The rain tasted like metal and salt, slick on Elisse’s skin. It hammered against the corrugated iron roofs of Ossa Bay’s marketplace, a rhythmic percussion that blended with the creak of wooden carts and the guttural calls of merchants hawking their wares. Level Ten bled into a bruised purple as dawn threatened, clinging to the horizon like a stubborn stain. The air hung thick with woodsmoke and something else – a subtle, ancient scent of rust and oiled gears.
She adjusted the worn strap of her satchel, digging deeper into it for a scrap of dried lichen to chew on. The taste wasn’t pleasant, but it kept the gnawing hunger at bay. Seventeen nights. Seventeen standard nights she’d been following Corbin, a lighthouse ranger whose quiet dedication bordered on obsession. He wasn’t much to look at – weathered skin, eyes the color of slate after a storm, and a perpetual slump in his shoulders. But he possessed something that had snagged Elisse’s attention: a relentless pursuit of the impossible.
Around her, a chaotic jumble filled the square. Stalls overflowed with scavenged tech – dented solar panels, fragmented data drives, and twisted conduits. A merchant with a face permanently shadowed by a welding mask offered her a particularly shiny piece of metal, claiming it was a fragment from a sky-ship. Elisse politely declined. She needed gold, not scrap.
Then she saw them. Scattered amongst the piles of junk were the parrots. Not real birds, obviously. These were miniature automatons – polished brass bodies housing intricate clockwork mechanisms. Each one meticulously buffed a piece of fallen gold ornamentation, replicating the shimmering patterns of ocean plumes. They’d been designed to mimic the legendary Sunstone scale sightings, a shimmering gold said to be found only in the deepest currents. Corbin had bought them specifically for this occasion, a private ceremony honoring his time spent observing the beam of the lighthouse.
A man approached her stall, a tangle of grey hair spilling from beneath a stained leather cap. He carried himself with an unnerving, deliberate slowness. His eyes, though sharp and intense, held a faint sadness.
“You’ve got an eye for detail,” he observed, his voice gravelly, like stones tumbling down a hillside. “Remarkable. You understand the obsession.”
Elisse nodded, carefully examining one of the parrots. Its brass wings whirred silently as it polished a piece of gold that resembled a captured sunset. “I understand the need to replicate,” she replied, her voice low.
“Orn’He,” he continued, his gaze fixed on the parrots, “keeps requesting permission to examine them more closely. He claims they’re not simply replicating; he insists they contain ‘subconscious echoes’ of the Sunstone. He begs to study their mechanisms, believing it’s a key to understanding… well, everything.”
Orn’He. The name felt cold in the damp air. He moved with an unsettling grace, his fingers tracing the contours of a polished gold scale.
“He,” Orn’He said, his voice gaining an almost frantic edge, “ insists the parrots are not made. They *emerged*. He believes they grew.”
He reached into a worn leather pouch and presented Elisse with a small, intricately carved wooden box. Inside rested a single, iridescent feather – not avian, but something resembling polished jade.
“He asks if I can discern its origin,” he murmured, offering the box with a hand that was surprisingly gentle. “He believes it’s connected… somehow.”
The rain intensified, drumming a steady beat against the marketplace. The light remained stubbornly grey, clinging to the edges of the stalls and obscuring the deeper recesses of Level Ten. Elisse turned the feather over in her hand, the cool weight grounding her.
“He’s become increasingly… agitated,” Orn’He confided, his eyes narrowed with an almost palpable anxiety. “He claims the parrots are reflecting something back at him—a memory, a feeling… something he cannot articulate. He believes they’re guarding knowledge, dangerous knowledge.”
She could sense his desperation, a deep-seated fear locked beneath layers of guarded observation. “What does he want from me?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
Orn’He hesitated, his gaze shifting to the parrots, a strange flicker of something akin to recognition in his eyes. “He wants me to understand *why* they’re polishing the gold.”
“Because it mirrors The Sunstone Scale,” Elisse stated. “He wants to use them to see if he can find it.”
Orn’He’s fingers tightened around his pouch, the wooden box secure. “It isn’t gold he seeks,” He said finally, his voice barely a whisper. “He believes the Sunstone Scale is merely a reflection of something far older, far more profound.”
He looked at her directly. “Something buried beneath Ossa Bay.”
