"You did what?" Cassian asked.
"Rebeled against the Sun God." He shrugged. "As you can see from my current state it didn’t go very well."
"But how? Why?"
"Well I can’t tell you that - the curse forbids."
"I thought curses can only affect living people? You shouldn’t be affected after death, especially since you’re technically a separate existence." Elira pointed out.
"It’s a bit more complicated." Sylara sighed. "Sun God’s curse affects everyone who knows certain things about them. Since a mic is essentially a collection of mories, the curse works on it as well."
"Which leads to my next question - how co he can rember his own death? Shouldn’t he be aware only of things that happened before he was created?"
Antonio’s eyes sparkles.
"Ah, you see it’s an ingenious invention of mine - I called it ’post-mortem mind extraction’ - it’s a sigil carved directly into one’s skin, which allows for the mories to separate from the soul at the mont of death, and be transferred sowhere else."
Maya raised an eyebrow.
"Does that an your soul is left without mories?"
He chuckled.
"Oh yes, if the afterlife exists my other self is probably extrely confused, and will get a massive headache once I dissipate." The Fool rubbed his chin. "Conversely, if the theories about reincarnation are true, I just circumvented getting my mory wiped, and so guy is going to receive a dozen centuries worth of knowledge..."
"Yeah, were not here to discuss what happens after death." Sylara stated flatly. "First of all, tell if you’ve been in contact with the Tower - or anyone else for that matter - and don’t even try lying to , we both know you were just twiddling your thumbs for the hundreds of years you were down here."
"I do talk with the youngsters sotis - most of them have no idea who I am, can you believe that!?"
"Uh-huh." She nodded. "Did you get sothing useful from them? The council refuses to speak with directly."
"The council is much smaller than it lets on, that’s for sure, when I spoke to them they used nine voices, but there were only five presences behind them."
"I know that already, only a fool wouldn’t have noticed, anything else?"
"Hmmm..." Antonio scratched his head. "Ah, they have managed to create a spell allowing them to spy on the Serakhiin, quite clever but I improved it and it has beeny main source of entertainnt-"
"WHAT!?" Sylara looked positively furious. "You’ve had detailed information on the enemy for CENTURIES, and you’re telling about this just now!?"
"Now, now - no need to get aggressive Little Sy." He extended an arm, and a massive leather bound to appeared in his hand. "Here’s everything I’ve learned about them."
The Guardian snatched the book, still eyeing her grandfather angrily.
"Wait." Maya frowned. "You spent hundreds of years journaling?"
Antonio laughed.
"Oh gods no, I just created that thing."
"You’ve created thousands of pages of text - in a split second?"
"He’s made from mories Maya." Sylara reminded her. "Information is at the very core of his being, with the power of an archmage doing sothing like this is trivial."
Cassian thought of sothing.
"Can we get a second copy? We could use sothing like that, and I don’t know how long we’ll be staying here."
"Sure thing."
The Fool handed him a second, identical book.
"Why did you make this ga anyway?" Elira changed the topic.
"Oh, that one in quite simple." Sylara responded instead of Antonio. "He didn’t have an apprentice, and no one in our family was interested in magic so he created this contraption to find a successor."
"And now that soone finally reached my tomb, there isn’t a single mage among you." Antonio added in a resignes voice.
"I an there’s plenty of mages in the city, you can just choose soone and we’ll just pass on whatever you want to give them."
The Fool made a sour face.
"Originally I wanted to choose the other girl that ca with them, but then I noticed the Moon already claid her."
Sylara rolled her eyes.
"Yllarae won’t care, she always had a very hands-off approach with her chosen, I can’t imagine this ti will be any different." She threw her hands on the air. "And even if she minded, you’re already dead - what’s the worst thing she can do to you?!"
"...you know what, that’s an excellent point."
Antonio snapped his fingers and five additional books appeared in Cassian’s hands, making him buckle.
"She doesn’t need your jokes." Sylara scolded him.
He reluctantly snapped his fingers again and one book disappeared.
"Or pranks."
Two more vanished.
"You’re really making things difficult for Little Sy..."
"You’ll be fine - now one last thing, can we disable the enchant without destroying the crystal? It would be great if we could reuse it for sothing else."
"Yeah." Antonio nodded. "The magic redirection is static, once you move the crystal the whole thing will turn off."
Sylara looked her grandfather on the eye.
"It was good seeing you again."
For the first ti since they’ve t him, the Fool smiled in a completely earnest way.
"Stay safe Little Sy - and good luck in finding a successor of your own."
The Guardian waved her hand and the magic crystal simply disappeared.
Antonio’s figure shimred, and started disintegrating into sparkling dust - as the last of his silhouette disappeared, he made sure to bow one last ti.
"I don’t think that’s this is the last ti we’ll see him." Sylara said mostly to herself. "Anyway, any undead we missed will die in a few minutes, and the traps should be already disabled - let’s get out of here."
Maya squinted at the sarcophagus.
"Didn’t he promise us so sort of a reward?"
Just as she said those words, three small sacks fell onto the heads of the trio.
"I guess he at least had a pretty decent timing." Sylara chuckled. "You can open those outside."
***
"...and that was pretty much it." Elira finished explaining.
"That’s a lot of work in just five hours." Isara laughed. "We haven’t even finished adjusting the enchantnt yet."
"You have ti, Maya went back to headquarters to gather a bigger team for a general sweep of the catacombs, and Sylara won’t let us in to work until they’re done."
Calen who only listened so far, suddenly spoke up:
"I know I’ve read the Fool’s na sowhere but I can’t rember where..."
"He wrote a paper on channel shifting theory, maybe that’s why you recognise him." Isara suggested.
"No way, I’ve read that thing years ago, and I can’t even rember the authors of books I’ve read two days ago - besides I’m not talking about his real na, but his title."
"You’re thinking of the ruin entrance by the waterway in Asharil." Cassian stated.
"That’s it!" Calen looked at his friend. "How did you rember that?"
"We’ve spent so many hours trying to unlock that thing that I’m surprised you didn’t - although now I’m a bit annoyed that I didn’t recognise his na."
The ruin entrance in Asharil - a rather infamous place, all things considered - no one knew where those doors led, but because of the city’s ancient origins the theories were plentiful.
So say it’s a secret passageway to an underground palace filled with treasures beyond imagination, others believe that on the other side of the stone lays a subterranean city, full of mysteries and dangers.
The most knowledgeable people - like Alarion - also have different guesses about what is inside, but they generally agree on one detail: the place was hide sothing in a way that even the gods couldn’t find it.
It makes sense considering that the doors are signed with pseudonyms of five famous archmages - if people like that work together, anything less than going against divine will would be a bit underwhelming.
The nas on the stone slate were: the Fool, the Princess, the Huntress, the Hermit and the Devil.
Identity of the Fool was well known, mostly because he was a public figure who loved the spotlight, and Princess’ real na was also all but confird - however the other three remained anonymous.
"Am I the only one who thinks we have to go inside that ruin considering how the Fool died?" Isara sighed.
"If we manage to open it." Calen agreed. "It would be helpful to learn about the rest of them, but the Princess is long dead, assuming the theories about her identity were true, and we have no idea about the others."
"Can’t you just ask Sylara?" Elira asked. "If the Fool was her grandfather, then it stands to reason that she might have known the other four, no?"
"I guess we can try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, the chances that Antonio introduced his partners in cri to his family are rather small."
Martha ca from behind Isara and announced to her two co-workers:
"We’ve finished the design, could you check whether the model works?"
"A model?" Elira repeated.
"Well yeah, with a project this important we need to test it first." Calen gestured to one of the work stations. "Co, we might as well demonstrate how the thing works."
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