by Unknown
More important was the formation of crystals in the center of the room, almost like a pedestal. Above it floated a stone ball an inch or two across, surrounded by a slowly orbiting spell diagram formed of pure magic. That was what Alethus was here for, and a thread of worry eased at the sight of the last piece, since a part of him had feared that it might be the piece of a different prison entirely. That wasn’t likely, since Duke Dorma had tried to defend the location, but confirmation helped. Final confirmation would have to wait until he assembled it, though.
Examining the floor of the room again, Alethus scowled on seeing that his method of opening the cavern had sent dust everywhere, making it difficult to tell if there was a trap or not. That said, it looked like there hadn’t been anyone inside in a long time…
After a moment of thought, he shrugged and walked in confidently, ignoring the stinging sensation of the holy energy around him. He took several steps, then relaxed as nothing tried to stop him. If someone was going to trap the room, they almost certainly would have done so in the first several feet, so he was likely safe. With that in mind, Alethus quickened his pace, and in moments he was in front of the pedestal. Looking over the stone again, he inhaled, gritting his teeth… and reached out to take it.
Holy energy seared his hand, jagged black markings etched into his hand as he took the artifact, and Alethus hissed, yanking the stone orb back… and the magical diagram faded away abruptly, even as the energy that was hurting him faded. Looking down at the stone, Alethus ignored the burns as he considered it, then slid it into his belt pouch and nodded, turning to leave quickly.
“We have what we came for. Drag them into the cave, and if they aren’t restrained, tie them up. I don’t want them getting out for at least eight hours,” Alethus ordered, glancing around as he added, “If you wish to loot anything, you have ten minutes to grab it, then we’re leaving.”
“Sir!” the soldiers replied, most of them saluting, and Alethus smiled broadly.
Things were progressing almost exactly as he’d planned.
Chapter 26
Cora heard the rustling of paper as she poked her head into the inn room, then paused.
Joy was sitting on the bed cross-legged, the book on architecture open and sitting on the nightstand. The apis had a look of intense concentration on her face as she looked at a page with what Cora thought was the diagram of an aqueduct on it. Yet… Joy looked so serious that Cora would have thought she was considering a matter of life or death, not construction.
“Joy? Are you alright?” Cora asked, tilting her head a little and examining Joy’s armor. It had changed after integrating the new armor, though not much. There were just a few softly glowing lines on it, which was far less than her rapier had changed. That was an intriguing spiral of black chitin and glowing titansteel, which fascinated Cora.
“Hm? Oh, yes, of course!” Joy replied, blinking and almost instantly turning back to her usual, cheerful self, which eased Cora’s worries. “How are you?”
“I’m fine… I was just concerned with how you were glaring at the page,” Cora explained, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“Oh, no, no, not at all! I just don’t understand all of this!” Joy said, smiling broadly as she looked at the book and patted the page gently. “I understand the words, most of them, and I understand most of the math once it’s explained, but sometimes it… it doesn’t come easily to me. With wax, I could do a lot of this so much easier, but using rock? Chipping rock until it’s the right shape, using, um, mortar and things like that… it doesn’t sound like it would be as easy. It might last longer, though, and I wonder if I could use wax for some parts, to let me build things faster and—”
“Joy?” Cora interrupted, almost feeling like her eyes were going to cross from the way Joy was going on. If she started talking about the actual math, Cora’s brain might melt. She was a mage, certainly, but that didn’t mean she was good with numbers.
“Yes?” Joy said, pausing and tilting her head, her antennae perked up.
“I appreciate that you like architecture, but I know almost nothing about it, and it isn’t something I really want to learn about,” Cora explained gently, hoping it wouldn’t offend Joy. Fortunately, Joy simply smiled and nodded.
“Oh, then I won’t tell you about it! I like building things, and being able to move water like the book says these aqueducts can is amazing! I was worried when I looked at the irrigation stuff in the gardening book, but then I saw this… I’m sure I can do good things with it!” Joy said, grinning broadly. “But you came back for something else, right? Are we going somewhere?”
Cora blushed as she realized she’d almost forgotten the reason she’d come back to the room to begin with, but Joy was usually distracting. She nodded, leaning against the door as she thought for a moment, shuffling her thoughts into order.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? As amazing to me as it is, Sir Wilbert sent us a message. He was curious if you’d be willing to serve as an ambassador to the apis hive in the Shimmerwood. They’re talking about trying to get their support in keeping the invaders from getting their hands on the last piece of the seal, or even in defending from the invaders until reinforcements arrive,” Cora explained, frowning slightly. “The Shadebough apis are preparing to leave; I hear they’ve hired an experienced adventurer who’s going to guide them to the hive—”
“Sure!” Joy said in the middle of the explanation, her grin huge, and Cora’s eyes widened slightly.
“Um… are you certain, Joy? The Shimmerwood isn’t safe, and you didn’t even ask about the reward,” Cora said, though she was expecting Joy to not care about the second part.
“The reward doesn’t matter!” Joy said blithely, proving Cora right and making the elf smile, but Joy continued without pausing. “I want to meet the Shimmerwood apis; it could be important when I become a queen! Plus, I want to keep everyone safe from the Skyfishers!”
Cora blinked, looking at Joy for several seconds as she tried to figure out what Joy was meaning. Wanting to meet the apis made complete sense, yet how selfless she was about wanting to protect other people… it made Cora curious.
“May I ask why you’re wanting to protect everyone?” Cora asked curiously. “Meeting the apis makes sense; you’re going to need to exchange drones, from what you said, but I’m not sure why you care about everything else.”
Joy simply stopped, looking at Cora for a few seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, her words simple. “Everyone deserves to have the safety of their own hive. Everyone.”
“But…” Cora began, startled by Joy’s reaction, then fell silent. After a few seconds she spoke cautiously. “But we don’t have hives. I know you said that Brianna, Stella, and I are like your hive, but that isn’t the same.”
“Sure you do! You may not think of them as hives, but you have them. Some people may choose to be like wasps, nasty and mean, and others are like selfish spiders, but even most of them have their hives,” Joy said, rocking back and forth on the bed, smiling warmly as she did so. “Most of them, it’s their family, but not all! For Silverhoof and Viperbite, it’s the guild! For the duke, it’s the entire duchy. For some people it might be a village, a city, or maybe just their friends. Unlike apis, you aren’t anchored around a single queen, because you’re all queens. It lets you choose your own hive… and you deserve to have it be safe. The Skyfishers are like a nest of invading wasps, though. They need to be stopped before they destroy the hives of others.”
Cora didn’t know what to say to that, staring at Joy for a few moments, a little ashamed at how… how benevolent Joy was, in most ways. Yes, the apis could be incredibly ruthless when in combat, and usually was, but at the same time she was also one of the kindest, most selfless people Cora had ever met. It was possible that all the other apis workers Cora had met were the same, but she didn’t know them. She did know Joy… and it sometimes made Cora wonder about her
own motives.
“Well, in that case I think you’d better come downstairs to chat with Brianna and Stella,” Cora said at last, trying to bury her mixed feelings. “We all expected you to say yes, so they figured they’d start trying to work out what supplies and other preparations we needed to make.”
“You know me well!” Joy said, grinning broadly as she unfolded her legs and hopped off the bed, then paused. “Ah, one moment!”
The apis turned back to her book, moving the ribbon to mark her page and closing it gently before nodding. “There we go, I’m ready!”
“I don’t know about ready, but let’s go downstairs,” Cora replied with a laugh, opening the door so Joy could go out, then followed her, locking the door behind her.
The inn they were staying at wasn’t as nice as the one in Irador, which honestly relieved Cora, as the cost was also lower. Perhaps she shouldn’t be worrying about ten coins a night more, but that much coin added up quickly. The timbers that framed the walls were rougher, while the walls were relatively simply-cut cobblestone on the first floor, and plaster on the second.
Music drifted up the stairs, and Cora raised her eyebrows, since there hadn’t been any musicians downstairs when she’d come up before, and she quickened her pace, since she rather liked the tune the fiddler was playing. It was bright and quick-paced enough to add a spring to her step.
When Cora reached the common room, she almost immediately spotted the bard, a modestly handsome human man with brown hair and a serviceable performer’s outfit. His fiddle was well cared for, and he was performing by the fireplace while people tapped their feet in time to the beat. A lot of the people in the room were watching him, and Cora saw that even Brianna and Stella were watching him from their place next to a window, a window where an apis was resting her head in her hands, her elbows on the sill.
Joy followed Cora through the bustling room, and Cora was relieved that despite the business being busy, it wasn’t so crowded that she couldn’t get through reasonably. Soon enough they reached their friends and Cora settled into a chair with a sigh.
“As expected, Joy agreed to the request,” Cora said, smiling at them and the apis as she added to the worker, “You were right.”
“I thought so!” the apis said cheerfully, waving at Joy as she added, “I wonder why they didn’t just ask you directly, rather than asking us?”
“Good question!” Joy replied, taking the seat next to Cora and adjusting her position so it didn’t press against her wings too hard. “Why did they ask me, anyway? I’m not even an attendant!”
“They did,” Brianna interjected dryly. “But it sounds like the attendant told them that she wouldn’t be a good choice.”
“That’s right!” the worker agreed, nodding rapidly. “We know a little about the outside world, but not much, and she can’t speak for the queen. Joy’s an independent apis, and she knows more about the world than we do. She’s the best person to explain things to another hive.”
“That… makes a sort of sense, but I’d think that an attendant would be able to speak with more authority. Or at least would be able to convince the other apis a little more easily,” Cora said, picking up the mug she’d left behind and examining the wine inside it. The wine in Clarion wasn’t what she’d consider bad, but it wasn’t excellent either. It made her wistful for the sweet elven wines of home… though she knew Joy wouldn’t like those either.
“Sure, if she was speaking for our queen! But she won’t be, she’ll be speaking for herself, while on another task. It’s not as, um… convincing?” the worker said, shrugging carelessly.
“Nope!” Joy agreed, smiling broadly as she added, “I don’t know that I’ll be convincing, but I’m going to do my best! What one hive thinks is important isn’t necessarily the same as others. I think the threat of some gigantic spider in the region will convince them to help, but how am I supposed to know? They aren’t me!”
“That’s definitely true,” Stella murmured, smiling at Joy a little. “Still, we’re looking at going into an area that’s far more dangerous than anywhere else we’ve gone before, Joy. Even if we have other apis and a guide, we could end up in severe danger. Are you sure you want to risk that?”
“When haven’t we been in a lot of danger?” Joy asked, then began ticking off things on her fingers. “First we got sent deep into the mines and ran into Alethus, then we ran into the Skyfisher raiders, got ambushed by leopards and a spider, fought the Skyfishers and nearly died, fought the army ants and more Skyfishers who nearly killed us… this is normal.”
Cora opened her mouth to protest, but stopped, thinking it over, then laughed, shaking her head as a hint of amusement welled up inside her. “I guess that’s true. Ever since we met you, we’ve been going from one disaster to another. Let’s break the habit after all of this is over, alright?”
“I don’t know… you got yourself killed chasing a huge payday about the time Joy became an apis,” Brianna countered, grinning broadly.
Joy began to giggle, and Cora simply glared at Brianna as the other worker started laughing. After a few seconds, Cora spoke tartly. “I see that someone doesn’t want a nameday present.”
Brianna only smiled more at the threat, and Cora sat back in her chair with a sigh. She didn’t like the idea of venturing into the Shimmerwood, but neither was she going to avoid it. If they could get the help of the apis in driving off the invading army, that meant they could get Joy’s pure royal jelly sooner, which would make it worth the danger.
Besides, they might manage to level up again, which Cora wouldn’t object to.
Alethus paused, listening to the rumble of movement in the camp, and he slowly relaxed as he did so. It had taken them until nightfall to return to the camp, and once again Alethus’s ability to track the other pieces of the seal had served him well, as otherwise he was certain they’d have gotten lost in the Shimmerwood, or at least have taken the wrong route out of it. They’d had a single close encounter with a group of patrolling knights, but despite Alethus’s temptation to wipe them out, instead he’d hid with his soldiers as they passed. Destroying Dorma could wait until later, and he hadn’t wanted to complicate his trip still further.
Now he could hear everything from a few of the smiths working to the grumbling of several trolls about the rations. He was back in the camp… and it was time to see if he’d truly succeeded. So Alethus took a breath and opened the iron box resting on his chest.
Inside the box were the two pieces of the seal that he’d previously retrieved, and he studied them for a moment. Between the two pieces, they formed half of a stone disk, with a space almost perfectly sized to fit the orb he’d acquired earlier. One half had a hole large enough to fit someone’s thumb, while the other half had four holes large enough for fingers… it made for an odd key, but Alethus shrugged, pulling out the stone orb as well.
The moment he did, all three pieces began to glow softly, and Alethus smiled, murmuring, “Excellent. Now, let’s see…”
Lowering the orb into the space between the two other pieces, Alethus saw them vibrate as it came closer. And the moment he placed the orb between them, the two chunks snapped together, barely avoiding his hand as they fastened securely around the center of the orb. They didn’t quite form a single piece, but they fit together perfectly, causing it to glow even brighter.
“And now… now I’m ready,” Alethus said, smiling broadly as he looked down at the stone, then began to laugh.
If Duke Dorma was wise, he’d start running now. He might even get away.
Chapter 27
“You all have your potions?” Drake asked, adjusting his bandolier again, and Joy couldn’t help wrinkling her nose unhappily, looking at how he had a half-dozen vials on his bandolier.
“Yes,” Joy said, not wanting to even think about how the potions would taste. Her two experiences with them made her wonder if dying and resurrecting was really that bad.
Drake nodded in satisfaction, seemingly unaware
of her thoughts. The man was different than most of the humans Joy had met so far, as he wasn’t wearing the nicest clothing he could buy. He was grizzled, with a few days of stubble on his face, and his brown hair was streaked with gray. Something about his skin reminded Joy of an old tree, tough and resilient, and his brown eyes were constantly on the move, looking around quickly. His clothing was relatively drab, with numerous scars where it looked like claws had scraped it, but he moved with a silence that Joy could only envy.
More interesting to her were Drake’s weapons. He had a large, oddly curved blade Brianna had called a kukri, as well as six throwing daggers that Joy had seen so far, and he had a pick hanging from his belt, one which looked like it’d seen a lot of use. The man was also rather dour, the exact opposite of Joy in most ways. She wondered why he never smiled, but there wasn’t much she could do. Except maybe try to convince him to smile.
One of the drones was holding a potion, looking at it skeptically before he looked at Joy, asking quietly, “Do these really taste that bad?”
“Um, I don’t know about that one; the ones I had were different colors. That’s an… antidote potion?” Joy asked, peering at the green potion, then looking at Brianna for confirmation. When the human nodded, trying to hide her smile and failing, Joy continued. “The ones I had were a strength potion and healing potion. They tasted… I can’t even describe how they tasted! I thought my insides were going to spray out of my mouth. It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt, and that includes being stung by a wasp!”
Drake stopped, looking at Joy oddly as the apis all shuddered, and the drone spoke again while he put the potion away. “I’ve never felt like that, but I’ve heard about stings. I’ll have to try not to get poisoned.”
“You should be doing that anyway,” Drake said bluntly, frowning. “The potions are for emergencies anyway, so you shouldn’t use them unless you have to. You’re all too low-level to take the Shimmerwood lightly, even if there are other apis in there. I don’t even know if they’ll talk to you; they’ve avoided adventurers and hunters alike.”
