Chapter 147: 8.11 – Descent into Tarin-Tiran

Robin examined the altar, Rerebos perched on his shoulder, as the rest of his party examined the remainder of the temple for traps, hidden doors, lurking monsters, or other surprises. So far they hadn’t discovered anything, but Robin would willingly go without spouting a single lie for a month if there wasn’t another secret door in here, somewhere. This had been a temple of Rhyth, or the dungeon had given it that appearance, and no temple of Rhyth, real or fake, would be without multiple means of entrance and egress.

‘Look,’ Jhess called, the sharp-eyed rogue pointing to something near the wall.

Robin reluctantly left his examination of the altar and moved to where she was pointing.

‘I think there has to be a secret door here,’ the rogue said, sketching out a rough shape with her hands, ‘and I think our friend Red was here as well, since this place became part of the dungeon. See? Right there.’

Robin followed Jhess’s pointing finger. There was a small line of what looked to be red clinging to the wall, wedged into the slightest of cracks.

It would be a scrap of material torn from Red’s clothing. It wasn’t a large piece, but it was possible. Not proof, but a bit of circumstantial evidence didn’t hurt when it fit with the other pieces they already had.

‘Any idea how to get it open?’ Vance asked.

‘I was hoping the bard would have some ideas,’ Jhess said, looking to Robin.

Robin ran his fingers over the wall.

‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘Maybe after I examine the altar fully.’

Robin moved back to the altar. There was something here, beneath the alterations. This was not the way it should look, he was certain. An instinct, perhaps echoed by [Bardic Lore] or [Shard of the Shattered Manymind] told him that while it was mostly the same, there had been changes made. Here, a sacred word had been carefully rubbed away. There a bit of mosaic had been permanently fused together, turning the runework behind it to useless slag.

He suspected the dungeon. However it wasn’t all gone. Something had preserved part of it. Which meant there might be a way to bridge the gap in the magic, to access whatever was still hidden here.

Had Red found it? Was that why it was marked like this? Or was the dungeon toying with them, knowing somehow why they were here and what they might be after?

Robin reached out and fidgeted with the intact portion of the mosaic, running his senses along the magic he felt still flickering in the fragments of the runic structure. An idea popped into his head. Well, why not? it was still illusion at its core. Maybe there was a trick to be turned, here.

He closed his eyes, calling to mind with near-perfect recall the other runic structures he’d seen hidden behind the mosaics. Then, he carefully filled int he gaps left by the fused stone and conjured the illusion of what he thought the runes should look like, completing the circuit, so to speak.

It almost worked. Fragmentary images flashed in and out of being. Shards of light coalesced and dissolved in a maddening, non-Euclidean display. Discordant voices sputtered and howled from a void of darkness and light.

Robin cut the illusion and blessed silence fell again.

‘What in Galurar’s name was that?’ Jhess demanded.

‘I tried fixing the runes,’ Robin replied with a wince. ‘I don’t think I got it exactly right.’

‘You don’t say?’ Jhess massaged the bridge of her nose.

‘But you did elicit some kind of response,’ Drev observed. ‘What did you do?’

Robin explained.

‘Fascinating,’ Vance chimed in once Robin had finished. ‘Shall we try again? Maybe Drev and I can cross-check your work?’

‘If you think it will help.’ Robin waved his hand and conjured the illusory structure he had used once more—safely away from the other runic lines so there was no repeat of the sonic hell they had all just experienced.

‘That should have worked,’ Drev said thoughtfully,

‘So why didn’t it?’ Vance asked.

‘Because you are all missing something,’ Savra said, flipping her coin. ‘Though the answer should be somewhere in this room.’

‘The dungeon has clearly changed something,’ Robin said. ‘It kept most of it for, what, aesthetics? Because it had to? Or it didn’t want to spend extra energies converting things fully? Whatever the reason, the thing that’s going wrong is probably linked to that.’

‘So we look for differences,’ Jhess offered offhand. ‘Grains of wood running the wrong way abruptly, or two kinds of stone next to one another where they shouldn’t be, things like that.’

‘Yes, it’s likely the changes are physical in nature,’ Drev said excitedly, ‘based on what we now know about dungeon conversion thanks to Ruprecht.’

‘Spread out,’ Jhess ordered. ‘We’ll divide the room into sections and we’ll each go over it one at a time. That way we’re all looking and we all have a chance to spot somthing, but we don’t have to waste time.’

The party did as Jhess directed and there was silence for awhile, broken only intermittently by occasional false alarms as one party member or the other thought they had found something, only for it to be discounted when the others came to examine the area more carefully.

‘We really need a geomancer,’ Jhess complained. ‘No offence, Drev.’

‘None taken,’ the mage replied. ‘I don’t really get on well with stone.’

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Grathilde would have hated this too, Robin reflected. Though her air currents might have been able to find minuscule cracks between stones. Actually, what if the differences they should be looking for were the less visible ones?

‘Drev,’ Robin asked, ‘how sharp are your magical senses?’

‘Above average,’ the mage replied.

Drev had a tendency to terminal modesty, possibly because his father was so boastful, so if he said he was above average, he must be very good.

‘Can you tell the difference between dungeon magic and pre-existing illusions?’

Drev blinked.

‘Yes, that should be possible. Dungeon magic largely resonates of transmutation or conjuration, while illusion vibrates on a completely different wavelength. I’ll start scanning the room that way.’

‘Start with the altar,’ Robin suggested. ‘I nearly had it, so hopefully the alteration is minor and we can figure out how to compensate for whatever the dungeon did.’

Drev’s eyes began to shine with a white-purple glow and he moved to carefully examine the central stone. His hands hovered over the surface and Robin could see him tracing parts of the runic patterns in the empty air where they wouldn’t connect and conure anything.

‘Here,’ he said after several minutes.

The mage pointed to a patch of stone that looked indistinguishable from the rest of the altar, so far as Robin could see. Then he etched a quick rune in mid-air. It glowed whiter on one side, and more purple on the other.

‘Sorry I can’t get it more precise than this. I lack your fine control of imagery,’ Drev apologised to Robin. ‘But here. This is the issue. The rune was changed but because it changed along the support line here, it only looks different along the branch points.’

Robin examined the rune. Yeah. He could see that. Like erasing the curve of the letter ‘P’ and adding two branches to turn it into a ‘K’.’ He wasn’t sure what that did, magically speaking, but he could see how it would change things.

He consulted his [Bardic Lore] and [Shard of the Shattered Manymind] and then conjured four possible runes.

‘Which of these four do we think is most likely the original?’ he asked.

Drev and Vance began arguing, with Savra occasionally interjecting after consulting her coin. Robin was tempted just to cycle through all the options and hope to get lucky on the first try, but considering the terrible sounds and noises that had prompted last time, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. He had been touched by Wild Magic and there was no telling what horror he might accidentally summon if chance decided to turn against him, rather than for him.

‘This one,’ Drev said at last, conjuring a rune like a forking branch. ‘I’m not sure how much interference we might get from an overlay, but this is probably our best shot.’

Robin stepped back up to the altar, studying the new runic structure before conjuring it above the altar to check it first. When he was satisfied it was as close as he could make it, he carefully lowered it over the altar.

Sparks immediately flew, iridescent and hissing, and the surface of the altar shimmered and changed, becoming some kind of map.

‘Yes!’ Jhess fist pumped the air.

Robin’s eyes scanned over the map. part of it he recognised as matching the mapping he’d done for their foray into the dungeon so far. So the dungeon had altered the altar to provide a hidden map? Or did this predate the dungeon and was some strange functionality of the altar? Though he wasn’t sure how that squared with the faith of Rhyth. Unless Nilsiir…

Then a flickering image appeared, stuttering in and out a bit, though not nearly so much as on previous occasions. It was Nilsiir, and this time the High Priest looked beaten and bruised, and the jovial air of defiance he had maintained so long was just a fading ember.

‘That fucker Urkhan has won,’ the High Priest said dully. ‘I’m leaving this message with the last of my power—the last of Rhyth’s power in this place—in the hopes that one day someone will find it and work to restore Tarin-Tiran. I have—a guide—‘ the image and sound began breaking up, stuttering.

Robin resisted the urge to deliver some percussive maintenance to the altar. Habits from another world…

The image suddenly clarified, becoming clear and strong. Robin suddenly felt electricity dancing along his fingertip as it looked like the illusion was staring him straight in the eyes.

‘The city is damaged from the invasions, and likely from however many years have passed. Find the nexus points! Restore the connections! Return the city to life and you will unlock the legacy of Tarin-Tiran, the treasures I have hidden away from those autocratic fuckers that have stolen so much—‘

The illusion flickered out for a long moment before returning.

‘Do—not—trust—‘

Then the image was gone, leaving only the map softly glowing on the surface of the altar.

‘Don’t trust who?’ Jhess demanded.

‘Or what?’ Robin mused, looking at the walls around them.

No one had an answer to either question.

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