According to Cari, Tay had earned enough coin working for Mond to buy a new Talisman days ago, but she made him wait another half-week before taking him out shopping for one. To his surprise, Cari only took two turns to the left before entering pulling him through a shabby-looking door.
And though Tay thought they were entering into a Talisman shop, it only turned out to be a shoemaker’s business. Cari actually made him spend a fifth of his coin on a new pair of hard-soled, velvet-lined shoes before they left.
When Tay asked why she thought shoes and Talismans were one in the same, Cari replied, “You’ll see. And here, try this on.”
Cari tossed him a huge fur-lined shirt, that once Tay had it on, fell all the way down to his knees. It had humongous pockets in the front, and a warm collar that he was able to nestle snug against the back of his neck. It was big, but it was cozy.
“A bit more of a coat than a shirt, but it’ll do. Honestly, I don’t even know where Mond gets his clothes. You look nice, Tay.”
Tay stood there for a moment while Cari spun about and took a few strides down the road. As he followed after her, he got a glance of himself in a shop’s window.
In Mond’s coat, you couldn’t tell how dirty his shirt was underneath, and it served to highlight his fiery hair jetting up from the top of his head. For the first time in a while, he looked and felt clean and kept.
Cari led Tay out of the borders of Peace and Quiet and into the slimy tunnels of Duskborough. Apparently, though Peace and Quiet had a fairly robust game shop, it did not have any Talisman vendors.
They came to confluence of several open pipes, where their tunnel transformed into a road that wound alongside a running waterway. Tay watched the waters as he talked about small things with Cari, like the nasty smells of Duskborough or how mad Sally had been because Cari had forbidden her from coming.
Down in the waters, there was a large metal-wrought structure that framed a part of the river, like a small and too-narrow bridge. A man with a long pole reaching down into the sewer-way sat on a rocking chair atop it, aloof and minding his own business. As they passed the structure by, Tay looked back and saw that it was a sieve of some sort, with water passing through it.
When Tay brought it up, Cari said, “The Drip is the only place in all of Duskborough with truly clean water.”
And she was right. The waters running by them now weren’t some murky mess, like they had been before. All the nasty things that might’ve dirtied it had been filtered out, and all that ran along their path now was pure, if not a little glittery.
“It may be a little rich in minerals, but those never killed anyone,” Cari said.
“Never thought I’d be so mesmerized by sewer water,” Tay said.
“Duskborough does that to people,” Cari said. “It makes you forget what the world’s like up there, and makes you appreciate what you have down here.”
They followed the water, both admiring how it shimmered in the darkness, until they were no longer in darkness. Lining their path were thickly-framed lanterns with grated faces. Eerie red light plumed out from within, making the whole tunnel seem as if it had caught fire, and yet there was no heat.
“What are these?” Tay asked, coming to stand next to one, and trying to stand on his toes to peer inside.
“That,” Cari said, “is why we’re here.”
Tay managed to get a look inside, and saw that there was no flame within the lantern. Instead, the ruby light was coming directly from a stone. No, not a stone. A gem—just like the ones he’d seen in the various Talismans he’d been shown.
“Okay,” Tay said. “So, how do we get it out of the lantern?”
“What?” Cari laughed. “Wow, you really are a thief. If you can find a way to get inside the grates, be my guest, but those Ley-crystals aren’t going to do you much good. The ones we need need for our Talismans need to be cut in a certain way.”
As they continued, Tay couldn’t help but to focus on what Cari had said. He really was a thief, wasn’t he? He hadn’t even hesitated in believing that they’d come all this way to steal. Cari had asked him to bring his coin, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t buy anything.
He’d just thought like a thief. And why did that bother him now?
Ahead, Tay could see the red light from a cluster of ruby lanterns growing in intensity. Then the road opened up, he Tay witnessed a rainbow.
Rather, he witnessed a thousand rainbows, as there weren’t just ruby lanterns, but emerald lanterns, and sapphire ones, and ones for every color that existed. They ran between tall and sprawling stonework buildings painted to look like the colors that illuminated them.
And even with all that, there was something even more breathtaking.
The water.
The waterway beside them flowed out and down into a basin below, lit up red like the area around them. From other parts of this city—for it seemed a city within a city—other streams of water came in different colors. They all melded below, into darkness, presumably to flow into the less beautiful areas of Duskborough.
“Welcome to the nicest area bottomside,” Cari said. “The Drip. Where all of Duskborough’s water is purified before folks down here stink it up again.”
Now it was clear why Cari had Tay dress up before coming here. He would’ve been out of place otherwise. Even Cari, with her fine, thin cloth tunic and short skirt, seemed a little underdressed compared to all the peacoats and flowing dresses that clothed the people skirting through the waterway-lined streets.
Tay still thought none of them held a candle to Cari’s looks, but both of them seemed garbed in peasant attire compared to the people they passed. One man, old looking with a coat nearly as long as he was, was carrying a stack of three boxes, and hardly making a success of it.
Unsurprisingly, the old man dropped his boxes onto the road, with one tumbling over into the waterway. He swore and cursed to himself as he failed in picking up his boxes again. Tay moved into to try and help, but Cari quickly latched onto his arm and yanked him away.
“Hey, I want to help him,” Tay said.
“I know, and that’s the problem,” Cari said. “Look.” She nodded her head back to the old man.
Next to the old man was a much younger looking man in a short but thick coat. Both the old timer and youngster were staring at them. Only then did Tay realized that the whole thing had been a ploy. He’d almost fallen for the oldest thieving trick in the book—if he’d helped the old man, the young one would’ve picked his pockets while he’d been distracted.
“We’re not the only ones who’ve dressed up to try and fit in the Drip. Everyone here has a darker side, Tay. Keep that in mind.”
And Tay did, now noticing how some people kept their gazes lingering on him and Cari for a little more than they ought to have. They were judging how much coin they were worth. In fact, most of the people out on the street had to be thieves, from how hungry their looks were.
Cari brought Tay to a large, domed building made entirely out of stone. A line of waterfalls wreathed the back of it, colored from red to violet in an orderly rainbow that almost made Tay not want to follow Cari through the beech doors. He relented and walked into the blankest antechamber he’d ever had the pleasure of being in.
“Is this a Ta—”
“Don’t mention that while we’re here,” Cari said abruptly, crossing her hands behind her back. “Or what we do either.”
Tay was going to ask what it was that they did, but the sound of footfalls coming down a winding staircase across the room stole his attention. There was nothing else here except for a checkered white and black floor. Was this even the right spot?
“Can I help you?”
Reaching the bottom of the stairs was the most aristocratic-seeming man Tay had laid his eyes on in a while. He had hair only on the sides of his head, and was missing an eye. His other eye was covered by a monocle of ruby glass.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
In his hands were what Tay paid the most attention to. He wielded a cane made out of metal. Screwed in at the top of the cane, and held in the man’s palms, was the largest crystal Tay’d ever seen. It was a huge chunk of orange ley-crystal, softly glowing as the man waited for a response.
Cari walked up into the middle of the blank antechamber, no more than ten paces out the man. She smoothly gestured to Tay and said, “This man’s new to town. He needs himself an array.”
The man leaned to peer around Cari, and took a long, long, long look at Tay. “Is that right? Have you ever been to an artificery before, young man?”
“No, sir,” Tay said.
“Heh, sir? You got a lot of respect, I’ll give you that. Call me Lexorious though. Or, if you need to, Mister Fraulum. None of this sir nonsense, unless you don’t want me to take you seriously. I take it you don’t even know what an artificer is, do you?”
Tay froze up, and looked to Cari, but it was obvious that he was out of his depth. To his surprise, Lexorious seemed to bright at that, striding across the room with his arm outstretched.
Tay could hardly match the man’s vigor when they shook hands.
“Oh, how I love explaining my craft to people,” Lexorious said. And to Cari, he said, “I just love seeing the looks of their faces when I take them upstairs.”
“As for the cost,” Cari began.
Lexorious held up a finger, and to make his way back across the room to the stairs, gesturing to the both of them.
“I never discuss prices until my customer is satisfied with what I’ve presented to them,” Lexorious said. “You’ve been here before. You know that.”
Cari stiffened, but nodded. Even though he wasn’t bulky nor tall, Lexorious dominated the room. Perhaps that was because he was the only thing giving it presence?
“Now, we ascend up to the artificery, and young man, I hope you’re prepared to have your mind boggled.”
“Tay,” Tay said.
“Excuse me?” Lexorious said.
“You called me young man, but my name’s Tay. You told me yours, so I thought I should tell you mine.”
Lexorious smiled as he drifted up the staircase. “Of course, of course. Tay, Tay, Tay, it’s nice to meet you, my new friend Tay. Follow me, and I’ll have you leaving here with the most prestigious ley-crystal array that money can buy.”
Lexorious disappeared at the top, and while Tay would’ve liked to spend a moment with Cari discussing what he was and was not allowed to discuss, Lexorious was calling for them to come up not even a second later. Cari rolled her eyes and went up. Tay supposed any questions he had would hopefully be answered when he reached the top of the stairs.
They weren’t.
Furthermore, Tay had to reconsider he previous observation about Lexorious’s cane hosting the largest ley-crystal he’d ever seen.
Because that new honor now belonged to Lexorious’s ceiling.
Hanging from a framework of copper struts and secured under the domed roof of the building itself, was a ruby crystal the likes of which Tay had never seen. Mostly because Tay had never seen any crystal bigger than a house before.
The ruby crystal had rough edges, and chunks of it were missing, but fiery lines coursed through it, glowing and pulsing of their own accord. These let off illumination that cast the whole second floor of Lexorious’s mansion into a ruby glow.
Tay wondered if the ruby crystals from the lanterns outside all came from this single, massive crystal. It certainly could’ve been far, far larger at one point, which wasn’t to say it was anything but large now.
The rest of Lexorious’s artificery, as Tay looked about in the ruby light, was made up of metalwork and stand-up walls where clockwork and gemstones hung. They glowed all colors of the rainbow. So much so that Tay could practically see the colors all floating through the air, like the fumes of a lab.
Lexorious himself was grinning widely, his gaze fixed on Tay from behind that single, ruby-glassed monocle. Lexorious then chuckled and said, “I really do love seeing the faces of people who come up here for their first time. There’s nothing quite like working with magic.”
“Magic?” Tay asked.
“Of course,” Lexorious said. “What do you think is trapped within these ley-crystals? Just light? No, no, no. It’s power, my new friend Tay. Power from an ancient past. Instead of fading into nothing, like the magic of history did centuries ago, after the Shattering, this magic got itself imprisoned inside of these ley-crystals when they formed.
“An artificer like myself can shave down the impurities of these crystals to put these ancient powers on display for all to see. It’s one of the new fashion trends making its way through topside.”
Lexorious lifted a brimmed hat from a nearby table and tossed it over to Tay. Above the brim, it had a knuckle-sized blue ley-crystal was embedded into the middle, with two, smaller emerald ones at its sides. Together, they seemed like a serene lake, or pond, and the blue crystal even had some sort of curling pattern of power flowing within it.
“Now, tell me, my new friend, Tay, what strikes your fancy? What sort of array are you looking for? Feel free to have a look around. I’d be happy to show you what I have in stock.”
Tay put the hat down, and strolled through an aisle of stand-up walls with gemstones socketed into them in long rows. It all almost hurt his eyes to the point of squinting. But Cari didn’t seem to be bothered by the light, as she stepped up to ley-crystal after ley-crystal and stared directly into them, as if she could see something he couldn’t.
He put himself in front of it and forced his eyes to open wider, despite the enormous wealth of light trying to force its way into his vision. Just like with the revenants, there was something more to these ley-crystals. Something that related to the game of Runicka. And if he only just allowed himself to see it, then…
(5) Sharp Robonicle Target revenant loses -1 Power until the end of the turn. @1
“Robonicles are my finest product,” Lexorious said, coming to his side to look upon the ruby gemstone with him.
It was cut in a circular fashion, within an octagonal pattern. It had a slightly-raised face, and what looked like flames trapped just within it. All in all, it seemed a far smaller version of the gigantic ley-crystal that Lexorious had suspended from the ceiling.
“This one’ll be perfect,” Tay said.
“Hard to pass up on something like this, isn’t it? I remember the first time I beheld a ley-crystal. There’s so much power sealed away with them, you can just see it coursing inside of them. You can feel it too. Come, reach out and touch it. Feel the heat.”
Tay did as he was bade, and no sooner had his fingers graced the flat face of the robonicle than its heat pierced his skin. He nearly pulled his hand away, for fear of being burned. But it wasn’t so hot that it could hurt him—just warm.
Just like his mother’s amulet.
There had been a robonicle on it too. And this one seemed like it would—how had Rantho put it—synergize with the rest of his cards. The Will of the Warlock seemed to be focused on knocking Power of foe revenants down, so that the weaker revenants that Tay had could run over them. Maybe this could get certain foe revenants passed critical thresholds, and with cards like Apprentice of the Warlock, the -1 would become doubly effective.
“I’ll take it,” Tay said.
“Most excellent,” Lexorious said. “And Carinella over there said you’d be trying to outfit an array. Might I know how many ley-crystals you’ll be procuring for it, and in what manner of jewelry would you like them displayed?”
“Oh, three,” Tay said.
And no sooner had he spoken than a shadow crept down over Lexoroius’s face. The monocle began to glow brighter and brighter, until a concentrated beam of warm light was shooting forward and heating Tay’s chest.
At the same time, the ley-crystal atop Lexorious’s cane blossomed. The energy inside of it practically ignited. It felt like a desert wind had come upon them, and brought with it the sun burning at their backs.
“A three-crystal array, hmm? Do you think me some sort of fool? I had my suspicions about you already, Carinella, but this is proof. One three-crystal array is already too much. You mean to dupe me, and use my devices for that infernal game!”
The light burning out from Lexorious’s cane only grew brighter until he was nothing more than a silhouette inside of its light. Tay’s throat became so dry that he couldn’t even swallow.
But another silhouette came to stand before Tay. It was Cari, putting herself between him and the inferno being created not even ten feet from him.
“His friend is getting married topside,” Cari yelled out. “And Tay’s not quite rich enough to be able to afford some of the arrays up there. He came down into the Jar, where I met him, and I told him that I knew someone who could help set him up.”
All at once, the blinding light and seething heat vanished. “A wedding, huh? Ley-crystals are all the fashion at weddings nowadays. I must say, you’re dressed rather lightly for a topsider.”
Lexorious stood there once more, but Tay didn’t fail to notice the plumes of smoke rising up from his cane. Tay also wondered, with all the heat that he’d felt, how Lexorious had been able to keep his grasp of the ley-crystal without burning himself. He wasn’t about to ask though.
“Well,” Cari began, “like I said, he’s not quite rich.”
“Carinella, you know that there’s only one thing that I tolerate less than the shattering of a ley-crystal,” Lexorious said, practically twitching with anger. “When ley-crystals are used for that horrid game called Runicka, the ancient magics—countless untold stories that they are—get twisted and exhausted, lost to use forever. Those who play Runicka expend this valuable resource too flippantly.”
Cari looked as if she had a response, but before the situation got out of hand, Tay jumped in and said, “Cari misspoke. I actually need a four-crystal array, but she’s already given me a rundown of your prices. And while I might’ve had enough, there were two gents just around the corner who made off with some of the little wealth I brought down here—I tried helping the old man with his crate and things got a little out of hand. So, it’ll have to be a three-crystal array, unless, of course, you’d be willing to sell me four at a discount?”
That warm beam of light emanating out from Lexorious’s monocle lessened, to the point where it was just a soft glow from the ruby monocle. Then, and only then, did his smile finally return. Lexorious threw his arms up and spoke.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? I’m afraid I can’t discount these ley-crystals, my new friend Tay. As it stands, I’m already selling them at the lowest value I need to maintain my living situation here bottomside. Can’t go any lower, but I can get you the finest three-crystal array so that no one will miss that you’re missing one.”
Tay smiled, and Cari visibly exhaled behind Lexorious.
“Perfect.”