Joey loves the research area, among stacks of books, academic journals, and mage lore and history spanning thousands of years. At least mages have far, far better preservation methods than what was conventionally available during those times. Some records stored memories and scripts within mana crystals for countless centuries. Though, the density of data has skyrocketed with the use of modern electronics and storage. She enjoys the stone and wood layout, and it has a rustic, warm color palette adorning the rows In the central area, there are simple reading tables, computers, and other gear for looking at microfilms.
There are some minuses. Some of the research is fragile. Some of it is magically protected, and some of it is quite offended by people other than the original authors perusing the volumes.
Hence, the copious amount of fire suppression systems, acidic countering agents, and medical stations throughout the archives. It was a wary reminder that despite the good work they did here, there was a higher level of danger in the mage world, and from sources few people would have expected. Joey is currently researching Crosomer's first journal in the circular room, Kyle is busy reading through anything that could be indexed to Awakenings. It would be helpful if they had a name for this device, in hindsight.
She is also annoyed because she keeps hearing something just on the edge of her perception that sounds like a crystal chime. She looks up, but it's not coming from the fluorescent lights, either. She has acute hearing as a kitsune, why is--
Wait. Where have I heard that sound before? It's a deep-seated memory somewhere, something familiar and calming. Then, it hits her.
Mana crystals? She leans back from the table, fingers tensed and tapping rhythmically. It sounds like…like the old chimes from my porch. Back at home. That's…very weird. But, there are no raw mana crystals in here. I think. Then, she thinks back to the grotto that the Sardavian moles made–those crystals had been humming like that, too.
The sound fades after a few seconds, and she shrugs. I really would love to know what's making that noise.
“Wait, what are we doing?" Kyle asks aloud after a short period of relative silence, other than the crisp rustling of paper. "What if King is metagaming us?" She glances at him, annoyed.
"You realize how many chess moves ahead he'd have to be?" She asks while puffing her hair out of her face, after leaning down and reading. "That is absurd. You're saying he warned us about what they needed, figuring we'd go look for it ourselves, and find exactly what he needed, without having to tear through the whole archives by himself? Nah, Kyle, we haven't found anything of value yet. He's assuming we are all super geniuses and can find secrets better than him." He's making that grimace again, and it's annoying.
"But that's just the thing, maybe this has been the whole plan!"
"You said that about the two saboteurs, and that it was Curtis, or Derek. Kyle, you've been grasping at theory, rather than evidence. Lavernius is our guy. We also haven't seen anything from the second man. We need to get back to that task, find something useful here, fast.”
She's too busy reading through this tome from 1275 to even keep looking in his direction. "Seriously? I thought I had this mana primer efficiency formula first! He beat me by seven hundred years! And then everyone forgot about his work because he tried to burn the mage world to the ground."
"It means you get the patent," he replies before flipping through more pages. "I don't get this. The guy spent a ton of time digging everywhere across the world. Tunisia, Rome, Siberia, Kyiv, and even the East Coast of the US, four hundred years before there were colonies. How'd this guy break so bad? He was a Luminaire! Next to the Valkyries, the only bona-fide heroes of our world!"
"You know, I was wondering that too, and it boiled down to researching souls. And then that research turned decidedly unethical. And then it turned fifty shades of deadly," she adds for emphasis.
"So, whips and chains?" he suggests. She leers at him for a long moment. "You know what, I decided I don't need to know the details."
"Smart move. According to the official record, the precursor to SAF found out he had a lab set up conducting some twisted magical experiments on various kin, studying souls. He managed to escape. Then he made a deal with the devil, and got every mercenary company under his banner, along with the Onyx Talons. He had been planning it for years, because he was convinced the Conclave was rotten under his feet. He kind of undercut himself by doing terrible things.”
It still doesn’t sound right, how they hand-waved Crosomer as the villain. Was it because he lost, and got thrown into prison for seven hundred years? How much was the Conclave adjusting the history? She knows the Talons aren’t the solution, and not with Valosterla at their head.
“Okay, that sounds about right. The rest of the story was a five-year ground war, the Luminaires and the Valkyries came in and saved the Conclave from being crushed, and then when the war was over and he was captured, they just summarily executed him. Or, according to Drenar and Julia, just tossed him into an eternal prison and called it a day. I just never knew what his beef was with the conclave. I guess it’s cool to call everyone else's unethical behaviors until yours appears in the spotlight. Then you just try to burn the house down out of spite.”
“I mean let’s face it, the Conclave is a far cry from perfect. But at least there’s the chance to fix it. Ugh. I wonder if I could find a cure for malice,” she utters with contempt.
“Wouldn’t that be the alchemical discovery of the millennium? Seconded by a cure for cancer. Cancer sucks." He sticks his tongue out for emphasis.
“Hey, cancer is just the universe’s signpost that you’ve lived too long and survived too many other ridiculous things, so here's this thing that’ll get you eventually, given enough time! Screw that, cancer first, then fixing the hatred of humanity.” I’ll get three hundred and change years as a Kitsune, assuming I don’t get brutally murdered in the next few days. Big goals, she thinks with a grin.
“I think we’re getting sidetracked. What else is in these research journals that is useful?” Kyle asks with a hint of impatience. She flips through the pages.
“Well, this one isn’t useful in that context, per se, but there’s some interesting chemical reductions and…very interesting alchemical products you can get from some monsters that I’ve never heard of.” She scans the pages with her phone for future review. Her initial prognosis is that she could make some extremely potent alchemical potions a cut above what she's previously made, with fewer risks and bigger yields. Potions that could seriously turn the tide of a battle or give them an edge in their research. Or…
…Potentially upgrading physiology? Mana attunement? Crosomer is either insane or a genius, if this proves correct.
“Let’s speed through this. Find anything he sketched of glyph languages, runes, any mention of them or the Kinsgard.”
“I thought the Kinsgard are a myth,” he counters. “Like, a myth, even for mages.”
“There’s some evidence to suggest their presence in history, and they predate draconic history in a few dig sites. It’s just really not that concrete, and no serious researcher has dedicated the time or effort.” It pains her to say that there is just too much mage history buried and uncatalogued, and not enough researchers to go around to preserve that knowledge, culture, and even secrets of the arcane. She flips through the pages but finds nothing else of relevance. She does resolve to read them in depth later, especially the alchemical items, and she flips through another journal.
The findings are sparse, and she’s ready to give up when Kyle snaps his fingers. “I’ve got something. Check this out.” She walks over with keen interest and leans on the back of his chair, before pointing to the symbols that were written down. What she sees is eye-opening.
“He’s got a partial translation of the runes. It’s an extremely old dialect of draconic–no, he refers to it as Kinsgardial, the language of…wait, is he literal when he says, ‘dialect of the gods'?” She squints at the page, wondering if it’s an exaggeration. Internally, she realized he was a hardcore academic. Flourishes like that are nonexistent in his other journals. It’s all facts and sound theories. “Kyle, we’re taking this one. Bag it, and we don’t tell a soul. Don’t log it.”
“Done!” he says before stashing it with care in his satchel, and layers it with a protective dweomer. It's a simple spell that will keep it safe against most minor nuisances such as rain, mold, or fire. “So, what’s next?”
“Keep searching for Lavernius, he's gotta turn up eventually, and keep the golems scanning the caverns. The other saboteur has to have a different plan; but what, exactly? There are no easy routes into Asqualia. Could they...build a new one?"
"It's possible, but arrays as big as Asqualia prevent other permanent teleportals from activating too closeby. It's a hard coded safety so travellers don't get...scrambled. Kin do not like being scrambled." She stops listening to Kyle because something else is happening.
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And, that crystalline chime sound is back. "Would you excuse me for a second? I need to turn off whatever's making that noise." She turns and marches through the rows.
"What noise?" He hurries behind her. She can hear it now, more than just a hint at the edge of her hearing. It's a calming sound, it's the same sound of wind chimes sitting on the porch of her parent's home, deep in the Ozarks on a breezy day. She can picture beams of sunlight dancing through the swaying trees, and the laughter of a few other kits chasing each other with sticks and playing as knights.
Her pulse quickens. What does this mean? Why that memory?
"Joey, I'm not saying your hearing is bad, but when you go wild-eyed like this, you kinda scare me."
She ignores him and maneuvers through the rows, the sound growing louder. That subtle vibration isn't just sound, it feels like a force. A tingle on her skin, and it almost feels like she can feel out the orientation of the source. She knows where she is when she stops at a row of drawers at a mundane intersection; scrolls and parchment paper are tucked away neatly. She pulls open a drawer, and there's a faded cloth bundle in there. She unties it and sets her sights on the source. It has to be coming from here.
You?
She stops herself. This is a very strange day to come across this item again, and her arms to go her side. Why now?
"Hey, is this the sword that Valkyrie brought in last year?" Kyle finally asks, and he taps the hilt of the ancient broadsword, tucked neatly into an aged leather sheath. The weapon is exquisite in quality, and a hexagon-cut emerald sits at the crosspiece that sweeps forward, towards the bladed end. The handle is finely etched and ergonomic, and the metal has a faint green coloration, unlike normal steel. The metal seems to practically hum. Before she can grab it, Kyle short-circuits her motion and picks up the sword.
The crystalline sound stops in an instant. She blinks and looks at him holding it solemnly. "Joey, I know that look. Magical swords aren't the answer to our current problem."
"Huh?"
"Look, I get it, having a Valkyrian sword would be kinda badass, and I know you can swing that staff of yours that you practice with for your gym routine, but c'mon. It's useless. See?" He pulls the sword, and indeed, the blade is still missing, just like the first time she saw it. It's a defunct weapon, its owner long since gone. She can see the outline of it if she looks very closely, but it likely can only be brought to bear by the person attuned to such an incredible weapon. Out of phase with reality.
But not gone forever.
This is a weapon for real heroes and legends. Not people like me. If there's anyone who would be suited to dealing with the Talons, it would be the Valkyries. "So, you didn't hear that just now?" she asks slowly. He tilts his head, and looks around.
"Hear what?" He genuinely hasn't heard the same sound, which is slow to sink in; was it so high-pitched that he just couldn't hear it? She knew her kitsune hearing definitely could hear high-frequency sounds with ease–even the cycling frequency of an arcane barrier. "You know, I got the inspiration for my furnace from this weapon. Kinda funny, you coming back here today, of all days."
"Is that why you've been obsessed over making something equivalent to Valkyrian steel for the past six months?" she asks and temporarily sets aside her discourse. He nods.
"Well, yeah. And to stop being in the shadow of my sister, who works with the Valkyries occasionally," he adds with a reluctant pause. The drooping look of disappointment on his face isn't meant for her, though. "Gale is the better Bertance. I'll always trail her. And not because of the age difference."
"Kyle, don't say it like that. You made a compact magitech armor at sixteen. It worked. Even though it was a little dangerous," she adds with a laugh.
"I might have had a bad influence. Some other idiot genius tore through the London campus in a homebrew Magitech power armor five months ago, and they built on my concepts. Except, instead of almost blowing up as mine did, she broke up a Kin trafficking ring and floored a couple of dozen armed thugs that were forcing Kitsune and Wargen into an underground fight club. A den of blood sport and forcibly trafficked Kin, practically on the doorstep of our alma mater. She put one of London's richest men in prison for a hefty list of crimes. Then they were expelled from the academy.”
Joey had heard about this story several months ago, during the spring semester, and it rattled her that something that awful and personally connective to her could have festered so close to campus. “Except, it gets even better,” Kyle says with a sigh of relief.
“How does that get better? Except for some rich creep getting his just desserts for a pretty deplorable crime. If it had been me, he wouldn’t be breathing,” Joey said with disdain. “I’d love to shake that woman’s hand for what she did. It’s rare when you hear someone go that far out of their way for a Kitsune or Wargen.”
“Gale told me that the Valkyries visited her after she recovered from a serious case of mana burn, and offered her a job. On top of that, the academy had to offer a very public apology, and she got to put an egg on the face of the Conclave.” Kyle sighs but looks content. “I think her name was Becky Lancing. Anyway, she built a magitech armor from scratch that built on my concepts, and it performed so well, that even the Valkyries took notice. My only complaint about them is hoarding magitech that could help a lot of people.”
“Really? What’s your take?” Joey asks curiously.
"They might make the most powerful magical artifacts in the world consistently, but they do not share their knowledge. I get why. They don't want it in the wrong hands. The problem is…it doesn't stop people like the Talons. It never will. I grew up on childhood fantasies of them, and despite the work they've done in the past…you can't run a world on heroes alone. You need real government with real solutions, real people with daytime jobs like soldiers, logisticians, and tactical leaders. People just like you and me, who will have an even footing against those like the Talons, or the Magarri, and those that came before them. Though the Conclave isn't the answer either, not with the way it is."
"How close are you? You've been blasting that furnace for a week." He shrugs.
"The math says I'm close. I could only image the hilt to get the microstructure with the spectroscope and the manascope. The blade would have been ideal, but you do what you can with what you have. I wonder who carried this thing before. And why did that Valkyrie leave it here?"
Valkyries being seen in public are notable moments for every mage. Few have seen one in person. Joey remembers the conversation with that woman vividly. A tall, dark-haired woman with verdant eyes barely visible behind that magitech visor, and she spoke with a deep, earthy voice of a soulful kindness. "She said that it served its purpose for the time being. She challenged me to try to pull the blade. I thought she was kidding, so I didn't. Still though…makes you wonder what its history is."
“It would have been funny as hell–or downright terrifying–if you had pulled the sword out and it materialized in front of her,” he says slyly, then offers it to her. “Wanna try? You were the first kitsune to be class valedictorian. Maybe you’d be the first kitsune Valkyrie!”
“I prefer the stick, thanks, and I'm sure there's been Kitsune Valkyries before,” she taps the compact staff that she’d belted on today. He’s still waving it gently. “What are we, ten, Kyle? Treat it with respect. They deserve that much for the sacrifices they've made for our world."
“Hey, you did say you heard something. It could have been resonance,” he suggests. He frowns, and glances at his hand on the hilt. His fingers ran gently across the grip, with slow deliberation. Does he sense something, too? "It's weird, but…when I pick it up…I can see something. Faint images. The metal remembers. It's a weird quirk of geomancy," he explains. "Or dwarves."
"You were already quirky," she says with a faint smirk. It's silent now, except for that fluorescent light buzzing nearby. "So, what does it show?"
"A dozen pairs of hands holding it. All at once. All manner of Kin. Human, kitsune, wargen, some I don't even recognize. Even dragons? I don't see how," he frowns when he examines the grip and curls and uncurls his fingers, as if sizing it. "Magical metals seem to get imprinted from other magical organisms that interact or touch them. Maybe it's some weird resonance thing with the mana. I mean, metal isn't alive. It's a crystal. And it just buzzes my brain to simulate something familiar, like a REM state. Or, maybe it's just my imagination." He shrugs as if this mystery doesn't bother him. "What did you hear, though?"
"Wind chimes. Crystal wind chimes." He doesn't question it but instead wraps the cloth bundle around it once more. "I know, it sounds crazy."
"Joey, you're a lot of things, but crazy isn't one of them. You and I are both running on minimal sleep, and you were almost dozing off for a bit." He looks back to the sword, then to her. "You never heard back from that Valkyrie?"
"No. Not a word. That was the first and last time I saw her, golem arm and all. I just remember when I said goodbye to her at the teleportal hub, she told me she wished a young kit like me wasn't the exception to the norm. Then she just smiled at me, hugged me like I was her kid or something, and said to me, 'There's no such thing as goodbyes Josephine, it's just until we meet again.'" Kyle chuckles softly at that. "What?" she asks playfully.
"That is such a super corny thing to say. But it kinda has a nice ring to it. What's that phrase they use? 'May we all meet again, under the skies of Valhalla.' I like that idea, that we're not gone forever." He frowns, then does a double take. “That your eidetic memory?”
“How often does anyone meet a Valkyrie? It felt…really important, you know?” He's got this confused look though, and points at her.
"How'd she know you were a kitsune?"
"I…have no idea," she admits. "Eh, maybe the lavender eyes need a little dimming."
"There's no dimming you, Josephine," he replies in that wry way of his. "Alright, I think we reminisced enough, let's get back to work, shall we?"
"Yeah, I guess we should–" She’s about to continue the thought, but she hears a ping on Kyle’s phone. One he’d set very specifically. He looks at her, his face filled with hardened determination.
“Looks like our saboteur just came back.” Joey doesn’t hesitate and taps her ID badge on a private line to Curtis.
“Curtis, meet us at the botanical garden as fast as you can. We have our saboteur, and if we don’t get over there right now, we are going to miss our opportunity.” He waits about two seconds, before replying.
“You guys make my retirement from the military suck in all the worst ways, Miss Pyromist. Try not to melt, freeze, stab, or exsanguinate the fellow before I get there.”