B5 Interlude 30: Mystral |
Rieker frowned, watching a pearlescent green beetle wander its way up a wall of moss. Starting from the base, it clambered around a wide bench, over a few sprouting shoots, and came to a slow halt by a window that somehow seemed like a naturally occurring glob of amber. Despite the yellow tint, the damn thing was clearer than the windows of his study back in Deadacre’s guildhall.
He shifted in his seat, feeling the grooves of bark that had been polished smooth from heavy use. That itch… was it an ant? It might be.
Clenching his fist, he withstood the urge to jump to his feet and swat at his trousers. He was a damned Guildmaster — forced sabbatical or no!
He forced himself to look out the window; it was less maddening than the living treatment room. At least they didn’t want him on the bed, this time. No matter what Madrigal said, he refused to believe that fungus could be sanitary. Even if it did look almost normal — and was that comfortable.
Tinted in hues of gold, he saw the city sprawling out beneath him. A messy sprawl, almost like any other city — if not for the preponderance of spindly arches, looming angles, and too-long, too-thin bridges that crisscrossed the upper levels of the city like a spiderweb.
Halfway to the gleaming ocean and bustling docks, Rieker settled on a thin, rectangular building that sparkled despite being in the shadow of a towering column of charcoal and basalt that gently smoked in the breeze. The architect had built it as an inverted L — an absurd affront to any normal sensibility. The thing looked like it would tip over if he sneezed at it wrong.
Damn mages had ruined this city.
Huffing, Rieker felt an ache radiate through the entirety of his being. It was everywhere, all at once, welling from a source that went deeper than his marrow. As it always did, it was joined by that damned crushing weight. Foreign violence, still trying to crush his spine despite the death of its master.
Gritting his teeth, he looked for a distraction. The feeling would pass — and they were less frequent and painful with every session. Only minutely, but he’d long grown intimate with the pain. It couldn’t break him.
Even Oceanspire wasn’t so bad. It, at least, was built of sturdy black stone. A keep, rising from the middle of the harbour, with a sprawling artificial reef growing from its foundations. He could see movement through the shallow water — luminescent pinks and oranges that flashed in and out of hidden grottos. There was no spit or bridge to connect it with the rest of the city — though he knew there were a few boats for the water-aligned mages who weren’t powerful enough to make the trip without getting soaked.
Rieker scratched at his beard. There was a beauty to this place, though it was an absurd one. The City of a Thousand Spires, founded on a millennia of megalomaniacs trying to one up each other. Supposedly some of the academies outside the city were a bit more normal, but he’d believe it when he saw it.
I mean honestly, who grew a hospital? Life mages, that’s who.
“Rieker,” Madrigal said, walking through the door.
He caught sight of a few apprentices standing silently in the heartwood halls behind her. Two of them were staring. He ignored them.
“Any change since we last met?” the Silver life mage said, pulling up a low stool to sit in front of him.
“No, no change.”
Still the same slight improvements, and he hadn’t had a flare up in more than a month.
Madrigal nodded, pulling back her dark green robes to free her hands. “Good. We still know so little about essence, and the injuries it leaves behind. Most of what remains is crystallised — caught in the scarred fractures of your soul. It's...unclear which symptoms are due to that damage, and which are due to the essence”
He didn’t really see why that mattered to him. It wasn’t like they had an elven soul mage kicking around, so this was his only option.
“I did have some good news,” Madrigal said. “I’ve managed to rope a few more promising junior mages into this research. Four of them. Three are on their way to completing there aspects — the last is a bit interesting. He’s been stuck on Animus, but has made some headway with embodiment.”
Rieker raised his brow. That was impressive — though he’d always known that others would eventually start to trod the path that the kids were blazing forward.
“Think they’ll be able to help?”
“I hope so,” Madrigal said. “With how intimately tied essence is to this ‘path’ that you’ve explained, I'm hoping that observing how the process changes them from within might shed a bit of light on the matter. The reality is that you are regrettably likely to be the first patient of many, and anything we learn now might save lives later. Plus, who knows, we might be able to knock a few years off your recovery time table.”
Thank the gods. Mystral was fine enough, but he ached to feel the burn of stamina, and the ceaseless might of his body in motion. It was bad enough that he couldn’t use his Class Skills, but every time he really pushed himself it felt like he was driving an icepick into his soul. He was going to get fat.
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He grinned at the mage, a gesture she returned.
“Ready to start?” she asked, a soft golden glow emanating from her hands.
“Let’s just get it over with,”
…
Rieker let out a small smile as he opened the front gate to his home. Good, grey, rough cast stone, with wooden window frames that had been painted a sky blue, and a small front courtyard ringed in by neck-height bushes. Two stories, not fourteen. No internal waterfall. No sculpted off-green limestone that seeped out strangely coloured fluids.
Just a house.
It had been bloody hard to find. Even then, it was impossible to avoid the shadow of Lifespire’s braided trunk looming over them.
“Ro?” he yelled into the entry hall as he opened the door.
“In here!” her voice echoed from the back of the house. The dining room, by the sounds of it.
He made his way there, passing the floating staircase jutting out from the wall that led up to the bedroom and study — even if it was just a house, it still had a few oddities. Crossing through the lounge, he made his way through the kitchen — only to blink when he saw another man sitting at his table. He was sitting across from Ro, a glass of alchemical brandy in front of
He was absurdly large — as tall as Kaius, but even thicker. Tattoos covered his deep brown skin, swirling patterns that stretched from his wrists and swept over his bare shoulders to disappear under his cut off tunic. Three more lines cut through his left brow, stopping just beneath his orbits.
A coastfarer, then — one of the eastern Hiwiann.
The man stood immediately, approaching with a wide smile. “The Wardog himself!” the man said, stretching out a hand. “Temeru, of clan Kowhan. Drorome was just telling me that you would be returning soon — thank you for your hospitality.”
“Of course,” Rieker replied, waving to the table. Temeru smiled and nodded, before he moved back to his seat.
As soon as the man’s back was turned, he gave his wife a questioning look. No doubt Temeru was an old clan connection — he was long used to them turning up unannounced whenever they happened to be in the same city. Still, they hadn’t been in Mystral long — it usually took a good six months or more for news to circulate through the caravan routes.
Her hand blurred, flashing him one of their old handsigns under the table.
News.
That got his attention. He slipped to the liquor cabinet, and poured his own drink before he sat next to his partner.
“Temeru docked yesterday — sailed from some of the coastal islands to the south.”
“And a grand journey it was! The sea was kind, and we had a tail wind the whole time. Imagine my surprise when the docksmen whispered of the Quiet being in town!” the man beamed jovially.
Ro cracked a half smile. “Temeru, we met before either of us had a Class — stop using my title.”
“Ah, but it has been more than fifty years since — and you are Gold, while I am lowly Steel,” Temeru, dipping his head in faux shame.
Rieker took a drink. Even without Ro’s handsign, he would have known that simple pleasantries weren’t the reason for the visit — and he’d also known that any real ‘business’ wouldn’t occur for a while yet. Damn clan hospitality customs.
For the next twenty minutes, Ro and Temeru swapped stories — their life in Deadacre, and the coastfarer’s experiences moving reagents between the foothills of the Drozag’s, the coastal islands, and Mystral.
Eventually, both Ro and Temeru finished their drinks. Rieker had finished his ten minutes before, but he knew that if he went for a refill it would only extend the small talk. As soon as Temeru’s empty glass touched the table, his entire demeanour changed. The jovial smile was gone, and the man’s eyes went hard.
“I have news…from Razhgot, and further afield from the Heartlands,” Temeru said.
Razhgot? That was one of the few open-air stoneholds — on the coast, where they could profit from acting as a door to oceanic trade. What could be affecting them and the Altier Steppe?
A thump of pain swept through his soul — he hoped he was wrong.
Ro hissed, “How bad is it?”
“Hard to tell,” Temeru said, before nodding at Rieker. “Word of your exploits and the trials that Deadacre faced have spread far, and spread fast. A few of my dwarven contacts let slip that similar creatures have been found in the deep too.”
“They’ve faced Tyrants?” Rieker asked.
“They’ve slain five.”
Rieker stood up and walked straight to the liquor cabinet to grab the whole damned bottle of brandy. Five. He slumped back into his chair.
“Gods’ blood,” he whispered. Some part of him had been holding out hope that the creatures were rare. “How can that be anything but bad news?”
“Most were surprised at the news of one being found in the central regions — apparently only their most stalwart deepwalkers have found them, far into the dark, where horrors are common anyway. Plus, there was some confusion about if they were the same thing — though their tales of heroes waylaid with stubborn injuries sounded a little too like your own. Only one headed a horde of lessers.”
Rieker took a long drink. That was… it was something, he supposed.
“And the steppe?” Ro asked, snatching the bottle from him to refil her own glass. She slid it back to him after.
“Nothing so concrete, I fear. Just rumours of a powerful creature appearing in the Bladescar ravines. Mataro of Kare, master of the route from Hargthos, told me the elders there are preparing to strike on the beast.”
Rieker paled, while his wife swore. The elders were moving — from one of the temple-cities, no less? That would only happen for a genuine, very real threat to the greater clans. It had happened only thrice in his lifetime. An elder wyvern, a goblin invasion, and a nameless horror — all hailing from the Drozag mountains.
But the Bladescar was far from that border, and even if it had once been a high mana zone, it was a lesser beast compared to the range that held Wight’s End and the stoneholds. Nothing could have migrated that far across the steppe without a sighting.
It sure sounded like a Tyrant to him. Hells.