Chapter 60: Ch.55: Revelations

“The Antecessors left a legacy that was both a blessing and a curse; the dungeons. Dungeons might seem like morbid constructions of labyrinths created by a bunch of paranoid beings to safeguard their treasures but believe me, you haven’t seen the worst. That is what the Seekers, Keepers and the Enforcers are for; to keep the worst from ever seeing the light of day. Even though it has not been without cost, oftentimes getting our race misunderstood and alienated because of what we keep from the others, we will gladly carry out our oaths if it means that the atrocities committed by that forgotten race will never be repeated…”-The First Keeper’s Journal, Dreimarch Archives.

---

“ Right through here, “ said the [Guild Clerk] who’d introduced herself as Hanna Lalilab. They’d left behind a stairwell that went up one floor to the Guild’s clerical offices and stuck to the ground floor which was lined by closed off rooms on both sides of a hallway.

The same hallway led to an open quadrangle where they could spot a training yard. There were adventurers on the sidelines while others went on a rage in the middle of the field. They looked as though they were working up their frustrations.

“ It’s been a hard few days for everyone,” Hanna muttered as her countenance clouded over. She pushed the door to one of the rooms open― and sound spilled from the warded room.

“ …This is the [Healer] who was at the dungeon…” Margaery said.

“ She was? So can she confirm that bloodbane was used?” another voice, a little deeper but female enquired as Arthur came to the room’s threshold.

“Indeed, however one of the other victims was a [Guild Clerk] but I could not ascertain what kind of paralytic was used.” Nora responded.

“ Hmm, that puts us at impasse―” the stranger said.

At the sound of the door opening, the occupants turned to the new entrants.

Sitting around a low table in the austere room were Nora, Margaery and a dwarmaiden with salt and pepper hair. In their midst was a selection of pastries, food and beverages that looked like a typical breakfast selection. Save of course for the small flask of alcohol at the dwarmaiden’s side of the table.

“ Ah, Master Arthur, glad you could join us,” Margaery chimed.

“ Is that the Mage crafter you were talking about? The one with a sailless flying craft? Ha!” she chuckled. “ I thought he were one of them tall half-Dwar.”

“ I said no such thing,” Margaery snorted.

Arthur swore that he’d seen her somewhere a few nundines ago. Her boiled leather get-up that looked like a gloss away from being a catsuit and the obscurely attached metallic sockets were hard to miss. For a moment, Arthur thought she was onto them but the dwarmaiden barely seemed to recognise him as she cast a momentary gaze his way.

“What? Surprised I have no beard?” She said grinning .

Arthur internally sighed as he took went a standalone seat nearer Nora.

“ And why would I think that?” Arthur said.

“ Ha, why would he think that he says. Seeker Holly Embersteel…” The dwarmaiden said. “ Heard what you did for the Guilders.”

“ Arthur Sturm,” Arthur replied as he met Nora’s eyes. “ It was nothing anyone wouldn't have done.”

“ Hoh, truly?” the boisterous dwarmaid remarked.

‘Why on Eryth did you let her blab about my hoverboard to a dwarf?’ Arthur sent to Nora. Nora barely turned as she sipped from her cup like the demure sylvmaiden that she purported to be.

‘ Well, it’s not like we were trying to hide it.’ Nora said. ‘Besides, if we did, it’d just give someone an excuse to start poking around―’

‘Fair enough,’ Arthur sent back. He took a cursory glance at her over-the-top gear, including a Seeker’s inclusive arcansygnum and a utility belt with numerous pouches that made his Mana Sense discern them as possessing spatial enchantments

“ If that shall be all Master Arthur, allow me to alert the Quartermastresse of your arrival.” Hanna Lalilab brought his attention to matters at hand.

“ Oh—I almost forgot,” he said as he caught sight of the guards outside. “ I was supposed to get an attestation?”

“ What for?” Margaery said, frowning. Then it dawned on her, “ Oh, you’re joining the Guild as a contractor? Not an adventurer?”

“ Huh? He is joining the Guild?” Hanna squeaked.

“ Hmm? And here I swore he were a poncy titled mage crafter. He is unaffiliated? Heh…wait till Hadrac hears about this,” the dwarmaiden butted in.

‘What is that all about?’ Nora added via telecry.

‘I’ll tell you all about it…later,’ Arthur responded, with a subtle wink. ‘ And we really need to work on signals.’

‘Why?’ Nora responded as her bell-like chuckles filled his head.’ Don’t these telecry make such things redundant?. Look, they don’t even realise we have been conversing all this while. On second thought, that would be more suspicious. Better not get used to it.’

‘ Yeah, okay.’ “ Well?” Arthur remarked, turning to the [Guild Clerk].

“ Oh, so that is why you needed the [Quartermastresse]. I’ll see if she is done with her current engagement and get you some contractual forms to fill out, assuming you agreed upon beforehand?”

“ We did,” Nora chipped in.

“ Is that so? I’ll get started on that right away,” Hanna remarked. Arthur threw a nod the Guardsmen’s way which they acknowledged before Hanna shut the door behind her. Nora put together a few selections of the small feast; some tea, some rye bread seared both sides with hearth fowl eggs and a pumpkin pastry on his plate.

“Thank you,” Arthur muttered as he partook. It was just normal fare. No fancy valerian tea or xazhu brew unfortunately.

“ So,” the dwarmaiden muttered drawing from her flask. Her countenance had lost some of the mellowness. Arthur paused mid sip as he watched the dwarmaiden stare at the table with a quirked brow. The dwarmaiden sighed, disappearing her flask in the pouch that was way too small to have held the container and looked up. Then she drew out, of all things a memory crystal. Margaery frowned at the artefact.

“ Would you be as kind as to narrate the events that transpired on arrival at the Fetid Woods dungeon?” she said tiredly. “ I have been chasing leads for nundines with 'aught but to show for it,”

“ What do you mean?” Margaery asked with hooded eyes.

“ As yer can already surmise, the incidents with the dungeons are not isolated. Well, before that, I have been investigating a presence on Alkerd, can’t say what ‘cause of confidentiality and all that.” she put across. “ That is what me partner Hadrac is having a meeting with the Guild higher ups for. “

“ So what you’re saying is, these incidents have been a long time coming?” Margaery asked. “ Why weren’t we warned about this? Oh right, you Dwar and your tightfistedness. If only we had more sloops, but no, you think we’re too good for them.”

“ Aye,” the dwarmaid grunted, rubbing the nape of her neck. “ We been eatin’ trollgrot fer that, pardon my Dwar— for a good reason. Anyway, I beg yer hear me out…”

“ It’s the Void Syndicate isn’t it?” Arthur said as he set his cup down. Holly Embersteel whirled around to face him.

“ Rustin’ slag,” she swore under her breath.

“ What are we supposed to know about Seeker Holly?” Margaery asked, an acerbic tone in her voice.

“ ‘Tis already outchea huh?” she huffed. “ Very well then, I s’pose with the memory crystal, the ‘igher ups can’t fault me.”

And Holly Embersteel narrated to them about a threat that sent chills down their spines.

---

Holly Embersteel’s account of the Void Syndicate was as riveting as it was worrisome. It was one of those things that drew danger just by mere knowledge of it; like a jinx. Ignorance, Arthur realised, was truly a bliss. But there was no take backs, unless of course, he got an [Animancer] to make him forget it, for not even a [Mind Mage] could clear [Eidetic Memory].

All said, Arthur managed to get the guardsmen off his coattails, thanks to some help from Hanna Lalilab. In fact, he was lucky that the attestation even got done at all since Isignel didn’t excuse herself from whoever Hadrac was. She did send apologies and promised to meet on a later date when the Guild was no longer working their people to the ground. Arthur had not seen most of the chaos that had gone on behind closed doors.

Nonetheless, after he was done with the quillwork and Nora had checked on her patients, the two decided they were due for catching their bearings in Aldmoor. The latter being no mean feat because [Healers] were in short supply and only low level physicians were at hand to help,

By then, it was already high noon with the Aestas sun at its zenith. Aldmoor had also come alive. Arthur was ready feeling rather peckish at the time, a consequence of his augmented metabolism which was again, related to his [Regeneration] trait. Besides He had no more social battery to left for gallivanting around the town and was feeling rather irritable.

At Margaery's suggestion, she offered to get them to an establishment where they could have lunch without the raucous ambience of a tavern. Thusly, they found themselves at the Knights and Knives. Judging from its clientele, the steakhouse equivalent was a fine establishment.

It had rooftop pergolas, vine trellises and a view of the midst of the town that constituted a suburban area. From where he was, he could see the dwellings of Aldmoor’s bourgeois, sticking out amid the green like old generation mansions in an English countryside.

‘Ascal’s manor should be somewhere among those,’ Arthur thought as he picked at his food.

“ Looking to move in already?” Nora asked following his gaze.

“ Was going to take a few days, scope out the town and sleep at an inn,” Arthur said sighing. “ Moving in so abruptly would raise a few eyebrows.”

“ And that right there beloved, is exactly how a suspicious person would act,” Nora pointed out. Arthur’s eye twitched at the use of the endearing term. Nora smirked knowingly.

“If you ask me, I think we should just go for it,” Nora said, swirling her wine glass.

“Hmm,” Arthur murmured. The mashed ter’roots were making him drowsy; the honey glazed steak had made him fuller than he thought. The steak from whence it came had been acquired from an auroch, a bovine that was raised for its meat and milk in the steadings outside the walls. It was a woolly beast as large as a thunder bison. Nora muttered something under her breath as she set down her glass.

“Very well then. Whatever happened that has gotten you brooding?” Nora asked, placing her hand over his across the table. “ Perchance things are moving too fast for your liking?”

“ What?! No!” Arthur gawked, as his head snapped up. He realised he’s spoken out loud. No one was looking their way however.

“ [Shadow Shroud], “ Nora smirked. Ambient noise seemed to disappear into the background as they were shrouded in Nora’s stealth skill. It could only work by contact hence Nora’s palm on his hand.

“ You were saying?” Arthur prompted.

“ I asked if you feel overwhelmed,” Nora said with narrowed eyes. “ You tend to be persnickety with details and plans and lose sight of the bigger picture. Don’t you know I have your back?”

‘Oh, false call,’ Arthur thought, settling down as he nodded in affirmation. Nora’s touch was reassuring, even if she was a breath away from charming him.

“ Then let me help you. What is it that has got you getting cold feet?” Nora asked. “ Is it the Guard Sergeant’s knowledge of things?”

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“ Compared to what we’ve heard about the Void Syndicate? That does not faze me,” Arthur chuckled ruefully. “ Its just that, the very thing that I’ve been dreading has come back to shackle me.”

“ What? Being beholden to the Guild?” Nora stated. “ Is that so bad? You’re hardly an adventurer; in fact, I don’t think the adventurer’s code applies to you. You won’t even muster during crises like the rest of the Silver tiers.”

“ Even though I am only an ex officio member, I cannot in good conscience look away after the things I’ve seen in the infirmary.” Arthur murmured. “ Besides, I already have a spotlight on me. Everyone in the Guild must know about me by now. Some from the Titled families are bound to know by the end of the day too, and we have the Guard breathing at our backs.”

“ Ah, the Lalilab girl at the Guild might have your story in the wind by nightfall,” Nora grimaced. “ However, your conscience will not get you anywhere Arthur. This is not Earth. Eryth is not like the stories from your world where the [Champion] always trumps over ordeals most dire by sticking to their guns as you put it. So let me ask, what is your overarching goal?”

“ Er, delivering whatever is inside the Cornieva Manor to Elder Volemhir?” Arthur shrugged noncommittally.

“ Wrong,” Nora said. She rolled her eyes just to humour him. Of course Nora already knew his motivations; some of them anyway.

“ Haha, ” Arthur chuckled as he looked towards the expanse of lush estates and the palacial structures sitting on them. They were Elizabethan style manors as big as small castles with their cupola tops, spires and hipped shingle roofs, marble bricks and arched glass stained windows. Now that one of those could potentially be a place he'd call home for the next couple of moons was rather daunting. Keeping one of those clean was going to be such a task—would he have to hire a housekeeper?

'Nora shouldn't do cleaning,’ He shook his head as the waning of [Shadow Shroud] brought them out of its liminal realm. The sounds of cutlery and polite conversation entered his awareness as he returned his attention to his date.

‘It's unbecoming of her to do the chores and 'sides, it doesn't mesh with her sylvmaiden persona.' He thought, quirking a brow at Nora as she finished the rest of her food. ‘Ah, and she likes steak and wine—'

“What?” Nora asked as she dabbed her lips with a napkin.

“Er,” Arthur muttered looking past her shoulder. “ Do we need to go to the town hall for a residency permit something?”

He squinted and looked past the fretwork in the wooden divider. A spectacle was unfolding in the eatery; where an attendant was in some kind of confrontation with a distinctively dark blue haired youth with a bevy of women by his side.

“Hmm? Not really…Ascal Cornieva's house is a private residence but given that it's been abandoned for slightly more than 25 years, it is free for adverse possession,” Nora answered, glimpsing over her shoulder. A flash of recognition crossed her face and she shook her head.

“ Let's go Arthur,” Nora said, making as if to get up. “ Let's see what condition the manor is in while the sun's still high. I feel better coming home to a bath after another shift.”

“ Huh?What shift?” Arthur asked befuddled.

“ The infirmary; thought I told you while I checked on my patients,” she said, giving him a tilt of the head.

“Oh, must've crossed my mind,” he said as they walked out of the booth. Very much steering clear of the ongoing ruckus, they paid for their meal and stepped onto the street a floor below.

Checking his time piece revealed it was just the third quartz after noon and the foot traffic had all but petered to a few pedestrians. Then they hailed, of all things, a cab. The inner circuit streets did not allow for draught beasts or fowl unless one had a permit. Arthur could see why; fowl and beast would just ruin the streets and mucking roads was no joke.

“Hail ho! it's you and the Missis again,” their driver for the day called out as he came alongside pulling their dwarven-made cabriolet. It was a two seater and had a retractable hood that the driver could work via a lever at the front.

“ Hail again, Sebas,” Arthur called out smiling wryly as the centaur pulled a lever to let down the steps. Sebas, not a shortened name, Quickstrider, had the lower half of a fell pony. He had a grey coat had black patches on his lower half, where his hairy hooves poked out from his kilt. It was like a barding but belted twice between his human waist and his centaurian half. He had also braided his grey hair mane into a ponytail.

“Where to next?” Sebas asked pulling away from the curb. The centaur was a very personable character, if a bit too chatty at times. Nonetheless that is how they'd been given a rundown of the town on their way from the Guild premises.

“Where else?” Nora asked him teasingly.

“ Rot,” he chuckled, poking at his equine ears as though to ascertain they hadn't in fact been joking. Which was funny because when one stopped to think about it their equine ears could hear things well beyond the hearing range of humans.

Sebas had complained about bats in the inn he was sleeping at when Arthur had been curious about centaur slept. The latter piece of information was just another thing he added to his list of interesting facts to know about.

“ Cannae say anythin' that'll make you think otherwise eh?” Sebas groan-snorted nervously. Seeing the resolute look in their eyes he shook his head and muttering how Arthur was lucky to have a fervid lifemate like Nora.

“A shame, I'd have loved to see yer fillies and colts with yer manes ,” he murmured, getting a ker'root from his kilt pouch. He didn’t see a scandalised Arthur nor Nora trying very hard to muffle her giggles as he cantered off into Founder’s Boulevard.

---

Past the Inner Circuit, was Founder’s Boulevard and then Pioneer’s Quarter, where the generational estates of the merchant families had domiciled from way back. Years ago, several Merchants families who had sponsored the expedition to the frontier from Ortusbough in the south east.

They must have had a turn of fortune to be within reach of the dwarves, whose holds could be entered through caves in the deep Chasm, the bountiful Faeriweald of the sylvani and finally, ore and rich farmland.

And that is why, their entry into the Pioneer's Quarter was heralded by the looming statues of the two Aldmoorian forefathers near the inner guard post, another remnant of the days from Aldmoor’s establishment.

There was a drawbridge demarcating Pioneer’s Quarter from the rest of the town. Large chains passing through the statues hands and shoulders were wreathed with vines and green with age, a river flowered through the moat, so clear and untouched you could almost the fish within.

The drawbridge hadn’t been raised, not in years from the looks of it. Since the coming of the Adventurers Guild, the town was relatively safer. The few high ranking guards that asked their business were also a testament to the safety of the town.

“ You would have thought they would have more of them since this is the affluent part of town and what not,” Arthur observed.

“ You would think so,” Sebas snorted and then motioned towards two metra tall fieldstone fences, green with moss vines crawling across their pointy railheads .

“ See them bronze spikes hoaching in th’ nettle? S’mone had th’ idea to put lightning magic in them. Pioneer's Quarter has never been the same ever since, and guess who that was?” he chuckled.

“ Ascal Cornieva,” Nora commented voiced Arthur’s thoughts.

“ Hmm, someone once called him paranoid and a hermit too. Started some things in this town before I was a colt,” Sebas muttered in his nasal voice as his equine ears flickered to and fro.

Sebas was right about Ascal’s hermitage. Pioneers Quarter was large, which meant the manors were spaced far apart. But even among vacated manors of founding families long gone, Ascal’s residence was noticeably isolated.

The closest inhabited residence was the Lalilab’s estate 15 pars away by cabriolet. It was notable from its large tracts of land used up by, of all things that Arthur hadn’t expected to see in a human town―sylvani glasshouses.

The Lalilab's obsession with all things green and alchemical seemed to have infested the boulevard by way of the weeping blossom trees that formed a long tunnel of purple and pink. Their passage underneath was almost solemn until they came upon the end of the street and there they found the manor. But there were already several people waiting for them―familiar and acquainted faces.

“ Master Arthur! Hail ho!” a grey complexioned woman waved at them as the cabriolet slowed.

“ Herd mates of yours?” Sebas called over his shoulder.

Nora nodded in assent. There were Lance and Landon, the guardsmen who Arthur had learnt were fraternal twins, two Guilders, Hanna Lalilab and then the teenager he’d met at the front desk. Last but not least was Margaery who carried a basket of pies, fruits, another basket full of drapery had been carried between the two guards. It was as though she was about to have a picnic―or a housewarming soirée.Arthur looked like he’d bitten into a sour cytrant.

“ Margaery,” Arthur muttered. However, his gaze travelled behind her, past the antsy looking guardsmen and the curious teenagers to the filigreed front gate.

“ Ho, are we on first name basis already?” Margaery crooned, much to the weary expressions of the two teenagers besides her. The guilders seemed to be familiar with her antics.

“The two of them and her I understand, but Why are you here?” Arthur asked, quirking his brow at the two teenagers.

The other teenager with freckles and a pair of glasses squirmed under Arthur's scrutiny but Hanna barely flinched.

Clenching her hands with resolve she spoke up,

“Master Arthur, I plead you reconsider what you're about to do. I have grown up listening to tales of foolhardy adventurers and even mages daring that manor disappear without a trace. I am sure that if you ask anyone in the town they'd tell you.”

“ I am well aware of the risks Miss Lalilab—and I would suggest that stay away as well. I do not want collateral damage,” Arthur said , side eyeing the gate. He frowned as saw the fixtures sitting sentinel above the gate pillars.

’No way,’ he thought as his eyes went wide with recognition of the pair of statues. They had stony manes and wide open maws, a smoky crystal lay beneath one of their front paws

“ Arthur?” Nora called out after him.

They were too familiar―he’d seen them somewhere. Was it a film? A book or was it a magazine that came in a box-set? Even for beasts, the creatures were grotesque; perhaps that is why they were memorable.

A native of Eryth might have mistaken them for wingless gargoyles just put up as a visual deterrent which, once one stopped to think about it, might not have been the case; a grizzly boar had a more terrible visage. The real deterrent was elsewhere. Arthur surmised as much as he came to a stop, several paces from the gate.

The hair at the back of his neck prickled as he saw the condition of the lot before it. Pockmarks from unknown magical workings marred the flagstones, some in unmistakable silhouettes of people, burned into them for eternity. No wonder the others choose to spectate from a safe distance. Fortunately, they could see the manor from where they stood.

“ Arthur?” Nora prompted, pulling at his sleeve. “ Is something the matter?” Arthur felt Nora’s mana settle on both of them, immediately associating it with [Shadow Shroud]. He side-eyed five solemn faces, Sebas, the two guardsmen and the two Guilders. On the other hand, Margaery looked antsy but not for the reasons the others though.

“ Those statues, I've seen them before,” Arthur whispered. He felt an electric sensation crawl up his spine at the recognition of where they were, as well as their placement.

“ I want to hope I am wrong but now I have a feeling Elder Volemhir might have purposefully left some things out―” he seethed as stared longingly at the manor. Across the fence of old brick, and silvered finials choking inside untended plants, dormer windows of sylvani make reflected light from the late afternoon.

Their stained glass panes were untarnished as the day they had been fitted. Arthur knew that a similar domed skylight could be seen past the catenary style roof; he had known what Ascal’s residence would look like. However, the inside was another matter as no one had entered in close to three decades.

And now that it had come to it, Arthur dreaded what he might find. Nestled in his heart was equal parts hope and resignation. Nora squeezed his arm in reassurance and nodded to him. Arthur exhaled and made to take a step, keystone held on the inside of his pocket― he needed to be in contact with it to get past the wards.

“Wait here—just in case,” Arthur said moving a step forward. There was a distinct demarcation between the cobbled road and the lot in front of the gate. A band of flagstones with rune craft like the one Arthur used for wardstones but more complex.

Suddenly grinding sounds emanated from the statues. Arthur whirled around to find them turning towards him as magic visibly roiled from their maw as though getting ready to breathe fire.

“Arthur…whatever you're about to do, do it now!” Nora said worriedly.

”Master Arthur! The statues are trapped,” Hanna warned too late. One moment he was walking towards the gate pillars, the next a concentric mandalas of rune workings were sprouting right under his feet.

There wasn’t even a moment to reflexively cast [Null Field] and [Dispel Matrix] as a series of traps triggered. At least that's how his spectating acquaintances saw it. From his point of view, everything moved too slowly for his liking, for the others they’d barely blinked when a column of magic erupted from the ground, taking Arthur away.

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