Aether's Heart 4

Written by soundofmind

80 Days B.N.D

It was a sunny morning, and Belxibis was already tired, but homeless smugglers didn't get to sleep in. Not when they had cryptic directions from a client to follow that led them into the forest, far away from civilization, where all the trees looked the same.

Bel stood under a canopy of trees and sighed. He looked up through the overlapping branches at the yellow-orange hue of the sky started fading into blue, and the birds above started chittering, and trees shielded him just enough from the light so that he was not overwhelmed by it. 

The trees out here were tall and bushy, like the wild sisters of the ones that grew in gardens, normally trimmed back and tamed. But these ones were dressed proudly in vines and moss and leaves crowded while their arms tangled together like they were imagining what it might be like to be a wall of vines themselves. 

Lilith had told him to meet her at the pond where the frogs croaked all day. While it sounded poetic at the time, it was nonspecific, and Belxibis was starting to wonder if this forest even had any ponds or frogs. 

He wouldn't have been surprised if it was all a joke.

Sure, send the big blue tiefling off into the forest on a wild goose chase to waste his time. It wasn't like Belxibis had better things to do, like meet other clients who actually wanted what he sold, and actually paid him, and didn't give him riddles by way of a meeting place. 

Of course, Belxibis still continued his search. 

He bowed his head out from under the low-hanging trees and continued to walk the forest, wishing his staff could be useful for finding dull, normal, non-magical things like toads or frogs for once. But for now, it simply served as a walking stick, and occasionally, assisted in pushing dangling branches and vines out of the way. Those always seemed to catch onto his horns the moment he stopped paying attention, so by now, it was a habit. Lifting his staff, and waving it in front of him just to be sure. Like a cat's whiskers, telling him if he would fit through a passage.

The sun had drifted slowly up into the sky by the time he finally heard the faint croaking of frogs.
"This better be it," he whispered to himself.

He scanned the forest around him, and upon seeing no one was around, he started to whistle a simple tune, almost matching pitch with the frogs as he followed their croaks. As he drew nearer, he could hear other bugs started joining in on the song with creaking and humming. 

Finally, he saw it up ahead. The forest parted like it made way to welcome visitors to the little well of stagnant water. He slowed and started searching the thick grasses that lined it, and the area around the pond. 

He wasn't late. Lilith said mid-morning, and it was mid-morning. He was grateful he found it in time, and he didn't mind if he had to wait. He just hoped she showed up. 

As he walked to the edge of the pond and looked in, he saw the head of a frog slip under the water, and another one leap into the grass, running away. There was one, though, sitting calmly on a rock and soaking up the morning sun.

He wanted to catch it.

He bent down slowly, making sure his armor wouldn't clink too loudly as to scare it, and then very carefully reached out his hand. Slowly... slowly... hovering over the frog's shoulders.

The frog appeared curious when his shining silver gauntlet appeared in front of it, and it looked like, given some time and patience, the frog might hop in. 

"I don't suppose tieflings eat frogs, now, do they?" 

Lilith's voice appeared behind him with little announcement, but it sang a sour-sweet tune. With neither flinching nor jumping, he slowly got to his feet and turned around to see her. For someone so committed to cryptic secrecy, it was no surprise she was light on her feet. Or that she might've used a spell to conceal her presence until now. He wasn't sure which. Maybe both.

He smiled sweetly for Lilith and laughed. It was a very practiced reaction.

"Good morning Lilith. I have the Vial of Stardust for you," he said.

He towered over her by at least a foot, not including his horns, which reached a few more inches into the sky out from his forehead.

For someone meeting in the middle of the forest, she looked a bit overdressed. She had a traveling cloak and a small leather sack on her back, but her dark velvet dress looked like it would be doomed to snag on something, and from there it's resale value would only plummet. 

Oh well, that was none of his concern.

Lilith looked up at him, eyes lingering on his horns. "Well, no need to waste time. Bring it out, then. Show me," she said.

Bel nodded, and slipped his large pack off his shoulders, plopping it on the ground in front of him.
He kneeled beside his bag, set his staff on the ground, and unbuckled the flap, and reached in to pull out the Vial of Stardust.

As Bel presented it, he couldn't help but have the feeling that he did something wrong. Lilith looked disappointed.

"That's it?" she said.

"It's what you asked for," Bel replied.

"That's not nearly enough," Lilith retorted.

"Well, times are hard, and finding stardust is hard. This is what I've got," Bel said.

Lilith frowned with her hands on her hips. 

"I don't care about hard," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "I just want what I asked for."

Bel blinked. He did get what she asked for. She never said she wanted a lot. Either something had changed on her end, he misunderstood, or she had been to unclear with her expectations from the start. Either way, he had what he had. He couldn't magically multiply it. But maybe he could remedy the situation another way.

"Alright," Bel said, putting up one hand in an earnest gesture. "How about this. I don't have more stardust, but I have plenty of other things you might be interested in that are very similar or of equal value."

Lilith's frown deepened, but Bel reached into his bag anyway, pulling out a tuft of lion's mane. Useful for the Elixir of Lion's Roar.

"How about this?"

Lilith turned her nose up at it.

"Okay, how about this?"

A Potion of Bloodlust. She still didn't look impressed. He kept fishing.

"This?"

A bottle of elven tears.

"No," she said adamantly.

"This? This? This?"

At this point, he was amassing a pile outside of his bag, and he could tell Lilith wasn't amused by his efforts. He pulled out one last thing. It was a bracelet with a rune-carved stone. When the user attuned to it the bracelet would make it so anything their hand touched left no prints. He lifted it up with an earnest smile.

"How about this?"

And then, he heard a bell toll. For a second, he thought he saw a flash of light. Orange? Like the sun had shone in his eyes, somehow, without blinding him.

His eyes fluttered, and he shook his head a little.

"Wait, what?" Lilith sputtered.

"What?" Bel echoed.

"What was that?" Lilith asked, squinting and looking at him more closely.

"The bells?" Bel asked.

"The--" Lilith's face contorted in frustrated confusion and she shook her head. "No! The- your eyes--"

Bel looked up at her, genuinely clueless.

If she meant that his eyes were inhuman, he would've thought she'd have noticed already. Yeah. He had no irises or pupils as humans did. Just golden orbs that creeped people out. He knew that already. He really didn't need to hear it again.

An awkward silence followed, and Lilith looked like she was mulling over something in her head. Bel decided to cut the tension.

"Alright," he said, starting to pack his things back up. "Obviously, you don't want anything besides the stardust, so how about I just get you more of it. If you want to come with me, we should be able to find it within the day. I'll have to backtrack, but my staff should help us get there quickly."
Lilith folded her arms and sighed, watching him with a critical gaze as he slung his pack back over his shoulders, picked his staff back up, and secured the straps over his armor.

"Fine," Lilith snapped. "But this better be worth my time."

Belxibis smiled down at her and gestured with his staff for her to start walking first.

"You won't have to worry about that, Ms. Lilith. I can assure you, I am not in the business of wasting time."

The stone on Bel's staff was starting to pulse faster, and Lilith was starting to walk slower. He imagined she didn't often go on long walks through the forest.

"That thing is anxiety-inducing," Lilith muttered, looking to the staff.

"You think so?" Bel said. "I find it rather endearing."

Lilith rolled her eyes. "I imagine you find a lot of unsavory things endearing."

Bel took in a slow breath and was glad when he spotted the cave in the distance as a convenient distraction.

"Ah. There it is," he said, pointing with the tip of his still pulsing staff. "In the depths of that cave, there is a meteorite that crashed and was buried some who-knows-how-many eons ago. If I dig back in to find it, we may just find more stardust. After crawling through many spiderwebs and kicking away various critters, of course."

Lilith's lips were curled up in disgust.

"I am not doing that," she said. "That's what I'm paying you for."

Bel nodded with understanding. "Yes. Of course."

Their pace came to a brief stop as the two of them looked on at the cave in the distance. The cave opening wasn't very tall, so Belxibis already knew he'd have to go in on all fours. He already did that yesterday, but he supposed he'd have to do it again. As Lilith said, she was paying him, and it was part of the job.

"Well, get going then," Lilith urged.

"Yes," Bel said, taking a step forward. "I'll be just a--"

Another bell tolled, and this one thundered throughout his skull like a gong.

With no further warning, Belxibis collapsed to the ground.