by Pirateaba
The Antinium had no need of flame. In fact, Ceria thought the fire bothered him a bit. Despite the cold winter weather, the former Prognugator sat with his back to the fire, scanning the landscape. He wasn’t sleeping as he kept watch, but he was so still that he could have been a statue.
Neatly laid out by the Antinium’s side was a shortbow and arrows planted in the ground, ready to be fired. He had one of Erin’s kitchen knives on the ground in front of him, and the enchanted iron shortsword next to it. It was like Ksmvr expected an attack at any moment.
Ceria sighed. Then she stared back at her skeletal hand again. It didn’t hurt. Not anymore. But it felt like it was still covered in flesh, sometimes. But she had to use magic—let it flow into her missing limb—to make it move. And when she touched things, that was the worse. Then she felt as if she could feel something, but it was just her imagination.
The fire coughed and Pisces sneezed into it. Ceria made a face as a wisp of smoke drifted her way. Pisces really did need a bath. She could probably conjure some water out of the air, but it would be a waste of mana. Plus, if she was going to clean him she might as well start with herself.
Ceria wasn’t a stranger to roughing it. She’d spent countless nights outside before she passed her second decade, and she’d gone on countless expeditions with the original Horns of Hammerad, tracking monsters, preparing for dungeon dives, and so on.
But she couldn’t remember camping out ever being this pitiful. Ceria knew that she smelled about half as bad as Pisces, and dried sweat, grime, and unwashed clothing was making her own personal experience unpleasant.
At least they weren’t camping in the snow again. Ceria and Pisces had cleared the ground of the stuff, and it wasn’t snowing like it had last night. Normally Ceria would have liked to camp in a cave, but the Ruins of Albez were part of a natural depression in the ground far from any helpful mountains or hills. The ruined building had sunk into the earth, and so any normal group of adventurers planning to stay in the area for more than one day brought tents.
But they didn’t have any, because they couldn’t afford them. In fact, the Horns of Hammerad hadn’t planned on staying long in any case. They’d brought enough supplies for two days.
This was their eighth night. All of them had yet to eat.
Ceria’s stomach growled and she made a face. Hunger was also something she’d gotten used to when she was young, but she couldn’t ever remember really running out of food in the Horns of Hammerad. For all his temperamental issues, Calruz had been a good soldier and leader in keeping his group fed and outfitted, and Gerial had always left a margin of error when buying gear.
Her heart twinged as she remembered them. Ceria stared back into the fire as Pisces clicked his tongue. Her stomach growled again.
Only—that wasn’t a growl. That was the faint crunch of something in the snow. Ceria instantly looked up and began focusing mana into her skeletal hand. She saw Ksmvr grab his bow and an arrow. Pisces sat in from of the fire, oblivious as he nibbled at a dirty fingernail.
“Pisces.”
Ceria kept her voice low as she hissed at him. Pisces took no notice. Ceria was about to snap at him even if it meant warning whatever what approaching when she heard a voice.
“It’s me, Ceria.”
Instantly, Ceria relaxed. Ksmvr lowered his bow as Yvlon approached. The armored woman walked towards the campfire and tiredly slung a pack to the ground.
“Food and another shovel.”
She tossed the shovel on the ground as well, nearly hitting the fire. Pisces looked up and sniffed at the tool. Then he went back to reading.
Yvlon eyed the mage, and then laboriously sat down. She began trying to take off her silver armor, equally dirty from time spent outdoors. Ceria went to help; she’d helped her fellow adventurers more than once and she knew how it was done.
Ksmvr came over too. He sat respectfully away from everyone else, which was probably for the best.
“Comrade Yvlon. Does our team have permission to reenter the ruins tomorrow?”
Yvlon barely paused at Ksmvr’s odd address. She nodded tiredly.
“That’s what the City Runner said. No team wants to go to the ruins; they’re all busy with local requests or getting ready to enter that dungeon in Liscor.”
“I see. That is optimal.”
Ksmvr nodded several times. Ceria’s face didn’t really smile; her lips just sort of twisted. Yvlon was making the same face.
“Apparently, the [Dangersense] surge we felt came from that dungeon. No word on whether something else happened; mages would have gotten a message if something nasty came out.”
“Still. That’s some danger in there if that’s what happened from just opening the front door.”
Ceria muttered as she helped Yvlon take off the breastplate. The other woman nodded.
“More teams are coming down from the northern cities. Big names. Griffin Hunt and the Halfseekers are going to have competition if they don’t clear the dungeon soon.”
“Mm.”
Ceria had too many emotions and feelings about the new dungeon to put into words. Yvlon clearly felt the same way, because she didn’t elaborate. Ceria had just finished helping her take off the last of her armor when she exclaimed in annoyance.
“Pisces! Get your hands out of the food!”
The young man paused as he lifted a sausage out of the bag Yvlon had brought. He sniffed at Ceria.
“I am feeding myself, Springwalker.”
“We’ll make food for everyone in a little bit. Your hands are filthy.”
“I am hungry.”
Yvlon didn’t say anything, but Ceria had to seriously stop herself from blasting Pisces with a spell there and then. She modulated her tone only slightly.
“We all are. But we eat and work together as a team. Put the food back.”
Pisces held her gaze for a second, and then made an irritated sound. He tossed the sausage back at the bag and missed. It landed in the dirt next to the fire.
Yvlon twitched. But she didn’t say anything. Ceria counted to five before she picked the dried sausage up and washed it off. A stream of water flowed from her skeletal fingertip and over the sausage, cleaning the dirt off.
“How far did you have to walk to get to the Runner, Yvlon?”
“Four, five miles? She wouldn’t come any closer.”
“Five miles?”
Ceria ground her teeth. Yvlon only shrugged tiredly.
“Makes you wish Ryoka were in the area, doesn’t it?”
It did. City Runners were notorious for refusing to get near monsters or dangerous areas when delivering resupplies to adventurers—they were useful because they could save a day or more of travel, but they charged high prices and inconvenienced the adventurers who had to go and meet them.
“If I’d known you would have had to walk that far in the snow, I’d have sent Ksmvr with you.”
“Then the Runner would have just run away.”
Pisces unhelpfully interjected this as he stared at the bread and other food Ceria had purchased with their dwindling coin. The half-Elf scowled as she pulled out a block of cheese and stared at it.
“I told them half a block of cheese. Who’s taking down messages in that damn building?”
The custom for adventurers was to use the [Message] spell to send requests for gear, supplies, or even potions to the local Mage’s Guild or similar buildings in cities. Depending on the urgency of the request (which naturally raised the price of the delivery exponentially), the guild would deliver the request to the local Runner’s Guild where someone would hopefully fulfill it.
Really, it was a gamble sometimes. Prices were very high for deliveries, but most City Runners didn’t like to take the risk of getting near a hotspot for monsters anyways. And when they did, they often waited far away from the actual requested delivery site, shining bullseye lanterns to let adventurers know they had to come out to pick up their package. And the cost—
“How much do we have left, Yvlon?”
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Good news.”
“We’ve got one gold coin left.”
Yvlon lifted up the empty money pouch and shook it. Even Pisces looked dismayed at that.
“That’s it? How much did the Runner charge?”
“About average. But we didn’t have that much to begin with, and this was the only way to get the food quickly.”
Ceria ground her teeth as she accepted the money pouch from Yvlon. That was the last of their coin, which meant their future was pretty straightforward.
“We’ve got food for two more days, then. If we can’t find what we’re looking for by then, it’s over.”
Over. Ceria watched her three teammates react differently to the news.
Yvlon had the best reaction. She was a seasoned adventurer and a former Silver-rank team Captain. She just nodded, resigned to the outcome. She didn’t like it clearly; her eyes were tight, but she knew that they had no other choice.
Ksmvr was interesting. He didn’t even look that bothered by the news. He just nodded, and went back to studying the landscape. Didn’t he care? Or did he put all his faith in her decisions? Either way, Ceria would have liked more emotion from him.
And less from Pisces. The young man’s eyebrows snapped together furiously.
“Then what? We just give up?”
“If we have to. We don’t have the coin to keep searching, Pisces.”
“Then what do we do, Springwalker? Do we go back and start taking other requests?”
“Maybe. If we have to. Unless you’ve got another idea?”
Pisces stared at her. He was grumpy, tired, and hungry. In short, he had the exact same mood as everyone else in the group. But he was also annoying, and he never hesitated to make his opinions clear.
“I don’t know if I would wish to continue my association with this group afterwards. I have as of late begun to question the merits of lending my services to this team.”
Yvlon frowned, probably trying to decode Pisces’ comment, and then out of genuine anger. Ceria didn’t rise to the bait. She just nodded.
“Fine. You want to quit? Do it after tomorrow.”
Pisces hesitated.
“Our searching would be much improved if you took my opinions.”
“We tried that. Didn’t work.”
Ceria pulled a knife out of its sheathe at her side. She began slicing the sausage into chunks and getting a meal ready. Ksmvr came over to help her as Pisces scowled and kept talking.
“One mistake hardly disqualifies my methods. We might have found the secret rooms by now if—”
“We didn’t. And we’ve checked a lot of damn places. Drop it, Pisces.”
“I came here under the assumption that we would find—”
“So did we all.”
Yvlon interrupted. She stared hard at Pisces. It was the first time in a while that Ceria remembered the other woman taking an active stance. But even her patience had limits. She glared at Pisces, but the other mage was hardly impressed.
“We all took a risk on this expedition, Pisces. If it fails, it’s no one’s fault. We just had bad luck.”
“Inefficiency, perhaps.”
“You think you could do better than a group of four?”
“If I had undead—”
Yvlon’s brows drew together. Ceria interrupted as she finished squishing some of the cheese into the hard shell of the bread with the sausage.
“If you did, the local Watch would have shot you full of arrows at Esthelm. And even if you got them here, those Shield Spiders would have eaten your leg before your shambling zombies got close enough to pull you out of their nest.”
Ceria glared at Pisces. She was tired of his constant complaints. It hadn’t been bad at first; he hadn’t been annoyed until around day four. But then, it had been another burden to bear. But this last day he had been incessant.
The half-Elf and unhappy Captain of the Horns of Hammerad rubbed at her forehead, searching for a moderately diplomatic response.
“We’re all tired. We’re all frustrated. But only you keep complaining. Why don’t you keep quiet for a while, Pisces?”
Even Ksmvr nodded. He carefully handed the sandwich he’d made to Yvlon. The human woman hesitated, but accepted it reluctantly. She eyed the sandwich and paused for a good few seconds before biting it. Ceria saw Yvlon glance at Ksmvr, but the Antinium didn’t seem to notice.
“Ksmvr. Do you want another sandwich?”
“I will have just cheese on mine if that is acceptable.”
“Fine.”
The Antinium immediately loaded up his sandwich with a double-helping of cheese. Ceria, taking his example, added twice as much meat to hers instead of cheese. Ever since the Antinium had gotten past his allergy to cheese thanks to the magical charm he’d been eating cheese almost exclusively.
Pisces hadn’t made a sandwich yet. Ceria began assembling one, even though she privately would have rather made him do it. But then he might eat more than they could afford for the night, so she did it anyways. Pisces observed her working and commented with an acerbic tone as she was nearly done.
“Just so you know, I would never animate zombies to begin with. They are an inefficient use of mana, unless used as immediate shields. Ghouls or skeletons would be—”
“Dead gods, Pisces! Shut up! Just eat and we’ll talk about this tomorrow, alright?”
Her fragile temper snapped. Ceria hurled the sandwich she’d made at Pisces. He stopped the flying food in the air with a hand and an affronted look. But he did shut up.
The food was cold, somewhat hard to chew, and could have benefited from some time near the fire. But all four adventurers were so hungry that they scarfed down the food in seconds. Ceria could have used a second helping, but she knew that was all they could afford to eat.
After that, they just sat around. Miserable. It really was miserable. Everyone stank a bit, but no one wanted to wash in this freezing weather. They were tired and uncomfortable, but at least they’d had something to eat.
It wasn’t so much a spoken word, but sheer exhaustion that made all four begin grabbing their blankets. Ceria shivered even when she wrapped the cold, rough fabric around herself. She moved closer to the fire and saw that Yvlon and Pisces had done the same.
No one talked. Ksmvr neatly unpacked his blanket and then paused. He looked around at the other three, two humans and one half-Elf.
“It appeared that our preparations were decently sound. And our objective had much merit. Our approach was correct, and we have taken many optimal approaches. Yet we have thus far failed to achieve our goals. What went wrong?”
No one had an answer to that. They curled up in their blankets or in Ksmvr’s case, sat with it draped around his body. It was a cold night.
—-
The next day dawned cold and early. Ceria woke up shivering in her blankets. She should have used an ice resistance spell she reflected, but she needed to conserve mana. Plus…she’d never really studied those in Wistram. Ironic, really.
Yvlon rolled out of her bedding at around the same time Ceria got up, and Ksmvr was already awake, if he’d ever slept. Only Pisces snoozed on, incredibly ignoring the cold weather, which suited the others just fine.
“Hot porridge. No spices, no fruits.”
Yvlon handed Ceria a bowl. The half-Elf warmed her good hand as she held the food and shrugged.
“I’ve had worse. Want to look over the map as we eat?”
The Human young woman made an unhappy face.
“I guess so.”
Ceria dreaded looking at the map too, to be honest. It was like staring at a piece of pie held just out of reach. Everything looked perfectly simple at first glance.
See the treasure? See the secret rooms? There’s the treasure. But finding it—
“Okay, we tried digging around the ruined dome building yesterday, but there’s nothing that
even remotely resembles the other structures on the map. So we have to assume that area’s lost or completely buried.”
Ceria pointed to a section of the map where a familiar dome-like structure was connected to what she could only see as a secret room. Yvlon nodded as she and Ksmvr stood around the map, staring hard at the places Ceria had marked.
“We have attempted numerous times to visit the second secret location in vain. It may be this section was also already claimed by previous searchers.”
Here was the problem: they had a map. And it was a good one; it showed Albez as it had been, a sprawling city complete with the secret passages and rooms that surely contained treasure. But the map did not reflect current reality.
The three Horns of Hammerad stood on a small bluff overlooking the ruins. Unlike the tidy map of the city, the ruins were, well, a mess.
Dead soil and dried-up vegetation was the landscape that made up Albez’s tomb. But the city itself had not fallen to magic or sword as far as Ceria could tell. It had simply…disappeared into the earth.
Maybe a mudslide had covered it. Or an earthquake had engulfed the city. But it had sunk below the earth, becoming covered by time and dirt until some expedition had uncovered it. Since then, the entire area had turned into a basin filled with half-buried walls and lovely pitfalls that connected a subterranean landscape with the rest of the world. And after all these many hundreds, thousands of years, everything had changed.
Parts of the ruins had shifted in the earth, somehow. Entire passages had moved out of place, and some of the buildings on Ceria’s map were in the wrong places. Worse, some were in the right place as far as she could tell, which made searching even more confusing.
“We know the passage here leads to a secret room. But if we follow it, we get nothing. Just rubble and dirt. We might be able to find the room if we had a team of [Diggers] and [Miners], but we don’t.”
Ceria crossed out another potential treasure site with a bit of charcoal on the map. She eyed the remaining spots they’d pinpointed nearly a week ago. Honestly, it felt like a lifetime. All that hope they’d had had quickly dissipated as they’d gone from spot to spot, digging in the crumbling soil for traces of something they’d never found.