Hunger: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 3), page 26
Atar stood awkwardly nearby, trying not to make eye contact with any of them. Felix opened his mouth to say something to him when the large overhead door got pounded on. Bodie and Yan hustled over, weapons in hand, and peeked out. Without another word, they threw open the doors, and a very wet Dwarf walked out of the rain. He flipped back his hooded cloak and grinned.
"Are ye gonna stand an’ goggle, or help?" Rory put his hood back up and slapped Bodie and Yan on the back.
Outside the door, the rain was coming down in sheets, waves of precipitation that slithered across the streets. Behind Rory, a team of those bird-lizards, Avum, were pulling some sort of huge wagon.
"Excellent. He's early, too." Cal grinned at them all and nudged Felix as she walked by. "We can start that training now."
Felix clapped his hands and rushed to help.
It took all of them to unload Rory's preposterously-sized wagon, which was made of a pale metal and easily the size of a train car. The team of Avum Felix had seen was actually six strong, and even then he had a hard time believing the giant chickens could pull that monstrosity. Moreover, inside the wagon was a strange assortment of shaped wooden pillars, chains, and almost twenty man-sized crates marked with the Guild Seal. The team got it all inside in record time, at least in comparison to Earth, and despite the items weighing hundreds if not thousands of pounds, did it all by hand.
Felix wasn't winded by the effort, but he was breathing hard by the end of it. The others couldn't say the same, as Yan, Kelgan, Vivianne, and Karp looked more than a little out of breath. Portia and Trendle were limp forms on the ground. The only ones without a sign of the strain were Harn, Bodie, and Rory himself. Cal had "overseen" the unloading process, Felix had noted.
"Was that...was that part of the training?" Felix asked.
Rory laughed. "Tha’s just unloadin' the trainin', lad!" He looked at them all placidly. "Now, get up! It's time ta set this up!"
Another grueling fifteen minutes had them lining all the parts in various positions around the front of their warehouse. The adventurers had a number of training materials out already, things like wooden dummies and pommel-horses, though Felix didn't have a name for most of it. Huge logs and chains and crates were all set around the dummies and obstacles, and once the last piece was set down, Rory clapped his hands and shooed them away.
"Go an' rest, wee babes. I'll let ye know when we're good ta go."
Felix retreated with the rest of them, but felt eager to keep on going. The feeling seemed to be near universal; everyone watched with anticipation as Rory began fiddling with the side of one of the posts.
"Hey, Felix!"
He turned, his ears picking up Atar's sharp whisper. Felix doubted the mage was being as quiet as he thought he was, as Atar looked cautiously at the others before motioning for Felix to come closer. Felix sighed and walked over. They had things to discuss, anyway.
Atar retreated to the back area of the open warehouse, where someone had converted it into a sort of lounge-slash-cafeteria set up. Two long tables were laid out along with benches and a few rickety chairs padded with overstuffed cushions. A stove had been built in the corner, a pot-bellied metal one that looked like something from the turn of the 19th century. Felix eyed it curiously and noticed that there were several sigils inscribed along its top and base.
Fascinating. They use magic to cook? I mean, why not? It's useful as hell, I think. He craned his neck and saw a small round panel built into the side of the stove. Is that the control point? Like on a Manaship? I wonder if—
"Felix!"
He turned back toward Atar, who had been calling his name for the last thirty seconds. He grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I get caught up sometimes in—Sorry. What's up?"
Atar's annoyed face relaxed. "Listen, about earlier. I said that I wasn't going to be able to get anyone into the Domain, and I mean it. Not even you. The layers of security the Guild is putting on the thing, not to mention the Inquisition...I don't see how it's possible without an authorization from an Elder."
"And you can't get one? Why not ask your patron, Elder Teine?"
"It-it's not that easy, I'm afraid." Atar sighed and a trace of bitterness flavored his words. "The Elder is quite similar to my Master in that he believes in self-sufficiency. No handouts. He offers great resources to us, but only if we earn them. That usually means following his orders."
"And he ordered you to find the Butcher." Felix said, thinking. "So, if we find the Butcher, does that get us into the Domain?"
"It's possible, I suppose. But, like I said before, I believe the Butcher is hiding in the Domain itself."
"You've brought that up to Teine?" Felix asked. "What'd he say?"
"Of course I haven't!" Atar was aghast. "It's a theory, barely better than wishing for Siva to change my fate. He would shoot down anything without proof."
Felix considered his next words carefully. "I might not have the proof you need, but I saw another victim today."
"What! Where?" Atar's attention sharpened so fast Felix was surprised he wasn't cut. "Why leave this ‘til now? Is it close? We could go now and—"
"No. Guilders and the Inquisition showed up a bit after me." Felix shook his head. "Probably crawling with those redcloaks by now."
"Spirits forbid," Atar cursed. "Why were they there? Can you tell me what you saw?"
"Easily. My Born Trait is all about memory, if you recall."
"Oh right," Atar looked excited. Felix laid it out, describing the scene and the grisly sigils. He recounted the Guild's and Inquisition's arrival, though he left out the ghost stuff.
"He claimed Sorcery had been done there?" Atar asked, rubbing his fingers against his baby smooth chin. Felix doubted he'd grown even a patch of stubble yet.
"That's what he said."
"Strange. Nothing like that has been picked up before." Atar started pacing, and his expensive-seeming black and maroon robes billowed.
"I've heard it thrown around a few times. What exactly does the Inquisition consider Sorcery?" Felix had an idea, but needed to know if it was true. Or if he was missing another aspect of the picture.
"Mm? Oh, as far as I can tell, it's nonsense," Atar said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He kept pacing. "I've heard it described in colorful terms, but mostly as 'dark song' that 'corrupts all it touches' and other such bunk. In Te'thys, we have no Inquisition stepping on our necks. I've never heard of this Sorcery they tout up here."
A song. The Grand Harmony? But no. He used the Grand Harmony to cast that ghost replay spell. I'm not discounting hypocrisy, but if it's not Harmony, then what could it be? A thought flashed through his mind, the memory of a buzzing unpleasantness as he faced against the Maw.
What about its opposite? Not Harmony, but Dissonance.
The power of the Maw.
"And they were similar to the notes?"
Felix was drawn back into the conversation by Atar's question, and he fought to hide his suddenly queasy stomach. "Extremely. Not the same symbols, but the same language definitely."
"And do you...have those notes with you?" Atar asked, hopefully.
"I do. And no, you can't have them back." Felix rolled his eyes, though his left hand carefully clutched at his satchel. "I gave you that book from the Elder Crown, wasn't that enough?"
"Ugh, I wanted that for reference into script writing. It is not my area of expertise. If you're not going to give me your notes, then take it back. You might find it useful." Atar fished the book from his own bag and handed it to Felix. Felix took it and resolved to peruse it later.
"Where'd you get that bag, by the by? It boasts impressive enchantments. Like Harn mentioned, Rank II enchantments are hard to come by out here in the outskirts."
Felix shrugged. "System Quest reward for defeating the Risi."
Deception is level 16!
"You got credit for that? I guess you did your part, true enough." Atar sighed. "I'd like to go see that body, but if the Inquisition has it in their grips, they're not likely to part with it."
"They do seem...confrontational and possessive," Felix agreed.
"You don't know the half of it. Living in the Eyrie means I get to experience the questionable joy of constant conflicts between the Guilders and lower-ranked Inquisitors. Minor stuff, simple arguments and the like. But any chance to put Guilders 'in their place,' they take it." Atar sat in a chair opposite Felix with a definite huff.
"What's their deal?"
"Their 'deal?' They follow their High Laws, mostly to the letter. They're the investigational arm of the Hierocracy. A Master Inquisitor was sent here, you know? Not some nobody. Hand picked by the Grand Inquisitor herself, I've heard."
That meant little to Felix, except that whatever they were doing here was considered important. He said as much.
Atar laughed. "You've probably heard by now. Dispatched when the Foglands stopped being foggy and started producing erratic monster variants. They got here awful quick, though, which means someone tipped them off. The capital is far, far away."
"Who would do that? And why?" Felix asked. They were moving farther afield of his questions, but he hadn't heard this. More information on his pursuers was always good. "What would they benefit from having an obviously zealot organization shut down the entire city?"
"Perhaps they didn't know the Inquisition would shut it down? Or perhaps they didn't care. Hard to tell." Atar leaned forward and pointed to the west. "But what happens when an entire region full of rare raw materials is suddenly made available?"
Felix nodded, recalling their conversations in the Geists' Tower. "Right. There's money to be made."
"And where there's money, there's power. That, at least, we had plenty of in Te'thys."
A sudden shout and flash of prismatic light caught their attention. Felix leaped to his feet and saw Rory standing triumphantly by one of the thicker posts they had carried in. "There we go! Time ta test yerselves!"
Without another word, the wooden posts began to shimmer with Mana vapor before pulling themselves up from the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The posts, chains, and other materials lifted up on streamers of Mana, each one levitating to a preordained spot. The massive five-foot thick by twenty-foot long posts stood up and locked into position, eighteen of them forming squared gates along the entire length of the warehouse.
Slithering into place, chains attached themselves all along the tops, hundreds of them at varying lengths. Carved lines along the beams lit up with a light visible to everyone, though Felix still tracked the grasping tendrils of Mana vapor through his Skill. The vapor crawled among the opened crates, pulling out metallic cylinders and other odds and ends, hoisting them along until they affixed themselves to the ends of chains. On and on it went for almost ten minutes.
The entire time, Felix watched with Manasight as power flowed in a steady stream from Rory into some sort of control node on the original post. Oddly, the amount of Mana being transferred from Rory to the control node seemed rather small, a trickle compared to the river that must have been needed to maintain the setup.
Something else is at play here. Felix bit the inside of his cheek in thought. Perhaps a high-level Skill that reduces the amount of Mana used for this? Or...is it the sigaldry?
Felix let the construction draw him away from his conversation with Atar, the wondrous working doing much the same to everyone. Eyes were wide and glued to the shifting materials. Felix analyzed the pillars, but they were made of a simple lethan wood, a common enough tree he'd seen a thousand times in the Foglands. It was more about the scriptwork than anything else. Those carved lines that curved around sections of the arches appeared to be smooth markings of light, but were actually tight grouping of tiny sigils.
Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 20!
He recognized a few of them, but the nature of sigils was that each symbol had many meanings. The light sigil he'd found under the mountain had meant light, sure, but it also could have meant shining and dazzle. Context and the presence of adjacent sigils changed everything. So the sigil for metal he spied was affected somehow by the two sigils next to it, though he wasn't sure how. His level just wasn't high enough yet, though he figured some formal instruction would do wonders for his knowledge gaps.
Another reason to find Zara, Felix bemoaned. Maybe Caerwin would know, too...
Aside from a few markings in what he'd call the basic script, most of the sigaldry on the rapidly assembling training course were those strange flowing lines of sigils. As Felix paced around the base of a post, he saw the join of an archway marked with larger, more detailed inscriptions. Matched sigils that were pressed tightly against each other as if glued.
"Glyph pairs, lad. That's what they're called."
Rory had come up on him as Felix had inspected the work, and the Nym felt himself jump a little. "Didn't mean to startle ye. I noticed your gaze. Glyph pairs are an old sigaldry trick to attune smaller pieces of a larger whole." Rory slapped the post fondly. "Makes it easier for puttin' em together, not to mention controllin' the whole of the Gauntlet."
Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 21!
Felix's mind widened just a tiny bit more, the information Rory had offered burning new pathways through his brain. Off in the distance, he could hear those faint strings grow louder again as his Skill leveled once more. He focused on Rory's face, still flush with a certain amount of pride as the Dwarf regarded the assembly.
"And the lines? There are so many small inscriptions, and frankly they don't make much sense..."
Rory grinned and shook his head ruefully. "I'm no scriptie, but I've had enough dealings with the art to make a fair guess at things. Those're subordinate sigils, each one altering the last in order to make all this possible. If ye ask me how, though," he laughed. "I'd be guessin'."
Felix's eyes grew distant as the wheels started turning in his mind. The more he learned about sigaldry, the less he realized he understood. It was a magic language that operated like complex code of sorts, and code had never been a strong suit of his. Felix was more of an art and books kinda guy during his formative years. He knew bits about how different languages worked, in a broad sense. Sigaldry felt like those languages back on Earth that had tonal structures, where the timbre could affect the meaning of each word. Or maybe it was more about syllable stresses?
Felix waited to hear that level up sound again, but was out of luck. Maybe I'm just out in left field, or it just wasn't significant enough to level up the Skill.
While he had been batting around ideas, Rory got on with his job.
"This is the Gauntlet! It will be your home for the next two weeks. Thanks to your generous leader and my own ingenuity, the Gauntlet is filled with strengthened obstacles reinforced further by magic. Your task is to move from one end of the course to the other. It doesn't matter if ye get hit, or if ye break something. Ye get through, and ye've made it."
"That's a big 'if,' team!" Cal shouted from nearby. She pointed to the far end, where a golden glyph pair was marked out against the final archway. "However, I feel in a generous mood. The first one to make it to the end in less than five minutes wins claiming rights on any one item in the Domain."
Excited chatter burst out among the adventurers, with Yan and Kelgan the loudest of them all. But even Portia and Trendle stepped closer to the Gauntlet, anticipation clear on their faces. There was some shoving and shuffling, but the Gauntlet was wide enough to let five of them move abreast. Bodie, Yan, Kelgan, Rory, and Trendle had all lined up.
"Begin!"
Felix watched the crew struggle forward, dodging flailing chains, erratically moving metal clubs, and a series of foot-long spikes that shot up out of the ground in patterns fast and thick. None made it to the second arch.
He felt a twinge in him, a need to challenge the course, even when faced with the pain and injury visited upon the others. With an effort, Felix drew away. It wasn't time for that, not yet. First, he needed a solution to one of his direst problems.
Felix walked up to Rory. Mana hung thick in the air, swirling in confusing eddies around the archways as the control node kept drawing more power from the Dwarf. Felix still didn't understand how the inscriptions didn't drain him completely, but assumed it must only take a small amount to maintain.
What happens if that flow is cut? Felix banished the thought as Rory's eyes turned toward him. "Rory, I have a question."
"Hm? Oh, good. I've got a few of my own, lad." Rory gestured for Felix to follow him as he retreated back to the tables and benches. As the adventurers turned and challenged the Gauntlet again, the Dwarf settled himself onto a sturdy bench. The heavy wood creaked alarmingly beneath him, but Rory seemed completely at ease. "Now, we can talk with a little less distraction, aye?"
"Uh, sure." Felix sat across from the Dwarf, the wood groaning only slightly beneath his enhanced weight. "You're a trainer, right? For the Guild?"
"Aye. For a long time now."
"Why are you helping them?" Felix gestured back toward the Gauntlet. "This is a lot of expense to undertake, even for friends."
"Then ye've not had very good friends, hm?" Rory fixed him with a gimlet eye before grimacing. "Can't say as I like the heading the Elders have been on, either."
"How's that?" Felix pressed.
"What's with the questions, lad?" Rory raised a bushy eyebrow and twitched his mustache. "I don't think I like what you seem to be implyin'."
"I'm not implying anything," Felix spread his hands on the table and shrugged. "I'd rather know what I'm getting into, though. Cal says she trusts you. I want that to be enough, but..."
"But ye don't know me. I get it," Rory rumbled and rubbed at his short beard. He pondered something a moment longer before he let his hand fall to the tabletop. "I've been trainin' folk for a long, long time. Longer'n ye or your parents' been alive. I've seen some mesmerizing things in my life, wonders the likes I'll never see again. One of em was named Magda."
