Look, Gard wasn’t supposed to be the one who changed the world. He was just a scout for the Fangrock Clans, the guy they sent out to make sure nobody was trying to sneak up on their territory. Not exactly the “destiny’s chosen one” type, if you know what I mean.
But here’s the thing about destiny – it’s got a weird sense of humor.
He found the stone during a routine patrol of the Lower Fangs, those nasty knife-edge cliffs nobody visits because they’re too sharp to climb and too unstable to trust. His birthmark – the usual mountain-peak pattern all earth mages get – started itching like crazy the moment he got close to this one particular cliff face.
Now, most Fangrock scouts would’ve marked it on their maps and moved on. That’s the job. That’s the safe play.
Gard poked it with his magic instead.
The cliff didn’t just respond – it sang. Not like those fancy wave-singers down in Riftcaller Coast. This was different. This was the voice of the earth itself, speaking in harmonies that made his bones vibrate and his birthmark burn.
“Well,” he muttered, watching his birthmark spread across his chest in patterns he’d never seen before, “this can’t be good.”
Turns out, he was right. And wrong. Mostly wrong.
Because that cliff? It wasn’t just singing. It was teaching. Every note carried memories – ancient ones, from back when the elements weren’t just forces to be used, but actual voices you could talk to. Back when earth mages didn’t just move stones, they spoke with them.
Gard sat there for three days, learning a language nobody had spoken in centuries. His waterskin ran dry, his rations ran out, and his birthmark kept growing until it covered most of his torso in swirling patterns that looked suspiciously like writing.
When he finally stumbled back into the Fangrock camp, he was babbling about stones that could think and mountains that could remember. The clan elders thought he’d lost his mind from sun exposure.
Right up until he opened his mouth and made every piece of granite in the camp rise up and dance.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Because the Granitehold Dynasty? They’ve got spies everywhere. And news about some Fangrock barbarian who could make stones dance? That traveled fast.
Within a week, there were “diplomatic envoys” from three different earth kingdoms camping outside Fangrock territory. Within two weeks, the Zephyrgale Skyhost was “coincidentally” running patrol patterns that just happened to pass over their cliffs. And somewhere in the depths of Maralyd, a certain water mage with spiral birthmarks was staring at reports about earth magic acting very, very strangely.
Gard just wanted to learn more about what the stones were trying to tell him. But now he’s sitting on the biggest secret in Tempesta – that the elements aren’t just powers to be used.
They’re trying to wake up.
And they’ve got a lot to say about how their magic’s been used these past few centuries.
The elders keep telling Gard to be careful, to keep quiet about what he’s learned. But have you ever tried to keep a mountain quiet once it starts talking?
Yeah, me neither. This ought to be interesting.