“Somehow, however it happened, whatever brought us here turned three weeks of travel into less than two,” Torval declared.
Oddly enough, the middle-aged delvemaster looked better rested than he had even before the expedition’s foray into the Chasm of the Lost. He was freshly shaved, his hair was tied back away from his face and his arm was finally out of its sling. His hazel eyes burned with determination, and Talia thought he might be standing straighter.
He looked like he’d taken the events in stride.
Huh. Guess not all of us were in for a shock when we woke up.
Instead of the disquieted murmurs and grunts that she’d come to expect from the assembled officers, the reaction to the news was a mixture of shocked amazement and quiet consternation.
Hanmul, ever Ishmael’s advocate, was the first to speak up.
Talia held back an impulse to roll her eyes.
“Are we not going to discuss the ‘how’ of how we got here?” he asked, gaze swivelling in search of support, “Seems pretty darned important if you ask me.”
Talia’s eyes flicked to Darkclaw and Lazarus, whom she’d come to learn were generally the more skeptical of the bunch, after Copperpike. The former simply clutched a brass armband and muttered something unintelligible, while the latter scooted his stool back against the wall and leaned against it.
Neither said a word in support of the ornery quartermaster.
Torval sighed and leaned both hands onto the map table.
“I think we can all agree that this delve has been less than standard. To put it bluntly, so far, we’ve been a sack of shit falling down a deep, deep sinkhole, with no bottom in sight,” he said, catching everyone’s attention.
A hush fell over the gathered officers as he paused to flick on the map. The caravan’s surroundings popped into clear relief around them. Deft manipulation from the delvemaster made it clear just how far the expedition had gone; the Chasm lay dozens of kilometres behind them in a straight line. Weeks of travel, as he’d implied, accomplished in a fraction of the time and without the need for morale management among the crew.
“I say, we take whatever gifts we’re given,” he intoned, waving at the evidence, “ Just a few weeks ago, we thought we were diving head-first into a fight with a nest of Crescians.”
Torval abruptly turned to Talia with a Look.
“Am I right to assume that we would not have won that fight?” he asked.
Caught off guard, the young arcanist forced herself not to glance at those who were unaware of her powers, sensing their confusion and curiosity, even through her senselocked mindsense.
“I uh— Yes. We probably would have lost,” she stuttered, jamming the channels to her psionics.
Need to get a handle on these changes. It’s more…insidious now.
“Catastrophically,” she added for emphasis, in case there had been any doubt.
Hanmul was quick to jump onto her statements.
“And how, if you don’t mind, do you know this? We were expecti—”
Cutting him off quickly, Talia reverted to her default excuse. One which most wouldn’t—or more accurately, couldn’t— argue with.
“A new artefact,” she blatantly lied, “It allows me to scout ahead without risking lives, which is what Delvemaster Torval had tasked me with aside from making new armaments before…well, before whatever happened, happened. A pity too, I believe the artefact was lost in the Chasm; I’ve seen no sign of it since, in any case.”
Talia’s face twisted into a smug parody of contrition.
The quartermaster’s mouth clicked shut, and Talia triumphantly watched the indecision flicker across his face. Finally, with a worried glance at the delvemaster—probably remembering the earlier threat about infighting—he begrudgingly crossed his arms and nodded his acceptance.
The urge to roll her eyes was getting harder and harder to repress.
One day I’ll find out what I ever did to him. In the meantime, I wonder if making an artefact like that would work…Maybe if I…
Talia’s mind drifted somewhat, sifting through a series of runic array combinations and different form factors. Materials would have to be taken into account as well…
The young arcanist gave herself a shake as she realized she’d been about to extend her psionic tendrils back into the Weave-Fragment.
Luckily the delvemaster’s voice reminded her that it was not the time.
“In light of that, I am going to propose that we not look too deeply into how we ended up here. The fact of the matter is, if whoever or whatever did this to us wanted us dead, we would be, so it should be safe to assume that we’re safe. For now,” Torval continued, drawing nods from nearly every officer present.
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Talia did not miss the heavy Look that the man shot her way.
Darkclaw looked up from where he’d been staring at the map.
“My people believe in blessings. A journey shortened. Life spared. We veroi believe it is gift from Meti-Ona. It knows it dies, and so it gives aid. Blessings,” he said, his normally high-pitched voice deeper than Talia had ever heard it.
That’s…a lot to unpack. I know that Veroi is an archaic word for beastkin, and Meti-Ona…
From the context and the little of the singular beastkin dialect she knew, Talia could guess Darkclaw referred to the arcano-sun, but…
How in the hells is an artefact, no matter how complex, supposed to…Maybe the library has notes that might be use—stop it. Focus. You can deep dive into the complexities of beastkin spirituality later.
The Weave-Fragment had very quickly begun to consume her thoughts, she noticed.
Luckily, Torval seemed to agree, favouring the battlemaster with a grave nod before continuing. The rest of the officers seemed content to follow the delvemaster’s lead, and Darkclaw didn’t seem to expect any response, though his explanation satisfied only him.
And probably some of the other beastkin crew, if the praying was anything to go by, which is probably a good thing. We’ve had too many hits to morale in too short of a period.
“Indeed, be it a gift from the Meti-Ona or the gods, we’ve been granted a reprieve, and we should make the most of it. We are long past the time when we should have made it to second haven, and I believe the crew deserve a small break, if there are no objections” the delvemaster said.
There were none.
Everyone was tired and needed time to rest and come to terms with how they’d gotten to the quartz cave, what they’d experienced in the Chasm, or simply wanted a moment to decompress.
It had been a stressful month, so far.
“Excellent. In that case, Zaric, you and your apprentice will need to block off the tunnels and conjure up some seating. I don’t think shelter will be much of a problem. Talia, I’d ask that you perform a check on our runework and inscribe a smoke aspirator enchantment, so the cooks can get to work.”
The pair nodded.
“Shouldn’t be too big of a task. Do you want me to let out some scouts beforehand…?” Zaric asked.
The battlemaster answered in Torval’s place.
“Yes. Map onakai—artefact— powerful but does not map beasts. Will lead small team. Let most rest,” he grunted, looking over the aforementioned ‘onakai’.
Seems like the ‘miracle’ has brought our battlemaster back to his roots.
Realizing that the meeting was waiting on her, Talia started and spouted her agreement.
“Sure. Unless we apparated here out of thin air, the enchantments on the spokes probably took some wear. I wanted to check on all the waste tanks as well, don’t want a repeat of what happened in the Chasm, whoever did the main array channels on those should be spit-roasted. Or at the very least excised from the Arcanists’ Guild. ” she rambled.
At the blank look she was getting, Talia decided to change tacks, turning to the mage-commandrum.
“Lend me Osra for the fire pit? I’ll work on that first,” she said, to which Zaric nodded agreeably.
“Yea, just send her my way when you’re done.”
“In that case, I don’t have any issues,” she told Torval.
The delvemaster had taken out his logbook again and was taking notes.
“Wonderful. Lazarus, I assume if we had any immediate health concerns, you would have said something, so Copperpike, how are we doing on supplies, any concerns?”
Lazarus gave a slim smile and a nod of agreement. The quartermaster already had his clipboard out.
“Aye well if you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have said that we were just squeezing by. However, we seem to be fine now. Actually, we have about an extra two-week cushion compared to before. How we got here without eating I cannae guess…” he grouched, giving them all the stink eye.
Torval simply raised an eyebrow and took a few notes.
“Anything else?”
Copperpike furrowed his brow at the lack of reaction, then let out a sigh.
“We’ve got a vermin problem. Something’s been nibbling at our stocks of dried meat. At least it was, seems like storing foodstuffs in crates did the trick, but you all should be on the lookout for rats. You bet your arse the little buggers survived the spore clouds. Worse than cockroaches…”
Torval clucked his tongue and sent a look Calisto’s way, some kind of interplay that Talia had to restrain herself from dipping in on with her psionics.
“We’ll spread the word,” Calisto said, “Don’t want a repeat of two years ago. Once was quite enough… Though this time I’ve seen neither hide nor tail of them.”
Shudders and shivers abounded in the ranks of the veteran officers. Which meant everyone but her, really.
Talia furrowed her brow at the unfamiliar reference.
No one cared to elaborate.
There’s a story there…For another time maybe.
The meeting went on like that for a while dealing with the mundane workings of life on a delve, ensuring that all was well after their surprise bout of amnesia—or more accurately, mind control, as Talia knew to be the truth.
Eventually, they ran out of issues to be addressed. Their route forward had been plotted, their next steps measured, allocations had been made for a small celebration to bolster morale, and concerns had been aired.
The only one to mention their miraculous arrival in the quartz cave was the ever-contrary quartermaster, who was for the most part ignored.
Huh. Odd that they took it all in stride like that.
Either way, Torval had subtly made it clear that whatever his open opinion on the topic, Talia had some explaining to do.
So when he called for her to stay back after dismissing the other officers, she was unsurprised.
----------------------------------------
The delvemaster and his second led the way into the former’s office slash bedroom.
The trio sat in silence for a while. Calisto stared at Talia with an inscrutable look, while Torval looked off into space. She waited for them to make the first move. Mostly because she wasn’t sure where to even start.
Unfortunately for her, the delvemaster’s question didn’t relieve her of that burden.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened,” he ordered, sounding like he was deliberately keeping judgment out of his voice.
Talia huffed a sardonic chuckle and scratched awkwardly at the back of her neck.
“I’m not sure where to start,” she admitted, “but I guess the first thing I should say is that it wasn’t me. I don’t have the power to not only manipulate but control just under forty people all at once. For two weeks. And frankly, even if I did, I don’t have the knowledge to pull it off, either.”
Torval and Calisto shared another of those inscrutable looks.
“I hadn’t considered that as a possibility,” the chronicler said slowly, “Are you saying that’s what happened?”
Err—
“Well, remember when I told you all how we would not have survived an encounter with the Crescians? Oh, and thanks for putting me on the spot like that by the way, really wasn’t expecting that.”
The delvemaster hid a smile and quirked an eyebrow at her, gesturing for her to keep going.
Talia let out a deep breath.
Here goes nothing.
“So basically, if we’d tried to fight our way through, the giant, multi-millenial, sapient, psionic, Crescian Matriarch who probably lived through the fall of Karzinkol could probably have made mince-meat out of us.”
Watching the two veteran delvers’ jaws drop made Talia’s day.