The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 450 - My (Beloved’s) House Is Your House, If You Treat It Like It

"I’ll be taking my tent to the grove you showed me out to the east for the duration of your guests’ visit."

The brunette paused in her oversight of the altar’s finer construction points. Madrigil’s voice was as detached as it had always been... when not actually excited about a find or a topic. However, Elua caught the stress beneath his words within his easily fracturable spirit itself. Her mint eyes studied the exiled noble scholar, noticing his own had lingered on the Silver with obvious discomfort before he shouldered the travel pack he’d snuck down the lift with.

’A far cry from how boisterously he rushed into the workshop. Maybe I’m not the only one the isolation is affecting.’

"This particular Metal bothering you again?"

"Among other things. I’m fully aware that I’m the problem and a guest on your whim. You’ll have fewer distractions with your company without me around. And before you say anything, yes I will work on my cultivation - at my own pace."

His aversion had been noted before now, which is why she kept the majority of the ingots mined away from places she didn’t mind him treading - and a few storage areas she put it there just so he would stay away instinctively. However, he’d never explained it... just like he had barely spoken of his political troubles since the first few weeks of being in the Exclave.

"The spot you picked should be comfortable enough. I’ll let them know not to bother you if they go exploring. According to Sevra’s astral mapping, there’s a freshwater spring about fifty yards north of the clearing that should be sufficient for you. I’ll send automatons with extra food tomorrow."

"Appreciated. I’ll return once the new people depart."

"You can return whenever you please. Just as you are free to treat this as your prison if you must."

He left without comment, leaving the Goltbred heiress alone to realize - before getting back to any work - that the sky was already beginning its shift toward the deeper green-blacks that marked ’dusk’ in the bubble of space. Her three new guests had gone back up while she’d become absorbed in her project, after she’d given them little objects they could use to communicate with her at a distance. Though other than their checking that it worked a few times...

’No contacts. But that’s right - host responsibilities. Food, rooms, basic socializing. I became too used to his self-sufficiency and knowledge of where everything in this place is, if he needed it.’

Reaching out a little with her sense, she felt her disciples had seemed to find the *mostly* empty library - where they sat on benches and talked to each other over the items they brought. Especially over whether or not to say anything first before giving Elua the items which Qat sent along with them. They were sure the former Yecine would be entirely forthcoming with details in her letters...

But getting some outside perspective beforehand might help their Master to accept that their partner was not hiding things to make it sound better.

"I’ll show you all to rooms and where to find something to eat. I’ll get everyone settled before nightfall."

Brushing fine silver dust from her hands, that very person activated her own comm-gem as she spoke. The essence sealed within it resonated with the linked companion stone in a location up above, the sort of Descent-safe cultivator technology that she hoped her mentor’s husband would discover on his own someday... with a few small nudges. At least a failing prototype or other tests on the matter to further things along!

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

The mansion atop the cliff had been designed with guests in mind, with certain rooms actually fully reserved for certain people. Elua er Goltbred had envisioned that perhaps her parents and sister would visit some day, for instance. The pair of disciples also actually had their own shared room...

’But we didn’t *get* to stay in a single room before I was married, so neither will they!’

Nohre and Fusand instead had claimed a set of the generic rooms that were connected by a common sitting area - with a firm finger wagged at them by their ’younger’ friend, over the prospect of either of them sneaking in to each other’s private space. As well as a smirk and claim that she would *know* everything that happened under that roof.

’A bluff - unless I am paying extra attention - but a good one. Especially when the ’children’ have not dared test the ’parent’ yet.’

Beyond her musing on effective ways to handle kids in the future, the rooms were mostly just rooms at this point... and not anything like luxurious. While she still had some of the tools that had helped mechanize the production of rope, she had not yet gotten to looms to make finer textiles out of any of the viable plant fibers - of which at least two strange plants in the realm were acceptable. But that did not mean that all spaces were plain and without more specific details.

"This room’s balcony faces southeast, toward the largest forest canopy within the realm. It’s a nice view to look at in the morning light between meditation sessions. I’ve also installed so many sigils in this place that it would take thousands of Voidlings trapped inside to even strain it."

The heiress spoke from where she had settled into one of the self-carpentered chairs, with the handwoven cushions near the open balcony entrance. The seats were a small project that she had done with the Shadow Whisker scout some months after being trapped together. While talking about lots of things, though at the time it was mostly just correcting old stories with elements of the truth.

Zyris examined the private chamber. The space felt more like a cultivation sanctuary than a bedroom, with meditation areas, some sort of gemstone panel for adjustable lighting and who knew what else... and what appeared to be sigilwork that hurt her eyes layering every square inch of the walls themselves.

"Why would you bring them up?"

"Because I’m preparing for possibilities. Tell me what you’ve experienced since becoming an Enchanter."

The Talcres woman finally sank into the opposite chair with a troubled expression. For someone who had gained the cultivation advancement she’d longed for and experimented with for dozens of years, she currently looked more burdened than triumphant. Seeing the teens interact had brightened her some, but the quiet moments in between since they arrived had nagged at her.

"It’s... empty. The feeling. Not absent like when I could not use the energy, but like reaching out and finding nothing. When I’ve tried to use any of the techniques for manipulating in the way they are recorded, I feel only something vast that doesn’t want to be touched or corralled together."

The ancient cultivator had suspected it was a possibility long ago, but the problem with this particular Element was that it was so *rare* that she had only interacted with two others with it in her lifetime. One had been a ’friend’... and his expression of it had not felt quite like the energy she could sense looking at Zyris right now.

And the other was the Void Divinity itself, as well as its horde of constructs who were comprised of the substance. While it was the ’same’ in all of the vantablack creatures as it was the signature of the Divinity, that was to be expected. Yet overall, the factors that she usually used to ’predetermine’ what sort of Trinity others held were strangely irrelevant in this matter.

’So it was either something I’d never heard of, or a practitioner of the wisps of energy between energy.’

"Show me."

Taking a shaky breath, the older woman closed her eyes and focused on her essence field. It felt strangely expanded in the Exclave, compared to the disciples who had mentioned that they felt constrained. The change was immediately ’unsettling’ to the one engaged in it... in a sort of cosmic horror fashion that made her reminisce of the invasion points opening.

As rather than the *present* feeling of most cultivated energies, something that felt like the absence of everything itself began to be accentuated at the edges. Between every molecule, whether solid, liquid, or gas... the space between writhed as everything in the universe pushed and shifted on it.

The effect was unmistakable. Elua watched with her spiritual sense, every bit of the analytical focus she’d developed throughout both lives taking stock of all the details. Her memory brought up dozens of training methods that could prove helpful even if they would seem quite counterintuitive to the woman.

After all, trying to get a cultivator’s head wrapped fully around exactly what it ’means’ to Invert their Element and evoke the ’opposite’ qualities around the edges of it depended highly on how their personal intelligence wanted to deal with that idea in the first place.

To claim there were absolute answers for every situation in that regard was a little wrong. For while some were easy enough to think of quickly, like reversing the effect of Gravity, others were... trickier.

’Like trying to conceptualize Inversion directly with the Fire Element - is it only taking essence control of something that cannot ignite... or is it generating a fire that cannot burn? At a point, it all becomes true and is usually only possible with a much greater magnitude of energy in the first place.’

"You can stop now."

The uncomfortable sensation faded quickly. Eyes opened with relief evident in them, to meet a pair of glowing mint orbs that leaned forward toward her. Brown hair framed the young face who held a serious expression. The woman didn’t know why she was suddenly confident that things would work out, but a sense of calm started to intrude on her mind... thanks to the ’teen’ activating the mood leveling sigils in the room.

"First, nothing is wrong with you. Get that resolute fact in your head before you react to what I’m about to say. Nod your understanding, please. Good. Your Element is Void. Which is why you’re having difficulty understanding or controlling it."

Even with that much assurance and manipulation, it did not prevent the woman from hyperventilating until she blacked out. Which was quite quickly... as the ’medical fairy’ decided to induce the loss of consciousness intentionally before anything worse happened in her trembling spirit. Sighing while keeping Zyris er Talcres from slumping over, the ’young girl’ felt her ethics slip toward pure pragmatism.

"Should I wipe her short term memory and try again with different phrasing?"