B5 Chapter 563: Setting Up the Pieces, pt. 2 |
Preparing to rescue Kanmost was proving to be an annoying affair. Kaius knew that they were far better off than when they’d first started, but he felt like they were running blind. It was a sensation he didn’t enjoy. There were too many interested parties, and it felt like they were only working with the barest scraps.
They’d been stuck into it for hours, starting their prep as soon as they awoke. A large, detailed map of the Dukedoms and its surrounding borderlands took up the vast majority of the dining room of their suite. Books were scattered here and there around it — what few resources they could pull up on the local dangers and high mana zones without heading to the guild.
Kenva huffed, rocking back in her chair as she kicked her legs up onto the table. Half a dozen wine glasses from last night's debrief wobbled precariously, drawing Kaius out of Kanmost’s journal. It seemed he wasn’t the only one with misgivings.
“I seriously, genuinely cannot believe that Lord Flowers is uninvolved in this fiasco,” Kenva muttered.
Kaius grunted in agreement. The man thought himself too slick by half, and it was blindingly clear that the noble had little compunctions about using others for his own benefits. Unfortunately, whoever had Kanmost — Brokenlight, if the corpse hidden in his ring was to be believed — had been hired for the job. It made no sense for Flowers to do that: he already all but owned the man.
“It could have been another noble,” Ianmus pointed out as he set down a guide. “Either some competitor that has agents sniffing around the Duke’s interests, or even someone local — maybe Flowers trusted someone with a bit too much ambition for their own good.”
“Maybe,” Kaius replied. “Though, if Lyren knew enough to set us on the trail, only the gods’ know how many others picked something up.”
“Does it matter? There’s only so much daylight before we meet with Guilewind, and it’s not like knowing who’s behind it all will help us rescue the Archivist.”
A fair point. They were lucky that the Guildmaster had even been free — Kaius desperately wanted his advice on how to manage the fallout with Flowers. He might not regret their actions the night before, but he’d much prefer if they could return to Baanswell after saving Ianmus’s friend. Kanmost was still his best ticket to finding more about his family.
So far, the book had been almost entirely useless; endless entries of what the Archivist had for breakfast, or a note on correspondence he had swapped with other researchers throughout the Dukedoms and Mystral, or how particularly flattering Librarian Ansenia had looked with her new haircut. He didn’t need to know any of that — it felt like a massive intrusion of the man’s privacy.
But there had to be a reason the man had kept the journal locked away with the others. Maybe he’d find something towards the end — he was damn sure that this was the earliest volume. Not only had it been on the bottom of the stack, left behind when Kenva had interrupted the rogue who’d snatched the others, all of the dates lined up to before the phase change.
He kept reading.
Half an hour later, he paused at a passage. Penned in the third month of the very same year that Kaius had fallen into the Great Depths.
‘3rd Drydas, 1733, Age of Dawn
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an interesting commonality in some Dark Age myths within the fertile basin region. I decided against noting it down at the time, in case it was mere circumstance, but my evenings of idle distraction have borne surprising fruit.
As with all matters of hylistics, mythology, and oral history, the details are varied and warped to fit specific cultural narratives and localities. However, there is some surprising consistency — enough that I am confident it may truly be a valuable object of research.
A wellspring of Power, hidden beneath the earth, guarded by either a spirit, monstrous creature, or demon. Most reference some sort of fortress that requires a specific key to gain access, though that may be partially metaphorical, as just as many reference using mystic ritual to bypass magical barriers.
I’m almost certain that the origin of the story is pre-system. The earliest variations and fragments I have been able to discover are from a bare few centuries after the Shattering, and even then there was a significant degree of divergence already present. If there is a true root, this may well be a genuine Place of Power.
Regardless, I think I will be pursuing this with much interest. With a bit more work, it would be easy to gain the funding from our local hegemons to turn this into a proper project.
For now, I shall refer to it as the Wellspring of Ceth’n. Most attributed its powers to a god of wisdom and insight, though I have only murky ideas of any potential real-world effects of the Place of Power. Only the gods know what sort of impacts the System would have had.
Finally! Any more descriptions of tea and Kaius would have gone mad. He hoped there would be more. Ideally, something that could corroborate what they’d overheard in the rogue’s hideout the night before.
He kept reading — and found what he was looking for right in the final entries of the journal, three months after the first. It was short, but to the point, and held everything Kaius needed.
‘17th Mournlight, 1733, Age of Dawn.
The Wellspring of Ceth’n is real, I’m certain of it.
I’ve been able to narrow down a preliminary region, but anything further will be the work of years, and require significant funds to purchase additional materials that I’ve located in a number of private collections.
It’s somewhere between Tennereth and Marlsburg in the neighbouring kingdom of Franlen. Definitely east of Misna Lake, too. A rather large area, some of which is regrettably outside of our sovereign territory, but most is within the dominion of the House of Flowers.
I’ve already penned my request for funding to the ducal palace — with any luck, there will be a fair few levels in this for me yet.
So the Archivist had been motivated by Experience, not just curiosity or wealth. Interesting — but more importantly, they had something usable.
Snapping the journal shut, Kaius snatched up a stray pen from the table and leaned over the map. A few weeks' journey east of them, Ianmus had marked off a swathe of wildland known as the Vainblood Forest — the location of the Midnight Crater.
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Kaius skipped past it. Starting from Tennereth, a small city only a few days to the north-east of Baanswell, he drew a circle. Its left most edge skirted Lake Misna, half the way into the Dukedom heartlands, while its eastern peak cut through the border to Franlen — right through the high-mana zone that acted as a natural barrier between the nations. Its rightmost edge sliced through unclaimed borderlands.
Kaius stared at the circle. It was an immense chunk of land — months of travel, even with the Pegleg. Within its boundaries, Kaius could count seven different high-mana zones, though only three were of any significant size.
One of those was the Vainblood woods.
Surprisingly, other than a thin sliver within the Franlen Kingdom, and a chunk within the northeastern quadrant that sat in the neighbouring duchy, most of the circle sat solidly within the Duke of Flower’s domain. Though, the man did control a full eleventh of the country in a neat radial segment that punched towards the capital at the Dukedom’s centre.
Ianmus put down his own book, looking at the circle with curiosity.
“What’s this?”
“Kanmost’s initial guess to the location of the Wellspring of Ceth’n. Even two years ago he was certain of its existence,” Kaius murmured.
“Another point for the Vainblood Forest, then.”
Kenva took her feet off the table to join them. “Strange, I thought they might have been keeping him in the high-mana zone to throw off pursuit. If they’ve already narrowed down the location of the Wellspring, what do they need the journals for?”
“Maybe they just wanted to cut off any method of being followed — later volumes might mention the exact location,” Porkchop suggested.
Kaius shook his head. If they’d wanted to do that, they would have burnt the Journals — not taken the risk of ferrying them to their location. “Can’t be, they need them for something. One of Kanmost’s earlier entries mentioned that a lot of the myths mention a guardian and a key — maybe there’s some sort of ritual that Kanmost wrote down?”
To his surprise, Kenva sighed in relief. “Thank the gods — if they still need Kanmost’s expertise to gain access to the Wellspring, then the chances he’s alive just got much better.”
She was right — though he didn’t like to consider the fact that Ianmus’s friend might well already be dead. Regardless, their location was set, but there were more preparations to make. Making the journey to Vainblood Forest and back would take more than a month, and they’d need a decent excuse for the journey not to arouse Flowers’ suspicions.
He could only hope that Guilewind would have a few missions for them that lay in that direction. Preferably something that would make them a little stronger before they threw themselves headfirst into a Gold operative of the Onyx.
…
Guilewind put his head in his hands, elbows propped on his desk as he massaged his brow.
“Let me get this straight,” the Guildmaster groaned. “I ask you to avoid creating any political disasters, and you took this to mean that you should disobey a direct request from the Duke’s son, break into a secure crime scene, blow said house up, and then assault a hideout of rogues working in direct opposition to the Duke?”
Kaius had the good sense not to say a damned word.
“He makes it sound like we’re moronic fools when he says it like that,” Porkchop grumbled silently.
“Porkchop. We are moronic fools. We’re just good at it,” Kenva shot back.
“You never know — we could just be on some obscenely unlikely streak of good luck,” Ianmus said.
“You’re not the one who took an axe to the chest,” Kaius replied, keeping his face as straight as he possibly could.
“Nigh-fatal wounds have become somewhat mundane with you and Porkchop around,” Ianmus pointed out.
He hated that the mage had a point. Bastard.
“At least you have the political sense not to dig your own graves,” Guilewind muttered at their continued silence.
“We couldn’t just sit around and do nothing — we had a credible lead, and it brought results.”
The guild master waved him off, before he spun in his chair to stare through the bay windows behind him. They gave a perfect view of the towering tree that dominated the Workingman’s Plaza.
“I know. It’s why I'm not throwing the nearest paperweight at your forehead,” the Guildmaster grumbled. “That it was the right move makes it no less of a headache. At the very least, you left the guards uninjured.”
“Please, we’re not brutes,” Kenva replied, frowning at the thought of it.
Guilewind didn’t reply, electing to drum his fingers on his handrest. The man’s claw-like nails clacked rhythmically — the wood dimpled from thousands of older impacts. Eventually, he finished pondering and spun back to them.
“Your rescue plan is sound enough — the four of you have enough Honours that I do not worry for your safety in facing potential Golds. However at this point you need to strongly consider the ancillaries. It might be prudent if you loop in Flowers to what you have learned.”
Kaius stared at the man in disbelief, a deep frown furrowing his brow. Julian Flowers was an unrepentant asshole, and the man had made it crystal clear that he would make things difficult for them if they intruded — and they’d done much more than that.
Guilewind held up a grey-green hand before Kaius could voice his protests. “Let me lay out my reasoning. Regardless of what happens, when you return — with or without Kanmost — your involvement in this matter will be plain as day, and you will bear the full brunt of a Duke’s suspicions and displeasure. The man has enough of both to fill every bank vault from here to Wight’s End.”
“And how would sharing our plans help with that? It’s obvious that Flowers would simply move to block our pursuit — I don’t trust him or his men with prioritising Kanmost’s safety,” Kaius replied.
“Nor do I,” Guilewind said. “However, if Flowers were to receive a missive after you have left, he can’t forbid you from moving to rescue the Archivist, and if you return successful with the knowledge he so desires in hand, it will be almost impossible for him to claim that you are attempting to jump his claim to this ‘Wellspring’. It won’t make him friendly, and the man will be plenty annoyed that he does not have exclusive knowledge of the Place of Power, but it should be enough to shield you from open reprisal.”
Kaius hesitated — it sounded like the Guildmaster was making a lot of assumptions. But the man was the head of Baanswell’s branch. If anyone had experience managing the local nobility, it would be him.
“What do you think?” he said silently to his team, shooting them a questioning look.
“I don’t like it. What if he decides to fight us anyway? We’re just giving him a golden set up for an ambush,” Porkchop said.
“I do see the reasoning,” Ianmus added. “Besides, our ultimate goal is Kanmost, not the Wellspring itself. We’re not exactly competing with Flowers for control.”
“If we save Kanmost, why shouldn’t we use it?” Kenva said. “It’s a Place of Power, not an artefact or Natural Treasure. We could benefit, save the Archivist, and hand over the location of the Wellspring afterwards. Flowers could turn the place into a grainfield after that for all it would affect us.”
Kenva had a point, but it still didn’t sit right with him that the Duke and his son intended to monopolise the place. Far better it benefited as many people as possible, especially with the ongoing dangers of the Integration.
But was that worth open conflict with a ducal house? Perhaps not.
He met Guilewind’s eyes and nodded. “We’ll do it — if you’re willing to help, that is.”
The Guildmaster smiled, his jagged fangs on full display.
“Perfect, then let us discuss the missions I have found for the three of you.”