am a master of the forge. ^_^
We put the motes and pieces of stone on the monolith and it repaired itself. We made a rubbing of the runes on it and gave it to Thornton, who gave it back after a while.
"I've puzzled over these runes for a long time," he muttered. "And I can't make heads or tails of it! Could you do us both a favor and speak to the Archivist in the Astral Archives? The Archives are on the east side of the District, and the Archivist is a giant machine that maintains the Archives. Just talk to her and you'll do fine."
"Whoa, weird," said Christina as we entered the Archives. There was a huge machine there.
"Well, someone go speak to... it," said Mindy.
I sighed and approached the pedestal in front of it.
"Hello?" I asked, feeling a bit silly.
"I am the Archivist," said a deep female voice which made me jump. "I oversee the archives of knowledge, including treasure cards."
Treasure cards? "Do you... have any Treasure Cards that can turn me into a treant?"
 |
| (Yep, this is where you get most of the TCs which you need for advanced crafting.) |
"I do." A list of treasure cards appeared before me in holographic form. I gasped. She not only had treasure cards for Polymorph Treant, but also Reshuffle! I bought five of each.
"BRB," I said. "Christina, you watch Miss Love Freak here and make sure she doesn't fight any sharks or anything stupid." I teleported away before Mindy could respond.
In seconds, I was back home and my hands blurred as I crafted the Seal of the Seven Seas and asked Amy to teleport me to Pierce again. He granted me Grandmaster Artisan status!
"You're far from done, young lady," said the gentle-dog, tipping his hat. "As a Grandmaster you can create almost anything, but... I've heard tales of a lion merchant in Zafaria who is skilled enough to craft magic itself! If you ever go by that jungle world, ask for one called Kayate Ghostmane and he might teach you to become a Legendary Crafter."
I was intrigued. I felt like I could craft Keeper of the Flame, almost, but I needed just a little more knowledge in crafting before I could make that spell. I decided to send a bird to Grace to ask if she had ever heard of such a person later. (I rushed a bit to get the next crafting badge, but I think you need to be Grandmaster to craft any of the items you need to build the Celestial Observatory.)
Also, I gave Ogden Peake his tea set and he gave me one more point in training. (He forgot to take his tea set, though and I was stuck with it. :( ) I decided that when I came to new worlds I would ask around to see if anyone needed help and I would barter for magical training for myself - the more training I had, the more spells I could use that weren't Myth.
(Yeah, I got some Reshuffles from Grace. You need five Reshuffle TCs to craft the tea set and the only place to find them is here with the Archivist. The recipe is 5 Reshuffles, 1 Amethyst, 3 Shadow Oil, 1 Glass Vial, 8 Fossil and 35 Red Mandrake. The Red Mandrake was the toughest to get.)
I came back and Christina told me that the Archivist had been asked about the tablet and it had opened up some places to learn about Celestian Culture... but we had to deal with sharks and robots. We didn't fight them, we had to sneak around them.
Me and Christina(Mindy didn't care, said it was boring) learned the ways of the Celestian culture, about their ways of magic and technology and how they dealt with conflict. Soon I could understand the language of the Celestians a little bit better.
Allow me to teach you about Astral Magic, the magic of the sun, moon and stars:
* Sun Magic deals with enchantments of other magic spells. We already knew how to use Gargantuan by now - with it I could turn my Humonofrog into a giant vomit pot of death which dissolved even the toughest enemies, and Christina's plasma ball of Power Nova would vaporize anything!
* Moon Magic transforms you into a creature which has a new set of spells. I thought about becoming a Mander but the Polymorph Mander spell requires you to learn Polymorph Gobbler, and turning into a Gobbler for any length of time is gross. Xp
* Finally, Star Magic cloaks you in an aura for a short time that uses the power of the stars to give you boosts in combat. For example, Grace had a Star spell which cloaked her in an aura that made her spells more accurate and even pierced defenses!
I had a feeling that Morganthe had no interest in such petty spells - she wanted stronger magic.
We reported to Thornton our success. "Now that you've a working knowledge of Celestian, we can determine how the broken monolith relates to the surroundings. Understanding context is vitally important. We must know not only how something works, but what it means in the big picture."
"So?" asked Mindy.
"The broken monolith has many markings similar to those in the Chantry and may be significant," said Thornton. "Could you go and survey the Chantry to see what might be learned of the area? Return here with what you have learned!"
We entered the Chantry, which Thornton told us was in the north part of the District and as we passed by a platform, I felt a sharp pain in my head. Christina screamed - she had felt it too!
Where were we? I saw Grace there, standing before us. "I see you're having a vision of me as I am about to give these worms to the Leviathan," she said. She smiled. "This truly means our hearts are connected, all three of us. Wish me luck."
She threw the worms into the water and there was a loud roar. I saw a giant sea serpent emerge from the water and breathe fire then it looked at Grace.
I felt a deep connection with her and knew she was not afraid. The Leviathan sniffed Grace, then dove right back into the water. I let go of my breath.
"I must go speak to Rra Balestorm now," said Grace. She smiled again. "When I return to you, and I will, I will become much stronger. You must become stronger too... I know who Morganthe is. I sense you are studying the Chantry. The plates are gone from the star map. Collect the plates from the Piscean Troopers, their huts, and the Grand Ornery."
I was stunned. She knew that woman's name? But before I could say anymore, the vision ended.
"Hey, what's with you?" said Mindy, waving her hand in front of my face. "You were tripping out!"
"Uh... nothing," I said. We explored some more and found the star map Grace had told us about - indeed it was not working and the plates were missing. "Can we trust that vision?"
"Yeah, sure can," said Christina, winking.
"What visi--- oh NVM," said Mindy, rolling her eyes. "We need to fix this!"
We found the Piscean Troopers - they were also Balance-elemental but a tad tougher, though they still got wrecked by Earthquake. We collected half of the plates and there was one stuck in the Grand Ornery and a few in the shark huts.
We put them into the map and it flared to life. It had the worlds marked in Celestian but we translated them - we saw some familiar worlds like Mooshu and Krokotopia but also new worlds. I recognized Zafaria as Grace's home and I recognized Avalon as well - one of the exchange students we had tutored a while back with Grace had been from there. But there were worlds I was not familiar with: Azteca and Khrysalis. I wondered if I would ever visit them someday...
Back on track! If I ever do visit those worlds, it would not be for a long time.
We described what we had seen.
"You've done much to earn your way into the Stellarium," said Thornton. "But you're not yet done!"
"There's MORE?!" cried Mindy.
"I've taught you all I can, and the next steps are yours alone," said Thornton. "Go to the Astral Archives and see if you can codge some more out of that Archivist. That should set you on the right path!"
"Okay, back to the machine we go," I muttered.
"Yes," I said.
"Unfortunately, permanent access to the Stellarium is only available to natives of Celestia."
"Well crud," said Mindy. "Dead end."
"However, temporary access can be granted if you can
"Great, more studies," groaned Mindy. Christian slapped her upside of the head. "Ow!"
So it was back to the books we went, so to speak, and we were given three shiny tokens after enduring the lessons of Contrivance, Contiguity, and Conflict, which we placed on the security pedestal. It scanned us with a laser beam and blinked.
"The key plinth in the entrance hall will open the doors to the Stellarium for a few hours."
Thanks.
"Ready to do this?" I said. We were ready to enter the first Celestia Gallery.
"Let's do this!" said Mindy. "For great justice!"
*fail*
"There's a lock with no key," said Christina. "Let's ask Thornton if he saw anything like that.
Sure enough, he knew where the key was. Time to find this Brutus guy.
Another shark. "Look, you can do this the EASY way or the HARD way. Choose your poison."
Why do they always pick the HARD way?!??!? Orthy played Fetch and got the key from that shark's mangled corpse. :p
We also found the book on the Fountain Zodiac symbol, which I took notes on.
NOW we were ready to go. I inserted the key and the doors opened. "Let's go," said Christina.
 |
| (The Star magic device in the Base Camp only teaches Amplify and Fortify; this one teaches Infallible, Empowerment and Vengeance, but you need to be a higher level.) |
We found more Pisceans and robot-golems, as well as some more devices to teach Star Magic. "I might go into that Infallible myself," said Christina. "I am sick of being useless against enemies which are Balance-element."
I decided to wait until I could find a decent aura of Star Magic. I wanted to conserve my points.
Yeah, shut your face, you robot-golem freakazoid.
He mentioned something about a puzzle which we can never solve. Oh, I hate Gordian Knots!
Christina, however, solved it easily. "Some impossible puzzle," she muttered. "Seriously, I'm a crafter and I know these things."
I felt inadequate. Why didn't I know these things? (Somehow I did not get a picture of Christina with the puzzle. I thought I had, my bad. It's a five-year old's puzzle, really simple.)
We reached the top of the Stellarium and found a creature which was alien and ghostly. It must have died and its shade haunted this place.
I don't recall the battle we were thrust into, but it was over quickly. (Selwyn is the first main story boss which is Moon-elemental. The Centaur guardian in Mt. Olympus is Moon, but you don't have to fight her. He uses Fire spells and his Protector mook, which is Star Elemental, uses Sandstorm.)
"We seek the Star Emblem to restore the Grand Astrolabe," I said.
"You seek to re-open the Trial of the Spheres?" said Selwyn. "Very well, I will not stop you. My defeat was proof that you are worthy of the Celestian Star and its magic. Take it." He faded away.
We were excited - I picked up the glowing disk with the star emblem on it and put it away.
"One down, two to go!" said Mindy, striking a pose. "Sailor V is Victorious!"
I let her celebrate in her way. "Let's get this back to the Astrolabe in Base Camp and restore it."
We found another book, this one teaching about the Galleon Zodiac sign. (It was rather dark in here so it was hard to read but I got the notes anyways.)
"Go do it!" said Mindy, clapping. "We know you can do it!"
"Sheesh, it's just putting a disc in, it's not that difficult," said Christina with disgust.
I sighed and recalled all my adventures in the Survey Camp, Grotto and District of the Stars. I took the emblem I got from the Stellarium...
And it slid it effortlessly. The disc spun around once and clicked, glowing with light briefly.
"We did it!" said Mindy, cheering. "Two more to go!"
"Maybe Edith knows where the Lunarium and Solarium are," Christina said.
"Now the secrets of Star Magic are ours to command!" she added.
"Thanks," I said. "But we are only a third of the way done. We heard something about a Trial and we still don't know where the other two Galleries are."
"The Lunarium is in Stormriven Hall," said Edith. "But it's too dangerous to go there, it's one of the areas we haven't drained off yet."
"We can breathe underwater now," said Christina.
"The way there is full of dangerous undersea currents," stated Edith. "You'd be torn to shreds!" We shrunk back in terror. "If only we had the submersible ready, but the key parts are still topside."
"Topside?" I asked.
"Yes, on the Floating Land, the island on the surface of Celestia. The elevator to the south will take you up there," said Edith. "It was wonky before but now..."
I didn't have to listen to the rest of her words. I was off like a shot to the elevator... the Floating Land... Amy had teleported me there twice before, but now I could go there myself! Adventure and hopefully a means to get to the Lunarium awaited!
As well as fresh air - the recycled air of the domes was fettering in my lungs.
[TBC...]
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