Morden met Daveth where the horses were picketed.
“What’s today’s goal, Commander?” He asked. Daveth shrugged. “I’m having Alysia run the Seal through the drills today. I’m going to ride the perimeter.” He replied.
“I’ll ride with you.” Morden volunteered, brushing his greasy black hair away from his face after he hoisted himself into the saddle.
They stopped briefly at the Tross, where Daveth spoke briefly with the quartermaster. A couple coins traded hands, and a small cloth-wrapped bundle changed hands.
“Don’t want to spar with Alysia?” Daveth prompted as they rode out towards the perimeter.
“More like Lynnabel. She’s calculating as fuck.” Morden complained.
“The burden of command.” Daveth muttered indifferently.
“Huh?” Morden asked, puzzled.
“Well, you have to at least look halfway competent, else you’ll never lead them when shit hits the fan.” Daveth muttered, rubbing the scar in the bridge of his nose distractedly. His head hurt and it rang.
“I’m happy enough in leading just my file.” Morden replied after a few minutes. “I think that’s just about my limit.”
Daveth pulled out the cloth-wrapped bundle; a small metal hip flask gleamed in the morning sun. He uncapped it and bit off a quick drink and coughed as the potent liquor seared his throat.
“Cap won’t like that, boss.” Morden warned.
“I’ve had a splitting headache ever since we arrived here.” Daveth complained. “I’m not Jonan.”
Morden nodded, and then added, “That was a bad death. Nobody should go like that.”
“You clear these buildings?” Daveth asked, gesturing.
“We’ve checked them. Haven’t gone inside- most look like they’re ready to fall over.”
Daveth frowned. “So anything at all could be hiding in them and you didn’t think to check, is what I’m hearing.”
Morden frowned. “It’s not that. It’s a question of safety. A building like one of those” he pointed at one at random, “goes, it’ll take everyone with it.”
Daveth looked over the crumbling city. Morden spoke the truth; the buildings were unstable, and there was no clear way of knowing if or when they’d topple over.
“So about the pig.” Daveth offered, and Morden immediately rolled his eyes.
“Fucking Lynnabel ambushed me, I swear.”
“Oh?” Daveth asked, barely paying attention to Morden’s complaints as he eyed the buildings one at a time. Four hundred years ago, this was a city of monuments and ornate buildings. A shattered statue of a woman, her face half-buried in the soft topsoil lay across a paved road wide enough to accommodate six coaches. Who were the people that built such a thing? How was it made? Who was it made after?
“I was going to save it for when the captain came out of that blighted pit.”
“You were?” Daveth asked. Down the street there was a rectangular building with a dome top in the center.
“I was. I’m no idiot.” He grumbled.
“Well, I guess I get to brag to him about the great breakfast I had this morning.” Daveth replied smugly. He urged his horse towards the building.
Daveth dismounted and trotted up the fractured steps to the massive double doors that secured the building while Morden looked for a place to tie off their horses.
“Grab my saddlebags while you’re at it.” Daveth called over his shoulder and gently tugged on one of the massive doors experimentally. The door itself was comprised of thick planks of some wood with a zigzagging grain, banded with some metal that didn’t have even a speck of rust.
Morden climbed the stairs and eyed Daveth. “You’re thinking of going in?”
Daveth shrugged. “Indulging my curiosity.” Morden shrugged and tossed his cloak over his shoulder, freeing his sword arm.
Daveth tugged on the door a little stronger and they heard the distinct sound of wood knocking against the door from the inside.
“They barred the door from the inside.” Daveth mused, and Morden nodded.
“Seems like they had something they wanted to protect.” Morden surmised, and Daveth nodded his agreement. “Think we can get it open?”
Daveth stepped back from the door and thumbed his beard as he considered the question.
“Yeah, I think we just might.” Daveth mused, and pulled a short sword from his pouch. The blade itself was very thin and narrow, used for slipping through gaps in armor to strike at vulnerable points. He slipped the blade between the doors and wiggled it around a bit. “Yeah, found the bar.” He muttered and then heaved upward.
There was a clatter from the other side of the doors as the wooden bar that had secured the doors against intruders was lifted from its brackets for the first time in four centuries.
Daveth pulled the long knife out from between the doors and wiggled it at Morden. The thin, narrow blade was bent and warped.
“Think the smiths can fix it?” Daveth asked, not expecting a serious answer. Morden shrugged, and Daveth tucked it indifferently behind his belt.
“Let’s see what’s behind these doors.” He tugged on them and was surprised when the twelve-foot doors suddenly came free of their hinges and fell outward. His hands pistoned upward, catching the doors as they fell, the force of the impact causing them to fall to either side of Daveth and Morden.
“Well... shit.” Daveth remarked after sharing a startled glance with the other man.
“No shit.” Morden breathed.
Daveth rose to his feet and helped Morden up. “Bet the smiths in the Tross would like to get their hands on that metal.” Daveth muttered as he stepped through the doorway.
The room dropped down a few steps to a stone desk that was thick with dust. A desiccated skeleton sprawled in the chair.
Behind the desk in neat rows were shelves stuffed with disintegrating scrolls. The walls themselves had cubbyholes crammed with even more scrolls.
“The fuck is this?” Daveth muttered.
“Maybe a library... or an archive.” Morden hypothesized.
“The fuck’re those?” Daveth wondered.
“A library is a place where books are kept. An archive is similar, except they usually hold important documents, like ‘this land belongs to this man and his descendants in perpetuity’, that sort of thing.”
“Okay, what does perpetuity mean?” Daveth asked as he picked up a scroll that immediately crumbled to flakes and scraps in his hand.
“Forever.”
Daveth shrugged at that, and moved through one of the aisles, occasionally trying to look at some of the scrolls. After a while he realized that they were written in Anglish, but the letters were barely decipherable because of all the extra loops, swirls, and angled points to the lettering.
He was somewhat literate, but the text was old and the calligraphy obscured the text in a way that made it incomprehensible to him without concentrating. After struggling for a few minutes to try and read some document, he tossed it aside in disgust, and added a frustrated kick to the shelves of scrolls out of spite, eliciting a chuckle from Morden.
“What, you think you can read that shit?” Daveth asked truculently.
Morden picked up the scroll Daveth had dropped and blinked a few times. He glanced at Daveth and shook his head.
“Nope.”
Daveth shrugged and Morden shrugged back, tossing the scroll over his shoulder.
“Aldric is Anglish. He’d probably be able to read this shit.” Daveth decided after a moment of thought. “If he ever crawls out of that hole in the ground, I’ll tell him about this place.” Morden nodded and followed Daveth as he moved into one of the wings of the building itself, taking a look into each room he passed. Many of the rooms were the same; racks of scrolls and shelves of books, a chair and a desk. There was usually a skeleton or two in each room. At the end of the wing there was another room with a jumble of skeletons surrounding a round table.
The table itself was carved and inlaid with colored stones and golden script, a map made of cut and polished stone. There was Metzcal, on the coast. Philippa. Blackwall. Ardeal. Lyonesse and Sarkomand. The map that they had inlaid into the table was clearly old, as there was no Mention of the Black Plateau and instead referred to the Jeweled Cities atop Sarkomand.
“I can read this!” Morden exclaimed, carefully lifting a scroll that wasn’t rolled parchment but instead woven cloth.
Daveth turned to him, and moved his hand in a cranking “hurry up” gesture.
Marden gave him a look and refocused his attention on the words.
“If you kill her, she remembers the killing, and the method thereof, and thus becomes immune.”
Morden gave the scroll a baffled look, shook his head, and kept reading.
“Grigori of The Golden Lady’s Templars reported that she was once slain by a spear launched from a ballista. The spear did pierce her breast and force her to the ground. He thought the battle won, but she pulled the spear from her body and continued her unrelenting advance. They were able to launch three more volleys at her, but the spears merely shattered upon her body and she did not stagger nor slow in her advance.”
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Daveth stroked his beard thoughtfully at this. “Could they be talking about a Champion?” He asked. “Eirawen was ... unbelievably formidable, and they don’t age, either.”
Morden shook his head and shrugged.
“Still, imagine a fighter with that ability.” Daveth mused. “You’d become immune to swords and knives and arrows and magics.” He shook his head. “You’d be fuckin’ terrifying on the battlefield.”
Morden nodded.
Daveth put the scroll into his saddlebag to show Aldric later, and they crossed the main area again to move into the opposite wing, where they found similar rooms.
“Not much to see here, I suppose. What next? The upper floors, or the lower?” Morden asked.
“Lower. If there’s anything worth taking, it’d be down there.” Daveth replied, so Morden shifted his satchel to his other side to once again free up his sword arm.
They returned to the main hall and descended the stone steps.
“You’ve got light crystals, right?” Daveth asked Morden. “Hand me one.”
“Why would you think I have-” Morden began, but Daveth cut him off.
“You’re a packrat, right? I bet you picked some up when we were in Bel-Arib.”
Morden grumbled but rooted around in his satchel and produced one for himself and another for Daveth.
“Are these the type you squeeze, or what?” Daveth asked, and Morden nodded. “You squeeze ‘em.”
Daveth nodded and held his aloft so that it lit up the room.
This room was similar in construction to the room above, except the cubbyholes and alcoves were locked with metal plates; each plate bearing the old Seal of the Anglish Empire and some ornate gothic script that neither of them could read.
“Any idea what’s in these things?” Daveth asked, but Morden shrugged and shook his head. “I can guess that these are probably really important documents? They’re locked up, after all.”
“Let’s pop open a few; maybe there’s treasure in them.” Daveth offered. Morden shrugged indifferently.
Daveth was able to pry off one of the metal doors and examined it curiously. “You could make a fortune with all this steel, at least.” He muttered, and then peered into the cubby.
“Well, look what we have here.” Daveth muttered as he pulled out a small cloth sack that crumbled a little at his touch. A handful of steel rectangles slid into his palm, with the impression of a massive building on one side and a woman in plate armor holding a sword aloft on the other.
“That’s a really old Anglish coin.” Morden observed, bringing his light in close. “They’re steel, of course, but some people will buy them as they are, especially in the Merchant Cities.”
“Hmm.” Daveth acknowledged and tucked them into his saddlebag indifferently, and peeked into the cubby again. He pulled out a stack of richly decorated sheets of vellum. He glanced through them, they all seemed to be the same thing.
“I can’t read these. Any idea what they are?” Daveth asked, and Morden examined them carefully.
“This is a bank note, I think.” Morden finally decided after sitting down and examining them carefully for twenty minutes.
“The fuck is a bank note?”
Morden rubbed his chin. “I don’t actually know. I’ve just heard the term. They’re supposed to be extremely valuable.”
Daveth eyed them dubiously. “Something else to ask Aldric about, I think.” he decided, and then added, “If they really are valuable, maybe we can use them for the Seal.”
Morden nodded. “Should we crack open all these boxes?”
Daveth rubbed his chin. “Eh, maybe. I want to look around some more, first.”
Morden nodded, and they continued exploring.
Daveth stopped abruptly and frowned as he looked around the room. Morden, thinking an attack was imminent, yanked out his sword. “What is it boss?” He asked, turned a little so that he could cover Daveth’s back.
“There’s something wrong with the room.” Daveth complained. “I’m trying to figure it out.”
“We’ve never been here before, so I don’t know what you mean.”
Daveth frowned irritably and rolled his eyes. “There’s no dust. No cobwebs. No smell of mouse turds or mold or anything. It’s like this place was cleaned this morning.”
“I could guess, if you like.” Morden offered, sheathing his sword.
“Fire away.” Daveth replied, moving off towards a desk.
“Magic.” Morden offered. “Lotsa rich folk use magic to keep things clean.”
“Why this room and not the one upstairs?” Daveth asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? The stuff down here is more important.” Morden replied, patting his satchel.
“That does seem reasonable.” Daveth agreed. He gestured to a second set of stairs heading downward.
“Wanna see where this goes?”
“Stairs!” Morden called out, yanking his sword from his scabbard just as a rattle of bootsteps clattered down the stairs from the first floor.
“Commander?” A voice called out. Morden snuffed out his light and faded into the shadows just in case.
“Down here.” Daveth called, a knife in his hand.
Teryl appeared on the steps from the first floor, her sword in her hand.
“Ah! There you are.” She called.
“Something happen with the Seal?” Daveth asked, moving to the stairwell.
“Lunch, actually.” She replied. “I saw your horses tethered outside and decided to check and see if you needed any help.”
“Convenient.” Daveth agreed, and sheathed his blade. “You have a light crystal?” He asked, but she gave him a baffled look. “What are those?” He held his out for her to see. She picked it up and examined it while Daveth explained how it worked. She shrugged and handed it back.
She tapped her pauldron, and a small bead-like gem flared to flight.
Daveth raised his eyebrows. “Useful.” He muttered, and she nodded.
“What are you two doing down here?” She asked curiously.
“Exploring. Looting.” Daveth replied. She gave him a quizzical look, but looked around the room.
“Did you find anything worth taking?” She asked curiously.
“A bit. You saw the doors outside, right? I figure the smiths in the Tross can use the metal for something useful.”
She nodded.
“So tell me why you think this room isn’t covered in cobwebs and mildew.” Daveth prompted.
“Preservation magic and wards, obviously.” She replied instantly.
“...okay.” Daveth replied. “I’ll ask you about it later.”
She gave him a puzzled look, but nodded.
“We’re about to head down to the third floor. Wanna tag along?” Morden asked, stepping out o the shadows. She jerked towards him when he started speaking, but relaxed when she recognized him. Her hand didn’t leave her sword hilt, however.
“I confess I’ve never explored ruins like this before.” She offered. “What is the usual protocol?”
Daveth rubbed the back of his neck in thought. “Probably... don’t do it.” He offered lamely.
She gave him a baffled look, but Daveth just spread his hands. “Nothing but bad luck and death comes from exploring ancient ruins. We’ve had our share of both, in the Seventh Seal.”
“You’re confusing me more and more, Commander.” She offered, and he gave her a grin and tousled her amber-colored hair. “Probably. Let’s head down. Watch your footing.”
They headed down the stairs. As they reached the third floor, Teryl adopted an expression as if she’d caught a whiff of something extraordinarily foul.
“Wards again, but this time to keep magic from escaping.” She reported, and then her face twisted in disgust. “And for good reason.”
“I don’t understand.” Daveth offered.
Teryl opened her mouth and closed it a few times as she tried to figure out a way of explaining it.
“Magic... carries risks. It can be dangerous to those who do not have ... protections.” She explained vaguely.
“You’re talking about mutants and abominations.” Daveth prodded, and she nodded.
“Just so. It’s best to acknowledge your Patron quickly if your magic awakens, and pray for their protections.” She began, and waved her hand. The light from her pauldon brightened, illuminating the room.
“Ah, there’s a light-” She suddenly exclaimed, and snapped her fingers. Suddenly the room was bright as day as light crystals embedded in the walls and ceiling flared to light.
The room was vast, and every few steps there was a low stone table. On each stone table were a collection of items. Rings, brooches, necklaces, belts, weapons, shirts, armor, everything that could be imagined, scattered across perhaps two hundred tables.
“The fuck is all this?” Daveth muttered and moved to pick up a dagger.
“Please don't touch that, Commander.” Teryl urged, and he pulled his hand back.
“Why not?” He asked, eyeing her.
“Those things were made by mages ... that weren’t protected. They’re dangerous. It’s possible you’ll mutate or grow cancers if you use or carry them. This is probably a -was probably a repository of dangerous magical items. A place to keep them away from people so that they would do no harm.”
“Is it dangerous to be in here?” Daveth asked.
“Probably not, but we shouldn’t stay long.” She offered, and Daveth nodded. They moved around the tables, examining the various items.
“Ah.” Teryl stopped, and picked up a leather bracer with metal plating. “This might suit you, Commander.”
He gave her a confused look. “I thought you said this stuff was bad news.”
She smiled. “This isn’t. This is just fine. In fact, it seems as if it was made by a master craftsman... like my armor.”
Daveth approached her. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What do you mean?”
Her almond-shaped eyes widened in surprise. “Ah, yes. I didn’t think- I thought Commander Malacath had explained-” She cut herself off. “It would probably be easiest to show you.”
She unlatched her gauntlet and took it off. She proffered it to him.
“Put it on.” She urged.
He eyed her tiny hand, and then his own hand ostentatiously.
She barked a laugh. “It will fit, Commander, trust me.”
He gave her a skeptical look, but took the gauntlet and tried to fit his hand into it. It stretched somehow, despite being made of mail and leather and fit his own hand comfortably.
“The fuck?” He muttered, and stripped it off. Now the gauntlet looked huge in her tiny hands, but as she slipped it on and tightened the straps, it was as if it had been sized for her perfectly all along.
“You see? It changes size and shape to fit the wearer.” She explained.
“Convenient.” he observed, and she nodded. She held out the bracer. “This should do the same.”
He eyed her suspiciously, but slipped the bracer onto his arm it fit snugly, comfortably, as if it had been made for him and him alone.
“And... what does it do?” Daveth asked, eyeing the bracer on his arm skeptically.
“It shoots fireballs.” She explained. “About five or six, I should imagine. It looks like it’s designed to pull ambient magic from the surroundings to recharge itself, so... You should be able to use it to shoot those fireballs once a day.”
“That’s... pretty fucking convenient.” he observed, and she nodded.
“There might be other items like it here, but it’s difficult to tell without checking each one individually.” she explained and grimaced again.
Morden gestured. “There are more stairs heading down, I think.”
Daveth nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
They moved to the stairs and started down, but halfway there the wall collapsed into a tunnel of some sort.
“Huh.” Daveth muttered, and eyed Morden. “What do you think?”
“Mmm. A sewer, probably.” Morden observed, poking at the mossy stones with a gloved fingertip.
“Commander, I hear voices.” Teryl spoke up and pointed down the tunnel.
“This is a terrible idea.” Daveth advised as he eased himself into the tunnel. “If you want some advice from a senior officer, it’d be to avoid going into dark, narrow tunnels like this. Heading up the stairs and leaving the building is the smart choice to make.”
Morden nodded. “I’ll make sure to keep that in mind sir, if the occasion calls for it. Jumping into a tunnel like this definitely sounds like bad news. Narrow confines, no backup, no steady light source, no idea if the tunnel might collapse around us... definitely bad news.”
Teryl slipped in behind Morden gracefully, the chains on her armor tinkling.
“What are you talking about? This seems perfectly fine.” She disputed. Daveth half-twisted to glance at Morden. They shared a sympathetic look and a shrug, and then marched down the tunnel with Teryl following after.
“What? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” She asked, but Daveth and Morden simply kept silent.