As the mercenaries got to work, it became apparent that each party member had different priorities. Zaina, for example, was only interested in precious metal scrap that was possible to sell for quick cash, even without Idris’ brokerage – the fewer traits that could be traced back to a specific mechanism, the better. Asked about it by Raya, she replied that she prefers to be rich now, and not in twenty years, cautiously selling her findings piece by piece and avoiding the Antiquarian’s interest. Lykomedes followed her example, although he did pick one healing artifact, just to be safe in the future.

Oswald seemed to be doing the same, but Nua’s observant gaze noticed that he translated the ancient symbols for Raya with genuine interest. He was definitely taking notice of anything new or unusual as if he had a particular object (or objects) in mind. He did pick a few small intact mechanisms when he thought no one was looking – he just did not know about Anki. It solidified Nua’s suspicion that the large Northerner’s boisterous demeanor was just an act and that he knew much more than he was letting on.

“He isn’t spying for the Guild, or so I hope,” she mentioned to Anki.

“No signs so far,” the king muttered. “If anything, his friendly attitude towards you speaks against it. He does have an agenda, though.”

Quintus took his scrolls out, put his unruly black curls behind his ears, and started sketching.

“Weren’t you hungry for treasure?” Nua cast him an amused glance.

“Oh, no worries,” he said. “I am getting the best treasure here. Stories are a treasure that feeds you for the ages. We’ll divide the rest of the loot after we leave, and I will carry my share. It’s a loss of my precious time to suddenly turn into a miner when I can document the events.”

Zaina huffed. “Careful or the miner burdens you with solid metal only.”

A few observations clicked in Nua’s mind.

“Quintus… you are actually rich, aren’t you? Are you doing the whole mercenary thing for fun?”

He arched his brow.

“I can see that you do not harbor proper respect for the call of Muses.”

“Unlike me, he is an heir of a big fish in Mycenae,” Lykomedes shrugged. “And he does make an ungodly fuss with his poems. My father’s a soldier. He thought I did not have the spirit. Undisciplined, he said. Well, I don’t want to go and kill people just because one fat city-state tyrant thought it would be good to raid another. What we do matters. We protect, we travel the world. We make history. Thanks to Quintus, I’ll be famous, and I’ll bring my dad a treasure to prove it.”

“What about you, Raya?” Nua asked.

“The One sends me where He wills,” said the priestess absent-mindedly, cradling three healing kits in her arms.

“You don’t collect scrap. Are you a… what was the word…”

“Ascetic,” said Lykomedes.

“A sucker,” Zaina threw in.

“The One provides,” replied Raya, her eye twitching.

“She thrives on donations,” explained the fire dancer. “And as a holy woman, she cannot seek financial gain. That being said, she still needs to buy elixirs and alchemical components, so we’ll divide our shares. Of course, I am accounting for the artifacts’ worth.”

Nua pursed her lips.

“Zaina, if you had coin, and were in my place, how would you keep it safe?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Boots with empty heels,” she replied. “And sleep on them, just in case. Wide Azurian belts come in handy, too, but it’s too much on the nose if you don’t wear Azurian clothes. Which, in your case, would stand out, little Autarch.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

After a while, Nua found the personal assistance device that Anki had shown her before, on the floor below one of the benches. It was a small black case the size of a wax tablet, with a single silver symbol on the surface.

“No one’s looking,” urged Anki. “ You don’t want it to go to the common loot pool, so grab it with your non-dominant hand and spike it with ether. We’ll deal with cracking its spellwork password afterward.”

The girl hid under the bench, pretending to rummage through the debris littering the floor. Then she sent a quick pulse of golden power into the box.

The symbol glowed and for a moment, she had a scare that Raya noticed. Fortunately, she was too absorbed with getting another healing apparatus out of its niche.

In the blink of an eye, the box unfurled like a black fabric flower, wrapped around her forearm, then vanished. Nua gave out a small shriek.

Oswald and Zaina turned.

“What happened?”

“No… nothing. I poked my hand. All good. No blood.” The substance was cold to the touch, and it had a different feel from her skin. If she forced her Sight really hard, she could see her forearm in this area had a distinct sheen to it.

“What the crap, Anki?!”

“What, did you think people would carry a piece of equipment this vital in the form of a large tablet, prone to be dropped, with one hand permanently busy?” Anki scoffed. “Preposterous. Keep exploring; we will get back to it as soon as we leave this place.”

As the exploration went on, the surroundings turned from strangely familiar to utterly strange. Another part of the workshop was a crystalline grove filled with another set of human-sized containers. These looked as if they were grown and not made, emerging directly from the floor covered with transparent, spiky glass the color of tamarisk flowers. Two dog-shaped statues were sitting at the entrance, and Nua held out her arm to halt the others. Her heart was beating fast. She could see that the figures were made of interlocked golden plates, not solid material, and she knew very well what it meant. One mistake here could be their last.

“For the password, saturate your voice with ether, as I told you before,” Anki advised. “Not your throat, the actual sound.”

“It’s weird to even think about it.”

“Your control is good enough. It’s a very basic use of sorcery. You can do it.”

Nua drew her breath in.

“ENHEDUANNA.”

Her words resounded through the metal and the crystal. The guardians’ eyes lit up, then went dark again. There were clicking sounds all around, and all the containers exuded a sigh as if they let the steam out. Thin, vertical openings formed in each, their previously invisible doors slightly ajar. Anki was already swirling around the tanks.

“Empty.” His voice was solemn. “Let’s get out of here and go through the next door. It is as far as I could investigate, so this is the furthest you can pick the spoils without getting into the inner sanctum. The outer wall is impervious to my sight; unlike you all living people, I need ether to translate visual cues into an image. It would mean that the wall was secured with anti-etheric spells or materials. These extreme measures are what makes me hopeful, but…”

His voice trailed off.

Nua nodded.

“It also makes you think it’s extra dangerous to get inside. It is the chamber with the sorcerous tree, right? Is there anything good to loot?”

“The tree was grown for its sap, and under preservation spells it’s essentially eternal. Raya will be all over it, biting into its bark like a mosquito, I guess. Break off a small branch, the length of your hand, with at least four intact leaves and a healthy tip, and tuck it somewhere safe. For now, you do not have the means to grow it, but in the future, it would prove invaluable.”

“For what? Healing?”

“The best fuel for ushumgars, among other things.”

The grove did not contain anything made of precious metals (except for the dogs, but no one wanted to risk them becoming active again), so the party left and followed the corridor to the chamber with the tree. Earlier, before they entered the elevator, Nua saw the temple-like, large, circular room through the etheric window. She remembered the golden tree and purple grass, as well as several guardian dog statues. She expected to see walls covered by smooth white tesserae, encrusted with veins of silver-blue alloy. Except for the wall furthest out, which should be dull slate gray, impervious to both Anki’s perception and Quintus’s spell. The chamber had no other door; the entrance to the inner sanctum was elsewhere, beyond Anki’s reach. Or so the king has claimed.

So when everyone gathered before the relief-adorned entrance to the last chamber, their eyes sated with wonders and their backpacks full of harvest, their attention wandered. It took them a few surprised blinks to notice that the outer wall, its existence confirmed by two different etheric “scouting skills”, was not there. There was a gaping opening instead, with a view that Nua would not forget until the end of her days.