The Tenthé in the floor made his way to one of the doors he’d identified. The magic here was weird. This part of the temple wasn’t exactly warded in the classical sense, but the aura of the Turtle God permeated everything.
Tenthé felt as if he was oozing through a bowl of stew, letting the Turtle’s magic pass around him so that his passage left almost no trace. Fortunately, one of his best stealth abilities worked like that. It did leave a faint trail, but he hadn’t been detected, as far as he could tell. Mostly by noting that there weren’t a million warrior-priests flooding the area to shoot spells at the floor.
Now, to business. Where to find the Dreamer? As far as he knew, Dreamers were either asleep, doing whatever they did, or awake and preparing for what they wanted to do while asleep. From what the Sage told him, they needed a large support crew to handle the nitty-gritty details which would make the Dreamer’s changes solid. That meant there had to be a bunch of people all together, somewhere.
He’d been all over the city, and it wasn’t in the fort, or the College. That didn’t leave many alternatives. The Turtle’s priests were a good bet. There were a lot of them, and they were everywhere in the city. Perfect for monitoring what the Dreamer did.
The Dreamer had to be here, somewhere. But, this building was huge! His idea was to sneak in and look for a large number of priests gathered together. As a starting spot, he had… three? Maybe? Doors to choose from. One big one and another smaller one. Was that three? Two. Definitely two. Or three.
Whatever. The big door had to be for the Turtle, and knowing how well gods liked to share, the other was for the Dreamer.
A decent guess. If he was wrong, he’d poke around until something turned up.
Tenthé more or less slithered up to the smaller door, using everything he knew to stay hidden. After a careful examination, he concluded the door was just a door and wasn’t especially warded. All he could find were a few sensor spells to indicate if it was open or not.
It seemed simple. He slipped under the door and flowed up, out of the floor and into a very plain hallway. Most likely, magic was used to fancy it up when the privileged few came through. The walls were very solid, cut with murder slits, and covered in dormant protective spells. He didn’t bother to find out what they did, since he was in a bit of a hurry.
Tenthé made himself light and floated down the hallway. The other end of the passageway opened into an opulent room containing a massive throne. The throne was huge and spectacular, sculpted from stone and plated with exotic metals. The whole thing was carved within an inch of its life, if that was the right term. Tenthé looked closely and hidden in-between the figures of the Turtle doing great deeds were humans doing… pretty nasty things. Very possibly, the scenes on the throne were rendered by the same people who did the walls in the wealthier parts of the College. They certainly shared a lot of the same ideas.
Further investigation revealed a very solid door in the wall behind the throne. More like something used to seal a vault than a regular door. Tenthé wasn’t even sure how it worked since there weren’t any hinges or anything. Maybe it swung back or slid to the side, or up. Or something else. In any case, it was so heavily warded that he wouldn’t be getting through there quietly.
Tenthé had noted that the place was spotless, so it made sense that someone had to be able to get in here to clean. It was unlikely they came through the public part of the temple, and opening this door would to be a chore. There had to be another access, somewhere.
In the current re-do, he wasn’t having as much luck finding secret passageways as before. He hadn’t changed, so that meant something about the city was different now. Fortunately, in this case, he could be almost certain there was a passage to be found, and since that was true, he was sure he could find it. He had an idle thought: this was similar to the Wilds. Your expectations had weight.
Hmm, another thing to put on his list to think about.
The throne itself was so massive, it was unlikely that it would move, but, also like in the College, the carvings would hide the outline of a door really well. The rest of the chamber was relatively austere, so the throne was a very good bet.
Just to be sure, a quick tour of the room didn’t turn up anything, so he returned to the throne. If there was a secret passage, then it had to be here. Maybe controlled by a spell, but more likely some mundane method so anyone could use it.
Tenthé untucked his shirt, pulled it up to get access to his hidden Pocket, and rooted around. After a moment, he lost patience, hauled out his cloak, and put it on.
Much better! It wasn’t like wearing the cloak would make him more conspicuous. Even his Runner’s uniform would be out of place, here.
He found what he was looking for in one of the pockets and brought out an enchanted stone, which he held it up and activated. The spell was really tiny and shouldn’t set off any sensors.
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The stone manifested a beam of violet light, which illuminated a small area of the throne. The assassins had shown Tenthé that this kind of light showed the grease left behind when people handled things. Moving the light from side to side, he checked the whole throne, then returned to an extra shiny spot on the back, near the floor. He put the stone away, then began pushing, pulling, and twisting the figures that showed the most signs of having been touched.
There was a click and a small door popped open. It revealed a passageway with stairs leading down. There was barely enough room for him, so the cleaners had to be little. Probably kids.
Looking out for alarms, Tenthé stepped in and peered further down the passageway. Finding nothing threatening, he turned back to the door and grabbed a handle conveniently placed to allow the door to be pulled closed, which he proceeded to do. The walls glowed dimly, which Tenthé had expected, given the weak spell glyphs he had noticed scratched in the stone. He then headed down the narrow staircase, and after traveling a short distance, the stairs dumped him into a very tight corridor, likely part of a network giving servants access to most of the temple. From the cramped quarters, Tenthé was even more sure that the servants were younger priests, because an adult would have a hard time getting through. There was so little room that when two people met, one would have to go up, and one down.
And, of course, just then, he heard someone approaching. He rushed the other way, down the corridor, looking for a cross passage or something so he could let them pass without being seen. He nearly kicked himself, he could have ducked back up the stairs to the throne room, but now, it was too late. Fortunately, the passageway was heading in the direction he wanted to go, so he kept moving.
He emerged into a chamber that was like the catacombs, one formed where several passageways met. Tenthé stepped sideways to allow whoever was following him to pass through. Sure enough, it was a priestlet who rushed past to exit down another passageway. Since the chamber had a fairly high ceiling, Tenthé crawled up to be out of the way while he planned his next move.
The passageways ducted sound really well, and he smelled a number of things, food being the most prominent. If the Dreamer needed a large support staff, then they would need to eat. There was probably some kind of eating area, because it would be difficult to transport a lot of food through these squishy tunnels. Not hearing anyone approaching, he came down and followed his nose into one of the tunnels. After a few paces, he quickly reversed course and jumped to the ceiling just as two more kids ran past. They’d been carrying packages and nibbling on something; a good sign his deductions were correct.
Tenthé came down and peeked down the passageway he wanted to take, listened, then plunged in. He hurried at maximum speed and made it to the end without having to deal with anyone else. Instead of a kitchen or a dining room, he found himself in a prep area, where people were dishing out food from large containers onto smaller plates that were then covered, bundled together, and carried away by more kids.
The bulk of the bundles were being taken down a wider passageway, so Tenthé followed. It was relatively easy to stay away from the groups as he walked along. The passageway led to a set of double doors that had been propped open, allowing the kids easy access to the large chamber on the other side while their hands were full. Once past the doors, they split up to drop the bundles on many of the desks covering most of the floor.
In addition to the kids, a large number of priests and uniformed people were standing, talking, or working at the desks. The far wall was covered in glyphs of different colors, with some glowing and flashing.
Standing around the edge of the chamber were many warrior-priests, with only a few of the alert elites. The rest didn’t appear to be overly excited with the honor of being here.
Deciding he needed more information, Tenthé started climbing, intending to observe from somewhere near the ceiling.
Just as he settled into a good spot, a commotion ran through the warrior-priests and they rushed over to a door where they proceeded to bunch up in their hurry to leave, then pushed through with only a few elbows and fists being used. Tenthé smiled. Who said he couldn’t plan!
This event went unnoticed by everyone else. They were busy, doing whatever they were doing. Directly in front of the display wall was a raised section where several important-looking people were working while standing around a large conference table.
This group appeared very focused. If he had to guess, Tenthé would say these were the leaders, commanders, or whatever. Like the rest of the room, they were made up of a mixture of priests and uniforms, with one exception. A young man, clean-shaven, with dark hair, older than him, but not old, who wore a white shirt and black pants. Not a uniform or robes.
And, he was obviously important, since everyone else was making presentations and deferring to him. For his part, the man was listening, taking notes, and responding seriously.
Most likely, this was the Dreamer!
After a few minutes, the man got up, descended from the platform, and walked over to a door under the display. Hoping it wasn’t the bathroom, Tenthé rushed across the ceiling, doing his best to get to the door before it closed. It was close, but he made it just in time and slipped through.
Fortunately, it was not a bathroom, but a short unlit corridor that opened onto a suite. Tenthé stood in this doorway and observed the room.
At first glance, it appeared to be an ordinary apartment consisting of a large common space with a small kitchen area and a couple more doorways: one that led to a bathroom and another that was closed. Here is where it got strange. The second door wasn’t the bedroom, because a huge bed dominated the middle of the main room. Even stranger, the bed was surrounded by comfy-looking easy chairs, along with a few display boards mounted on casters.
It sure looked like something a Dreamer would use.
Tenthé peered closer. The walls were covered with powerful wards and spells, with massive cables fading into the distance which allowed the wards to travel off to other parts of the Temple. Whatever was here was incredibly well protected and heavily monitored. If he went into the room and shut the door, even his magic would be seriously curtailed. It wouldn’t be easy to get in. Or out.
So, Tenthé stepped in, turned, and shut the door. He felt an enormous jolt in reality as the room was sealed and his stealth failed. Glancing up, he found the man staring back at him.
“Hey,” Tenthé said.