Draith
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Chapter 53 - Relative Scholars
🕑 Added 2025-03-24 14:00:13 +0000 UTCIt wasn't long after that we reached the top of the upper canopy. We'd gotten lucky with our choice of tree, though from the way Bevel moved through the trees, I suspected it hadn't just been luck. Bevel had easily won our race, and was a good twenty feet higher than me besides, perched on a far too thin branch as I looked out over the vale.
And I was reasonably certain it was Mistvale, thanks to the aforementioned mist and Mount Aeternia looming over us in the morning sunlight.
"Looks like Popper is out," Bevel said, pointing to the west, her other hand wrapped around the thin trunk.
"Popper?" I wondered, my gaze following her outstretched arm. Even without Eagle Eyes, I would've been able to spot the massive t-rex-like lizard charging through the trees near the lake.
Its colorful scales didn't lend it much stealth, but given that I could faintly make out its footsteps from miles away, that wasn't really a concern in the first place. It crossed half the lake's length before I spotted its prey, a dull gray dinosaur half its height, reminding me of a triceratops without the horns. The smaller dinosaur was weaving between the trees with surprising dexterity, considering its bulk. Unfortunately, it was losing ground with every step.
Less than a dozen steps later, the not-quite-a-t-rex caught its prey.
They thundered to the ground, yet that wasn't the end of the fight. Stone shards shot upward from the smaller dinosaur as it rolled itself into a ball. After the change, it resembled a heavily studded tire more than a multi-ton lizard.
Unfortunately for the smaller dino, the shards failed to do more than draw shallow cuts on the rex. The fight wasn't quick, it wasn't pretty, and less than a minute later, the rex crushed the gray dino's head, causing it to explode like an overripe watermelon. Tilting its head back, the rex celebrated its victory by letting out a roar that, even from several miles away, set the tree we were in to shaking.
"Popper," Bevel said, sliding down the tree to just a couple feet above my head. "Cause he likes to pop his food."
I nodded, not commenting. It was hard to be certain of the strength of either participant, but I knew that neither of the dinos were weak. Far stronger than should've been possible, so far from the thick mana closer to the center of the continent. Then again, they could be interlopers, having grown strong then moved outwards. Perth had been told that happened more often in the parts of the continent that were less populated.
Either way, I knew we'd be hunting Popper before too long. Even if the vale hadn't been key to my domain's future, the threat the rex posed was too great to ignore.
A threat I'd have to deal with later. Preferably with a plan and enough magic or explosives to render it a non-issue.
"Let's get back," I said, sliding down the tree one branch at a time.
When we got to the forest floor, Bevel remained in the tree, swinging by one hand as she broke the silence. "Popper doesn't like the deep forest. Something here scares her."
"Hopefully it's the wards," I said, though I wasn't foolish enough to put any trust in it. It sounded like there was another threat in the deep woods we'd have to flush out. Still, it might be the wards. Even wards could be dangerous if we didn't have the right spellkey or keystone.
Bevel shrugged before dropping out of the tree and moving up to the doorway. Once more, I studied how she used the keystone to activate it. And once more, my gut got twisted into knots by the teleportation effect.
We made our way around the crystal chamber, though this time I delayed Bevel as I studied the runes. It turned into an impromptu lesson as I explained each sequence of runes I was examining. Most of the runes were ones I understood, though the underlying coordinate system was unfamiliar. Still, I had three reference points to work off of, between the village, the vale and the broken doorway to the ocean. I was pretty sure that meant I could triangulate other coordinates, though I'd be leaning heavily on Inertia and Calbern.
Perth's education hadn't included deciphering coordinates, and I hadn't even made it to grade eight math. It was possible there was something in my Memory Palace that would help, but if so, I didn't know what.
After nearly four hours of study, Bevel's stomach grumbled, and I called our lesson off in favor of lunch. This time, when we approached the doorway, I was the one holding the keystone.
When I sent my mana into the doorway, I was surprised by the interface that popped up. I didn't understand the words, though it felt surprisingly similar to video games from Earth. Following Bevel's instructions, I highlighted her and mumbled what I was pretty sure was an accept command.
Then we were through. There was no stomach twisting sensation as we were deposited back in the cramped corridor we'd snuck down when we left.
"Weird," Bevel said, rubbing a hand on her stomach. "That was… smooth?"
"You sound confused," I said, shimmying to the end of the corridor.
"Cause it's broken," Bevel said, holding her hand toward the doorway again, then disappearing. She reappeared a few seconds later, leaning against the wall for support.
"You okay, kid?" I asked, prepared to move back inside, though honestly hoping I wouldn't have to.
"Yeah. It's normal now," Bevel said, leaning her head against the stone wall.
Chuckling we left the passage, only for Calbern to appear seconds after I exited from the rough wooden door.
"Master Perth, there you are," Calbern said, letting out a long sigh. "It is good that you're safe."
"I was showing him the Ways Between," Bevel whispered, looking past Calbern to the other villagers, who were well out of earshot.
"The Ways Between?" Calbern asked, glancing in my direction.
I mostly left the explanation to Bevel, though I did chime in when she started exaggerating what we'd seen Popper do.
"But she can split the ground with a stomp. I saw her do it when she was fighting the giant rat!" Bevel protested, holding her arms wide. "Just opened up and swallowed it whole. Popper must've been scared."
It wasn't the most unbelievable thing I'd heard that day, so I didn't discount the possibility. "Might be Popper can split the earth. But she didn't do that today."
"She might've," Bevel grumbled before resuming her story. She even spent a few minutes talking about the runes we'd reviewed, telling Calbern about their functions.
Which neatly led into me asking Calbern for help with deciphering the coordinate system. After explaining the basics, he requested time to think about it, and seconded my suggestion to ask Inertia as well. Bevel was kind enough to grant us continued access, though only if she was there to make sure we didn't mess with anything.
So, for the second time that day, I found myself approaching the remains of Fang, where Inertia was still fiddling with a half-dead Forgeheart.
Amazingly, it hadn't exploded once since we left.
As I stood next to her, I couldn't help but hope it would stay that way.
Fang didn't explode again.
After running through the details with Inertia, we returned to the chamber. Working together with Inertia and Calbern, it only took us an hour to get a rough understanding of the coordinate system.
"Inertia is certain Mount Aeternia is the center point," Tresla translated, her smoke rings changing shape to show a rough outline of my domain. A few glowing embers showed the doorway locations, and a bigger one showed Mount Aeternia.
I nodded, since that matched up with what we'd figured so far.
"It is our supposition that this chamber lies within the mountain, master Perth," Calbern said. "Though, considering its general condition, proper exploration will require a great deal of excavation and renovation."
"Which we'll get to," I said, looking up at the dimly pulsing crystal in the center. "If there's a way to get in and out without the keystones, we'll need to know about it."
"Indeed. Which raises another concern, master Perth," Calbern said, gesturing to each of us. "There are five of us who know of this inner sanctum. Your villagers will discover its nature within short order, should we put it to use. Should we put measures in place to guard the truth of the matter?"
After a short burst of whistling from Inertia, Tresla said, "Inertia thinks it'd be best to repair the exterior, and use it as your primary residence. Then you can simply explain away everything as magic."
"Would also be making use of a neglected part of Tetherfall, instead of kicking anyone out," I said, turning away from the crystal to look down at Bevel. "Plus, it'd make it easier for you to come home whenever you want."
Bevel perked up at that. She'd remained silent for most of our discussion, only asking the occasional question about some of the math they'd been using. Questions that confused me, since I wasn’t really able to follow along. "You mean you're not kicking me out?"
"Nope," I said, reaching over and ruffling her hair. "You were here first. I’d like to install some walls and doors to keep people from poking their heads where they shouldn’t. Might need to work around you to get into that blocked off hall at some point too. This is an important space, but we don’t want to take your part. How’s that sound to you?"
“Hmm,” Bevel said, tapping her chin. “Okay. But no going in my room unless me or Mr Kandle are keeping an eye on you."
"Deal," I said, offering her my hand.
Bevel only hesitated for a second before sticking her hand out and shaking heartily. Then she released it and I turned to the others. "I imagine Inertia wants to continue working on repairing Fang? She can use whatever she needs to do so from Tetherfall's stores."
Inertia nodded, her armored eyes gleaming in the dim light as she whistled towards Tresla.
"Inertia agrees, and asks that you assign a pair of villagers to retrieve supplies for her. Preferably literate ones," Tresla said, her hood fixed in Inertia's directions as she asked. "You're sure?"
Inertia nodded again, adding another hiss and several whistles.
"Guess Inertia wants me to help with the cleanup," Tresla said, tugging at the hood of her cloak. "Which means the literacy is pretty important."
"Calbern?" I asked, knowing he'd have a better idea of the village's literate people. Especially since I hadn't even considered that it might be a problem. I'd assumed Bevel's illiteracy was a result of basically raising herself, not a widespread issue.
"That may be challenging, master Perth," Calbern said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "I do not believe either Selvi or Tanis are proficient with anything but the simplest written form of Elinder, and they are relative scholars compared to most."
"I can do it," Bevel said, standing up.
I glanced towards Calbern, an eye raised.
"The young lady's mastery of the tongue is improving by the day. I'm not certain its sufficient for Inertia's needs. Perhaps a different-"
A loud whistle-hiss from Inertia cut off Calbern's words.
"Inertia accepts Bevel's offer, though she requests two additional helpers for the heavy lifting," Tresla said after listening to Inertia's followup whistling.
Bevel clapped her hands and Calbern inclined his head slightly, so I simply nodded. Calbern left with them, leaving Tresla and I to start on the cleanup. Though first I wanted to chart out as many of the doors as possible.
We ended up multitasking, stacking the worst of the rubble on the walkways to the side while recording the coordinates written on each doorway. I also shaped some of the stone back into place, restoring any major damage. It wasn’t pretty, but it made it less likely for us to trip.
“This seems backward,” Tresla said as she jotted down the coordinates of the rings closer to the center.
“What’s that?” I asked as I restored one of the bridges, one brick at a time, slowly widening it from a single arch of stone.
“These rings are farther away, I think,” Tresla said, glancing between her notes and the gate in front of her. “Here, look.”
I read over her notes, as well as checking her discovery. It looked right to me, though it was impossible to say for certain. They all used several digits that hadn't been included in our initial sample, but just the fact that the middle ring had two extra digits in what we were pretty sure was the distance part of the equation, and that the inner ring had five, implied there was something other than their placement in different rings that set them apart.
Most of the outer ring was set in a rough circle around Mount Aeternia, though there were a couple exceptions along the side closer to the ocean.
To my surprise, Tresla seemed as excited to be poking around an ancient ruin as I was.
We were stacking stone right beneath the crystal, on one of the two walkways that led to the ledge that ran around it, when Tresla said, "You know, this is what I'd always imagined I'd be doing when I signed up as Inertia's voice."
"Stacking stone?" I asked, grunting as I set down the large rock I'd been carrying.
"Exploring ancient ruins, fighting monsters and just… having adventures," Tresla said, holding her hand up to hover a few inches away from the crystal. Neither of us had touched it yet, because touching unknown magical devices was generally a bad idea.
I stood still as I watched her hand, but slowly she retracted it.
"I thought that's what you've been doing?"
"Inertia has," Tresla said, the musical notes of her voice slightly discordant.
"Have you talked to her about it?" I asked as I picked up a much smaller piece of broken rock to put in the pile.
"It's not something she can change. At least, not easily. The Stone Pact requires her to keep me safe. It's a sign of how much trust we have in you that she feels confident leaving me with you. We must both believe the terms are upheld for the Stone Pact to hold true," Tresla said, not moving to pick up anymore rubble, staring at the crystal instead.
I set down the stone I was carrying, joining her in her inspection of the crystal. "Can't you change the pact?"
Tresla's musical laughter was my only answer as she shook her hood.
"Gonna take that as a no."
"Changing the pact would require returning to Hellbrand Spire," Tresla said, turning away from the crystal to take a seat on the stone we'd been stacking.
"Ah. I can see how that would be inconvenient," I said, moving to take a seat beside her.
"Little bit, yeah. I couldn’t even make the trip without an airship," Tresla agreed, a soft chuckle coming from under her hood. "Though maybe one of these doorways will take us there. Who knows how far these Ways Between stretch."
"That'd be impressive," I agreed, leaning back as I dreamed about the possibilities the chamber might present.
As I did, I bumped my head against the crystal. Tresla said something, but I didn't register her words.
Instead, I was distracted by the red sigils blazing in front of me.
Comments
Noah
He really needs to start a school as soon as possible. For the kids at least.
Noah
Sounds like he’ll have a quick pass to his sister’s land!
denver boyer
You fool. Watch where you lean dumbass.
Jason Hardman
New system interface? LitRPG strikes again 😁
