Cinnamon Bun - Chapter Five Hundred and Seventy-Five (Patreon)

Chapter Five Hundred and Seventy-Five

I stared at the page, then frowned and focused a little. “This is in more than one language, right?”

The letter was relatively short, written in a slightly loopy style, and was copied over three times on the same page, once near the top, then in the middle and bottom. The bottom one, notably, looked like it was written by a different person, the handwriting was move blocky.

“It is,” Desiree replied as she leaned over to see. “The middle one is the language they use in Port Royal and its surroundings. It took me some time to learn it.”

“And the above is a more archaic language spoken and written in the northern parts of the continent,” Caprica said. “In the Snowlands and its environs but also in some parts of the Endless Swells. The bottom-most is Pyrowalkian.”

I nodded along. Interestingly, all three languages looked pretty similar. It reminded me a bit of like... the difference between French, Spanish and Italian or Portuguese. Did these three share a common linguistic ancestor? Or had they just adapted to each other and grabbed some words and vocabulary here and there? 

In any case, I flicked my ears to clear the thoughts away and refocused, though I did glance over to check on Amaryllis. She was walking back, pinching her chin with her brows drawn.

“Alright,” I said before licking my lips, then I read the topmost letter aloud:

To the brave adventurer finding our device,

Let it be known that at the time of this device’s creation, the World itself is under threat. Roots of great Evil are spreading across the continent, from dungeon to dungeon, and in their spread they endanger what all have known to be a time of relative peace and prosperity. 

And so, we, the Black Avatars, have taken it upon ourselves to rekindle an old mandate and create a means by which to stall the growth of this foe. This machine is one of our experimental devices. It should render minimal harm to the dungeon itself. Its function to allow growth by means of new classes should remain, though the dungeon’s growth may be somewhat stinted. A small price to pay to keep it pure. 

The device should be left untouched. Its removal would endanger the dungeon as a whole, and perhaps even the World itself.

--The Black Avatars 

I lowered the page. “Um.”

“That’s a lot to digest,” Caprica said. “But... it’s not all bad? I suppose?”

“The Black Avatars are truly real, then,” Desiree said. 

“Did you doubt it at this point?” Caprica asked.

“Hmm, I think some small part of me still does. And I may well continue to doubt it until I see them with my own two eyes. Though this proves that there is someone out there with some capability that uses the name. That is good proof, more so than the hearsay we’ve discovered thus far.”

I kept looking at the letter. Something about it was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly that was, so I re-read it again, lips moving silently as I went over it one more time.

In the meantime, my friends continued to talk.

“What did you discover?” Bastion asked Amaryllis as she came over.

“The machine is complex, but not impossibly so,” Amaryllis replied. “It’s not exactly amateur work, and the magic it uses is impressive, but... well, I think a third-year student at any prestigious academy could cobble something like it together. The impressive part has more to do with the power that the machine is handling.”

“Oh?” Caprica asked.

“It’s siphoning some of the dungeon’s mana directly. That isn’t a small or casual amount. That much magic is enough to cause items to fray and break, so the enchantments on the device are very robust. I think it’s mostly made of rarer and higher-end materials as well.”

“Still the work of a third-year student?” Caprica asked.

Amaryllis pursed her lips. “Maybe a very rich, noble third year? Mostly, what I mean to say, is that it lacks the touch of quality I’d associate with anything made by a skilled artisan. It’s well-made, but... hmm, my family, being in the business of building ships and the equipment to run ships, often spends time building prototypes. These tend to not be made with the same parameters as a final production model. Production models need to be built in such a way that they can be built en-masse, and repaired and maintained. A prototype just needs to test if something is possible.”

“I see what you mean,” Desiree replied. “And this machine leans more towards the prototype?”

Amaryllis nodded. “Exactly.”

“Does it do what this says?” I asked as I turned the letter over.

Amaryllis read it at a glance, then scoffed. “Yes? Maybe?”

“And what does it do exactly? Were you able to discern its function?”

“It turns the magic it pulls from the core into an aura of a different sort of magic. Though tat could have been done in a far simpler way. What’s actually impressive are the several concurrent enchantments that prevent the core from interfering with the device. There are several hypothesized ways of doing that, and this one does all of them and a few more. I’d have to take it apart to really tell. Maybe Awen could help? The mechanism itself, the clockwork, is all used to set off certain complex spell arrays across a set time.”

“And that’s enough to interfere with the dungeon’s normal functioning?” Bastion asked. I noticed that he was still positioned so as to watch the knights, who were mostly milling on the edge, watching.

“Yes. I believe so.” Amaryllis said, then she paused. “Or rather, obviously it does. In any case, the machine turns a lot of the cores magic into Cleaning-aspected magic, which is a strangely specific choice, but I suppose it was proven capable before at destroying roots.”

It hit me like a fish to the face. 

“Oh my gosh, it’s him!” I said.

My friends looked at me, so I hastened to explain. Raising the letter up as proof. 

“The handwriting! We have that letter from Rainnewt, right? The one with the box?”

“On the Beaver,” Caprica confirmed. “You think this is his work?”

“I think it’s his handwriting! Look at it! And the Cleaning magic! He’d know about that. And clockwork stuff! He made bombs and stuff using clockwork before. He must have a skill that lets him make that kind of thing.”

Amaryllis rubbed at her chin. “It’s possible. He also left hints that pulled us in this general direction. Though we still don’t know why.”

I nodded fiercely. “It’s like that old expression: if it quacks like a Rainnewt and it makes clockwork trouble like a Rainnewt, then it’s probably Rainnewt.”

“I don’t think that’s an expression,” Amaryllis replied. “But I see what you’re trying to say. There are a lot of small hints that this could be Rainnewt. We should still compare the handwriting once we’re back.”

“Yeah. So, uh, what do we do about the machine? We’re not leaving it there, are we?” I noticed the knights shift very slightly at the suggestion.

“I’m loathed to move it,” Amaryllis said. “Especially knowing that it may be Rainnewt’s work. He’s a vindictive sort of person. I’ll spend my mana in a corner than go and poke around the core once more.”

“If it’s not trapped, then we should remove it,” I said. “I guess it might have been put there for an okay reason, fighting the Evil Roots is important, but we can just warn the dungeon people about that ourselves, no? Some of the dungeons we saved seemed to learn how to get rid of the roots afterwards.”

“I don’t know how much good that will do, but it might well help,” Caprica said. 

“Okay. I’ll talk to the knight that was friendly. Amaryllis, go waste magic, and then we’ll see if we can’t take it all apart.”

That wasn’t a very complicated plan, so it really didn’t take long to accomplish. Amaryllis went to a corner and fried a wall, and I had a little talk with the knight. I wasn’t sure if he understood fully, but I did my best to explain about the Evil Roots and how dangerous they were. 

Then it was time. 

Amaryllis and Caprica both went into the core room while we watched. In the end, Caprica sliced off one of the straps holding the machine in place, and Amaryllis grabbed it, then wobbled out of the room.

The change wasn’t instant, but it was still felt. The entire dungeon paused, then there was a deep sort of sigh.

“It... has it returned?” the knight asked.

“I hope so,” I replied. “Um... on that note, I think we need to head out. We’ll see what this is and... yeah. It was nice meeting you. I’m happy that you were nice first instead of being all choppy-choppy violent. That’s really cool of you!”

Dungeon Cleared!

All adversaries with The Black Reliquary Dungeon Defeated.

All Bosses Defeated

Broccoli Bunch, Cinnamon Bun Bun, level 18, Wonderlander, level 7 is awarded the Black Knight class.

All class slots filled.

Replace current class with Black Knight?

Replacing your current class will reset your level 0.

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