"That would explain a lot, such as the engravings for example..." he hesitatingly began saying, remembering the ridiculous strength and mana that seemed to never tire out..." looking down at his feet, feeling slightly disappointed that the power was gone now.
"Yes, my... donatee... had the same reaction as you right now, but those engravings, they are inside you, they didn't vanish, I can say that for certain..." Adelius said absentmindedly.
"How did you do it back then?"
"It wasn't that complicated, but I don't think you'd be able to do it right now."
"Could you try to teach me?"
"Sure, it'd be a help to you eventually I'd guess..."
"...thanks..."
Adelius stood up, stretching his legs that now seemed to belong to a rather round sixty year old, powerful and with muscles, seeming to be how he looked back when he had been thirty from what Avere was able to tell from the sparce remnants of the king's memories.
As he stretched once more, he touched Avere's head, faster than he could even follow, "don't be too surprised, this is just so you get a sense of what I'm doing, it isn't likely you'd understand it right away."
Indeed, Avere didn't understand.
Somehow, it felt as if he was being lifted up, as if his weight had vanished and something was being carried, just as he had once thought an apex-rank felt, and even the lord-rank, but now realized only he had felt, along with countless others.
This time the power gained wasn't as great, by far, probably only a few tiny percentiles, it was only a taste of the feeling of what had to happen after all, but Avere at least knew that part of the task now.
"Say, " Adelius began as he said back down, now on a footstool made of black leather with golden nails holding it down and giving it a kind of checkered design, the foots of the stool made of wood, old and with quite a root-like design.
"Why do you even take the form of a human right now?"
"A human... is that what I am?"
He hesitated, thinking hard.
"Never heard of that species."
"They are rather poor at most tasks, their main skill being their adaptability, greater than many of us, and living at least twice as long as myself, though that is certainly not that great a feat... then there is the fact that they are most often kept alone by the hands of gods, weird text-based systems, and much more." he rattled the facts down as he counted them on his hands.
"Huh..." good to know, Avere thought, and did not say.
"Well, what I actually wanted to ask was, why don't you retake the form of an ehetrian right now?"
Avere felt excited now, he did quite enjoy the thought of flying after all.
"What? How the f#ck would I do that now?"
He made a confused expression, partially supposed to humourize what Avere had just said, seeing it as hilarious and funny how unknowing he had just been.
"This place is made of experiences, by the grace of the great pillar of experiences, you can take whatever form you desire, though, often, it is decided by other factors in the end..."
"What factors?"
"Why don't you look at your back?"
Avere tried to turn around but was met with a great black falcon's wings, the feathers neatly ordered in a row, each big enough to be used as quite the good quill from his( technically illegal) experience as an artificer who was lazy enough to just do that.
"How in the actual f#cking grace of motherf#cking f#cker godling b#tch..."
"Woah!" he moved his hands, once more gesturing to stop and calm down, once more being absurdly effective for some, probably rank-related, reason.
"Pretty sure grammar just f#cking left your language behind, didn't it?"
He felt kind of embarassed.
"Yeah..." he said, hiding the shame behind a sad voice.
"To answer the question, the appearance was chosen by yourself, and now, you wanted to be ehetrian again, so you are."
"How does that even work?"
"Not entirely sure... and I probably wouldn't understand it, after all, the great pillar himself once explained it to me and I got nothing to show for it..."
"Why in f#ck's sake would a great pillar just talk with you?"
"I asked them to, via prayer."
"That answers f#cking nothing..."
"Well, there is rarely anyone willing to talk with them, and there is rarely anyone that is already dead just praying to them to talk, especially one involved in their trials, and it's even rare if that person that is praying had held a pillar contract during life, so they just allowed me to talk."
"That still doesn't expl-"
"I mean, what reason do they have to hide knowledge from me, or anyone else, really?"
"I mean.."
"They probably do have some history, some kind of story, but if I had to guess most of their real enemies probably already know about it since eons, then there is the fact that we are all equal to them, then there is the fact that everyone likes to talk... well, I mean, at least I f#cking hope they like talking..."
"...."
"From my limited experience, a good thing when talking to them is being energetic, and comedic... meaning, don't take them too serious, that's what they always get, and they are probably annoyed by it, it's basically their formal speech in some manner or another, so just be calm and speak with humour."
Avere fluttered his wings, his mouth being open, his brain long since having stopped braining from what he had just heard coming from a dead king that had even once been involved with ehetria.
"Probably doesn't count for all of them, but they most certainly already know everything you'll say, so why bother not asking when they know you want to ask?"
He stopped abruptly, turning to Avere, raising a finger.
"But, while I do enjoy talking, I think you might enjoy testing those wings of yours."
And as he raised his finger, the world under Avere turned into a typhoon, abruptly shooting him upwards, towards the seemingly endlessly tall tower, a tower whose ceiling he couldn't even see, the only hindrance to him being bridges built to be easily passable, and the platforms which even a drunk ehetrian could evade.
Or, a human, he guessed.