Charles reached the end of the stairs and found himself in a large room. The first thing he noticed was the presence of several other Brothers and Sisters, all seated around a table in the center of the room. Their knots of rank ranged from Sixth all the way to Second, making Brother Davvis the only member in the lower ranks. On top of that, the members came from four of the five chapters of the Order. Only the Frontiers' Corps was unrepresented. He supposed that probably had to do with the ongoing crisis; inter-chapter cooperation was the norm, but involving all of the chapters was uncommon during normal days.
The second thing he noticed was that the room was square. As far as he could tell, perfectly square, though he would need measuring tools to be sure. And it wasn't just the floor. Every wall was perfectly square as well, and all of them were the exact same size as the floor. The ceiling had no arches or doming, meaning it too was square. The room was a perfect cube, inverted.
He turned his attention back to the table of people. It, too, was square. Four chairs sat on each side. Only seven were occupied.
"Brother Charles Davvis, step forward," Marshal Massenne's voice echoed behind Brother Davvis, reminding him that he was here for a debriefing. Or...that's what he had assumed. This room was so strange, hidden away beneath the city. He stepped forward a couple steps, as the Marshal moved around him to join the other seven people at the table.
Brother Davvis wasn't sure what to do. He looked from face to face, but found no answers there. He settled on waiting until someone spoke. It seemed the safest way to keep his position when surrounded by so many that outranked him.
"Do you know where you are, Brother Davvis?" One of the Sisters spoke up. She was older, and her knots of rank indicated she was a Second Artificer.
"I'm afraid not, Second Artificer. I know I am under the city, somewhere," Brother Davvis answered.
"That's accurate," the Second Artificer acknowledged. She shared a look with all her comrades. A Sixth Administrator on the side of the table adjacent to her nodded. She turned back to Brother Davvis. "Consider this a test of your ability to reason, Brother Davvis. Can you narrow the location down at all?"
Brother Davvis considered everything he knew. "I am certain that I walked no more than three or four hundred meters since exiting the cellars under the wall," he started. "Based on where I entered the wall," he shot a glance at Marshal Massenne, "And the route I was led through the wall itself, I believe the tunnel into the city originated a couple dozen meters from the Eastgate's southern pillar. Since the stairs would have taken me back towards the north, I suppose that would put this room under the eastern high road."
The Second Artificer grinned at him. "Very good, Brother Davvis. I suppose your time on the wall repair teams has trained that much into you. Anything else?"
Brother Davvis considered for a brief moment. Whatever was going on, it was important. To these eight people, at least. And to whoever had built this room, which had to be over a century old if it was a day. The perfectly square nature of the room also caught at his mind. "Based on the...precision of this room, and its size combined with its secrecy, I am going to guess that it was built underneath something important, for symbolic reasons." Some members of the Order would complain about symbolism in the Order's actions, saying that it seemed too much like occultism. Charles hoped that this Second Artificer was not one of them. "It could be one of several different buildings near the Eastgate. But given the shape of the room," he looked up at the ceiling, then back to the Second Artificer. "I suppose we are under Eastgate's Sigil Square?"
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
The rest of the table seemed to relax, somewhat. Several of them glanced at the older woman or the Marshal.
"Indeed we are, Brother Davvis," the elderly Second Artificer acknowledged with a nod of her head, then sat back down.
Marshal Massenne stood up from the chair he had taken next to her. Counting him, there were two people on each side of the table. Brother Davvis would have appreciated the symmetry, but each side seemed to have decided which chairs were filled and which were empty at random.
"Brother Davvis, report on the findings from your special-issue sounder during your expedition with the civilian trapper."
"For everyone's ears, sir?" Brother Davvis clarified. All of these people outranked him, but that didn't necessarily mean that they had the right to know what he was tasked with testing.
"For everyone's ears." Marshal Massenne replied.
"Yes sir. I was given only the briefest of tutorials on the use of the new sounding device before I had to depart. As a result, I can report on the data, but little on the meaning behind them; other hands than mine developed it. It possessed ten dials; one seemed to be a background Tessenium field reader, and was the only one that was familiar to me.
"The device was kept in the forward storage compartment of my prototype skimmer during transit, as I deemed that a more protected location from incidental damage than wearing it upon my wrist. On the way out to the target location, Woodsman Hildesman and myself were forced to make an emergency landing when one of the pods on the skimmer was damaged due to unknown causes.
"While conducting evaluations and repairs on the skimmer, I also took a moment to remove the device and check its function. It seemed undamaged and its readings were consistent with what I was told to assume were the defaults, so I returned it to its storage and completed my field repairs on the damaged skimmer, with assistance from Mister Hildesman.
"Repairs took most of the night. The following morning, Mister Hildesman and I completed our journey to the fortified Exile camp and established a hidden shelter for the skimmer. During this time, I removed the device again and attached it to my power tattoos. Unusually, though we had not approached the fortified camp yet, I noted higher readings on three of the dials, which quickly faded back to the baseline," Charles pulled a small record book from one of his tool strap's pouches and held it forward. "I recorded the relevant readings here, without speculation."
"After that, Mister HIldesman and I made our way to the camp itself, and managed to scout most of the western wall's perimiter, though we were never able to approach the wall properly. During our loop, we passed the length of the wall twice; once each direction. At the same approximate two points on the wall, I encountered spikes in the readings. All were smaller than the readings from when I first donned the device, but I recorded those as well, along with the approximate locations on the western wall which produced them."
The Sixth Administrator on the other side of the table spoke up then. "You do not have any speculation as to the design of the device in question?" He asked.
"Sorry sir, I did not mean that. I meant only that my recorded results are absent any such speculations. I did not claim not to make such speculations."
"If you would share with us those speculations, Brother Davvis." Brother Davvis considered how much he should share. "I believe the differing dials of the device to be readings on specific frequencies of Tessenium fields. In theory, a precisely calibrated device would be able to identify those individuals whose technology or Mark resonates with those frequencies. Since there are nine known marks, I assume each dial was calibrated for one of those nine. That suggests the presence of at least six Marked at the location, possibly three others depending on whether my machine was creating interference with the readings."
"Thank you, Brother Davvis. If you would, please put your findings on the table."
Brother Davvis moved to do so, but Marshal Massenne spoke up again as he did. "Thank you for your report, Brother Davvis. You may wait through there," he indicated one of the three other doors in the room, all of which were, Brother Davvis realised, square as well. Brother Davvis made for the door, and before taking the handle, turned to look back at the room. All eyes were focused only on his movement. There was an oddly predatory nature to the expression, and he found himself all too happy to quickly exit the square room.