1
By the end of day one, the explorers had searched through roughly a third of the ancient city, as far as it could be estimated on the surface. As the second day brightened up, the teams were each assigned new areas to explore, and they all departed as soon as they were done with the hasty breakfast, resolved to make up for the previous day’s lack of results.
The northeastern quadrant of the city was technically the most challenging to search. Winds had pushed great quantities of snow there through the gap between the mountains, more so than anywhere else, burying several buildings up to the level of the roof. The treasure hunters were forced to do a good deal of climbing and digging to uncover but one top floor window by which to access these places, and the work kept them busy for the better part of the day.
Izumi was spared from the effort.
As expected, Acquiescas was not too happy to hand over such an important site as the archives to an amateur, but neither was his will a match to Gronan, and he ultimately conceded. The Dharvic leader assured the scholar that his wealth of knowledge and insight were necessary to safely unveil the buried buildings, and that he might return to the archives at a later occasion. Unable to refute this, dreading that more objects of archaeological importance might meet the fate of the antique furniture, Acquiescas begrudgingly agreed to oversee the digging and leave the records to Izumi.
The scholar gave the woman a voluminous tome where they had began to catalog the crystals and their contents, and he instructed her to carefully number and label every find, with a proper description, including the date of the find and the estimated date of the recording, and so forth. The sun neared the western mountaintops by the time he at last let her go, and she was finally able to get to work.
Izumi marched down the western avenue to the archives, feeling the heavy burden of responsibility on her shoulders. Over the course of their brief stay, the once untouched streets had become filled with footprints, making the deserted city suddenly feel strangely busy.
If Gronan was correct, even the grandeur of the city they beheld was little more than a front. The true domain of Eylia extended to untold depths underground. Somewhere beneath their feet, beside treasures, could also be hidden the Precursors’ alleged weapon, which Gronan sought for his revenge against the Empire. This put Izumi to a delicate position. Were she to actually find the information he desired, what should she do with it? Destroy the records, pretend she had found nothing, and so force the expedition to return by the end of the week, defeated and empty-handed?
Would the Dharves give up so easily?
Would another expedition be prepared afterwards?
Then another, and another, until they would finally get what they wanted, when no one was there to stop them anymore? Even if they failed each and every time, perhaps somewhere in the distant future explorers from elsewhere would retrace their footsteps, and succeed where they failed?
Lack of results on this particular venture would only push the threat of the ancient super weapon onto future generations, not undo it. The only way to decisively remove this risk from the world was to unearth the relic now, and destroy it, as Faalan had surmised. But could they do so without being discovered, and still earn themselves a ride back home?
One thing was painfully evident; if the heroes made the Dharves their enemies, they were unlikely to ever get back home again. Would they have to fight, nevertheless, and sacrifice themselves for the good of mankind? Faalan at least seemed prepared to do so.
However, in her heart, Izumi lacked his conviction.
This was not where she wanted her story to end, not while she had unfinished personal business left.
“What a pickle,” she murmured, climbing the stone stairs. “If Yule were here, she’d want to talk, I suppose. Try and convince Gronan to give up on revenge, and that the weapon is better left be. But I never had a knack for diplomacy, or the will to convince anyone. Since I’m a dummy, I only know how to talk through steel. Is that how it’s going to end, once again?”
Izumi didn’t think anyone on the expedition was a “bad guy”, per se. Rather, most of the mercenaries had turned out as surprisingly friendly and reasonable. But, whether these men personally deserved it or not, she might have to cut them all down, if they learned that she was an imperial agent and here to sabotage their endeavor.
...Wouldn’t that make me the villain then?
Izumi recalled how Taun’s dog had treated her. Animals had keen senses, it was said. They could see a person’s true nature, through false pretenses. Maybe the dog recognized sides of Izumi’s heart that she wasn’t even conscious of herself?
Geez. It’s not like I want to be the monster.
The archive hall looked unchanged from the day before. Acquiescas and his Dharvic assistants had closed the reader and the record containers before retiring last night, leaving everything precisely the way it had been at the moment they’d first set foot in the place. In spite of their medieval tools and methods, the respect they had for the past was surely on par with the 21st century standards.
The same couldn’t be said for the actual earthling.
“Oh well. Let’s get to work then.”
Izumi started by briefly counting the container covers. There were thirty-two of them in a line, in eight rows, making the total of 256 containers. One container had thirty-two slots, and about ten crystals per slot, give or take. In other words, there were approximately 82,000 records in the hall altogether, possibly more upstairs.
Somewhere in that sea of crystals was the information she was looking for.
Izumi certainly had her work cut out for her.
Well familiar with the fickle nature of Lady Luck, she gave up on trying to pick out the right one at random, but opted for a more systematic method of search. She went and activated the reader, and then began to go through the containers’ contents in order, starting from the far left corner.
Were the archives arranged in the alphabetical or the chronological order? Were they categorized by the subject, title, maker, or file type? Izumi wanted to ascertain this first. There were no visible markings on the lids to give her any clues. On the slot frames were engraved faint runes, but Izumi had no idea how to read them. The only way to find out their arrangement was by playing the records themselves and hoping that the date, or some other hint would be given in them.
In only about half an hour, Izumi discovered that her job would be a lot easier than she had ever dared to expect. Though not in a good way.
“...There’s nothing?” she remarked with a deep frown.
The crystals were empty.
The first ten she picked out in order played not the faintest sound. After this, she began to take out samples completely at random from different slots, with no better results. Then, she opened more containers, and picked five random crystals from each.
There was nothing on any of them. The records in all the containers on the left side of the hall were dead. Or was the problem with the reader? Had the professor broken it?
“I don’t think so,” Yubilea appeared to report. “I can sense no trace of mana in any of these crystals. They are utterly devoid of content.”
“Devoid? But nobody’s even touched them yet,” Izumi retorted. “Could they be so old that the magic has faded, like the professor suggested?”
Yubilea shook her head again. “Eidos doesn’t degrade so quickly and crystals are an optimal spiritual medium. Even if they were a million years old, there would still be traces of the magic left. But there’s nothing at all on these ones. The only possible explanation is that they were empty from the beginning.”
“Whaaat…?” Izumi looked aghast. “But the ones we found yesterday were working just fine. To begin with, why would they have stored tons of empty crystals among the actual records, without even marking them apart? They’re not just placeholders, are they? What’s going on?”
“Beats me,” the spirit answered without much care, picking her ear.
“Good grief, whether you’re helpful or just a nuisance, I can’t tell.”
“Who are you calling a nuisance!?”
Ignoring the noisy ghost, Izumi continued to go through the containers. It was all she could.
To her dismay, Izumi eventually learned that she didn’t simply have bad luck with her choices. The vast majority of all the records in the hall were blank. Before noon, she had gone through dozens of samples from most of the containers, but the reader had produced no sound, not even muffled background noise, and Yubilea insisted that she could feel no magical energy from them.
Had the archives truly been always filled with empty stones?
Or had someone wiped them clean on purpose? Was that even possible? If so, who? Why? When? There was no one with such magical proficiency among the expedition members, so the deletion had to have occurred way before they ever came, perhaps already before the Dharves’ ancestors left the city. Was it their doing then? Was there even any way to know?
Izumi could only tell one thing for sure. Gronan was not going to like this discovery…
At noon, feeling weak, Izumi took lunch break with everyone else, though she had no appetite. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone either, and only answered Waramoti’s questions regarding her activities with absentminded sounds. What she had found overwhelmed her understanding. And ever since she was young, whenever there was a problem she couldn’t solve, Izumi would sink into deep frustration and apathy for days, unable to think of anything else, and nothing but a sound solution could remove her from this state.
Fortunately, her report was not requested yet. Forcing her share of soup and dry bread down, somehow, Izumi strode back to the archives. She had to find at least something by the end of the day, if not for Gronan, at least for her own sanity’s sake.
What was the true story behind this city?
What had happened to the Precursors?
What had made the Dharves leave Eylia?
As little personal interest as Izumi had previously had for local history, she was now absorbed in this study with feverish ardor. Hours flew by with unwanted haste and the sun began to set, with little better results.
Nearing the end of the last line of containers, Izumi was about to give up on hope entirely, when the reader abruptly sprang back to life again.
“——incredible honor, to have been...chosen b…e—”
“Oh!” Her pulse spiking, Izumi hurried to adjust the channel and rewound the record. Again, there were words in the Common Speech. Holding her breath, she started the playback over from the beginning.
“—Counselor Atomos of the Republic of Eylia. Octaria first, on the year 999 of the thirty-first cycle of the Covenant. With great pride, I may announce today that my two sons, Otalas and Pthumero, have been named as the champions of our people. The two were the only ones to successfully clear all the trials of the Passage of Indra, and what’s more, they did so at very nearly the same time. Such has never happened before in recorded history. The Council of Elders took this as a sign that one was not meant to be superior to the other, and so we made the unprecedented exception to the tradition, to allow not one but two champions to go forth to the Old World in the name of our species. Although this marks but the very beginning of many, many more trials for those two, I have no doubt in my heart that they shall be successful in the end. As a father, I am beyond honored that the Divines should allow my own sons to fight for the future of our planet. They have today joined the mighty company of ancient heroes, and their names shall be forever engraved in our annals. Thank—fzzzt.”
The track shifted, causing a brief jolt in the record.
After a brief pause, a different voice resumed.
“—Today, on Octaria 21st, all of Eylia has gathered to send off our heroes with song and celebration. Across the plains of Almanak, these two valiant young men will now ride west to the port of Bendehol. Thence begins their one-month voyage to the west, to the mythical city of Val Astea, retracing the path that so many other legendary warriors before them have taken. Their final destination, adhering to the ranges of Ukulu ever westward, is none other but the Tower of Destiny at the limits of earth. There they shall bring glory to all of humankind, participating in the games together with the honorable representatives of all the other free races, for the privilege of ensuring the continuation of our collective way of life. Otalas and Pthumero shall be in our prayers, as we eagerly await the coming Night of the Covenant, and any sign of their fate. May they find success in their endeavor and have their dearest wish granted in reward!”
After this, only silence followed.
“That’s all?” Izumi adjusted the playback, but without luck. “These popcicles aren’t very data-efficient, are they?”
“Ah, there’d be room for more,” Yubilea reported, “but it looks like those are the only memories on this particular crystal.”
“What a shame,” Izumi sighed. “It would be more informative if we could see the image too. What did these people look like, what were they looking at? Do you know anything about the Precursors, Yui-chan? You said you lived in these parts before, did you ever happen to meet them?”
“No, I know nothing at all,” the spirit shook her head. “The lives of kingdoms and races is but the flap of a butterfly’s wings to me. There have been too damn many for me to keep track of. What a waste of effort that would be!”
“Ah. Useless, as always.”
“Don’t call me useless!” Yubilea wailed.
Ignoring the spirit, Izumi spent a moment in quiet reflection.
“The Night of the Covenant,” she then said. “Isn’t that the thing Yule, Lia, and the others were obsessing about? A ritual to save the world—these people knew about it too, all those years ago. So it actually exists? And by the sound of it, the locals were regular participants too. You must know something about this, don’t you? How does this ritual work?”
“No, why would I know about such things?” the spirit nonchalantly replied, shaking her head again.
“...Yui-chan. Are you screwing with me now?”
“It’s not my job to know!” Yubilea retorted. “As if I cared to!”
“Isn’t this supposed to be a big deal for you spirits too?” Izumi asked her. “It’s the fate of our world we’re talking about, no?”
“So? Whatever happens, it happens,” the spirit replied. “My role is to preserve only my own functions, anything else is a waste of processing power. Moreover, the ritual was made for you material people. We spirits have no use for it. Or rather, we can’t use it.”
“Have no use for it?” Izumi repeated. “What do you mean by that?”
“What are you, stupid?” the spirit bemoaned, rolling her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? We Divines are part of the system ourselves. What sense would it make for a tool to operate itself; it needs a user. Look at what you’re doing right now! What if the reader were to open and play these records by itself, when no one is here. Why would it do that? It would be mad!”
“So, what you’re saying is that though you look like a person, you’re actually no better than a vending machine?” Izumi asked.
“What machine!?” Yubilea exclaimed.
“I’d like something sweet, give me a Snick**s.”
“Don’t mess with me! Insolent creature!”
Forgetting about the spirit, Izumi leaned on the control board and stared off into the distance, thinking.
“The Emperor told me that the Covenant can be used to remake the world,” she spoke. “Using the system, people and entire nations could be erased or created at will. Was he right? Was that what happened to the Precursors? They were deleted from existence, together with all memory of them, including the records they made. Only the Dharves and this city were left. Is that it?”
“Are you asking me?” Yubilea turned her head from side to side, as if to check if anyone else was arond.
“No, I’m actively pretending you don’t exist,” Izumi retorted, annoyed.
“Why, you—!”
“...But if that’s the case, one question still remains; why did their servants leave? They got the whole city handed to them for free, with all its wealth and facilities. Not just the city above but the below too. Why didn’t they keep it?”
“Maybe they got sick of all the ice and snow?” Yubilea suggested. “I couldn’t blame them.”
“Would be fine, if that were all.”
“Then, what else?”
“Now you’re interested?” Izumi raised her face. “I thought you didn’t need to know?”
“Why are you bullying me again?” the spirit glared at her. “Just because you know nothing yourself, you want this amazing me to carry you through everything and give you all the answers? How immature! How pathetic! Well, you know what? I actually don’t care at all! Bleeeeh!”
Offended, the spirit showed Izumi her tongue and vanished with a pop.
“My, my,” Izumi sighed. “Ah, but I’m getting carried away again. Unless I find the underground entrance, my days as a historian won’t last for long.”
2
The last four containers all had functional records, but while the amount of data to go through was dramatically lower than it had initially seemed, the search was still slow and tedious. The ancient librarians had not bothered to install an automated search feature into their archive. Or, if there was one, not even Izumi’s otherworldly knowledge would tell her how to find and use it. She could only scan each crystal by hand and listen to the recordings, in hopes of hearing a passing mention of what she was looking for. After she was done, she would mark the crystal with a number to keep track of which she had played, added a description corresponding to the number in Acquiescas’s book, and then moved on to the next.
The professor had already gone through some dozens of crystals from these last containers on the previous night, having started from the opposite corner from Izumi. Her luck was unfortunately little better than his, even though she worked considerably faster. Like the ones the professor had already listed, most records dealt only with local politics, legislation, celebrations, foreign affairs, achievements in science, sports, and arts, and so on. In other words, they were precisely the kinds of chronicles that most societies tended to produce, regardless of race or culture. While some of the information was fairly intriguing from the world-building perspective, there came up no mention of an underground city, let alone its hidden entrance. As soon as Izumi judged the crystal’s contents as unrelated to her quest, she would remove and discard it.
Then, at some point, Izumi noticed that the hall around her had grown quite dark and the air was turning colder. Thanks to her lantern and the light of the projector, she hadn’t even noticed the coming of the dusk. Just like that, another day had passed.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“—Working hard, I see,” Waramoti suddenly stepped up behind the woman, a lamp in hand.
“Hii!?” Izumi jumped and yelped.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” the bard apologized with a grin. He had done it completely on purpose, earning himself a disapproving scowl.
“I won’t say I’m that old yet, but you should still show some consideration for my poor heart,” she scolded him with a pout.
“Yes, yes,” he replied, unrepentant. “So? Found what you were looking for?”
“No,” Izumi replied outright, her expression turning even more sullen.
“I was afraid of that,” the bard sighed. “Gronan asked me to come pick you up. They’re all done for the day, and he’d like to hear your report, I believe. I was hoping you’d have some good news, because we haven’t had much of those today either, and the mood at the camp is...not terribly cheerful. I don’t think it’s something I can fix with a song anymore.”
“So no treasures today either?” Izumi asked.
“We’ve gone through more than two thirds of the city by now,” Waramoti replied. “There are still unexplored areas on the terraces to the east, and we weren’t able to access all of the buildings due to the snow and ice, but...it doesn’t look too good. Seems this place is emptier than my pockets back when I first left the moors of Oss. What little wealth there was, the Dharves must’ve brought with them when they migrated. And perhaps here was ever the reason why they left. Freezing climate, no food, no wealth, no warmth…Who would ever want to stay in such a place? We can’t discount the possibility that there are still hidden floors or chambers, sealed with advanced mechanisms like the archives, but searching for those is doubtless going to be both laborious and time-consuming. And I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but they’re not exactly a bunch of quick-witted sleuths out here. The Dharves are used to working their bodies, not their heads, and they’re growing increasingly grumpy for it.”
“I’m the same way, really,” Izumi replied. “And I can’t find what’s not there.”
“It was for references regarding their wealth that Gronan put you to this?” the man asked. “Have you at least heard any entertaining stories, while at it?”
“I wish,” she said. “They didn’t have much talent for spinning the yarn, it seems. It’s just nonstop cabinet sessions and not one surprising—”
——BBFFFFT.
Sudden, loud noise in the playback interrupted her.
The record, previously narrating the forecast for the coming harvest season, was abruptly cut. Faint static continued to sound out, indicating that the record was still playing, but no one spoke.
Izumi frowned, uneasy, and reached for the channel selector. But before her fingers could touch it…
“——I...I can’t sleep.”
A male voice spoke up. There were no introductions or dates mentioned. The voice was highly unlike the usual formal, energetic announcers, who would make effective use of the crystal’s capacity. This message was more spontaneous, hesitant, personal.
And laden with palpable helplessness.
“I’ve...begun to fear the night. Fear going to sleep. I see nothing but nightmares every time I close my eyes. I can’t describe them. It’s just the same thing, over and over. The same senseless dream, pictures, shapes without meaning, repeated endlessly. It seems all ominous, somehow. Evil. It’s driving me insane. I’ve heard everyone I know say the same thing. People are tired and on the edge lately. This isn’t natural, it can’t be. They all say they can feel it, like something bad’s coming. It’s almost as if it’s started again. Just the way it was described in those old records, from a thousand years ago. I thought they stopped it—I mean, it ended, didn’t it? And it’s been so long! What does it all mean!? Why now? I wish somebody would just tell me!”
Izumi glanced at Waramoti over her shoulder, getting goosebumps. The bard twisted his brows, looking none the wiser.
“I’m afraid this might be it for us.” The record went on. “For real this time. The end of the millennium is getting close, and maybe for the last time. The world—this is as far as it all goes. That’s the way it feels. Is this what they were trying to stop? But we have no one to send! No one wants to go. We don’t know the trials anymore, who would even qualify? So much knowledge has been—lost. Because we forgot what it stands for, we stopped believing in our ancestors. We’ve been fools, like our fathers. And now it’s too late. If no one sails across the sea again, there may be no more rituals. Chaos—only chaos will follow, like the prophecy foretells. Maybe that’s what the dreams are showing us. What happens if we fail. There will come a world that is unlike anything we know and beyond our understanding. And I can tell there’s no place for us humans in such a—damn it. This is how it all starts then? If only—I wish there was a way, something we could do! I don’t know. I don’t fucking know…!”
The voice broke down. There came an eerie, muffled silence, interrupted only by faint, sporadic sobs.
Then, after a while, the voice returned.
“...Adna told me they heard singing near the Capitol. But no sign of the singer. The voice carried up along the air ducts, from somewhere underground. When I heard that, I remembered about the door. ‘Do not ever open the door’—that’s what my father would tell me. And his father to him, and his father, and his father. They made us swear on it. ‘Never open that door, it’s not really a door, just forget about it, act like it doesn’t even exist. Deny, if anyone asks. Always deny.’ And we did. But why? What’s in there? Nobody would ever say. Who is singing? Did you know about it, dad? If you did, why didn’t you ever tell me what’s down there? Why didn’t you tell me? Hahaha...no, I know why. It’s him, isn’t it? The guy who came back. Yeah, I know about it. Felion found the crystal you tried to throw away. I saw the record, the whole thing. You told me he died, remember? You claimed they all died! Well, you lied. You lied to me, to your son, and you fucked us all up! Now we’re all going to die here and it’s too late to run away. Thanks to you, because you couldn’t stand the thought of leaving! I hope you understand what you’ve done. I hope it haunts you, wherever you are now. You’ve killed us, you—”
Zzt. With a fuzzy sound, the record ended.
“...Okay. What in the seven blazes was that?” Waramoti commented, slowly recovering from his dismay. “If I weren’t known to be entirely fearless, I’d say that was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some things before.”
“It was pretty spooky, all right,” Izumi replied. “But it also mentioned the thing I’m looking for. So there actually is a secret doorway somewhere in the city?”
“And we’ve been strongly advised against opening it,” the bard pointed out. “I don’t know about you, but I tend to take such warnings seriously.”
“So do I, as a rule,” she replied. “But I wonder if Gronan will feel the same? Somehow, he strikes me as the type of a guy who will only want to do something more when he’s told not to.”
“Well, why don’t you go and ask his opinion then? He’s waiting for you.”
3
“—Out of the question.”
Returning to the Shrine in the middle of the city, Izumi presented her slim findings to the leader of the Dharves, receiving a very predictable answer. She told Gronan about the record, and how the locals had held a long-running policy against opening the hidden door, it being likely the one leading to the hidden levels below the city. However, the suggestion of concluding the expedition here and leaving Eylia without a single copper coin or ancient super weapons was not favorably received.
“Figures,” Izumi shrugged.
“What did this recording say about the door, exactly?” Gronan questioned her, setting aside the words of caution, while he strode impatiently back and forth in the Shrine hall.
“Nothing much,” she answered. “It wasn’t like the other entries. There was a very troubled citizen saying his family had cautioned each generation to keep the door closed. The speaker appeared to believe that it’s where the end of the world will begin.”
“And how would opening a door mean the end of the world?” Gronan grumpily asked. “People went there all the time, back when the city was inhabited!”
“I don’t know. There’s probably a sealed ancient evil waiting to be awakened in there.”
“Or then nothing!” he retorted, failing to appreciate the joke. “Seeing as it has been a thousand years since that record and the world is somehow still here.”
“Well, that is possible too,” she admitted.
“Ms Adventurer, I have here thirty eager pairs of hands waiting for action,” Gronan told her. “They will be more than happy to hack through this ancient evil of yours, if it means lining their pockets. However, were I to tell them now to go home, rewarding them with petty scraps for their work, it would be my neck on the chopping block next. And I’d sharpen the tool myself!”
“Fair enough. You’ve made your point,” Izumi said.
“Do tell me this isn’t the only thing you’ve discovered this whole day?” he continued to ask the woman, looking exceedingly frustrated.
“It was the only record referring to the door, yes,” she answered. “There are still two more containers to go through, I might be able to learn more tomorrow.”
“I sure hope so,” Gronan grunted and sat down behind his desk, wiping his face. Then, his expression changed and he quickly leaned forward. “The record you mentioned—the door hadn’t been opened for generations, is that what it said? Was this a common policy? How was it worded, exactly?”
Izumi spent a moment trying to recall the unsettling message.
“The speaker had heard about it from his father, and his father from his father, and so on...So it probably wasn’t public knowledge, I’d say.”
“But did it sound like he knew where this door was himself?”
“Yes, I think so,” Izumi nodded. “That’s the way it sounded to me.”
“So the entrance is not in a place where just about anyone could stumble on it,” Gronan reasoned, combing his beard with his fingers. “Yet, it is not completely hidden from view either. It is somewhere, where a limited group of people would go, and they had to be informed of the door’s nature, so that they wouldn’t attempt to access it out of idle curiosity.”
“Makes sense, I suppose,” she nodded again.
“We’ve found a great many sealed doors so far in the city, of which we can’t be sure where they lead. One of those is likely the door in question. Trying them all would be beyond us within the time constraints given, but if we could narrow down the search area somehow…”
Gronan turned his attention to the map on the table. The drawing had been greatly added to since yesterday, now displaying most of the city, with notes on side for the various buildings’ possible purposes.
“Did the recorder give his name?” he asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Izumi answered.
“Hm. Doesn’t matter. Thaumaturgical crystals cost time and effort to make,” Gronan thought. “They have to be cut in a very specific way, with specialized tools. I don’t think they would’ve let just anyone use them, or store random submissions. Likely only a few people in the city knew how to create a memory crystal, or overwrite an old one. And such an informal, free-form message would have never passed an official admission procedure. To have included it in the archives nevertheless, the recorder had to have been someone with the necessary authority to access the place on his own.”
“Meaning, either one of the archivists, or a high-ranking government official?” she suggested.
“Yes. So for him to know of it, the door would then have to be either in the archives, in the Capitol, the Elders’ Hall, or one of these other two major buildings we’ve yet to identify. I will assign teams to each of them the first thing tomorrow and have them break the sealed doors. That should make things quicker.”
Then, looking up at Izumi, the man said,
“You, meanwhile, will go through the remaining records tomorrow, and hopefully learn more about the whereabouts of the entrance. If not, you will then join these teams, and I trust that an adventurer knows how to handle a crowbar.”
“Well, I do know how to whack crabs from another dimension with one,” Izumi replied, not terribly thrilled by the idea.
Dismissed by Gronan, Izumi left to join the others at the camp.
There had been another clue in the record regarding the location of the door, but Izumi had omitted it from her report. Whether finding and opening the secret door really was a good idea or not, she hadn’t yet decided.
With luck, she would be better informed tomorrow.
4
Near the end of the second period that night, Hrugnaw shook Izumi awake to inform her that her watch shift was about to begin. It took her all not to scream aloud at waking to see an enormous horned beast hunched over her, before recalling where she was, but Hrugnaw was quite delicate about it. It was rather uncanny how someone so big could move so quietly in a tent as cramped. Fortunately, his sleeping spot was by the entrance, so no one was at risk of being trampled by those giant boots at night. It was likely that his mass went beyond what a simple body scale could even display.
Izumi spent a lengthy while sitting cross-legged on her sleeping-bag, rubbing her eyes, trying to get her brain to work after barely four hours of sleep. With no way around the duty, she got dressed and crawled out, to find Faalan already seated at the campfire.
“Oh, you’re with me again?” she asked.
“I thought I’d let you sleep,” the man said. “But Hrugnaw deemed it unwise. There is only so much a single watchman can see, after all. And to disagree would have been arrogant of me.”
“What can you do?” Izumi stretched her neck and took seat in the light of flames. “He’s right.”
“She.”
“Huh?”
“Hrugnaw is female,” Faalan corrected her.
“E—EEEEEEHHH!?” Izumi couldn’t hold her voice. “Really? Here I thought I was the only woman on this expedition!”
“—Be quiet!” someone’s angry voice yelled from a distance.
“Sorry!” Izumi yelled back. “...But, seriously? I couldn’t tell at all.”
“Few can, with cruleans,” Faalan replied with a faint smile.
“Geez. That was a shock. Hope she hasn’t heard me mess up with my pronouns. That'd be embarrassing...”
They sat in silence for a quarter of an hour. Izumi found herself nodding off, but persisted. She didn’t feel like casting Ohrm to freshen up either. The watch shift was only an hour, she could soon go back to sleep again.
“Do you have the linkstone on you?” Faalan suddenly asked.
“Oh, no. It’s in the bag,” she replied.
“Good. There is no doubt now that Gronan has a way to listen to the communications even when the line isn’t active. His stone must be different from the others. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem anything incriminating has reached his ears so far.”
“Yes, doubt he would’ve given me such a job otherwise.”
“We should keep things that way,” Faalan said, and then put his hand in his coat pocket. “I found something in one of the rooms we searched earlier. It was dark, so no one else could see it, fortunately, and I could procure it unnoticed.”
He shortly took out a slim, transparent stick, cut with six sides—a memory crystal.
“Why this one was so far apart from the rest, I can’t even guess,” Faalan told Izumi as he handed over the item. “I couldn’t mention it to anyone, in case it contained information crucial to our cause. Whether it does or not, you should view it first.”
“Ah, thanks.” Izumi received the crystal and slipped it in her own pocket. “I’ll check it out tomorrow morning.”
“I also heard about your earlier discovery from the bard,” Faalan continued. “Regarding the alleged doorway. Did you already report it?”
“I did. As expected, Gronan wasn’t too easily spooked,” Izumi said, leaning on her knees. “He will open the door, if he finds it. Or all of them, if he doesn’t.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “How could he not?”
“I want to get rich as much as the next person, but I have to wonder if it’s actually worth it. In most cases, it’s not.”
“Regarding what might await us in the depths,” Faalan said, “a clue might be found in the recording itself.”
“Huh?” Izumi raised her face.
“What did it say, again?” he continued. “People began to see nightmares and hallucinate sounds, yes? They were overcome with a sudden collective decline in morale, a general sense of foreboding and despair, the cause of which they could not explain. As if some manner of a large-scale magic was at work. Magic—or perhaps technology.”
“Wait.” Izumi paused. “You don’t suppose someone went and used the weapon against them?”
“Or they lost control of it and it went berserk on its own,” he suggested. “The underground entrance may have been originally sealed in an effort to diminish the weapon’s influence. But their measures were insufficient. Perhaps the effect only grew stronger over time, and the initial policy of secrecy became the locals’ undoing. They forgot the cause of the mysterious ailment over the ages, and then no longer knew how to deal with it, or weren’t able to. This may be the true reason why Eylia was since abandoned. The city became uninhabitable due to the weapon’s mind-altering power.”
“...Is that it?” Izumi wondered, squeezing her cheeks. “Can that be the answer?”
“I would bet my share of the treasure that this is what Gronan now believes. Hence his urgency. We don’t feel any mental effects now. What if someone already found the weapon? What if it’s no longer in Eylia, or destroyed, or perhaps its power source is exhausted? That would be a disaster for him. He will want to confirm the state of the device as soon as possible, sparing no effort in the process.”
“Though it would be lucky for us if it’s gone or made useless,” Izumi said. “We wouldn’t need to beat him to it anymore.”
“Truly.” Faalan concurred, closing his eyes and looking down. It was likely that he shared Izumi’s concerns on the mission, and harbored no idealism over his role as a mole.
“Well, the theory fits,” Izumi then spoke after a pause. “I learned something else too.”
“What was it?” he asked, raising his face.
“The Precursors didn’t make those records,” she told him. “They’ve been gone for a long time, a lot longer than we thought. Closer to four thousand years, I'd say. All the records the ancients made were deleted together with their existence. And the Dharves didn’t leave this city right after their masters disappeared either. Finding themselves here alone and free, they took the city as their own and started over.”
Faalan’s eyes widened and a look of sudden alarm overcame his features.
“Are you certain of this?” he asked.
Izumi nodded.
“Why were the records made in the Common Speech?” she said. “Why did the voices sound human? It was no convenient translation magic at work, but because the recorders were people, of course. The ancestors of our friends. Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the truth.”
“...Then, why the lie?” he asked. “Why did they deny the proudest moments of their history, their era of peace and prosperity? Act as if none of it ever happened? Why doom their offspring to live with the identity of homeless slaves, when they were so much more?”
It was certainly a good question.
“…So that they’d look only in the future?” Izumi suggested after a moment of thought. “So that they’d never dream of coming back?”
A log cracked in the fire, sending up a pillar of embers, which the ascending hot air tossed around, like fireflies.
“But we are here now.” Faalan turned the gaze of his pale blue eyes at the woman and whispered. “We are about to bring to light that which those people sought to forget at all costs. What in the world have we begun?”