Chapter 26: Figurine (Patreon)

The crevasse in the stone was shallow. As Elliot peered over its edge, he could make out the outline of a small statue emitting the faint purple glow. His hand darted in and he yanked, ready for some kind of obstacle, but the glittering figure came out easily. It was carved from dark crystal, and shaped like a three-headed bull, if bulls had blunt carnivorous jaws and longer, thinner horns.

He used [Detailed Appraisal], ready for it to give him a half-answer at best after the struggle with the overcharged conduits, but instead there was nothing. The skill activated, but despite pulling at the carved figure, there was no flow of energy at all. He tilted his head. There had been many times, particularly with people, when the skill refused to activate. There had been many more times when it had given him almost nothing after activating successfully. As far as he could remember, this was the first time it had ever activated but given him nothing at all.

Pressing the vortex, Elliot stared intently at the purple carving, and tried again. Nothing returned. His lips twitched. He ran his hands over its surface, trying to feel for any imperfections or tool marks, but nothing jumped out. The color was uniform, except for the much darker tint of its six eyes. Its tail was long and swooped up like a cat’s. He tried again.

Over and over he pushed his mind at the figurine, vortex grinding away. Finally, after what had to be at least fifty attempts, he forced himself to pause. This was absolutely not a good use of time. The wagon was rolling on without him, and even if the cavern had been largely cleared on his way over some writhers still remained to dodge on the way out. He couldn’t help it, though. Leaving a puzzle unaddressed bothered him at the best of times, and this was his primary skill.

He loosened his grip on the figurine and half closed his eyes, keeping up a pattern of slow, deep breaths. It felt cool to the touch, and each individual facet was incredibly smooth. Activating his ability again, he pressed the vortex much more slowly. The energy he could usually feel and manipulate—to some degree—was just absent. Nothing was flowing from the figurine at all. Did that mean it was being blocked, somehow?

With a mental contortion, Elliot imagined the vortex extending out from his head and touching the surface of the figurine. He pictured it spinning, cutting through the dark purple crystal and dragging at its insides. Nothing changed at first, except for a burgeoning feeling of ridiculousness, but then the vortex shivered. There was a plucking sensation, and the spinning force began to draw on something from inside the statue.

A familiar ache began at the base of his skull, and the energy flowed faster. Elliot released the skill, letting a tuft of information settle in his mind. He frowned. There was only a single word—Garest. 

It could have been a name, a description, or anything really, as the usual instincts that came with an appraisal were missing. Shrugging, he moved to pack the figurine away. That would have to do. He was tense, pissed, and starting to get uncomfortably sweaty in the heavy leather, so it was time to go and have words with Breka.

He hesitated.

Was it fair to be so annoyed? Most of his mind said yes, extremely fair. What the hell was she thinking? Magical land mines? Come on.

But a small voice whispered that this was what he’d signed up for. Maybe he was the one in the wrong for thinking his life wouldn’t be threatened without warning. Breka had offered him a lifeline, a path to Rowan. Before that, he’d had nothing but a direction to walk.

Maybe he was too weak to be the hero he’d been imagining with all Breka’s talk of power through great effort.

He shook himself vigorously. Stop. Figure out your self-pity later.

As he placed the statue into the pack his hand spasmed sharply and he yelped, dropping the bag and dancing backwards. “Damn it!”

Glancing down at his palm, he sucked in a harsh breath. There was a small purple blemish at its center. It was less than an inch across, like an inkblot. He scrubbed at it vigorously with the sleeve of his shirt but it didn’t even smudge, like he’d been tattooed.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered. He had to get back to Breka as quickly as possible. Not only did he want to talk about the explosions, but now he needed to ask if he’d cursed himself, or become the target of an angry, three-headed, carnivorous bull somewhere.

He turned, eyes roving over the cavern floor, taking in the shattered remains of writhers and stalagmites along with the paths around and through the living vines that still remained. He sketched out a route that looked workable in his mind, and set off, hurrying.

Through luck or practice, making it past the surviving monsters was much simpler on the way out, and quick enough he was back to the open air. Something was still chirping quietly in the mud, serenading him as he sped up. Branches caught on his leather outerlayer as he ran through the forest, scraping along the tough material. He had to change—couldn’t let Grik see him running up in armor.

Swinging the pack over his shoulder he stripped off the cuirass and trousers and stuffed them in quickly before breaking back into a run. His hand itched, and he tried to tell himself it was just his imagination.

Once past the cover of the trees and back to the open air by the canyon—water rushing loudly below—it was a straight shot back to the wagon still trundling along the dirt path by the edge of the gorge. Breka was up front, squinting at a piece of paper, and Grik was strolling behind with the massive dresser hefted on his back. Hadrian had yet to return. 

“We’re getting close to the lifts!” Grik called out. “You’ll love them.”

“Ah, boy, good,” Breka said, looking up from whatever she was reading. “Come over here and tell me what you think of our inventory system. I’m going to have you help run it soon enough.”

“I’m excited to see them,” he said to Grik, flashing a smile as he passed. Hoisting himself up next to Breka, he glanced back to make sure Grik was blocked from sight by the bonnet before turning with a glare. 

“What the hell, Breka?” he hissed softly, his doubts from before temporarily forgotten.

“What?” she asked, leaning in and matching his low volume. “What happened? Did you get the sap?”

“What happened?” he repeated, eyes widening. “Sap? I almost died. What about difficult-to-appraise volatile explosions with no heads-up sounded like a good errand for me?”

Her brows snapped together. “Make sense, boy.”

“Make sense?” he said, indignation rising, “What doesn’t make sense? You sent me into a murder trap.”

“Keep your voice down,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I sent you into the lowest grade warren I’ve ever sensed. You should have found a cavern writher near the entrance and brought back a few tendrils to drain for sap. What happened?”

“That’s not—” He paused, trying to remember his initial appraisal of the killer vine. “Sap? I was just supposed to get sap?”

“What else would you get? It was a cavern full of carnivorous vines, did you expect to find a bar of gold? The warren was too young and weak for a reward even if you fought all the way to the center. Didn’t your skill identify the sap as valuable?”

Something tickled the back of his brain. It was possible the writhers had, in fact, appraised as having valuable sap. “But what about the glowing purple statue?” He pulled the figurine from his pack, holding it up.

Breka choked, eyes widening, and she grabbed the statue out of his hands so quickly he barely processed the motion, stuffing it into the satchel at her side. “Where did you get that?” she snapped. “Tell me what in all the hells you did, and tell me right now.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Elliot protested, suddenly on the defensive. What was happening here? Did he go to the wrong cave? “I followed your directions and found the lake. There was a cavern writher in the main passage, just like you said, but I, uh, didn’t realize its sap was what I was supposed to get, so I just bypassed it and kept going down to the cavern. There were these lines of glowing crystal in the floor that I appraised as overcharged conduits, and—”

“Stop,” Breka interrupted, holding up a hand. “Are you absolutely sure that’s what they appraised as? Not leylines, or ethereal crystals?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, brow wrinkling. “I’m one hundred percent sure. I appraised pretty much all of them once I realized some would explode.”

Breka’s expression was intent. “Some were overcharged to the point of volatility?”

“Oh yeah, quite a few. I ended up using them to clear out the cavern writhers so I could get across to the other side.”

“You what?”

Elliot shifted in his seat. “I threw rocks at the ones that appraised as volatile. When they blew up it would clear some space, and then I’d move on and repeat.”

“Elliot,” she said, her expression far more serious than he’d ever seen it, “I need you to focus. Tell me every single detail of what happened, as exhaustively as you can. Speak in this tongue,” she added in Iludean.

His heart started beating faster. “I followed your directions and the lake was right where it was supposed to be, as well as the cave. I found the first cavern writher a few hundred feet down…” he began to recite his experience in as much granular detail as he could manage, letting himself ramble, trying to think of anything that might have meaning. “And then I reached the other side. There was a thin pocket in the wall about six feet off the ground, so I could only see the glow until I was close. I fished the statue out, and tried to use [Detailed Appraisal]. It wouldn’t work at first, every attempt—”

“At first? What do you mean at first?”

“I mean the first dozen or so times I tried. I kept activating my skill, and it let me, but then it just wouldn’t present me with any information. It took literally dozens of tries before I got anything, and I had to use a completely new technique.” 

She frowned. “What technique? Are you implying you were able to draw information from the idol with [Detailed Appraisal]? That’s not possible.”

“It was hard, but not impossible. The information was stuck behind some kind of shielding effect on the statue—idol?”

“Whatever information you think you received from the figure was an error. You might have mistargeted, or there could have been an obfuscating effect.”

“What?” Elliot frowned as well. “I don’t even know how I could mistarget something. And what kind of obfuscating ability would work that way?”

“They exist,” she replied. “Although I don’t sense one here. All I can say for sure is you didn’t actually appraise the figure. That’s not possible. It’s not even a matter of power, there’s a fundamental incompatibility. What information came when you thought you’d appraised it?”

His gaze flicked down to the satchel where she’d tucked the figurine. He was absolutely sure he’d appraised it. “I could tell there was no energy coming from it when I used my ability, so there was nothing for me to pull on. I tried to imagine a force in my mind expanding and crossing over into the statue, and got something. It still wasn’t much.”

“You’re going to need to explain your process for using that skill in more detail when you next practice. What was the information you received?”

“It was just a word. Garest.”

As he said it, Elliot could feel a slight pulse run through his right hand, and he curled his fingers into a fist.

Breka’s face ran through a series of complex expressions, starting with shock and morphing into a quick run of uncertainty, anger, and finally fear.

Something cold spasmed deep in his gut, like a block of ice had been shoved through his navel. Then a scream. It was a faint, tremulous thing at first, almost unreal, like it was rising up from some hell far below.

Elliot sucked in a deep gasp of air, suddenly feeling a tightness like he’d been holding his breath. His legs began to tremble, the chill spreading down. The tips of his toes were numb.

Breka rose up from her seat, the trappings of age forgotten. “Back to your nest, rat,” she said, her voice deep, almost resonant. Her core began to pulse, some veil fading away to reveal the truth of her.

Her presence was a mountain, hewed at its base and now plummeting down through the sky. It was titanic, crushingly oppressive, inevitable. Waves of pressure churned through the air around her, passing through Elliot like he wasn’t even there, yet somehow still shaking the foundation of his existence. Vaguely, with a tiny corner of his mind, he made out a squawk of alarm coming from behind the wagon. Poor Grik. 

Rising up from somewhere underground, a vicious opposition arose. A sense of sickness, of virulence, defined the oncoming aura. A fetid existence that was half predator, half parasite. It advanced in an oozing, furtive way, like it was searching for cracks to exploit in the wall of emphatic negation Breka was releasing. It craved; it craved everything.

Elliot felt the numbness spreading through his legs, and as the clash intensified he gripped the wood of the wagon with weakening fingers, and tried to hold on.