Chương 591: Chapter Five Hundred and Seventy-Five - Black Project

I stared at the page, then frowned and focused a little.

"This is in more than one language, right?" The letter was a single page with a short message repeated three times from top to bottom. The top two copies were written in loopy cursive, while the lowest was blockier and was probably the work of a different person.

"It is," Desiree replied as she leaned over to see.

"The middle one is the mother tongue of 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. It wasn't often that my riftwalker translation had to translate multiple passages that were themselves translations of each other. It was kind of interesting. I didn't spot any real differences by just scanning over it, except that the opening greeting at the top of each copy was a bit different. I guess each language had its own way of starting a letter. 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 copy aloud: To the brave adventurer who has found our device, Let it be known that at the time of this device's installation, the World is under threat. Roots of Great Evil are spreading from dungeon to dungeon, endangering our present era of peace and prosperity. Thus, we, The Black Avatars, have rekindled our ancient mandate. We have created this device, which ought to stall our foe while treating the dungeon gently.

Though dungeon growth may be stunted, it should still be able to grant classes -- a small price to pay for immunity to the Roots. Please leave our device untouched. Its removal would endanger the dungeon, and possibly the entire World. --The Black Avatars I lowered the page.

"Um."

"That's a lot to digest," Caprica said. She regarded the note carefully.

"They're really confident in calling themselves the Black Avatars." Desiree nodded.

"Why wouldn't they be?" Caprica hummed.

"In our lands, the Avatars are generally regarded as children's fables, right?"

"I've observed as such, yes," Desiree said.

"Well, if you just claim to be a fable, that's not usually very convincing to the average person; you just seem like a lunatic," Caprica said.

"But these authors evidently have total confidence that claiming the name of the Black Avatars strengthens their argument. A good writer tailors their message to what the audience will believe, so it's hard for me to imagine someone being so brazenly confident -- unless they actually are the Avatars." Desiree frowned.

"Do you mean to tell me that you still had doubts?"

"Hmm, I think some small part of me still does." Caprica admitted.

"And I may well continue to doubt it until I see them with my own two eyes. Still, this is something beyond hearsay." 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 started rereading it, my lips moving silently as I went over it again and again. 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 together something like it. The impressive part has more to do with the power that the machine is handling."

"Oh?" Caprica asked.

"It's directly siphoning some of the dungeon's mana. This isn't a small or casual amount. This much magic is enough to cause component erosion, so the enchantments on the device are very robust. 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, third-year noble? Mostly, what I mean to say, is that it lacks the touch of finesse 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. However, 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 contrivance bears the hallmarks of a 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 do you think it does, exactly?" Desiree asked.

"Were you able to discern its function?"

"It pulls mana from the core and converts it into an aura of a different sort of magic. Though that 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 understand it. 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, listening.

"Yes. I believe so." Amaryllis said, then she paused.

"Or rather, obviously it does. In any case, the machine turns a lot of the core's magic into Cleaning-aspected magic, which is a strangely specific choice, but I suppose it was proven capable before at destroying roots." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. 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 our timer 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 loath 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." Bastion spoke up, frowning, "I agree that this could plausibly be the work of Rainnewt. It has his signatures. But that doesn't necessarily mean the device is a fake."

"You mean that even if it's Rainnewt's work, it might still offer protection from Evil Roots." Caprica said. He nodded.

"This clockwork artifice is beyond me," Desiree said, "and in fact, it seems that no one here can fully grasp its intricacies -- but Amaryllis divined that it could enact complex magic at predetermined times. Powerful spells that remain silent and then trigger blindly due to a timer seem rather unlike a defensive measure. Surely defending against an infection is a continual process, akin to constant patrols, or a city wall."

"Well reasoned," Bastion acknowledged.

"But there could be other, continual functions that Amaryllis didn't catch." Amaryllis snorted.

"It... gave off a pulse of cleaning magic regularly," I said.

"It was a lot of cleaning magic, but the quality..." I tried to think carefully.

"The Evil Roots that infect a core, I couldn't purify those until I hit S-Rank Cleaning Magic. That pulse is definitely not S-Rank." We all glanced at each other. I really wished Awen was here, she knew so much more about this type of contraption.

"I think it's probably fake," Caprica said.

"There's no conclusive evidence, but the circumstantial evidence points to something other than an effective defense. The Cleaning Magic is probably either a decoy, or an attempt to fight the infection that isn't strong enough to actually do anything." Bastion nodded in agreement.

"In that case... well, I don't think anyone here wants to let those spell arrays actually tick down and trigger, regardless of what they do."

"Yeah, Rainnewt is pretty unfriendly," I said.

"So... do we risk taking it off? Amaryllis is right, it could be trapped." Bastion crossed his arms.

"There's such limited information that it's hard to say. But there is one clue: for the device to be trapped, it would need to be reactive. It would need to be able to detect if it has been removed from the core. Amaryllis, it didn't sound like you noticed anything like that?"

"I didn't," she agreed. Caprica nodded, and I could practically see a lightbulb switch on over her head, "Yes, and if it were to have such a... tamper-proof mechanism... it would likely be obvious."

"Obvious?" I blinked.

"Why would a trap need to be obvious?"

"The device is clearly intended to do something." Caprica said.

"If we remove it, then it can't do its job, regardless of whether we set off a trap and it explodes in the process or not. Therefore, to support the device's intent, the main point of a trap wouldn't be to cause harm, it would be to threaten to cause harm, so that we don't remove it. But of course, a threat is useless if we don't know about it, so it would need to be obvious."

"So, it's probably not trapped." I said.

"Good enough for me," Amaryllis said, "I'll double check for anything when I head back in."

"If it looks clean, just take it off," I said.

"I'll warn the dungeon people about the Evil Roots. Some of the dungeons we saved seemed to learn how to fight back against roots, afterwards. Maybe this dungeon can protect itself if it knows what to look for."

"I don't know how much good that will do, but it might well help," Caprica said.

"Okay. I'll talk to the friendly knight. 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 I still felt it. 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.