Chương 19: 18. Black Sphere

The people from the gatehouse had brought much of the food from the larder with them, and they were sharing it out with the hungry men and women who'd been fighting alongside Tavian since the coup. The sight of food helped Tavian forget the vague existential dread he'd felt, grounding him back in the physical reality of his kingdom. Apples, carrots, potatoes, sacks of flour; it felt like a feast. Someone handed Tavian a hunk of bread and cheese. It was delicious.

He felt a lot better with a full stomach, and realized that there was an important subject he needed to discuss with Lea.

"Lea?" Tavian said.

"Can you answer some questions for me?" She appeared, sitting on the ground beside him.

"Yes, my lord. Certainly. What do you wish to know?" He could still sense her in the back of his mind, when he focused, which made the formal tone she used feel odd. It was like he'd somehow offended her.

"I need to know about miasmic surges," Tavian said.

"They were destroying our kingdom before. I had hoped that the Conqueror's Core wouldn't be as susceptible."

"It's not," Lea said.

"Or rather, it would be just as susceptible as any Core is, except that you have me."

"You?"

"I administrate the functions of the Core," Lea said, as though that explained it. Then, seeing his confusion, added: "I can fix things before they break, and I can nudge things along. I can work to shore up your Influence to defend against things like a miasmic surge."

"What exactly is miasma?" Tavian asked. He crunched on the Core of an apple as he talked.

"You said it's different from… Void?" Lea closed her eyes.

"Yes," she said.

"Miasma is mana based Essence, similar to the six elemental Essences. Some call it the Essence of death, or tainted mana. It normally pools in dark, low places, like caves or crypts. It sits there, harmless, until someone disturbs it and starts stirring it up. The more there is accumulated, and the more it gets disturbed, the stronger the effects of it become. If you stop going down into that dungeon, it will settle back down and you may even forget that it's even down there."

Tavian chewed on his apple, spitting out seeds.

"We've been having trouble with miasmic surges for… years, at least," he said.

"Does that mean there's been something down there, stirring it up?"

"Could be," Lea said.

"I'm unable to see into the darkness. My advice is to leave it alone. If you avoid and ignore it, it won't trouble you."

"There are Anarvians down there still," Tavian said.

"I don't think it's going to settle."

"Then you're going to need to carry a higher level of Influence to prevent it from disrupting your claimed tiles again," Lea said. Tavian nodded grimly.

"I know you don't like it, but we're going to have to go down there," he said.

"We have to kill or capture or stop whatever it is that's stirring up the miasma and causing the surges." Lea didn't respond, but she didn't disappear either.

"There's something else worrying me. When you linked with my mind, I saw Andal's world grid. One of the pentagonal mana wells was weaker than the others." Tavian looked out toward the Temple of Ishtoran.

"There are only twelve pentagons in the world hexgrid. One of them is in the temple; Kusa's sepulcher. The priests say that it's one of the anchor points of the world hexgrid. That's the well that I saw, isn't it? Could something have happened to taint the well? Is that why there is so much miasma here?" Lea looked grim.

"I hope that is not so," she said.

"If that is true, we're all in grave danger. And you're not going to be able to stop the miasmic surges." Tavian stood.

"I have to talk to Calli," he said.

"If we're going to push up our Influence, we need those treasures. Thank you, Lea." She nodded, and vanished. Things felt a little less awkward between them now. Tavian found Vanal, who was still scrounging broken chunks of masonry, cracked flagstones, and heaps of gravel. He would [Extract] the essence, one or two spheres at a time, and press them into the Core.

"Vanal," Tavian called to him. The man hurried to Tavian's side.

"Yes, my lord?"

"You've done an excellent job clearing this courtyard," Tavian said.

"Let's go see what Calli has for us to sift." They walked to where Calli was working. She had divided the goods from the treasury into two categories, one quite large. Tavian could hear her already.

'No Tay, these are priceless treasures that we couldn't possibly sift.'

"I hope you've made progress here," Tavian said to her.

"We need to boost our Influence."

"The larger pile is priceless treasures," Calli said.

"We couldn't possibly sift them." Tavian didn't argue with her. It would be good to preserve their history, if possible. He would use these last. He examined the goods that Calli had set aside to sift: A set of ornate goblets, a heap of old tapestries, and some loose coins from various foreign kingdoms across Endara.

"Hey, these are cool," Tavian said, plucking up one of the coins and examining it. The hexagonal gold coin sparkled, catching sunlight on its edges. The front side bore the profile of a man Tavian didn't recognize, the back side some kind of ferocious bird. The language was unintelligible to him.

"It's all cool!" Calli said.

"Trust me, it's hard agreeing to part with any of it." Tavian sifted through the old tapestries and banners. Many of them hadn't even been in the vault, but had been recovered from the halls of the palace. Sooty, and torn in places, they weren't particularly special.

"Wait, is this the one that's been hanging across from the vault stairs?" Tavian said.

"Isn't it one of great aunt Savvy's?"

"Yes," Calli said.

"When she was in charge of decorating the palace, she made a lot of these herself." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Tavian handed it to Vanal.

"You can start with this," he said. Vanal took the tapestry toward the Core. Tavian's attention settled on a blackwood chest. Made of bound wood and leather, it had a sea-stained look about it that reminded Tavian of the ship that had brought him back from Endara. Undoing the clasps, he tipped it open, to discover a glittering mass of dark gems.

"Oh," he said. This particular treasure held no nostalgia for him. He knew it would be worth a lot of Essence: finely cut gemstones were highly refined.

"Ah, that one," Calli started, but Tavian waved her off.

"I don't want to know," he said.

"No," she said.

"I don't know what it is either. I'm just surprised that father didn't have it sifted already. A random chest of gems seems like the first thing to go."

"Well, maybe there's a story behind it that we don't know," Tavian said. He picked up one of the gemstones, a red-orange oval, about the size of his thumb. Tavian examined it as it scintillated in his hand. A strange, almost liquid darkness swirled inside the finely cut stone. He brought it over to the Core. Maybe the gems were important to someone, or maybe they'd just been overlooked. Either way, he needed their Essence. Tavian [Sifted] the gem.

A tornado of color swirled in his cupped palms, gradually coalescing into 6 glowing spheres of elemental Essence. But as he was preparing to press them to his Core, a final sphere formed, larger than the others, and black as pitch. It jostled the other spheres in his hands, and each sphere it touched was infected with the same darkness. All the spheres swelled and blackened before Tavian's eyes.

"Get that away from here!" Lea screamed, materializing between Tavian and the Core.

"Don't let that miasma touch the Core!" Startled, Tavian stumbled backwards. He tripped over a loose stone, and the black orbs spilled across the ground. They hit the soil and splashed into puddles of tar, bubbling and oozing as they sank into the ground. Tavian felt the Influence of his kingdom invert for a moment, gravity dragging him down to the ground, soil hardening and air growing thick. Then the miasma faded, and the moment passed. Influence normalized, and Tavian rose, brushing dirt from his tunic.

Discolored patches of soil remained where the miasma had been.

"What on Ishtoran's green globe was that?" Tavian snapped. Calli ran over.

"Was that miasma?"

"Miasma," Lea said, answering Tavian.

"I told you it was dangerous. Keep it away from the Core."

"What happens if it touches the Core?" Tavian asked.

"Are you talking to the Core again?" Calli asked, looking rueful.

"I am, be quiet," Tavian said.

"Miasma corrupts other Essence," Lea said.

"In pure Essence form, I won't be able to do anything to stop it. It will rapidly turn all other types of Essence into miasma. If you put it into the Core, it would have converted all your Core Essence to miasma."

"So…?" Tavian asked.

"Your Core would become miasma powered. Miasma is up to twice as strong as other Essences, so your functional Core Essence would soar. But it also interacts badly with life; all your Core Influence would work against any living things, even subjects of your kingdom."

"We'd effectively double the kingdom's Influence," Tavian said, "And we'd turn ourselves into intruders at the same time."

"That's right," Lea said.

"It would be bad. Even the plants would struggle as the kingdom's Influence turned against them. Every living thing, save the [Ruler] of the kingdom." Tavian eyed Lea. There was an edge in her voice, a rawness to the emotion that suggested personal experience. Is this what had happened to her world?

"The whole point of a kingdom is the people living in it," Tavian groaned.

"What is she saying?" Calli asked, looking around as if searching for Lea. He explained what Lea had just told him.

"But we need more Essence," Tavian said.

"To maintain our current level of control. Where are we going to get that now?"

"Is it possible to decontaminate the treasure?" Calli asked.

"Not all of the Essence from that gem was miasmic," Tavian said.

"Could I have separated it, before it was tainted?"

"Possible, but difficult and dangerous," Lea said.

"I recommend against it, and it doesn't provide an immediate solution to your problem."

"It might work, Calli," Tavian said.

"You can experiment with it, but keep it away from the Core. Let's see if any of the treasures that we have are untainted, like the other tapestries that weren't in the vault." Calli nodded, and moved off to experiment. Tavian checked the kingdom status. ⬣ Kingdom Status ⬣ Core Essence Tiles Claimed Influence 90 17 5. 3"How high of Influence exactly do we need to guarantee we maintain our tiles?" Tavian asked Lea.

"I don't want to keep spending Essence reclaiming tiles that we've lost."

"Impossible to say for sure," Lea said.

"The miasma may shift and change. So far all your tiles but one have been fine at your current Influence level. But clearly there are regions where that Influence is insufficient, given the tile that flipped earlier. If regions of miasmic instability shift, you might start losing tiles faster."

"How much?" Tavian asked.

"On the low end? At least seven." They needed 119 Essence to get seven Influence. That was only twenty-nine more. But if Anarvians were stirring up the dungeon down below, then things could get worse.

"But it would be better to go for ten," Lea said.

"Ten?" Tavian asked.

"If we got to ten Influence, would that keep us safe?"

"Certainly you'd be much safer than you are now."

"That's nearly double the Essence," Tavian said.

"A hundred and seventy. Not to mention ten more for every additional tile we wish to hold." He looked around the courtyard, his mind churning through potential ways that they could get more material to sift. There were other places in the palace where they could acquire tapestries, golden candle sticks, statues, or other refined goods. Each of these would be dangerous; they'd have to send out enough men to defend the corridor, and more to carry the goods.

They wouldn't have the advantage of Influence; Tavian couldn't claim more tiles without spreading out his Influence, working against the very goal he was trying to achieve. He returned to the pile of loot.

"Good news?" he asked Calli. She shook her head.

"No," she said.

"Everything I've tested from the vault just condenses with miasma, and it immediately taints all the essence. I don't think we can use any of this without a way to purify it."

"That's what I was afraid of," Tavian said.

"All that for nothing." He found Braun—who was munching on a carrot—and explained the situation.

"I think we need to raid the palace for more materials to sift," he said.

"It'll be dangerous; there may still be Anarvians roaming the halls. They may have already carried off everything useful." Braun nodded grimly.

"If it must be done, then it must be done. I'll assemble a Squad of men for you." Then Tavian's eyes landed on a pile of flour sacks, which had been carried in from the guard house. There were also heaps of cured meats, fresh vegetables and fruits, breads and cheeses. A well aged cheese could have as much Essence in it as the same weight of gold. There was Essence there to be had. It was impossible to know exactly how much Essence they might gain from something until they sifted it, but…

Tavian did some general math in his head. There was enough here to get them to eight or nine, probably.

"Or we could sift the food," Tavian said. Braun's eyebrows raised, and he quickly took another bite of his carrot. It crunched in his mouth as he spoke around it.

"The people won't be happy if you take their food," he said.

"I know," Tavian said.

"They also won't like it if the kingdom collapses and the Anarvians kill them all." Braun nodded.

"People aren't going to think of it that way," he said.

"It's going to look like you're saving your treasures and taking away their sustenance." Tavian pondered the issue. There was never a clear path forward, not when it came to making decisions as a sovereign. He wiped his hands across his face, feeling stubble growing on his chin.

"I trust my people to understand," he said.

"Let's start rounding up the food."

"It's harder for people to reason when they're hungry," Braun said.

"Morale might be just as important as Influence."

"What would you do, then, Braun?" Braun shrugged.

"You're the ruler." Ten minutes later most of the food had been collected near the Core. Tavian, Vanal, and Calli began sifting. Hams, jams, veal, pots of honey, sacks of flour, grain, cheeses, wineskins, and other assorted goods evaporated into swirling color as they were [Extracted]. With every item that disappeared, the gathered onlookers looked hungrier to Tavian. He stopped looking at them, and continued working until the food was gone. ⬣ Kingdom Status ⬣ Core Essence Tiles Claimed Influence 163 17 9.

6"How's that, Lea," Tavian said blackly.

"Enough?"

"Perhaps," Lea said.

"We'll just have to see." Tavian pursed his lips as he walked toward the stairs. The sun was beginning to set, and he was feeling tired.

"Maybe this miasma is troubling the Anarvians as well," he said, half to himself.

"Braun, I'm ready for that report."