am-books Chapter 103 - Northern Allies
Chapter 103 - Northern Allies
They made it back to the surface two hours later, having fought through a scattering of labyrinthine horrors and a chimera that seemed to have come from an undiscovered eco-node on the first level. Mirian went through the motions of denying that she'd done anything special.
She went on patrol, killing several myrvites. With the split profits from selling their spell organs, she got her own room again in the lodge and rebuilt her workshop, this time adding the tools she'd need to continue her work on soul magic.
Then the arcane eruption in the Endelice took place, and Mirian spent the evening slaughtering myrvites, which fully charged the soul repository she'd built. During the fighting, she continued to check the souls of everyone in town. With Beatrice's group consumed by the Labyrinth, the myrvites broke through one of the streets, stampeding over four people who subsequently died of their injuries. Again, the local priest was wholly inadequate for the task. Mirian confirmed he didn't have a soul repository. In future cycles, she could use hers for healing the wounded, but for now, she kept it hidden. She continued to do nothing to indicate her foreknowledge.
On the 22nd of Solem, Mirian went down with Aelius's group again. There was a great deal of swearing as they realized the Labyrinth had shifted again and they had to re-explore the first level. Mirian had known it was going to happen and couldn't bring herself to feign surprise or annoyance. Oh, you have to do something you've already done again? she found herself thinking. Darn. That must be so frustrating for you.
The labyrinthine horrors on the first level were small, but persistent. They killed several dozen as they remapped the rooms.
When they took a break to eat lunch, the other mage tried to strike up a conversation. "So, Niluri, what got you started in the arcane arts?"
"They're interesting," Mirian said.
"Yeah, that's for sure. What do you like the most?"
"All of it, I'd say."
There was a slight tinge of annoyance from the other arcanist. "Well, where are you from?"
"Cairnmouth," she lied.
"Oh yeah? That's neat. So am I. Which neighborhood?"
She shrugged. "We moved around a lot."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
A long pause. "You don't talk much, do you?"
"Sometimes."
Mirian had killed the conversation in record time.
She just couldn't bring herself to care. The only thing she wanted to know from the team was what they knew about the labyrinth, and the small talk just didn't interest her. She knew she was being cold and rude, but it wouldn't matter. None of them would remember.
She could always go through social niceties if she needed something.
After several hours of mapping, they found the entrance to the second level again, now a few hundred meters north of where it had been. Interestingly, Mirian noticed the new layout had several long corridors running north to south that hadn't been there before, and ambient magic levels in those corridors was elevated, but not in the adjacent rooms.
Mirian captured a small labyrinthine horror in a force cage, remembering Elsadorra's request for a live specimen. As they moved up the elevator shaft, though, the rest of the team eying her and the specimen nervously, the horror suddenly went rigid and then limp. Mirian poked at it with some raw force magic, but it didn't react. She let it out of the cage to see if it was faking death (which Aelius shouted about), but it stayed limp.
Interesting. Aelius had mentioned the yellow substance from the puzzle became inert when it left the Vault, but this was a living creature. Ambient mana levels hadn't changed significantly. The environment wasn't fundamentally different—the Labyrinth was basically as cold as the surface. So what had killed it?
Elsadorra did appreciate how fresh the sample was, and immediately dissected it. Mirian watched and took notes.
She continued to work on and off with Elsadorra the rest of the cycle, helping her analyze samples, distill magichemicals, and decipher the function of some of the glyphs they'd found down there. On the outside, Elsadorra appeared to be about as affectionate as a pile of bricks, but Mirian started to discover there was a beautiful honesty to the woman. When she said, "Thank you. I am grateful," it was in emotionless monotone, but she really did mean it.
Part of her appreciated it, because the way Elsadorra sounded was the way Mirian felt. Her conversations didn't exist to further a bond between two people, didn't create any friendships, wouldn't ever lead to a mutual love; they were something she had to get through, in the same way she had to piss in lavatories and eat three meals each day.
It was hard to find genuine joy in any of it. Instead, she only found satisfaction in learning something she hadn't known before, making progress on a problem, or opening up another line of inquiry to investigate. Certainly, she wasn't running out of things to learn.
When the end came again, she watched Frostland's Gate dispassionately; one last check for any hiding agents or anomalies. The people clutched each other and wept and asked why? to the heavens.
Mirian had no answers for them yet.
***
The next cycle, after grabbing the wand and focus from the underground and changing the resonance of the orichalcum pieces, she visited Professor Viridian during his office hours. Outside, the Torrviol was still on the hunt for someone that matched her pre-transformation description.
"I have a bit of a strange question. What's the relationship among all these hieroglyphs?" she asked, handing him the sketch she'd made.
"Contacts? What?" Beatrice said.
"If she's telling the truth, money is worthless," Grimald said.
Mirian gave them an evil grin. "And yet, people have a very hard time saying 'no' to it. It's one thing to know something, and another to understand it in your bones."
"Cediri," Beatrice said, "We don't keep secrets from each other. We're buddies. What did you do?"
Mirian dropped her voice, because this part, she didn't need going around town. "He's been smuggling myrvite parts to the Cairnmouth Syndicate for extra coin." She raised a finger as the smuggler in question opened his mouth to protest. "I've met Numo and Ravantha, so please don't bother denying it."
Beatrice went white. "You... you... I can't believe... we have an ethical responsibility to...." She stood up to leave, but Mirian grabbed her arm.
"Forgive him," she said. "You don't have time to hold onto that feeling of betrayal. He's still your friend. Hold on to that."
Beatrice looked at Mirian. The table was silent. Grimald looked sad, but he didn't say anything. Finally, Beatrice sat back down and said, "You have changed, haven't you? You're not the Mirian I knew. She was... funnier. More carefree. And stressed. And awkward. And not nearly as smart as she thought she was."
Mirian gave her a sad smile. "All true, I suppose. Everyone changes, though. Or at least, they used to."
Another silence came over the table. Behind them, there was the pleasant sounds of chatter and the clink of utensils on plates, of the tavern door opening and closing, of steam hissing in the kitchen.
"So what do we do?" Grimald said.
"'To break a mountain, start by removing a single stone,'" Mirian quoted.
"And how many stones have you removed?" asked Cediri.
"At least seven," Mirian said.
Beatrice snorted.
"See, I still have some of the old Mirian in me. So here's my plan," she said. They had eighteen days, and Mirian outlined six different expeditions into the Labyrinth she wanted, with the primary goal of tracking leyline movement beneath the Labyrinth, the secondary goal of retrieving and studying both antimagic entropic glyphs and and celestial runes they could find, and the tertiary goal of making progress in the Vault.
That would require heavily modifying the divination equipment they did have, but Mirian's expertise in glyphs and artifice would streamline the process significantly. Having a team that was on-board with the plan was critical, because Mirian would need to build and then charge a soul repository with myrvite souls, then not freak out when she started doing soul magic.
"You trust her?" she overheard Grimald whispering to Beatrice.
"She's a good person," Beatrice whispered back. "And how else do you explain what she knows?"
***
After the weeks of expeditions and research, Mirian and Beatrice watched the world end from the village at the end of the world.
"How long will it take?" Beatrice asked. They'd hiked up to a hill outside town for a better view. Beatrice had cried for a bit, then her tears had dried.
"Everyone always wants to know. I wish I had an answer."
"It's beautiful, at least," she said.
Mirian wasn't sure if she meant the bright auroras dancing across the sky and the prismatic glow of arcane energy erupting across the frostlands like fireworks or the frostlands themselves, dripping with glaciers and soft blankets of snow. She nodded.
"Who will you save?"
"Lily," said Mirian instantly. Then with a sigh, "And as many as I can. But I'm just one person."
"You can't do it alone," Beatrice agreed. "No one could." She was silent for a long time. The crashing thunder of a leyline breaching the Endelice echoed across the land.
Beatrice said, "When you come back here, tell me... tell me that you have to cut apart a rose bush to see its flowers bloom again."
Mirian put her hand on Beatrice's arm.
"At least I won't remember. But you... stay strong, Mirian."
The moon fell again.