Chương 524: Chapter 526: Connections

We made our way through the halls of the mist palace once more, as I pondered what connection existed between the fog pillar and cyclone where the fog clouds were created. If the fog pillar's domain expanded right after the cyclone was weakened, it was obvious that there was some kind of relationship between the two. The palace itself only served to confirm my thoughts. It looked much different than before. It seemed more solid than last time we had been here.

Even though it was still made entirely of clouds and mist, in every other aspect it was far more. Part of it was due to the sheer amount of essence now thrumming through the walls, floors, and ceiling. Previously, there had been faint traces of essence in the whole structure, but now it was like the difference between standing by a campfire and standing in the middle of an inferno. I could feel the constant churning, bubbling, and grinding of essence as it whirled through our surroundings in a mad, chaotic cycle.

It felt kind of like being inside of someone's essence pool - even though, as far as I knew, that was impossible, because essence pools weren't physical entities in the first place. Even more noticeable than the essence was the conceptual side of things. Last time I had been here, I hadn't detected anything unusual from the conceptual side. It had just felt like a giant palace of semisolid clouds, complete with decorations and the giant sapient column in the center of the palace.

Now, it felt like I could detect very faint aspects of the concept of fog, or mist, or something of the sort as it traced its way through our surroundings. It was just noticeable enough to alert my eldritch half, if barely. I got the feeling that, at least from a conceptual standpoint, the concept of mist was much weaker here than my concept of hope as far as depth and refinement went - almost as if the mist pillar had a lower tier skill than my own.

However, while the mist pillar might have a lower tier on the conceptual scale than the concept of 'hope' residing within me, it had a much greater amount of essence backing up its movements. I didn't know what to make of the whole thing, so I just noted it down, sent the information to my friends, and kept moving. Just like before, in the second room we encountered, we saw a picture of a woman with jade-colored hair fighting fog banks. Not much had changed in this area, so we ignored it as we moved forward.

Finally, we made our way back to the main chamber of the mist palace. There, to my surprise, I noticed that Felix was standing in the room, holding a little container and talking animatedly with the fog pillar. <Felix? You're here too? > I asked. <After the fog domain expanded far enough, this palace appeared right in front of me. I figured that since we've had a decent trading relationship before, I could at least hear the mist pillar out. It's trying to trade for the bottled fog I just acquired, > said Felix.

<After all, I also want to know why the fog pillar's domain suddenly expanded a lot after I weakened the cyclone. I have some suspicions, but any new information I could gather might save us a big headache down the road… > Before Felix could finish speaking, the fog pillar hummed at us. I felt a certain weight fall upon me a moment later. It wasn't malicious - the fog bank wasn't trying to pressure me or harm me in any way.

Still, I got the distinct feeling that all of the air in the room weighed more than it had a moment before. <Does anyone else feel that? > I asked, before I transmitted my best impression of the strange weight in the room to my friends. <I don't, > said Sallia. <I can also get a faint impression of the concept of fog from your communications with us, but I can't detect it myself. So maybe the fog pillar has some kind of eldritch nature that you're detecting? > I nodded. That made some amount of sense, at least.

"Ah, more humans. It is a pleasure to see all of you. Now that all of you are here, I'd really like to ask what you would want in exchange for the container that elderly gentleman is holding," said the fog column. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I blinked at the living column, and then turned to Felix. Was Felix the 'elderly gentleman' the fog pillar was referring to? I kneaded my temples and tried not to chuckle.

The fog pillar's understanding of human biology was as bad as ever. First it had mistaken Anise for a boy, and now it thought Felix was elderly.

"Why do you want Felix's mist container so much?" asked Veritum. Then, he turned towards Felix.

"Also, Felix, what do you intend to do with the container?" Felix sighed. <I was really hoping that we wouldn't need to discuss the container of mist at all, > he admitted. <I was thinking I could turn it into something amazing for the four of us to use upon returning to the Market, but if Veritum knows about it, it might be hard for me to keep it. > Then, Felix spoke with his real voice.

"I think that the mist here can be used to create something special. But I am also curious - why do you want the mist here so much? Even before the others arrived, you've been quite persistent in asking me what I would want in exchange for the fog I collected, but I don't understand why it means so much to you. A fair trade should be based upon mutual understanding of the value of an item, right?" The fog pillar seemed reluctant to say anything at first.

Instead, I felt the pressure in the room faintly increase for a few moments, before the pressure decreased again. I had no idea what to make of the constant pressure fluctuations.

"The reason I am so intent upon acquiring the fog is because it is literally part of me," said the fog pillar.. I blinked in surprise. That wasn't what I was expecting to hear.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"As you may have noticed, many of the creatures native to this island share a… common trend." I looked at the fog pillar, and immediately realized what it was talking about.

"Almost everything native to this island is made of fog," I said. The fog banks, the fog pillar, the fog sprites, the minions summoned by the fog banks were all heavily fog and mist themed. I hadn't actually thought very much about this, since this could have been attributed to any number of reasons. The ecosystem of this island might just be uniquely suited for fog-based life forms, or perhaps there was some kind of other ecological reason why fog monsters thrived here. It could have also been pure coincidence.

But since the fog creature had mentioned it, the fog-heavy environment of this island was probably not natural at all." The overlap between different kinds of monsters on this island, as well as myself, is not coincidental. About a hundred years ago, a traveller from another plane borrowed part of my body… by ripping it off and using it to create the fog cyclone that you encountered. That old man marched into my palace, after I greeted him with an offer of trade, and decided that he did not like my terms.

So he instead stole what he wanted, and then used a powerful spell to confine me within my domain. That spell has been weakening over time - but it would have likely lasted another century or two without your intervention." I felt a strange sense of pity for the fog pillar. At least so far, it had been a fair trading party with us. To have a guest come into the palace, beat it up, and then steal half of its body must have been quite traumatic.

I had no idea how the fog pillar's biology worked, but I imagined the whole process had probably hurt, at least.

"So if I gave you the fog, would you end up reattaching it to your body somehow?" asked Felix.

"That is the plan. I will reabsorb it, and then I would like to request for you to acquire the rest of the cyclone and give it to me as well. With my body reunited, I should be able to shake off that old spell and finally regain my mobility," said the fog pillar.

"Even if I am quite sedentary, there is quite a difference between choosing not to move and being utterly incapable of moving."

"Is the cyclone itself part of the spell confining you? Otherwise, I struggle to see why just the act of weakening it would make your domain expand so much," said Veritum.

"Correct."

"If we help you, wouldn't we make an enemy out of the mage that injured you all those years ago? What happened to that mage?" asked Anise.

"Said Mage went on an ill-fated attempt to try conquering the entire underground sea, by creating a few unique monsters and some 'monster factories' to build an army for himself. He got wiped out by a coalition of the other independent cities here, since even if the natives of the underground sea were notably weaker than the average planar traveller, there were still plenty of powerhouses that could fight back. He ripped away part of my body about a century ago, and got killed about two years later.

Unless he has some kind of resurrection method that has not activated in the past century, you do not need to fear retaliation from him." If we didn't need to fear retaliation from a higher level mage, then helping the mist pillar wasn't exactly a death sentence for us. In that case, it was simply a question of whether we wanted to accept this trade deal or not. Veritum waved Felix over, and then the entire hunting party retreated to discuss amongst ourselves.

While we hadn't hammered out any materials we could get in exchange for returning the mist pillar's body to it, we first needed to discuss a more fundamental question - was strengthening the fog pillar and restoring its body to full strength something we wanted to do? It was time to make a decision.