A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"Uuuuugh," Eira groaned exaggeratedly and mumbled, "We'll never find the mistress like this…"

Yet, she still turned back to face Erik while pouting at him with resentful eyes, while quietly waiting for him to ask his questions.

Erik chuckled at her attitude before asking an important question that he didn't really believe Eira would have an answer to. "First of all, do you actually know why Earth lost its connection to the planetary network?"

This was still one of the largest unknowns for them. Elora didn't even know it was possible for a planet to break away from the network.

Unfortunately, as expected, Eira shook her head. "I don't know," she pouted with disinterest and impatience. "It happened before my time, and I never asked."

"And I guess that means you also don't know why Audumla was so sure that a reawakening would come?" he asked, ignoring her attitude for now.

"You guessed right," she snorted while still pouting.

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"Are you going to keep acting like this with the rest of my questions, Eira?" Erik grinned mischievously while raising an eyebrow. "What if I had the same attitude during my search for Audumla?"

That seemed to quickly scare the sigil construct straight, as a panicked look appeared in her eyes. "N— No! S— Sorry! I'll be good! Please ask away!"

Erik chuckled again. Despite being the oldest person in the room, this Eira seemed less mature than the ten-year-old Alice. Luckily, she was easy to control so long as he appeared to be going after Audumla.

Erik removed the gauntlet from his right hand, took a step closer to Eira, and petted her hair with a smile. "Good girl. Here's my next question: how and why did Audumla create so many first-rankers across the globe, even before the awakening started? Doing it for my ancestors was obvious, but why so many others?"

A smile appeared on Eira face as she greatly enjoyed his hand on her head and even began to chuckle a little, "hehehehe". Most of her grievances were quickly forgotten and she began to answer his question with the same enthusiasm as before.

"I don't really know the specifics of the how," she began, "but basically, she would give someone a medallion, and they could charge it with aetherium at any altar across the world. Then they could simply siphon aetherium from the medallion to increase their power."

"What?!" Elora exclaimed loudly in Erik's head. "That's impossible! That medallion didn't have any aetherium storage sigils! You can't directly store aetherium in metal! And where did the aetherium even come from?! No, wait, I can guess that one.

The Altars must be connected to her dimension somehow… Erik, take out the medallion!"

Erik chuckled at Elora's shock and didn't mind what sounded like an order. He couldn't deny to being curious as well.

So he took out the medallion, and Erik immediately felt even more shock pass through his link with Elora. "It's… It's filled to the brim with aetherium! I didn't notice before because Eira had just appeared, but it must have happened while you pushed it into that second altar!"

Erik raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "You mentioned before you didn't recognize the metal composition, right? So I guess we discovered its special property…"

"I'll say!" Elora exclaimed while she wildly extended her senses through Erik's hand and into the medallion. "Where the hell did they get this stuff!"

Erik decided to ask Eira, his eyebrow still raised. "Do you know where Audumla got these things, Eira?"

Eira scrunched up her face in thought, but quickly shook her head sadly. "I don't. S— Sorry," she pouted.

"It's alright, Eira," Erik smiled, while taking off his other gauntlet and petting the minotaur girl with one hand, while holding the medallion with the other. "Why don't you tell me why she did this, instead?"

"Mistress did it to create a power balance," she explained while enjoying Erik's caresses. "After the guardians transitioned into the hunters, most of the medallions were in their hands, so Mistress realized that they would quickly start growing out of control if she didn't do anything.

So, while traveling with Merlin, she handed medallions to several vampires, shapeshifters, and even some humans, who she deemed wise and peaceful enough to use that power well. Mistress also created a bunch more altars at the same time," Eira finally finished.

Erik nodded thoughtfully, "And then, over the years, those medallions must have passed on into various other hands, either through violence or inheritance."

"Yeah," Elora answered in his head absentmindedly, as she was still focused on the medallion. "Which might also mean that some of those third-rankers out there have heard stories about Audumla, and might even feel indebted to her. We might be able to use that in the future…"

"Alright," Erik nodded at Eira. "Next question: how did you discover Edda's location when my mother asked for it?"

"Hmpf, right, Runa was very annoying that day…" Eira tried to look frustrated, but she couldn't stop the happy smile from appearing due to Erik's petting. Still when she continued, even his petting didn't stop sadness from seeping in. "I just asked Mistress… that was back when I could still contact her. But I don't know how she knew."

'That's not unexpected I suppose,' Erik shrugged inwardly, before continuing.

"Alright, Eira, second to last question, I promise, but it's a big one: Why only me? Why let this whole thing ride on only a single person? So many things could have gone wrong over the ungodly amount of years since her plans were set in motion, so why no redundancies? The whole plan almost failed due to what happened to me."

Eira shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. "Simple, the harbinger needed a spatial affinity seed, and mistress only had one of those. It was a matter of necessity."

"It's a spatial affinity seed?!" Elora nearly screamed in Erik's mind. "No fucking wonder I can't find the damn thing! Erik, you need to get this woman to do whatever she needs to do to activate that seed! No matter what it takes!"

Fighting the urge to scratch his ear from the ringing in his head due to Elora's volume, Erik's eyes also flashed with some greed and desire.

"Yeah, about that affinity seed," he began, while softly chuckling at Elora's behavior. "That was going to be my final question. What can you tell me about that?"