Kanin Fyre: Chapter 29 - Priorities

When I can, I study the mental map Shirasil gave me of The Sanctum. As far as I can judge, it’s about the size of a football field, which makes me skeptical this is a map of all of the Heavens. I guess he only gave me what he thought I’d need access to—probably safer that way. Not that I was intending to go snooping around elsewhere… Okay, actually, that’s not true, I’m at least intending to investigate where the Travelers are being kept.

Since I’ll be embarking on this mission alone, I’ve had to reorder some of my goals. Right now my priorities are, in order:

1.       Make it out without getting captured

2.      Make it out without exposing my identity

3.      Recover Anika’s refiner

4.      Investigate the Traveler cells

5.      Free them if at all possible

I still don’t know if there will be an obvious way to get them out, but I’ve got to at least try. And even if I can’t, maybe I’ll be able to bring information back with me that will let me try again at a later date.

Assuming, you know, I achieve priority #1.

The map is shaped like a sphere. A three-dimensional sphere. Dozens of small structures, which I am amusing might be rooms, are scattered randomly throughout the volume, seemingly floating. A large disk is at the room’s center, which is apparently where the doors to this area open. If it’s anything like a telepad, that would put me right in the middle of the map, very likely in the most exposed position to be. So that’s a great start.

But if I use Shirasil’s hair stick to bring me to the Heavens, would that allow me to secure the bridge somewhere else? I wonder if I could switch Locate targets mid-spell. Zyneth had used a scrap of cloth to lead us to the refiner that captured Anika. I’m not sure if he still has it, but if so, I wonder if there’s anything I could do with it. If I have the time and mana, I might try to practice with it on a smaller, local scale.

Apart from the sphere design, there isn’t much more to glean from the map. The central area is labeled Antechamber, while two different areas of blocks are labeled Monitoring and Holding. I assume Holding is where the Travelers are being kept. I wonder what the difference is between that and Monitoring?

That night over dinner, I ask Zyneth about the object he’d used for his tracking spell.

“I think I still have it somewhere,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

Aquenno is on the other side of the meal circle. Fyre appears to have pulled him into a conversation, so I’m probably safe to say some things here.

“I was wondering what it might be, given what we know now,” I say. “It led us to a refiner, which was created by a god. Do you think it’s a scrap of some god’s robe, or something?”

Zyneth chews on his bite of food thoughtfully. It looks like some kind of meat with moss and mushrooms on the side. I’ve never eaten moss before, and I’m not disappointed to have missed out on it now.

“It’s possible,” Zyneth agrees. “Yedzaquib was the one who facilitated that mission, and he certainly knew more about the Heavens than he should have. I don’t know where he would have acquired such an object, but it’s clear it’s related to the Heavens some way or another.”

I’m convinced now more than ever that my plan will work.

“Aquenno,” I ask, causing just about everyone to look over at me in surprise. “Those refiners that are used to capture remnants. Can the gods track them?”

He eyes me suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, Yedzaquib knew where one was,” I say. “And he sent Zyneth and me to retrieve it for him. But I was wondering why he hadn’t retrieved it in the past and kept it in his collection of magic items until he needed it. Was he worried the gods would know he took it?”

Aquenno seems to relax. “Probably. If a refiner captures a remnant or is moved from where it was placed, the Heavens are notified. It would be no trivial matter to track a specific refiner—as any tracking spell would point you to the nearest one, not necessarily the one you want—but the Heavens have been keeping an eye on Yedzaquib, and he probably realized he would be investigated if any went missing.”

Good to know. Seems like the gods don’t have a more sophisticated way to track the remnants or refiners than I do.

But I don’t want Aquenno realizing I’m digging for information about the refiners, so I shift the discussion in a different direction. “What did Yedzaquib do to end up on the Heavens’ radar?”

“It wasn’t what he did, but what he knew,” Aquenno says. “As a knowledge broker, he amassed some information too dangerous to rest in mortal hands. He was approached sometime in the past about redacting certain pieces of knowledge from his catalog. He complied, and the Heavens left him alone.” He frowns. “Clearly, it was a mistake to trust him to leave it at that.”

“You’re talking about information on the remnants,” I guess. I hadn’t been able to find so much as a passing mention about the predator when I’d gone looking for information about it in the Athenaeum.

“Of course,” Aquenno says.

“But why?” Fyre wonders. “Wouldn’t it be better to warn people of the perils of becoming entangled with a remnant, rather than try to erase knowledge of their existence altogether?”

“No,” Zyneth says, rubbing his chin. “It wouldn’t matter how dangerous they were. So long as it holds some modicum of power, someone would try to get their hands on it, for one reason or another.” Like any of his employers.

Aquenno nods approvingly. “The gods have collected and contained as many remnants as they can, but there are still many more left scattered across the world. Better to leave them buried and forgotten than to announce such entities exist. The last thing the gods want is for more remnants to be unearthed, killing more innocents in the process.”

Mirzayael scoffs. “Their motivation is to protect mortals? Spare me. Countless Fyrethian lives were sacrificed to bury Fyreneth’s crown. How is that justified by your gods’ morals?”

Aquenno actually cringes away from Mirzayael as she leans toward him, increasingly agitated. “I—I don’t know,” he admits, glancing away. “I don’t know the full story. I’m sure there had to have been a good—”

“You should probably stop talking,” I cut in. A dark look has passed over Fyre’s face. Mirzayael appears ready to launch into a fresh sparring match. I don’t know what happened to this city or its past leader, but it’s clearly tied to why the residents of this city seem to be so distrustful of the gods. “Trust me, I have a lot of experience sticking my foot in my mouth. This is one thing you should drop.”

And he actually does, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

The cloud over Fyre’s face lifts. She leans over to pat him on the leg. “You may be a champion, and I understand your loyalty to your god, but no one should preach on subjects of which they know little. None of us were there.” She chuckles. “In fact, you’re younger than me, aren’t you?”

The nereid blinks. “How old are you?”

“You can’t just ask someone that,” I say, faking an aghast tone. “Don’t you know how rude that is?”

Mirzayael tips her head. “Why would that be rude?”

Zyneth looks between us with a confused shrug.

Fyre, however, covers her mouth as she chuckles. “A difference in cultures, I suspect. On my previous world, I was fifty years old. Probably fifty-one, by now.”

Actually, that does surprise me; I thought she was only a little older than myself.

“You’re not that much older, then,” Aquenno says. “You had me thinking you were an elder, from how you speak.”

“Well, at middle-age I certainly wouldn’t consider myself young and spry anymore,” she says.

“Middle age?” Mirzayael repeats. “Fyre, harpies frequently live to the age of one hundred and fifty.”

Fyre blinks in surprise. “They do?”

“Ah, right,” Zyneth says, glancing between Fyre and I. “I keep forgetting you were both humans. You have a reduced lifespan, don’t you?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say reduced,” I object. “But okay, yeah, we wouldn’t live to a hundred and fifty.”

“That’s a pleasant surprise,” Fyre says. She glances up at Mirzayael. “And arachnoids?”

“Much the same,” Mirzayael replies.

“Good,” Fyre says, leaning against her partner’s side.

My soul flips as I realize why Fyre was asking such a question. If one had a much longer lifespan than their partner, it would be a recipe for inevitable heartbreak.

Echo, how long do cambions live? I ask. Then again, maybe I’d be better off not knowing.

[Cambions can live up to two hundred years,] Echo replies.

Two human lifetimes. I also relax, safe in the knowledge that he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Yet, neither will I. Words from the Academy professor drift back to me. “You’ll never die of disease or old age.” That thought should be reassuring. But I can’t help but wonder what I’d do with myself once…

I forcibly stop that train of thought. Thinking about this kind of stuff isn’t going to get me anywhere, and I’ve plenty of things to worry about in the present. Like keeping myself alive. Immortality is sort of a dumb thing to entertain when I still stand to be crushed by a god without a second’s thought. I watch Zyneth smile as Fyre pulls him into a conversation about the food.

Yeah. Plenty of other things to worry about.

#

That night, we head outside the city to climb the Drifting Isles. Some of the area is familiar to us, but there are plenty of stepping stones that we never made it to before. Exploring the new areas is exciting—especially if it means we’ll get a chance to exact revenge on one of those griffins.

We don’t have to climb the stepping stones, since we could technically float our way up, but slinking is more fun. We leap from rock to rock, hiding behind boulders and clinging to vines. We can’t deny there’s a certain level of exhilaration in having such freedom of mobility. Being able to jump inhuman lengths, flatten into the shadows, float into the night sky… Not many can say they've done the same. 

Earlier that evening, Fyre had suggested we visit the source of the storm arcana; a broken spell circle we saw before when we found the refiner, similar to the one in Emrox. Since our spell requires a large amount of mana to activate, this is where we can get it. The only problem is that we need null magic, not storm magic.

Despite the fact that our flight could have taken us up in a quarter of the time, we take a few hours to climb to the circle, enjoying the adventure of it all. It’s somewhere close to midnight when we come upon the layer of the Ruin we recognize.

 Since the moons aren’t directly overhead, the cloudy walls of the Drifting Isles block their light, and the sky directly above us is glowing with stars. We don’t have much trouble navigating in the dark, however, and we pick our way through the rubble of the ancient+ city with ease.

Some insects and small animals chirp in the dark. Our glass is dispersed around us, not actively on guard, but keeping a casual eye in every direction. We don’t recall there being predators on this level before, but it can’t hurt to be careful.

As we wander through the empty, broken streets, a twinge of trepidation pinches at our soul. It’s not that we feel something is coming; the memory of the refiner is an uncomfortable one. If we’d been less careful, we might have ended up inside it instead of Anika. These refiners are dangerous. I’ll need to be more cautious around them going forward.

The broken spell circle in the Drifting Isles is far more weathered than the one in Emrox had been. The underwater city had almost seemed frozen in time, but here the storm arcana has done much to weather away even the most deeply carved runes in this plaza. I doubt any of it is decipherable. But I don’t need to use the circle—whatever it had originally been for—I just need to use the mana that is seeping from its remains.

A shadow flits overhead.

We caught it through several pieces of our glass, but it’s too dark and it was too fast to make out the shape. We pause, waiting for it to fly over again.

The silent stillness stretches a long minute, but nothing else stirs. Perhaps a wyvern or bird. We move again, keeping to the rubble around the outskirt of the circle. Hardly thirty seconds goes by before the shadow returns. This time, we can make out the hushed flap of feathered wings.

A griffin? Our limbs curl into offensive positions, waiting for it to come within striking range. If it passes over again, we’ll give chase. It didn’t seem too big. And ever since the sparring match with Mirzayael, we’ve been itching for a fight we can take to its natural conclusion.

The shadow returns, and we spring from our hiding place, the joy of a chase coursing through us. Our prey notices the movement and pivots midflight with a startled squawk. That doesn’t sound like a griffin. That sounds like—

Wait wait wait wait wait!

We drop back to the ground, retracting the cloud of glass that we’d been about to collapse around our feathered visitor. Relief and disappointment wash over us as we successfully abort the attack.

The harpy lands in the square in front of us, a gust of wind accompanying her descent. She has something covering her eyes that we can’t really make sense of.

“Woah!” The harpy pushes her eye piece up to her forehead with a wide grin. “You look so creepy! I’m jealous.” She pulls her eye piece back down again, then alternates between looking at us through the goggles and without them in rapid succession, as if comparing the two versions.

Right, Dizzi—Fyre’s scientist.

“Man, what took you so long?” she asks, finally leaving the eye piece on as she plants her hands on her hips and glances around the square. “I’ve been waiting up here for hours! Okay, so, I might have left early since I was just so excited to work with you, and Fyre did tell me to wait until after sunset, but don’t worry.” She swings a bag from around her shoulder to hold it up for me to see. “I brought snacks!”

“That’s the first time someone’s told me they’re jealous of my appearance,” I say as Ink begrudgingly hands over control.

“Do you know how helpful ten hands would be while I’m working in the lab?” Dizzi wiggles her fingers. “We’re going to be so much more productive with those limbs of yours. And those floating hands! I saw you signing with your boyfriend the other day. Ugh, you’re so lucky.”

Ink has decided it is glad it didn’t attack her earlier. She should continue to praise us.

I snort at Ink. How easily it changes tunes when its ego is stroked. But I can’t help but like this harpy, too. No one’s talked to me like this.

“We?” I repeat. “Productive with what?”

Dizzi splays her arms wide. “With your spell circle! Fyre filled me in on what you want to do. I don’t really have a background in null arcana, but I’ve been reading every spell theory text I can get my hands on since the Fortress took flight. Stars, there’s so much to learn! But I’m getting off track. How can I help, chief?”

This woman’s personality is like a hurricane. She’s eager, loud, and all over the place—yet, I can’t help but be swept up in her enthusiasm.

“I think I’ve mostly worked out the spell circle,” I tell her. “I worked with a void expert to iron out the wrinkles. Of course, I won’t say no to a second pair of eyes.” I consider what all it is I need to accomplish. “What I could really use help with is figuring out a way to convert the ambient storm arcana into something that can be used for this null arcana spell.”

“Ah!” Dizzi lays a finger aside her nose. “It just so happens storm arcana is my specialty. Walk me through what you’ve got!”

I chuckle to myself, then pull my pack from my Inventory and remove some of the papers that Siqi and I had been working on. I activate a Glow spell for Dizzi’s benefit, and she eagerly huddles up against my side to get a better look—not even batting an eye at all the limbs of shadow and glass. She frowns in strict concentration, eyes darting over the pages.

For a second time that day, I recall something the Academy professor had told me a month ago; I could stay at the Academy to be studied.

But now here I am, side by side with a different scientist all too eager to work with me. Work for me, even.

I can’t say for certain that coming here over staying at the Academy was the best course of action, but I sure as hell don’t regret it.