“Nali! Naaa-liii!” Rye peeked into a room full of beakers and vials. “Where is that girl? Elia, do you know – oh, right.”
She popped her head back to the group through the wall, eliciting a nervous squawk from Cesare that made her really want to sneak up on him from behind and prank him, even though she was supposed to be a prima, an example to all.
“Around the corner,” she said, pointing Karla at the next enemy before popping back through. As much as Rye would have wanted to be the one pressing ahead with shield and sword, she knew her strengths, and neither fighting nor bravery were not among them. With her boon though, she could be useful, because she was the scout.
And scouting was hard work. It involved a lot of being up front, a lot of responsibility for finding every threat imaginable and reporting it back to the others. It wasn’t like she could do much else, and with her ability to pull her entire body through the slimmest cracks in the walls, she was practically a natural at getting into places nobody should.
No matter what Elia said, she couldn’t go straight through them. She was a cloud of vapor, as far as Rye understood, she’d need at least a small inlet to pull herself through, which always made for the weirdest sensation of sucking herself through a straw.
Not that she’d ever drunk through a straw. Stupid Elia memories.
The tower for all its disorder on the ground floor looked quite freshly abandoned. Sure, there were glass bottles and whatnot that looked so dirty they might have been cleaned last a century ago, but for every old piece of equipment she found something new as well. A slit of mortar had been removed to provide embrasures like she’d seen back at Glenrock. A tripwire trap sat with its string barely visible at ankle-height. For all of its capacity as a fulcrum of the art of conjuration, whoever had used this place last was expecting a siege.
Who would siege a lycea, a peaceful academy of learning, and why?
Rye could think of ample reason, starting with the potential danger that even one conjurer posed. When a single miscast could summon a beast that could kill hundreds in the blink of an eye, she too would question their usefulness, especially if all they learned was to shoot different bolts at each other. Though on the other hand, dislodging a threat that could not just self-destruct, but also shoot back quite effectively must be dangerous, and didn’t seem to have worked all that well for whoever tried it here.
Maybe it was because the other factions were only sending dregs here? After all, Rye had entered with five other people, which implied that anyone with half as much tenacity should be able to. Were their more important actors bound in other conflicts, in the defense of more critical territory? Or were there other reasons, other threats that prevented anyone from conquering the tower in its entirety with just foot soldiers?
Better then to check further ahead.
“Nali! Come out! I’m not mad, yet!”
She found nothing more besides small libraries, a row of dormitories, and even a kitchen. Elia would have loved to rummage around in there, but she steered them away from the latter. Besides most of the perishables having perished quite thoroughly, they could weigh themselves down with food on the way down.
Just because Elia’s backpack was bulging from the loot, that didn’t seem to prevent her from picking the odd knickknack off tables and cupboards. She had the time at least, with how eager Karla was to take point and test out her new sword.
“Hi-yah!” The girl yelled, attracting a few undead they could have otherwise ignored. “Huzzah! Tensshou, ten-SHOU! Perish before me. My left eye trembles! I am Karla the great, the princess of… normal princesses!”
“Do you still feel the prince or princess nearby?”
“Further up top,” she whispered before returning to her murder spree. “Have at ye! My name is Montoya and your mother was a hamster. Haah!”
Rye sighed, spooking one undead into giving up its position before returning to the group quietly.
Mouggen and Elia were talking, and without barely hidden barbs and vitriol.
“Let me get this straight: You were brought up in an institution that worshiped the concept of the sun. You had to appear for mass six times a day, and were not allowed to leave the temple grounds or talk with outsiders without explicit permission.”
The large man inclined his head. “I know I lacked the freedom many others had, but my life was blessed. Many had it worse.”
“That doesn’t mean yours was picture perfect either!” Elia threw her hands up in the air. She was oddly invested ever since the man had died on her once. Was she feeling guilty because she thought it was her fault, or did she just like him more now that he was friendlier and forgotten where Karla came from? “You’re telling me you think you grew up without biases?”
“Don’t we all? You seem to have a twisted view of what it means to devote oneself. I knew from the time I was ten what my gods stood for, what they demanded of me, what they offered, and what was severely punished. That kind of structure, it helped me grow into the man I am today. It let me focus on other pursuits, on forging my body into one through which Her light could shine even far away.”
“Sure,” Elia grumbled. “Whatever.”
Rye continued spying on them from aside, feeling slightly guilty, but ten times more thrilled at the thought of sneaky subterfuge. While peeking through the cracks in the wall with one eye, she was close enough to even read the quick windows of haze that formed whenever Elia used [Psychometry] on this and that.
Witchwood Bark
A strip of bark from a witchwood tree grafted onto an old oak, from which it derives its properties. Its signature smell and use in witches’ clothing has led to many looking down on those often coarsely dressed outcasts.
Chew to refill reservoir, but overuse leads to poisoning and yellow teeth.
“Hey twin-girl. Good loot?” Mouggen asked.
Elia stuffed the bark into her pack before he could get a good look.
“Nothing useful for you. Magic stuff.”
An unfamiliar sound suddenly reached Rye, and she was off without a second beat.
The sound was coming from above, like someone was hitting two pans against each other, but it was out of her reach.
She hurried back, near tumbling through the airy walls.
“Elia come on hurry up something’s up and with up I mean up-up!”
“Hold your grugs – er, horses. I keep on forgetting you have those. What’s up, found another boss?”
“Sounds. People! We might find Nali up there. Or a prince or princess. Maybe two. Maybe one for all of us.”
Elia watched her for a scrutinizing moment. “Riiight… let’s go then, even if you reek of ulterior motives.”
Rye did not, but Elia wouldn’t believe her, suspicious like a rat smelling poisoned cheese.
They ascended the stairway, but didn’t find the source of the sound. Instead, a maze of studies sprawled out in every direction, cramped and stacked with papers and scrolls that dampened all sound. If Rye had tried to whisper, the others might not have heard her even if they were in the same room.
Elia picked up a book, heavy with dust.
Academy reports #3415
This book describes the ongoing projects, successes, and setbacks of the Yorivale academy of conjuring. The academy was rigorous in its pursuit of ever greater knowledge, pressed to great lengths by their divine oversight once their patron was stripped of rank for his folly.
“Oh joy, a loot room!” Karla exclaimed, holding up a well preserved scroll with confidence.
“What does it say?” Mouggen asked.
“It says… 213 newly admitted students, 394.950 Catsi in student fees for the first year… including wand-lease fees, but excluding casting permits…”
“Congratulations, princess. You found the academy’s ledger.”
She put the ledger back with a huff. “Well, even if we don’t find Nali, there ought to be something of worth here. Come on, let’s have a look. Treasure!”
Despite its size, the floors ought to have narrowed in width this far up, which only confused Rye further as they continued to get lost in the labyrinthine assortment of small and smaller rooms. One time she watched Elia open a door only to be buried by a literal ton of paperwork, thick with spores of mold.
She almost suffocated there. And wouldn’t that have been the most embarrassing way to go. They ought to find another bowl soon, or return to the one downstairs as well. Elia had inhaled a lot of spores.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she sputtered.
“But we really ought to head back, you might catch pneumonia or something else equally as nasty.”
“Rye, I know our body. And among the diseases undead can get, most fall somewhere between amnesia and depression. Now come on, let’s see if we can’t find a magic scroll or two. This is an academy for conjurers, there has to be something. In fact, they should probably give you some sort of accolades for making your own spell.”
“I-It’s just a variation, you’re making it sound a lot more special than it is.”
Elia gave her a nasty grin. “Oh yes, the rocket propelled ice javelin is exactly the same as your fun little snow-confetti blaster.”
“It’s inefficient! It leaks influences everywhere, it goes against every good rule of conjuring Patia drilled into my head, and with the influences I know and proficiency I have, it shouldn’t work, but does, which is arguably a lot scarier than if it didn’t. I don’t feel like someone is helping me but… with that big miscast and the pike, you never know who’s watching, you know?”
The girls eyed each other, barely a glance. Rye was certain Elia was just as weirded out as her when looking at her own living, talking reflection.
“But… well, I might be able to fix it with some new influences. A sturdier shell would be necessary. Rigid, strong, and preferably from a place that won’t make conjuring it more of a threat than it is worth. Oh, and maybe whatever influences the conjurers use to make their projectile seek its targets out. That would eliminate the need for difficult to conjure fins, or other steering mechanism, or…”
Eventually, they met up with the others in a central room that may have once connected to most of the rest, had people not stacked their frankly overflowing records right in front of the doors. The decorations were austere, yet expensive. It must have been the head master’s room once, the dean’s or whatever one called the local administrator of conjurers.
“And, anything good?” Elia asked as she squeezed past a crate filled with notes on plumbing maintenance costs.
Mouggen shrugged as Karla stomped around, tugging the odd page from the nooks before moaning in frustration.
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“I believe this place has little to offer me, a warrior of the sunlight shore. Cesare might have found a souvenir or two. That Karla-girl seems like she thinks she knows what to look for, but frankly I doubt she’d find her tail if someone tacked one onto her behind.”
Elia snorted. “It’d probably fall off and right into her hands.”
“A thousand souls that she fails to find anything.”
“Deal.”
They watched the whole affair go on for some time while Rye poked in and out of nearby rooms, trying to find Nali, or the sound of that distant thump-thump-thumping.
When she came back, it was just in time to see Karla overturn a heavy desk, and find a lever hidden beneath it. A hidden mechanism clanked in between the walls as a bookcase was pushed aside to reveal a secret room.
“Pay up.” Elia grinned and Mouggen grumbled.
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They entered a small secret room, which must have simply been a study in line with all the others, except it was missing any sign of connecting doors besides the one at the far end. It was oddly devoid of anything but a few large coffers on a plush carpet.
Karla squeaked in joy. Elia, Mouggen, and Cesare looked confused at the existence of such a room. Even Rye turned suspicious.
“Elia, are you picking that up as well?”
“Sure am.” But she didn’t look worried in the slightest. “Hey Moug, a thousand souls that that chest is a mimic.”
He looked her in the eye and nodded. Karla opened one of the chests. Elia tsk-ed and handed the man his thousand souls back, then went over to open one herself. A dozen plastic bottles looked back at her, carefully placed next to packs of tissues, wallets, and smartphones. Every brand was represented, as was every color of the industrial age, vibrant like a bag of candy.
Elia blinked, speechless. She picked one up, felt the so familiar, yet almost forgotten heft of a block of computation, batteries, and glass. It was hard not to show the emotions playing across her face, but lucky for her the others were busy with their own loot. All but one.
“Elia, are you…”
“Shush. I’m thinking.”
She pressed the on-button. It didn’t budge. She squinted at the logo imprinted on the phone’s back. It was slightly off. Prying the back part of the phone off to get a look at the insides didn’t work either. It was a smartphone, but a solid brick all fused together to make the delicate electronics useless.
But it was still here, here like Nali the outsider, here like her. Did one of them try to remake modern day communication here? No, they would be missing infrastructure, even making a radio would be unlikely without advanced processing capabilities and such. But this world had a god of creation. Was he interested in the other worlds? How did he get things from there to here, was he just that powerful or…
“Conjuring,” Elia mumbled, looking at the phones harder as if that would reveal their secrets. “These people here were conjuring things from my home.”
“From… earthland?”
“Yeah, from earth. These things here revolutionized communication. Think what Rhuna did to our haze, but two-way. Shit, I think she found out how to co-opt a system already in place to do exactly that.”
“I don’t understand. If these… rectangles are so important, why not just go there personally and make a trade deal?”
“Because, as I’ve told you many times before, I’m not from this world,” Elia whispered. “My world doesn’t have magic, doesn’t have gods as far as I know, and doesn’t have fire breathing chickens. Which means anything coming from there has to–”
“– be conjured like ice from above oh my gods ELIA! Are… are you a fish?”
“What? No, why– what?”
“Sorry, that was a weird thing to ask. I just thought, since the endless ocean above is kind of like an actual ocean that, well… nevermind. What do we do now?”
Elia flipped the phone in her hands, dead as a brick. Phones weren’t rated for flying between dimensions. “We take them with us. They were hidden for a reason. Maybe we’ll find out more about why I’m here later. Worst case, we sell them. Until then, not a word to the others.”
“O-ok. I… I can respect your privacy, even if this is stretching it.”
----------------------------------------
Rye was still reeling from the revelations when the voice of a happily looting Karla shook her into the present.
“Elia! Rye! You might want to have a look at these.”
They walked up to have a gander. Most of the chest was filled with jewels and baubles, no doubt confiscated, stolen, or stored here for the purposes of personal enrichment and tax evasion. The paper however was a lot more interesting. Dozens of scrolls were scattered here and there, though to Rye’s disappointment either ink or paper had faded too much for most of them.
But the more she looked through the ones that weren’t falling apart, the more she felt that pit return to her ghostly stomach.
“You’re right. What are these?”
Crimson scroll
Scroll containing conjurations that take the strength of the body instead of the spirit. No sorcerer claimed ownership when this scroll was discovered in the archives. Little wonder too, considering it circumvents the need for a grueling tutelage under the eyes of the watchers of Yorivale.
Kindling Scroll
A scroll containing forbidden conjurations of fire and flame. Even the simplest of fulminations is outlawed by the will of the gods. Only the monks living under High Gatheon were allowed its practice, and for them too it became forbidden when the demons were driven to bite the hands of their masters.
Golden-rimmed scroll
Scroll containing adulations rarely seen outside of the realm of the gods. Adulations are the privilege of rulers and those few entrusted entirely to fulfill the dual wills of Worga and Ruthe. To wield them is to wield an inkling of the power of a divine being, a power which few mortals can resist.
“This is good. Great. Fantastic,” Elia vibrated, then nearly caught Karla in a hug before freezing. Karla got a pat on the head instead, which was as awkward for her as it was for everyone else.
“This is forbidden.” Mouggen sighed. “It seems the academy needed to prove its usefulness, and decided to dabble in the forbidden corners of the world to keep up its innovation quota. These are the exact things the watchers of Yorivale would burn down an entire city for.”
“Why? They’re just some tutorials on how to do magic.”
“And if anybody with ill intent and the means to pay a copier gets their hands on this, then you’ll suddenly have a country full of would-be conjurers, pyromancers, and heretic witches. These spells aren’t meant to make washing dishes any faster, or help you till the fields. These are curses and mind-stealers, the spark of a wildfire that would see us turn on ourselves. And then the forest would consume us all.”
“Cool. Sounds like a blast. Anyhow, I’m taking these.” Elia put them away only to look up at the menacing mug of mister sunshine-head. “Are you going to start a fight about it?”
Rye tensed up, looked between the two before quietly drifting behind her other half. If he did, the cramped quarters would make casting difficult. His sword would be unhandy too, but she knew he was strong, if not strong enough to beat a ten-ton slime in a grapple.
His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I remember thinking what I know, or being told it was truth, but I failed to question it again now that I don’t know why. I don’t even remember what a witch is or why we hunted them.”
“Well, then maybe you ought to stop flapping your mouth and start wrinkling your brain. Come on.” Eyes turned to Karla as she pointed to the door at the far end. “We’re still missing your Nali, and my prince or princess. Now onwards!”
The door bit her.
----------------------------------------
Elia brushed the last bit of blood and mucus from her spoon. “Hah, knew there was a mimic somewhere.”
“I am not paying you your souls,” Mouggen said.
“Yeah yeah, I called it on the chest specifically. My mistake.”
The mimic wasn’t nearly as tough as it was frightening. At least, not when put front to front with Karla, who after her initial surprise punched it in the door just as hard with her shield, and Mouggen, who in a few hacks turned its door-sized and shaped shield into tinder. It wasn’t even worth many souls, though Karla did seem oddly focused on the long tongue that had almost pulled her into a maw with way too many dagger teeth.
It was like fighting an oversized snail. Which, well, was still a snail.
After some more back and forth exploring, they eventually did find the source of the sound. A dreg was banging its head against metal bars. Another in the same cell was sitting in the corner, grasping idly at a ratty straw mattress.
“A prison?” Elia asked. “What kind of university needs a prison?”
“Maybe it’s for sobering up their acolytes.” Everyone’s eyes turned to Cesare. “What, do you want drunk conjurers making holes in the sky and summoning unspeakable horrors?”
“I believe alcohol is illegal for conjurers to purchase,” Mouggen added.
Karla vigorously nodded. “Nobody wants another moonfall.”
Everyone but Elia and Rye nodded, as if pretending this was a common enough saying made it make any more sense than zero. A funny concept that, zero. A number for nothing. Rye had never even heard of the concept before Elia tried and failed to follow her calculations for conjuring. Her world seemed to adore their funny little nothing number, they just tacked it on to anything and everything they could find.
Focus.
The dregs in the cell were a non-threat, but they hadn’t checked every cell yet. The smattering of cells was nearly as varied as the cityscape outside. Some had heavy oaken doors with a small slit for food and airflow, others simply had bars that stood straight as not-birches or twisted together like a handful of straw.
Metal tended not to twist together like that naturally, and the feeling she was getting from those cells was not inviting for obvious reasons . She steered the group away from some of the odder cells, the ones that had mushrooms growing out the bars or that smelled so strongly she might want to puke.
“Hey Rye. Is that cheese I smell?”
“NO! No, we are not going inside that cell.”
“But, like, you could check, right?” she asked. “You’re a ghost-fog. Or a fog-ghost.”
“I… I am, but, but–“
She squawked indignantly as Elia blew into her ear. Her ghostly form dissipated, reforming before the smug looking rogue. Telling her to let loose was definitely a mistake. It seemed that between paranoia and placidity, the girl only knew to overindulge one or the other.
“FINE. I’ll check. But you keep an eye out.”
“And I shall peel my eyes for the prince!” Karla yelled. “Or the princess. But a prince would be preferable.”
While Karla was busy looking for her prince slash princess, Rye took a peek around inside the cells. The prison cells weren’t roomy, but they felt solid, and there were a lot of them. They still weren’t nearly airtight enough to prevent her from sneaking in. She floated into one past a mumbling dreg, found a crack to the adjoining room, and peeked through.
“Nali?” she asked, finding the monk woman in a meditative pose.
She opened a single eye. “Amitabha, friend. I was just about wondering when you would show up. I have been waiting.”
There was little more Rye could do but send her the flattest of flat stares.
“But I thank you nonetheless for your arrival. Now, please do free me. I fear I can hardly hear my own thoughts with these kinds of noisy neighbors.”
“How’d you even end up in a cell?”
“I happened upon a dreg that was more there than others, but still too far gone for conversation. I followed them and ended up here.”
“And you just walked up to him and had a chat? Are you insane?” Maybe she was, and this ‘amitabha’ was just a verbal tic.
“Ah, but you see, the dregs don’t see me like they do you. I come bearing no ill will, no fear, no hate, no nothing. They simply don’t care that I am there, for I care just as little about them.”
“Dregs can smell fear?” Did this mean Rye had been doing it all wrong, that the only solution to dregs wasn’t stabbing them in the face? No, no, everyone else thought the same as her. It was Nali who was the odd one out. “I’ll have to ask you to stop endangering yourselves and us by extension.”
“Amitabha, I have caused you strain. Forgive me.”
Rye sighed, because there was nothing much to do. “As long as you’re alright and you get it. Let’s get you out.”
She did, suffering additional thanks and amitabhas along the way.
“Find anything interesting?” she asked her other half.
“Just a bunch of chemistry tables.”
“AL-chemistry. It’s Alchemistry.”
“Whatever-istry they were doing, they needed prisoners close by for it. Big tables, and these syringes too. I didn’t find any bodies, but you don’t need metal restraints to test new vaccines on people.”
“That’s…” troubling, but possibly normal for academies? Maybe if she’d been to one instead of becoming a stupid knight she’d know. “We’re in a lycea – academy, whatever –, I’m sure they were either volunteers or criminals.”
Elia just looked at her like there was something alien on her face. “Karla wants to free some more prisoners. I’d rather we just skip them all. You’re going to ask me to compromise and then nobody’ll be happy.”
Karla looked entirely caught out. “I’m not that predictable… In fact, I think we should open all the cells.”
Rye looked at Elia with all the puppydog eyes she could make. Which were two, but she was very good at that.
Elia sighed. “Fine. As long as I get to whack anything that jumps us. And if anything does I am going to lord it over the both of your heads.”
The locks on most doors looked easy enough for Elia to pick. Medieval locks had nothing on modern ones, she’d said. Some of them were made so poorly that just sticking her lockpick in there and wiggling it around like the world’s poorest lover was enough to unlatch the door.
A few things ran out at them. Some of them were animals. Some of them were dregs behaving like animals.
“Was that a…”
“Doubleskunk? Don’t question it.” Rye watched the two headed, two butted creature zoom past them and out a window. “I hope it’s undead.”
“It would have to be, to survive so long in here. Heck, I’d be surprised if we found anything that wasn’t a dreg.” Elia swore, shaking her hand. “Goddammit, this lock is tight. Lemme just… oh, there we go. Fantastic, we–“
The door swung open and Elia came face to face with a scruffy man in shoddy armor.
“Oh boy, another rescue,” he said with a mad, shaggy grin.
“ACK!” Elia shot backwards until she hit the wall.
“Oh. You’re not with our side. But I can work with that.” He crawled out on all fours. “Names Clive. Prisoner, adventurer, occasional blood bag. Oh, and also the bestest, most loyalist follower of the great Rhuna.”