Last Words chapter 63 (Patreon)

Ink making was a lot of fun. We tried a few variations, learning and improving, and I could tell Bran was fascinated by the process. I wasn’t able to find the method for making Malachite ink, which was a shame, because it was very similar to jade, and I still had that Heartfire Jade I had picked up exploring that could be used for ink making.

Of course, I could just sell it to a scribe or alchemist, but I kind of wanted to find out what it was capable of on its own. I imagined acclimating myself to the mana and creating a wild magic pattern from it, my very first ever, and it was a tempting idea.

Sadly, it was an idea for future Gus. At the moment, I couldn’t afford to dismiss my Barkskin. I might need it, and buying it back was expensive. I had considered buying and selling them after filling them up as a way to make money, but I couldn’t justify leaving myself vulnerable for even the few hours necessary to do it.

That was especially true with this upcoming mission into the necropolis. I still wasn’t sure when we were supposed to actually go, but it needed to be soon. In the meantime, I took the extra time after working on the inks to do some training, buying a mushroom and an indigo fruit. I pushed my mana up to eight point two and my mana body to level seventeen. Then I crashed for a few hours, and made my way to the house to check in with the others.

Ron was the only one there when I arrived. I nodded to him and sat down at the table in the living room, a small, sturdy thing made of wood hammered together without nails. It was simple but pretty, and I found myself considering picking up more of them for some of my future properties.

“Denny and Cal down the tunnel?” I asked as I picked us up each a bottle of cold root beer and a steak sandwich. I also grabbed us each a piece of key lime pie and a side of fries, the whole thing running me about fifty. It left me at fifty two thousand and two hundred dollars. I made a note to check in with Alistair about a cash infusion, and hoped Bran had managed to make some arrangements with the old man.

He took a bite, groaning in enjoyment. “That’s fantastic, where is that from?”

“The Abe and Louie’s,” I said with a grin. “Went there once and loved the sandwiches. It’s my go to. The rootbeer is fire brewed, Spreckers, and I got the pie from Petsi.” I picked up a fry and popped it in my mouth. “And these are from Burger King. The original recipe.” At his raised eyebrow I shrugged. “Not everything needs to be complicated and fancy.”

He laughed, blowing out a breath as he popped his bottle of root beer to wash down the bite of sandwich. “You can get original recipe Burger King fries? Somehow that’s more impressive than conjuring guns.”

“I thought so,” I said with a happy sigh. “The new ones just don’t hit the same. So, you’ve been down that tunnel. What exactly are we looking at? Whatever that bastard wants is probably deeper in than we went, given the way he talked about his experience. Or the body’s experience, I guess.”

Snorting, he shook his head as he chewed. “Oh it’s deep. Literally. That tunnel doesn’t go in a straight line. It goes DOWN. And it goes down far. We followed it for miles, and once we reached the end, we found a shaft with a ladder in it leading up into the basement of a building.”

“A building?” I asked in confusion. “What kind of building? I thought it went down to the catacombs?”

“It does,” he grimaced. “Way down. But it turns out there are levels to that place. And the lowest one is…well, underground city is really the only way I can describe it. I tried to scope it out a bit but there’s…something running around down there. I didn’t get a good look but it’s big and pissed. Lots of roaring. Denny and Cal are holed up in the basement now, trying to build a basic map with the drones. But we’re not exactly sure it’s the right place. So we might be wasting our time or we might be right on top of the thing.”

I grimaced. “I’m honestly not sure he expects me to ever find that thing, probably just figures I’ll run headfirst into a wall until I die. Which is good in a way, because it means that if we DO find it, we won’t need to turn it over right away. We can try to figure out some way to get rid of it. Actually, I might be able to just sell it. That would solve a lot of our issues, to be honest.”

“You think that would kill him?” he said hopefully.

“No,” I admitted. “But it might make him desperate enough to go back down there and pick another fight with whatever bone monster hurt him to begin with. Regardless, I think we can all agree we don’t want him finding the shard, and chances are decent he’s sent others down there. I get the impression he isn’t short on that thrall meat or shy about using it.”

He looked troubled by that, which I didn’t blame him for. “I don’t like this,” he admitted. “We could abandon this place. I know we’ve put in a lot of work, but…”

“Not an option,” I said bluntly. “If we had another door here, maybe, but that’s the only one. Indigo fruits work for now, but we need to be able to harvest the stronger ones. I talked to Deke about possibly growing our own, like raising one of the trees back on earth, but the mana density we need would mean we’d have to basically WATER it with some high density liquid like that Moonfire Mango Nectar, and that stuff is a million bucks a bottle. And then some.”

“And the world is ending,” he said bitterly. “So backing off entirely just isn’t in the cards. So, what then? How do we do this? We can’t just poke around blindly down there until we find the thing. What if one of his other minions beats us to it? What if the Tennies do? Who knows what they might do with something like that?”

Luckily, this was one area where I wasn’t useless. “I can’t point you toward the right spot. Not easily. But I do have an idea. It’s a two parter, and I’ll need Connie’s help with it. Her word is knowledge, and I might have a plan for how to use it. But first I need all the footage from the drones. All of it.” I’d just had a spark of inspiration for how to solve our problem, but a quick check of my powers made it clear that I couldn’t just handwave it.

My abilities were limited to things I had personal knowledge of or access to. I was able to learn the language because I owned a book that had every part of it written down. I could buy guns because I had personally seen them, either through my own eyes or through the eyes of a drone I bought and owned, which was the same thing as far as my power was concerned.

I knew the necropolis existed, and had seen it, but trying to buy a map or a model hadn’t worked. Which meant I needed more information. I needed to see a chunk of it and then I could purchase a map of it myself. I had checked by trying to buy a map of the crypt we’d broken into, and it WAS possible. I reached down to a box on the table, withdrawing a walkie. “This is Gus to camp, over. Come in Alistair.”

There was a brief pause. “This is Alistair, over. What do you need, Gus?”

“I was hoping you could send Connie over,” I said politely. “I need her help with a little something. I think it’ll help her growth a lot, and it’ll be damned useful for all of us. No real risk though.”

He paused for a bit. “I could do that,” he sighed. “She’s been thrilled to be out and about here, and since no one knows about speakers, a trip into town might be good for her. We waiting until dark to sneak her in?” He sounded more curious than anything, and I could tell he didn’t care what strategy I used as long as he felt it was safe enough.

But Connie would. I’d seen how happy she was to be here, and I wanted her to have some freedom over here where it was mostly safe. “I’ll escort her in personally,” I said after a moment. “I have a feeling I might need her around a lot for this next part. Have her get ready and meet me at the camp. If she’s ok with it, I mean. Obviously I’m not going to force her to come with me.” I didn’t expect it to be a problem, but it was a good idea to set a proper tone.

“She says she’s happy to come along,” he said with a chuckle. “She’ll be waiting.”

I let go of the button, turning to Ron. “Do me a favor and gather all that footage while I’m gone? I’m going to need it. I’ll use it to make a map, and then Connie can help us find the shard.”

“The map part I get,” he said slowly. “Makes sense. But how can Connie help?”

“I’ve been thinking about our limitations,” I admitted. “Most of them come down to information. Connie’s word is knowledge, and I’m sure that she has a bunch of skills. I know that having too many splits your focus and slows you down, and having ones that are too crazy or complicated would likely do the same. Knowledge is broad, and covers so many potential options, but she seems focused on correlating and collecting data, which seems like a smart direction.”

He hummed with interest. “You think she can, what? Mine information from the map?”

“Maybe,” I hedged. “But I don’t know enough about her abilities to know that. I know her word, not her skills. No, I have a more direct idea. Knowledge is kind of vague, and has been something humans have sought for thousands of years. Sometimes through science, sometimes through other means. There are some limitations inherent to the form of some of them. Seeing information in birds, or in organs, weird stuff that wouldn’t be useful.

He looked like he was getting it, but I continued with the explanation, kind of getting into it. It was a brilliant idea, and I was pretty sure it would work. “Divination is the seeking of knowledge. Knowledge of the future is priceless, but might not be feasible. I’ll ask, but somehow, based on my own limits, I doubt it. But knowledge of the past? Or especially of the present? There are types of divination that can be performed under very controlled circumstances, that are repeatable, if slightly vague.”

“Ones that require a map?” he said dryly. 

“Exactly,” I grinned. “One in particular comes to mind. I don’t know if it’ll work, but if it does it’ll be a huge help to us, not just now, but in the future. A means of divining locations remotely, searching for knowledge, or at least a general direction. It involves using a pendant, like, say…this one,” I held up the magical artifact that the lich had given me. “To find the location of an object. They call it scrying. And I’m going to try to help Connie learn it.”

I wasn’t sure if this would work, but the combination of a magic pendant and a magic target made me curious to see if it was possible. Or maybe Connie could do it without the help. Either way, I had a feeling this was the answer to our problems. Now to test it out.