Aether Engineering

Chapter 37

Hydrabridge

The Voidlands North of Maston

When the caravan reached the gates, the soldiers who had been traveling with it turned to follow the wall around to Rufus’ camp. Silas had figured that this would be the case, there wouldn’t be much point to their mission if his men could so easily get into Hydrabridge.

Silas was subtly on the lookout for Lenas and the two soldiers who had been with him. They had gotten an up-close look at their whole group. That was a serious problem. If any of them happened to cross paths, they would be found out.

Silas took a calming breath. The gate guards had finished managing the paperwork, and the gates were being pushed open.

As Silas stepped through, he was awed by the sight. Chasms cut through the ground every dozen feet. In most of these, Silas couldn’t see a bottom. Wooden bridges crossed the numerous gaps in the stone, lined up, they formed nine distinct paths around the town.

There wasn’t a single plant to be seen within the walls. There was nothing but rough gray stone. Most of the houses were made of wood. The ones on the surface were well put together, but Silas could make out much shoddier lodgings positioned on ramps down to the depths of the chasms below.

The storm had clearly hit the town hard. Stone was still soaked in most places with many puddles forming where the stone had a depression. The result was a very slick surface. One of the new workers that came in with them cursed as he lost his footing and almost slipped right into one of the chasms. Thankfully he was able to regain his footing, but it was more than enough reminder to watch your step.

Outside of the slick stone, it looked like the storm had brought down one of the bridges. Carpenters milled around it even this deep in the evening. Silas even saw a priest of Deprios helping out. A red band around his arm showed the priest was an arcaner. Perhaps he had some technique that would help with the reconstruction.

The caravan was led to a truly massive building made of the same strange wood as the walls. Silas guessed it was where the ore was stored. A truly massive man came out of the building’s front door. The man wore armor covered in runes. Two bands circled his right arm. One was red, the other was blue and covered in stars.

“I am Wald Matrick, baron of Hydrabridge, and commander of her defenses.” Baron Matrick walked around the group of eight new workers. The others from the caravan went about stabling the horses and starting to unload the wagons.

Silas couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. He knew that Wald would be a formidable arcaner, one they would be fools to get into a fight with. Like all the dukes of Hydrabridge, Wald Matrick was a commoner who had made his way up through the military, earning enough achievements to warrant being made a noble and being put in charge of one of the province’s most important mines.

“Now that you are here in Hydrabridge,” Silas flinched back on instinct. The commander’s voice was as deep as it was fierce, “You will be protected. I personally guarantee your safety for as long as you remain within these walls.”

Silas could hear breaths of relief coming from several of the men behind them. It seemed Paulo had been right. These men had been desperate. A promise of safety likely sounded like an invitation to stay in Deprios’ citadel.

Baron Matrick pointed toward the chasm behind them. “In exchange for safety, we demand devotion to your work. Work that helps guarantee your own safety as well as the safety of many in the province.”

The group of workers was sent staggering off into the dark, following a soldier who held a torch that she lit with a burst of evoked fire mana. It seemed the Baron hadn’t been joking about devotion. Even in the dark of night, Silas heard the distinct sound of picks breaking through stone.

At first, Silas hoped the soldier would be leading them into the depths to start a mining shift of their own. Unfortunately, that was not to be. She headed down a ramp, but Silas could easily tell they were heading towards an area filled with large wooden buildings. A likely place to house newly arrived workers.

That was not ideal for Silas. The longer he stayed in Hydrabridge, the higher the chance was that they would be caught. He briefly considered working with Kate and Myles to overpower the guard and rush into the chasms, but that was a foolish idea. Even if they did manage to knock out the guard, the other workers would raise a ruckus and alert any nearby soldiers. Not to mention, they had no idea where the roots they were looking for were actually located. Without knowing that, they might find themselves wandering through the depths of the chasms for hours until a group of soldiers caught them.

With that in mind, Silas turned to his second plan. Gathering information. Most importantly, they needed information on the location of the roots they were looking for. There was no way Silas could ask about that directly without drawing suspicion though.

They also needed information on the movements of the soldiers, particularly Lenas and the other two guards who had seen them earlier. Of course, asking about guard movements directly wasn’t an option either.

Silas walked up to the soldier as she guided them carefully down the slick stone ramp. She let him approach without a second thought. Silas realized he was close enough that he could knock her out with a single palm thrust to the side of the head. She wasn’t commuting any mana.

Silas shook that from his mind. He didn’t need his combat training right now. He needed his political training. Mr. Habe had spent an entire lesson on how to interact with soldiers in various situations. One of the approaches he had recommended for getting information out of soldiers was to compliment them while their guard was down. Soldiers were just people after all. Show admiration for them, and they would be willing to tell you information you might not hear otherwise.

“Hello, I’m Dean,” Silas ventured in a cheerful tone, making up a fake name, and gluing an admiring smile to his face, “this is kind of awkward, but I’ve always wanted to meet a soldier.”

“Oh.” The soldier turned toward him slightly. “Have you never met a blue band before?”

Silas twisted his thumbs nervously, an emotion he had no trouble displaying at the moment. “I came from a small village. We never had any soldiers stop by. I always admired them from the stories though. Protecting people form monsters…” Silas gave an emotional gulp, strangled by grief, the grief was another emotion Silas brought up easily.

The soldier looked at him in concern. “Did you lose someone?”

“My sister. She went out with a caravan. It was guarded by a hired shikari, but it wasn’t enough.” Silas felt a twinge of anger enter his voice. “The caravan was found later. Nobody made it.”

“The names Lira.” Lira put a hand on his shoulder. “I have some idea how you feel. For me it was my brother.”

Silas looked at Lira more closely. She was only a year or two older than him. He felt a pang of sympathy, but also realized his opportunity. “Do you normally serve as a guide to miners here?”

Lira winced slightly at the question. “Not normally…but we have been having some difficulty with some of the miners recently. We rarely let them leave you see.” Lira looked down into the depths of the chasm. “Recently some of the miners started rebelling, spreading word that we were forcing them to stay here, calling it slavery and other nonsense. Some of us have been tasked with keeping an eye on things to try to defuse the situation.”

“You don’t let people leave?”

“We do,” Lira clarified. “There is a process though, and we can only let out a certain number of people. We need to keep the mine operating properly.”

Silas grinned. “I heard that this mine was important for supporting the soldier’s guarding the railway!”

“Exactly!” Lira smiled. “We need the metal for aether constructs. Without those, we wouldn’t be able to defend the railways. The voidlands would be filled with more dangerous monsters.”

“Are you always assigned to go into the chasms then?”

“The baron keeps us on weekly shifts. We swap out for different roles at the end of the week.”

“Wouldn’t that be confusing, always reporting to a different person?”

“Not really. The officers don’t swap roles, so, we always know who to report to.” Lira gave a kind smile. “Besides, I’m assigned to the chasms more often than not. I’m one of the few soldiers who volunteers for it.”

Silas kept up the conversation but knowing that they had until the end of the week was crucial info. Since the soldiers who had seen them were assigned to guarding the wall, there would be minimal risk running into them when they were in the mines. Of course, they would need to leave the town at some point, and Lira implied that wasn’t so easily done.

Lira left the group inside one of the large buildings designed to house workers. Inside, there were rows of beds. Silas immediately threw away any plans of trying to sneak into the chasms that night. The building was too open. One of the workers would be sure to notice.

Most of the new workers went straight to bed. Silas supposed it had been a long couple of days for them. Silas found a bed close to Myles and Kate and they stayed up longer than the other workers, whispering among themselves.

“Someone was getting close to that soldier.” The corners of Kate’s mouth turned up in a mischievous grin. “I think they might like you.”

Silas felt his face flush slightly.

Myles rolled his eyes. “We’re risking our lives here and you’re making taking time to tease Silas?”

Kate whispered back. “Not much we can do besides wait. Besides, someone has to tease him, keep him honest.”

Silas was the one rolling his eyes now. “I was getting us information you know.”

Kate leaned forward. “Well?”

Silas explained to them what he had learned about the soldiers changing shifts once a week.

The group took that information in and began considering ideas on how to escape.

“We know that at least Lenas can sense us with wind mana.” Myles contributed.

“Right, we should probably assume that if we go over the wall, we will be sensed.” Kate flexed her fingers. “Unless we make a distraction of some kind.”

Silas leaned back on his bed. “There is a lot of metal here. Maybe we could make a that could create the distraction.”

Myles nodded. “That’s possible. Right now, the only core that I have is the one from the stormbird. It has water type mana which isn’t exactly ideal for a distraction, but I may be able to make it work. I need to research runes and the like though, come up with a design of sorts.”

The group didn’t have any better ideas, so, they changed positions, blocking Myles from sight as much as possible while he took out his aether index and scanned its contents, considering different options for distractions.