“That went better than we could have hoped for.”
Vaughn shrugged as he walked, passing through the halls with Beryl in tow.
“I’d take the financial hit, regardless of whether you wanted to or not. The more I dwell on it the more I get that crummy sense of dread. Ugh.”
“You mean the same as last night? At dinner?”
“Yeah.”
The two were still parking their thoughts on the entire episode, and even more so, Kiyomi’s reluctance to discuss it.
“I don’t like not knowing what’s wrong, but I am glad she at least seems able to handle it. It's just so weird, though. The nightmares every night? She says she barely remembers a thing, about herself. About her past.”
Vaughn turned at the doorway leading into the main chapel.
“We’ll have to let her get over it first. Then we can pester her incessantly. In the meantime, I won’t tell her you’re primarily using her as a bed warmer.”
“Hey! I get cold, okay?”
“Okay, sure, heh.”
The two continued, Beryl, slithering past, forcing Vaughn to wait so he’d have ample floor space to walk comfortably.
“Ah, you.”
Beryl stopped, Vaughn tripping over her tail and nearly plummeting headfirst into one of the few pews in the entire temple.
“What are you doing here? I assumed you would have been attached to her hip after I brought her back like that.”
It was Sabine, throwing about the well-spoken voice she always wielded.
“You’re still not going to tell us about what happened, are you?”
Sabine clicked her tongue.
“Beryl, that is— It is beyond me, aye? I doubt she would be pleased with me discussing it just as much as she would.”
Beryl crossed her arms, standing at full height, while Sabine endeavored to keep herself seated, crossing her legs.
“So why the temple of Nyx? I took you for a follower of Myr, or possibly Tyr? I know Kiyomi is not one to shy away from Solah’s temples.”
“What should it matter to you? Does the bitch mask require you to brood in places with a dark atmosphere?”
“Oh hell, Beryl.”
Vaughn grabbed at her shoulder.
“Not here, not now. She has her own reasons.”
Beryl slumped down hesitantly, Vaughn now asking in her stead.
“You said the temple of Solah, like Kraków’s temple? Is that where you found her?”
Sabine looked away indifferent to the turn in attitude compared to the day prior, seeming to catch on to the question. She remained silent, resuming her thoughts from before. That was, until she nodded.
“I have nothing further to discuss.”
Beryl wanted to let her temper rise once more, but Vaughn's insistent hand on her shoulder held her back.
“That’s a better answer than she would give, Beryl. C’mon. We still have to go to the engineers guild.”
He now pushed at her shoulder, forcing her to slither past or be leaned forward.
“Sorry, Sabine. Thanks for the hint.”
----------------------------------------
“Let's see, a few hundred yards, then around the corridor? It should have been here per his instructions. Ah, there it is!”
The building came into view as Vaughn took the lead. Kraków’s engineering guild was one of the few official structures on the floor with an actual dedicated structure independent of the main shaft's superstructure. A structure of brick and mortar, three stories tall, before stopping abruptly below a lower section of the floor's ceiling. Workers came and went, though in smaller numbers than anticipated, through a pair of wooden doors nearly two stories tall by themselves. The entrance revealed a large entrance room the closer they got, with Jozef standing at the center as he checked his pocket watch.
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“You’re late.”
He didn’t even look up, not even to greet them as he turned. He seemed coarse, quiet when at the dinner table, and utterly demanding in tone just the same in the conversation he held outside with Vaughn. Beryl hadn’t heard much of it, but Vaughn seemed to hold an opinion only Kiyomi would have voiced openly if at all. That Jozef seemed to be a ‘hard ass’ with a chip on his shoulder. He was tall, six and a half feet, though his frame seemed near starved as the echoes of what was once a strong worker remained. He appeared as if he was in his late forties, his face framed by a well trimmed beard, and his hair curled and nearly obscuring his glasses.
“We’ve much to discuss, so I’ll keep it short and concise. The numbers you passed off from your father are fucked. I’d met Gregor once or twice, but I never anticipated his age to get to him so soon. And I’m sure the old bastard wasn’t too keen on you really correcting his work, was he?”
Jozef turned, grabbing a door handle and motioning for Vaughn to enter.
“No, not very. Pa’s not one to be corrected, not unless it's someone he considers his equal. He’s still wanting me to shadow him for as long as we can manage.”
Beryl made to follow, but was stopped just before turning to pass through.
“Permitted persons only, snake. Nothing personal, it's a matter of information control.”
Beryl was dumbfounded for a moment.
“It’s Beryl, and what of the information? He can be trusted? And I can’t?”
Jozef shook his head.
“While I didn’t know about your friend upstairs? You? And Vaughn? I know well enough. Vaughn’s father is Greggor, a man I trust. Your mothers, however.”
Beryl was having her patience tested at every corner. Sabine and Jozef, two instances infuriating enough on their lonesome.
“My mothers?”
“One was an imperial, fiefs take that all too seriously. Brenton may see it safe, but at least for Kraków’s sake, we must operate within our own comfort. It won’t be long, I will simply tell Vaughn everything that needs to be reworked, and then send you both about yourselves.”
“What-“
“I’ve got it Beryl, this is work. Remember, we’ll be spending a majority of it at the house. This isn't a repeat thing.”
Beryl looked between them, unable to fault Jozef, but also unable to take his words at hand without feeling spite in them.
“Fine.”
She coiled herself.
“I’ll wait outside.”
----------------------------------------
“Do you always have to sound like a dick?”
Jozef shrugged, placing a hand on the drafting table.
“It is what it is, I'm working enough to the point I don't give a damn anymore. Only people I need to be nice to are my wife and in-laws.”
“Need?”
Vaughn shot Jozef a sideways glance as he pulled what plans he had in his bag.
“You understand what I mean, your Greggor's boy.”
Jozef waved his opposite hand before raising a mug and drinking. Vaughn looked over the plans, a complete rerouting of Krakkows water grid. The following of houses and their flooring, the plans for rehousing and new tunnels, and the placement of water tanks in the now empty homes.
“What's all this?”
“War plans, we're planning for a siege, same as your city.”
“And that's why you don't want Beryl in here?”
“Yes, spies from the empire are far and wide. The moment they decide on a reprisal, they've historically made sure that it remains a reprisal. It's not something to take lightly.”
“So, the war?”
Jozef nodded.
“Only a matter of time. Your Beryl may not be in on it, but I won't chance her disclosing it to her mother out of conversation when we’ve no guarantee she won’t feed it along.”
He drank again.
“That Kiyomi girl, though. She's got family in Brenton, it'd trust her, if only because Hatsumi damned near burned half a maniple herself. Well, that, and demons don't seem to cooperate with the high and pigeonly bronze plates.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Mizzel’s grandmother never did shut her mouth about that.”
“Isn’t that kind of harsh?”
“Her grandmother? The bat was senile, a hundred sixty years won’t treat anyone well, fuck.”
“No, Beryl’s mother.”
Jozef shook his head.
“Boy, I’ll say this once and we move past it, we have work to do.”
He placed the cup down, clasping his hands together as he breathed.
“An imperial legate does not suddenly abandon a legion, not out of disloyalty. That woman has buried bodies, hundreds. She’d have a reason, and I am not one to test the possible origins of them.”
Vaughn looked at the plans, his mind focusing on his inability to find Sophia, Beryl’s birthing mother, as a possible plant, the times didn’t even match up. Josef’s hands dropped, then directed Vaughn’s thoughts to the plans.
“Boy I said those were my thoughts and motives, not for you to take them as the Myr’s honest truth. Kaaa! I need you to focus here, not on the words.”
He tapped at the sheet.
“Sixteen months of the year, we have our timelines layed out. Of course, with the cycle of winter, we’re having to account for the dispersal of stone shipments.”
Vaughn let the distraction take him, putting little value to Josef’s opinion in the first place.
“Based on Pa’s work. He’s not accounting for any of that, is he?”
“No, not at all. On top of that, he’s not accounting for the annual usage of Lumber from Brenton herself. First thing’s first, though, the actual shipments. The numbers don’t add up. It’s easy enough to pass your lumber along to the river, let the current take it between the cities. Brenton drops it in Trader’s River, and we receive it. Stone and sulfur are another entirely. Wagon trains, guards, feed, supplies for the crews.”
“Gods, I noticed he missed a fair bit, but that much?”
“Everything, every damned calculation in the notebook you were sent along with, all of it is wrong.”
“Shit.”
“Aye, shit. That’s where you come in, because we can scant afford a setback of months just for Greggor to possibly screw the numbers up again. We’re in a race against a clock we can’t even see here.”
“The Empire, there’s still no word of when they’re moving?”
Jozef shook his head.
“Not a word past complete upheaval of garrisons, only for them to move maybe ten miles up the road. They seem to be making recruiting efforts. They should be years away, but at any point they could simply cut losses and try to act under strength.”
“Understrength?”
“If it could even bloody be called that, shite.”
Jozef grabbed at his cup.
“Damned legions love to bear down in numbers well above the enemy. That’s how they’ve done it, and while they’re failing in the west? That’s only because the people there have a taste for war, Damus? Not so much. That’s why we’re banking on Brenton.”
The two shared a look between themselves, and Jozef realized something.
“You didn’t know?
“Know what?”
Vaughn seemed confused for a moment.
“The pass, the mountain pass into Brenton. That’s our only hope of cutting the Empire off.”
Vaughn leaned against the table, folding his arms as he glanced back to the drawings.
“Is that what the sulfur is for?”
Not a word was shared.
“You need the explosive force remeasured, don’t you?”
Another moment of silence.
“That’s quarry work, blowing a mountain wide open like that, is that really what we’re riding on?”
Jozef pushed a mug of now cold coffee towards Vaughn, nodding as he did.
“My study is yours, since I’m here to work. You’ll be at it day and night, I’ve heard from Greggor how you’ll get when you put your mind to it.”
Vaughn stifled a laugh.
“And why me over my Pa?”
“Because you’re your Pa’s boy, and that man only has faith in you other than himself. Just don’t tell him I said that, he’ll have his mitts around my throat if he does. Especially if he found out you would have to redo some of these designs as well.”
Another exchange of glances, then, Vaughn sighed.
“I can have it done in a week, maybe? Maybe. Mind if I keep the notebook?”