The awe and curiosity waned quickly after the first live-fire test. Partly because familiarity bred disinterest, but probably because the subsequent blasts of the ash lance were much less impressive.
Reggie would beat me with a switch if he found out I fired this thing at full power on the first go.
Safety concerns aside, the lance was too mana hungry. It left her little wiggle room for missing and overall made the weapon less useful than it could be. Luckily, the original design already accounted for that, and lowering the power was as simple as rerouting a few sub-channels. Talia also added some mithril putty into a few of the intensifier arrays she’d added. By the end of it, the power of the weapon had reached more manageable levels.
If she ever needed to melt a hand-sized, metre-long hole through solid rock again, she’d just remove the putty, and swap the channels back to their original configuration. Until then, she was content in knowing that anything with less heat tolerance than pure granite—like flesh, for instance— would likely stand no chance against a direct hit. More importantly, she could miss a few times without worrying about the charge.
As a bonus, less heat meant she wasn’t as likely to blind everyone who looked at the beam.
Or is it more of a stream? A current? Maybe a ray. Whatever.
Talia lovingly patted her baby and deactivated it before heading down the ladder. The follow-up testing and fine-tuning had taken up most of her remaining time for the day, which was somewhat disappointing, but it’d all be worth it if her efforts made the rest of their journey more secure.
The crowd had long ago dispersed, heading off to take care of their own tasks, packing up the camp before they left tomorrow. There had been none of the furious movement and bustle of when they’d left Karzgorad months ago. The tension of the previous weeks meant that the crew was more or less ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and everything that had been set up was fit to be left behind if needed.
Except maybe the impromptu obstacle course that Darkclaw had erected for the fighters.
Talia shuddered as her eyes landed on the cursed implements of torture. She’d never been happier to have more pressing concerns that prevented her from physical training. Or any training, really. Though she knew she should’ve been more diligent, had promised herself she would be, she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad.
What I got done will be more help than a single, better-trained fighter, if it comes down to it.
She groaned.
Doesn’t mean I have a license to slack off though. I might not be able to train weapon forms while on the move, but I’ve been slacking off when it comes to cycling and I know it. No more excuses.
With a sigh, she promised herself to get at least an hour in before bed. A larger Core and stronger Will could only be a boon. If she was going to be a mage, then she’d do it right. Orvall always said that excuses were the bane of the hardworking. If Osra could make time to cycle despite her duties, then so could Talia. Enough of the delvers practiced meditation that it wasn’t exactly uncommon.
Her stomach grumbled angrily at her.
There you go again Tals, ignoring glorious food in favour of work.
Luckily, the scent of mushroom stew and the sound of clanking mugs made it evident that while she’d toiled the day away, she hadn't missed the last meal just yet. Nor had the delvers gone against form and postponed their habitual festivities.
Damn delvers and their fucking paint thinner.
She shivered at the memory of the scent of what could generously be called ale but was more likely to be classified as hard liquor by a normal person. Or maybe embalming fluid. She’d have to avoid being dragged into yet another trap by the vicarious alcohol…enthusiasts.
Fortunately, Zaric and Osra were sitting in quiet discussion well apart from the burgeoning party. Talia slipped through the crowd to grab a bowl of the savoury stew and a hunk of bread, tactfully declining the proffered tankard of ‘ale’ in favour of her water skin. She got away unnoticed, skirting around the edges of the gathering and angling toward the two mages.
Unfortunately, right as she let out a sigh of relief, she realized she’d been too lax. Her vigilance had slipped. She’d allowed herself to be distracted.
Calisto’s voice was whisper sweet. Sweeter than the jam she’d had with her morning gruel.
“Talia! So glad I could get you alone and with some time on your hands.”
The young woman turned on her heels to face her fellow officer. The older woman’s usual stern expression had been replaced by something far more worrisome. A small smile and a pair of hungry cerulean eyes that brought to mind a pit of hunger, or a predator faced with hapless prey.
“Calisto, f-funny seeing you here. Haha. I—uh— haven’t seen you participate in one of the crew’s little… gatherings, before,” Talia said nervously, “You should try the ale. Nothing like it, believe me.”
The chronicler waved her hand dismissively.
“Oh pshh. I’ve had my fair share of what the guild calls a ‘drink’. I wasn’t always the prim and proper delvemaster’s second, you know. It’ll surprise you to learn, but I was a delver before I joined the chroniclers,” she said, locking elbows with Talia, “But these things tend to lose their appeal as you get older, you know? I get my satisfaction from far more… intellectual pursuits, now.”
And just like that, Talia’s dreams of a nice relaxing night spent with friends went up in smoke. The young woman leveraged all of her sadly deficient social acumen to see if she could find a way to escape being trapped in a never-ending interrogation fuelled by the knowledge-hungry chronicler’s abiding curiosity.
“That’s…nice. I mean, can’t say I blame you. They don’t go easy. Haha…”
Good job, Tals. Way to extricate yourself from a conversation.
Calisto gave her a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Hmm. Indeed. One of the hazards of the lifestyle, I would say. When the future is uncertain, and tensions are running high, escape comes at a premium,” Calisto confided.
Alrigghtt— she isn’t asking about the Matriarch. Yet.
The hunger in the other woman’s gaze was still just as strong, and Talia was sure that if she were to take a little peek with her psionics, she would find only rampant curiosity in Calisto’s thoughts.
It wasn’t that Talia couldn’t sympathize. She did. If circumstances were different, she’d have been happy to sit for hours and pick Calisto’s brain for hours. When the young woman had begun her apprenticeship, she’d been consumed by a similar need to know that had survived to this day if a little less…ardently. If anything, as she’d previously recognized, Calisto was closer to an older mirror image of Talia, distorted by different choices and experiences. Different circumstances.
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Circumstances which meant that Talia was tired. There was enough on her plate as it was, without having her already limited time sapped away by comparatively pointless questions, that could easily be answered another day. Preferably a day that was far in the future.
Would it be so bad to just…tell her that?
What came out of Talia’s mouth wasn’t quite what she’d hoped.
“So—uh— why’d you end up becoming a chronicler, if you were a delver at the start?” Talia hazarded.
Stupid mouth.
Calisto looked at Talia with mild surprise on her features, her lips pursed and eyebrows raised.
“Right—sorry, stupid question,” Talia muttered.
“No, it’s fine, it’s a pretty pertinent one, really. Most chroniclers on delves go the other way. The pay is much better in the Delver’s Guild than it is with the Chronicler’s,” Calisto said, “You just surprised me is all. It’s a pretty banal story, all told. But I’m happy to tell it. Walk with me?”
Talia looked forlornly at her bowl of stew and nodded, taking heart in the fact that she hadn’t been cajoled into rehashing the details of her encounter with the Matriarch. Yet. Who knew, maybe sharing her story would divert Calisto’s interest elsewhere.
The pair wandered back toward the wagons, pacing between them at a leisurely pace.
“I grew up in the Warrens. It was…a miserable existence. Much as the council preaches food and housing for all, I think we both know that’s far from the truth,” Calisto started, her gaze riveted on some middle point in the distance, “You’d have to be blind not to see it. Most days we were lucky to have mouldy bread on the table, let alone actual food. Our ‘home’ was little more than a hovel carved into the cold stone overlooking the maw, with recycled grease to light torches with.”
And just like that, Talia wished she was instead talking about the Matriarch and the trove of knowledge she represented. Her own suffering felt…insignificant by comparison.
“I—er— I’m sorry. That sounds awful…” Talia muttered lamely.
Calisto continued on as if she hadn’t heard.
“My father was a drunk. Somehow, when I was a child, he managed to tumble headfirst into a shute somewhere. Or maybe he got on the wrong side of one of the gangs. Who knows? Maybe he ran off. Either way, his loss broke my already…frail mother beyond her ability to handle. She fell into an Ichor haze that she never looked back from.”
Talia winced. Ichor was, simply put, nasty. A powerful narcotic psychedelic derived from a putrid fungus aptly called Blackrot. It was often cut with lamp oil or ink and was sold throughout the Lower Quarter by snake oil peddlers for less than a copper per vial. It stained users’ teeth the colour of pitch, and if used often enough, resulted in a catatonic state that was hard to differentiate from brain-death. Those who got to that stage were considered lucky. Usually, the lamp oil and other substances mixed into the insipid poison were enough to kill on their own. Either way, death from Ichor abuse was never pretty.
I’ll never forget the time Orvall took me to the hospices for his guild rounds. It was the day I realized I’d never be a healer…
“I uh—”
Calisto waved a hand, pulling her gaze from the distance to give Talia a dispassionate look.
“I appreciate the sympathy, but I am long past mourning my childhood. I should be the one apologizing, I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t be unloading on you like this,” Calisto said before snapping her eyes forward once more. “Suffice it to say that I had a…poor childhood. My saving grace was my education, piss poor as it tends to be in the Low Quarter. At the very least, I was taught to read, write and keep a ledger. When Delvemaster Parvan was trawling the Warrens for recruits, I threw myself at her.”
Calisto chuckled, laughing at something only she could remember. Talia remained silent.
“To this day, I don’t know if it was pity or nonchalance that made her take me on. I shadowed her second, Iolius for three delves. It was heaven for me. I got as much food as I wanted. As much drink as I could handle, and as much adventure as I could dare to grasp. And when we got back, I was flush with enough coin to maintain those habits.”
A shadow of a smile lingered on the chronicler’s lips and she shook her head wistfully.
“We hadn’t gone to the Dead Cities, just the odd Wayfarer outpost, and the occasional den of deep-dwellers that had settled too close for the Council’s comfort. But one day, Parvan gathered us all up and told us we’d been commissioned to go to Karzacath. Told us that it’d be a long trip, and that those of us who weren’t up for it could ask for a transfer, no questions asked,” Calisto said.
The mention of the Dead City piqued Talia’s curiosity.
Didn’t Orvall say that’s where mum found her artefacts?
Calisto’s rugged laugh brought Talia back to reality.
“Can you believe I almost took her up on it? Most of us did. I didn’t know it then, but Parvan was rather low-ranked as far as delvemasters go. This was her opportunity to step up into a leadership position, and she took it wholeheartedly. Most of our crew… Well, let’s just say they weren’t enthused by the idea of a year-long trip into the Deep Under. To this day I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t gone. Karzacath changed everything.”
Talia frowned. What did a decrepit ruin have to do with anything?
“What do you mean?” she asked, slowly, chewing over the puzzle.
Calisto’s expression broke character for the nth time that day, curling into a mysterious grin.
“Oh, it’s hard to explain. The city stretches over the floor of a deep cavern, bisected by both the Acath river and the Ways. Some say it was one of the first dwarven cities, tied in age with Karzinkol. I didn’t know any of that, at the time. All I knew was that it was beautiful. A wonder that could never be matched. Buildings rose up to scrape at the cavern ceiling, supported by strange architecture lost to time. Its arcano-sun hung dead and dim, like the skeleton of some great leviathan picked down to the metal bones,” Calisto took a deep breath, reliving the experience for a moment before turning her burning blue eyes onto Talia’s grey, “The craziest part though? No slums. Not even a hint of the squalor of the Warrens, or the dejectedness of the Low Quarter. Though it was a ruin, to be sure, the houses that remained intact were still filled with fine metalwork and arcano-tech so ubiquitous that you would think the entire city was populated by mages.
Calisto clicked her tongue at Talia’s disbelieving expression.
“Oh, the inequality was evident, to be sure. Vast edifices and soaring towers filled with the remnants of the finest luxuries ever forgotten to time,” she crowed, her voice turning to a near-growl as she continued, “But if Karzacath ever had a class of downtrodden leches like my parents, then they lived better lives than most of those who live in the Mid Quarter today.”
Talia sensed that the story had reached its crescendo and found herself gripping onto every word. Whatever her ambitions, whatever her motivations, the chronicler knew how to spin a tale.
What did she find? A lost library? Some forgotten artefact? A treasure of the Ancients? Lost to time and Exodus?
Reality once again disappointed her, as it often did those who dreamt of great events. Life was more banal than that.
“If you want to know why I became a chronicler, that’s why. I want to find out how we lost that. The prosperity that allowed an entire city to live in more luxury than most of Karzgorad can even comprehend. The evidence was everywhere. Parks, all across the city, overrun with dry husks and toxic spores. Elaborate fountains topped with gem-encrusted statues toppled by the beasts who creep its streets unaware of the glory they tread upon. Grand hospitals and the biggest library I’ve ever seen, its books turned to dust and scrap leather. How is it possible that this, creeping through old tunnels like scavengers, most living in squalor and abject misery, came about when we once held that?” Calisto asked, “That’s what I want to know. What I need to know.”
Despite the lack of any true climax, Talia found herself taken by the sheer passion of the usually dour woman. Her story might not be some grand tale of adventure and mystery, but the questions that she asked were the questions of an era. The answers to which she might never find.
Just like the Enigma. Just like me.
“I… That—”
Calisto looked away, seeming embarrassed, of all things. It took all of Talia’s might not to pinch herself. She glanced suspiciously at her waterskin, wondering if someone had dosed it while she wasn’t looking.
“It must seem silly to you, I imagine. Frivolous. But when I went to the Chronicler’s Guild, they understood.”
Talia shook her head.
“No, not at all. I understand. More than you know. And I know that’s why you want more of what the Matriarch told me. And there is more. More that I would gladly share, if it’ll help answer those big questions that hang over us like a noose. It’s just…” Talia trailed off.
Calisto’s expression sobered and closed up all at once, once more returning to the stern, taciturn face of the expedition’s no-nonsense second-in-command.
“Now is not the time. You’re right. I’ve…gotten carried away. For that, you have my apology. I shan’t pester you any longer,” she said with a sigh, unlinking her arm from Talia’s, “I simply hope that you’ll consider sharing what you’ve learned in its entirety, when you get a chance. Even the smallest tidbit of information could mean more than you know.”
Talia couldn’t help the rabid grin that spread across her face.
“Oh you have no idea. When we’re safe, and this whole fiasco is over…well let’s just say ancient libraries ain’t shit compared to what I’ve got to share. And I will. I promise. Just…not now. There’s too much at stake,” Talia said.
The chronicler raised an eyebrow at Talia’s cryptic words but stayed true to her own and didn’t push further.
“I agree. But I will hold you to that. Even if I have to hunt you down once we get home,” she warned.
The young arcanist met the challenge in her fellow officer’s eyes with a knowing smirk.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”