Sunlight glinted off of the glossy surface of a crimson liquid. Blood poured out of a shallow cut, which should've closed by now. Unexpectedly, an invisible will lifted it into the air, breaking surface tension with a young man's worn skin. In the air, it gravitated towards a larger mass of blood floating in front of the young man.
'Might as well capitalize on this opportunity.'
Blood continually poured out of his many wounds, all conglomerating into one mass in front of him. He held both hands close to his chest. He needed some practice with his new ability after all.
'...'
The ball moved closer to his hand, barely touching it. Like a juggler, he threw it into the air, letting it fly and land on his other hand. Once again, he repeated this, throwing the ball up and catching it with the other hand.
'Once I get comfortable with one, I can move to two.'
"Keep it up! Maybe you'll get a job at a circus someday."
"I'd rather do that than become an electrician. Say, how come people don't use their attunements in technology?"
Valerie paced ahead of him as he juggled.
"Well, you know, people used to. A long time ago. And I mean, a really long time ago. Wanna guess what happened?"
"What?"
"I told you to guess"
Really?'
Quies juggled the singular mass of blood between his two hands as he pondered. It would be such a waste to not take advantage of the song in such a way, so why do the people of lumen not use it as extensively as they could?
'Well in that case, there has to be a valid reason for such an avoidance. It doesn't take a genius to find out how to utilize the song in, say, powering homes with electricity. Imagine all of the tech that could be found hiding beneath the tides.'
He continued juggling.
"Well, you think about that. Here's what I've been thinking about for the past couple of minutes. In case we aren't able to get enough information about the lord, Maestro said there was a fragment of something called the forge laying around in Erisia."
"...You're saying you want to go there after we're done with Etris?"
"Yeah, basically. Even if we do get enough information, I still think we should go to Erisia to retrieve it. Who knows? Maybe it could fix your rep with the Vigils."
"Maybe it could…"
Quies thought for a moment what this implied for him.
"How dangerous would it be?"
"Ah, well, that's the thing. Fragments of the Forge of Sin are scattered all around the luminants. I'm kinda just… hoping to come across one while exploring."
"Doesn't answer my question."
Valerie looked at Quies with a hint of annoyance.
"Well, it depends. How deep do you want to go? I would doubt that the lower areas of Erisia, the safer region of the drifting island, would have any fragments left. Now, if you want to, you can choose to go deeper and higher into Erisia. It's like a completely different place up there, but fragments should be… relatively easier to come across. N-no corrupted monsters, though."
Valerie waved her hands violently in front of her.
"Can't say I've found a fragment during my stay in lower Erisia."
'I guess what this means for me is… Well, Valerie should be able to take care of most of the threats there when we go. However, I should still work on myself to be able to fight, or at least stand a chance, against upper Erisian creatures. Considering her final statement, they shouldn't be too bad.'
"What do you mean by that last statement? Like, uhh, what are monsters classified by?"
Valerie stopped her pacing.
"There isn't really a standardized method of categorizing creatures throughout the luminants. I've seen people use grades, while some others use names and titles to categorize them. From what I've learned as a diver, we categorize them by threat and strength, giving appropriate titles to their level of strength as well as their characteristics, I guess."
"For characteristics, most monsters could be filtered down into three categories: beasts, constructs, and humanoids. Pretty self explanatory. Beasts are monsters, like a megalodaunt. Constructs are sort of creatures, but also not really. They're creatures animated using the power of the song. Humanoids are basically beasts, but they look more human. You know, two arms, two legs, one head, biped…"
"For strength within these classes, you should be able to tell mostly by size and how they look. However, some creatures may be corrupted. That is, they've spent a little too much time dwelling in the depths. That should work for… most creatures."
'Maybe I should juggle two now, I'm getting pretty comfortable.'
Quies flicked his hand and parted his fingers, splitting the ball of blood into two and sending the other half into his other hand.
"And what about the other creatures."
Valerie sat down as Quies spoke. In her sitting position, she answered his question sternly.
"Trust me, you won't be meeting… them… anytime soon."