As I stared at the sigils, they shifted, changing patterns repeatedly, until I spotted one that looked like Elinder. The characters were the sa, though the style was unfamiliar.
=Compatible ensouled detected. Dominion unregistered.=
Before I could think about them, the sigils shifted again into a language I didn't recognize.
When I leaned forward, breaking away from the crystal, the sigils vanished.
"You back?" Tresla asked, her hood hovering directly in front of , making almost flinch into the crystal again.
After a brief flash of red, I leaned forward again. Shaking my head, I answered, "Yeah, I'm back." Then I shifted away, looking at the crystal. "Turns out it's an interface."
"An… interface?" Tresla repeated, tilting her head to the side.
"Go ahead," I said, waving at the crystal.
Tresla did as I suggested, her hood wobbling back and forth for a few seconds before turning towards . "Uh… I don't see anything."
Furrowing my brow, I turned back to the crystal and laid my hand on it, the sigils popping up once more. There were twelve identical symbols below the initial ssage, I hadn't noticed at first, though they stayed the sa in each language. It was only when the top ssage cycled back to Elinder and I reread the words, I figured out the problem.
"You're not ensouled," I said, frowning at the floating sigils.
"Figured that out, did you?" Tresla asked, her tone flatter than usual.
"Sorry. Didn't an anything by it, it just says you need to be ensouled. Guess you can't even see it if you're not," I said, stepping back. "Sha. Would've made figuring out what it wants a lot easier."
"Maybe we'll stumble across the key while we're cleaning this up," Tresla said, waving at the collapsed tunnels.
"Not gonna count on it," I said, looking at the crystal again, thinking about the keystone. "If the crystal's security is as rough as the keystone's, there should be a workaround. Still, since we're gonna be tidying up anyway…"
Tresla nodded, pushing to her feet and dusting off her cloak. "Personally, I'm hoping we find so treasure. What's the point of ancient ruins without treasure?"
I raised an eyebrow, glancing back at the crystal. It felt like I'd already found my treasure. Instead of saying so, I chuckled. "Fair 'nuff."
We found a fair number of potential clues in the rubble, once we were looking for them.
None were for a magical passphrase, or anything that simple. At least, not that we could tell. Most were in a language neither of us recognized. When Calbern returned, the pace of our cleanup more than doubled, though he didn't recognize the language either.
I had the sigils to serve as a prir. I was certain the first set of sigils was in the sa language as the rest of the writing in the ruins. But five words wasn’t a lot to build a vocabulary with.
So, with that in the back of my mind, we continued. The side corridors weren't all packed equally, sothing I hadn't been able to tell with my earlier casual inspection.
The first area we cleared ended up leading into a set of simple rooms that all sat empty, with no clue as to their original purpose. With no better use for them, we cleared out the entire wing by storing the excess rock within, though we kept large portions in the main room for to reshape.
In one of the rooms, we found a golden vambrace with several runes on it. They were yet another unfamiliar design, but I had no doubt they were responsible for the vambrace's intact condition.
"What do you think it does?" Tresla asked even as she slid it around her wrist.
I lowered the hand I'd raised to stop her, shaking my head. "No clue. But pretty sure we shouldn't be slapping on random magic items."
"It was surprisingly foolhardy," Calbern said.
"Sorry. After your whole thing with the crystal, I figured it was safe," Tresla said with a shrug.
"Does it do anything?" I asked.
"Not that I can tell," Tresla replied, holding the vambrace up and rotating it back and forth.
"Can I?" I asked, extending my hand towards her. If the crystal reacted to an ensouled, it was possible the vambrace had the sa requirent.
"Sure," Tresla said, holding the vambrace closer but not taking it off.
I ran my hand over it, but there was no reaction.
"Guess it just looks nice," Tresla said, flexing the black glove inside the golden vambrace.
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"Perhaps the original owners imposed restrictions to prevent unauthorized access," Calbern suggested.
"Or it only works when worn by an ensouled. Or it's a key to sothing else," I added. "We don't know enough to be sure."
"Think it works on the crystal?" Tresla asked, holding it up.
"Worth checking."
Returning to the crystal, Tresla tried holding it up, and when nothing happened, she reluctantly handed it over to . Yet I wasn't t with any more success than she'd had. So, we returned to our effort in the corridor, though with more enthusiasm than before.
After making it several dozen feet from the central chamber, we had to halt for fear of the hall collapsing on us. Which ant we'd need material for bracing. Access to the vale also ant access to prodigious amounts of wood. If we could harvest it and get it through the Waygates.
That would wait until we'd cleared the easy parts of the outer halls.
There was a sort of excitent between us, after finding the vambrace, even if we never figured out what it was. Because no matter what else it might’ve been, it was treasure. Despite the grueling work, we continued past dinner, only stopping when Bevel ca to collect us.
As we sat down with Inertia, Tresla took out her pipe, and they spent most of dinner in mostly silent communication. It was only as we were getting ready to turn in that Tresla said, "Inertia needs your help repairing Fang, if you can spare the ti tomorrow."
I humd, looking towards the others. Having Fang running again would be nice, but I wanted to continue exploring the hidden parts of the Sanctum. "How bout we work on Fang in the morning, then Inertia cos to help clear out so of the heavy stuff in the evening?"
Inertia tilted her head to the side, bringing her armored hand along the edge of her sharp chin, causing sparks to fly as she scratched a ridge. After a few seconds, she nodded.
Bevel ended up coming back to her temporary room, and when I apologized for not continuing her lessons, she glared at . “Are you trying to lt my head? We spent hours working on your fancy drawings this morning, I can barely see straight. When are you gonna teach real magic?” She waved her hand outward, sending a gust forward.
“It’s all related,” I said with a sigh.
She just crossed her arms as she looked to the side.
“Right. No more lessons today,” I said, shaking my head. “We can go over anything you’ve got questions about tomorrow. And I can show you a spell or two. Might’ve gotten carried away with my explanations.”
She grumbled, but there was the hint of a smile on her face as she closed the door to her room for the night.
The next day I joined Inertia to work on Fang, and found myself constantly interrupted. Selvi and Tanis brought reports about the villagers, including news of damage to the mats by so pest. It wasn't sothing I'd have to deal with personally, since the locals had dealt with them before, but it did an they'd be spending more effort on setting up traps.
Which ant they'd be doing that instead of starting on training for the new guards.
Halfway through our work on Fang, one of the villagers ca up to us, pointing his finger at Inertia
“Doom! The on of doom walks among us!” he said, his whole arm shaking as he pointed at Inertia.
Inertia tilted her head to the side, then looked towards for a second, before returning her attention to the Forgeheart.
“It’s fine,” I reassured him, only for the Forgeheart to explode.
It was just a small one. Barely even sent forward a step.
“Doom!” he cried again, his arm shaking even harder than before.
“Okay, sure. Maybe she is an on of doom. But she’s on our side. Kinda ans she’s an on of doom for our enemies, don’t you think?”
The man stared at , his mouth hanging open. Then a low rumbling sound started building up from Inertia’s direction. Without a word, the man turned around and threw himself into the chasm.
“Soone’s gonna hurt themselves doing that one of these days,” I muttered. “And I’m not cleaning it up.
For so reason, I got the impression my words hadn't reassured him as much as he'd been hoping for. Did get him to stop ranting though, so I took the win.
Despite the interruptions, Inertia and I managed to repair most of the damage she'd done to the heart. My contributions had mostly consisted of casting Minor Heal and Spark repeatedly, though I'd also spent so ti redesigning the suspension. Fang still wouldn't ride nice, but at least it wouldn't feel like my soul was trying to escape my body every ti Calbern took us over a small bump.
We were making good enough progress I decided we'd keep working past lunch. Which was when we hit a snag. There'd been internal damage Inertia hadn't noticed, and my use of Minor Heal had essentially welded it into place.
So we had to break the heart down again, this ti with less explosions. Not none, but with only a couple small pops, it was a noticeable improvent. Only started one fire. Once it was basically where we'd started, I called it for the day, diverting Inertia to help with the excavation. Inertia grumbled, in the form of several long, low, releases of steam, but she still ca and helped.
"Good thing we're not just searching for treasure," I said, grunting as I held the lower end of a fallen pillar as Calbern lifted the top end into place. "Considering how little we've found today."
"The Sanctum is quite the environ, master Perth. It will serve well as our primary residence… Once it has been restored to its forr splendor, of course" Calbern said, his voice only showing a hint of strain despite holding the majority of the weight of the ten-foot long stone pillar. Inertia stepped forward, her fra shoving against the pillar to hold it.
Once she'd done so, I grabbed the staff, using Sculpt Stone to fix the pillar in place, using small joinings of stone. Once the first few were secure, Inertia and Calbern moved to the next while I continued. I'd always found welding ditative, and as the stone flowed into the column, that sa sense of peace filled .
Whether working on Fang, helping with the village's mats, or restoring the Sanctum, it was good to build.
Instead of splitting off for Bevel's lessons, I had her join us. For her lessons, I started by answering her questions, using the staff to carve partial sigils in broken stone between welding jobs. Then, once she’d run out, I told her exactly what I was doing to control Sculpt Stone when I was helping directly with the repairs.
Even Inertia got dragged into the joy of restoring the buried Sanctum, and we ended up working far longer than we realized. When we erged for dinner, the sun had long set, and only those villagers who were on watch remained awake.
Selvi greeted us with a crooked smile, the fire next to her reduced to a low bed of coals. She jostled a black pot, which turned out to hold our overcooked dinner. Despite the slightly charred taste, none of us were worried about the quality of our food.
In the last minutes of our excavation, we'd found a door. One that was locked by still active magic.
At first glance, it had seed a rather plain door, with little ornantation and barely different in hue from the surrounding stone. When Inertia had tried, and failed, to shove it open, they'd called from my lessons with Bevel.
Sculpt Stone had completely failed to affect it.
Despite the Sanctum keeping its secrets locked tight, just discovering a new one had been invigorating.
Still, it wasn't enough to keep us from collapsing into our beds.
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