1

The fourth day of exploration looked to be cloudy but mostly peaceful, without wind or snow. Not that the outer weather conditions mattered so much anymore. Leaving the base camp with only minimal watch, all available hands departed for the Capitol and the underground city, which had been for many ages safe from any upheavals of nature.

Izumi held her breath as they entered the antechamber, but the view therein remained unchanged. The daemon continued to stand on the raised platform in the middle of the room. The thick coating of sand dust on it showed with irrefutable clarity that the effigy had engaged in no nightly escapades. Izumi had worried that the mercenaries, in the need to prove their unwavering manliness, would go on to mess with the statue, or attempt to vandalize it, bringing about the horrid fate that seemed to otherwise flow past them. But the monstrosity was, by all means, too big, high up, and all around disturbing for pointless tomfoolery. Most crew members chose to simply ignore it altogether.

“Good morning, my dear,” Tidaal lazily greeted the statue as he passed it.

At the chamber’s northern exit, Gronan halted and turned back.

“Gubal, Elvir, and Taun,” he named three among the mercenaries. “You have the watch in this chamber until noon. You will be freed by Sip, Weller, and Tuberkan after. While at it, see to it that the camp is supplied, and take there whatever is running short from the storage. Is this clear?”

“As you wish,” Gubal answered, touching his chest with his fist, displaying his adamant professionalism as a mercenary. Taun and Elvir were less enthusiastic and made only quick nods. Taun looked pale and sick. Watch duty in this place while hungover and nauseous was surely a fate worse than death itself.

Though not called by name, there was also a fourth member in their group by default, and his reaction was surprisingly even worse than that of the others. Taun’s dog kept glued to the side wall, as low as possible, and trembled terribly, its tail between the legs. It whimpered pitifully, unable to keep still, and refused to raise its head. The very hound that had stood by his master and stared down the frostwargs days before.

“Easy boy, what’s the matter with you?” Taun tried to encourage his companion, patting and rubbing it. It was no use. The dog kept whining and going in circles, as if in great distress, and Taun couldn’t bear to keep looking at it. “Alright, alright, I’ll take you back to the camp. Damn you for making me climb those stairs again. What a watch dog you are, sheesh…!”

Taun turned around and left to take his companion back the way they'd come.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew proceeded on. They passed through the first layer and the farms, then to split up and resume their search in the residential districts. They brought down large containers and set them up on a wider plaza, for the purpose of gathering the valuables from the houses there. This business kept the majority of the crew occupied for the better part of the morning, and not a word of complaint could be heard. The lure of coin and precious accessories made alcohol-related issues vanish from the mercenaries’ minds.

Meanwhile, Gronan took a smaller lead team with Marcus, Acquiescas, Faalan, Aft, and Orik, and they went to separately search the third layer district with the dwellings of more opulent looks.

Everyone else naturally assumed that Gronan intended to hog for himself the best of the treasures, as was the leader’s natural right, but Izumi guessed otherwise. There was only one thing Gronan was after, and he had to make sure the city elite hadn’t been hiding it in their houses, before he would extend the search deeper below.

From the crystal record she had checked earlier in the morning, Izumi alone had gained an additional hint regarding the weapon’s whereabouts. It had been once kept somewhere “under lock and guard”, and even the most influential citizens had vowed not to lay their hands on it. Whether they had kept true to their word or not, such promises would have had no credibility at all, if one of them had stored the tool in their own home. But whether Gronan recognized how unlikely this was, or not, outward he expressed none of his thoughts. Neither did Izumi feel like stopping them, as their vain search only served to postpone the inevitable clash of interests.

Was the relic then in the very obvious treasure vault she and Faalan had spotted last night? Izumi would’ve liked to go and have a closer look at the suggestive doorway, but luck was not on her side today. She and Waramoti ended up in a team with Tidaal, and the foul-mouthed mercenary wouldn’t let the woman out of his sight for a moment, but kept bombarding her with inane questions and remarks without rest. Their childish quarreling made the matter of the hidden super weapon shortly vanish from mind.

Barely three hours had passed when Gronan’s team returned, and while they carried some extraordinary valuables to add to the growing piles, the Dharvic leader’s visage remained dark and sullen. He hadn’t found what he was looking for in the mansions, but neither had he found conclusive proof of its nonexistence. The ancients’ residences were grand in scale and elaborate in design, and it was quite possible there were hidden rooms, passages, and closed safes, which the investigators had failed to see, where things more precious were kept. Dreading that he had missed a major clue, seeing the enormity of his task keep on expanding beyond all probability of success, Gronan’s inner vexation was reaching all new heights. Now, he begrudgingly turned to the adventurer again, sullenly commanding her to come along, and then took his team to the layer below the third.

Descending the central stairway, as Izumi and Faalan had on the previous night, they came into the vast hall filled with the great pillars and illuminated it with their lamps. There was no keeping the Dharves from discovering the vault now, as it was rather eye-catching and the visibility much better than before. Ignoring all else, they headed for it immediately.

On top of a set of wide stairs, in the back of a deep recess in the wall, was the circular metal gate, with numerous valves, levers, and large bolts decorating its surface. Though it offered no obvious means of access or instructions, what lay past the hefty doorway was not a particular mystery to anyone in the party. There could only await the true wealth and splendor of Eylia, excavated from the mountain depths over the long history of the domain—and perhaps things of yet greater significance. To make the expedition truly the success story it was meant to be, the vault had to be opened, one way or the other.

Aft studied the door closer, knocking it with a small hammer, carefully listening to the sounds, while the others waited a few paces away.

“Okay,” he finally reported with a nod. “I’ve good news, bad news, and then some worse news.”

“Just hit me,” Gronan told him, not in the mood for games.

“The good news is, it’s only titanium and steel, and not some magic material completely impregnable by mortal measures. Not even enchanted. The bad news is, the door is at least four feet thick, and the wall around it heavily reinforced. And the worse news is, it takes six keys to open and we haven’t got one.”

“I only care about one thing,” Gronan retorted. “Can we do it?”

“Maybe? There are two ways to get in, as far as I can tell,” the engineer explained. “One: we keep searching the city and find the keys. Or two: we find a big drill and do it the hard way. As said, these are normal pin cylinder locks, not Divine mysteries. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I’d be shocked if the locals didn’t have the necessary equipment, and it’s likely easier to find one drill than all those keys. I should be happy with either, really.”

“Very well,” Gronan nodded. “I will tell the teams above to scour the elite district for the keys. The city’s banking officials should have them, and if we find even one, it will speed things up. Meanwhile, the rest of us will look for the mines. It is our likeliest bet at finding drills suited for metal and stone. Did everyone hear that?” he raised his voice and looked around. “Then let’s get to work.”

“—Excuse me, my lord,” Acquiescas suddenly interrupted Gronan, as they were about to head out. “Pardon me, but I have very little skill or knowledge when it comes to metalwork. Would it be all right with you, if I took a small team and went to explore ahead instead? Since there seems to be a path down over there. Only a few volunteers will do.”

“Sure,” the Dharvic chieftain replied without much thought, as if he had already forgotten about the scholar entirely. “Do whatever you like.”

“Mayhap Izumi should go with him?” Faalan suggested. “And Master Bard.”

“A wonderful idea,” Gronan replied and departed down the stairs with the other mercenaries, towards the entrance in the other end of the hall, which had a very forge-like feel to it. Getting women, children, and other unrelated outsiders out of the way while breaking into the treasury was clearly an idea he could bring himself to agree to. At the same time, he failed to notice that the Silver Saber had ulterior motives of his own. Faalan gave Izumi a subtle look before following after the rest, which the woman didn’t miss.

So he doesn’t think the weapon is in the vault?

“Ah, together again!” Acquiescas cheerfully commented to his past bodyguards, no less oblivious than the Dharves. “Shall we be off then?”

2

The three departed north, past the mighty pillars of the hall, towards the narrow opening cut into the back wall. Through that deep crack carried another steep stairway, which they took, the echoes of their footsteps carrying off into the expansive darkness ahead. Izumi and Acquiescas held torches shaped of fluorescent ore, which gave off a warm, green-blue glow, safer and more stable than conventional fire. The bard followed after them, his lute strapped to his back, doing his best to commit every little detail to memory.

What more could await them in the lower depths of the mountain city?

They had seen where the ancients had produced their sustenance, where they had lived and gathered, where they had stored their wealth, and where they had worked as well. By the rational process of elimination, what facility of developed civilization could there be left? Or would it be something entirely outside the scope of their imagination, a secret that time itself forgot? None of the three could even guess the answer.

Thinking about the obscene land masses above their heads made Izumi shudder. The very impression of their gravity appeared crushing. What if an earthquake occurred? What if some ancient self-destruct mechanism was triggered? It would be a long way to run back up to the surface. She had no confidence that her stamina would last that far.

Fortunately, the explorers encountered no such deadly traps.

These halls and tunnels had stood for uncounted cycles before, produced by know-how even beyond what could be achieved in the 21st century Earth, and it was highly unlikely that they would collapse unannounced on this particular instance. The deeper the explorers ventured, the looser the grip of time seemed to become, and the farther their findings drifted from the parameters of the ordinary.

The trio passed through various peculiar rooms painted with ancient imagery, preserved nearly intact here outside the reach of natural forces. They found a breathtaking gallery of golden tablets, each inscribed with the names and titles of the champions of Eylia, the Kings and Queens of the City Under the Mountain, and the major figureheads and Elders of the later Northern Republic. It was only with great effort that Acquiescas could be separated from this treasure trove of historical data, but the path continued on.

Following the unnatural stairs and corridors deeper and deeper, the three arrived in a curious atrium. It was about twenty-five feet deep, sixty wide, divided into four levels by unguarded walkways along the walls, which rectangular pillars supported. Stairs connected the levels in the far left and the far right, respectively, granting the visitors access to the bottom floor. Above in the ceiling was a large opening, through which a ghastly blade of midday light was cast down, carried from untold heights, to aid their little lamps.

This place had a distinctly different feel to it compared to the rest of the city; simpler, less polished, and also a good deal more ancient. The dark walls were covered with hand-carved figures, and countless vertical lines of strange letters and symbols, and they were unlike anything seen before on the levels above.

“By the grace of the Lords, this is…!” Acquiescas gasped, hurrying to examine the walls closer, unable to even end his sentence for his awe.

Izumi and Waramoti were less impressed, as the writing on the walls was well above their education level, and the accompanying images childishly basic and crude in their eyes.

“I know this writing style,” the scholar muttered, taking out his notebook and browsing the pages with a feverish trembling of hands. “They’ve found ruins with similar inscriptions before—but never of such scale and detail! Only fragments! Here we have entire passages preserved perfectly intact, all the characters clear and legible! Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!”

“Um, professor...?” Izumi tried to get his attention. The way appeared to continue on from the bottom of the atrium, but they couldn’t leave Acquiescas behind by himself.

Yet, he wasn’t listening.

“How old can they be?” he continued to chat by himself. “The twelfth cycle? No, possibly even older than that, surely...Pre-Alberion era? Oh, heavens take me...!”

“Is there something special about these markings?” Waramoti asked. “I do hope it’s not another list of rulers, or whatnot. I fail to see any audience for such aimless trivia.”

“Oh, no!” Acquiescas replied, carefully wiping dust off the wall with a wide brush. “These are Hyporean runes! A writing system devised and used exclusively by the ancient natives of the northern mountains. The oldest known samples date back to the fourth cycle! Nearly thirty thousand years ago! And those were on ground level. Considering our position, this could well be even older than that. Ancient even by the Precursors’ standards!”

“That’s very neat,” Izumi blankly commented. “Can you read what they say?”

The scholar made an exasperated face, examining the lines.

“Scientists have managed to decipher some of the runes in the past, but unlike most of the younger texts found before, this is all written in the Old Tongue. But listen! ‘Fa luen dé sanaál, ti no vaer sa a’tome’...These are the words with which the Creation Myth begins. ‘In the beginning there was nothing, save the wisdom of the makers...’”

The World stood alone and dark, a dominion of rock, night, and primordial fire.

Down the vales of Erthrang passed only Shadows of Muinasse, and they were free of form, and yet without name.

Then came the Outer Gods, on their long voyage across the stars. From the sky they stepped down onto the plateau of Leng, overlooking the barren land, and deemed what they saw fit to bear their vision of Eden.

“...But I’m afraid my understanding of the Old Tongue is rudimentary at best,” Acquiescas interrupted himself. “There are some highly obscure, archaic words and phrases mixed in, and not all of the runes are familiar to me. It’s not a word-for-word reiteration of the commonly known version of the poem, that much is clear. I can only make out short bits here and there. We’d need an expert of the ancient language to be able to fully translate these texts.”

“Hmm,” Izumi stared at the wall, thinking. “Old Tongue is what the elves use, right? Even today.”

“Ah, I see what you're going for,” Waramoti replied. “Faalan was raised in Alderia. He should know the language better than any of us. Perhaps he could help with deciphering the texts?”

“But I’m sure he’s got better things to do,” she shrugged. “Everybody knows the story of how the world was made, right? This is not the shocking discovery worth investing in.”

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“You’re probably right,” the bard concurred. “Which is to say, our time here might not be so wisely spent either. We should keep moving. If I were a Precursor, I’d definitely put my greatest secret in the lowest pit there is. Since we’ve been graciously given the chance to explore freely, let’s make the most of it.”

“How much deeper does this rabbit hole go, anyway?” Izumi lamented. “There’s no end in sight! They sure weren’t thinking about the folks with disabilities when they built this place.”

The three pioneers descended the stairs to the bottom floor of the atrium, where stood a simple, now-dried stone fountain. Thence, a wide corridor of curious pentagonal shape carried directly northward. The passage looked little younger than the area before it. The writing continued here on the slanted walls, chiseled in narrow columns, with rough depictions of ancient deities and otherworldly creatures, at places badly worn. The text went on uninterrupted for the whole length of the grand corridor, which was roughly some fifty yards.

“Oh, I must come back here later!” Acquiescas exclaimed, anxiously gazing around, as though worried someone would steal the walls away or wipe off the text if he turned his back on them. “And I’ll have to bring Faalan along! I’ll abduct the man and drag him down by force, if I must!”

“I'm sure he’ll agree if only you ask nicely,” Izumi said, as they walked on. “It’s the Big Boss I’d sooner worry about.”

“Even Gronan has to acknowledge the significance of this find!” the scholar insisted. “What we are seeing here is a collection of likely the oldest surviving texts in the whole world, barring the records of the fallen emiri dominion! Modern man has never had access to such wealth of historical information before! This is worth far more than any gold! It is simply priceless! And I’d gladly give up my share of the treasure for the opportunity to study these inscriptions closer, with proper time and assistance! All of this goes so far beyond anything I ever dared hope to find in here.”

“Far be it from me to belittle the value of a good story,” the bard said to him. “But I’d prefer, above all, to have my own survive back to the aforementioned modern man. I have to say, this place holds way too many secrets and unspoken truths for comfort! Not to speak of…”

Waramoti fell suddenly silent, turning his gaze forward.

They had reached the end of the corridor. It opened to a larger space, most of it veiled in impenetrable shadows, making its scale difficult to measure. But what was visible hinted at a cavern of vast proportions, where all sounds of footsteps and conversation were swiftly swallowed and not returned. What little features the explorers were able to make out in the dark left them collectively speechless and in awe, if not outright shocked.

First to recover, Izumi let out a whistle.

“What in the…?” Acquiescas could only stand and stare, stupefied, unable to comprehend what he was looking at. Waramoti wouldn’t say anything, sharing Acquiescas’s slack-jawed expression.

Oddly enough, while much of the space ahead was outside their lanterns’ range, and no natural light had access this far down, the deepest reaches of the cavity were the easiest to perceive. But though what they saw was quite straightforward to describe, that portentous view nevertheless blew away and buried everything they thought they knew about the city of Eylia and its antediluvian inhabitants.

Straight across the cavern in the distance, part buried into the wall, was an enormous pyramid.

That iconic shape, so familiar to the dwellers of planet Earth, had yet to be seen before on this planet so far removed from the universe of our champion. But here it returned, in the unlikeliest of places, its shape drawn sharp and clear in the glum distance. Yet, it was not the timeless geometry of the enormous structure alone that bewildered the explorers, or even the evident antiquity of its assembly. The most startling effect was conveyed by this primordial building’s other characteristics, which belonged more in the realm of science fiction than the infancy of organized life.

The pyramid was divided horizontally in two in the middle by a belt-like depression, which circled around the entire structure. Right in the middle of that line on the front face, under the cover of the upper half, was an obvious entrance. The entryway was drawn clear in the dark, brightly lit by artificial, colorless lamps, and a solitary red standby light burned above it like a dragon’s watchful eye, embedded into stone. So powerful were these lights that they illuminated a good part of the cavern around the pyramid too, an ancient street paved with blocks of sandstone, and the gargantuan stairs leading right up to the entrance.

What was that ominous building, and what was it built for, were subjects even harder to explain than its various counterparts on the Earth across space and time. Had it been created to honor the Gods that were no more? Or to win the favor of the invisible Divines? Or perhaps for some other reason, which had been lost over the eons and might so remain an eternal mystery to all?

“My friends,” Acquiescas raised his voice with hesitation, unable to remove his eyes from the structure. “A-are you seeing this…?”

“Yes, you’re not dreaming it,” Izumi replied.

“This is devilry. I—I don’t want to be here anymore,” the scholar mouthed. He stepped away and crouched, apparently too dizzy to remain standing. “Ooh!”

“Are you okay?” she questioned him, but the man could only shake his head for answer.

Who could mock the professor for his reaction? It was unlikely that anyone of the expedition crew had been here to ignite those lights during their brief visit. Neither were there any other living beings around. Which meant that the lamps had to have burned uninterrupted in this cavern for thousands of years. What powered them? Not even Izumi’s more advanced knowledge could explain such phenomenal technology. Then again, this whole world had been quite unbelievable to her from the start, and so she wasn’t particularly shocked by miracles of this level anymore.

“It appears this is the end of our tour,” Waramoti regained his tongue and told the woman. “I don’t see any way further on, and thank the Divines for that. I don’t know what would’ve become of my sanity, were there yet something after this.”

“Right,” Izumi nodded. “I don’t know about my sanity, but I do know I don’t want to go anywhere near a place as creepy as that. But I suppose we have to, if we want our answers.”

She glanced at Acquiescas, who remained squatting a few steps away. Dragging the old man along would have only been unnecessary cruelty, but neither could they leave him alone. What should they do? As Izumi pondered this, the trio was suddenly interrupted by a sound coming through the linkstones, signifying the opening of communications.

Izumi grimaced, instinctively prepared for the worst.

The trouble she had expected couldn’t have picked a more fitting, more bothersome timing! But in this case, her fears proved misplaced. What soon filled their ear canals was only Joort’s jovial voice, from the surface city.

“—Dear ladies and bastards. I’m interrupting your loathsome tomb-raiding to bring to your scattered attention that lunch is now being served at the usual place, starting…right about now. So hurry up here, all you hungry souls, before it goes cold. The last one here washes all the pots. Thank you.”

That was all.

Izumi exhaled in relief, feeling her heart.

“Oh crap!” she then gasped, recalling their current position and the distance back up to ground level. “I won’t be the last one today too!”

3

Basic human needs were unwise to ignore, and the lost city wouldn’t disappear like a mirage in another hour, and so the expedition crew begrudgingly set aside their work in favor of a hot meal. The teams from different parts of the site also took this chance to share information and discuss their findings. After all, as people still unaccustomed to wireless communications, they had been exceedingly conservative with their contacts, and preferred to tell important things face-to-face.

While Izumi’s group had been busy with their history tour, Gronan’s team had gone on to search the industrial district. The Dharves made a living primarily through mining, so whether they wanted to admit it or not, this was a place close to their hearts. And what they had uncovered from the abandoned facilities was a veritable wonderland to relevant technology. As though a city of its own, the zone of forges and refineries carried deep northwest, they said, filled with great, outlandish machinery, mountainous smelters, dizzying pipe works, and more. Tools they had also found, portable machine drills powered by highly developed, mana-charged trebolium batteries. These tools could be restored to operation with rudimentary maintenance and recharging. Mounting diamond drills onto the devices, the engineering staff was confident they would be able to breach the vault door already today, before nightfall.

Better yet, the other teams had gathered every key and even vaguely key-shaped items they could find in the residential district, and among the miscellaneous findings was also one genuine vault key. Soon enough, the treasury would be opened, and the expedition would reach the fulfillment of its (second-to-secondary) purpose.

Would the Precursors’ fabled weapon be also hidden in the vault? Or was it deeper still, maybe somewhere in the anomalous pyramid that Izumi and her friends had found?

“Let’s keep this discovery to ourselves for now, shall we?” the champion had suggested to Waramoti and the scholar on their way back to the surface.

Ignorant of their secret mission, Acquiescas had failed to understand the reasoning behind her proposal so readily. But she told him, “You wanted to look around in peace and quiet, right? That place is probably full of some super fragile little ancient things, and our mercenary friends aren’t too delicate, as you may have noticed. So maybe we should make sure it’s safe first, before we let them in on it.”

“I see your point,” Acquiescas had conceded, and therefore, no word of the pyramid was uttered to the others yet.

Instead, the scholar would tell Gronan that he had found interesting ancient inscriptions on the lower level, written in the Old Tongue, and expressed his strong desire to have Faalan assist him in the interpretation effort. To his fortune, Gronan had nothing against the idea. The Silver Saber might have had his strong points, but in the crafts of metallurgy, lock-breaking, and drilling, he was altogether useless. It was uncertain just how well the Tarpit’s captain trusted the former hero of the Empire, but Gronan likely was not too sorry to remove him from the vault’s proximity, in the event that the alleged secret weapon was there.

Faalan himself didn’t seem to mind the change of roles either.

“Of course,” he answered Acquiescas’s request with his usual nonchalance. “I may not compare to the emiri scholars, but I did learn their writing system and the Old Speech to the necessary level of fluency.”

“Then it’s settled!” the professor cheerfully exclaimed. “So glad to have you!”

They dined at the tents, warmed by the campfire, which Ames and Selver had kept burning. Onslow had kept the book keepers company. The dog had exhibited no desire to return to his master’s side in all this time, and only greeted Taun as he returned from the watch with an accusing glance, lying by the Shrine stairs.

“I’ve the headache of a millennium and here you sleep without a worry in the world!” the man scolded his pet.

Izumi watched the dog, the unease in her unabated.

The daemon statue remained dead as a rock, its guardians deeming themselves nothing short of unemployed. The whole watch was starting to seem more like a weird, unjust punishment game than a sensible duty. Gronan and Marcus had deliberated ending the practice altogether, and freeing the men to other tasks, but Izumi, who had happened to pass them by right then, had stopped to appeal against this.

“Don’t make that mistake,” she had told Gronan, and such weight and urgency had been behind her words, that even that hardened man had hesitated.

Izumi was better than aware that three men alone had little chances to prevail against the daemon, if it actually came back to life. But if only they could manage to send a word to the others before their demise, then the watch would have served its purpose. It was far better than having such a foe fall upon them with no warning whatsoever.

“…Keep them at it for this day,” Gronan had then told Marcus, even if only to humor the woman. “We’ll see about it again tomorrow.”

Izumi looked down into her soup cup, dejected.

Come tomorrow, not one soul around would listen to her warnings again, regardless of her achievements with the antique puzzles. The watch would be disbanded, and the monster would have complete freedom of movement. Was this what it was waiting for? Or was its timeless rest so deep as to continue undisturbed even through all the commotion, and they were actually safe?

Izumi’s stomach hurt for all the worrying. If only they could get the vault quickly open, take the treasure, convince Gronan that the Precursors’ weapon never existed, and leave before the abomination would make its move...Was it too much asked?

Perhaps there was another way.

If the weapon was not in the vault, then the next likeliest hiding place was surely the anomalous pyramid in the lowest depths. They could search the structure while the Dharves were occupied with breaking the vault, locate the weapon, and then use it to wipe all this nonsense from Gronan’s mind, and compel them to return home.

It was quite a far-fetched plan, but perhaps possible. If the weapon could help them complete the job without any bloodshed, then they had to at least try. Izumi decided to share her intentions with her companions as soon as they would return underground again. With little luck, they could ride back home as early as tomorrow morning.

Regrettably, as said, luck was not with Izumi that day.

“—Ms Adventurer!”

Done with the meal, the woman from another world and her companions headed back to the Capitol, along with the others, when she was interrupted by a bold shout along the way.

The one calling her from the Shrine entrance was Gronan, and he beckoned her to come over. Wondering what it was about, or if she had unwittingly done anything incriminating, she nodded at her companions to go on, and went over to see their leader.

She soon learned that she was not in trouble, at least not directly.

“Say, have you per chance learned the ancient tongue on your travels?” Gronan inquired the woman.

“...No, can’t say I have,” Izumi answered with both sincerity and caution, not seeing what he was after.

“Then the professor will have no use for you,” the man remarked, at the same time taking something from his coat pocket. It was a key, made of what looked like platinum, well polished and shining brightly in the light of day. “See this shape? Remember it well. It is one of the vault keys. The only one we’ve found thus far.”

“Okay?” she said, tilting her head.

“Being so crafty, you might already know what I’m going to say next.”

To this, Izumi said nothing. Of course, there was no way she didn’t guess it. He put it in plain words, nevertheless, to leave no room for misunderstandings.

“Join the teams on the third level, and find me the remaining keys. That’ll be your job for the rest of the day.”

Finished with his business, Gronan turned around and returned to the Shrine hall, leaving Izumi with a very MMO-esque side quest in her hands.

Under different circumstances, she might have been thrilled by the adventurous development and the show of confidence, but the timing in this case couldn’t have been much worse. Saddled with such a time-consuming task on the other side of the city, her opportunity to investigate the enigmatic building below was effectively taken. And any hope of putting a timely end to the expedition along with it. Neither could Izumi avoid noting that she had been once more parted from Faalan’s company, while the situation remained perilous. Not that she could well disobey the expedition leader’s direct orders either, not without openly making an enemy of him.

"Damn it...”

How much would this unexpected delay come to cost them?

Hoping the best and fearing the worst, Izumi turned and left trudging towards the looming Capitol, as the gears of fate quietly turned.