After spending some time with Natalia, Verdan took a ride out from the city, bringing Tom, Ruan, Dru and Aeva with him.

The Fwyn were far too short to ride a horse properly, so Tom and Ruan carried one of them each, making them look like little grey children.

Tom and Ruan were coming as extra muscle for what he had planned. It would also to be good to have another set of eyes watching his back while he did the initial work.

Both Tom and Ruan were loyal and knew when to keep their mouths shut as well, which was a good bonus.

Not that the others didn’t, but Tom was a surprisingly good Sorcerer and Ruan had shown that he could handle himself in the past.

The Fwyn couple, however, were coming in case they had to do this the hard way.

After several hours of hard riding, they were back at the ruined tower that Verdan had visited before heading north.

“Alright, can you two watch the door out here and let me know if we get any company?” Verdan asked, waiting just long enough for a nod before walking over to the sealed door.

Instead of simply channelling Aether into it, Verdan first withdrew the wand he’d taken from Staran after he’d killed him.

The traitors had been using wands like this, somehow, to access the ruins. Figuring out how they did it was the first step Verdan had in mind.

There were no external sigils on the exterior of the wand. In fact, the only thing that Verdan could figure out about it was that there was a slight buildup of Aether at its tip.

Being careful to keep his Aether under control, Verdan tapped the tip of the wand against the recessed crystal that sat where the door met the wall.

With barely a second of delay, the door slid smoothly open for them.

“Well, damn,” Verdan said, looking down at the wand with a mix of frustration and curiosity.

He really wanted to take it apart now and look at its inner workings, but without a spare, it was just too much of a risk.

At it was, having something like this was incredibly useful, and there was no way of knowing if it did anything further than triggering the doors.

The worst case scenario was that it also allowed him access to something he couldn’t do himself, and he destroyed it in the process of trying to figure it out.

Slipping it back into a pocket, Verdan decided to play it safe for now and keep it for the future. If he got a second, though, that would change.

Stepping into the ruins, Verdan went through the familiar areas without dawdling, he wasn’t here for any of this. He’d already taken what he could from here. If he was going to make more progress, he needed to get further.

The final door remained as it had when Verdan had last been here.

Unlike the first door, this one had nine crystals arranged in a large triangular shape that consisted of three smaller triangles.

When he’d experimented before, Verdan had found that the crystals held the Aether he placed into them until six of them had been chosen, and then it reset.

Having had enough time to think about this, Verdan was quite sure that this was a lock of some kind, and that he had no real way of getting through it short of luck.

None of the nine options could be repeated, but with a combination of six choices, and if he assumed that the order mattered, well, that was more than he was willing to try.

Then again, there was also the chance of a lucky strike, or that the order didn’t matter.

Sighing, Verdan took out a piece of paper and some charcoal. He’d give it a solid attempt before he tried his workaround.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

-**-

“Okay, I’m done,” Verdan said to himself, casting the heavily notarised piece of paper aside.

He’d assigned each crystal a number and then worked through all the variants it could be if the order didn’t matter. When they didn’t work, he’d tried a few more random combinations, but ultimately, he’d gotten nowhere.

That left him with two options. The first was that he stay here and methodically work his way through all of the choices.

He could even give someone the wand and they could use it, letting them work in shifts.

The other option was to bypass the door entirely.

Considering them both equally, Verdan stretched out his sore back and made his way back to the others so he could explain the idea.

-**-

An hour later, the five of them were sat outside the tower as Lan’Wai looked around the exterior of the tower from within the rock it was built into.

She would look for any ways they could access what lay within without trying to breach the door directly.

There was a very good chance that it was defended in some way against that approach, and Verdan did not want to find that out the hard way.

By comparison, having a chance to sit down and wait patiently while Lan’Wai did the work for them was a nice change.

Verdan would have to do something for the Brecan as a show of appreciation for her help recently. Without her, all this would still have been possible, but it would have taken longer and required a lot more magic from Verdan.

Being able to delegate like this meant that he could save his Aether for more important tasks.

Now, with the threat of a Cyth Host on the horizon, that had become doubly important.

The earth shifted nearby as Lan’Wai returned, walking up out of the ground as though along a series of invisible steps.

Aeva was quick to get up and speak with her, their conversation rippling through the ground around them.

“Lan’Wai says that there is a breach underground, what was once a door of some sort has been broken through. She didn’t go further, as she believes there may be monsters present within it.”

“Understood,” Verdan said, any trace of relaxation gone as he got to his feet and picked up his staff. “Can she open us a path down to it?”

Ruan and Tom got to their feet as Aeva spoke with the Brecan, making sure that they were ready if needed.

“She says she can, but she’ll need my help to do it,” Aeva said a few moments later. “She will shape the stone and I will shape the earth, creating a tunnel that curves down to the entrance.”

“Do it,” Verdan said, mentally preparing himself for what might dwell down there in the darkness. Pausing, he looked sharply back to Aeva. “Does the Druinn extend down here?”

“The Druinn extends across the entire world,” Aeva said, consulting with Lan’Wai briefly before continuing. “She says that this far south, the Druinn is less developed so close to the surface. The entrance she found does connect to it, though.”

“So, it could be the same group,” Verdan said softly. “Alright, go ahead and get started.”

“What’s the situation, Boss?” Tom asked, his brow furrowing in concern as Aeva and Lan’Wai began to get to work. “Are we digging down?”

“We are,” Verdan said before recapping on what Aeva had shared. At some point, he’d have to teach everyone low imperial, for ease of communication if nothing else.

“So, what do you think is down there?” Ruan asked as he pulled his axe free from the belt loop where it hung.

“I’m hoping that its something that has just moved into an empty space,” Verdan said, motioning for Ruan to pass him his axe. “Let me put some spells on your axe that’ll help you cut through whatever we encounter.”

“You got it, Boss,” Ruan said, dropping his grip to the head of the axe and passing it over without question. “So what are you hoping that we don’t find?”

“More of what I encountered in the north,” Verdan said before muttering out a spell to create an Aether construct that he bound to the axe. “That could be anything from ancient constructs that have been twisted and corrupted, to humans wielding magic like mine, to traitors from Hobson’s Point.”

“Understood,” Ruan said, taking his axe back and rolling his shoulders as he got ready for whatever was coming.

“This isn’t the best time,” Verdan said abruptly, realising that he’d been lax in his duty to Ruan. “I’ve grown more proficient in healing magic in this last year. If you wanted, I could heal your scars and older wounds. Perhaps not all of them, but certainly your face and mouth.”

Ruan stared at Verdan in shock, one hand coming up to lightly touch the mass of scar tissue that hampered his speech. “I thought that injuries couldn’t be healed once they’d got to this point.”

“Normally, no, but I have a specific spell that will target them,” Verdan said, not bothering to explain the details of how it worked. Ruan didn’t care, and he was too caught up in what was being offered to really listen.

Ruan seemed lost for words and stood speechless for a moment before finally managing to speak. “I don’t know what to say. If you could fix this, it would mean the world to me.”

“Let’s deal with this and get back, then we can talk about setting a time.”

“Yes, right, got it,” Ruan said, clearing his throat and gesturing to the growing tunnel. “Who’s going in first?”

“I’ll go first,” Tom said, hefting his shield and moving up to the edge. “I’ll be most at home down there. Besides, with that much earth and stone around, I should be okay.”

“We’re ready. The tunnel is complete,” Aeva said, climbing out of the tunnel behind Tom. “We’ve packed and reinforced it, but don’t damage the sides too much or it might collapse.”

“I got it,” Tom said once Verdan had translated for him. “Ready when you are, Boss.”

“Disir,” Verdan tapped the top of his staff and it began to glow with a soft white light, strong enough to illuminate the tunnel for them. “Alright, let’s go, but keep it slow.”