The following day arrived without incident back at the tower. Just after breakfast, several men came to renovate the building and provide the furniture Illaria had ordered on everyone's behalf. The group had migrated out beneath the pavilion because of how noisy a process it was.
"Perhaps it's about time we be getting back to the Blue Banner Army," Illaria mused out loud.
"No, Bait still need to learn more about cheese from Ben!"
"Yeah, you can't leave so soon!" Naya exclaimed. "Besides, you can't leave me with these two bookworms. When will I ever get to do fun things, like drink, sing, and dance to your songs?"
"You can drink without me, Naya, and there are plenty of other talented singers here in Sha-Laial," Illaria said.
"Yeah, but none of them sing rousing sea shanties," insisted Naya. "I've heard four sonnets dedicated to the local lords in the past week. All of them were boring."
"I should at least send a message back to the fleet and see if there is anything they have planned. I wouldn't want to miss the action," Illaria said.
"Well then, let's head to the academy. Offering support to the banners is a common thing. Maybe they can do a sending for you to your commanding officer," Mavec suggested.
"CAL, CAl CLATTERBACK!" Bait bellowed. "Bait no talk to Cal. He make me pee off back of boat like rest of crew. Bait want whole boat to be stinky, Cal no let it by confining pee stink to back of boat."
"That's Commodore Cal Clatterback to you," Illaria chided.
A short ways away, the hot spring, which they had still not had time to check out, began to roil and pop, sending jets of water splashing dangerously onto the worked stone around it.
"Well, that's a new one," Alvec said as he directed his thoughts to the gargoyles. "Is that normal for the hot spring?" A long silence greeted him before a terse answer.
"No, I would investigate that carefully if I were you."
Alvec nodded. "I think we've got two reasons... no, three to visit the academy."
"Four, I requested to speak to someone who knows Old Imperial. Just got confirmation they found the time to meet with me." Mavec replied.
"Why do we want to learn Old Imperial again?" Naya asked.
"We need to know what Kaavas means. It's clearly important, but we've only seen it in writing. Old Imperial has a lot of tonal differences that aren't conveyed well in ink. Doubly so if the person writing it isn't an expert in it, which I doubt Vato was," Mavec replied.
"Why are we even concerned about this in the first place? Some dying wizard said he feared it, and we fought a monster? Isn't that some normal adventuring stuff?" Naya asked again.
"I mean, maybe, but we live here, and he made it sound like we were in for an awful time," Alvec said.
"Besides, there's little reason not to investigate it. It's not like we have too much going on right now. After yesterday, I hope it stays that way for a bit. I've fought more devils this week than I imagined I'd see in all my life," Mavec said.
"Same. I thought a bear would be the worst thing I'd ever have to hunt. Not hell hounds and strange ant-devils," Naya said.
"Before we head out, though, I've been thinking," Mavec said. "I still have a lot of gold on hand. Maybe we should hire some help. A maid might be good for having someone around here and tidying up while we're gone. Maybe even feeding the horde of cats living in the stable. Ya know, whatever we want to pay them for."
"How much would that even cost?" Alvec asked.
"I crunched the numbers," Mavec said, tapping his head. "Roughly three gold a month. A minimal investment when you consider that we'll be able to return to a well-maintained household from wherever we went. Not to mention, the gig should be fairly easy whenever we're away, too."
"Alright, I'll front some gold for it," Alvec said, sliding a few gold pieces onto the table.
"I think we all can," Illaria said, supplying a few as well.
"Alright, by my math, we can pay a six-month salary upfront. I'll start advertising next time we stop in the tavern," Illaria said.
"Wow, I'll have a servant. Sorry, guys, this is breaking my brain a bit. This is the sort of thing royalty have, not me. Right?" Naya asked.
"Welcome to adventuring; the dangers are very great, the sleeping arrangements are shitty most nights, but the pay is absurdly good," Illaria said.
The group chatted at the table for a while before departing across town for the academy. The very first thing Alvec did was rush in and hand off a letter to the administration. He ducked back out before anyone could read it and rejoined the group as they headed for the evocation wing of the campus. Mavec and himself had decided that if anyone were going to have a clue as to what was going on with the hot springs, it would be whoever the head of the evocation department was. It didn't take them long to find them either; the loud, thunderous booms brought them to a heavily fortified room where active demonstrations were given to students.
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"Now, see here, by using additional spell reagents, you can fortify your spells further. An additional dash of bat guano provides just a little extra oomph to your fire spells." He cast out a fireball, and as he said, it burst far wider than usual. Though Alvec wouldn't describe it as extra oomph, it was more the speed at which the magic reacted to the will of the caster and expanded out from its central point. It was still beneficial, but it wouldn't do more damage. Instead, it would be harder to dodge—still a precious lesson. Having just a little extra material on hand could save your life.
The pair waited patiently for the demonstration to be over. As the students filtered out of the room, the man approached them. He was also a tiefling with dark blue skin and long silvery horns curved out of his head like a gazelle. His robes were a clean, crisp orange that popped against his skin. "Hello, how may I help you?" He said, greeting them.
Alvec and Mavec produced their badges, symbolizing that they had already graduated from an accredited institution. “I’m Alvec, Abjurer of Ot-Najan”
"And I'm Mavec, an artificer of Jai-Anorona."
"And I am Tivix, head of the Department of Evocation here at Sha-Laial. How may I be of assistance to fellow graduates?"
"We recently inherited this property, which has this strange hotspring," said Mavec. "We've been guessing it might be connected to the elemental facet of water, but we really don't know enough about it to be sure. Today, it started roiling and popping off bubbles of near-boiling water. So we thought we'd stop here and ask if you'd heard of such a thing?" Mavec explained. It felt a little strange to be leading most of the conversations for Mavec, but Alvec was lost in his thoughts. Alvec would share eventually. Till then, Mavec wasn't going to press.
Tivix put his hand to his neatly trimmed white beard. "Your assumption sounds correct. For unknown reasons, the Empire of Fire and Water has very thin veils between the facets of Fire and Water. What you're describing could be a nexus point, somewhere so thin that magically aided travel between them would be quite easy."
"Should we worry about things coming through from the other side?" Mavec asked.
"It is hypothetically possible, though it seems a bit unlikely," Tivix mused. "It might not hurt to pop an alarm spell up there if you think it could be dangerous. You'd at least know if something or someone came through the other side."
"That's a very reasonable suggestion. Thank you, master Tivix," Mavec replied.
"We can set that up," Alvec confirmed. "If you want to master Tivix, you are more than welcome to come look at it; we're at 889 Scythefell Street."
"Perhaps I will, though not for a few days, most likely. I've got much of my own research to do here at the academy and lectures to give as well. Though I'm sure you're both aware of how to use reagents to augment your casting."
"Well aware of it, but we haven't needed to up our game any," Mavec said.
"Maybe not a bad idea to invest a little extra, though," Alvec mused.
"All things considered, yeah, probably not a bad idea."
"Well then, I've got to prepare for my next set of demonstrations," said Tivix. "Be safe, and use protection from the elements if you have it. The last thing you want is to get burned by scalding water," he said as he ushered the two of them out the door.
The pair split up, Alvec rejoined the rest of the group while Mavec headed to the library for his appointment with the Old Imperial specialist. The library at the academy of Sha-Laial was one of the biggest Mavec had seen; it had spectacular lighting, with crystal sconces whose light level you could control with a small dial at the base of each of them. Neater yet, they cast different shades of light, a vast boon depending upon the composition of the paper and the ink upon the page. A piece too white hit with bright sunlight was most challenging to read, but bathed in a soft yellow light, the words would pop off the page. Best yet, they had adjustable lamps made of metal filament with the same crystals at the end. You could gently position them over your book to give off the right amount of light from the right angle.
It was a far cry from the small library he had grown up in, where he had first built a construct. He missed the tiny little guy. Warren had forced him to abandon all of his creations. It had been a real shock to Mavec that Cellocht had chosen to recognize him. Sure, his water purifier had been a tremendous technological improvement for the town of Jai-Laeal, but Mavec had taken the heat for several things he hadn't done and been run out of town over it. It was all in the past now. Adventuring with Alvec offered a lot of possibilities, even if he felt like he was in over his head most days. He was getting stronger, though; he'd never imagined casting a lightning bolt. That spell was so far beyond him when he first left home. To think that he could do it any time now, every day of the week, was a bit crazy.
It wasn't too long of a wait in the library before a human woman who looked maybe a decade or two older than Mavec came up and introduced herself as Tani Auwin. "You're the one looking to talk about Old Imperial? I'm something of an expert; we can borrow one of the side rooms, or we can talk right here," she said. Her hair was a sandy brown, which fell in delicate curls to her shoulders.
"I think I'd like to speak in the side rooms; my interest in this is related to a sensitive topic," Mavec informed her.
"Alright, follow me," She said as she led him towards a side room with a small table and a glass door. She wore the academy's standard robes, though some embroidery indicated that she was not only a graduate but a researcher. The academy must have decided they needed someone here who could decode the Old Imperial speech.
"Alright, so how much are you looking to decode?" She asked after she closed the door and sat down.
"A single word. Kaavas."
"Is that the correct pronunciation?" She asked.
"No earthly idea; it's come up in our travels twice. Once from a guy coughing up a lung. The other time was in writing, with no accent marks," Mavec said.
"With a single word of this length? Between three to six if I had to guess."
"Alright, hit me with it; what are we looking at?" She took a moment to go over it.
"For example, if it pronounced Kavaa-s, that would mean filth great or great filth. Ka-vaas would translate roughly to foul light. If it were Kav-aas it could read as many growth. Or Ka-va-as would be something like Foul Flight circle."
"Those all sound awful," Mavec said. "If we can discover the pronunciation, would you help us look for references to this Kaavas?"
"I could certainly try. Our resources here are not as good as the capitals or Ac-Aziza's, but we have a fairly robust collection of historical tomes."
"Thanks; I'll be sure to contact you if I find anything that helps us confirm what this means." The two said their goodbyes, and Mavec rejoined the rest of the group.
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B: Ha, the title of the story ruins the mystery a little bit, doesn’t it? The players puzzled over this for a long time until it’s true translation came out. But ‘A Foul Light Shines’ was way too awesome a title to pass on.