Above us, I heard the sound of shouting and rapid boots filling the room above. Angry shouts and cries of “Where are they!? Find them! They can’t have just vanished!” and the like made me grin ear to ear, even with the smell of the sewer filling my nose.

Allen opened his mouth to say something, but Eshaan clapped his hand to Allen’s mouth, and made frantic motions to the door overhead.

‘Allen’ stopped talking. I dimmed the light from my {Lux} spell, and we snuck quietly away down the sewer passage, doing our best to ignore the soft squelching sound underfoot.

As we walked, I glanced over at Juliet curiously. She was pretty enough, I supposed. It was a bit hard to tell from the faint light, and she was still wearing her party dress. Come to that, so was Soriya. Things had clearly gone…

I laughed. Well, they went about like any player character’s plans ever go.

Eshaan looked at me in confusion, and whispered “What’s so funny?”

I whispered back. “Nothing much, just noting that our plan went about like my expectations were. A grand colossal improvisation that seems to have gotten our goal, but in no order we expected.”

“Less talking, more walking!” Soriya hissed.

“Sorry.”

Several splashing and squelching minutes later, having taken several twists and turns. I called a halt. “Ok, I think we’re far enough away now. We should be good to summon Gate.” I announced.

Juliet gave a huge sigh of relief, followed by a suppressed gag, her hand clapped over her mouth. “Oh gods, it’s about time! I can’t believe this was your plan, Devdan!” She protested.

‘Allen’ sighed. “We’re trying to use code words, remember?” he said.

“Oh come on, we’re escaping!” She turned to the rest of us. “I’m Priya Caitbre, this is Devdan Ghalagher.” She said, and stared at us as though expecting a reaction.

Eshaan, Soriya, and I shared a glance, then Eshaan shrugged and turned back to Priya. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Eshaan, this is Lilyanna, and this is Soriya.”

Silence hung heavy in the air for a moment, then Priya burst out “That’s it?! That’s all you’ve got to say!?”

Soriya grinned. “We’re just simple country folk from the back of beyond.” She said, affecting a slight country accent. She continued in a normal tone “And if you’re going to Spyre, I think you’d best get used to that. If you’re famous enough that you can’t use your real name in Spyre, then you should get used to new names now. Which means nobody will recognize them. If you’re not famous enough to be recognized in Spyre, you’ll find that our reactions are pretty normal.”

Priya stared at us, her mouth open.

I coughed politely. “Before we have to properly consider this, perhaps we could leave the sewer?”

Devdan nodded empathically. “Yes please! I had no idea sewers smelled like this!”

I folded my hands together and closed my eyes, calling up Gate, thankful that I hadn’t had to use up more of my mana.

The thrumming rumble of Gate flowed up out of the well of quiet power inside me, draining my mana pool to the dregs, drawing much more deeply than I had expected. The dragon of shadow and smoke appeared, coiling around his ornate gateway.

“Child of Æther, you know that I cannot aid you when accessing another Key.”

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again, blinking in confusion. “Wait, what?”

Gate flickering, his voice rumbling and fading in and out like a thunderstorm that was both far and near. “Another Key is nearby. It disrupts my ability to hold here.”

I blinked, and then blinked again, then said slowly “Are you telling me… that you can’t transport us to Breezewood?!”

Gate blinked its huge eyes at us, and then spoke with what seemed to be amusement. “Yes, Child of Æther, that is what I am saying.”

“Oh come on! Are you kidding me?!” I stomped my foot in frustration, and behind me Soriya burst out laughing.

“I cannot hold longer, Child of Æther.” Gate said solemnly. “Call me when you have gained the Key, or moved far enough away from it.”

And with that, Gate simply folded into a dot of blacker than black not-light and vanished, leaving us alone in the sewer maze under the city.

Wordlessly, Eshaan passed me a mana potion. It was a good thing he didn’t say anything, because if he had I probably would have said something extremely regrettable to him.

Devdan took the bullet instead. “Is this common with adventuring parties?” He inquired lightly. “I think I see why it’s such a constrained field.”

I glared at him, then spun around twice, trying to burn off energy, then finally reached into my pouch of holding, grabbed out my party dress, and muffled a full-throated scream of frustration into it the frilly pink fabric.

Eshaan smiled brightly at Devdan. “This is pretty normal, honestly. Going a lot better than most of our plans!”

Priya looked from us to Devdan and back again. “This is your professional adventurer team?! This was your plan for eloping!”

Devdan winced. “Pri-“

“Don’t you ‘Pri’ me, Dev! This was supposed to be simple! You assured me you had a plan!”

“I do Pri.”

Soriya stepped forward. “Not that watching a lover’s quarrel isn’t high comedy, but we are on a bit of a tight schedule here. You want a plan? Here’s our plan. We go in front, we kill any monster that tries to stop us. We find an access hatch to the surface, we leave, and we all get a nice hot bath. Sound good?” She said with false brightness. “Because if not, we can just leave you here, and you can head back to your family’s warm embrace, I’m sure that they’d love to put you back in your nice safe gilded cage.”

Priya’s mouth snapped shut so fast I thought there might have been a small sonic boom. Soriya nodded. “Good.” She pulled out Diaboli and stepped forward. “Now, please let the unprofessional adventurers keep you safe and discover the loot and treasure in this sewer maze.”

I heaved a long sigh, my shoulders slumping, then tossed back the mana potion in one gulp. “What is even the point of knowing what the tropes are if I can’t even avoid them.” I growled.

Eshaan patted my shoulder. “Lily, it’s not that bad. And if Gate was right… now that it mentioned it, I can see traces of Ancient’s work here. Allen… er, I guess Devdan? Is it? Is Yirath perhaps built on Ancient’s ruins?”

Devdan raised his eyebrows. “Why, yes, of course. Is that relevant? They’re thoroughly mapped, the Empire carried out a very thorough survey of the entire catacomb area. Nothing of value was found.”

Eshaan turned at stared at the walls thoughtfully, his hand reaching to run just over the stone bricks of the tunnel wall. “I think perhaps they missed something then.”

“Is that important!?” Priya whined.

“It could be.” Eshaan said distractedly. “But more importantly, it tells me that the sewer is repurposed from an Ancient’s tunnel system. Which means…” he slowly spun in a circle. “The primary vault cluster is this way.” He pointed down a corridor that appeared identical to all the others.

“Eshaan, we don’t seriously-“

Soriya cut in. “Yes, we do seriously. This is another one of those Keys. I don’t know what they are either, but they’re clearly important. Important enough that I bet our Shadows would kill to have one.”

I bit my lower lip, then turned to Devdan and Priya. “We’ll get you to Spyre. We promise. It’s just… going to take a little longer than anticipated. There will be baths and soap and more baths. I promise.” I gritted my teeth. “I swear on my… I swear it.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Devdan nodded. “Well. That’s enough for me. You’ve not done me wrong yet.”

Priya’s incipient outburst was quelled by a stern glance from Soriya. Someday I’d have to learn how she did that…

The sewers under Yirath were just as noisome and noxious as the ones under Farna. Even the monsters were the same, if perhaps a bit less difficult. Soriya and Priya’s party dresses were soon coated with slime and even less pleasant things. I found myself feeling guilty that mine was kept nice and safe in my storage. It was hardly their fault that I’d had opportunity to change clothes!

After the twelvth undead bug corpse thing, I turned to Eshaan, who was wiping some sort of rotting filth off his blade.

“Isn’t it strange that all the monsters here look like the ones under Farna?” I asked

He frowned in confusion. “Why would it be? Similar locals, similar monsters.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Yes but… bugs that puppet corpses?! Slimes?! I thought that the alchemical runoff was what caused the slimes under Farna to get so nasty!?”

Devdan shrugged. “I’m afraid most any large city in the empire is going to have these kinds of problems, miss Lilyanna. The progress brought by the emprie doesn’t come free of cost, and the manufacture of elemental crystals in bulk creates waste products.” He gestured to the sewage stream in the middle of the tunnel, which was flickering with elemental discharges.

I frowned in thought. “Soriya?”

“Yes?” She asked.

“When you make an elemental crystal, is there waste?”

Soriya stroked her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know, truthfully. I’ve never made one. I suppose there could be?”

“It might also be a side effect unique to the magitech process used.” Eshaan said. “We can ask Darshanna when we get back to Breezewood.”

“When will that be?!” Priya whined. “I’m a merchant, not some kind of adventurer!”

I shared a glance with Soriya and Eshaan, then turned to her. Help me out, otherme. How do I…?

A knowledge that I didn’t realize I had floated up gently in my head. I found myself using a {Persuade} as I said “We’re tired and hungry and unhappy too. We want to go someplace safe and comfortable and clean just as much as you do. We assure you; we want this exactly as much as you do. If you have a suggestion, we’d love to hear it. But sometimes… a merchant’s sales don’t go the way they want. Sometimes the purchase price is higher than you’d like. But I think you know as well as I do, when there’s a sale to be made, the only thing to do is press on.”

Priya frowned at me thoughtfully, and then nodded slowly. I let out a silent sigh of relief, and saw Devdan mouth a ‘thank you’ to me from behind Priya.

I patted Priya gently on the shoulder. “It’s ok. We get it. Adventures are nasty dangerous uncomfortable things that make one late for dinner. This isn’t an adventure, this is a daring escape from a cruel fate, a daring rescue that you’re executing with your fiancé.” I tipped my head and smiled at her. “Right?”

“I… I suppose that’s so.” She finally said, and nodded shortly. “I’m sorry for whining. I just… I didn’t think something so romantic as eloping would involve sewer crawling!”

I smiled sympathetically and nodded. “I really didn’t set out to adventure, either. I just wanted to go to the big city and cheer my friend on in the Imperial Scholar’s Competition. And here I am sewer crawling and killing elemental poison slimes.”

“Oh! Are you…” she turned to Soriya. “You’re a scholar?!”

Soriya drew herself up proudly. “{Loremaster} 3, and with some very interesting theories that my unintentional adventuring has helped mature quite nicely.”

Priya opened her mouth to say something then clearly thought better of it and shook her head. “I’m just a {Merchant/Wayfarer}. I was hoping to see the competition this year, though. It’s supposed to be very grand, with the princess herself handing out the prizes to the winners in the final ceremony.”

“And the inventions are astonishing.” Devdan added. “Easily worth millions in imperial trade pacts to whoever’s canny enough.”

“Really?” I said, tipping my head to the side. “The inventions are all… just market ready? They don’t have any… I don’t know, polishing? Ramp up time?”

Devdan looked puzzled. “Why yes, how else would it be?”

I traded a glance with Soriya, then turned back to Devdan. “So… so airships. They just… the inventor was able to instantly make them? Scale up without any development or improvement?”

“I don’t understand your question. Of course airship design is improved all the time, but yes, Kanta Zeppelin’s design was put into production the day after she produced the first airship.”

“And nobody… is that normal?”

Devdan traded confused looks with Priya. “I’m truly not sure what you’re asking, miss Lilyanna. I’m fairly sure that was the course of the action. It squares with all the previous winning inventions from the previous years?”

“Hm.” I said, frowning.

Eshaan looked at me quizzically. “What is it, Lily?”

“Oh, nothing I suppose. It’s just… odd to me. That a design would be ready for production so quickly.” I said thoughtfully.

“Well, regardless of the competition’s issues, we should keep going.” Eshaan said after a short pause. “I’m just glad that those strange mana fluctuations that we encountered at the dig site aren’t happening here.”

“That’s good though.” Soriya said. “I’m pretty sure the fluctuations occurred because the empire had tampered with the Ancient’s maintenance systems.”

Eshaan grunted at that, and we pressed on deeper into the catacombs. Further in, Gate’s implications of Ancient tech started to show fruit. Intricate patterned circuit work, much like that in the Cavern of Trials and the dig site started to pattern the walls. Eshaan perked up noticeably, and occasionally stopped to jot down quick notes about a particular piece of design or interesting framework. Whatever lore he had picked up, it guided us further and further into the sewer catacombs. I was grateful that the sewers actually started to dry, the ancient dirt and stone under our feet slowly growing less wet and slimy. And as a blessing, less smelly as well, though of course the stench had soaked into our clothes by this point.

“I still don’t understand how the imperial survey squad missed this.” Eshaan muttered.

“Maybe it’s because it’s not active?” Soriya asked.

“Well possibly, but the cave at Breezewood didn’t seem active when I… well, you know.” Eshaan trailed off awkwardly.

I patted him on the shoulder. “It’s ok.”

“Actually.” Soriya spoke up “What did the commander tell you about our little town anyway?”

“Uh? Well, not much. Merely that he’d been conducting a surveillance on your town for the past few years, and certain irregularities suggested the presence of a nearby Ancient site.”

“And our coming of age and Festival was just…?”

“Well, all the commanders research indicated that whatever was happening there was most likely to activate at that point.”

“The commander did all this research on his own?” Soriya pressed.

“No, of course not. Commander Khine is a field man, he would have got the info from his engineer corp.” Eshaan answered.

“Eshaan, I want you to think hard. This is important. Did the commander mention anything to indicate where he got that information from.” Soriya asked intently.

Eshaan thought, his brow furrowed, before he finally said “Well… now that you mention it… he did mention something like ‘that pointy hatted bastard had better be right’ when we were finalizing the landing. I never asked who.”

Soriya and I shared a look, and we both spoke as one. “The pope is evil.”

Eshaan looked shocked, and I could hear Priya gasp.

“What on earth?” Eshaan asked. “Why would you think that the pope is evil?!”

I shrugged. “Seer stuff. Plot threads.”

“But the pope?! Of the crystal church?! There’s no reason he would even be talking to commander Khine! And he’s in charge of the crystal dragon church! They’d never elevate an evil man to that position!”

Priya nodded emphatically, and added “I know adventurers are known for breaking precedent, but really, this is just too much! You can’t just accuse a good man because of some feeling you’ve got!”

I gave a long-suffering sigh. “I can see this plot thread remains firmly anchored.” I said to Soriya.

I turned back to Priya. “Whether he is or not, it’s largely irrelevant right now, and there’s hardly anything we could do about it either way.”

Yet. I thought grimly. Though it suddenly does explain all those church sponsored wanted posters in the guild hall.

A flicker of intuition made me glance at Devdan, and I saw he was looking at me with speculation. He raised a single eyebrow at me, then gestured ahead as though to say “Let’s proceed.” The way he stood though, his whole posture…

That’s right. He’s super sharp, isn’t he!? And he spent time around the adventurer’s guild! He would have seen my wanted poster! I swallowed nervously.

Devdan stepped forward and said smoothly “Regardless of miss Lily’s suppositions, and their reasons, we should press forward to find this source of interruption as quickly as possible. Not least of which because it will get us out of this sewer more quickly.”

He stamped his feet on the ancient stonework. “And there does seem to be something worth investigating here, at the least. My {Merchant} senses are tingling.”

“Well… if this is anything like the last time… Lily, Soriya, why don’t you try to push some mana through the stonework here? It might reactivate something.” Said Eshaan.

I shared a glance with Soriya, who shrugged and nodded. “Sure, might as well.”

I stepped over to her, and we laid our hands onto the stone wall, pushing mana into the Ancient stonework. Pools of purple black and silver white light spread from our hands, and where they overlapped, a strange rainbow ripple effect occurred. For a long moment, nothing happened. I felt a curious mix of relief and frustration. Then the area where our mana had merged into a rainbow ripple suddenly pulsed, once. Twice. And then intricate circuit lines shot across the stonework, shimmering forward and back. I let out a gasp, and Soriya let out a soft sound of pleasure.

“Good work, Eshaan.” Soriya said. “I can feel a mana pulse from that direction.” She pointed down the tunnel. “Whatever we’re meant to find, it’s that way.”

We lowered our hands, but the rainbow ripple of color outlining the Ancient circuitry stayed, though slowly growing fainter.

“How interesting!” Devdan said, stepping up and running his fingers along the lines of color. “I’ve never seen a reaction like this before.”

Eshaan grinned enthusiastically. “Yeah! It’s so cool, right? None of the imperial archives or records I’ve ever seen say anything about it!”

Devdan turned to Eshaan in surprise. “You’ve read the imperial archives?”

“Well, hardly all of them! Just a few bits here and there, in between patrols. I hardly understood most of them either.”

“What a fascinating group you all are.” Devdan murmured as he returned to Priya’s side.

Priya hissed at him. “Devdan are you sure you trust them?!”

Devdan raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “It’s hardly a matter of trust or not, Priya love. We’re committed to the sale; we’ve bought the merchandise. And so far, while it seems an odd color, it has performed exactly as advertised. We should put it on sale. But yes, Pri. I do trust them.”

I felt a warm glow of pleasure form that.

“Thanks Devdan.” Eshaan said. “We’ll do our best to prove you’re not mistaken!” and then headed into the darkness, where the pulsing lines of rainbow light led.

I had to admit, the lines lit up the tunnel nicely, and made fighting the tunnel dwelling monsters much easier. The composition of them changed as well, the slimes and undead bugs not seeming to much like the dryer air. Instead larger earth cutterpillers and shamblefurs replaced them. To my frustration, they were considerably tougher.

Soriya noticed and patted my arm. “There there. It just means we’re going the right way. The fights are always harder where the plot is progressing, right?”

“I… yeah, I suppose so.” I sighed.

The pulsing lines of light finally twisted and focused onto a single outline in the rock. If it weren’t for the circuit lines, I wouldn’t have seen anything strange here at all it was so perfectly camouflaged.

“Well. Now what?” Eshaan asked rhetorically.

“Remember the dig site? Have Lily put her hand on the door.” Soriya replied confidently.

I frowned, then stepped forward hesitantly, and laid my hand against the stone wall. Nothing happened. I turned to Soriya to comment, but she held up her hand.

“Try pushing mana into it.” She said.

“Oh… kay?” I suppose it made some kind of sense, this whole area was so mana dead and starved that any magitech must have shut down ages ago.

I focused, and the pulse of silver white mana flowed into the wall. There was a bright flash of light, and two palm prints appeared on the door, about a meter apart. I pulled back, and frowned at the prints. “They’re both right hands?”

Soriya stood there frowning in puzzlement, muttering to herself, hand on chin.

Eshaan frowned at her. “What are you doing? The solution is obvious!” he said, grabbing her right hand and pressing it against the empty palm mark.

There was a shivering rumble, and a dust that stank of age sifted out of Ancient cracks, and the outlined passageway shimmered and dissolved into a rainbow of dust revealing a room of that bronze gold metal of the Ancient’s technology. Flickering rainbow light played across a console coated with untold eons of dust.

“Emergency protocol recognized. Reserve energy at 1%. Activating recovery protocol.” A voice echoed eerily into the room. “Welcome, Key bearer. Please retrieve the active Key.”

I looked at Soriya hesitantly. She smiled at me, a little strangely. “Well? You’re the summoner? Go meet your new Arcanum.”

I stepped into the room, and a flickering light coalesced into that small bright dot of light that I was familiar with from the other Arcanum. This one glowed red and orange, and the sound of metal on metal grew louder. A golden bronze dragon erupted from the arc space, and I felt it establish a connection with me. No hesitation, not even a question or demand.

“Emergency supply of æther acquired. Link accepted.” It spoke with a roar and rush of metal and hot flames, its body a coiling mass around a blacksmith’s forge glowing hot with coals. “Welcome, Children of Æther.”

Behind it, the ancient machinery went dark. It felt like more than that though, as though it was well and truly dead, rather than simply shut down.

“I am Forge, crafter and maker of the System.” The dragon said. “My services are yours.”