He scanned each rock as quickly as possible, looking for one that had that faint tint of life, of the light inside it that he truly craved, but as the time rolled on, he got more and more worried. There were no mass stones anywhere in the surroundings.
He could see that there were places where mass stones had been of recent, maybe gone for days or weeks, but it looked like someone or something had been harvesting them for some unknown reason. Magi knew better than to excessively harvest mass stones for no good reason. They only needed one for their entire lifetimes, and although mass stones could be used as substitutes for material components in spells, requiring more than one was beyond rare. The other issue was that such a large harvest of mass stones would make them rarer for months if not years to come, reducing the amount of magi in the world. The more magi there were, the better things would be for them. A magi’s path was one of perfection of their craft, and that could not be done in a vacuum. They needed rivals, friends, enemies, other people to react to to really push themselves and excel. That would not have changed in between the time that Mal had died and been reborn. No, Mal quickly realised that there was someone planning to do something awful with the stones, or they were simply profiting off something that had yet to grow to fruition.
Mass stones could not be taken whenever they appeared. There would be a gestation period for the stones, where their internal energy built up and they grew in size. Once the mass stone was around the size of a large apple, they were considered ripe, and if they were any bigger they would be considered a rare treasure, but any smaller and the stones would quickly lose potency when taken away from their source of creation. They needed to reach a stable point in the energy of their origin before they were of use to any magi.
After searching for an hour longer, and by midday Mal had reasoned out a path that the person taking the stones was walking. They were following a route into the depths of the Voidlands to build something or to hunt for something, but what Mal had no idea. He snuck along, being very careful to make sure that no one heard a sound. Out here, without his power and with the body of a three year old child, he was defenseless if a dog attacked him, let alone an adult man who had delusions of grandeur.
After a while the spots where the stones had obviously been taken stopped appearing, and instead true mass stones appeared, but they were all small and unripe. They were unsuited for Mal to take, so instead he continued. The further in he got, the bigger the stones, but they were still unripe. They were still lacking in the vital energy he was searching for. Finally he reached a small cleft in a rock face. It was big enough for a child to walk through, or an adult to crawl, so Mal walked through and found himself in a cavern filled to the brim with rich, vibrant, ripe mass stones. They lined the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and in the centre there was a mass stone the same size as Mal himself. It was the single largest mass stone he had ever heard about, let alone seen. It could not have been natural.
He scanned the walls and floor to look for traps when he noticed there was something odd about the placement of the rocks. The mass stones around the giant stone formed concentric circles and there were markings etched into the ground within each circle. Mal stopped. Staring at the symbols on the floor he could not see anything that looked like a trap, but in his old life he had scoured ancient temples that were filled with treasure and traps, so he had gained an appreciation for something that looked both innocent and too good to be true at the same time. It had kept him alive before, so he did not throw it away now.
With every step he took he would move one circle inwards. Only when the circle itself seemed to have no symbols that were of an offensive nature did he step ahead once more, but this worried him. The more he looked, the more worried he became. As he stepped into the middle of the second last circle he completely recognised the nature of the object he was standing in and it terrified him. He had to get out as soon as he could, but he also had to shut the great work of magic down, and the only way for him to do that was by taking the giant mass stone in the middle from the scene.
He smiled. For once, lady luck was on his side. He had the perfect item in front of him, so he touched the stone and focused. There was a sparking, a roiling, and suddenly all the energy that was within all the mass stones in the surrounding walls and floor began giving their energy to the stone in the center. Power that Mal had lost rippled through him as he felt the mass stone do his will, and ever so slowly the energy within the giant stone began to shape itself into his arcana. He smiled, a circle had formed, which indicated one of the greater arcana, perhaps divination or void calling, but as the energy continued to move he frowned. A line split the circle into two hemispheres, before splitting it into four quarters, then six then finally stopping at eight.
The light crackled to a stop and the stone shrank, until finally it was small enough for him to fit in the palm of his hand, still with the shape flickering within it. It was a wheel. An eight spoked wheel. Mal thought he knew almost every single arcana, but this wheel was something new. He had no idea what it was, no idea whether it was something formed since he had died, or something that was so old there were no written records. It was a complete anomaly, and he now needed to go to the Citadels more than ever.
Turning round, Mal could not help but gasp. He had been so focused on what he had been doing that he had not noticed his surroundings. It was a rookie mistake, but he had simply been too excited. What was once a bright cavern lined with thousands of stones was now an empty one, filled with etchings on the floor with no power source, and so no meaning.
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