NOVEL NEXT 90 - Several Uncomfortable Revelations
"Under normal circumstances," Gelias said, "as far as I know, from what I've read of Dungeoneering and Dungeoncraft, mind you, which is an underdeveloped field given the idiosyncrasies of all Dungeons, and the outlier nature of the three best studied examples, that being the Imperial, Sacred, and Arcane—"
"Get to the point," said Beatrice.
"Under normal circumstances, Monsters drop far more Gear than a usual adventurer party can handle," Gelias said. "Every monster must be defeated in a hard earned battle, so each expends some of its core power to create Gear. That Gear is usually too much to carry, so some is inevitably left behind."
"The Omnio's Sacred Guard handle the collection, don't they?" Archmund said.
"The Sacred Guard, reduced to cargo mules?" Beatrice said, looking at him strangely. He supposed it was something he hadn't questioned.
"They are commoners," Archmund said. He didn't really believe it, but that seemed enough to satisfy her.
"The Sacred Guard aren't trained in sustainability practices," Gelias said. "The Imperial Dungeon is dense with a thousand years of death and tradition, so they can loot all they want from there. But in a new Dungeon like this…?"
Archmund was beginning to get the distinct sense that maybe he'd screwed something up by accident, but not in the ways he already knew he had.
"Usually, when the gear is left behind, it gets… recycled. Consumed by Monsters seeking to augment their strength, or dissolving back into the Dungeon miasma if by some miracle it survives."
Archmund looked at their Gemstone Keycards, all gleaming with the individual colors of their magic. "These were just sitting out there. Like they were waiting for us. Should we be worried?"
"I'm not sure a Dungeon is intelligent enough to lay such traps for us," Gelias said. "No one's figured out if the soul floats right next to the body or if it exists in some ineffable unknowable space. But dying in a Dungeon doesn't doom you to Hell by any means."
"I would hope not," Archmund said. But he noted that Gelias hadn't bothered with grabbing one of the cards.
Gelias was looking at him strangely. "I've heard the Omnio try to keep their looting sustainable when they stabilize a new location. The Sacred Guard may not be trained, but they're under the command of a proper member of the family. Did they not…"
"I've been told that will matter far less now," he said. Perhaps it was true. He hadn't exactly heard the full details from the Princess, and she'd been unexpectedly cagey with a full explanation. "We can take whatever we want."
It was a deflection. But Gelias nodded sagely.
"If you're not interested in sustainability, and just want to rip out as much as you can right now, then it doesn't really matter. We've already collected enough of a small fortune to be set until we're all thirty."
That had, in fact, been Archmund's plan. Get rich enough to not have to worry about short-term concerns, and then find more efficient, less personally-risky ways of preserving wealth, whether it was turning Granavale County into a cultural and industrial juggernaut, or hiring adventurers to raid other Dungeons for him, or even marrying into a rich merchant family.
"We're pretty much loaded up right now," Beatrice said, still holding her wand with a troubled look on her face. "Do you want to head back?"
Archmund appraised the full group.
Mary was slightly injured, but she'd said it wasn't so severe.
Rory looked a little sweaty and out of breath, but otherwise seemed fine.
Gelias was implacable.
And he was feeling fine.
He didn't want to go back. If they did, they'd just keep circling back to this level, looting the same quality of Gem. Good wealth, but not much in the way of power.
There was an opening in the corridors of cubicles ahead. He'd seen it when he had perched above the cubicle maze sniping at Monsters.
"Let's get to that clearing and decide from there," he said.
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The opening had been outside of his effective range, so he felt more than a bit of trepidation as he entered. If there were Monsters here, he wouldn't have had a chance to kill them from afar.
A little voice in the back of his head told him he was holding his companions back by killing everything that could threaten them. That was quickly counterbalanced by his instinctive argument that he'd put them against opponents that they'd just barely managed to beat. If he'd let them fight naturally…
Well, none of them had come to any grand revelations about the nature of their powers. None of them had unlocked Skills, tapping into the potential they'd developed over the past few months of training. Maybe, just maybe, under pressure they would've unlocked the full potential of their abilities, but it was far more likely they would've suffered actual injuries and they'd actually have to go back.
At first glance, the place seemed quiet and relatively safe. There was a round table in the center of the room, easily twenty feet across, like some ancient gathering place of valiant knights or seedy corporate executives.
Two fountains ran down opposite sides of the wall, two-tiered structures, one large basin of liquid trickling down into the other. One was pure and cold. The other was hot and muddy and fragrant.
Beatrice walked over to the dark liquid and gave it a sniff. "Is this… coffee?"
Archmund knelt and inhaled. It was indeed coffee.
"Do you think it's safe to drink?" Beatrice asked.
He couldn't answer that.
Gelias walked up, pulling a wooden rod from his pocket, and dipped it into the liquid.
"It's just coffee," he said, shrugging. "So far as I can tell."
Archmund shuddered.
How unpleasant it was, to live in a world where ten-year-olds knew what coffee was. How bewildering and bewitching it was indeed. A world where children knew about coffee was a world obsessed with wakefulness and productivity.
His mind was playing unpleasant tricks on him again. At first glance, this room looked like a boardroom or a break room, something that wouldn't be out of place in a well-funded corporate office. That was abnormal. Yet at the same time he couldn't deny it made perfect sense as part of a Dungeon. The walls could as easily have been cracking marble as office whitewash, and the center table held a gravitas no boardroom could match, like King Arthur's round table. Yet like a dreadful drum he couldn't shake his instinctive recognition.
It was an office. There was no denying it.
In the middle subtiers, things stopped making sense.
He pulled out a Gemstone tankard and dipped it into the coffee and took a sip.
Bitter, dark, with fruity notes. It was just coffee. But it was enough to keep him alert and on edge.
His leg started to jitter up and down.
Archmund put his looted Gemstone Gear onto the large central table. A keycard attached to a lanyard. A tankard aka a mug. A cap that he hadn't worn.
His comrades got the hint, and they dumped out their gear as well. A surfeit of lanyards, mugs, and caps. Their keycards. After a moment of hesitation, Beatrice's looted wand.
That was one constant in all lives, he supposed. If the merch was free, might as well take as much of it as you could.
"So," he said to Gelias. "How does this work? Is there anything else about the structure of the Dungeon that you can tell me that might be useful?"
"So, the magic of elven souls doesn't lodge so well in Gemgear," Gelias said. "I'm not sure why. But we can't use Gems all that well. Our magic… flows, instead of lodging."
Archmund nodded politely. Gelias was probably going somewhere. This was probably supported by large amounts of theory that didn't matter to practitioners.
"When I put my magic into — rather, around — a Gem or Gear, I get a sense of what it can do, and why it was created. Both the Monsters that use it, and the memories they were drawing on. Memories are stored in all objects, somewhat more organically for wood than for Gem, but the sacred association is robust."
He nodded to Archmund.
"Yes," Archmund said. "Please do that scan."
Finally, some answers. He was tempted to ask Gelias about further details of elven magic, and how it differed from human magic. He had the barest of guesses, but those didn't satisfy his insatiable curiosity. But then again, Gelias only had the lived experience of one.
Gelias put his palms flat on the round table, eyes closed. There were bright sparks, no flashes of light or humming noises — only the sudden heaviness of the air. Gelias's soulstuff saturated the space, heavy upon them all, and Archmund didn't dare move for fear of breaking the enchantment.
"Gelias," Rory said, without such reservations, "any chance you can show us?"
Gelias's eyes opened. "Apologies, Rorhid."
Light green streams of light, like summer sun through dense leaves, wove between the objects, flickering between each. Gelias used a pair of sticks to move each Gemstone artifact around until the beam of light snapped into a solid connection.
"I wouldn't need to rearrange these, but it's for your benefit," Gelias said.
Archmund looked at the connections, a sour taste in his mouth.
"It's like a family tree," Beatrice said.
"Or a military command structure," Rory said.
Or an organization chart, Archmund thought. But he didn't say it out loud.
Maybe he was just paranoid.
He glanced towards Mary.
"Like the chain of command for the manor servants," she said, her voice quieter than usual. She looked a bit pale, though her arm was wrapped tightly in her cloak.
Definitely like an organization tree.
Gelias gave him a curious look, that turned reproachful as he realized Archmund wasn't going to say anything.
"Those are the connections between what we've gathered and what they represent," Gelias said, "but if I pulse the magic—"
And suddenly the tree stretched beyond the objects they'd placed on the table. It extended its branches outward, connecting to nothing, pooling in nexus points of light that stretched ever upwards and kept climbing.
"Each of those connection points," Gelias said, "is something that can be inferred to exist."
"You can tell that far?" Archmund said.
"There are gaps in the magic and the structure. For these artifacts to be physically realized, other entities must also exist."
The magic kept spreading upwards and outwards until finally it tied itself in a knot. It pooled in a single bright point at the very top. Dense and brilliant with malevolent spiky light. That held dominion over all other things below.
"And that," Gelias said. "Is where we're going."