Devol thought about it for a moment. “Nothing particular comes to mind. But he’s only officially been my mentor for the last couple of months. He does ask how I’m feeling surprisingly often, though.” He glanced at the table where Wulfsun and Freki were dining with a couple of other Templars. “But hearing him talk in the grand mistress’ room about his time in the trial, maybe he simply doesn’t want me having to deal with what he had to.”
“I wish we could all be that lucky,” the diviner responded and focused on the map again. “Now then. Sombre Caves is located here near the town of Reverie.” He pointed to a large, forested area on the northeast side of Renaissance. “A little over a century ago, it was a booming mining area. Reverie was a small outpost village until the mining started but it became a boom town for about thirty years before everything started to collapse.”
“Figuratively?” Asla questioned and tore into a section of her fish.
“For the most part, yeah,” Jazai confirmed. “With mining, there will inevitably be some actual collapses, but they were lucky for a long time and nothing major befell the caves right up until the end.”
“And what happened then?” Devol asked. “Did it dry up or something?”
The other boy looked questioningly at him. “You don’t know? You’re usually very good about knowing Ren history.”
“I guess I never got around to learning the mines’ past,” he admitted. “I knew of the mines themselves, of course. Even abandoned, they take up a large chunk of land in the kingdom but nowadays, it’s a ghost town. My father once mentioned that the area was what he called a ‘gray zone,’ which means that patrols don’t go through there often because it’s rare for any bandits or dangerous creatures to be seen there.”
“Probably because most people realize it’s better to leave it alone.” Jazai leaned back in his chair and rolled his neck. “By the end of the operations there, it grew to have a reputation of being haunted or cursed. There were numerous deaths over the decades—some in accidents while others were the result of creature attacks from the nasty beasts that dwell much deeper within. It wasn’t a big deal for a number of years but the longer it dragged on and the deeper they went, the more common it became. There were also some accusations of murder in a few cases but nothing was ever confirmed.”
Asla placed her fork inside her bowl. “I don’t see how that would give it the reputation of being cursed. It all sounds like normal but unfortunate events in a situation like this.”
The diviner nodded. “Yeah, but I haven’t reached the good parts, which started in the last full year of operations.” He retrieved his tome and turned to an empty page within. Sketches beginning to appear of miners within the caverns and various beasts.
“You see,” he continued, “eventually, many miners and other people in the village began to hear voices and sounds. Most chalked it up to the beasts and the voices carrying through different parts of the caverns, but others began to recognize some of the voices as old family and friends who had been lost over the years.
“Those sounds, after a while, couldn’t merely be the beasts they knew about. By this point, they regularly sent hunters and extermination teams to deal with any of the threats within, and they gained a fairly good understanding of what was inside. Nothing sounded like what they could hear.
“Then odd happenings occurred like the water lines becoming toxic or the miner’s food spoiling after they took it into the cave, even if it was fresh that morning. Some even said that they would see people wander in at night, never to return, and the nighttime crews would never see them walking around the caverns when asked.”
Asla’s ears flattened. “Whether this is true or not, it seems a rather poor choice for a location to hold this event.”
“It seems perfect to me,” Devol contradicted and received a confused look from the wildkin. “A big part of the trials is to whittle the contestants down, right? Having it take place in a location that has a bad reputation would scare off the weakest magi immediately, and even if the ‘curse’ story is untrue, the beasts in the cave, the darkness and claustrophobia, and even the unstable foundation would prove to be useful in a last-man-standing event.”
“You say that so casually,” Jazai muttered and lowered his head for a moment before he looked at his friend. “Also, you both seem to dismiss the potential of the curse too easily. I would have thought you would know better.”
The swordsman waved it off. “I’m not saying it is not possible. Curses are certainly real, but you should know that many items and places are said to be cursed or haunted and turn out to have more practical explanations. Curses are hard to use, even by skilled magi, and even harder to maintain, especially if the magi is not there to maintain it.”
Asla nodded and her ears began to raise as she calmed slightly. “Right. You said it is a ‘ghost’ town now, which means it's abandoned. If this all happened long ago, even if a magi was cursing the area, they would be dead by now, or gone.”
“Maybe,” Jazai said with a shrug. “But you know that skilled magi can live longer than normal lifespans, and that’s to say nothing of races like mori and dryads who can live much longer than humans, even if they aren’t great magi.”
Devol tapped his fork on the side of his plate. “So you think someone wanted the people gone after they had already spent decades digging?”
“Well, there is the other option—the haunting one.”
Asla nodded and pushed her bowl to the side. “Mana is released on death. We saw with that flayer alpha what can happen when it is absorbed by another being.”
“So another enchanted creature, then?” the swordsman asked.
“Potentially, but violent deaths did occur in the cave,” Jazai reminded them. “And violent deaths can cause mana to burst out all at once and linger in the area for longer than normal.”
“Sure, but it would take a great many deaths in a short amount of time for something like that to cause anything resembling a haunting,” Devol countered.
“This was a mining operation,” Jazai pointed out. “Do you have any idea what they were mining?”
He paused and frowned. “Well, cobalt would be the easy guess.”
“Yes, it would, but also the wrong one,” the other boy retorted. “The Sombre Caves contained several different valuable minerals. Among them were mithril and elementium.”
“Okay, what of it? Mithril can absorb only a tiny amount of mana compared to cobalt and elementium is able to adapt to mana-enchanted magic but not mana itself.”
“Those were merely a couple of examples, and the caves were full of them,” Jazai explained. “But even taking those out of the equation, the one thing that you should be concerned about is that some of the latest letters mentioned that they had possibly stumbled on vermillion.”
Devol dropped his fork and his muscles froze for a moment. “Oh.”
“Vermillion?” Asla asked. “What is that? Vermillion is a shade of red, correct?”
“Yep, but in this case, it’s the shade of red this stone has. Its name is derived from that color like cobalt is. While it also absorbs and contains mana like cobalt, its much rarer.”
“And a good thing too,” the swordsman remarked and regained his composure. “Vermillion doesn’t only store and dispense mana like cobalt. From what I understand, it taints it somehow.”
“Well, that’s the urban legend,” Jazai said and immediately caught their attention. “My father worked with some several years ago, although not for long. I’m not sure ‘taint’ is the word he would use, though. He said it ‘distorts’ mana, although that seems more vague. But he had to end his trial early and said he would feel fluctuations in his mana that went from feeling like he had his anima active to feeling like he was bleeding dry. He would get headaches, nausea, and start to hallucinate voices.”
“Like the miners,” Asla whispered.
The diviner nodded. “My guess is that if there is vermillion in those mines, combine that wi
th the dispersal of mana from the deaths of the miners, and the stories are suddenly put into perspective.”
Devol sighed and picked his fork up. “True enough. I guess it’s something we’ll have to be aware of once we head out there.”
Jazai looked at him in surprise before his expression shifted to annoyance as he began to eat his meal again. After a moment, he chuckled and shook his head as he finally focused on his plate and began to eat in earnest. “You’re very casual about all this, aren’t you?”
“Was this meant to scare us?” he replied and toyed with his mashed potatoes.
His friend shook his head again. “Not at all, but the more we look into this…I don’t know. I guess I had hoped it would put things into perspective.”
“It has,” he assured the apprentice with a smile. “This will be tough but we knew that. If anything, you shed more light on what we could be running into, and that helps considerably.”
The diviner stopped eating for a moment and stared at his friend who continued to eat his meal casually and his smile even seemed contented. A part of him wished he would be more serious now, especially with what they had been through already. But he had to admit that the swordsman’s assuredness and calm, as irritating as they could be, kept him grounded.
Chapter Eleven
“So…besides the history of these caves,” Asla began and peered at the map, “was there anything else you wanted to show us?”
“Hmm? Oh, right.” Jazai scootched his chair closer and nodded. “Vaust knew where the trial was but not specifically where it would begin.” He dug in the pocket on his robe and took his signet out. “I think I may have a better idea now, though.”
“Awesome. What have you found?” Devol asked and glanced at the stacks of books his friend had brought with him. “And how long will this take?”
The apprentice rolled his eyes. “Oh, not too long, although given the situation, I’d think you wouldn’t mind me being somewhat long-winded.” He tossed the signet on the table in front of the two of them. “Okay…that creature on the signet. I first thought it was a chimera of some kind that was designed to be a puzzle for the entrants to the trials.”
“That was the impression I got from Vaust,” Asla agreed. “He did say the only help we could get to find the location without him would be from that emblem.”
“Right, but it is not a puzzle or even a hint. It’s the answer,” Jazai replied with a smile. “Because it turns out it is not a chimera at all. It’s a real animal, merely one we don’t see that often.”
“It is?” Devol picked the signet up and studied the four-winged creature. “Four wings… If the trials are being held in our realm, the only creatures I can think of that have four wings are either in Osira or Solen and they look more like birds and reptiles than bats.”
“Correct, but this is not a creature that has four wings,” the apprentice pointed out. “At least, not on its own.”
His two companions looked incredulously at one another and the wildkin spoke first. “What do you mean?”
“That is indeed a type of bat known as a nocaloc, and if you look at the bottom set of wings, you’ll see that they are smaller.”
The other two leaned closer to the image and Devol noticed immediately that the wingspan of the second set of wings was indeed smaller. “I thought it was only because the signet was too small to make them bigger.”
Jazai frowned. “I don’t think they have to keep it a certain size, Devol, but maybe they do. I don’t know the rules. Either way, it led me to look around the bestiary for the caverns and I discovered the nocalocs, who have an interesting method of tending their young when they are learning to fly. The baby nocas cling to their parents during their early stages and once they are almost ready to fly on their own, their mother flies with them to accustom them to flight. They continue to cling to them and this lets them spread their wings while still safe on their belly.”
“So the second set of wings is their child’s,” Asla finished and nodded. “I see. And this tells you where they are located in the caves?”
“It does indeed,” he confirmed. “At first, I thought it was merely to lead someone to the Sombre Caves since that is the only place they are known to inhabit in Renaissance. But it turns out that nocalocs live in a colony and have lived in the same area within the caves for a long time.”
He straightened and pointed to a location on the map that showed a circular cavern that was connected by four different paths. “This is considered the ‘second heart’ of the cave.” He moved his finger a little higher to a larger area with more paths leading to it. “This is what is commonly thought to be the ‘main heart’ or center of the caves, but the second heart is another area that connects many different routes around the cave and apparently, the nocalocs nest there specifically.”
“And that’s where the trials are?” Devol said thoughtfully and smiled at his friend. “Good work.”
Jazai smirked and eased back in his chair. “It was easier since we knew the rough location, so it made the process much faster.”
“Then if we know where it is, how should we get there?” Asla asked and returned her focus to the map. “It appears there are several ways into the caves themselves. Which one should we take?”
“We have an anchor set up near the town of Petoile, which is about an hour away from Reverie on foot for us,” the diviner said. “I recommend we go in there. After all, it is the main entrance to the mining operation and therefore the most accessible. The other entrances are kind of a crapshoot. Some are merely natural entrances and others have had some work done, but it’s shoddy work, mostly by miners who were trying to cut out a little extra ore for themselves to pocket.”
“That sounds like the best route,” Devol agreed. With his meal finished, he pushed his plate aside. He looked at both of his friends. “Well, that means we’re ready now, right? We can head to the trials whenever they start!”
“That would be the day after tomorrow,” a familiar deep voice replied and startled the group.
“V-Vaust? Where did you come from?” Jazai sputtered.
The mori tilted his head. “Didn’t you pick me up in your book this time?”
The boy frowned and closed his majestic. “Are you still bitter about that?”
“On the contrary, it was a great use of your gift. I was impressed,” he replied and bowed his head slightly.
“The trials begin in two days?” Asla asked. “Why did we cut it so close? I thought we qualified after our last mission.”
The mori nodded slowly. “Yes, but we wanted to give you as much time as possible to prepare. Also, convincing the authorities on the trial’s Council took more effort than anticipated. You should know they are eager to see you now,”
Jazai shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “That’s not ominous at all.”
“Should we leave tomorrow, then?” Devol asked his friends. “It will give us a head start and we’ll still have to navigate the caves.”
“That is true, but I should make that a simple matter as long as we have a map,” Asla stated and her ears twitched excitedly.
“I’m all right with tomorrow. It’ll allow us to check out the competition in advance and maybe get some ideas of what the trials will be,” Jazai concurred.
“At least you are thinking ahead. I wish you the best,” Vaust stated and turned to leave.
“Mr. Lebatt!” Devol called and stopped the mori. “Are you leaving on a mission?”
“Not at the moment, why?” the Templar asked and looked at him over his shoulder.
The boy stood and walked up behind him. “You won’t be shadowing us again, will you?”
Vaust looked surprised for a moment before he chuckled. “No, I won’t. In fact, if I did and I was caught, that would not only get you disqualified but it would probably tarnish the Order’s reputation in the eyes of the trial Council. That, in turn, would mean we wouldn’t be able to send any more members through on our word alone.”
“So we will truly be alone?” Asla asked, although her quiet tone made the question seem more to herself than anyone else.
“Indeed you will. It’s exciting isn’t it?” Vaust replied with a small smile. “I and the others will be there to see you off and await your return. Tonight, you should take care of any lingering doubts and rest well. The trials await.”
The three friends watched him walk away. They were certainly excited but a feeling of unease had also begun to set in. Until this moment, they had been completely focused on getting ready for the trials. Now that they were prepared and knew where to go, it finally hit them what that meant.
Jazai pushed his plate aside, rolled the map, and placed it on top of the books he had brought with him. “I’ll make a copy of the map,” he told them and stood to leave the table. “And write a note to my father. I’ll see you two in the morning.”
Asla nodded and turned to the table with Freki and Wulfsun. “I need to see Freki and visit the shri—speak to some others as well,” she announced as she passed Devol. “A good night to you both. See you in the morning.”
“Good night,” the swordsman replied to them both and drew a deep breath when he was left alone with his thoughts for a moment. He collected their plates and carried them to the cleaning area, where he deposited them for the attendants before he returned to the table to retrieve Achroma. With nothing more to do, he decided to go to his room and passed Asla and Freki in conversation while Wulfsun watched him leave.
When Devol reached his room, he took a moment to look out of his window into the night sky where the stars gleamed brightly. He turned the light in his lantern down and unwrapped the cloth around Achroma so the light of the blade illuminated the room. In the silence, he thought about the trials, the adventures he had experienced before now, his new friends and comrades, and eventually, thought back to that brief moment during the fight in the arena and the figure he had seen.
Was that Elijah, the owner of the other half of Achroma and his birth father? The boy ran his hand over his sword’s blade and let his thoughts tussle over this strange possibility. He had truly given little thought to the man, even when it was only a suspicion that he might be his father. But seeing what he had accomplished with only a brief window of time through that connection, he seemed both powerful and decisive and could wield Achroma with much greater ability—to a level he had not even contemplated for himself.
The Oblivion Trials (The Astral Wanderer Book 3) Page 6
