Through the impressive double doors which opened readily with little pressure. Down more ramps, another set of doors, and we reached the room with the ‘invisible’ floor we’d been warned of. Kris raised an eyebrow.
“There’s nothing there,” she said with a smirk, while I eyed the faltering illusion covering the passage on the other side.
“Must’ve been a force grid,” I shrugged, flicking up a Levitation spell. I kicked off to float across the pit. “Notice something about how deep we are?”
“Yeah, we’re definitely below the water table of the lake,” she nodded, as I passed through the illusion and stepped into the room beyond. I got out of the way as she hopped across the thirty-foot pit with an effortless bounce of her lightfoot. “Yet not a hint of water coming through anything, despite there being microfractures in the stone just about everywhere we’ve gone.
“This place should basically be underwater right now.”
“There’s a shield of force outside the area of the Shaped stone keeping the water back, or that would be exactly the case,” I confirmed for her. She tossed open the doors to Gaerlan’s private chamber, where a sputtering and hissing drew our eyes left.
It was one of the floating virindi ‘vaults’, used to store random items and information. They looked like crystalline flowers of a sort, floating there in the air and waiting to be pushed around or accessed. Why the virindi left them occasionally floating around the landscape was a mystery nobody understood, but obviously Gaerlan had managed to gain one, take control of its magic, and use it for his own purposes.
“If it’s like the magic chests I’ve seen before, it has one last access, and then it burns out,” I informed her.
“Get ready to grab everything, then.” She inserted the lock into the slot for it, turned it, and the crystalline flower spun once, the petals on top unfolding to reveal what was stored within, even as more violent sparks jumped and danced around it.
Multiple egg-sized Crystals glowing in shattered hues of color were displayed to us. I reached out with Minor Telekinesis II and grabbed every one of the things, yanking them out and away from the thing before it sputtered, crackled, and then spontaneously shattered and fell, breaking apart into brittle shards of worthless crystal as it hit the ground.
“Well, wasn’t that productive!” Kris half-smiled, reaching out to nab one of the crystals. “I believe Lord Mick said that these things needed to be carved and cleaned up in order to work properly…”
“Gemcutting up to it?” I asked, her black nails oddly sharp and defined against the magical light generated within the Stone.
“I think so. The extrusions are obvious and fragile compared to the primary stone, likely accumulating over time as a result of not being set into something.” She tapped experimentally, and a dusting of crystal fell off with a dying sparkle. “Oh, yes, this is simple,” she assured me, and her nails began to dance over the Crystal like razored chisels, soft tinkles accompanying a fall of crystals that lost all their light before they rustled down to the floor.
It took her less than a minute, and she held up a sharp briolette-cut Crystal, with interplaying ruby, emerald, amethyst, and sapphire hues constantly dancing and shifting within.
“Nice,” I complimented her, studying the Stone. “It definitely is showing a harmonic resonance to the native Elementals… huh.” I shifted my gaze to the remaining mass of floating crystals there. “These are probably the control factors in the Summoning Ritual to bring in and attempt to control the Harbinger in their natural states. Chipped down like that removes a level of natural resonance, making it useless for wider rituals.”
“Huh,” Kris murmured, staring at the Jewel in her palm and clearly wondering if she should insert it into a slot on Quaver. “I gather that means I shouldn’t be carving them all up and passing them out as happy rewards as we get the whole socketing system decoded.”
“I can’t imagine where having power components available to get rid of or control or suppress an Elemental entity proven to have no good intentions for the mortal plane might be important. Perhaps you could fill in the right circumstances for me.” I brought a coffer out of my Masspack and carefully put the rough stones inside it.
“Ass!” she laughed at me, tucking her Stone into her breast pocket.
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“You! You are the ones who have been killing the servants of Martine!”
The one who had spoken had fiery red hair, in contrast to the female across from him who had gone almost clean-shaven with her brown hair. They had on clothing that was of finer quality than that of the other inhabitants here, with gold trim and silk cloth, clearly meant to convey a position of some importance.
“What, no ‘fellow Isparian’ to greet your visitors and supplicants to the throne?” Kris immediately shot back with her effortless false cheer, looking around at the Hollow Minions standing alert yet totally motionless guard about the outer chamber of the throne room. “I am insulted by your lack of manners, sir! And you didn’t even have a herald standing entry to announce us with! Do you know nothing of royal protocol?”
Her response seemed to take him aback as she strolled in, all the body language saying she owned this place and he’d better shape up, or she was going to ream him a new one.
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The chamber was awash with muted blue-purplish energies, similar to virindi death displays, yet different. The Hollow Minions, Constructs that looked like scarecrows with deadly hammering pummeling fists of chorozite, waited in alcoves around the outer throne room.
The throne itself was built into a second chamber inside the large ones, with great braziers to either side of the empty seat venting the energies here in what was likely supposed to be an impressive display. The doors to the chamber were open, and the two highest-ranked of Martine’s followers were waiting there, as they had been since before the Fall.
They both were still staring at us as we came into the throne room. Hibdin Velos and Ambrosia Roe, the simulacra up top had named them. Martine’s most trusted servants in the past, loyal to a fault, and just as much tied up with this place as all of the others.
These, however, seemed to have retained more of their personal identities than the people upstairs.
According to the Mick, Ambrosia was a bit of a vicious and vengeful shit, and Hibdin was a former drunk and alcoholic who’d never gotten over losing his wife and family after coming here. Both had been unfailingly loyal to Martine, who had basically pulled them out of the gutter and given them a purpose for their lives, finding a place for other misfits like himself to work and do their things without the pain and interference of dealing with people.
And now they were simulacra. Outcasts from the human race in every manner possible.
I stepped forward politely. “May I introduce to the two custodians of Martine’s Seat Her Imperial Highness, Kristie Briggs-Rantha, of the Imperial House of Briggs, the Emperor of Ispar,” I intoned with great courtly flair, having had quite a bit of practice at flowery introductions of Kris by now. “I am Devra al-Ryinth, called the Lady Magos among the surviving Isparians of the Freehold.”
It was the female who spoke, a bit unwillingly if her tone was to be believed. “This is Hibdin Velos, Seneschal and Chamberlain to Candeth Martine. I am Ambrosia Roe, his adjutant.” Which basically meant second-in-command, of a place with nobody to command anymore, as we’d cleaned them all out and sent them to vivic freedom. “If you are here to speak with the Master, he is not in residence at the moment, and we do not know when he will return!” she hastened to add.
Kris eyed them both carefully. “Can you verify that it was Martine who turned you into simulacra, or was it a third party?”
She was leaning on me heavily with that question, as Truth would be able to tell if their response was a lie, even if they believed otherwise.
“The Master returned and elevated us beyond the annoyances and weaknesses of the flesh, that we might be able to serve him longer and truer!” Hibdin Velos cut in quickly, pride in his voice at the change wrought upon him.
“Perhaps too long,” Kris responded in clipped tones. “All of those above were pleased to be freed of service, and liberated to find their destinies. It appears that your Master did not take the same care of attending to them as he did to you, if such be the case.
“In any event, if he has survived and endured, there are a great many parties who will be interested in him and what he chooses to do, for good or for ill. If you know where he was headed, would it be rude to inquire as to where that was? I doubt you are permitted to leave your stations and attempt to find him, but even with scant knowledge of time, you are probably aware that your master has been gone overlong.”
The two looked at one another, a hum of communication on different levels going up and fading rapidly into the background.
“It is true that the Master has been absent again longer than we have expected, but we do not know the nature of the burdens he has to bear!” the female sang out immediately. “Moreover, you have proven that you are not friends of his!”
“On the contrary, I gave those below us exactly what they desired, and as you might not have noticed, I have endeavored to do the same for you, acknowledging that you have no such desire to be released from his service,” Kris replied without an ounce of shame at the accusation, crossing her arms and staring both of them down, handily winning despite them being tireless constructs of energy and shell-matter. “Given our ability to show restraint and extend mercy on both sides, I don’t think you will find anyone better to find your master and bring him home than us, although you are certainly welcome to comb through your vast pool of supplicants and attempt to do so.” Kristie slowly surveyed the area about us, craning her neck artistically, and then just looked back at them, slowly arching an eyebrow in elegant reproof.
Their lack of ability to properly display such emotions anymore didn’t mean they couldn’t read them, and I could feel the hum of the stress about them as the two transformed servants could not help but realize that she was right. We had even used proper protocol to come in here, despite having seen what we had.
They couldn’t even deny that the others were willing to be released, and didn’t attempt to refute our words.
“He went to check on Gaerlan,” Hibdin finally spoke up, stereo voice solemn and heavy.
Kris and I looked at one another and groaned. “I know a certain Magos who is not getting near the scene of magical activity and Elemental energies of an Empyrean Archmage in the immediate future, I do!” I announced immediately.
“But you’ll wait outside. I need a ride home, after all.”
“Well, sure. Advanced meditation technique Beta-Twelve, Rarefied Understanding of Navel Contemplation, waits for no spellcaster!”
“Yes, yes. And I’d best bring Fuzzy along, too.” She scowled ferociously. “Are you two certain that Martine is still alive?” she asked the simulacra directly.
The pause in the reply was quite telling. “It may be that the Master cannot truly die, and has been dispersed into the Aether again. The traitor Gaerlan was able to kill him the first time, after all,” the seneschal Hibdin answered uneasily.
“But knowing he returned, Gaerlan might well do a much more thorough job than before, if he is truly free. Even if he is more familiar with the state and could reconstitute himself faster than before, he might be too dispersed for it to happen.” And that was without even knowing vivus was there, which would raise the cost to a substantial part of the soul for Candeth Martine to restore himself.
“But we will investigate this, you have our word, and we will return here to inform you of what we find,” Kris agreed, bowing to the two of them, and actually received bows in return. Gotta respect that lineage, after all. “Let’s go, Ryin.”