Chương 586: Chapter Five Hundred and Seventy - Writing Nearly on the Wall

Bastion was taking this dungeon very seriously. As soon as we had put down the last of the dungeon soldiers, he checked out the entire room.

"It's safe," he said at last. I felt a bit of tension leaving my shoulders.

"Okay, good," I replied. The dungeon people hadn't faded away or anything. Instead, we had five distinct sets of armour slumped across on the ground. Some were scorched and covered in the strange, jagged burns that lightning-based attacks left behind. Others, those that Caprica and Bastion had taken down, had been chopped and smashed to pieces.

"Do we want anything from these?" I asked. I stepped closer to one of the... bodies, then gave it a poke with the bottom end of Weedbane. It didn't move very much. I used a foot to nudge its helmet free, revealing that there was nothing beneath.

"Looks like it's more magical armour, or something."

"Strange," Amaryllis replied.

"I was paying some amount of attention. I didn't notice any particularly strong magic from these."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I, also, am quite curious," Desiree replied.

"What sort of magical phenomena did you expect, lady bird?" Amaryllis touched her chin with a talon.

"I expected... if these were puppeted, then there would be a... for a lack of more nuanced terms... snap as the magic doing the puppetry broke away." She gestured, and from the tips of her talons, I could only barely make out a set of very thin wires. Then I hopped back as the armour next to me shifted, then slowly stood up. The motions were very unnatural, and slow, and it even started to fall back over.

Some of the armour fell off the suit, but the legs and gambeson rose up and stood, even if it looked a little off-kilter.

"Tsk," Amaryllis clicked her tongue before she shook her hand. The entire thing fell apart, clattering to the ground.

"It's not weighted for puppetry," she said. I had no idea what that meant, and I think she realized as much from the look I gave her.

"It's hardly time for a lesson on magical puppetry, Broccoli."

"I wouldn't mind learning of it. It seems a fascinating art," Desiree replied.

"Yeah! Plus I want to learn about my best friend's weird hobby!"

"It is not a weird hobby. It is a valued and respected artform," Amaryllis replied coolly.

"And... yes. Well, anyway. Puppets that take on more harpioid forms tend to be made of lighter materials. Balsa wood from the south of the Trenten Flats is common. Otherwise, cedar or pine, as well some rare metals, such as aluminum and its alloys--which are sometimes worth more than gold and which the Harpy Mountains has in abundance... forgive me, that's a bit of a tangent. In any case, a magical puppet will have mass to it, there's no choice in the matter. But the position of that mass is important.

More should be located in the lower half. Concentrated around the hips and feet, and if the puppet has arms or wings, then it'll be concentrated around the joints if possible. It allows for easier, free-er movement."

"Okay," I said. I could kind of see what she meant.

"And these don't have that?"

"Not at all. This is just normal armour. A good puppeteer might be able to move these, certainly, but these pieces aren't even tied together properly. Now, there are other magical options. But I see no runeworks, nothing to tie a magical system in place, and nothing like a magical core, which could be used to create a magical automata of some sort."

"So they're not magical," I said. Amaryllis huffed.

"Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from magic," she said.

"So we ought not dismiss it so easily."

"I... don't think that saying goes that way," I said, but I hesitated a little. Maybe it was that way, here?

"No matter the magical properties of these," Bastion said.

"We know that they're capable combatants, to some degree. They moved as though exhausted, but their motions were those of trained soldiers. They displayed formal combat training, though basic."

"They didn't just swing wildly at us," I confirmed.

"And they approached with some tactics," Bastion added.

"Two on two here, three on three to the side. Those with spears tried to use their range to their own advantage. They may have been slow and clumsy, but their basic principles weren't incorrect." That was interesting.

"Okay, so... do we continue, then?" I asked.

"Certainly," Caprica replied.

"This is hardly enough to stop us. I vote that we continue onwards." I looked at the old fortress. It seemed a little foreboding, being all old and dilapidated as it was, but I felt pretty confident that we could make it through. I shifted my grip on Weedbane, then gestured ahead.

"Should we keep going?" Stolen story; please report. We took the same formation as before, with Caprica in the lead. She ended up picking up one of the helmets as well. It was still a bit big, and she had to rip off the chainmail that was stuck to it to make it easier to see, but once that was done, she had proper head protection on, which was great.

We entered the next room carefully, pushing past the entrance way and shining some magical light ahead to brighten the space up, in case there were any monsters or soldiers waiting to ambush us. The entrance opened up to a small inner-courtyard.

"No enemies," Bastion said simply. I looked around, and yeah, there was no one home. Though that didn't mean the space was boring. There was a rack on the far wall holding up a row of long spears, and I noticed a wooden staircase to one side leading up and above to a walkway that ran along the length of the wall on the inside. Just above the entranceway was a space where the wall hung out past the doorway, and there was a hole there, next to a stack of loose rocks.

Someone defending the entrance could probably drop big old rocks onto the heads of anyone trying to push through. Yikes. No wonder Bastion insisted on helmets. Maybe I ought to insist that Amaryllis and Desiree get some too?

"A transitory space?" Caprica asked.

"Or is this still part of the first floor?"

"Could be either," Amaryllis replied. Before us were three sets of doors - one in front of us, one to the left, and one to the right, but it was pretty clear that we were supposed to use the middle one. Those on either side were barricaded. There were stacks of stones and heaps of old furniture stacked up before the doors.

"I'm guessing we're not supposed to go that way," I said.

"Seems not," Desiree said.

"Is that a message from the dungeon itself or its residents?"

"I don't know," I said.

"But I'm getting a weird feeling from this one."

"There may be something off about this dungeon. All the more reason to keep our guards up. Princess, I'll open the gateway, watch my back," Bastion said. Caprica nodded quickly, her eyes darting down to He stepped forward, shield raised, and tested the central door with a careful push. It opened without resistance. Our light spilled in across a wide stone hall, the ceiling rising high enough that the edges vanished into shadow.

Thick pillars ran along both sides, evenly spaced, each one carved from a single block of dark stone. At first glance, they looked plain, but as we moved further in, I realized they weren't. They were covered in writing. Every pillar was engraved from near the floor all the way up, lines of text stacked close together. Some were crisp and sharp, others so worn they were barely legible.

In places, the stone had been chipped away, scratched over, or cracked entirely, as though someone had tried very hard to erase what was written there and failed. The air felt strange here. Not dangerous, exactly, but heavy, like the room itself was paying very close attention to us. I felt a shiver run from the nape of my neck all the way down to the base of my tail. Creepy. Then something moved. We all stopped all at once, the whole group tensing up. Between two pillars ahead, a figure stepped into the light.

A Black Knight, armour intact and unbroken, a two-handed sword held low and steady. It didn't charge at us and simply stood there... menacingly. It gave an exhausted sigh before speaking.

"Halt," it said, in a voice like a tree creaking in the wind. For a long moment, it seemed to stare at us, shoulders slouched forward. The silence was just starting to grow uncomfortable when it continued.

"This place..." it trailed off.

"Um, hello there, mister knight," I said.

"This place is not for you," it said, then it shifted into a ready stance.

"State your purpose," it said at last.

"We're exploring," I said.

"And trying not to break things. Or die." Another pause.

"That is… insufficient," the knight said. Its grip tightened on its sword. Then loosened again.

"You must swear."

"Swear to what?" Bastion asked.

"It... it doesn't matter anymore. Pray to the World that you may find its mercy, for we have lost our own." The knight took a step forward, its footfall echoing across the cavernous room. All of us raised our weapons. Like an implacable robot, it took a second step, then another. With no great rush, it stalked toward us.