“Home again, home again, jiggy jog.” I muttered to myself, then trudged towards Mother’s house with a weary sigh.

Mother met us, the back door flying open before we’d even reached the porch. “Lily! You’re back! With a new friend?!” She looked us up and down, then frowned. “And I see things did not go as planned. Did you even… oh dear, oh dear, no, there’s time for all that later! Come in, come in, lets get some hot tea into you all! I’ve prepared beds for everyone in the barn, this seems to be such a recurring thing!”

We were ushered into the warmth of the kitchen where the smell of bubbling stew made my stomach growl immediately. Everyone (except for Camaxtli) laughed, and I flushed with embarrassment. Bowls and spoons were quickly found and our little group quickly took a seat at the table. Very shortly, the only sound was of satisfied eating.

When we’d finally finished, Mother said “So, don’t keep me in suspense! Who’s this? What happened?! Did you finally get your airship? Did you get to Hecate?”

After introducing Camaxtli-

“Really!? An artificial being?! And so handsome! Oh my, Eideth will be over the moon! Oh how I wish Jorthath was still around to meet you, he would have been so excited!”

-and repeating our adventures to date-

“Your airship can make it from the sand sea to Hecate in less than a day?!”

-we finally reached the climax of our journey and current location.

“Oh… oh my.” Mother sat back in her chair and looked slightly poleaxed. “You’re at the bottom of the Ancient’s ruins under Hecate?! I’ve… well that’s very dangerous! I don’t know if anyone’s ever penetrated that far down!” She paused, then asked with a twinkle in her eye “I supposed that means my journal won’t be useful to you for a bit. Though I did have the same problems with the smugglers and the sewer system, though.” She patted my head lightly. “At least the smell wasn’t so bad.”

Eshaan stopped eating (his fifth helping) long enough to ask “You had to fight the smugglers too? And you went in the same way?”

Mother tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I wouldn’t say the exact same way, there’s doubtless been changes, and it’s certainly not the same smugglers, we had that whole band arrested after we finally- ah, there I go again. Please forgive an old woman, I do tend to ramble!”

Soriya laughed. “Miss Holly, you’re not old.”

“Oh, pish tosh, I’m certainly no spring chicken!”

I frowned. “Mother, you came with us to the Imperial city and gained multiple levels. You’re hardly an old granny with one foot in the grave either!”

Holly smiled mildly at me then leaned over and hugged me gently. “Lilyanna, you say the sweetest things, but I only came out of retirement because my baby was in danger!”

I glared at her fiercely. “You were having a ­good time! You even admitted it!”

I’d never seen my mother blush before, and it made me feel very strange, but also a tiny bit proud.

Holly looked to the side, then back at me to say “Well yes. It’s true, I did. But I swore that I’d give that up when I settled in Breezewood.”

Camaxtli suddenly spoke up. “I have concluded my scan analysis. You are not biologically related to Lilyanna. Coupled with your talk of adventuring and the strange nature of Lilyanna’s existence in this world, I must conclude that you found her in your adventures. I believe this to be relevant information, will you please recount it?”

Everyone looked at Camaxtli in surprise. My mouth fell open as I looked at him, then spluttered. “No, Camaxtli, that’s not what happened at all! My mother found me as a baby at her doorstep!”

Holly nodded. “I’m afraid it’s true, Camaxtli. Though it makes perfect sense, I suppose, but it’s true. I found Lilyanna in a basket at my doorstep. Soriya showed up the same day. It was a strange day of miracles, though The witch-light that lit up Soriya’s treehouse was considerably more… dramatic than Lilyanna’s appearance!”

I blinked, feeling a shifting of memory inside me. Of course I’ve always known this, but I’ve not thought about it in so long… I smiled faintly. And then there’s the fact that half of me has never known this at all!

Soriya and I were the same age, and shared the same birthday. We’d both appeared in Breezewood, Soriya at the Witch’s Tree, and me at Mother’s farmhouse door. Divinations had failed to learn anything about us, other than our harmless nature, and the village had taken us in…

But Camaxtli is right. This might be important.

“Fascinating.” Camaxtli said, after we’d recounted our story. “I detect no traces of deception, and yet there is a strong indication that you came from somewhere else. A somewhere that provided a delivery mechanism.” He nodded to himself. “Joining your group is definitely proving to be the right course of action, System behavior is highly useful knowledge to acquire.”

Soriya shrugged and flipped her hand through her hair. “Whether we were dropped out of the sky or smuggled here by some strange third party, what does it really tell us? The trail would be long cold, and frankly, I think we have bigger problems, like working out way up from the depths of the Ancient’s ruins.”

I suddenly jerked upright. “Hang on…!” I looked at Soriya, my eyes wide. “Gate took us home! Without complaining about any nearby Arcana! Doesn’t that strike you as strange!? If we were following a script…!? And… and if that’s so, we could just return to the Cloudheart’s lighthouse! But… should we?!”

Soriya’s yes met mine, equally wide. “I… I don’t know! Shouldn’t… but there might be clues… but we could avoid the whole dungeon…?!”

We sat there staring at each other, stunned to silence.

Camaxtli broke the shocked quiet. “I cannot claim to understand this… ‘path’… you claim to see laid out before you, nor this ‘groove’ in reality you claim that the System has created. But it would indeed be very likely that the Ancients would have located one of their Keys in such a prominent location, a stronghold of one of their staunchest allies. If the Key has been located and removed, learning the information of this removal gains extremely high priority. Regardless of the danger that such recovery may entail. My suggestion is to enlist the aid of the Monanin engineer, ‘Eideth’, and to engage in recovery actions.”

He paused thoughtfully then added. “This has the added benefit of accomplishing your stated goals of returning the Monanin to her home.”

I blinked, then slowly nodded. He did make… good sense. If I’m… if I am really going to try and defeat ‘Deacon’, then… oh spirits above and below. A missing Key… I bet the Church has it! Which means we really do need to learn more…

I jerked upright. “Wait a moment! We already know where the missing Key is! Deacon has it! Or the church does, which is the same thing! And if we really need to know…!” I spun in my seat. “Mother, let’s get Eideth and tell her what’s going on!”

Mother giggled softly. “I was wondering when you’d go and ask the opinion of the person your plans seem to depend on.”

I turned scarlet with embarrassment. I really had been behaving most shamefully, not asking the one person who I was already planning uses for!

“You’re right, of course.” I said, shame filling my voice. “We’ll ask Eideth.”

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“Good! She’s been working with our blacksmith, and seems to have been getting a bit restless now that the airship is gone.”

Once we’d finished our meal we headed to meet with Eideth at the blacksmith. She was excited to see us, but when we explained what was going on, she was practically vibrating.

“Are you kidding me?! You’ve got access to the deepest levels of the Ancient’s warren under Hecate and you want to just ignore it?!”

“Well…” I said hesitantly

“No, absolutely not, I refuse! You have to show me what you’ve discovered!”

Daniyel coughed, and then said “But we do not wish to explore the dangers. Why must we?”

Eideth looked flummoxed for a moment, then said “Well, yes, I guess that makes sense… but you had no difficulty at the dig site!”

Eshaan shook his head. “We had a reason. I like delving into Ancient’s ruins as much as anyone, but there’s no reason why we should court danger like this. Ancient’s ruins are dangerous. Everyone knows that!”

Eideth stomped her foot in frustration. “A priceless opportunity… you’re adventurers aren’t you!? I’ll… I’ll pay you! The information alone…! My house would be willing to pay you thousands for what we’d recover!”

I glanced at the others, and then back to Eideth. “I’m sorry, money really isn’t an object right now. We just-“

“Wait! You said you wanted to know more about the upper levels! You said you wanted to know what the Empire had been doing there! I can find that for you! My house has access to the dig site info, and with my connection… Please! I’ll tell you everything you want to know; you have to help me explore the lower levels!”

I stopped, and turned to the others. We exchanged slow looks, and few reluctant nods. I gave a heavy sigh and turned back to her. “I suppose we must accept your proposal.” I said weakly.

Eideth pumped her fists and did a little crouching dance. “Yessss!”

Soriya said “We can’t promise you more than a week of exploration though.”

I turned to her and blinked in surprise, my mouth open. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Eideth would want more than a day!

Eideth did a surprising pout and complained “Aw, but such a short time!? Think of the knowledge?! The schematics, the designs!?”

“Think of the death that could be caused, trapping you forever under the earth.” Soriya said sourly.

Eshaan rubbed the back of his head. “I love artifacts and the Ancients, but there’s a limit.”

Lakshmi frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know, there’s potential down there. Eideth was at the bottom of the dig site, and we made it down there?”

Eideth nodded excitedly. “And we might find all kinds of new information for the airship!”

Lakshmi suddenly grew quiet. I pressed my lips together in amusement, then turned back to Eideth. “We’ll agree to a short expedition. And if there’s danger, we’re coming back!”

“Short as in…?” Eideth frowned at me skeptically.

I turned to Eshaan. “Eshaan, what was the shortest expedition you ever ran guard for?”

Eshaan looked at me, then at Eideth. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “About a week, I’d say.” He said.

I felt my eyes widen. That was a lie! He just lied! Did he lie… because… oh dear, I really do know him upsettingly well.

I turned back to Eideth and plastered a bright smile on. “So. I guess we’ll be there for a week. And we really do have other places to be. Ok?”

“Hm. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. And you are doing me a favor. Alright, I’ll let Everett know, and get my things together.” She hurried off with an excited scurry.

I sighed and shook my head. “How did we get roped into this again?” I turned to Eshaan. “So, how long was the shortest expedition you’ve been on.”

Eshaaan blushed and rubbed his head again. “Ah heh. Well. Technically, an exploratory mission to see if a dig site has anything valuable is an archeological expedition. So I wasn’t exactly lying. But if it was a real expedition, 2 months is the shortest I’ve ever been on.” He glanced over at Lakshmi and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Lakshmi, I know you researchers get excited about this kind of thing.”

Lakshmi gave a shrug and a wry smile. “I won’t deny we get excited, but… I’ve got the Sparrowhawk. And Camaxtli is teaching me more than I ever learned on most dig sites.”

I blinked in surprise and smiled. Well now! That was a nice confirmation, I hope their romance is coming along well! I thought to myself, seeing Lakshmi’s awkward smile at Camaxtli.

The preparations were anticlimactic. Fast-travel with Gate was… well it was a bit like cheating. A lot like cheating, actually, almost as much as cheating as having Mother’s journal to guide me.

We popped back into existence in the lower levels of the Ancient’s ruins, and Eideth almost immediately had a heart attack from excitement. We spent a good few hours scouring for what we hoped would be a defensible position, but both Lakshmi and Eshaan made it clear that the actual method of base camp was that I was going to be force fed mana potions until I could summon Gate, and we were going back to Breezewood at the end of every day.

The next few days were rather hectic but also pretty baffling to me. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the group said they were discovering. Even Eshaan’s simplified explanations didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. Etheric flows, mana channels, capacitance and conductance… it was half electrical engineering and half magical theory. I could understand the magical theory part pretty well, but it all went off the rails when I tried to make any sense of it in a technological manner.

Soriya was, of course, in her element, and her notes easily reached the same thickness and volume of Eideth’s by the end of our stay.

There were monsters of course. Rather, the ruins were filled with small but very dangerous elemental spirits and a great many very large spider and sentry golems. A few of them left us pretty badly battered, it was downright unfair that Ancient golems could concoct actual ambush plans! This of course only made Eideth, Soriya, and Eshaan all the more excited, and even got Soriya reluctantly interested.

We had a few narrow escapes before we started planning for the ambushes, and it certainly helped fine tune our awareness of danger!

In a moment of quiet, Camaxtli explained why my friends were so excited to be ambushed repeatedly by the sentry golems. Something about an aetheric interface between the world and the mana flows, but even he showed considerable uncertainty.

“It is not just that this is unfamiliar technology from a foreign nation. I was not created to understand or maintain these systems, and though it is simple enough to deduce basic functions, the materials and construction this deep in the labyrinth are… peculiar.” He was silent for a long moment, and then added “And your own story, the fact that… souls… appear to be involved in the process… has thrown a great many of my assumptions into chaos. I am currently tabulating data to formulate a new workable hypothesis.”

“So… how’s it going?” Lakshmi asked hesitantly.

He was silent a longer time, and then said “Poorly. I have made only limited progress, and I find myself… unwilling to accept many of the hypothesis which are bearing active progress. It is… troubling. To find that I may have. Errors in my own judgement. I understand this is a common reaction to any sophont which discovers the same.”

I smiled quietly to myself when Lakshmi took his hand and patted it with hers. “It’s ok, Camaxtli. I had to discover bad and wrong things about myself too. And you’ve taught me that I can use magic! That’s a wrong thing that was… just wonderful! I can’t really express how much that meant to me!” She stopped then scowled. “Though I could really do with less explosions! I don’t know how you casters handle your tools exploding around you all the time!”

Camaxtli turned to her and said “More practice is required. I will assist.” He stood up and took her hand in his.

“Noooo, Camaxtli, please! I’ve already practiced my exercises for three hours today!” Lakshmi wailed.

Camaxtli’s grip was unshakable as he pulled her gently but implacably towards the practice lab we’d set up. “Your tools are still not responding to your will, and your mana flows are unstable. More practice is required.”

Lakshmi’s wails of protest faded down the corridor. I smiled to myself even as I made a note to cook her something extra special tonight. Maybe even a celebration dinner when she could finally grip her multitool without it shocking her.

At least we all gained a few levels from the fights. The world soul told me that it was for helping my friends, which was a nice way of saying ‘cooking and transport is valuable too’, but it was still nice. I had to admit, this whole adventure was looking distinctly odd to me.

I idly called up my status screen with {Study} as I watched Eshaan, Lakshmi, and Eideth excitedly pore over another find I found to be incomprehensible.

{Name}: Lilyanna of Breezewood {Level}: 26

{Classes}: Spiritist 10/Orator 6/Arcanist 7/Gourmet 3

HP: 561 MP: 802 DEF: 103 M.DEF: 154

Current Status:

DEX: 102 INS: 158

MIG: 111 WIL: 162

I suppose I could take an energy cannon blast now. Hang on… didn’t I do that with the last spider sentry?! I sighed. I wonder if this is what the other heroines feel in downtime? It’s not like I’ve ever had a viewpoint character that could tell me.

I shook my head, looking down at my hand, then clenched it into a fist. I couldn’t let this get me down. Eshaan must be doing just as much as me, if not more! And… and we’re… we’re doing the right thing. I hope. Because I sure don’t see any other way forward that’s not giving up. And I refuse to give up! Ever!

When the week was finally over, Eideth pleaded with us to stay longer, as I knew she would, but I put my foot down. We had promised a week, and only because Eideth had told us she would help us get information about what the Empire had done in the excavations! And so as the day dawned on the 8th day, we found ourselves standing at the mouth of the Ancient’s abandoned sewer system once more, and readying ourselves to repeat our aborted journey to Hecate. Fortunately for us, I had my mother’s journal, which did have rough maps, and more importantly, we had Eideth, who said she knew the upper levels of the ruins like the back of her hand.

I clenched my staff tightly and took a deep breath. “Here we go, try two.” Eshaan gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and we moved into the shadows of the sewer system.