The Bard Class has the fewest individual spells, but allows players to compose their own songs to use when activating a spell. A yearly contest was held in which Bards could submit their own compositions and the winners would be combined into a mashup that was added to the game’s background music library. There was also a special category for boss fight music.
Araedi. Day 04.
“I've found it!” Malikela's excited voice carried from the other side of the library, jolting Sinnamon awake. The excited Serethi woman ran to the table, holding up a thick red binder.
Sinnamon put her glasses back on and wiped the sleep from her eyes. She hadn’t even realized she’d dozed off, using a book as a pillow. Her librarian mother would probably kill her if she had caught Sinnamon sleeping on a book.
“What’d you find?” Sinnamon asked as she peered at the binder’s blank cover.
“It's a floor by floor overview of the contents of this building, but it makes a special note on where to find the translations that had been started. We walked right by it!”
Part of the problem the two had come into was the fact that nearly everything in the building was written in a language that neither Sinnamon nor Malikela could understand. Whatever universal translator allowed the two to speak to each other apparently didn't know this language. Everything seemed to be arranged with items of similar quality, certain scientific texts were clear based on their diagrams and illustrations, but there still wasn't anything to decode them by. The reference system Malikela referred to was a lot like the Dewey DeciMal System libraries used, but without a Serethi-written equivalent to work off of, they couldn't begin translating anything with any sort of accuracy.
“Really? Where are they kept?” Sinnamon asked.
“The records room is off a hallway under the stairs in the main lobby,” Malikela answered. “I actually went to go find it to confirm. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you.”
Sinnamon felt her cheeks flush. “I wasn't out long, was I?”
“You missed lunch…” Malikela replied sheepishly.
Sinnamon couldn’t help but laugh at herself. When Malikela asked what was so funny, she just replied, “Nothing. Take me to the records room. Let's see what we've got.”
The room where the translations had been kept was locked, Sinnamon opened the door with her guild building crystal. The labels on the drawers on the wall of cabinets was easily readable and Malikela confirmed they were written in Serethi.
“Hey, Sinn. You’re gonna wanna come see this,” Came Weaver’s voice through the telepathic voice chat. “I found a big, silver… thing… I can’t open it, says it needs a key.”
“The guild vault? I thought I already gave everyone access.” Sinnamon opened her menus to check the permissions. Everything was as it should be.
“No, it's not that. It looks alien. Just come here. Lowest floor.”
“I'll be down in a minute.” Sinnamon turned to Malikela. “Anything in that book about what's on the lowest floor?”
Malikela opened the binder, and after a moment, frowned.
“What is it?”
She handed the binder to Sinnamon.
The entry described a vault that was described only as super dangerous and to be avoided.
“Weaver and I'll check it out. Wanna see if you can find anything more on what we can expect to find?” Sinnamon sent a quick message to AnnaLee. It wouldn't hurt to have her healing if they needed it. Given Sparrow and JonJon were over a dozen levels below Weaver and Sinnamon, they might be better served acting as a go between them and Malikela, who didn't have a telepathic means of keeping in touch.
***
The Archival of Araedi had the same magic elevator system as the guildhall and it went down. And down. And down. Enough time had passed that Sinnamon finally began to wonder if they were stuck. But the elevator finally gave a hiss and the doors slid open.
It opened up to a large cavern with an egg-shaped object the size of a small house lay tilted on its side with the bottom third buried in the stone around it. Alien hadn't even come close to describing it. Nearly everything in this world had a sort of 1800s pre-industrial vibe to it.
This thing looked to have come straight out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel. The egg’s “shell”, for lack of a better word, was made of silver parallelograms, each the size of a large dinner plate. The seams between them were precisely fitted and just faintly visible.
Sinnamon blew out a breath. “And this was just sitting under here without anyone knowing about it?”
“Kinda hard to find it when the city itself won’t let you dig anything up and the buildings were blocked by force fields,” Weaver shrugged sarcastically, which prompted a giggle from AnnaLee.
Sinnamon rolled her eyes playfully at her boyfriend. “Alright, where’s the door?”
“Over here.” Weaver pointed to a podium a few feet from the egg.
There was a small impression in it and it was a perfect fit for the guild building’s crystal. There was a soft vibration as she moved the crystal closer to it and the crystal and podium together flashed once as the crystal fell into place.
The ground shuddered and groaned as whatever locking mechanism had been activated strained to wake up after the likely hundreds of years it had been left abandoned.
One by one, the tiles of the egg touching the ground began to fold and slide underneath and away from each other, revealing an entrance.
Weaver stepped inside followed by Sinnamon and AnnaLee. Soft white crystals flickered to life, revealing the entire inside was a domed auditorium, complete with seats surrounding a stage in the center.
More than half the seats held wooden crates and sacks like this place had been converted to storage and abandoned.
“I think the only thing dangerous about this place is all the dust,” Sinnamon coughed and brushed away a spider’s web.
“Look over there!” AnnaLee pointed to the stage. “What is that?”
In the center, a large sphere floated less than an inch above a bowl-like platform. Finger-sized crystals of every color embedded the craters that pocked its surface.
“It looks almost like… there was a space exhibit at the natural history museum in New York, you remember, Weaver?” Sinnamon asked, drawing a blank.
“Hayden Planetarium?” Weaver offered.
“Yeah, there was a thing that looked something like that.”
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“A… thing?” Weaver laughed. “I don't think we went to the same exhibit. I don’t remember anything looking like a floating moon… well, that moon.” Weaver added that last part when he noticed Sinnamon’s snicker.
Sparrow's voice suddenly cried inside Sinnamon’s head. “Guys, Malikela found the book on that floor. It's definitely not good. It says a very powerful mage killed just about everyone who went into the chamber down there!”
“Well, there's nothing here except this floating rock and some boxes. Maybe whoever used to be here is dead,” Weaver said. He was just about to touch the floating sphere when a blue light suddenly shined behind all three and the door leading out of the auditorium suddenly closed.
Sparrow had been mid-sentence repeating what Malikela was reading from the archive when her voice suddenly cut out.
“You still there, Sparrow? JonJon?” Sinnamon didn't get an answer from either.
A soft, grandfatherly voice spoke behind Sinnamon and the fact that the three of them were no longer alone coupled with Sparrow’s sudden interruption sent a shiver down Sinnamon’s spine.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. It's very delicate.”
Sinnamon turned around slowly to see the glowing blue light take on a form like the hologram of a man in robes. His whole body was a translucent blue that flickered occasionally. He had a short, bushy beard that was well trimmed. His hair held flecks of lighter color which suggested the greying of age to match his somewhat wrinkled skin.
“Who are you and what is that thing?” Sinnamon asked slowly.
“I am the Archivist, the Ikhwezi who maintains that device and many similar ones to it in the other crystal cities. As to what it does, I cannot tell you,” he answered.
“Why not?” Weaver asked.
“You haven't the permission to know,” he answered simply.
“We own the building. Shouldn’t that be permission enough?”
The Archivist ignored Weaver’s question with one of his own. “You hold the appearance of one of the Serethi, but you do not speak their tongue. What are you?”
Weaver stepped back from the device, turning to fully face the Archivist. “We'll only answer your questions if you answer ours.”
The Archivist gave a soft laugh, his eyes showing a friendly warmth. He spoke to Weaver like a grandfather might talk to his grandson. “I answered your first question. It is not my fault if you did not find the answer satisfying. I can only tell you what I am able to tell you.”
Weaver turned to Sinnamon and gave her a look. She returned it. The Archivist was right, he had answered their first question. It seemed the only way they would get anything from him would be through a back and forth exchange.
Weaver sighed, rolled his eyes, and addressed the Archivist. “The people of this world believe we are magical constructs here to protect them from goblins and other monsters. How did you know we aren’t speaking your language? No one else seems to be able to tell.”
There was an amused smile on the Archivist’s face at Weaver’s nonanswer.
Two could play this game, Sinnamon mused.
“It has been hundreds of years since I spoke with anyone else. They were Serethi. We could not understand each other and it was months before we taught each other enough to converse. I have been switching between Serethi and my own tongue. That we understand each other whilst speaking at least three separate languages gives way to the fact that you are not Serethi. Where are you from?”
Sinnamon gasped at his words. No one else they’d met before had indicated they weren’t speaking the same language. Though the queen of the Serethi had noted she couldn't read English. They had always assumed whatever translation was only one-way. Did this man somehow have a translator of his own? How had it learned to speak English?
Weaver answered the Archivist's question quickly, “We're from Earth.”
The Archivist seemed to be waiting for Weaver to elaborate, but all Weaver said was, “I answered your question. It’s not my fault if you didn’t find it satisfying.”
The amused smile reappeared on the Archivist’s face at his own words being used against him. “Very well. Ask your next question.”
Sinnamon looked at Weaver, then asked, “How can you tell we aren’t speaking your language? No one else seems to know.”
“Another Ikhwezi is translating for me.” The Archivist answered. It seemed they were back to nonanswers. “Where is Earth?”
“Somewhere far away from here.” Sinnamon was growing impatient with this useless line of questioning that was getting them nowhere. “What’s stopping me from figuring out how to work that device myself? As far as I can tell, I purchased this building and this was in it. Shouldn’t that mean I can use it if I want to?”
The Archivist’s warm expression cooled slightly. Sinnamon felt a chill down her spine as his presence in the room seemed to become… more.
“I am bound to protect this device. The last group I spoke to ignored my command not to touch it at great personal cost to themselves. Heed the lesson of your forebears: You might hold great power, you might even be the new owners of this place, but within these walls, I am the master of this domain.” The Archivist punctuated his words by pointing to his right.
Sitting in the first few rows of chairs were six mummified figures covered in a thick layer of dust. Sinnamon winced and Weaver’s muscles tensed as his gauntlets appeared on his hands.
The Archivist didn’t appear threatened by Weaver’s display. He instead returned to his friendly demeanor. “There is no need for that. I can see that you three surpass me in sheer strength. I can also see that you are smart enough to realize that my breaking this machine would help neither of us.”
“You’d really destroy that thing to keep us from it?” Sinnamon asked, dumbfounded.
“I would. And in doing so, it would kill the three of you and would harm me as well.”
Mutually assured destruction. Just how important was that device that he’d threaten that?
Sinnamon did catch that he had unknowingly revealed he didn’t know they were functionally immortal through the respawn mechanic. Better to keep that knowledge hidden.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble. You know we’re not from this place, we’re just trying to find a way home. You said you’re an archivist. Maybe you could help us find a way home and we won't have to bother each other ever again. Do you know who the Revi are? We think they are the ones who brought us here.” Sinnamon knew it was a gamble telling the man this much information, but she really didn’t want to go back to the useless back and forth from earlier. Someone had to give, and it might as well be them.
The Archivist shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you’d be hard pressed to find them. Most of the Revi have been dead for a thousand years.”
The room was quiet with the weight of his words. Dead a thousand years. The Serethi said the oldest Guardians had only been around for one hundred and twenty years. A dead end, then? There was something in the way the Archivist phrased his answer, though…
“‘Most’? Not ‘all’?” Sinnamon asked.
“One still lives, though I cannot be sure. I have been disconnected from the greater world for some time.” The Archivist stood and walked over to the machine, gesturing for them to follow. “The truth is, this device will not work for you because you lack the proper form.”
Along one side of the device’s base was an impression much like the one on the podium that let them enter. It was different from the guild’s focus crystal. Placing it in the cup produced no result.
Then an idea hit Sinnamon. She reached into her bag of holding and took out a fist-sized violet crystal. The Archivist’s eyes widened somewhat as the crystal’s pulsing light brightened the room slightly.
She put the crystal in the impression and it was an exact fit. The crystals on the device flared to life with color and the device began to spin. It spun faster and faster until all the colors melded into a bright white light that covered the ceiling. The light above them began to resolve once again into different colors, forming an image that showed Gaea as viewed from her moon, Diurne. Navorinelle, the continent they were on, faced them, but the planet was rotating slowly and the other continents creeped in from the edges.
A prompt appeared before Sinnamon.
Greetings, Guardian. The contents of this repository can only be accessed by Reylynn or through a key belonging to those she has entrusted with its safety. As the Caer Fragment used to activate this repository did not belong to an expected person, its contents have been locked.
Another prompt appeared, though it was blank. The words began to appear as though they were being typed in real time.
Guardians recognized: Ashley Miller. Andrew Weaver. Reina Lee. Failsafe Quest Activated.
Minimum Class Level: 1
Maximum Class Level: None
Description: Reylynn is gone. Barrier is weak. Experience is gone. Isiphelo comes comes comes Find Fel Find Fel Find Fel. You need You need You need You need You need need need need Fel
ALERT! THIS QUEST CANNOT BE REFUSED!
The string of words were as frantic as they were incoherent. But as quickly as the message and the light show had happened, it suddenly ended, with the orb dropping to the podium like the rock it was.
Sinnamon looked at Weaver. “Did… Did you get that message, too?”
He nodded slowly back at her.
A ghostly blue light filled the room and the Archivist cleared his throat. His next words came in a threatening voice that made Sinnamon regret turning her back to him.
“Perhaps we should start over from the beginning. You are going to tell me how you came into possession of that Ikhwezi's body.”