By the end of the first day, enough buildings were completed that everyone had a place to sleep while only being slightly cramped. Most even had all of their fixtures installed already- lights, toilets, sinks, and even full kitchens for the ones designated as future inns or restaurants. The strange part, from Sera’s perspective anyway, was that none of them had roofs yet. From where she stood near the elevator terminal, the finished structures could pass for the sort of flat-roofed clay or packed earth buildings common in regions with little precipitation, but from the inside of the one she’d slept in, she’d been able to look straight up and see the stars.
Instead of wasting time gathering materials for the sloped roofs they would need to make, mages in Doctor Kahnton’s expedition had just teamed up to make a waterproof barrier above the entire nascent settlement. Nearly every scholar present was a mage, which was quite common for university graduates apparently, and that gave them a wide degree of flexibility in terms of utility magic. During the day the barrier would be maintained only if there were signs of rain, but it would be erected nightly until the roofs were finished.
“You don’t think that’s odd at all?” Sera asked Tiriana after hearing her explanation. She’d known about the barrier last night but hadn’t had time to ask about it before bed.
“No? It seems efficient to me. That way everyone has a dry place to sleep and we don’t need to spend time harvesting and preparing the wood for each roof along the way.” When she said it like that, it almost made sense. Sera couldn’t argue against the idea that it would be more efficient to make the roofing materials in bulk, but they were wasting extra energy deflecting precipitation in return. She felt like it still wasn’t quite right but was unable to articulate why.
“I’m surprised they didn’t even bring premade panels, though. What if the wood here isn’t any good for roofing?” Vivi chimed in, tilting her head cutely.
“Did your group do that?” Sera asked, recalling that the roofs in their previous camp were made of wood but never having gotten a close enough look at them to see how refined the material was.
“Well, no, but we also had trees with less metal in them than wood,” the cleric replied while gesturing to the forest in the distance. From here it just looked like a collection of birch and pine trees with red leaves, but up close Sera knew they would be ramrod straight and lacking the gnarled bark typical of a tree.
“I don’t think they have that much metal in them, but if they do, maybe we could just weld them together,” Sera suggested. She noticed Cadenza approaching right about then, which spelled the end of that conversation. Today she had donned armor in place of her usual robes. Her armor stood just below Layla’s in coverage: it was nearly a full suit of plate, but her shoulders were curiously exposed as if even the flexibility of articulated plate didn’t provide enough range of motion. Her hair was tied up and she had an open-faced helmet under one arm.
“Good, everyone is here,” the adventurer captain noted. As she said, Layla and Rinnie was also nearby, but they were standing well apart from Sera and her friends being their usual antisocial selves. “I’d like to have short meeting to discuss strategy and objectives and then we can head in.”
Rinnie drifted closer in response, but Layla stayed put. Cadenza just stared at the woman in expectation until she begrudgingly took the hint and came closer so Cadenza wouldn’t need to shout. It seemed the stubborn warrior would follow directions, but she was still planning to be a pain about it.
“First of all, we’re heading into a dungeon, not just underground tunnels. Anything powered with mana is probably active. That includes the lights, so we shouldn’t need them, but there’s a flashlight in all of your bags. Don’t hesitate to use them, the dungeon will power them too. Vivi, since you don’t need to use your active miracle on lighting the way, would you be able to handle the mapping instead?” Cadenza began.
“Sure! As long as I have some paper I can channel a cartography miracle to make it extra accurate,” Viva said eagerly, happy as always to put her abilities to their intended use.
“There’s some mapping paper in your bag. We’ve all got enough rations for a week and sleeping bags, as well. Tiriana, our canteens are already filled, but I’d like you to top them up whenever we take a break.” Tiriana nodded, so Cadenza moved on. “Now, formation. Rinnie will be taking the lead to check for traps, obviously, but Tiriana, I’d like you to accompany her and keep a barrier on her at all times.”
“I don’t need a mage babysitting me. I didn’t miss any traps last time and I’m not going to this time either,” the scout scoffed.
“I’m not insulting your skills. All those magic-based traps you didn’t have to deal with are going to be active this time, so Tiriana is there to detect them. The barrier is because we don’t know if the original inhabitants of this place knew how to mask their magical traps, but it’s best to assume they did and that at least some of them might be undetectable.” Her complaint addressed, Rinnie backed down with a satisfied hum. “Layla, you’re our vanguard. Swap places with them if we run into any monsters or nachzehrer. Since I’m the only remaining close-quarters fight I’ll be taking the rearguard. Sera and Vivi will be in the center.”
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“Why bring the mistwalker at all? She cannot even defend herself, let alone contribute,” Layla growled. Though her eyes weren’t visible, Sera could feel her glaring.
“I-”
“Technically I don’t owe you an explanation, adventurer, but in the interests of party harmony I’ll provide one,” Cadenza interrupted before Sera could say anything. “In the first encounter with a nachzehrer she demonstrated quick thinking, a sense of tactics, and talent with illusions. She’s also the resident expert on science-based technology by virtue of her origins. Beyond that, it’s the job of adventurer companies to nurture future talents. Aegis Company’s standard practices include embedding a newcomer in a team of veterans to learn the ropes before placing them in their own teams. Satisfied?”
Layla could communicate a remarkable amount of information with only a grunt. Her response somehow projected both dissatisfaction with Sera’s presence and acknowledgement of Cadenza’s reasoning at the same time. A sort of statement that she didn’t think Sera should be there but wasn’t going to argue the point further. Truly, she was a master of communication.
It was hard for Sera to stifle a laugh after those thoughts ran through her head, but trying to do so was a good distraction from the praise heaped on her by Cadenza. It didn’t feel earned. The older woman hadn’t even been there and a single instance could just as well be a fluke, not a sign.
“And…one last thing. The five of you know each other’s capabilities, as do I. None of you are familiar with my own skills, however, so I’ll provide a summary. I am what you might call a pseudo-battlemage. I am a mage that fights in close-quarters using magnetism to control my swords or a cloud of iron sand, but cannot physically enhance myself the way a warrior does. Ah, before you get any ideas,” Cadenza said, shifting her gaze to Layla, “even were I not capable of other forms of magic, there is iron in your blood. Do try to remember that.”
The clicking of Layla’s tongue was audible. Even Sera wasn’t sure that it was possible to actually manipulate the iron inside a person’s body, but if she didn’t know, Layla definitely didn’t. The warrior had no reason to question the claim either, really. Cadenza had said it with such confidence that Sera had nearly believed her even knowing that a magnet as powerful as those used in MRIs couldn’t achieve such a thing.
“With all of that out of the way, our goal today is to find the fortress’s secondary power core. We’re not the only team going in, but we are the one checking out the section most likely to contain it, about halfway down and directly opposite the primary core,” Cadenza announced.
“Isn’t that an abuse of power?” Rinnie accused.
“We drew lots,” Cadenza explained while rolling her eyes. “I even went last. If there’s no other questions, let’s get moving.”
After grabbing the packs Aegis Company had provided for this mission, the party filed into the elevator chamber. Unlike last night, it was now lit up with lights brought in by the expedition. As this room was above the surface the original lighting wasn’t being powered by the dungeon, but fortunately the elevator mechanisms were operational. Everyone filed onto the platform.
“How does this work, anyway?” Sera asked as she looked up, realizing the platform wasn’t suspended from a pulley system like elevators on Earth were. It was easy to tell considering the elevator had no walls or roof.
“If I had to guess?” Tiriana asked rhetorically, looking around the space as Cadenza selected the floor. “The platform is probably spatially locked in relation to the shaft. Rather than physically moving it up and down something is probably altering the z-coordinate to match the selected floor.”
“Wouldn’t it just fall if it lost power, then?”
“Locked is locked. It takes power to change it, so it’s not going anywhere without it. The real problem is actually what happens if someone gets stuck between floors when the power goes out. There’s a lot of interesting solutions-”
“Tiriana, I think this is the wrong place for a lesson on elevator construction…” Vivi gently interjected before the elf could get any further. If Sera was reading the panel correctly they were already nearly there. The platform was falling pretty fast, but it was so smooth it was almost unnoticeable.
“Ahem. Sorry, I’ll start casting Rinnie’s barrier,” Tiriana replied, slightly embarrassed. Vivi likewise began to pray for a miracle of cartography, which seemed a petty task to channel through a literal deity, but maybe the god of adventure enjoyed being included in this sort of thing.
The elevator came to a stop and Rinnie hopped off first, scanning the room it emptied into. This chamber was actually opposite the side they’d entered the elevator from; it seemed the lack of walls allowed for stops on any side of the shaft. As Cadenza had told them, the room was well-lit. It seemed to be a junction room, as there were five different doors leading out of it; one directly ahead and two each on the side walls. The stonework here was clean and polished and the floor looked like the sort of marble one might see on modern day Earth in the lobby of a corporate office.
“This room looks clean, but which hallway are we trying first?” Rinnie asked after doing a lap of the room.
“If no one has any suggestions, we’ll just take it clockwise starting from the left,” Cadenza answered, indirectly asking for opinions.
“Vivi, do you have some way of divining the route?” Sera asked.
“No, it’s not a question with a clear enough prompt. Just finding a way in or a route ‘up’ is a lot easier than determining the way to a place I don’t know the location of,” the cleric replied.
“Well, if nothing else, people tend to like symmetry. There’s a good chance they either placed smaller cores to each side or a single larger one straight ahead,” Sera suggested instead.
“A single core is more likely. To make a dungeon form this quickly the nachzehrer would have needed to botch the disconnection of every core in the same way if there were more than one,” Tiriana added.
“In that case, we’ll start with the door at the end of the room and proceed the same way if we don’t find anything. Rinnie, Tiriana, after you.”