BleedingTears
patreon
Arcanist - Chapter 50
🕑 Added 2025-03-20 07:18:39 +0000 UTC“It’s a bastard of a tunnel, Captain,” the foreman said, scratching at his stubble as he led the way through the scaffolds lining the sides of the entrance, patched with steely parts to keep the hinges in place with men working around them, supported by wooden beams like a patchwork of twisted machinery. “It reeks a bloody stench, too, it sure does.”
Valens peered about the primitive inner workings of the mine as Ned droned on. He had a slurpy way of talking, as though there was something stuck deep in his back teeth, and he was trying to chew it away, sloshing the spit in his mouth round and round, hawking it away now and then to give way to the new wave of saliva with little success.
“A terrible reek,” he gurgled, then hacked a mouthful of phlegm down the ground, wiped it down with the heel of his boot as he trudged on. “Some nasty reek, you can be sure of it. Ain’t no sane man would take a step in that place. Only God's men have the stomach ‘or it, I reckon.”
“I’ve been in the pit of a Dreadmare once,” Garran said as he let the Captain take the burn of the miner’s constant babbling, and settled a step near Valens. “I was there deep in its belly. The fool swallowed me whole and tried to work me round like a rock. That was some nasty business, alright. All the guts and the acid in the mix. Uh… They give us these plates for a reason.”
Valens arched an eyebrow at his golden plates, feeling a little out of place with his coarse coat and uncomfortable shoes. As it was, he seemed to be another miner here for the occasion. He wouldn’t have said no to a bit of that golden glamor.
“Envious, are we?” Garran grinned at him, patting the shoulder plate with a hand. It thumped loudly. “Trust me, even if you had the strength to bear its weight, you wouldn’t want to be stuck inside of it. They tailor-make these for every Templar. Special delivery from our Blessed Father above.”
“A Godly gift? It’s your turn to jest now, then?” Valens didn’t believe a word of it. It was true that the frequencies of the armor had a different touch to it, but otherwise, they seemed to be more heavy in material than in godly favor. Wrap enough steel around a man’s head, even he could take a bullet like it was nothing.
“Still a Magical Artifact,” Garran shrugged, then reached for the nape of his neck with difficulty, managing barely to lift a little cloth patch from inside the plate that carried the letters ‘GR’ on it. “See? It has my initials on it.”
“It was hollow when we found it,” Ned was saying in front. “Odd that it took us barely a week to dig it through. Not much sense in there, Captain, you can be sure of it. The mountain ought to’ve been wrapped that node with layers of quartz.”
“So you’re saying it’d been dug through before you?” Captain Edric muttered thoughtfully. “How long has your lot been working on this mountain?”
“About a year. A year and a half, if you count the before work,” Ned said. “Takes a bloody long time to see if a mountain has the nodes inside. This one took the company months to make sure it’d be worth it for a big operation. I myself delivered the first blow to its rocks. It ain’t never been touched ‘fore that.”
“But somebody has dug a tunnel inside.” Captain Edric looked over his shoulder to Garran. “That means we will have company.”
“What are we thinking, Captain? A Cursed Rift? A little break that the Kingdom hasn’t noticed?”
“Sift,” Dain hissed through the gap of his mouth.
Was that supposed to be a ‘shit’, or ‘rift’?
“If it were a Rift, the dwellers wouldn’t have stayed in the mountain. Not when there’s a thousand miners living this close proximity,” Captain Edric shook his head.
Rift it is.
They continued on through the wooden planks that diverged from the main path of the mine, down a set of narrow stairs, and into the narrower stretches under the ground. Set into the low ceiling were fist-sized lamps that flickered with internal light, casting dancing shadows across the walls with the wind whispering at their backs.
The sight brought a nostalgic feeling to Valens. It was not all too different from the stretches they’d gone through with Nomad, Skeletons and Skeleton Soldiers on their way before they came across a bloodied Celme wheezing by the door of death. Valens pulled her back, then faced her accusations, battled enough bloody wars to make them go away.
Felt like if he were to squint hard enough, he could just about make out a horde of Undead once again with a golden-painted army of humans at the front, facing off the Necromancer’s crowd of animated corpses.
You can’t speak of it. That’s a secret that doesn’t belong to you.
To his thinking, half the reason why the Lightmaster sent Celme and Marcus to his side was to keep that Pact a secret. That meant he had certain things to hide from outside, especially from the Church’s men. Valens still remembered the zest he’d seen in the faces of the guildsmen when the Lightmaster gave that last speech with the Queststone clasped in his hand.
A cult, no doubt. Guess I can risk a few questions.
“Have you ever heard the name Zodros?” Valens asked as he ducked under a wooden beam fixed between the walls, Garran squirming barely through after him with a grunt.
“You mean the Last Son?” he said as he glanced down at his helmet, seeming to be considering whether it was worth it for him to duck and stoop through this path when he could easily break open a way with his plates. Thankfully, he seemed to decide otherwise as he kept the helmet tucked under his armpit.
“I don’t know if he’s the last or the first. Just wanted to hear if you know anything about him,” Valens kept Apathy tight over his mind so as to not give any indication of his suspicions.
“Well, he’s a myth, mostly,” Garran said, scratching his under-chin. “The Blessed Father had seven children, one for each breaking of the world. Seven Saints of the Salvation, we call them. But for some reason, people think there’s another one.”
“Can’t be a bastard son, can he?” Valens asked curiously. “I mean, even a God can have a bastard son, right?”
“I…” Garran glanced up at him. “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”
“You’re a Templar, and you don’t know how your God gave birth to your Saints?”
“I don’t like to think too much about the details,” Garran admitted with a shrug. “I wasn’t the best disciple back in the Brotherhood, either. You want to learn about myths and legends, then you speak to Mas. That dog can recite the holy scripture from memory.”
“I bet he was a bastard,” Valens said, then jumped over a large rock and landed gracefully.
It was often the case with religions. Some lost son or the banished one, who in the end would turn against his Father to become the antagonist. The good needed something or someone to fight for, after all, they couldn’t just live their life thinking everything was sunny and breezy outside.
If that is the case, then what does this mean for the Lightmaster? Is he gathering a cult to go against the Blessed Father?
He would have to speak with Celme to see if she knew she’d be signing for a religious uprising before all of this, or if she had just joined the ride because she didn’t have any other alternatives.
The narrow stretch opened up to a grand cave as Valens pulled his mind away from his musings. The air was thick here, heavy with the ambient mana pressing down his shoulders like a wool blanket. By the side, high up the ceiling, dozens of stones the size of Valens’s fist gleamed with a cacophony of colors.
How many manastones are there?
The number was somewhere around hundreds, easily. There were a bunch of wooden carts strewn around the cave, the clanking of the pickaxes and the roar of machinery coming from the holes toward the side. Set on the ground, the railway was mostly silent, but Valens could feel through the Resonance the tremors of hard work beyond that path. The thrum of their beat was strong, albeit silent when he gazed at his left where there was another maw.
There’s no one there.
He then glanced back at the way they’d come. It looked like a little hole against the gaping maws of the side caves.
“We could’ve used the main caves than to sweat through that stuffy patch,” Valens said, which earned him a strong nod from Garran.
“I know my way round this mine, Healer,” Ned cackled like a broken clock, then turned and jabbed a finger to the side caves. “Men are still working in the depths. The boss said we’re not to disturb ‘em.”
“That was a shortcut,” Captain Edric said with a hand over the sheath dangling from his belt. He squinted toward the wooden carts, then up at the side caves before scowling at the silent one that waited for them on the left. “How long?”
“Ten minutes at most, Captain.” Ned grinned him a yellow-toothed smile. “Five, if you’re to use another shortcut.”
“We’ll take the main path, for this one,” Captain Edric nodded.
“Then I bid you my farewells, Captain. For Blessed Father’s sake, clean that tunnel so that we can continue with our work. There are C-grade manastones there. Jewels worth more dime than us folk have seen in our lives!”
“We’ll try,” Captain said and nudged them forward with a gesture of his chin.
They left a grinning Ned waving a calloused hand at them and trudged off into the dark mouth that swallowed them whole, and spat them into a wide stretch where it looked like it’d been mined to desolation.
It was pitch black across the path, with all of the lambs having long since consumed the manastones cocked inside of them. Without that internal source, they resembled ornaments fit for the basement of a mansion fashioned purposefully as a tribute to the olden times.
Guess this design is not considered old in this world.
Back in the Empire, a light glyph from the Light Magi would’ve been enough to supply a lamp with enough light to last for a month. It would feed itself from the ambient mana, and work on its own until the glyph would demand maintenance. Often the case was a maid would disturb the glyph formula engraved upon the lamp’s surface while cleaning it.
Overqualified workers. That’s what we were.
But here, Magi seemed to be short in supply as Valens barely saw one that could pass as something other than a first-year student. Even the few he’d seen among the Duality Guild’s crowd didn’t have more than a Fireball to show for their talents, which spoke to the quality of this world’s education if there was one.
“Light,” Captain Edric said as they strolled deeper into the maw. A single world, followed by a sharp look over his shoulder to Valens. “Make it low. Don’t forget that’s why you are here.”
Valens scowled at him but obliged as the captain’s gaze further deepened. Tongues of fire came alive over his fingers. He managed the Fireball with what little mana the spell demanded, then raised his hand high to cast enough light for the group to see a few strides ahead.
“That’s better,” Captain Edric nodded slightly.
I could’ve used a Glow, but that would’ve been a waste of my remaining skill slots.
That was another thing to be mindful of. The system’s process of recording the spell formula was too good of a deal to spend on a Glow when there were other options like Inferno in his hand. He was hoping to get more useful spells to his repertoire than simple, utility-focused ones.
A barren sight of deserted wheelbarrows, shovels, and pickaxes cast about the cave in a hurry, welcomed them further ahead. The Templars trudged on like a group of night beasts stalking prey, hardly making a nose, always finding the empty spots on the ground to land their feet.
Valens tried his best to match their talents, but he felt like he was crushing bones under his boots while he tried to keep his mind on Resonance. Strange frequencies came at him. Sets of rhythms that seemed to be cut short in places, and prolonged in others where they whispered a song that oddly resembled a lullaby.
Taking a look at his company, it didn’t seem like the Templars were aware of it. Then again, Valens had yet to see anyone other than himself who could hear the songs of the world in this place.
It’s like a recorded song, replaying it over and over again. But I can’t seem to single out the words. It sure belongs to a woman, one with a rather subtle voice, but what’s the meaning of it, I can’t tell.
For a Resonant Healer, anything could become a song so long it had an unbroken rhythm. The walls and the ground underneath his feet, the sheath dangling from the Templars’ belts, Dain’s long fingers tapping over his right thigh, Garran’s nonchalance through the trudge as though he was out for a stroll.
And the tension stretched tight around Captain’s face.
These are high-level men. Hundreds of magical points poured into the stats. If it even makes Captain nervous, then perhaps it wasn’t very clever of me to poke my nose into their business.
No other choice but to carry on, now. Valens knew he had his work cut out for him with this trial, and it would take more than staying at an old inn and playing the healer for a woman who had most of her memories missing to complete it.
Captain Edric clenched his fingers into a fist and raised it high when the path ended on a hastily barricaded patch with half-broken rocks failing to seal all the holes. A terrible reek escaped from them, oozing through the seams and over to the air, a mixed stench of rotten meat and broken flesh, of bodies gone cold and bad.
The group came to a slow halt, the Templars exchanging signs with their hands rather than using their voices. Valens tried to follow their example and kept his mouth quiet, and mind over the Resonance.
He couldn’t hear the lullaby anymore, echoing softly in the web of his ears. No, it was gone and left behind it a deep silence that sent a shiver down his spine.
Metal cried when the captain drew his sword from the sheath, its smooth surface catching the Fireball’s light. He clutched it tight around the handle and raised it high as though he was preparing to hack at the wall. In its pommel there was a beautiful jewel cocked masterfully to fit the design of the sword. The one that could sense the presence of the shadows.
It was alive. Gleaming with darkish lights that seemed anything but normal.
….
Comments
Denizcan Uçuran T4icho
That was a great catch. I think I did write some lines about that in the first draft, but must've erased them to keep the narrative tight. I'll add them on Saturday, since that's when I'm doing most of my edits!
BlastYoBoots
(Typo— “A single world” instead of “a single word”) Hmm… has Valens experimented with casting a spell and saying “no” to adding it to his spell slots? He was always given a choice before, he just kept breezing through them with outright or implied “Yes”es… I imagine otherwise the potential total limitation on how many spells he might be able to cast *at all* compared to the number he knows might have him nervous until he receives some sort of confirmation that this “System” will keep allowing him to manual cast without a slot…
