--- Adam Gust ---
Adam exited the feywild with a spring in his step.
The feywild had been fun.
After the talks with the Duke of Blood were done, he had spent some time with a pair of dryads that had caught his eyes.
Dalliances with fey were incredibly dangerous for normal people, but Denissa's Compact of the Thirteen Oaks afforded him a lot of leeway. It never failed to amuse him that he had diplomatic immunity when dealing with supernatural creatures that could erase mountains with a thought.
Besides, it was important to live the good life, and take some risks. There was no point in trying to stay alive forever, even though he could easily afford rejuvenation magic. There may not be that many decades left, after all. But thinking about this was depressing, and not at all productive, so he decided to focus on the present instead.
His decision to stay with the dryads for a bit longer was also helped by the fact that the amount of time he spent in the feywild wouldn't actually influence the time when he appeared back on the material plane. He would arrive when the Duke of Blood thought it appropriate, and not a second sooner or later. If it wasn't for that, there would have been something of a conflict of interests between having fun and doing his job properly. Contrary to all appearances, he would have chosen the latter. He had not reached his station by being a slacker.
After he stepped through the mist that marked the border of the feywild, he took a look around. It appeared that he was close to the facility.
His divination spells detected no hostile creatures.
He cast an illusion spell to project the symbol of House Mardok highly visible around himself, and simply approached openly. Nobody would dare attack him, and even if they did, his spells and artifacts should be more than sufficient for anything normal soldiers could throw at him.
Even though he had no idea how to fight, he was probably the second most dangerous being in the area.
For one thing, the Historians of Secrets had access to House Mardok's own armory to ensure that they could go about their job effectively. It did not take much skill to aim a wand of disintegration and press a button.
But the second reason was more important: As one of the members of Denissa's inner circle, she had told him of the true nature of the gods, and the Library of Akash. Through this knowledge he had gained much power that other people could never have. Akash was the god in charge of censoring and limiting the magic available to mortals, to prevent abuse. It turned out that there were ways around those restrictions, which Denissa shared with her inner circle. Some of the spells Adam had access to could simply be summarized as "I win".
He understood why Denissa kept this knowledge private to only her closest confidantes. Spreading it around could be disastrous.
She had a way to track abuse of this knowledge, and had killed more than one Old Power after they learned of it and refused to let it go when she told them to.
Given these advantages, only very experienced adventurers were more powerful than him. Even so, he expected that the title of "most dangerous thing in the area" either went to Cilia Ulein or Rania Mortal, whichever of them was still alive.
He had talked to Mr. Smith about Rania's strange background. He had not expected much from it, but as the man kept talking, Adam had grown increasingly concerned. It sounded similar to an Avatar, a phenomenon that Denissa considered important. She usually only managed to get secondhand accounts on these phenomena, so for him to be there in person and able to travel with the group was a stroke of luck. If his suspicions turned out to be correct, then Denissa was going to be very happy with his report, especially since Rania seemed quite anomalous.
It was unfortunate that staying in the feywild had prevented him from witnessing the fight in person, but at least he would be there to view the aftermath. He was actually not sure what to expect as the outcome of the fight, and gave it even odds. Cilia Ulein was an Old Power, but unlike the other Old Powers she was known for being killable. And Tonos had put an awful lot of effort into this. For a relatively minor god, arranging all of this must have been taxing on him.
Strangely, even if Rania was what he suspected her to be, her nature as an Avatar would be a non-factor. The phrase "Perfectly Normal Elf" was apt. She was not going to exhibit any abilities that an elf was not capable of.
That she displayed such unusually powerful shamanism anyway was actually what made her anomalous. That she would be a powerful shaman was not surprising, if his suspicions were correct. But that she would show that skill openly? That was unusual.
"I AM A BARD OF HOUSE MARDOK." His illusion announced loudly before he entered the facility.
Better to let anyone nearby know that he was there. It really wouldn't do to be attacked for no reason at all.
Nobody responded. Did that mean that the defenders were all dead, and teams Nundru and Delta were deeper in the facility? Or had they died, and the defenders had withdrawn to consolidate? Most likely the former, in his estimation. Otherwise the defenders would have posted guards.
He was rooting for team Nundru. They were fun to talk to. He had never met Cilia in person, but he had read enough about her to know that he would dislike her. She was so utterly consumed by the drive to improve herself that her personality was more like that of a golem than a person. Besides, if Cilia won then Rania would likely die, and then he would need to look for some other interesting thing to write about.
Moreover, if Cilia won then she might want to talk to him about one of her previous lives, for posterity. He really hoped that wasn't going to happen. Another Historian had once spent months writing over two thousand and eight hundred pages of commentary on Cilia's experiences mastering the art of fishing. Adam had needed to read these accounts while tracking down a reference, and forcing himself to do so had been one of his greatest feats of willpower in his life.
It would be far more interesting if Rania won instead.
As he made his way through the facility, he encountered many corpses. None of them from team Nundru or Delta. That was odd. Why had Cilia not joined the fight as soon as she could? That should only have taken a few minutes, so it was strange that the defenders apparently had enough time to set up defenses at multiple locations in the facility.
"Stop doing that, Dov. Leave it to Lynn and me. You should rest. We don't know what that machine did. Take it easy." He overheard Atrog from further ahead.
Ah, so at least some of them were alive, then. He was glad to hear that they had won. Now here was hoping that none of them had died.
Strange that they weren't using telepathy anymore, though. He had gotten used to the eerie silence of their team, and it had actually taken him a second to place Atrog's voice, since he had rarely heard it before.
A bit of a pity, really. Listening in on their telepathy without their noticing had been funny.
He kept announcing his presence through his illusion as he approached the room.
Balron stepped out to greet him. The old dwarf looked exhausted, like he had aged a decade. "Welcome back. We have wounded here, but nothing critical."
Adam returned the greeting and made his way inside, and took a look around the room.
He noticed to his relief that everybody was accounted for. Nobody in team Nundru or Delta had died. He found that quite surprising. Tonos was quite fond of heroic sacrifices. However, the protagonists of his stories rarely died for any other reason than that. He would keep them alive until the moment when their death was the most impactful. If all of them were alive, then this implied that this had not been a dramatically important battle.
Lying on the floor were several unconscious, wounded soldiers. Lynn and Atrog were healing them. Biomancy made it easy to keep prisoners by simply rendering them unconscious, and they were making sure that none of their prisoners would die before they could be handed over to the authorities.
"I'm happy to see that you are all alive. But also surprised. Did you encounter Cilia Ulein?" He asked the group.
"We did! It was awesome!" Rania exclaimed.
While everyone else looked exhausted, the elf seemed exuberant and excited to share.
He took out his pen, and started taking notes as Rania began recounting her tale.
"...with his own theme music!..."
"...surprise lieutenant who was secretly our friend Maru over there!"
She indicated the armored form of a tiefling woman, lying unconscious on the ground.
"She won't wake up though, because we hit her really hard. So she is in a coma now. I hope when she wakes up it will turn out that we smacked all the Bad Guy-ness out of her, and she will be one of the Good Guys again..."
"...and my Sidekicks defeated her, with the power of alcoholism..."
"...a hole in the middle of the room, but nobody fell dramatically into it. Why was it even there? So weird..."
"...but then he was like 'I will hold back a little less' and beat all of them..."
"...cool powerup sequence from the Plot Device, when Dov touched it..."
"...but then when all was lost, Aranea saved us all!"
Huh, Aranea the spider?
"Come again? Are you saying that your pet spider turned the fight around?"
"Yes, she did! She killed the Villain, and saved us all. I am so proud of her!"
"Your spider killed an Old Power? How?"
"I bought a poison tattoo from the Coros to help Aranea hunt. Only it was more expensive than expected. And it wasn't a permanent poison like I thought. It was a single-use poison instead, so it was a lot stronger than a permanent poison would have been. I should really have read that description more closely when I bought it, but I was very distracted at the time because Pebble kept making jokes about all the items they showed us and he is hilarious. I'm glad it worked out so well."
"Wait, so you didn't even know what that poison was? That might explain why she is so much larger now." Dov said while looking at the ceiling.
Why was she looking at the ceiling?
He followed her eyes.
...Oh holy shit!
A spider the size of a dwarf was hanging from the ceiling by a thread, her mandibles just an arm's length from his face.
He fell flat on his ass in shock, and he felt like his soul was leaving his body.
He had heard that experienced adventurers always checked the ceilings. Now he understood why.
"Oh no! Please don't be scared! She is still the same cute and nice spider you drew a picture of yesterday!" Rania said.
Then she approached Aranea, who dropped into the elf's arms.
If it wasn't for the supernatural strengths all adventurers develop, she should have collapsed under the spider's weight. Instead, she seemed entirely unconcerned as she wrapped Aranea in a hug.
"There, there. Don't worry, Aranea. Adam isn't an arachnophobe. He was just scared to see you because you have grown so much."
"Why does not knowing what the poison was matter?" He asked Dov. He knew what the answer was, but he needed something to distract himself from the horrifying sight in front of him.
"Normally, giving someone a magic item or some other empowerment slows down the gains from the Law of Adversity. That's the reason why most of my parents' war beasts are not as strong as they could be. Their artificial enhancements slow down their gains from fighting. It's one of the reasons that governments don't bother trying to game the Law of Adversity. But Rania didn't know how powerful the poison was, which means there was no deliberate attempt made to game the Law of Adversity, so it kept working as normal."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
At that, Balron spoke up. "It's fascinating how much Aranea has grown in just these few hours. She seems more intelligent, too. This is how unique monsters sometimes arise in nature, you know? A random animal gets lucky and kills something powerful. The Law of Adversity empowers it. Other animals underestimate it, and so it keeps killing and growing stronger. A few years later the creature is part of local legends, because it's strong enough to kill people, and smart enough to hide from larger groups."
"But Aranea is on another level entirely. She killed an Old Power. I'm already feeling a little bit stronger myself, and I was barely any use in that fight, while she made the killing blow. It will be fascinating to see what becomes of her."
Dov had a pensive look on her face. "This must be what the Duke of Blood was referring to when he said 'Though you may try and fail to control your own destiny, salvation can come from where you least expect.' Just like his other advice 'When it looks like all is lost, look to the past to discover powers that your enemy knows not.' referred to the old device I activated."
"I don't get it." Rania responded. "Why did salvation come from where we least expect? I told you all that Aranea was going to save us all one day. And that's what happened. What was unexpected about that?"
The others did not seem to know how to respond to that.
"I'm more surprised that this thing didn't do anything when I pointed it at Cilia earlier." She continued, holding up a badge of some kind.
"Davak Goront gave it to me and said that it would be really helpful, but I didn't listen to the details because of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee."
Pymion looked at her strangely. "That's just a badge. Not a weapon. You are supposed to show this to people to get their help. It says that the Coros will foot the bill. I have one of those, too."
"Oh." Rania replied eloquently.
Everyone stared at Rania, but they all seemed too tired to argue.
Finally Atrog decided to change the topic. "We need to decide how to proceed. The government needs to be informed what happened here, and they will probably want to send us on another mission, too. But if we leave this machinery unattended, it will most likely be lost before anyone can be sent back for it. The House Ulein troops chasing us should arrive here in a few hours, and by then we need to be gone."
"Additionally, we need to decide what to do with the unconscious people. The soldiers and scientists could be criminals, or they may be innocents who were simply lied to. We do not have the time to figure it out, and we do not have the space in Boomwagon the First to take them with us."
They all exchanged glances, but did not voice any ideas immediately.
Adam decided to cut this short. He had already made his decision.
"Allow me to take the decision out of your hand and offer you all an easy solution. I am interested in finding out what was going on here, and I expect that these researchers are the only ones who can help me figure it out. You all are needed elsewhere because the war is still going on, and I don't want to keep you from that."
"So I'm going to make a decision now that somewhat strains my political neutrality, but I believe it is worth it: I am declaring this facility of interest to House Mardok. As it was used to research highly dangerous magic, and an Old Power was involved, it potentially poses a risk to global safety. I will be assuming control of the situation until I can either confirm or rule out that this facility poses a danger to the world."
It probably didn't, but he honestly wasn't sure about that, and it wasn't the sort of risk you could take lightly. House Mardok very rarely involved itself in other people's affairs directly, but when they did then nobody in their right mind stood against it. Denissa Mardok had saved the world from globe-spanning threats on multiple occasions. They were the only kind of threats that she bothered to deal with at all.
"You will wake up the scientists and explain the situation to them. They will work for me for the time being. I will set up a beacon outside the facility to signal the Ulein troops when they arrive, and recruit them as well."
With their leader dead, those troops would have to be incredibly stupid to disobey an order from House Mardok itself. They would fall in line, and he would find some way to keep them busy and out of everyone's hair for the time being. Maybe they could sort the facility's library alphabetically, or something?
"You can take Maru with you. I have a feeling that Tonos is not done with her yet, so she probably isn't going to wake up until the most annoying possible moment if I keep her here."
While he knew that the gods could in fact divide their attention to be everywhere at once if they wanted, doing so strained them. Tonos would be much less likely to interfere further if everyone who was entangled in his plots was elsewhere. The god wasn't particularly powerful or influential after all, not when compared to major gods like Duna or Kharn. He just tended to give that impression because being talked about a lot was quite literally a part of his domain as the god of stories.
Now what to do with the knowledge in this place? He had a political tightrope to walk here. The information in this facility would ordinarily have been discovered by Oruk's government. If it turned out not to be a danger to the world, then he should not hide it from them, because that would give governments a reason to obstruct the Historians of Secrets in the future. But he also could not let them get the impression that House Mardok had any obligations towards them.
"I am probably going to send a summary of my findings to your government later, after removing any restricted information. But don't rely on it. This is a courtesy of House Mardok, not a requirement."
Everyone looked shocked to hear his declaration. He was effectively taking over both a small army and a military research installation in a foreign country. And yet, there were no objections. Gods, he loved his job.
Atrog gave a nod, and that was that.
Two hours later, teams Nundru and Delta took their leave of the facility, with the still unconscious Maru as prisoner.
Rania looked concerned. "I feel like there was supposed to be a big and dramatic reveal here. It's traditional, but nothing is happening. I guess we ruined it by guessing Cilia Ulein's identity ahead of time. Maybe that was supposed to be the big reveal? Or maybe Maru's identity was the big reveal? But she was only introduced during the fight, and then her identity was immediately revealed. There was no real suspense. Honestly, I think that part was poorly done. The rest of the fight was cool, but that part of the story didn't really flow well. There really should have been a reveal of some sort, as a reward for winning the fight."
Adam saw his chance and took it. "It could be the kind of dramatic reveal that is only shown to the audience, and not the characters. Maybe somebody else will discover something? That would explain why you didn't discover anything yourself."
Rania furrowed her eyebrows. "That sucks. Reading dramatic reveals in a book is always cool, but it's not much fun if we don't get to experience it ourselves."
With all the attention Tonos was paying to all this, Adam really hoped that he would take the hint. Maybe he would enable Adam to discover something in that facility right away. He really did not want to waste days looking through boring documents.
They bid him goodbye, and took their leave into the feywild.
The scientists woke up a short while after that, as did the soldiers. He explained the situation to them all, and they fell in line swiftly.
Back when he started his first days of training as a bard, he would never have expected that 'how to suborn an army with the power of charisma and a badge' was going to be part of the curriculum. Nor that it would actually come up as frequently as it did.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the scientists knew very little of what was going on here.
The machine that Dov had interacted with had been melted to slag. There was nothing left to recover.
But then they showed him the recordings. "Password accepted. Logging in." Was what the machine had said before it started empowering Dov.
It was spoken in a strange dialect. Not one he recognized. But the symbols on the device looked strangely familiar.
Then the pieces fell into place, and it was only his practiced composure that stopped him from turning as white as a sheet.
"Congratulations on still being alive. You can count yourself lucky that you never managed to turn this thing on. I need you to gather every piece of data you have on this device. That takes priority over everything else. This machine is of interest to Denissa Mardok herself, and I am going to contact her now. You can expect a busy couple of days. On the flip side, you will definitely have an interesting story to tell your grandchildren someday."
Then he activated a communication device he had been given by Denissa herself and spoke a message into it: "I believe I have discovered a Xeltek artifact. Cilia Ulein was investigating it, but she is now dead. The Princess Dov Shan interacted with it, and survived."
He was annoyed with himself for sending Team Nundru away. His reasoning had been sound given what he knew then, but if he had discovered the recording earlier and found out the nature of the artifact, he would not have allowed her to leave. But it was no matter, they could still be tracked down later, or resurrected if need be. House Mardok did not lack for resources, or powerful and unique magics.
"Acknowledged. Dispatching Message." His communication device said.
“Warning. Hostile interference detected.”
Oh, right. The Cassandra Project was still active.
"Querying Akash for override authorization. Authorization confirmed. Overriding interference. Override successful. Hostile interference neutralized. Dispatching message. Success."
Oops. He hoped he had not just accidentally broken the Cassandra Project. As good as that would be for the country, that would definitely be overstepping his political neutrality.
He had no idea what the chances of that were, either. He wasn't a scientist, nor a wizard. All he knew was that communication devices like his weren't given out to just anybody, and Denissa Mardok tended not to fuck around on the rare occasions when she chose to act.
The Cassandra Project was one of the greatest achievements of any civilization currently alive. But Denissa's vaults were filled with the greatest achievements of many, many previous civilizations whose names were long forgotten by the public.
He received a reply only minutes after dispatching his message.
The reply did not come in the form of a message, or even an illusion spell. Instead, the first thing he and the gathered scientists noticed was a supernatural sense of pressure that told them they were being scryed. This was deliberate, he knew. Denissa could easily make her spells undetectable, but he supposed this was on him for not being clear about the fact that there was nobody here who needed to be intimidated. This overpowered scrying spell basically said "I can give you a migraine just by looking in your direction", which did wonders for cowing some of the more hot headed creatures out there.
It was amazing how often archmages or dragons decided to test their luck fighting her. It's not like they had any chance at all, but being the undisputedly most powerful being on the planet put a target on her head for every single moron with delusions of grandeur in existence. It was little more than an elaborate method of suicide, but it was annoying nevertheless.
Then, without any warning or visible magical effect at all, Denissa Mardok suddenly appeared in the room.
"Hello again, Adam. I know I can rely on you to find the most interesting things for me, but you do realize that you are overdoing it a little, right?" She joked.
He bowed to her. "I shall endeavour to keep to less earth-shattering revelations in the future, your Highness."
The rest of the people in the room were only now catching on to her identity. They immediately threw themselves on the ground in supplication.
"Back on your feet, all of you. Keep doing what you were doing before I showed up. Adam, walk me through what you found here."
--- Denissa Mardok ---
Her evening had been going so well.
She was watching an absolutely lovely production of a novel and weird type of theater. Something about magical girls, which was apparently a concept distinct from sorceresses. It had a surprising similarity to something she vaguely remembered from her youth. Coincidences like these cropped up a lot when one lived as long as she did, and they always made the productions more enjoyable.
She was enjoying food, drink, and pleasant company, while letting her mind drift to memories from her past.
And then a priority message interrupted the play, and she was informed that an Old Power was messing about with things she was Not Meant To Know. Not even one of the reasonable Old Powers, but Cilia Ulein of all people, whose personality was different in every life. And not one of the lesser secrets she needed to keep hidden either, but the remnants of the Xeltek.
Was it too much to ask for just one stress-free century, without some terrible world-ending threat that needed her attention?
She hid her annoyance with practiced ease, and patiently listened to Adam's briefing.
That man got up to so many interesting things, it was honestly impressive. He understood her sense of humor perfectly too, which was quite rare. One did not become as old as she did without developing an eccentricity or two after all, so it was rare for her to meet someone she could get along with. And to top it all off, he was good with his tongue in more ways than one.
He was her favorite person alive right now.
But at the same time, when she thought back on all her previous friends and lovers, now long dead, he was not even in the top one thousand of her favorite people.
In a few thousand years she would probably have forgotten all about him, at least until she read through the archives again to remind herself of the past.
But for now, he was her favorite person in the world, and so she listened attentively as he explained everything that happened that he hadn't already explained in his regular reports.
Her entourage should have secured the perimeter by now, but they kept themselves out of the room. This room contained the sort of knowledge that might require her to alter their memories. That was something she wouldn't ask lightly of them, so she simply told them that there was an info-hazard and they should stay away unless called for.
The presence of the Xeltek machine was frustrating. All remaining copies of these devices were supposed to be hidden away in the deepest vaults of House Mardok.
But the Xeltek were like cockroaches. How many was it by now? Probably 28 apocalypses since they conquered the world, and triggered their own demise in the process. Most other civilizations stayed dead, but their creations kept resurfacing.
She was sad that there was nobody to hear the wordplay in her head. The Xeltek were "like cockroaches". They actually were a species of insects, with powerful psychic abilities and a penchant for genetic modifications. Their technology "kept resurfacing". They lived underground.
She was quite sure she would make for a hilarious bard herself, if she wasn't so busy working to delay the next end of the world.
The Xeltek had really come quite far in discovering the true nature of the universe, before they died like everyone else. They were highly unusual, so she had been unsurprised to see that they died early. The more normal fantasy races like elves and orcs tended to last much longer.
And the device in front of her?
That was one of the Xeltek’s so-called "oracles".
An ingenious device that managed to query the spirits for knowledge without inviting its own destruction. Well, most of the time. Given that the Xeltek were no longer around, it obviously did not have a one hundred percent success rate.
Sometimes when she uncovered these things, she actually managed to learn something new from them. It was just frustrating that the knowledge was never straight forward. It couldn't be, or else it would no longer be safe.
And this particular oracle had been in the room when Cilia Ulein fought what Adam believed to be an Avatar of some kind. If his suspicion was correct, then this would either go very well, or very, very badly.
She asked everyone else to leave the room, even Adam. She would decide later whether or not to explain these things to her inner circle. No need to take risks.
This piece of ancient technology was heavily damaged, but fortunately the Xeltek built to last.
The greater problem was that the Xeltek were a race of psychic insects, and their telepathy really did not translate to Common very well. They had followed her demands to speak in Common when communicating with others, but the data in the oracle itself was not as legible. It was deliberately shrouded in metaphor to avoid censure by the spirits, it was encrypted, and it was in a non-verbal language that humans had no equivalent for.
Fortunately she was not born yesterday, and she knew her way around such minor issues.
She reached into her bottomless bag and retrieved her own piece of ancient technology to analyze the ancient technology in front of her.
Her smartphone had an app for that.