CHAPTER 37: HIDDEN THINGS

"What are we waiting for then?"

Baor transformed his right arm into a mighty wooden ram, and prepared to swing at the wall.

"Wow, wow, wow, slow down Ba!" Lydia jumped in front of him. "We’re dozens of meters underground, and this might be a load-bearing wall, please don’t punch it."

Her brother frowned.

"So how are we going to get in there?"

The Archdruid pointed at Isara and Calen.

"We have two capable mages with us, I’m sure they’ll be able to come up with something."

Calen quirked an eyebrow.

"Safely rearranging the structure of a subterranean room isn’t exactly a very common application of magic, you know."

"But you can do it, no?"

"...yes." Calen sighed. "Move everything away from that wall then."

There was some shuffling around, and after a while the stone wall was clear of any obstructions.

He touched the cold rock with his left hand, and started chanting in a low voice.

After the first few words, the spell started working - the stone bricks forming the wall started moving and changing places, almost as if carried by invisible hands.

Soon enough there was a neat arched passage in the wall, big enough for a single person to fit in.

Beyond that opening, there was a sea of darkness.

"I wonder why they didn’t put lights in this part" Calen commented, and grabbed his lantern to illuminate the hidden chamber.

The place was even smaller than the previous room, and it was almost completely empty to boot. The only thing in the room was a strange black orb standing in the middle of the room.

It was half a meter in diameter, glossy, and was standing perfectly still even without anything holding it.

"Is... Is that what I think it is?" Lydia asked Vinifer.

"It certainly looks like it, I thought it was lost when we abandoned the crown. It’s completely useless at the moment, but once the tree grows stronger it will be a great asset."

"What’s the deal with the big marble?" Calen asked Baor.

The large druid shrugged.

"For once I have absolutely no idea."

"You’re too young to remember, but our circle used to have a fortress in the branches of the great tree." Vinifer explained.

"From my understanding it’s still there, just abandoned." Lydia added.

"Yes, unless a corrupted creature destroyed it." Vinifer resumed his explanation. "When the Blight came, the fortress was outside the protective barrier of Greenheart, so we had to abandon it - and thus relic with it."

"... okay but what does it actually do?" Calen asked.

"It allows for long distance communication with others possessing a similar artefacts."

Calen squinted his eyes.

"It’s a universal mirror? But I don’t see any runes on it."

"Our circle received it as a gift from the Green Lady, just like the tree itself - or so the legend says. If I’m being honest I don’t really know how it works, it’s my first time seeing it in person."

"How so?"

Lydia sighed.

"We were both born after the invasion Cal, everything we know about this stuff comes from our masters - that’s also the reason Ba is so clueless about it, as he never had one."

Calen nodded slowly.

The Elders referenced the early days of the invasion a couple times, but it never occurred to him that they were simply repeating things they heard from someone else - even though in hindsight it made perfect sense.

"Are you planning to reclaim the crown when the barrier grow big enough?" He asked.

"Why wouldn’t we? It’s an excellent vantage point, and the place has a couple of facilities we can’t recreate down here." Lydia answered.

"What are you going to do with this thing?" He motioned at the dark sphere.

"Nothing for now - it takes far too much power to use it, and we’re not even sure if there’s anyone who could respond if we did use it." Lydia turned around. "We still have an entire chamber to search though, so better start moving if you don’t want to spend the entire day here."

***

At some point in the search, Lydia and Calen ended up inspecting the same shelf.

She looked at the perfect passage to the hidden room, and asked:

"How do you do it?"

"What?" Calen didn’t understand the question.

"The magic I mean, you said that what you did wasn’t a common application of magic, but you didn’t have any problems doing it, so how does it actually work?"

"Oh, that’s what you mean." He Considered his answer for a moment, and went back to studying the shelf. "Magic is fundamentally a way of forcing the world to do your bidding - the runic symbols and words we use are simply a method of communicating what we want to the world. So what I did there was essentially equivalent to telling a wall to create a doorway."

"But you said it wasn’t a common application?"

He nodded.

"Since spellcasting is akin to speaking in a foreign language it’s only natural that some words and phrases aren’t used very often, and therefore few people know them." He pointed at the stone arch. "Only an extremely small subset of mages uses their power directly in architecture, so it’s actually a very rare use case."

"Then how come you knew it?"

Calen shrugged.

"Because I’m an apprentice to an Archmage, and have to know every single runic symbol and word if I want to ever become one myself."

"I thought Archmages were just particularly powerful mages." Lydia admitted.

"They are usually very powerful, yes, but the title comes from something else - their mastery of the runic language and its usage. The most crucial difference between a regular mage and an Archmage is their ability to completely forgo incantations."

"So only Archmages can cast instantly?"

"Not exactly."

Calen extended his arm, and a sharp shard of rock appeared above his palm.

"Anyone who can use magic can learn to CAS a spell without an incantation by casting it over and over, tens of thousands of times. The difference is that Archmages can cast anything instantly, no matter whether it’s their first time or a hundredth."

"Interesting."

***

Vinifer and Elira were reading through the old correspondence between Trent’s master and an Enlightened.

"I didn’t get the chance to thank you for all your advice." Vinifer started.

Elira shook her head.

"As much as I would like to claim my motives for helping you were entirely altruistic, I can’t. I had to convince you to side with us or we would all die."

"Do the motives really matter? Whatever you wanted to achieve, you helped me and everyone in Greenheart as a result, and I think that deserves gratitude."

Elira sighed.

"To be honest I wasn’t even sure if my talks with you were effective - you can be frustratingly vague."

Vinifer chuckled.

"I apologise for that, but I couldn’t give any indication that I was plotting against Trent in case someone like Conto was following us."

"...someone like Conto? Do you mean that there are more spies among civilians?"

"Were, and to be fair they weren’t entirely like Conto - their only purpose was spying on me, it was a way of Trent telling me that he’s always watching."

"Why did you end up under his thumb after your master died, anyway?" Elira asked curiously.

"A mix of bad luck and even worse judgment of my master if I’m being honest - before he died he divided a few of his secrets between his disciples. I got his martial arts manual, while Trent got information about the last resort feature in the main array."

He cringed a little remembering the past.

"When I expressed doubt after the betrayal he threatened to activate the enchantment and kill everyone in Greenheart. Instead of resisting I obeyed his whims - which lead to him getting more and more power over me, until we were in the situation you know."

"Do you think he would have actually done it back then? Just kill everyone, purely out of spite?"

Vinifer shook his head.

"I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t, he wanted power and he wouldn’t be able to gain it without other people. Not to mention that he was infected by the Blight and the tree was the only thing keeping him alive and well."

"So why did you let him just walk over you?"

"Because there was a tiny part of me that was afraid he would actually do it - kill so many just because I said no."

Elira nodded.

"For what it’s worth, I think you did your best."

***

"So did you find anything interesting or important?" Lydia asked.

"Nothing here, just junk." Baor said.

"Same here." Cassian confirmed.

"Only a copious amounts of broken, badly designed runestones - I think he was practicing making something, maybe that remote activation token for the array?" Isara said.

"We need to give those letters to Alara to check for hidden messages, but on the surface there’s nothing of note in them." Vinifer reported.

"I didn’t find any more secret locks unfortunately." Calen added.

"Well, then let’s get the hell out of here." Lydia announced.