The Academy: Location 4

She went to Supraya next, but on her way, it began to rain again. This was not the same, steady rain as yesterday’s journey, but rather a vicious, powerful winter storm. The temperatures were just above freezing, leading to a mixture of sleet and freezing rain which battered the young scholar as she searched for the end. She was still considering which piece of the shard she’d find when she reached Supraya, but once again her Element showed her the answer.

Nyota had never liked storms, but she remembered her conversation with the warrior Brishen when he first came to the Range. He was a harbinger of the storm, a child of thunder and lightning, and he had told her to be more courageous in the face of storms. So as the thunder began to roll across the borderlands, Nyota flinched but did not flee. Her eyes widened but her heart did not stop beating. She pushed through the storm, observing the skies and bracing herself against the cold wind, which she feared more than any storm.

The wind made her more aware of her element, pulsing beneath her feet. When the first jagged lines of Lightning struck it, she felt the reverberations throughout her body. “I made ocean and flame equal,” she said out loud, and as another bolt of white-hot lightning cracked the gray sky, the apprentice smiled. “Lightning. I will find lighting!” Both air and lightning made ocean and flame equal, but air was neither ocean nor flame. Lightning was, in a sense, flame. It sparked fires and was born from heat, and Nyota knew it would be the piece waiting for her along the painted walls.

She found Supraya at the height of the storm, when she could barely see through the rain and the thick darkness. But each yellow flash of lightning illuminated the walls, stained red from the blood of Silvers and Golds who battled betwixt them. Her eyes, burning with something much different than stars, fled anxiously across the wall of the canyon, looking for the place where rock could fall.

Her element did not ignore the throb of Lightning that was beating subtly within the Canyon. The storm was drawn to it, borne from it, and Nyota knew she had found the right place. Her Earth searched for the Element it was strong against, warming her as she moved closer to the location of the shard. It was anxious to be unleashed, to quell the electricity which ricocheted off Legend and moved towards the canyon ferociously, but Nyota harnessed it.

The apprentice’s starless eyes continued to search the walls, and when she found it, a wide, accomplished smile creased her lips. There was a deep crack, a slab of the wall, which looked like it could fall at any moment. As she moved closer to it, her Earth growled hungrily and the Lightning intensified; Nyota’s hair stood on end from the static. Rivulets of rainwater gathered beneath her hooves, filling the canyon with a slick, thin layer of liquid. She chose her path carefully as she crept towards the side of the blood-red canyon, and with each step she felt the Lightning pulse stronger. When she was nearly below the near-to-falling slab, a bright flash of white light impaired her vision and she curled her head against her body.

The Earth finally roared free, and as the jagged lightning hit the stone, it pulled the apprentice away from the wall. Her footsteps, surging with the power of her element, turned the ground beneath her from red stone to black glass, but she hardly noticed. Pieces of the wall began to crumble and fall, landing around her in a jagged pattern. Her Element repelled them away from the apprentice, but when the slab had finished falling it did not stop working.

Nyota lifted her eyes to the wall, where a huge portion of the slab was now missing. Part of it still clung to the canyon, refusing to be torn down by the Lightning, but below that part, a small hole had been revealed. As Nyota moved towards it, the storm began to quiet and the fierce rain and lightning quieted until only a soft mist enveloped the canyon.

Grateful for the peace, Nyota again bottled her Element, which growled angrily at the presence of the shard – which so obviously powered Lightning. The apprentice squeezed her head inside and found it, burning yellow and hot, and for some reason, she felt it shouldn’t be taken out. Blue sparks crackled along its surface now and then, and Nyota paused for several moments before allowing her chin to dip towards the shard and pull it from the hole. It clattered out of the darkness and landed at her feet, sparking and crackling. Her body, tense the entire journey, finally relaxed as the Earth wrapped itself around her and she sighed. The storm faded into distance, leaving a wintry gray sky in its wake and peace settled over the Canyon. In the distance, she could hear the clash of hooves, but that was not what held her attention. When the Elementals came to pass judgment, they’d find her like this - her head was dipped towards the shard, her eyes reflected its sparks, and curiosity was etched onto her face.

The quest was finished; she had found the piece of the shattered stone.

level one scholar, earth III