Rove
???????, The Grey Crown, The Grasping Isle
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Guided by the sound of shifting debris, Rove crawled around until he eventually came across something that wasn’t cold and rocky. He tapped it a couple of times to make sure it was an actual person he found.
“Hey, you’re alright? Who is this?”
“Rove, could you not? I’m not into folks tappin’ me forehead.” Ah, That was one annoyed and battered Trïeste found. One to go. He grinned in the darkness.
“Good to see you’re alright too. Seen, or rather heard Ayuen around here?”
“I’ll spare you the trouble, Rove,” Ayuen’s tense voice came from about two meters behind him. He let out a relieved sigh. They were all alive, somehow. He could hear the pöet chuckle nervously. “And don’t tap my forehead. I can see in this darkness just fine.”
“Good. Very good. Well, I can’t see anything, so let’s make some light and figure out what in the name of Legria’s tits just happened.”
“Consider yourself lucky that my bruises are painful enough for me to ignore your language.”
Rove huffed in the dark, starting to fumble for his flint and tinder. But Trïeste was quicker. A scraping sound echoed through the darkness, and a small light flickered and sprang to life in Trïeste’s hands. She carefully held a sulfur stick.
Now able to see, Rove quickly looked around, finding his backpack mostly intact, with only the empty waterskin having ruptured. His two companions looked alright if a bit bruised. Ayuen wiped down a trickle of blood above her eye while Trïeste tested her wrist, wincing slightly. Rove noticed a couple of scrapes and scratches on his leather armour, but nothing overly serious. The leather had absorbed at least some of the cuts.
He quickly took a torch from his pack and scooted over to Trïeste to light it. The cloth and wood sputtered to life as the flame became brighter. Specks of dust glittered in the air surrounding them. The air smelled... muffled. This place was old. Very old. His torch illuminated the room, casting flickering shadows upon the smooth carved stone. Once every couple of meters, there was an engraving of an elaborate cog, carved into the granite with more accuracy and detail than he could imagine. Each cog was slightly different, from well-worn cogs to ones tangled in vines.
“Cogs at a Spring...” He mumbled. Guess they’d reached their destination.
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Ayuen’s ears stood upright, pointed towards the direction they’d just entered the ruins from. Deciding to listen as well, he noticed that he couldn’t hear the soldiers outside any longer.
“Our pursuers seem to be retreating down the mountain,” Ayuen said with a sigh of relief. “Seems they’re cutting their losses for now.”
Finally, a stroke of luck. But there was one thing that bothered Rove. How in the blazes had they known they were on the mountain?
Before sinking further into thought, Rove decided that this structure came first. They had to get back outside, or at least figure out what they needed from this place.
The one that had made this place and the medallion was a big fan of machinery. That, or they figured out how to have gears make babies. He stood up slowly, careful not to strain his battered body too much.
“Okay, this is much better now that I can actually see around me. You two in any shape to move?”
“Wrist is a tad busted up but should be alright for the moment,” Trïeste hoisted her bag on her shoulder and looked around the room.
“Should be,” Ayuen responded after, giving the rock wall a final stare. “Suffered a glancing blow to the head, but I’m fine otherwise. That wall is something else. I think I know the mechanism of it. A kinetic lock. Haven’t seen those in person yet. Only read about them in stories and books. I think they brought an old one to Marlight once. Caused a huge stir.”
“So... a kinetic lock? Meaning?” He wasn’t too well-versed in magical matters. Ayuen’s penchant for books and poems came in handy for once. Neat.
“A passage that you can only pass with enough speed,” Ayuen explained. “Collide with it without enough velocity, you’ll hit it. If you possess enough speed, you’ll go straight through. No impact in that case.”
“Right.” It saved them, that was what mattered to him. As long as the magic used in the thing didn’t make him grow mushrooms out of his ears, it was all good as far as he was concerned.
He started looking through the room. It was a big stone chamber, rectangular and around ten meters long and five meters wide. Most of it was empty when you didn’t count the debris that flew in with them. At the far end, there were some dilapidated wooden cupboards, the ancient wood barely holding together. Not anything too interesting, but he also spotted a flight of stone stairs spiralled down into the darkness.
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“Stairs here. We can go further in. Seems we can give this place a good pat-down.” He pointed to the magic wall. “I think it’s safe to assume we don’t want to go back out the way we came, hhmm? At least I know I don’t want to.”
“Arals damn you, no,” Ayuen swore, shivering in the light of his torch’s quivering flames, her shaking wings throwing big shadows on the wall behind her. In this light, Ayuen’s silhouette and shades were rather frightening if you didn’t take her petite form into account. Big ears and big wings.
“What about you, Trïeste? You fancy going out there again to face more of Prado’s men?”
As if on cue, they could all hear the sound of a horn vaguely calling on the other side of the wall. Rove grimaced.
“Y’know. I think I’m goin’ to go with a sound ‘no’ here.” With a few quick hops, Trïeste distanced herself from the magical concealment wall and stood next to him, peering down into the darkness.
“Good. So if we’re all in agreement that charging back into danger isn’t a good idea, I’ll go down first. Ayuen, if we encounter anything magical, I’ll be counting on you to get rid of it, alright?”
“Understood. I’ll give it my best.”
With that, he carefully set foot on the stairs and slowly headed down. The stairs themselves went downwards in a spiralling fashion, each step carved out with extreme precision. The stone looked to be carved out of the mountain itself, everything connecting seamlessly. He found himself intrigued by the skill involved. To build something like this you’d need immense insights and loads of time. The Tinkers were something else.
Eventually, they reached the next floor down. The sounds outside had died away into nothingness, leaving only the sound of the torch crackling and their boots stepping on the floor, sending big clouds of dust up into the air. This room was slightly more interesting, with stone cabinets and racks lining the walls, all part of the same structure much like the stairs were. The vast majority was empty. A big table dominated the centre of the room. A single battered bronze dagger lay on the floor, barely visible beneath the dust. He softly kicked it with his boot, and the weapon glided over the stone surface, sending a cloud after it. It collided with one of the racks and broke apart, its blade and hilt separating with an echoing snap. Useless junk, but who could blame it after years and years of laying on the floor? He headed deeper into the room, checking all the storage spaces carefully. This space looked similar to an armoury, so perhaps they could find something that wasn’t crumbling. He’d even be happy with half-crumbling.
Ayuen and Trïeste fanned out to cover the other sides of the room but made sure not to wander out of his torch’s light. It was rather difficult to do though, seeing as this room was about as big as the previous one. No cogs in the walls here though. In thought, he rummaged through the dust and debris and found nothing but scrap. He didn’t even find a dinner knife. Grumbling angrily, he looked at the sides of the rack. The right side, the one closest to the stairs, didn’t hold anything. He walked to the other side, the Herhor not expecting much. Nothing in here could probably help them. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw a box-shaped item standing on the side of the rack, hidden away in a dark corner. Carefully, he tapped it with his boot, and the box slid over the floor a couple of centimetres with a dry rasp.
It wasn’t fastened and it didn’t explode on touch. Excellent.
Rove crouched down and blew on the box’s lid. A cloud of glimmering dust flew up to reveal the top of what appeared to be a wooden pack or travel box. It was decorated with all kinds of circular symbols and even a convenient top handle. But what made him suspicious was that it was wooden. And not rotten or degraded. Weirded out, he lifted the pack with his free hand. It felt light in his hand. He took a better look, wooden compartments rattling inside of it as he shook it. How strange, why did this survive? Especially seeing as the bronze dagger did not.
“Ayuen, I might have found something.” He said, turning around.
“Excellent,” The poët responded, the woman rummaging through what looked to be a pile of rubble before heading towards him. The ceiling had partially collapsed there, covering whatever was laying there under a layer of rock. However, the woman just managed to yank an item from under the stones.
“Found something as well. Appears to be made of metal, but not bronze. It looks amazingly intact for something so old and buried.”
“Oi! Don’t y’all be forgettin’ about me! I think I dug up something good too!” Trïeste’s voice came from near the ceiling. With a smirk, Rove looked up.
Trïeste managed to climb up to the upper shelves, the young woman accidentally kicking some metal pipes down to the ground while she tried to get down again. The sound was almost deafening in the silence. He cringed and grunted at the ruckus. Quickly walking to the stairs, he listened for anything approaching or reacting out of sight. Fortunately, he was greeted by nothing but silence.
“Come on, Rove. Don’t be such a wuss! This place’s been empty for ages. The only danger here is chokin’ on this dust!” The Vysari woman hacked a couple of times to accentuate her point, waving a hand in front of her face.
“Just be careful, you naïve little alchemist. We already came in through a magical doorway. Who’s to say there aren’t any magical traps around? You might’ve just triggered one without us knowing it.”
Trïeste just shrugged while she and Ayuen walked to him. Comparing items, he held out the box as the other two showed their finds as well. Ayuen had found a long metal object wrapped in a bit of stiff, almost petrified cloth. A hilt of some sort stuck out from one end. It boasted buckles and rings as well. Trïeste carried another long object, this one inside a sort of broken wooden case.
Rove beckoned Ayuen to give him her item while he gave her the pack in return. He started examining the object more closely. And the closer he looked, the bigger his eyes became. A bubbling surge of excitement was surging up from his stomach. The item resembled a large scabbard, the same type of symbols he’d seen on the wooden pack engraved in the metal. Several bulky box-like cubes were fastened on the outside, and the ornate basket-hilt handle of a sabre stuck out of the opening of the entire thing. But the detail that got him excited the most was the silvery sheen on the weapon and scabbard.
“Steel! And not normal steel either. Treated steel! This is a weapon fit for royalty. What in the blazes did we stumble into.” He laughed, grinning. “And where can I find more of these?”
“A steel blade? Here?” Ayuen raised an eyebrow at him. “I find that highly unlikely. Let me take a look if you’d please. I’ve got an acquaintance of mine who is a blacksmith. You’re probably just exaggerating.” She bowed over the weapon to take a look. Her eyes blinked when she came to the same conclusion as he.
“Okay, I’m perplexed. This is steel.”
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