Keeper's Knowledge (Balancer's Soul cycle) (80 page)

Sorono now grinned.
“On to
more pleasant news
,
f
irst this will be the last
mandatory
Elders meeting.
Should you still seek our assistance we will be here for your needs
.
”
A
long sigh of relief
escaped
from the crowd.
“Also this meeting will end a month earlier. I can tell you are all getting a bit
jaded
already.”
Sarah
could see nodding all around.
“One last thing
,
the special event for this quarter century will be dancin
g. We will have a total of six dances. For the last six
days of the meeting
,
we will have a dance a day. I will have materials brought here by tomorrow morning
. I called in the materials and my companion will have them
delivered
here.
Y
ou wi
ll have to design and wear six
different
styles of
outfits.
The women will work down here in this room
while
the men will work
up
on level one. There will be dance lessons
held
on level three for those who don’t know the different styles for dancing. Anyone with dance experience and is willing to teach will be greatly appreciated. We will have a schedule worked out by this evening and
they
will be posted on each level
’
s central pillar
to minimize
any
confusion
.”

Sarah
witnessed
smiles appearing as people whispered
to one another in excitement. She
felt happy that everyone liked
her
idea and was accepting it
without any fuss
. Then Sorono finished by saying
“This is the end of the meeting. You may start formulating ideas on the clothes you will make and spend the rest of your time doing as you’d like. Have a good day
and thank you for understanding
.”

Molten and Frozen

The meeting was very expedient
and went without outburst or disruption
.
There had to be a reasonable explanation for yesterday and Sorono gave everyone the truth.
It took at most forty minutes and it seemed like the crowd accepted his answer. Everyo
ne was getting up to leave and Connor
was able to listen in on some of the conve
rsations. “Do you think that child
is so strong?” “I haven’t a clue, but I’m not going to give it a chance.
If an Elder says it is, I’ll believe it.
” Or a group of women
were
getting extremely excited
about the dances coming up in
the next
four months.
Connor
became
actually
and honestly
impressed at how well everyone took the lecture.

Then he
caught the silver
,
catlike
eyes of Liz. She had
mimicked the
features of a shark. She had sharp serrated teeth, smooth facial features, o
n each
side of her neck were four
gills and her arms looked more like oars. She still walked on her back feet
, but they were webbed
and
she
was dressed in a leather outfit similar to
his
sister. She still
had short hair on her head and he
couldn’t see her ears because
he came to
realize they were folded back
and had melded
with her
dark
skin
.

Connor
waved her over and
said “Firon let her up. We need
to talk.” Firon looked up at him
and nodded in recognition.

She made her way up to the three of
them
,
walking rather slowly. She
actually
looked afraid. “You wanted to see me
,
Connor?” Her voice was almost a gravely hiss
in the other state
.

“I wanted to know if you missed us
last night
?”
He
said jokingly. She smiled
with shark
-
like teeth
. “Actually I wanted to ask, when you ha
ve
time, if you could bring our things from all of our rooms down here? Our three families are sta
ying with Sorono and the other E
lders
for awhile
.”

“Is this true, Head Elder?”
She asked
,
looking up.

Sorono watc
h
ed
the
interaction closely
,
which is what Connor
would have
naturally
done.
“It is, Liz. If you would like I can deploy two Guards to assist you with bringing their belongings.”

“That would be a great help, Head Elder.” She bowed and looked up again. “Would it be permissible if I could change back?
My gills are dry.
”

“Go right on ahead.”
Sorono turned around and said
“Cassie! Marik!”
The two ran over and stopped in front of him
;
at attention.
“Please escort Liz here to her lodge and assist her with bringing my guests
’
belongings down here.”

“Sir!” They said as one. All the while this conversation happened, Liz’s bones were popping and she was returning back to normal. Her gills disappeared
and became a smooth
, seamless
neck
, her round and smoo
th fac
ial structure
return
ed
to their original place
and her ears
popped back out and
were returning to normal. She was finally herself a
s
she walked away and her two escorts followed closely.

It took twenty more minutes until the room
cleared
and during that time everyone from breakfast made their way down to
them
. Apparently
Sorono told them about showing Connor
how this place runs.
He
was indeed curious as to what kind of power source supplies this fortress
’
s electrical requirements
.

Once everyone had left and only Firon and three other Guards remained behind did Sorono say “Follow me and I’ll give you a tour of
the
power
plant.
”

The
sound of a power plant rang in their head as they
all walke
d to the central pillar. Once they
were there did Sorono take out a very large key
,
from his inner robe,
to unlock the gate to the lowest
level. He pushed the thick doors open and stepped inside.
“Go ahead because I need to close this behind us.”
Connor
started walking first and Sarah was right on
his heels. Once everyone
slipped
in they
h
eard the doors close and lock. He
waited a
s
Sorono made his way down to
the forefront again
. He kept walking down the steps and the rest
followed
.

The further down they
went through the lit steps the
warmer it became. Then it hit Connor
as to how they were able to supply so much en
ergy and not use fossil fuels. He
said aloud “Sorono, does this place actually run on geothermal energy?”

He stopped and grinned.
“Very good
…
Tell us what you know about this kind of energy and how you came to that conclusion.”
He turned around and resumed walking.

Sarah stepped forward to hear better and everyone waited for
his
elaboration. “Geothermal energy can harness power from either the sun or from the very heat of the earth. Since I didn’t see any solar panel
s on the outside of the mountain
I knew it was the ground harnessing kind. The way it works is you drill down until you reach the heat of the earth, but only to the point where water boils and becomes steam
, drilling into magma is the worst thing to happen
. The water is pumped down pip
es, becomes superheated, vaporizes into
steam and rises
back up
. The steam spins turbines and that generates the energy. The superheated steam travels through pipes until it cools back down into water and
gets superheated once again.” He
lo
oked at Sarah meaningfully.

“Oh, I got it now. It’s like the waterwheel in the stream that spins the generator. So it’s a similar process
like our home runs
.”

“Exactly.” Sorono peeked over his shoulder a
s his sibling
continued. “I figured it out because of the increasing heat. Usually when your underground things are cold
,
especially this far north, but it is so warm down here rather than freezing. I figured heat was involved and since I haven’t seen any fuel tanks
make their way down here
I knew this power was self contained
and constantly renewable
.”

“Not bad, Connor.”
Sorono s
tated
proudly. The rest of the decent was from everyone asking questions.

Five minutes later
they
arrived at
leve
l five. This room’s size resemb
led level three
. In the corner of the room
stood
the power plant.
Connor
was anxious to see it for
him
self and Sorono
kept
walking too slowly.

Connor
brought forth
his
e
nergy
,
concentrated jets of P
ressure under his
feet
and
jumped between the safety rails and unleashed
the power
.
He
heard Sarah yell
ing
“Wait!” but he
was already making
his
way to the huge piece of
electrical
equipment. Just before
he
landed on the floor
he looked over his
shoulder to see Sarah flying right behind
him
.
Connor
touched down and Sarah
followed his example
a few seconds later.
Sarah
became
speechless as she studied the outside of the building
and forgot all about his excitement
.

Before
them stood
a relatively small power plant
, but more than sufficient to run the entire meeting for a very long time
. The plant itself is only three stories
tall and about
one hundred and fifty
feet long in any direction. It was encased in concrete and above the building held two pipes aimed at a sixty degree angle. It went through the side of the
mountain
wall and Connor
knew that was where the
dangerous
gases were released out the side of the mountain. There was only one clear entrance and it was a large blue metal door with a large doorknob.

It took another five minutes before everyone finally
spiraled down and
joined them
. Kara had a permanent grin plastered to her face, but Jillian didn’t. She said “Don’t do that to me again. Yes I know you two can fly, but next time warn me before you two go jumping off the stairs.”

“Hey Sorono!”
Connor
said
,
ignoring
his
mother-in-law
’s complaining
. “Can we go in or is it too dangerous?” Jillian wasn’t too thrilled about being ignored
so blatantly
.