The eccentric mage left Pipkin under Riosa’s capable watch. Hallvar was assured multiple times that Riosa the Skeleton was competent and had cared for beasts in the past, though the last was a cat, not an akergryph with the attitude of a much larger thing.

It brought up many questions about Rubert himself and it seemed that unlike the Queen or Viktor or even Anton, this strange man was more than willing to provide information, lots of it. He reminded Hallvar of Tyrus, though the hero had only a few interactions with the guild mage since regaining their ability to comprehend language.

“So,” they drawled, trying to fit the implied nosiness into one syllable. “Did the skeletons come with the ruins, or are you a necromancer?”

Rubert was leading the way down stone tunnels that became increasingly cave-like as the pair proceeded. He paused and looked at Hallvar curiously before continuing downward.

Again, the feeling of having put their foot in their mouth returned.

“The subclass is gravecaller, the process is gravecalling or the archaic grave-summoning which leads to the reasonable but incorrect association with the summoner subclass. I prefer to think of it as Death Magic, as a type of Vital Affinity.”

Hallvar was taking that as a yes, that this mage was indeed a gravecaller.

“However, other worlds refer to it as the gifts of blood, flesh, and bone; shadowweaving, though that invokes shadows rather than the undead; pneumatology; and soul enchanting. Necromancer is on the list, though it has an implication of moral doubt, as you’re certainly aware.”

The hero latched onto the phrase other worlds after slipping on pneumatology. The combination of pneuma- and the dead made animate reminded Hallvar of the spiders whose pneumatic limbs were moved by pressing and retracting a syringe.

“Other worlds?”

Rubert made a little noise, not disapproval but repressed amusement. “Moot I learn of my own subclass without reproach? You are not the first to question the extensive knowledge I possess. Review the old, learn the new – if such information is derived from the minds of outworlders, so be it.”

“Oh,” the hero went silent, trying to avoid giving information away.

Unfortunately for Hallvar, their identity was well and truly established in Rubert’s eyes; there was no pretending to be a native of Aestrux, though the mage declined to call the hero out.

They remained quiet as the walkway narrowed once more, becoming twisting and dim.

After a few minutes, the gravecaller stopped at a recession in the wall, intentionally carved with a bench to rest on and a magical light overhead. Rubert took a seat, using the hooked tip of his staff to remove the hanging lantern and pass it to Hallvar.

“Continue onward, and you will find what you came here. The dangerous return should be heeded; mind your footing.”

To the hero’s credit, they only paused for a few seconds, unsure if they wanted to obey this odd mage’s directions. Yet, there was something about him that Hallvar liked.

It was unwise to travel into a deep, dark cave with a stranger at your back, one who thrived among the dead and undead. It was foolish and stupid and idiotic and probably suicidal.

Hallvar pressed onward.

It became clear why the gravecaller sent the hero onward alone. The crevices began to squeeze tighter, making it more and more difficult to pass through.

They had to suck in their gut and really compress their body into a small gap, momentarily grateful they left their supplies in the entryway, but the pressure suddenly disappeared as Hallvar stumbled out into a natural cave.

They stood in awe as the lantern cast its light on stalagtites and stalagmites nearby that appeared to be made of a translucent mineral. These formations began to absorb the magical light, a brown-grey glow of their own blooming within.

The effect cascaded as the entire cave filled with dim-glowing structures, like smokey quartz dripping from the ceiling to the floor.

The cave wasn’t massive, but it was easily double Hallvar’s height and twice as long, so the hero felt surrounded by this magical sight.

Magic, right.

They found a flat spot to sit. A ringed pattern on the floor suggested that the stalagmites had been carved away decades ago specifically to make a seating area, which was gently indented into the ground from years of use. Were the ruins built on top of this cave purposefully? Were there other caves like this within the rocky island’s depths?

Once settled, Hallvar activated [ skill: meditate ]. They were immediately confronted with the sheer magical aura of this place. If small amounts of ambient magic felt like spiderwebs untethered in the breeze, tiny and delicate, this cave was filled to the brim with bursting sunrays of magic, spinning wheels of fractals that made it hard to think.

After a few minutes of meditation, Hallvar had to stop. The sheer overwhelming amount of magic was making them nauseous, though it had a clear effect on their progress. If [ skill: meditate ] pulled environmental magic into the user, then this cave was the magical equivalent of drowning in order to sate one’s thirst.

They rested quietly, aware that panic and too much movement could prove fatal. The air in the cave was stagnant but not unbreathable. Hallvar doubted the gravecaller would have sent them to cave of toxic gases, if he truly intended to help them.

This was proof of Rubert’s intent, though. Hallvar would increase their magic rapidly through use of this cave, even if they only used it in short bursts. The mage knew this.

They mediated off and on for another half hour, forced to stop and start when the pressure of the magic began to feel like taking hallucinogens.

Rubert was correct; the return path upwards was incredibly difficult.

The magic lingered in Hallvar’s system and combined with the heady feeling of meditation. They didn’t feel… drunk, but something similar. Floaty, at minimum.

Climbing the stairs was not only tedious, but it clashed horribly with the magical daze, giving them momentary bursts of magic sickness. The timer kept popping up in Hallvar’s system periphery, 5 seconds here, 3 seconds there.

The hero didn’t have much energy to muse on why this was happening, but given how the dizziness and nausea intermixed, they guessed that the overwhelming magical pressure caused an inner ear issue.

By the time Hallvar reached the ‘ground level’ of Rubert’s cave-carved home, they felt terrible. Riosa the Skeleton waited at the landing with a wooden bucket in hand. Hallvar nearly laughed as they labeled her expression dead pan, but lunged for the bucket as the sudden shift of their diaphragm activated another bout of nausea.

The meditation was like sitting in a planetarium, dazed by the gentle spinning of the projected cosmos around you – all with limited air supply – then suddenly the impressive display of beautiful fractals switched to a marathon.

Of course Hallvar was a little sick at the finish line. Who wouldn’t be?

It was a momentary illness, nothing like the magic sickness that wracked their body previously.

In the polite manner of skeletons, Riosa said nothing and led the adventurer back to the kitchen. She dealt with the mess while Hallvar checked on Pipkin.

The akergryph woke from her comfortable nap, eager to be let loose from her cloth burrito. She scrambled up the hero’s arm to her expected perch, confused why the pauldron wasn’t present.

Hallvar cooed over her until they were certain she was dry and healthy, giving her gentle scratchies with their talons as they checked her fur and feathers. She loved the attention, turning this way and that to maximize petting potential. It seemed the little beast was truly okay.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She might be well on her way to becoming a pampered little house pet, but she was healthy again.

Riosa was waiting by the door when Hallvar looked up. She held her hands in front of her, the picture of a patient servant, though skeletal. They stood to follow her as she gestured.

The gravecaller was waiting in a study. The walls were lined with shelving and more filled one side of the room. The other held a large table filled with what Hallvar would assume were scientific instruments, but for magical alchemy or whatever occurred in this world.

Rubert waited in a comfortable chair by a lamp, perusing a map that he carefully put away into a cylindrical container.

“With hap you have returned. Did the cavern meet your desires?”

The hero paused, magic-tired mind stalling as it interpreted this strange phrasing of Rubert’s. It wasn’t that the intention failed to be clear, but the words and phrasing were so odd that Hallvar felt unsure.

“Yes, it helped a lot, thank you again.”

Rubert approached the hero. He was shorter, much shorter than Hallvar actually. That had to be a factor of age, met with the natural tallness of the hero themselves. The mage looked older up close, as he peered up at Hallvar with spots and aged skin, eyes still shiny despite time and body fat pressing out most of his wrinkles.

“You will not understand why I offered my aid, I suspect, but it remains a solemn offer.”

He turned to face the table of instruments, gesturing at a wooden tray with strange vials of all shapes and sizes scattered across it.

“Fill my curiosity, and if you choose to return, I will tell you more of my intrigue.”

The hero didn’t know what to say, but they gingerly examined the vials. Some were wet specimens, others dry pieces of things maintained over time in a sealed container.

“What do you want from me?”

“Do any of the phials call to you? Not merely of interest or curiosity’s sake. Do you feel that you are inexplicably drawn to any?”

Hallvar picked up the small vials, each stuffed with corks or wool, or carefully sealed to contain the wet specimen. They all felt odd to Hallvar, inexplicably so. Instead of peering at what seemed to be a laminated piece of keratin, it felt like they were mediating and reacting to the energy.

Then again, when Hallvar closed their eyes and tried to focus without fully engaging with [ skill: meditate ] they still felt the awful wavering of magic from downstairs, like an internal seasickness.

“I need a control group,” Hallvar said with their eyes closed.

The mage was looking at them curiously when they opened their eyes. “A control group?”

“It’s not exact, but I was taught that the best way to conduct an experiment is to have a control group and then test groups that have various effects that you want to explore.”

They easily explained this, as “Abby” was used to TAing some basic biology classes and generally helping underclassmen.

“For example, if you wanted to test how different water additives affected the decaying process of cut flowers, you might add, I don’t know, salt to one vase’s water, vinegar to another, and then leave one vase with plain water – adding flowers cut at the same time from the same place, and water all from the same source to the vases to test.”

Flowers seemed like a boring example for this, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Hallvar’s thesis seemed very far away and with too much jargon for this world.

“The plain water would be the control group – unaffected by anything we wanted to test. With these vials, if you want me to sniff out magic or an… energetic reading or whatever, a control group would be an object that lacks those qualities. Something I shouldn’t react to whatsoever.”

To Hallvar’s surprise, Rubert was engaged with the topic. He nodded along, turning slowly to face the massive collection of glass containers, boxes, parcels, and more along the shelving.

As the gravecaller muttered and hummed under his breath, he opened drawers and cabinets along the walls, returning with three objects.

“Perchance these shall be adequate.”

Hallvar was actually impressed with the presented control group, as they were three vials of similar size, and within those vials, the specimens were also of similar size and shape as the others.

It led the hero down a mental rabbithole of questioning if larger quantities would skew the results of this test. Hallvar had to presume yes, but there was no way to find out without testing it, which seemed rude to make Rubert jump through yet another hoop just so Hallvar could glance at the things.

They spent a considerable amount of time assessing the items while Rubert watched; the mage made no attempt to rush the boy through the process, as he had all the time in the world for this task.

Hallvar was indeed curious about the specimens, though they were aware that curiosity wasn’t part of the criteria.

There were 13 mystery items and 3 control items.

Of the mystery items, 5 had metallic sheens, 1 iridescent, 1 was dulled and bruise-purple but tinged red, but the rest were various colors – green, white, yellow, blue, etc. They all seemed to be either hair, scales, or, if Hallvar had to guess, claw samples of beasts.

The wet specimens were fleshy but aged, of indeterminate muscle. The vial that held one blob also contained brown-green scale fragments, splitting and flaking in the liquid.

Of the control items, the vials contained: a fragment of metal, distinguished from a similar color scale-fragment by the lack of lamination and clear tool marks from being cut; a few shards of thin, hollow bone, bird-like in nature and yellowed; and a short length of shed reptile skin with small scales, like a garter snake or a reptile of equal size.

Hallvar set all the vials back into place, looking at them with a sense of confusion.

“Have you decided?” Rubert queried politely from a chair nearby, finding a seat for his old bones while the hero conducted their examination.

“The question was if I felt drawn to any of them, correct? Not if I found them interesting or felt magic from them.”

“Correct,” the mage mirrored in confirmation.

Hallvar rubbed the bridge of their nose, their finger brushing across Pipkin’s tail as she continued dozing on the hero’s pauldron. They took a moment to pet the beast, still concerned about her well-being.

“Well, for starters, the control group did its job. I am not drawn to any of those outside of – what would you call it? A naturalist’s curiosity?”

Rubert smiled; once more, Hallvar got that eerie feeling of a crocodilian demeanor.

“I would call it a biologist’s curiosity, yes, but as you can see, I have great interest in all manner of animals. What of the other phials?”

Hallvar gestured vaguely to the specimens, looking apologetic. “I don’t know what this means for your dataset, but I feel drawn to all of them.”

They continued, pointing at the objects as they explained. “The control group made it clear that it wasn’t curiosity. I’m fairly certain that most of these things in this room are magical in nature, so it can’t exactly be magic or else I would feel drawn to everything around me.”

Or, that’s what Hallvar guessed.

Normal, mundane objects could be stored in trays or containers in drawers, not put out on display. That’s what Hallvar would do if they were a rich eccentric, anyways.

The hero took a moment of silence to realize Rubert – with his taxidermy-decorated, isolated laboratory and inhuman companions – would be exactly Hallvar as a (single) rich eccentric in the future.

Rubert seemed perplexed, looking between both hero and specimens as if solving a math problem.

He didn’t make eye contact as he spoke, too engrossed in the thought process. “Praytell, Hallvar, what does one do as work?”

Again, such strange wording.

“I work for the Adventurer’s Guild.”

Rubert hummed and began putting the specimens away, talking over his shoulder as he ambled about.

“Do not return before the week’s end – increasing your magical ability with foolhardy eagerness will successfully render you adept in magic but will profane constitution and health in a singular action.”

The hero was mentally thumbing through a thesaurus as Rubert continued, giving more instructions.

“A fragment of cloth will act as a basket for the akergryph, unless those aren’t talons and I am mistaken about how you travel. You are a vegetable bird of magic, and as a beastmaster, your magic will not be as potent as any mage. We may see if you respond to any focus on your next visit.”

Hallvar’s brain stalled out as they tried to find meaning. “Vegetable bird?”

The mage repeated the phrase, then again in a few different languages. Hallvar didn’t know much about languages, but they sounded tonal. It was the one concept they picked up when ecology coworkers discussed their homelands, that Hallvar’s original tongue was not a tonal language.

Seeing the lack of understanding on the hero’s face, Rubert tried again. “It means newbie, a beginner. I forget, as it is a common phrase to me.”

Things were making sense again.

“You expect me to return?”

Oh, there was the look Hallvar was used to. The one that made them feel like a toddler – a look of pity at their ignorance and a sense of resignation to help.

“My offer to teach you remains in place. It is your choice.”

Rubert placed the last few vials on their proper displays, content at the re-completion of his collection.

His strange appearance was of interest to Hallvar, that was true. Even if Hallvar wouldn’t ask about the horns and scales and tattoos and such, they were intrigued if it was an effect of the gravecaller subclass or if it was the result of a curse or something else entirely.

Rubert had a wonderful collection of beasts – the taxidermy in the central hall couldn’t be the only display, Hallvar would bet there was another room full of pieces and bones and other oddities.

And the magical benefit of the deep cave wouldn’t hurt to revisit, only nausea.

The 5th hero stretched out their hand for the mage to shake. “Deal, as long as this doesn’t result in me joining your undead army or something equally evil.”

Hallvar felt a tingle of magic travel through their arm and shudder up their spine as the gravecaller shook their hand, sealing the agreement.

“I am a scholar in my heart, not intended for combat. Regardless, if you were to join Riosa and Tediford, I would train your skeletal self to maintain the specimens. And rename you, of course. A new life needs a new name.”

There was no threat to these words, and even if there was – the truth of the matter was that if Hallvar’s corpse was stripped down and used as a necromancer’s servant, there wasn’t much they could do about it. No use caring about the possibility in life, either.

“Something with an H. What about Hubert?”

“Hubert and Rubert? Very clever, child.”

Regardless of the hours and days that passed between this meeting and the next – even with Hallvar attempting to draw the gravecaller in their sketchbook, and lying awake, thinking about why the eccentric hermit could possibly be helping them – the hero failed to pick up on several more subtle clues to Rubert’s identity.

An awareness 15, it seemed, was not enough to highlight that Rubert said biologist and animals, not naturalist and beasts, as was the custom on Aestrux.