Chapter 362: Suppositions and Stories

“Oh by Uldar, the Traveller and all my ancestors,” Theresa shook her head, holding it between both hands. “I can’t believe this. Only you and Carey?” she said, looking up at Alex. “I just can’t…I can’t believe this.”

“I think there would be few who could,” Prince Khalik said, leaning against the wall and crossing his muscular arms. “This would be like the people of the four Kingdoms of the Blue Delta learning that the machine gods that plague them every dry season were actually the servants of their kings. It is…shattering, potentially.”

“I'm wondering if it’s just people who’re Thameish that can control it, or if it’s those who follow Uldar.” Theresa said, watching the activity around them. “And it doesn’t look like we’re the only ones with questions.”

Jules’ and Baelin’s briefing had been more than an hour ago, and its ripple effects were being felt everywhere in the encampment. Researchers, guards, and builders had paused their work—freed from their tasks for the rest of the day—and many huddled in their own little groups, discussing the news. A noise like thunder announced Vesuvius tromping through the half-finished courtyard with Tyris perched high on his back.

Her eyes lingered on Alex as they passed him and his friends, but she didn’t stop. Sitting under the branches of the aeld tree, Meikara and her medical colleagues talked among themselves, often stealing glances lex’s way with expressions ranging from curiosity to fear. But, the blood mages weren’t the only ones watching the Thameish wizard. Some were outright staring, whispering to each other like insects droning in the courtyard. Others watched the tents and partly finished out-buildings, probably looking for Carey, but they were out of luck. The young woman had returned to Generasi as soon as the team had finished binding themselves to a pact of shared secrecy.

It was Baelin’s magic, and it would curse anyone who broke the pact with a growing agony that led to paralysis.

Between what Carey had described to Professor Jules as a sour stomach, a chalk-like complexion, and a deep need to return to campus to think, Jules had offered her a potion to settle her stomach, which she was sipping on when Alex had last seen her heading to the teleportation circle.

Baelin had also left the encampment, teleporting away to pick up the Heroes, while Jules was locked in her office, tackling a mountain of paperwork from the unexpected direction their research had taken.

That only left Alex, and while some folk would have cast politeness to the wind and come rushing over to pepper him with questions, it was clear that he and his friends wanted privacy. They were wedged in a corner of the inner wall, away from everyone.

There were some who still might’ve been bold enough to casually saunter over anyway—acting nonchalant—but Grimloch, Brutus and Claygon made for a fine deterrent. A large hunk of meat disappeared into the shark man's mouth, gnashing teeth made short work of it as he stared at passersby with his dead eyes. If the briefing had bothered him in any way, you’d never know it from/by looking at him. He was enthusiastically tossing his food in the air and snatching it with his teeth like he was playing his own game of catch. If Baelin and Jules had announced that a meal would be late, Alex had no doubt he would’ve looked more concerned.

Brutus had two heads tucked into a bowl of dried meat, while his third whined softly, watching his master and licking her hand.

Claygon was silent, of course, but his head was turned toward the aeld tree, like they were communicating as it gave off its soothing light in the middle of the courtyard.

Leaning against the golem, Thundar was chewing on a carrot, his furry brow was creased in thought. Isolde paced back and forth, muttering to herself with her hands clasped behind her back.

“It is most curious,” she said. “And it calls into question so many historical and ideological events. Even spiritual ones, depending on what the answer to this puzzle turns out to be.”

“Yeah,” Thundar said. “I guess to get some answers, we’d need to find a Thameish person who’s got mana and doesn’t worship Uldar to get them to try and hijack a core.”

“Or an Uldarite who isn’t Thameish,” Alex said. “But finding them is going to be like hunting for a tick in a field. Just about everyone in Thameland worships Uldar, or at least pays some measure of respect to him.

“Best bet would be someone who emigrated here,” Theresa said. “It’d have to be someone who moved to Thameland and became a subject of the kingdom, but didn’t join the church. Someone we can trust.”

“That'd be easier to do, but…well, I think any pool of people who lived in Thameland and didn’t believe in Uldar would be small to begin with, but even smaller now because they might’ve started believing in him when the Ravener came back,” Alex said. “Or maybe it’d drive them away…I dunno. But one thing we know for sure, they would’ve been hard to find in the first place, but nearly impossible since almost everyone’s left Thameland now.”

“One thing we must understand is when someone is considered Thameish,” Isolde pointed out. “Is it when they have moved here? Is it if they were born here?”

“That part’s easy at least,” Theresa said. “Heroes only come from Thameish folk, but we know that some past Heroes came from other lands originally. The Traveller was supposed to be from somewhere else, and there was a Chosen a few cycles before that who was actually born in Rhinea and came to Thameland when she was five. She and her family swore an oath to the king when they came here, so that made her Thameish enough to be marked as the leader of the Heroes in her time.”

“Ah, well that does help narrow things down,” Isolde said, shaking her head. “But…either situation proves grim. We Rhineans take pride in historically offering our Thameish cousins shelter while your Heroes battle the Ravener…but there are those who do not approve of this arrangement.”

She crossed her arms. “Some of our nobles complain about having to house and feed the Thameish when they arrive because taxes on all Rhineans are raised by the emperor. The collected funds are then used to support those who fled your kingdom. It is our duty, but some chafe at it. …if they were to learn that some of your people could control the dungeon cores of your enemies…”

“Oof, I didn’t even think of that,” Alex said. “Support would probably dry up hard, wouldn’t it?”

“Do not think so little of the majority of us. Most would gladly continue to aid our allies…but some would, no doubt, begin to petition the emperor for a…change in policy. It could create some unfortunate discord.”

“Ah, the wonders of politics and the greedy, shortsighted desires of petty nobles,” Khalik grunted. “It does not bode well. I wonder. Has there been any change in the orb, Alex? I wish I’d had the opportunity to see it.”

“Oh no, Jules has it locked down tight.” Alex looked over at the research building. “At least a dozen Watchers and some golems were brought over from campus to guard it. Baelin even placed more than one ward on the door of the Analysis room it’s in…you’d have an easier time breaking into a merchant’s vault than getting in there. As for how it’s doing. Well, it’s getting darker last I saw of it, which means it's mana’s building. No surprise there: dungeon cores feed off of fear, and there’s been enough fear and anxiety floating around here for it to feed off of.”

“Can they communicate with each other?” Isolde asked, throwing a nervous look toward the research building. “The idea that we could have brought a spy into our midst concerns me.”

“Nobody knows yet,” Alex said. “That’s something we were going to look into…before all this happened. It’s one of the reasons it’s been locked down under all those wards.”

“Hm.” Khalik smoothed his beard. “A core that creates monsters. A core that feeds on the fear of mortalkind to power itself. A core that strikes only at those from a certain kingdom…and yet, that same core can only be controlled by those it victimises…it would be poetic if it were not so grim. And suspicious. It gives us a lot to speculate about.”

“Hey, you’re all looking like someone spit on your ancestors’ graves, but ain’t this a good thing?” Thundar asked. “Think about it: all the sinister shit aside, we just got ourselves a powerful new tool.”

He began listing the benefits on his thick fingers. “For one, we’ve got something that could make usmonsters. That means unlimited specimens and guards for us. No more fearing Ravener-spawn if we just throw their own creatures at them. Two, we can use it to change terrain in any way we want. Isn’t that badass? We’d raise the castle even faster. Those mining operations the leadership’s been talking about—the ones our fae friend found. Think about it, Alex—we wouldn’t even have to use earth mages for that. One dungeon core and, voom!”

The minotaur spread his arms. “We can just open up the earth like we’re cracking a walnut. Third, we can learn exactly how a whole living dungeon core works. Do you know what my tribe calls an animal whose behaviour we know all about? Prey, my friends, prey!”

“Mmmmm, quite true, Thundar,” Khalik said. “If we can use the dungeon cores to change terrain, we could have roads throughout Greymoor before the season ends. But! While we know that they can be made to alter terrain, we do not know if they can be made to make monsters. And even if they can, will those monsters also be under our control, or will they simply turn on us as soon as they appear? Then there is another issue: Alex, does anyone know how a dungeon core…makes a dungeon? How does it bring an area of land under its control?”

“Once we get through the initial tasks and make some data sheets, that’s probably the next thing we’ll be working on,” Alex said. “But there’s been no time for any of that. Folks are reeling, and with the Heroes on their way, we probably won’t have time to run full experiments for a while.”

Theresa gave Alex a long, meaningful look, then looked away. “Experiments…I feel like I’m in the middle of a giant experiment right now.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked softly.

“...it would’ve been one thing if it turned out that any mortal could use the dungeon cores,” she said carefully. Grimloch still didn’t know about their experience in the Cave of the Traveller, and what they’d learned there. Very few people outside of the cabal did. “But it’s like it’s tailor made so only its victims can control it. Imagine? If a deer found out that the only living creatures that could control wolves were other deer. It’s like a joke.”

She looked up at the clear sky, her eyes focusing on a dark cloud moving from the east. It was still distant, but it looked threatening. The wind had a crisp bite to it. First snow would come any day now. “Does Uldar know his people can control dungeon cores? He’d have to, wouldn’t he? So then why bother with Heroes? Why send five young folks to fight and die if any one of us, if we have mana, can just take control of our enemies? Why?”

“Hmmm, I have a couple of theories,” Khalik said. “There was once a story I heard as a boy. Two lions were attacking a mine in the north of Tekezash, killing miners and making them into their meals. Now, you must understand, mortals are not the usual prey of lions: they have learned to fear us, our weapons and our magics over the millenia. So this was strange. The other thing that was strange was that these were malelions, and not young ones either. Mature male lions would normally be leading prides and letting most of the lionesses do the hunting. And finally, the lions were beyond cunning. It was uncanny. They seemed to know the ways of humanity. How we hunted. What our weapons were. So, for ten months, the lions killed at will. They seemed unstoppable. And then something odd happened.”

He tapped the shortsword at his waist. “A slew of mercenaries were hired to kill the beasts…many died. But there was one: a young man from the kingdom of Tsava who joined the hunt with four others. His companions were hunted and killed, but when the lions stalked him he called out in Tsa—his mother tongue—for them to stop. And would you know it? They did.”

“Why?” Isolde asked.

“Well, as it turned out, they understood commands in Tsa. The young mercenary took the lions with him while an investigation was done and it so happened that a rich merchant and hunter from Tsava had a pair of trained hunting-lions escape his pens. That is why they were so clever: they were trained to hunt at his side, so they used the skills they’d been trained to.”

“Jeez, what happened to the merchant?” Alex asked.

“He happily took his prized lions back and rewarded the young mercenary…only for the lions to run away again. As it happened, the young man had been a kinder master than their former one. And so they went back to him. Together, they hunted monsters all over the region. But the point is, these dungeon cores might be some mortal’s creation. Maybe some ancient wizard made them: one of your countrymen from the past perhaps. And then the cores went out of control. Maybe this Ravener took them then, and now you must take them back.”

“Not the craziest theory I’ve ever heard,” Alex said.

“I got a theory too,” Grimloch jumped in. “But if this one’s right, you’ve got a big problem.”