Jewel

When the next memory was ready and the mist around Roko's party cleared, they found themselves in the middle of the Tree Cradle's square. It seemed like today was a particularly active day with the young elves playing around in the streets and the caretaker elves busy with everyday work including looking over the young ones. And in the middle of all this, the four royal guards...were leaning sprawled over a table or back on their chairs.

"It's been over two months since we arrived here." an enervated Hyacinth said, "How are we all feeling?"

"Something's not right..." Borage groaned, "My muscles have gotten soft."

"Everything's too quiet." Scabius moaned, "I'm not used to being able to hear my own thoughts."

"Nothing's happened." Nasturtium said with her feet up on the desk as she leaned back, "But that only makes me feel like something's going to happen at any time."

"You all are hopeless."

"Well why don't you go play with the kids then, Hyacinth?"

"Ahaha...I'm afraid even I don't have the energy to keep up with them all the time."

"Where's Zinnia?" Scabius asked.

"He's helping the king out as always. He seems to be the only one busy nowadays."

"Lycoris has been following them around like an eager puppy trying to learn all she can." Nasturtium yawned, "Though I'm not sure how much she's actually learned."

"Aren't you a magician, Nasturtium?" Borage asked, "Why aren't you helping them?"

"I'm a MAGE, Borage. Magicians do card tricks."

"Huh? The humans treated it as the same."

"Why are you taking lessons about magic from a race that can't even use magic?"

"But they can use magic. Just different from us."

"Well, whatever. I'm a caster, Borage, not a ritualist or enchanter. My spells aren't meant to last thousands of years. Furthermore, magical theory isn't my area of expertise either."

"Huh? But didn't you make that drone spell, Nasturtium?"

"Yeah and that doesn't make me qualified to pitch in on magical systems that moderates the entire elven race."

"...But Zinnia is?"

"That elf has been around longer than any of us." Nasturtium explained, "The king's right hand man should be able to do at least that much."

"I thought I was the king's right hand man."

"YOU, Borage? Don't make me laugh."

"Wait, am I not the king's right hand man either?"

"Scabius?! You're kidding me, right?"

"Nasturtium. Nasturtium."

"Don't tell me you also think that, Hyacinth!"

"Feet off the table."

"You're babying me NOW?!"

"The king requests your presence at the cradle."

Nasturtium let out a scream and fell off her chair as everyone else suddenly sat up when they realized Zinnia was standing right behind them.

"Z-Zinnia!" Hyacinth yelped, "How long have you been here?"

Zinnia only gave them a disappointed look.

"W-We're needed at the cradle, right? Is everything complete?"

"More or less." Zinnia replied, "We need a few more days to test all the changes and make sure they're working. For now, we're putting out the first adjustments."

"Right, we'll go have a look then."

"Someone help me up." Nasturtium moaned.

"Nasturtium, you need to be more careful."

"I don't want any of your backtalk, just get me up!"

As the elves began to make their way away to the tree in the center of the subspace, Hyacinth spoke up, "So Zinnia. You've been busy haven't you?"

"Moderately."

"Then you must not have noticed anything different have you?"

"In what way?"

"Just...in the way you feel. This is the longest we've spent stationed at the Tree Cradle. Normally we'd be back in the frontlines by now."

"The changes to the cradle are more substantial than any we've made before."

"Still...Something feels...weird."

"I understand." Zinnia sighed, "A bit of unsettlement and paranoia?"

"Yeah."

"The king said this was known as 'peace'."

"The humans mentioned something like that before." Scabius said.

"Apparently, this is how humans live everyday. How most of them live until they die."

"Til they die? Don't they know that a war is going on? How could they stand to do nothing while the world is in danger?" Nasturtium scoffed.

"Not all elves fight either." Hyacinth said, "The caretakers here have never seen the war either."

"Someone needs to be here to train the young ones into proper soldiers." Borage sighed, "They form the basis of our world's defenses so their role is irreplaceable."

"But don't you think the world would be better if the entire world was this peaceful?" Zinnia asked.

"No. Nothing would get done otherwise." Nasturtium scoffed, "The world would grind to a halt even if there was no war to fight."

"That was what the king said to try to get me to understand 'peace'." Zinnia said, "I can't say I understand it myself."

"Hm. Perhaps we can ask the humans to explain it to us." Hyacinth thought aloud.

"Pfft. The humans make up maybe 5% of the war effort. I doubt they'll be able to come up with anything convincing."

"We've arrived." Borage announced as the cradle came into view, "Does anybody remember the way to get into the chamber?"

"Zinnia's been in and out of the chamber multiple times." Nasturtium yawned, "Just leave it to him."

"Do you not know how to get into the chamber, Nasturtium?" Borage asked as Zinnia summoned a magical console from a bracelet.

"You know, I don't like this whole 'questioning my magical credentials' thing you've been doing..."

"But do you?"

"Yes, I know the way into the chamber!" Nasturtium snapped, "But who knows if they changed the security a smidge so I'm leaving it to Zinnia. One wrong input and you'd suffer severe recoil and I'd rather avoid that."

"Is that so..." Borage said, unconvinced.

"Borage, which do you hate more, the hot or the cold?"

"Hm? Well, I trained for a long time in a pretty hot region so I guess the col-"

"Done." Zinnia said as he turned around, "Are you all ready?"

"Sure am." Nasturtium said.

"What happened to Borage?"

"He's taking a bit of time to chill out." Nasturtium said with Borage standing next to her frozen in a block of ice.

"Well, can you let him out?"

"He'll break through it on his own. I say we just move on and let him catch up."

"The king wants all his guards there."

"He'll catch up."

"...Fine, whatever."

And with that, the remaining four guards climbed up the stairs and into the cradle.

"I wish I could do stuff like this." Helena said as she knocked on the ice that Borage was frozen in.

"Is this really how you see me, Helena?" Kaguya frowned.

"Yeah! I can totally see you icing someone if you have to."

"I don't know where you could've gotten that impression from." Kaguya sighed.

"So do we just leave him here?" Reaumur asked as he walked around the frozen elf.

"Nothing we can do even if we want to do something." Brook crossed her arms, "This is just a memory, remember?"

"Oh yeah. So...does this mean this is Borage's memory since we're still here after everyone else has left?"

"Oh no, the guards' spirits are still around, contributing their experiences to the replay." Enlil explained, "So Borage and everyone elses' memories are fleshing out the original memory with their experiences. At this point, even I don't know whose memory makes up what part of the experience anymore."

"They're still around?" Momo said, "Hello sensei!"

"They can't actually interact with you anymore. I just turned that off basically."

"Aw..."

"Also, he's frozen in a block of ice."

"Grrrr..." A crack appeared in the ice and with a "GRRAH!" Borage shattered the ice by flexing his body before quickly chasing his companions into the Tree Cradle.

"Well not anymore." Helena chuckled, "Come on, time for us to catch up this time."

The start of the start of the cradle was exactly as Roko remembered, the halls and kitchen and rooms were where Roko remembered them. But beyond that, the hall that was supposed to continue forward had become a set of stairs that lead down below the tree.

"So you've seen all this before, right Roko?" Helena asked as they began to climb the stairs down.

"Up to these stairs, yeah." Roko said as he noticed the wooden interior of the tree had become a mix of carved stone with roots crawling across and poking out from below the surface.

"Seems like we're going to discover the secret of the Tree Cradle right now..." Kaguya said, "Are you sure the spirits are okay with us seeing this?"

"Yeah, they're being pretty cooperative." Enlil reported, "Everything's been going smoothly."

"Just to be sure, one of the spirits isn't the king himself is it?" Roko asked.

"No, I couldn't find his soul."

"Is that unusual?"

"Not really. Some people can be hard to come in contact with in the afterlife."

"But you got one guard using the journal and then the rest of the guards with their spirit right? So why not the king?" Helena asked.

"Perhaps they are protecting his resting soul." Enlil suggested, "It could be any number of reasons. I'm not one to ask much questions."

"Fair enough."

The end of the stairs marked the end of their little conversation as they were soon deposited onto a small hallway with an open arc into a room that was giving off green light. Roko's group approached anxiously but it wasn't long until they saw the cradle's great secret. A large spherical room of ornate stone was decorated with various bookshelves all over its walls. Wooden tables decorated the room with loose books, documents and seemingly scientific apparatuses. Broken pieces of jewelry littered these desks along the rest of the items but those paled in comparison to the center of the room. For in the center of the room, wrapped with roots was a giant emerald. Larger than any human, larger than any home, larger than even the titan that attacked the elves at the start of the memory. This perfectly cut gem looked exactly like the one from the schematics.

"OH." Helena said loudly, "That makes sense now..."

"I can't believe they found a gem of this high a purity and...well...size..." Kaguya gulped, "I had no idea how they could possibly fit all those complex enhancements on a small device like our phone but if they're working with a space THIS big..."

"It's radiating with so much magical energy..." Momo said, "I can't imagine how long it's been enchanted for. So much magical energy collected at it's core...This could easily be the basis for a weapon that can vaporize entire cities."

"I wonder how much you could sell that for."

Everyone turned to look at Roland.

"What?! I know you all were thinking it too!"

"Well ignoring Roland, the magic layering on this gem is astonishing." Brook remarked, "There's at least five layers that I can see and they work pretty robustly. This is more advanced than any modern technology I've seen. This must be the work of several generations of elven engineering. There's no way one king is responsible for all this."

"Elves live for an incredibly long time though don't they?" Helena gulped, "How long could all this been going on?!"

"Is...there something we're missing about elven life back then?" Kaguya thought aloud.

"Whatever it is, it's going to change again soon." Roko said as he looked at the magical designs floating around the enormous jewel, "Looks like an entirely new layer's about to get added."

And standing in front of the emerald, close to its base was the king and his men, dwarfed by the size of their instrument.

"Are you ready, milord?"

"Yes. The calculations have been checked and double checked. It should merge without any problems."

"But you never know with these things." Hyacinth said, "Competing magical styles make it very dangerous to make substantial changes. Are you certain this is necessary, milord?"

"We've taken precautions for our layer to dissolve first without damaging the existing enchantments underneath in case of a malfunction." Lycoris explained, "It should be a very safe implementation."

"If you say so..."

"By the way, my liege." Lycoris asked nervously, "Am I allowed to witness this?"

"You've been with us every step of the way." The king stated, "You've done well to keep up but most importantly, I want you to understand what we're trying to achieve here."

"Yes my liege."

"...Well then..." The king sighed as he turned to the jewel in front of them, "Let's begin, Zinnia."

The two raised their hands and the magical enhancements around them began to glow brighter. The additional enchantments began to circle around and adjust their positions as the enchantments already on the emerald began to shift along the gem's surface as well. The restructuring threw lights of all different colors around the room, in an almost dizzying display before the new enchantments began to slam onto the jewel. The magic wrapped around each other, mixing together into a blinding white light that continued to grow to such intensity that everyone had to cover their eyes.

And in an instant, the light receded and the enormous emerald sat unmoved in the tree's roots. Its surface seemed to dance with new light but even that calmed to a steady green glow deep in the center of its body. With everything seeming to be calm around them, the king and Zinnia lowered their arms, clearly stressed from the process.

"So was it successful?" Borage asked.

"Well it's stable." Hyacinth said, "We'll have to monitor it for a few days to see if the changes were actually effective."

"So we're staying here for even longer?!"

"Oh be quiet." Nasturtium shook her head, "It won't take long to record the changes. Just be patient for a day or three."

"That's such a long time though! I'm worried about the warfront! It's been so long since we've been there, I'm worried about how things are going!"

"We left Laurestine in charge of the war effort. He'll do fine."

"I don't know if that's enough though! You never know what might happen while we're not there!"

"I didn't take you for someone so considerate." Nasturtium scoffed, "What commander doesn't even trust their own soldiers?"

"No fighting in front of the king." Hyacinth called out to them, "And in front of Lycoris."

"Actually, it might be a bit longer than three days." The king mused, "A week at max. The changes we've made is quite substantial. If you spot any changes in the elves, do inform me."

"What kind of changes should we be looking for?"

"Check their levels of mana." The king explained, "You should see a steady rise over the next few days."

"I see..." Nasturtium nodded, "So that's the purpose behind these changes."

"I don't understand, how will that make us stronger?" Borage asked.

"Nothing will come out of explaining it to you."

"Oi!"

Hyacinth clapped her hands to grab their attention and calm the two but their voices were already fading away as the mist closed in around Roko's party, marking the end of this memory.

"So this giant gem was underneath the Tree Cradle..." Helena mused, "It clearly must be important but why?"

"Roko, did you ever scan it?" Momo asked.

"If I scanned the gem, I would get hit with every magical enchantment they put on it all at once." Roko sighed, "As much as I was very tempted to, I could've gotten knocked unconscious from getting all of that information at once."

"Good call." Kaguya said, "That would have made Corissa very angry."

"That's true, it would have." Corissa nodded in am oddly intimidating way.

"Anyway." Roko frowned, "If you want answers, you can check the literal elf princess."

Everyone turned to look at Brook who seemed to be deep in thoughts. So Helena walked over, flicking a coin into her fingers and waving it in front of the dark elf, "Brooooooook? Penny for your thoughts?"

Brook sighed, "I have no proof for any of this."

"Go on..."

"My first suspicion was when Borage said three days was too long of a wait. I've never interacted with human, well...up til recently, but the stories I've heard was that three days were a blink of an eye to an elf."

"That makes sense given the elves' longer life span." Kaguya agreed.

"So what does that mean?" Helena playfully played along, "Perhaps Borage is just that impatient?"

"Perhaps." Brook nodded, "But then they said to check the elves' mana levels."

"You said that elves stop physically growing until they develop enough mana first right?" Helena continued, "So what does that mean?"

"If you're suggesting that their mana levels are the cause for the elves' long age..." Reaumur said, "Then that means..."

"We might have just witnessed the moment elves gained longevity." Brook nodded, "And that means up til now...the elves were fundamentally different from us in modern day."