Sylfaena

  "Did you really need to bed both of them?"

  Valyrian said "Need's got nothin' to do with it, sis, it's all desire, and to be fair I began with just one, then the other walked in on us and ya know what they say: when the oats come to the pot unbidden, then it's time to make porridge!"

  I can not be the only one who sees it. I sighed. It had been more than a month since Valyrian and I had that conversation. We had been walking through the Gaian waste for quite some time after having recovered the body of Falstad, the White Wolves' ill-fated mage. Rayna gifted Nenewyn and I his spellbook in the hopes that he may have known a spell or two that we didn't have in our repertoire. Speaking of Nenewyn, that playboy swordsman chose this exact moment to ask her what she was doing later. He called her beautiful, and she said "stop", but knowing her it was less "stop hitting on me" and "stop lying, I'm not pretty." Nenewyn, my dear friend, just when are you going to realize that you're not as homely as you think you are? Ah, Victor and Sis chimed in:

  My sister said, "I know she's gorgeous, cool, and mature, but come on, Selafyn! This really isn't an appropriate time for flirting!"

  Sir Guy laughed, "Her highness is quite correct, you old badger botherer! You and I can go to a tavern after this is over and I shall sing thy praises to the fair maidens - try to not be so incorrigible as we march into peril."

  Selafyn laughed, “All right but you’re buyin' the drinks, ya cock-swallowing donkey!”

  That started a back-and-forth friendly banter of mutual deprecation between them for a while. Selafyn seemed to be taking all in good humor. The two fighting-men seemed quite comfortable around each other, and they're both fairly competent - concerning though his appearance was, I felt safe when Seyafyn was on guard at the very least.

  Victor said, "I ain't about to debate whether it's wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon, but, and please don't take this the wrong way: I gotta agree with the princess Lady Nenewyn, you're actually very pretty and don't let anyone say otherwise."

  Nenewyn was stunned at first, but then she allowed herself a smile, just a small one on one side. That's her appreciation face, she can't hide a thing from me. That said, does she really not see it, can she not hear it within those dreadfully cheesy lines? What about sis and Victor? No, if Victor had seen it he would have made some sort of comment and made a reference to some sort of popular entertainment from his former world - he's quite straightforward that way. Aye, the "holy noun Batman" construct he seemed to be fond of would likely have come into play at some juncture. My sister, however, can be a little na?ve, well, except in matters of magical theory and tradecraft; she is a frighteningly good negotiator at market. Her failing to notice shouldn't surprise me. But I let it go, for now - after all, I could be wrong. I could just be seeing things.

  Anyroad, after we'd dealt with that nasty chimaera, and collected such valuable parts from it as we dared, we made our way north towards the noble quarter of the city. It was a bit of a long walk, and we needed to negotiate around, over, or through several fallen buildings. In terms of dangers, we ran into a large pack of zombies - but my fireball combined with my sister's area-healing made short work of them. Healing magic hurts the undead, you see, not as much as holy magic but sis's holy power had yet to fully awaken. There was one hulking ghoul that survived the initial onslaught, but it was dealt with.

  I will admit to being disappointed at not running into any Gaian automata - guard golems with valuable cores. But happily, we didn't encounter much apart from the usual eerie creep of this place. The way into the wealthy district was a staircase leading up a high retaining wall. Our destination worked out to being a large area of rough terrain - a scattering of rubble and exposed beams at the center of which was an especially large circular pile where it was pretty obvious that something big and round had collapsed in on itself.

  How had it been destroyed? The truth is, nobody fully understood what happened to the Gaian empire. One day everything just sort of fell into chaos. There was a calamity at the capital, obviously, that had destroyed many buildings, upheaved ground or caused it to swallow itself, and of course the hideous curse that the city suffered from as a result of becoming a waste. My mother was instrumental in making the waste safe to enter; too many innocent people had become monsters from exposure to it, and when she found out about it she of course offered to assist. As discussed before, it only worked to a degree; for even with all of her awesome power my mother could only hope to remove the worst aspects of what elder evil had touched it so long ago and it remained a wasteland.

  Using earth and kinetic magic plus some of what Victor called “good old fashioned elbow grease”, we cleared a path to the center of that mass of broken stone - surprisingly we found that a fifteen-foot tall section of tower was still standing, albeit covered in rubble.

  Malcolm said, "Well well, that's Gaian engineering for you; I'll bet old Expanius wished he had made his entire tower this sturdy." He tapped the stone wall but instead of a knock there was a shimmer and a hollow ping. "See, the first floor has been enhanced with force magic."

  Ah, I realized, he presently had magical detection up judging by the glow in his eyes - I'd noticed that he was usually very quick to activate that; it must be a habit of seasoned adventurers. I activated my own magic detection and gazed at the stone; indeed, up to about thirteen feet, there was a layer of force flush to the stone itself; it must have only been a few inches thick but that's really as thick as it needs to be for most purposes. I checked the large iron-bound doors, they did not seem to be covered in force but the frame above them was.

  I said, “I doubt there will be any traps on the front door, but…”

  Malcolm bowed, “I’ll check all the same, Sylfie.”

  I tipped my hat to hide the embarrassed smile that I was doubtless making unconsciously; so I’m Sylfie to him now, too? I’ll allow it. Malcolm performed a thorough examination of the door, the doorframe, and the stepping stone.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  At length he said, “All is well, and as it happens the door isn’t even locked!”

  Malcolm pulled on the handle and the door creaked open. It was obvious that this door hadn't been opened in hundreds of years; since before I was even born as a matter of fact. It opened into a large receiving room, the type used for entertaining guests, complete with well-preserved furniture.

  "There's magic everywhere here," I said, "Yes, that would explain the lack of decay - there's auras of various disciplines that add up to some form of transmutation or other. Very old, very powerful, I can't fully explain them."

  "So elf magic or what," asked Victor.

  Nenewyn said, shaking her head, "they did not learn these from elves; nay, these were magics of their own invention. It would be the height of hubris to assume that humans could never aspire to use magic at our level. 'Tis a pity that none of their secrets survived the fall of the empire."

  "Still," said Selafyn, who was examining a crystal decanter on the table - oh pray, tell me you're not planning on drinking that. "It'd be real neat if we found some of this bagga dust's old writings, eh? Could sell 'em to the highest bidder," he paused and bowed. "After you three have had a chance to copy them of course."

  Now the decanter, full of a brown liquid, was in his right hand; indeed, he intended to drink it. Sigh. This is making my unease even worse, I’m starting to see it even more - but nobody else appeared to be reacting to it at all.

  "Of course," said Nenewyn, giving her pince-nez a press, "His majesty, King Illorend II, ruler of Tor Anaura, whom I serve as official court mage, would be more than glad to reward you handsomely if you simply handed them over to us outright."

  Selafyn shrugged, poured some of the liquid into a glass, said, "I'll drink to that," and unceremoniously downed it in one go. His face turned green, "Gah! This ain't booze at all! It's some kinda salty fish sauce!"

  Serves him right. I prayed that we didn't find any haunches of meat lodged in the walls or any other such nonsense for surely he’d eat those too. Moving on, we searched the first floor and found nothing important; well nothing important for the mission that is. Adventurers, though famous for getting past traps and monsters, seemed incorrigibly distracted when presented with shiny things.

  Selafyn was already lounging upon the couch and wondering if it would fit in his bedroom back home. Miss Fire-Hair was rooting about in a nearby closet and trying on cloaks. Sir Guy stood patiently by my side and watched the entrance; he was smiling and shaking his head a little. That was comforting, at the very least.

  Victor knelt before an elaborate rug and said, “So all this stuff is in mint condition, which means it’s gotta be worth something, right?”

  Illiana said “Indeed. I shall take it upon myself to fetch us a high price.”

  Victor said, “Say, that’s a kitchen right? Let’s see if he had any good cookware!”

  Her eyes sparkled, “I’ll bet some of it’s enchanted, too!”

  The two of them ran off. I could hear clattering and scattered cries of excitement. You younger folks, pray focus, I thought - But Nenewyn herself wasn't immune to this either. Her eyes immediately sparkled when she saw what was on the dining room table; there was a large pitcher and eight cups made of a glossy red pottery rimmed with shiny bronze - the pitcher was decorated with a relief depicting a pastoral scene of a vineyard while the cups were largely unadorned.

  “Pray, look at this,” she said, “This is a high-end wine set, I didn’t know any of these survived! I almost want to take it for mine own but - ah!” She quickly juked towards the hearth, where there was a round metal disc, gold embossed with concentric circles of arcane runes, hanging above the fireplace. “This is the third place trophy of the Circus Arcana, and given the year written thereupon ‘tis likely from the last one ever held. And this here-”

  She went on like this for a while, moving about with uncharacteristic aplomb; ‘twas as though she’d just jumped into a history book…no, that’s not accurate. It would be more correct to say that it was personal nostalgia for her, since she’d been alive back then. Then there was the historical value of these items and the possibility of learning new… Very well, I'll admit that I, too, took some personal interest in these relics - especially the ones in the kitchen. But I had to put my foot down, or more technically, my staff.

  After giving the floor a solid tap I coughed and said, “We can despoil the kitchen after we’re done with serious matters. Come, there is still a basement to investigate.”

  Everyone agreed, grudgingly, and put down the things they were marvelling over. We found stairs leading down to a deep, dank cellar full of old wine barrels; butt-load casks, not the kind we could carry out in case you were wondering. There was a subtle, unassuming square upon one of the walls covered in illusions; Malcolm dispelled these illusions by reversing the polarity and now there was a door. Before anyone else could step forward, he quickly flashed a halting gesture. I stood, transfixed, while he examined the door thoroughly - once done he turned to face us. Whoa, his expression had turned quite grave; I had no idea his skin was capable of going even paler than it already was and I could almost swear his poliosis had expanded beyond its original reach.

  "Powdered silver, two helms of it, please," he said, holding a hand out.

  Nenewyn knew the novice grade spell necessary for the task, so she took out a pair of silver coins, muttered an incantation, and then poured silver dust into Malcolm's hand. Bit by bit he used the silver dust, flicking it with precision in a geometric pattern. Then there was a loud pop and fizzle sound. Something which was magical ceased to be so, and Malcolm wiped the sweat from his brow while breathing a sigh of relief.

  "That was a close one," he said, "A nasty trap indeed; disintegration. In other words," he produced a doll-sized illusion of himself, which he scattered into a burst of colorful motes, "Poof! Bye bye!"

  "Dust in the wind," said Victor.

  Sir Guy said, "Well done, sir! Your next drink is on me - now, shall we?"

  We all nodded and Sir Guy took point as we entered the door. Through a narrow passage we went down a long staircase until we entered into a large square chamber made of stone brick - not the knock-off whitestone the rest of the city was made of, just the plain kind. At the end of the chamber was another arched doorway with elaborate iron shod wooden doors.

  The moment we entered, a translucent full-color apparition appeared before us; a man dressed in a black robe tied with a hempen cord at the waist; he had a square cut black beard with a gray streak in the center, a bald pate, and thick eyebrows.

  “This guy’s definitely up to no good,” Victor said, “I know a set of attack eyebrows when I see ‘em.”

  I remarked, “Oh, a high-grade illusion spell built into the room itself; how very interesting!”

  The apparition said, "If you are seeing and hearing this programmed illusion, then I am probably dead, out on holiday, or trapped inside my own office and in need of rescue. If you are indeed my friends from the surface and remember the access keys, I look forward to seeing you if I should still draw breath. If you forgot them, or are intruders, or perhaps archaeologists who've come for answers long after my demise, well, all paths lead to the office but I suppose you're in for a challenge!"

  The apparition laughed maniacally, and it vanished. The doors opened, revealing a shimmering curtain. After determining that it wasn't any sort of trap, we all walked through. But when my eyes adjusted to my new surroundings I realized that the only people that had come with me were Victor and my sister.

  Bugger me.