Reginault wanted to go ahead into the black tunnel when Mel remembered something. “Wait, I have a small light vial!” she rummaged through her satchel in search of the small crystal object. Finally, she found it, a small bulbous vial about the size of half her thumb. In it a tiny portion of dark oily flux. “I use it to read after dark. It should provide a tiny amount of light in there!”
Reginault took it and twisted the glass plug, causing the vial's round body to emit a bright white light. “Shouldn’t you have turned this in?” he asked, still in that boyish manner.
“Well, yes. But we all forget things sometimes, don't we?”
Reginault smirked and went ahead, holding the tiny light aloft, then followed Benedict and then Mel. The corridor was wide enough for a broad built man and alcoves on the side were apparently meant to allow people to let others pass by.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Benedict asked in the darkness.
“Yes. I know that we have to follow this stretch until it ends, there we will take a left and at the end of that stretch, we’ll find the harbour.” Reginault spoke with the certainty and direction of a man who knew how to organize people. “To be honest, my greatest worry is that there are no guards anywhere. That seems too odd.” Mel had to be honest, that was exactly what she had been thinking the entire time.
They did as Reginault decided and continued their way down further ahead. Eventually, they arrived at a heavy wooden door, braced with metal, locked with a bolt from the inside. Reginault pulled the bolt back and carefully opened the door. Benedict squeezed next to Reginault to peek through the slit and Mel ducked under Benedict to get a view as well.
The door was situated roughly ten feet above the waterline, in front of it were battlements and arrow slits. Between them she could see guards move about the harbour, checking crates and barrels and generally looking busy. To the left Mel could see the inlet to the plaza she arrived on. And there, on the side of a building, she saw a curious red mane and a pointed, brimless hat.
“I think I see her, there!” From what she could see, Tamaris was hiding next to a building, waiting for an opportune moment to dash to the next hiding spot.
Reginault seemed to have spotted her too. “How do we get over there?”
Benedict stood up straight and pushed the door open. “Simple as this!” and walked out the door.
The other two needed a moment to properly assess what had just happened, but they quickly realized and took after Benedict. Mel leaned closer to Reginault to whisper to him. “You know, I can kind of see those two getting along.”
“Yes, they do have that certain spirit in common.”
Mel had always thought Benedict to be a withdrawn, diligent student, but she suddenly pictured him going on the same kind of foolish adventures as Tamaris, just with a little more care and composure. Or maybe he was the mastermind behind pranks and tomfoolery?
With confidence they strode around the harbour and towards where the pointed hat had disappeared behind a corner. They could now see the central register building, and Benedict did not walk directly towards it, but to a corner he insisted he had seen Tamaris disappear behind. They were almost around the corner when a call made them stop.
“HALT!” A guard behind them had spotted them. “What are you doing? The fortress is on full alert!”
Benedict, confident and with the smile of a receptionist, turned around to the armed and armoured man. “Good day, I am Benedict-Effassee, junior central registrar.” He held up his medallion identifying him as a staff member of the Vault. “I am just accompanying these people to the next safe area.”
Mel had taken the opportunity to peek around the corner. She saw Tamaris crouching in front of another building’s door, holding a clay pot, inspecting it, sniffing it and looking inside, picking something up from the ground and putting it in her pocket. More Mel couldn’t see at this distance.
“Very well, Monsieur Effassee.” The guard spoke. “Do you know where to go?”
“Oh yes. We will just head...” Benedict turned around the corner. “...down to the printing catalogue. I know the safe room in there.” He pointed at the very building that Tamaris had just disappeared into, together with the pot.
“Then I shall accompany you, we cannot be too safe with an unknown danger around.”
Benedict tried to shake the guard, but he insisted on coming with them to the printing catalogue. They made their way down and inside the building, around the corner to a room with a heavy door. Inside was a sort of waiting room with padded benches, chairs and, as Mel had guessed, Tamaris.
“Oh Look, someone else is here already!” the guard checked the room once more, then excused himself and left, pulling the heavy door shut behind him.
Benedict’s voice spoke of genuine happiness to see the girl alive and well. “Tammy, there you are, we came looking for you!”
Mel had no time for concern. “Spit it out, half-pint, where's the pot?”
Tamaris was putting on a really bad impression of an innocent person “Pot, what pot? I found no pot!”
“I saw you, you picked up some kind of clay pot!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did!”
Reginault stepped between the two. “Mel, what are you talking about?”
“When the guard stopped us, I peeked around the corner and saw her sitting there, by the entrance, looking at a pot and then taking it with her!”
Reginault and Benedict turned to Tamaris and gave her a stern look. Eventually, she caved in and retrieved something out from beneath the bench she was sitting on. A dark clay pot with some simplistic wavy patterns and dots in white, the opening was not big enough to allow Mel’s head through, but wide enough for both her hands. A wooden plug sat neatly in the opening.
Mel grabbed it from her hand and inspected it, looked inside, sniffed it, just like Tamaris did. She found wax around the rim of the opening and around the plug, as if they had been sealed shut until just recently, but her investigation revealed to her nothing beyond that.
The two men were looking at her as if she had just committed a social faux pas. “Why are you sniffing it?”
“Because she did, right before picking something up from the ground.” Mel looked inside.
“No I didn’t.” Tamaris’ innocent act had not gotten better.
“Oh please, stop the lies already!”
Reginault again turned to Tamaris. “Tammy, be honest with us here, what is all of this?”
She pulled a long strip of leather out of her pocket and handed it to Reginault. The other three inspected the strip closely. It was about two fingers wide and two feet long. The leather was weirdly flexible and thick, with occasional nubs in it, not unlike scales. Stitched on it in fiery red hair were runes, dozens of them, they covered the entire length of the strip. Normally, runes were used by mystics to make contracts with or wards against daemons and spirits. The material was as important as the runes themselves.
“I have never seen runes like these.” Reginault said, but Mel had seen them before. She was no mystic, she could not speak to spirits and daemons like they could, but she had learned much about languages and she recognized a few.
“I know a some of these, they are ancient Al’Makahan.” She searched for singular runes that she recognized. “This one, it means ‘protection’ and that one means 'inside' or 'room'. I think this strip was used to seal something inside the pot, maybe some sort of daemon. This leather is strange, its not from anything you can find in an ordinary city, forest or farm. Maybe some rare beast. And this hair? I have no idea. Whatever was in there was fierce!”
Benedict’s eyes grew wide. “A daemon? Is it maybe an artefact the Vault housed for safekeeping?”
Reginault shook his head. “No, then the girl wouldn’t have found it by the door. She brought it here.”
“Of course, they said it was an intruder that got loose, not a containment breach.” Benedict turned to Tamaris. “Tammy, did you bring this here?”
The girl looked as if she wanted to disappear through the cracks between the floor boards, but did not answer.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Rage bubbled up inside Mel. The wretched little thing had played them! “Spit it out, what did you unleash? Who were you sent by!”
Reginault tapped Mel on the shoulder and beckoned her to stand back. Then he turned to Tamaris. “Tammy, tell us exactly what you did.”
The girl tried to look away, avoid their judging stares. She took off her stupid hat and kneaded it nervously in her hands. “The others told me it was a stink bomb!”
“What?” None of them could really understand where she was coming from all of a sudden.
“The others, from Greene's Foresight, told me it was a stink bomb, I was supposed to tear off the strip as soon as I was at the Vault and then get off the island as fast as I could. I thought if I did the prank, the others would respect me more.”
Reginault put his hand to his forehead. “But you stayed behind and you thought you could have been responsible for the alarm.”
“Yes.” Tamaris hung her head low.
“And then you snuck out somehow and came to check the pot?”
“Yes.”
A silence fell. Tamaris was still kneading her hat, the other three tried to put the new information together. Mel tried to figure the girl out. “So, someone set you up to this but you didn’t follow the plan?”
Tamaris merely nodded.
Benedict turned to the girl again. “Who exactly from Greene’s Foresight put you up to this?”
She inhaled deeply. “A guy named Nirmann. He was an alumnus with at least five rings on his staff.”
“I never heard of him. Where did you meet him?”
“He was at the last datio. The others spoke highly of him. I asked him what I could do to get as much respect as he had, so he told me about this prank he had once pulled and offered to supply the stink bomb.”
Mel turned to Benedict. “What’s a datio?”
“Oh, it’s a meeting of former members who offer to donate to the causes of the current members, reminiscing about older times, finding future partners or assistants and getting horribly drunk. They’re good for the ambitious that want to move up in life quickly. Seems not all former members are completely trustworthy.” Benedict’s face seemed angered, as if a great insult had been dealt to an idol of his.
“And what now? How can we find out what kind of daemon was inside? And what it wants?”
Benedict answered her question. “Well it must be a daemonic servant in some sort of contract, otherwise it would not be set loose by itself. And it must be after the restricted artefact repository.”
“What? Are you sure they are not after some book?” Mel was honestly surprised Benedict was so quick to deduce that.
He shook his head. “Almost all books here are either published or available at the student library in printed form, so a thief wouldn’t have to go so far as to break into the Vault to get it.” He thought for a while. “Or they are not on any index except the one for the locked library, only accessible to a select few of the University, so only an insider would know about their existence in the first place, and an insider wouldn’t have to rely on a naive student to get inside.” He pointed at Tamaris. “Therefore, I guess it’s a powerful artefact. It would be easy to find out that the University has it.”
Mel was well impressed with Benedict’s thinking, but she didn’t feel any closer to knowing where to go from here. “And now?”
“I have to find the daemon!” Tamaris chimed in. “I can’t let it get what it wants!”
“Tamaris, are you sure you are up to this? You could just leave it to the guard.”
“NO! I caused this mess, I'll fix it!”
Mel rolled her eyes.
“I'll help too!” Benedict said, as Mel had expected him to.
Reginault spoke up, not surprising Mel either. “I'll come along; it is safer if we help, since we already have vital information, rather than to wait for the guards to figure it out by themselves. And if we told them, they might not believe us.”
They were all looking at Mel now. “What?” She knew she couldn’t abandon them now and she had come this far. “Fine, I'm already in too deep with you anyway!”
Tamaris made a tiny jump. “Great, let’s go!”
She was always at the door when Reginault stopped her. “How will we get across the plaza? I doubt Benedict’s little lie will work for us again.”
“I can make us invisible!” Tamaris chimed up.
“What? How?” Mel didn’t believe the girl could have brought an index in her robe pocket.
“I know Stratton’s Secret Step by heart. It’s all in here!” She pointed at her own head. “That’s how I made it this far. I found a grain of flux powder in my robe pocket so it only lasted a bit!”
“But we handed all our flux in.”
“I didn’t.” Benedict spoke up. “In fact, I left all my stuff at the central register, we head over there real quick, grab my stuff and then head to the restricted artefact repository with the invisibility spell.”
Nobody seemed to have any objections to that. They headed back outside. The central register was around a corner of the printing catalogue and then a far way in plain sight of the plaza. Instead of risking detection, Benedict led them the longer way around the printing catalogue and towards the register the long way through the alleys.
Many of the alleys they came across had stone arches and wooden roofs above, obviously to protect from projectiles and falling rubble. Mel wondered if the streets they were walking on today would too someday become tunnels below.
They hurried and dashed their ways over the broad roads, ducking into side alleys until they arrived just one dash away from the central register. When they peeked around the corner, out of the shadow of the wall they were clinging to, they could see the register, facing away from them. Its position at the edge of the plaza meant that they had to make their last dash in full visibility from the guards patrolling there. One after the other they clung to the wall of the building and Benedict turned around.
“We need to be quick. I can get us through the entrance. You’ll have to get to the door so I can let you in, if I leave the door open or wait outside our chances of being seen just go up. Just rattle the door when you arrive!” He looked at each of the other three and they nodded. He took a last glance around the corner, then made his attempt.
He sprinted across the gap between the two buildings. He arrived at the red brick building, then ducked around a corner and was gone. Tamaris was the next in line. She pressed her lips shut and took a careful peek around the corner. She seemed to wait for just the right time, her feet and knees jittering in anticipation. Then she saw her chance and shot ahead. Her tiny feet made light TIPTIPTIP sounds on the pavement as she moved across the gap between the buildings like a mouse in the open. She was on the other side, ran around the corner and was gone.
Reginault prepared himself. “It has been a while since I really did any races.” He cleared his throat, took a few deep breaths and then checked the corner. “Good luck” he said with a quick glance back to Mel and then ran off. His gait was much slower and careful with his steps, but he eventually disappeared around the corner too.
It was then that Mel realized that she was all alone. She got to the edge. She had never been athletic, carrying large tomes up and down ladders all day in the library gave her a bit of stamina but running? No. She held her robe and lifted it up a bit, took a glimpse around the corner. She just now started to see everything. To her left was the plaza, a pair of guards crossing once or twice. She had maybe a hundred feet to cover over the gap, then more than that again along the wall of the register, then take a left around the corner and make it to the front entrance all without being seen.
“You can do this Mel, you got good legs!”
She saw another patrol disappear from the plaza; this was her chance! She launched herself forward into her fastest dash ever, faster, faster! She hurried as fast as she could and just as she was about to reach the corner of the red brick building, she saw something. Two shadows poking out from behind the corner, coming closer, steps on the pavement, rattling of armour. In a matter of heart beats, guards would come around to stand directly face to her.
The moment stretched into a minute, the red brick wall to her left, then she saw her window of opportunity in a niche just above her head. She grabbed the window sill, hopped and pushed her feet into the tiny cracks of the red brickwork and pulled as hard as she could. She got one foot on the sill just int time to press herself into the recess of the frame against the glass.
The heads of two halberds moved past her in a distance of less than an inch as the guards continued their patrol along the wall she had just dashed. Had she left just a moment later, they would have seen her coming for the register in full sprint.
She waited for the guards to be well out of earshot, then carefully dropped down and continued where she had left off. She came to the entrance, rattled the door and the door quickly opened, allowing her to get inside.
“That was close!” She exhaled in relief. “I was this close:” She held her index and middle finger close together to show how close those halberds had been to her ankles. “to being caught.”
“Well I am glad you’re here safely. Take a breather, then we can head out.” The other three were ready. Benedict held his staff and index, then reached into a pouch at his belt and held his closed fist to Mel. “Take it, your ration of flux.” She held open one of her robe’s pockets and Benedict let the blue-ish iridescent powder fall in. It was not much, but she would be able to cast a few spells with that.
“Now, we need to head for the restricted artefact repository!” Benedict proclaimed as he turned to Tamaris.
She nodded and took a pinch of flux powder from her pocket. “Stay close, its range is not great.” Then she closed her eyes and concentrated. She seemed to whisper some kind of rhyme mnemonic device while nodding her head, then she seemed to release the spell by flicking the flux powder high into the air while pressing a whisper from her lips.
“afugerite!”
Mel felt the arcane weaving settle on her body and mind and the outside world seemed to lose colour, but she still saw the other three perfectly. She really did know Stratton’s Secret Step by heart, not requiring to cite it from a book or scroll or use it prepared on paper.
Tamaris turned to each of them with a proud smile on her face. “do not stray too far or you will fall out of its range and be visible!” she whispered to them. “and do be too loud, people can still hear us!” Then she turned to Benedict and nodded to him.
Benedict stepped to the door, then pushed it open, finally on the way to their destination. Mel knew they could trust him. She just hoped they could trust Tamaris.