1

The explorers spread out in different parts of the hall, looking for anything that could be used to access the formless knowledge captured in the crystalline containers, though none could well tell what the mechanism should look like.

“Nice catch, Izumi,” Waramoti told the woman. “Keep it up.”

“Ah, sure.” Izumi looked around, already fully absorbed in this puzzle of intrigue. If she were the Precursors’ architect, where would she place such an invaluable device?

“Don’t suppose they buried that one in the floor too?” Tidaal lazily pondered, making little effort to search.

Depending on the intricacy of the device, it was likely that the reader was not left out standing in the open, but somehow protected, and thereby hidden from view.

“I know!” Yubilea bounced up excitedly, unable to keep hidden. “You should cast Statha to find it! Do it! Do it quickly! I want to see what’s in the crystal!”

“No way,” Izumi mumbled in answer. “Doing it gives me a headache.”

“Maybe the reader is somewhere upstairs,” Till contemplated. “I’ll go have a look!”

“Hmm...” Izumi was skeptical of the idea.

The upper stages would be the first to collapse over the course of time, destroying the reader along with them. The ancient people wouldn’t have made such a shortsighted decision, if the archives were truly intended to be everlasting. Then again, there might have been more than one reader in the building, so Izumi made no effort to stop the mechanic either. With a thoughtful frown, she went walking along the central aisle, towards the back of the hall.

“Aah, who puts bookshelves in the floor?” Vikland grunted, squatting between the platforms, looking for clues. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

There were no additional structures among the archive containers, that could have been somehow related. The floor was clear and solid. To begin with, what kind of recordings were they? Sound? Video? Three-dimensional projections? Purely mental, abstract imagery? Would they require speakers, or a display screen? Without knowing what type of equipment to look for, Izumi’s otherworldly knowledge was of little use.

She walked on, lifting her gaze higher.

The walls were completely bare and smooth, without decorative elements, writing, or reliefs. There weren’t even any tables or chairs. Clearly, this archive wasn’t the sort of a hangout like conventional libraries, where locals would come to meet friends and relax. It was unlikely they would come across local light novels, TV-dramas, or other lighthearted entertainment, but strictly factual chronicles.

Eventually, Izumi reached the back wall near where Acquiescas was searching, without making any noteworthy discoveries.

Maybe the tools really were somewhere higher up?

“There are more crystals here,” the professor said, kneeling on the floor by the unopened archive lid last in the line. “They must’ve fallen off the holder when it was last closed. Whoever accessed it had to have been in a great hurry.”

As the scholar had pointed out, there was a handful of crystal bars scattered at his feet. He tried to move them, but they had been glued to the floor by ice, and he soon gave up, out of the fear that he might break them.

“What’s that?” Izumi asked, turning around.

Between the end of the central aisle and the back wall was a circular, slightly elevated area. In the middle of that promoted circle stood a cylinder of stone, roughly five feet in diameter and about two feet tall. It appeared smooth and featureless all around, save for some thin lines coursing along the sides.

“It appears to be a light pedestal,” Acquiescas absentmindedly answered her. “The fire pit frame has been removed, but it looks otherwise similar to those outside by the entrance. I already gave it a look.”

“Open fire in an archive?” Izumi asked, tilting her head in doubt.

“Well, for a highly advanced magitechnical device, it is awfully plain, isn’t it?” the scholar retorted, slightly offended at being taken for a fool. “There’s nowhere to insert the documents, or any controls. You need light and warmth to work in winter, and crystals don’t burn too easily, so why not put a fire pit there? You’d be astonished to know we have such in the University as well—where the risks are considerably higher, mind you. In fact, in 416, a fire broke out, destroying a large part of the collection at the time...”

As strongly as he argued for his theory, Izumi remained unconvinced.

“Eh, they built all these mechanisms that have lasted thousands of years, but worked in torch light?”

“Look, Lady Izumi,” Acquiescas’s tone grew even more irritated. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but pestering me about every little thing isn’t going to give us any answers. Now, if you don’t mind, this is a delicate task and I’d like to focus.”

Acquiescas took out a slim little chisel from his satchel, which he now used to try and pry the crystals off the floor.

“My, my,” Izumi sighed, going to examine the pedestal closer on her own.

Indeed, it looked simple enough to be what the scholar had assumed it to be, solid rock, and a mere support for something else, which was now removed. Nevertheless, looking close, Izumi saw there was a tiny circle of a different color at the very center of the cylinder. This inconsistency bothered her. If it were a video game, she could have dismissed it as a simple quirky texture, an artistic addition, but a game this was not. A real, flesh-and-blood person had once put considerable time and effort to make this structure precisely the way it was. Would they have done so without sparing any deeper thought for its design?

The little circle was not an activation button, as pressing it produced no perceivable effect. Wiping it, scraping off the thick layer of rime with her bare nails, Izumi then discovered the reason to why the circle was colored different from the rest of the stone.

It wasn’t stone at all.

“This is...” she mouthed, surprised.

“What? What?” Yubilea peered over the woman’s shoulder. “What is it? Tell me!”

The central circle was dark blue, and polished mirror-clear, like glass.

“It’s a projector lens, I think,” Izumi guessed. “So this is related to the reader, after all? But how do you activate it? Where do you put the crystals? There must be another switch somewhere close by, to turn it on.”

“A switch?” the spirit echoed, turning her head from side to side.

“If you were the designer, where would you put the on-button?” the woman asked.

“Me? I wouldn’t make such a ludicrous thing in the first place!” the spirit replied.

“Some help you are...”

“I don’t recall ever becoming your helper, human! I am a grand spirit! You people should toil for my amusement and not the other way round! Such is the law of nature!”

“Do I have to remind you how many payments of rent you’re due by now?”

“I’m looking, I’m looking!” Yubilea twirled around, shielding her gaze with her hand like a sailor. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, though!”

Izumi continued to examine the stone cylinder from every direction, searching for more hidden mechanisms. Judging by the hand prints, Acquiescas had already done the same, as he had insisted. Though the lens had been beyond his understanding, it was doubtful he had missed any handles or buttons, no matter how subtle they were.

This meant that the controls had to be elsewhere. Frowning, Izumi stood up and surveyd around the back of the hall again. But no matter how hard she stared at the walls, her eyes caught not one unusual shape or form. In case an activation mechanism did exist, then surely it should have been easier to identify. Unless the device required magical ability to use, after all, in which case it would remain forever inoperable to them.

“What’s this?” the little spirit let out a sudden grunt of disapproval.

“Huh?” Izumi glanced at the flying Divine.

“Someone’s poked holes in the wall!” Yubilea reported. “What’s it with humans and their wanton tendency to mar and tarnish all things clean and whole?”

“Holes?” Izumi turned to look at where Yubilea was pointing. She didn’t see anything unusual there. The wall seemed completely featureless and smooth to her. “Where?”

“There, can’t you see?”

The spirit flew closer to the back wall, hovering near the spot.

In the dim lighting, Izumi had to come quite close before she could see what Yubilea had meant. True enough, there were, masked by the frost coating, a group of little holes punctured into the wall, a couple of inches apart from one another, at waist level height. Izumi would never have known to drop her gaze low enough to see them, if the Divine hadn’t pointed them out. There were four holes in an arcing line and one further apart, downward. And though their arrangement had looked completely random at first, they were actually each set cleanly along the limits of a faintly visible, circular base form.

Examining the tiny cavities, Izumi’s face brightened up.

“You did it, Yui-chan! This is it!”

“What?” The spirit raised her brows, oblivious. “I did what? What is it?”

Izumi pulled off her mitten again and stuck her fingers into the five holes. The switch was clearly designed for someone with larger hands on the average, and she couldn’t get a very firm hold of it. Moreover, the mechanism was frozen stiff, like the one before. But Izumi didn’t give up so easily.

“Gram.”

Using the Rune of Power, she added force to her fingers and turned, as slowly and gently as she possibly could, so as to not break anything. Little by little, accompanied by faint cracking, the hold of the ice was broken, and the switch began to turn. Click. At every five degrees it turned, something was released with a delicate sound, until the handle reached its utmost limit. A soft bang sounded and the control disc quickly jolted back to its original orientation.

Releasing it, Izumi spun around, ready for anything. In hindsight, it might have been a trap, and she probably should have warned the others before activating it. Now, it was too late for second thoughts.

Fortunately, nothing very deadly dropped on them.

Instead, a most unusual show took place before the woman’s eyes.

The floor around the stone pedestal sprung to life. The platform wasn’t actually all solid, as it had first seemed, but composed of myriads of thin bars, which now bounced up in waves, forming a narrow wall around the central cylinder, a few feet apart, shaped like a crescent moon. At the same time, the pedestal extended, rising to about five feet above the floor, and the lens in the middle of it began to glow faintly blue.

“What was that?” Acquiescas yelped.

Smiling wide, Izumi replied,

“Jackpot.”

2

Everyone gathered shortly to the back end of the tall hall, to witness Izumi’s second discovery today. However, the initial excitement soon faded. They had found what appeared to be the reader, yet the altered appearance of the scene didn’t give them the answers they desired, nor much additional clues on how to operate the device.

There was the elevated pedestal, apparently made to display the records, and the slim wall before it, smooth and featureless. It was too narrow to be a table, too tall to be a chair, and sported no obvious methods of control. Following a cursory examination, Acquiescas discovered a little indentation right at the apex of it, hexagonal in shape.

“The shape of the crystals!” he cried and hurried to retrieve one of the stones he had managed to detach from the floor, fitting it into the marked spot. To everyone’s surprise, the bottom of the hexagon sank deeper in, accepting the object. But that was all. After reaching down about a third of its length, the crystal stopped and the action ended there.

The crystal’s insertion triggered no additional mechanisms. There was no sound, no image, no lights, nothing at all. Only perfect silence reigned in the hall, as everyone waited, not even daring to breathe.

“...W-well, it has been a thousand years, at least, since the device was last used. It could be that something has broken, or maybe the crystal was faulty. It’s been exposed to outside air for a long time and frozen...We should try another one.”

Acquiescas pulled the crystal off and they retrieved another from the previously opened archive, but with no better results. Either the records were ruined, or the reader had malfunctioned after the long period of abandonment.

“It is possible,” Acquiescas finally admitted, looking rather crestfallen, “that the magic in the crystals has...faded.”

“In other words, they’re junk,” Tidaal summarized, looking neither surprised nor disappointed. He hadn’t put much stock in the records to begin with. No one else commented, but their sentiments were obvious and visible on their sullen faces. Even if the record materials weren’t very valuable, everyone had looked forward to discovering what manner of secret knowledge the ancients had stored.

“Is it lunch time yet?” Vikland asked, turning away.

“Seems to be about that time,” Till replied, following along.

One by one, the explorers departed from the pedestal, in the direction of the entrance.

Except for two.

Izumi neither joined in on the collective frustration, nor tried to revive hope. In fact, she had merely waited for the others to give up and get out of the way, in order to examine the device closer again by herself. And only Waramoti, the one who knew her best, recognized that the summoned champion was still far from resigned, and stayed behind with her.

“Think there’s another trick to it?” he inquired.

“Well, the manufacturer clearly didn’t set up auto-play on by default, so there must be another way to start the show,” Izumi answered.

“Sigh. I’m not even going to ask how you know all this.”

“I’ve never seen a home theater set quite like this before either, if that makes you feel any better,” she said. “But anything a person makes, another person can use. It’s only a matter of imagination.”

Regardless, after a moment of closer study, Izumi had to admit that the others weren’t unsuccessful simply because they were bad at looking. There were simply no additional buttons, handles, holes, or anything. The crystal in the holder was in place firm enough that trying to forcefully turn it was likely to break it. It clearly wasn’t meant to do that. Spending several more minutes standing and thinking, even the summoned champion was beginning to lose her patience.

“Aah, geez, this is a tough one,” she sighed, slamming her palm on the crystal.

At once, the quartz block lit up, illuminated by a bright, bluish glow from the inside.

“Wah—!” the woman exclaimed and withdrew her hand.

Waramoti stared at the unnatural light, forgetting to close his mouth.

“What did you do…?”

“Oh! It seems it just wasn’t fully in place!” Izumi observed. “There must’ve been ice or something on the way to block contact. My, do I feel dumb now! Ehehe~!”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Don’t ‘ehehe’ me!” the bard howled. “We nearly missed the discovery of a lifetime because of a minor technicality!”

There was no playback yet.

However, at the same time as the light started, numerous thick little cylinders protruded from the previously smooth surface of the stand, eight of them. Four on the left side of the crystal holder in the middle, another four on the right of it. Izumi went on to test the buttons and found that they could be freely rotated.

The first one on the far left only moved a little. It produced a faint clicking sound, after which it shortly stopped.

“Hm, I suppose this is the ‘start’-button then?” Izumi pondered, clicking it back and forth.

The next button wouldn’t make a sound, but could be turned almost a full circle with no resistance. But doing so appeared to produce no discernible effects whatsoever.

“That’s weird.”

“Hey, did you hear that?” Waramoti asked, straining his ears.

“Hear what?” Izumi stopped and listened for a moment.

“A sort of a hum, like a sudden shower on the roof,” he explained. “But the skies are clear, and any rain would fall as snow. Must’ve been my imagination...”

“Ah!” Izumi gasped. “Could it be…?”

She went on to twist the second button again. This time, she could hear the sound too, yanking the control up to eleven.

“Yes, there it is again,” Waramoti nodded. “Did someone record the sound of rainfall? Whatever for?”

“No. It’s white noise,” Izumi answered. “Background interference from the recording process. This is the volume button. I just didn’t notice, because of my tinnitus.”

“What is that…?”

“Never mind. So, we have the play button, the volume—what does the third one do then?”

The third cylinder from the left would turn like the second, but this time, not even Waramoti could spot any changes with his keen senses.

“I could use a manual,” Izumi lamented, turning the button left and right.

“The talionic flow within the crystal is changing,” Yubilea reported, floating closer.

“...The what now?” Izumi whispered back.

“The machine seems to be scanning the record for different wavelengths of mana. I’m sensitive to the shifting of energies, being a spirit myself, so I can tell.”

“Eh, I see,” Izumi nodded. “So it’s the channel selector?”

“Hm?” Waramoti leaned closer. “Are you chatting by yourself again?”

“Yep,” she replied. “With the other me. I have DID, didn’t I tell you that?”

“I keep telling you to get rid of that habit!” he told her. “It is rather disturbing, to be frank. Why don’t you talk to real people instead?”

“Get off my case, brat.”

“Being nothing but air to everyone else, even my idol...” Yubilea cried, hanging her head. “It’s too sad!”

Izumi saw it best to ignore the spirit for the time being.

“By the established pattern, the fourth button must be for adjusting the playback,” she commented. “Rewind and fast forward. But what about these then?”

She turned to the buttons on the right hand side, testing them one by one.

“Nothing’s happening?” Waramoti observed.

“I don’t sense any reaction either,” Yubilea announced. “They must be broken.”

“It seems that all the left side controls are for audio,” Izumi noted. “Then the right side controls are probably for the image. I suppose the mechanism for that was more delicate. Oh well, we know how to power on, we’ve confirmed that sound works, now all that’s left is to pick the correct channel and we can at least hear what was recorded.”

Gently rotating the third button clockwise, a little at a time, Izumi began to scan the crystal for the correct frequency. Waramoti and Yubilea both appeared to be holding their breaths, waiting without a word. Their expectant stares added to the pressure. Izumi told herself not to expect much and be disappointed if it didn’t happen, but even her heart started to beat quicker under the tension.

She found herself counting seconds.

Five. Nothing.

Ten. Still nothing.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Then…A loud whoomp exploded somewhere in mid-air above the projector, making the spectators wince. Immediately after, a voice began to speak.

“——And astrologists have just now verified the change of date! We have officially moved onto the thirty-second cycle of the Convenant! The ritual of Amarno has been successfully completed, and once more the annihilation of our world has been averted. Happy New Year!”

A male voice abruptly sounded from nothing, loud and clear. It appeared to be coming from the pedestal before the control board, or from somewhere in the air above it. The light of the small lens flickered a little, though there was no visible image.

The voice compelled the other team members to turn away from the entrance and hurry back. Acquiescas’s face was particularly comical, his mouth hanging wide open, like he was imitating an emoticon.

“You...you sorceress!” he gasped. “What did you? How did you…? Wha…?”

“Relax,” Izumi told him. “I didn’t plan on keeping it a secret. Come here and I’ll show you.”

3

The lunch break that most of the expedition crew had already eagerly awaited finally came around, and they all gathered back at the Shrine at the heart of the city, to dine and report their findings. Izumi couldn’t help but mark how unsurprised Gronan looked by the news, even regarding the archive. As if he had already heard…

Meanwhile, the other teams had not been half as successful.

A few explorers brought in small items they had found, brass oil lamps, little animal statues carved of stone, spoons that might have been of silver, bracelets, and so on. None of the artifacts were particularly flashy or valuable.

“Worthless, worthless, worthless,” Ames declared without reservation, nevertheless listing the objects in his voluminous ledger. “Hm...Might get a coin or two at a flea market. Maybe?”

“’A rare Precursor soup ladle!’” Selver considered the advertising angle. “I’d say that’s ten silver right there. Okay, maybe four.”

The fact that they even bothered to take in such trivial souvenirs spoke volumes about the present level of faith they had for the success of the expedition. They were already looking for ways to cut the losses, by whatever means possible. And no wonder. If the search carried on the same way for the coming days too, this historically significant trip was likely to end up a disaster to the Steward’s coffers—as low as the participants’ base salaries were. More than a few investigators were starting to feel that coming along primarily for a share of the alleged treasure might have been thoughtless of them, gently put.

But this was only the first day.

There was still a lot of ground to cover. There had to be a real treasury somewhere in a city this enormous, only waiting to be found.

As the break time ended, Acquiescas and the Dharvic historians returned to the archives, with the intention to go through the crystal records and make notes on their contents. It was obvious they weren’t going to be able to play everything during this trip, but they were determined to learn as much as possible, and so piece together the lost history of Eylia. They considered not only their own research, but also the foundation that their work should lay for the future archaeologists and students.

In this delicate task, the mercenaries were only in the way.

Waramoti, Tidaal, Till, and Vikland were sent onto the next quarter. Meanwhile, Izumi was once again paired with Taun and his dog. They were sent in the same direction as the previously mentioned team, and since no one had prohibited co-operation, the two teams ended up scouring the deserted city blocks together.

In the slow and drowsy afternoon hours, it started to seem that Izumi had spent all her good luck for the day, and they came across no other revolutionary discoveries or clever secrets. In fact, they found nothing even passable for a memento.

Not that Izumi was actively looking either. Her thoughts kept returning to the archives and the record she had opened.

The speaker’s voice had sounded human. He had spoken the Common Tongue too. Had the Precursors been only another human race, after all? Then why did they alone disappear and why did their no less human slaves remain? Were the Dharves’ ancestors responsible for the Precursors’ fate, after all? Had they rebelled and overthrown their masters, and kept quiet about it? More and more questions kept surfacing on her mind, and the answers could only be found in the records.

“I want gold,” Yubilea bemoaned. “Gold would be nice.”

“You’re a spirit,” Izumi pointed out. “What do you even need gold for?”

“So what if I’m a spirit?” the Divine retorted. “Everyone loves gold!”

Gold they did not find, unfortunately, not so much as a coin. As dusk fell, light waned, and the air began to grow biting, the seekers had to suspend their search for the day, and return to the base camp without favorable news. Izumi did so gladly. Her legs were tired and her hips ached for all the standing and walking.

The teams from closer areas had already lit a merry bonfire outside the Shrine.

To save the limited firewood supplies, they had chopped up benches, chairs, shelves, and other wooden furniture that they had found, producing quite a pile of fuel for the flames. The watchers sure weren’t freezing any day soon. Unfortunately, the archaeologists and teachers among the crew failed to appreciate their thoughtfulness. The erudites watched the fruits of the mercenaries’ labor with only open horror and dismay.

“H-how could you…?” Acquiescas looked at the mound of shattered furniture, as if it were his own children on the way into the flames.

“Come on, they weren’t even that pretty,” Minsk remarked, unable to understand the scholar’s shock. “We’ve nicer chairs back home.”

Izumi didn’t complain either, warming her numb hands close to the fire.

“Oww...” she exhaled deep, sitting down on her camp chair. “It’s like going window-shopping, but you’re broke and all the stores are closed.”

“I heard you discovered some manner of a library?” Faalan asked her, taking a seat next to the woman. “That is something.”

“Ah. Sort of,” Izumi answered. “It’ll be a while before we’re watching the Titanic in 4K, but at least there’s commentary.”

“…That would be affirmative,” Waramoti clarified, seeing Faalan’s blank look. “Instead of conventional books or scrolls, there are crystals that have voices inside.”

“Voices?” the man repeated.

“Indeed. And Izumi here discovered a way to play them. As if the speakers had come to our midst from across the cycles...Ah, the ladies will love things like this. It’s ghastly!”

“What did the voices say then?” Faalan asked Izumi. “Were you able to understand them?”

“We were, and that’s just the weird part,” Izumi answered with a contemplative look. “I’ve been thinking about that the whole day. Why did the ancients speak the Common Tongue? Are there really so few languages in the world? But even if it’s the same language, it’s practically unchanged from those days. Normally, there should be some evolution in a thousand years, yes?”

“The record was set at the beginning of the thirty-second cycle,” Waramoti interjected. “We are near the end of the thirty-third now. That means, what we heard back there was from nearly two thousand years ago, long before Eylia was deserted.”

“You’re right!” Izumi stirred. “As I thought, it’s not natural.”

“What does it all mean?” Faalan pondered.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled with a frown, looking down. “All this lack of change—No, rather, haven’t people actually devolved over time? Technological knowledge and entire nation have vanished, but nothing new has come to replace what is gone. How come nobody else finds this strange? Just what is going on with this world? Is this because of the fabled Covenant? Is this planet actually falling apart?”

“That’s...” Faalan started, but silenced himself.

Marcus was coming their way. He wasn’t simply going to pass by their campsite either, but headed straight for the trio at the bonfire. Finally, the man came to stop in front of Izumi.

“Ma’am, you have a moment? Hate to interrupt your family time, but Gronan has asked to see you.”

“Eh? Me?” Izumi pointed at herself. She gave Faalan and Waramoti a cautious glance, and stood. “Well, lead the way, I suppose?”

Izumi followed after Marcus up the stairs to the Shrine and its spacious inner hall. Ames and Selver had retired for the day, done with cataloging the scarce findings. Feeling his age, Acquiescas had also gone to bed early. Only Gronan sat behind the large table they had dragged into the hall, upon which he had spread maps and other documents.

The leaders hadn’t been sitting idle all day. An accurate map of the city was in the making, displaying all the locations explored so far in great detail. The research plan was continuously updated on the side, tomorrow’s objectives already defined, the teams divided.

Gronan lifted his gaze from the documents and turned his dark eyes to Izumi as she approached.

“Eh, evening,” Izumi greeted him with caution, stopping in the middle of the floor.

Gronan stood up. The presence of that tall, dark warrior made her rather nervous. In a way, Gronan was even more intimidating than Waramoti had once been, even if a little shorter and less barbarous in appearance. In fact, he could be described as fairly handsome with his tidy black beard and wavy hair, and should have been in the universal favor of ladies, by all means. Yet, the air about him was inexplicably unsettling.

Then, Izumi realized the cause.

It was doubtless rage.

Underneath the composed facade of the Dharvic chieftain boiled terrible wrath, like a storm. This rage wasn’t aimed at any specific person at present, yet it lurked ever there, unrelenting, contained only through sheer force of will and cold reason.

Gronan didn’t answer the woman’s greeting. He nodded at Marcus, who turned and departed the way he had come, leaving the two alone. Then, he stepped slowly away from his desk, seemingly weighing his words.

“I heard you found the archives and accessed the ancients’ records,” Gronan then spoke in his low voice. “How?”

“How…?” Izumi echoed, unsure of how to answer.

Gronan elaborated with a somewhat mean scowl, walking around her.

“A woman, an uneducated mercenary, outwits a scholar of renown and unveils secrets left by minds gone a thousand years back. She does so the moment she sets foot in a place she’s never seen before. Tell me, does none of this strike you as odd?”

“Well, I picked up a thing or two on my adventures,” Izumi replied with a shrug. “Shouldn’t I have done that?”

The man stopped right in front of her and stared down at her without a word.

Were it still the Izumi from the moment of her summoning, her composure likely would have crumbled like a snowman on a day of May, cracked under the pressure. She would’ve turned tails and run away then and there, without shame. But after half a year in this unforgiving world, Izumi’s spirit and courage had been thoroughly tested—honed. And she held her ground, not moving or wavering, and quietly faced Gronan Arkentahl’s stare.

“What do you want?” the man quietly asked her. “Why are you here?”

Because you called me—Izumi was about to blurt out, before realizing that was not what he was asking.

Instead, she took a moment to consider her options. She thought to keep up with the soldier of fortune act and fake hardboiled. Insist she was only in it for the money and fame and nothing more. It wasn’t entirely a lie either. Yet, Izumi also felt that she might not be able to fool a man like Gronan with such a pretentious answer. She’d never had a knack for acting or telling lies, especially whilst under the pressure, and the stakes of this gamble were too high to start now.

Therefore, she ultimately decided to stick to the truth, whatever should come of it.

“I’m here to see that Faalan gets home safe,” she said. “Since his family’s waiting for him.”

For a moment, Gronan said nothing, his face sullen, his thoughts veiled. Then, the man suddenly squeezed his eyes shut, and turned away. With unhurried feet, he returned to his chair behind the elm table and fell back onto it.

Then, he looked up again and uttered,

“I need a favor of you, adventurer.”

“A favor…?”

“The professor, our mutual friend, has been going through the archives’ records,” Gronan explained. “But I’m afraid his priorities and ours are...unaligned on this matter. In more peaceful times, I’d be inclined to share his views on the historical significance of this place, and what it represents to our people. But unfortunately, as a leader, I must also mind the economical side of this expedition. We are at war, after all.”

“I thought the war ended?” Izumi asked.

“Not mine,” Gronan retorted, his face tightening, and the dark fury returned to his eyes. “Not until the Empire has paid for what they did to us.”

“But the Emperor who did it to you is already dead,” she pointed out.

“Replaced by yet another drone!” he spat. “No. It matters little what painted fool sits on the Throne of Onyx; Tratovia never changes. Before all imperial filth has been cleansed off this continent, we will not have justice, and I will not rest, until I see this unfold. So I swore, before the grave of my father, my mother, my brothers, my sons. I will not go into that grave, until I’ve avenged them a hundred times over!”

Gronan’s voice had grown powerful and filled the hall in thorny anger. Then, realizing he had gone overboard, he fell quickly silent and looked away, remorse and irritation clouding his countenance.

Recognizing that there was no changing his mind with words and she was only making her own standing worse, Izumi gave up on arguing.

“What would you have me do then?” she asked. “I didn’t come here to fight a war.”

“Where Eylia has hidden her gold,” Gronan answered her. “I want you to find it. I want you to go through the Precursors’ records. You, and no one else. I will think of other things for the professor to do in the meanwhile, someplace else. He won’t like it, but he will obey. I don’t care about the daily lives, or festivals, or tax policies of people who died an eon ago! I want to know where they’ve hidden their fortune. The access point to the city under the mountain—use your adventurer tricks and sniff it out. Since it seems you have a talent for such things. Disregard all else.”

“There’s a city underground...?” Izumi asked, surprised.

“Yes.” He nodded. “The surface city is nothing. It was built for the slaves. The Precursors loathed daylight, their real dwellings are far underneath us. And so is everything else they owned. But the entrance there is sealed, hidden. Though they left us much, our ancestors made no note of where to find the door. It is likely better kept than the archives and without you, we wouldn’t have learned of those either. We could spend the remainder of our lives searching these ruins, turning them around rock by rock, and be left empty-handed. But there must be a mention of the way somewhere in the records. They can’t have cut all the threads. Any hint or a clue—you must find it. The supplies will last us another four days. Five, maybe, if we tighten the belt. The entrance must be found before then. Do it, and I will gladly pay whatever you ask of me.”

“...I will try.” Izumi replied and nodded.

As reserved as she sounded, the decision was not terribly hard, and she wasted no time thinking it over. Returning to give the archives another look had been her wish, after all. Even if it came with ulterior motives, Gronan’s request gave her just what she wanted, and it would have been pointless to get defiant.

“Good.” Gronan nodded. “You will begin tomorrow morning. Report whatever you find directly to me, do not use the linkstone. And do not talk about this to the others. Not even to the Silver Saber, or the boy.”

“Very well.”

There came a lengthy break and Izumi assumed her instructions to be over. But right as she was about to turn and leave, Gronan unexpectedly resumed.

“Also.” The man lowered his voice. If it weren’t completely silent in the hall, she might not have heard him, even over this short distance.

“Yes…?” Izumi paused and listened.

“Beside the underground entrance, or the treasury...” he spoke, his voice like the quiet growl of a tiger. “Should you come across mentions of anything...unusual...you will tell me. Without delay.”

“Unusual?” Izumi asked. “Such as…?”

“Any mentions of—weapons,” Gronan breathed, his voice now barely above a whisper. “The weapon.”

Izumi froze stiff, struggling to hide her astonishment.

Eeh? What? What is he thinking!? He’s practically spilling the beans now!? Does he trust me that much? Or is he testing me?

It took all of Izumi’s self-control to not make weird faces and maintain her composure.

“I...I’ll see what I can find,” she forced herself to say and turned away. Then, seeing that he didn’t have anything else to add, she took a hesitant step and left to return to the camp.

Gronan’s heavy voice carried from behind her one last time, echoing off the ancient walls, his intent stare on her back.

“I’ll be waiting.”