After a long discussion, it seemed likely that Serenity’s suspicion was true; only one of the two holes for monster cores was generally used. Speaker Hulvex had to pull out one of the books to figure out what the region with the unused monster core slot was for. The Speaker selected a book that was a bright orange color closer in shade to the fruit than the dulled monster core that likely held Immiki, then flipped quickly through it to a section about a quarter of the way in. It was very obvious that he’d read it before, probably multiple times.
“Here it is.” The speaker turned the book to face Serenity. The page showed a diagram of the siphon. “These have to be the places for the monster cores; here are the two activation locations.”
It wasn’t the best diagram Serenity had ever seen, but it was still relatively clear. It indicated which activation site went with which monster core slot and also what the primary function was.
“Adhere and Lift,” Serenity muttered. “That seems simple enough.”
Speaker Hulvex nodded. “The oldest records mention that neither can be used while the siphon is active; it interferes with the mana flow. Early on, they’d use Adhere whenever the siphon wasn’t in use to make sure nothing accidentally moved the siphon, but sometimes they’d lose a whole day’s contributions. Since few people are even down here when the shrine is closed, they decided to remove the second monster core. If the levitation is active, it’s obvious.”
Serenity supposed that if you didn’t realize the circle with the dungeon cores on it was mobile, you’d have no reason to think that the siphon was meant to connect to anything else. It was obvious to him since he hadn’t grown up with it. He picked up a pair of monster cores to add to the functional siphon, but before he could do more than start cleaning them, Speaker Hulvex stopped him.
Speaker Hulvex’s hand on Serenity’s arm seemed to shake a little. “We can’t use it yet. You need to talk to Immiki first.”
Serenity turned to look at the Speaker. He did seem to be vibrating a little, probably in fear or worry. “Why? Isn’t this enough information?”
“No, you need to talk to Immiki first.” Speaker Hulvex shook his head, then seemed to realize that wasn’t enough information. “If she realizes the other siphon is close to her, she might destroy it to protect us without figuring out that we’re not using it as a siphon.”
They probably wouldn’t need the siphon once they got the stone with the monster cores on it to the ley line nexus, but getting it there in the first place would be far easier if they could use the tool that was clearly designed for the purpose. Serenity sighed, then finished cleaning the accumulated grime off the monster cores. They wouldn’t transfer mana (or possibly essence) correctly if there was gunk in the way. He set them on the shelf in front of several of the books and turned to Speaker Hulvex. “It’ll be another couple of hours before I’ve recovered enough to put that much into reviving the Eight again, and that will be necessary for the conversation. Why don’t we head upstairs for a bit?”
Serenity was certain the Speaker needed to arrange some guards for the Eight when they were removed from their protected location. He might even want to create a permanent set of protections there so that he could have them there instead of moving them back and forth when they needed to be recharged. Serenity didn’t really care that much either way, though he suspected that leaving them in place would be the far superior option for the Eight’s safety.
Serenity needed to talk to Senkovar and figure out a plan. He’d tried to stay away from dungeons and they were about to move something that seemed like eight artificial dungeon cores into the nexus. Lord Cymryn would probably need to be involved as well; he had the map.
There was a surprise waiting for Serenity when he got back to the surface. Several of his friends who hadn’t come with them were sitting in a set of chairs arranged in a circle along with Rissa, Senkovar, and Cymryn. It sounded like Cymryn was describing the empire. Serenity was certain he used glowing terms; he’d have to check with Rissa later to see what she thought. Serenity doubted Cymryn mentioned the negatives; who would?
“Blaze, Legion, when did you get here?” A moment later, Serenity noticed someone even more surprising; she wasn’t in a chair, but she was half-hidden by the chair she sat next to. “Ita?”
Blaze seemed to start, like he’d been napping with his eyes open, and turned to Serenity. “Oh, Serenity, you’re back. We weren’t sure how long you’d take.”
“Yeah, for a couple hours. We need to plan what we’ll do next, maybe tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting you…?” Serenity didn’t have to ask how they’d found him; Ita was enough of an answer for that. Several of Legion’s bodies also had tracking Skills, but there was no particular reason to assume they’d used them. What he didn’t understand was why Ita followed him instead of contacting him.
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“I was bored,” Blaze admitted. “So when Ita said your plans were upset, we decided to come find you. Legion saw us on the way out and decided to come as well.”
Blaze might as well have said that they came to find out if he was in trouble and get him out of it if he was. Serenity couldn’t blame Blaze for that; it wouldn’t have been necessary for Serenity but he might have needed help to keep Rissa out of trouble. Possibly Senkovar as well. Cymryn could take care of himself; Serenity wasn’t averse to helping him but Rissa and even Senkovar came first.
Serenity raised his eyebrows at Ita, who was pointedly not looking at Serenity. “You can always ask, Ita. I won’t be upset.”
----------
It was well after dinner before Serenity and Speaker Hulvex made it back to the underground area. In the end, Serenity had to simply declare he was leaving; he didn’t really care about the intricacies of dealing with a city that wasn’t quite a client state yet as an Imperial Lord with a Grand Imperial Warrant. Rissa and Blaze were interested; even Legion seemed to be paying attention with one of his bodies.
Ita wasn’t interested, but she stayed behind because the Speaker didn’t want to take anyone more into the not-quite-holy area. Serenity didn’t think Ita was punishing herself for displeasing him by making herself listen to things she wasn’t interested in, but he couldn’t quite be certain. He was certain that she felt bad about not contacting him, even though he tried to be gentle. He wasn’t upset; how could he be upset when his friends were trying to help?
If only Ita saw it that way. She wanted to be perfect for her Shameless and sometimes that meant she overreacted to even minor criticism or teasing. He definitely didn’t want her to feel like she had to consult him about every minor thing; they’d done that for a while and it drove him nuts.
Serenity was still worrying about how exactly he should treat his High Priest when they reached the cave. He was so occupied that he tripped and had to catch himself when he tried to step down a step that didn’t exist.
Fortunately, that brought him back to the present with nothing more than an embarrassing bobble in his gait. Serenity wasn’t certain Speaker Hulvex even noticed; if he did, he ignored it.
To cover his embarrassment, Serenity spoke up as he made his way around the octagon to the orange false dungeon core. “Do you want to talk to Immiki first? She knows you.”
Speaker Hulvex nodded. “That’s the protocol; I’m the Speaker. I expect her to be angry and lash out, but I also expect her to be surprised when she doesn’t see a siphon. You should step back when she starts to manifest.”
Serenity nodded. He wasn’t certain she could harm him; creatures that belonged to “his” dungeons couldn’t. Nonsapient dungeon creatures were completely uninterested in even trying. Sapient creatures could try, especially if it was couched as “sparring,” but even if they attacked him, they didn’t hurt him; he’d tested that with some of the kobolds in Aki’s dungeon.
These weren’t “his” in that sense, which ought to mean that his status didn’t matter. They weren’t even true dungeon cores. At the same time, they were powered by his essence and mana. Serenity didn’t know how that would interact and thought it was probably better to not find out. Either way, the outcome was bad; he’d either get hurt or he’d reveal to both the remnant and the Speaker that the remnant couldn’t hurt him. He had no idea what they’d assume if that happened.
Serenity fed his essence into the orangey tan sphere. As he’d expected, the essence flooded right back out, towards the other legacy cores, but Immiki couldn’t push it away as fast as he could give it to her. He waited for her to wake up; she couldn’t be thinking yet. If she were, she’d be holding on to it until she got enough to manifest and destroy the second siphon that she had to know existed.
It took longer than Serenity expected for Immiki to wake up enough to make that connection. He knew she’d made it when the flood out of the core quickly dwindled to nothing and the tan sphere started to brighten towards orange. Serenity was glad she’d finally made her decision to wake up; he was nearly as low on essence as he had been when he stopped feeding it into Samvi’s crystal and hers wasn’t nearly as bright as his.
Serenity watched the crystal sphere carefully. He had to go a bit lower on essence than he liked to get it about the same glow as Samvi’s was when he manifested. Serenity let go; if that wasn’t enough, he’d come back in the morning.
Serenity stepped back a couple paces and watched. It was a long moment before an orangey mist started to emerge from Immiki’s core, but when it did it lunged directly towards the center of the octagon where the siphon would have been if it was how they’d fed the essence into Immiki.
The way the cloud stopped short and seemed to cast back and forth when it didn’t find the siphon might have been funny under other circumstances. Here and now, it was a little sad.
It wasn’t long before the cloud of orange smoke gave up and started to solidify into a person. She was orange, which wasn’t at all surprising, but she also wasn’t human. That was a shock; Serenity had thought everyone on Eitchen was human. Cymryn hadn’t mentioned anything about a notable population of Anemoi or Birdkin, and he ought to know.
Immiki looked like a slightly more human version of the Death’s Wings crew, with a short beak, no crest, and wings that clearly also functioned as usable arms. It was clear that the flight feathers on her arms extended well past her hands; if she was like the Anemoi Vengeance met on his travels, the hand was at a joint and the wing could be folded most of the way out of the way when she used her hand. She would have stronger but clumsier arms than a human, with more control over her fingers. He couldn’t see a tail, but many Anemoi were tailless. Flight was a common ability for Anemoi, though only those from low-gravity planets could do so without magical assistance.