When Cera wakes up, she's fully expecting to find Aloth in the room - she finds Sagani instead. Leaning against a wall and carving a piece of wood, the dwarf woman doesn't look at all surprised when Cera sits up on her bed in Brighthollow.
One look at Sagani's expression says something's very wrong. "If my parents are back, tell them I'm at the bottom of Caed Nua and they can come find me themselves."
Sagani chuckles, and says "No, nothing like that. You ever hear of Concelhaut?"
"Yeah…he invented a bunch of spells. Aloth says he's one of the greatest wizards this generation. I heard he's an archmage, so he's got to be good - why?"
"Well, his tower's nearby and he's under siege."
"What?!"
The six of them get to Cragholdt, and find yes, there is an army camped outside of the bluff - one that's in ruins, from what Cera can discern. There aren't that many minds left to pull information from, but apparently someone hired these guys to kill Concelhaut and take some artifact called an Engwithan Phylactery.
From what Cera can tell about the siege, it hasn't gone at all well - the army arrived, set up camp and siege weapons, and then night fell and out of the tower came undead. She has her eyes closed and searching all through the camp for a good fifteen seconds, and finally opens them and says "Almost none of the mercenaries are left. Killed in various ways, some trolls lurking nearby, the undead that came out of Concelhaut's tower when they breached it. Mostly the undead. There's a handful of people left, up past the command post. Maybe we could find some answers there, but…" She looks warily at the tower itself, not at the camp set up around it, and says "There are people in there. People who didn't think something as mundane as a simple siege worth stepping outside the tower and interrupting whatever they're working on. Powerful wizard or not, I'd think one would go see the people trying to kill you. The gods know I do."
They get inside the tower, and are immediately stopped by a dead-eyed man who says someone named 'Tanoss' wants to speak with them.
Cera glances around very warily, and quietly connects to their minds for a minute. There's a web here. I can feel it. And that guy was connected to it, like a fly caught in a spiderweb. Or with one piece of silk attached to its back. Whoever this Tanoss is, he's dangerous - a Cipher, perhaps. A Cipher with an Archmage wizard…we've seen crazier. Like a group of people led by a guy with a memory that dates back to Engwithan times and is currently spearheading the legacy.
She's got an excellent point, and they head to the room the glassy-eyed man motions towards. They walk inside, and find a Vithrack surrounded by about ten other thoroughly enthralled people with expressions to match the first guy's.
None of them need any mental powers to see the revulsion and horror pouring off of Cera like her soul turned into a generator for it - despite her powers, despite all she can do, even controlling people very briefly to avoid bloodshed, she'd never consider anything remotely like this. This is just pure slavery, but without the whip - the other difference being the fact that there would be no rebelling against it.
Tanoss tells them that Concelhaut has him and three others competing for the privilege of being his apprentice, and that he gave each of them a part of a key - to get the other three, one of them will have to kill the other potential apprentices and take their key pieces; which Tanoss asks them to do to the other three apprentices. kill the other three apprentices while completing a spell to impress their master - Concelhaut clearly expects his apprentice to excel at multitasking then.
Tanoss is doing one to control the minds of his 'subjects' - victims, more like.
Pelden is the one responsible for the smell of embalming fluids and rotting flesh in the halls - something to do with undead then.
Sabel's room is radiating heat, and Tanoss can hear sizzling and bubbling when he listens hard enough.
And Uariki's room is without a doubt the most normal of the rooms - no sounds, no heat, no smells, and no enthralled servants with glass-for-eyes and no will left in them.
And Cera gets the distinct feeling that they can't just leave the place - there's a hungry mind deeper in the tower, and it knows they're there. And she's got a very terrible feeling that the mind is Concelhaut's. When they get outside of Tanoss' room, she whispers "Now I know why people are afraid of Ciphers. He's using a combination of his mental powers and the spell he's working on to enthrall those people. His powers may well be amplifying the spell, or vice versa. You all alright?"
They all nod, and Cera lets out a sigh of relief. "I was right, it is a spiderweb. And Tanoss is the spider sitting in the middle of it."
Sabel just immediately attacks them upon entering her room, giving them no warning of the metallic skeletons with swords. Pelden was indeed working with the undead, attempting to stabilize Guls, keep them from decaying further. They were actually almost tame, but his room was a horror show of tanks filled with fluids and creatures inside them and his experiments standing around the room. At least he's not enslaving people, that's what comes to Cera's mind anyway. Uariki's spell is definitely the best, in their opinions anyway - no dead people of any kind, no living people enslaved, just a bunch of levitating weapons that could stab you through the heart.
Uariki tells them to watch out for Tanoss, as there's something about the Vithrack she doesn't trust. Cera nods and says "He's building a spell to control the minds of others. And he wants the key parts." It doesn't take a lot of convincing to make a deal - on either side, in all honesty. Cera's been getting twitchier by the moment about the entire place, Tanoss' mental web particularly, and nobody can really blame her - the prospect of getting betrayed by the Vithrack comes with a lot of obvious problems and such, and she's been feeling his mind almost following them throughout the place as they go. Likely to monitor whether or not they'll get the pieces or not. At least Uariki seems like a normal Kith, not playing around with dead beings or enslaving Kith. According to her, she's making the spell so that she can free her homeland.
They get into Concelhaut's office, all six kith on high alert after everything that's happened so far. When they get to the figure they can see seated at a long desk, they all stop in horror when they realize it's not a bony old man but more of a skeleton with a thin film of flesh draped on the bones. Turns out the Engwithan Phylactery isn't some necklace or machine - it's a spell lattice that was carved into Concelhaut's skull and sealed with an Adra peg, which must've hurt like nothing else. And he's trying to do some as-of-yet impossible magic - manipulate time.
Unfortunately, even an archmage can only draw so much power from the Ether at once on their own - and what he wants to do requires a lot more power than he currently can access at once. He has a solution though, he just needs a better connection to the Ether - Wizards draw power from the Ether with their own souls, so all he needs is the soul of a Watcher to better access the Ether and make time his greatest achievement. And lucky for him, he's got a Watcher right in front of him - unlucky for him, Cera's none too willing to give up her soul, troubled as it is. With her luck, she'd still be stuck with these past memories even while Concelhaut used her soul for his own ends.
She looks at Concelhaut's skull for a moment, inexplicably lit by some power and starting to float, then asks "Guys, you think Uariki has a hammer we could use? Also, Aloth, you think Concelhaut made up anymore spells between the last time he put any out and now?"
"Perhaps, I wouldn't put it past a man trying to bend time to his will…"
Cera says "His book is right there. Go nuts."
She's pointing at the massively thick book sitting on Concelhaut's desk, and its literally all Aloth can do not to immediately dash over and start pouring through it. The name 'The Ironclasped' is written on the front, and he tries to feign only a slight interest - like trying to slow a tidal wave down to a mere trickle - and immediately stops and stares when he sees a spell marked 'Concelhaut's Crushing Doom' in one of the back pages.
Cera says "Oh, and Tanoss hid his part of the key in here in his Grimoire."
The book is titled 'Willbreaker' on the front, how appropriate. There's nothing in there he hasn't seen before, some higher level spells but nothing that you can't find in the Arcane Knights Academy.
Cera glances at Concelhaut's skull, then says "I'll go find Uariki, tell her what happened. Hopefully she'll understand. Oh, what's that book on the desk? Another grimoire?"
They turn and look, seeing, yes, another spellbook that most certainly wasn't there the last time Aloth looked. He turns to ask about it and finds Cera gone, long since out the doorway.
Eder snickers and says "Aloth, you do realize you'll have to find a miracle in order to even the score now, right?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
The farmhand facepalms, and says "She got you that magic ring, you got her the necklace. You got her that crossbow, she got you that second ring, and then you switched the bows out when she was sleeping."
"Wait, you knew-"
Sagani snorts out a laugh, and says "It was not at all hard to figure out, Aloth. Honestly. She said 'magic' - she knew it was you. She can read an object's history, if she really had to!"
Kana says "And the spellbook we found near the Battery, don't forget that."
Eder says "And now she's gone and gotten you two new Spellbooks, one of which is extremely dusty and looks like it's from the Endless Paths and the other is another Archmage's spellbook. So, how exactly are you going to top it or even out the score?"
"You are reading way too many-" Lad, as yer so fond o' sayin'…shut it! They're right, ye daft twit!
Iselmyr, not now! Couldn't you add your opinion AFTER they're finished?
Not this time, laddie. Either kiss the girl or I'll scream out how ye feel mentally and maybe verbally. She knows abou' me. She knows abou' yer joinin' the Key. An' she doesn't care a lick. Grow a lot o things, a pair an' a spine being the top o' tha' list, and tell her. Or are ye just gunnae let her ge' away?
I really hate it when you become the logical one in our conversations. You get me into so many avoidable situations.
An' I stop em from happenin' a secon' time! But neither of ye can see what everyone else, meself included, has been watchin' this whole time! An' she's the Watcher!
Later. We'll talk about this later, Iselmyr. Eder's smirking at us.
At ye, lad.
I'm certain this one's for both of us.
"So, what's Iselmyr saying?"
"None of your business, Eder."
"Was it about Cera? Because from your expression, she was really irritating you."
"No comment. And no, I'm not calling her out so you can ask or talk to her!" He picks up the two new spellbooks he's going to pour over - who knows what the Engwithans knew for spells - and leaves the room before anyone including Iselmyr can make a comment.
Of course, right as he goes to turn the corridor corner, Cera reappears on the other side of it with bone dust on her - and they very nearly walk straight into each other. "Aloth! What's wrong? Are the books interesting?"
"What? Yes, very. Concelhaut had a spell he never published in here! And this other one, The Leaves of Essence…should be interesting to say the least. What happened to you?"
"Oh, this was from Concelhaut's skull. Uariki was horrified by him, used a gigantic hammer to smash the skull to dust. Thanked me for saving her from being an apprentice to that monster. She'll go back to her island and save it after finishing her spell."
He wipes at a dusty cobweb on her cheek, suddenly bothered by it for no apparent reason, and they both jump back when the door creaks - and Eder and Kana are both pulled back inside by a feathered hand each.
Cera's eyebrow rises into her bangs, and she mentally asks What are they saying?
Cera, you don't want to know. Trust me.
AN: Hey! Sorry about the wait on updates, but things are just a little hectic at the moment. As for the story itself, i'm skipping the part of the swamp - just because it doesn't really make sense to go tromping through a swamp when it's so easy to miss this bit of content anyway, as you don't really have much reason to go back to Stalwart after beating the Eyeless and all that. Anyway, things are moving right along - and yes, everything's going nuts watching Cera and Aloth like each other without admitting it to the other elf. Iselmyr included, which I personally find absolutely hysterical. More chapters coming soon - please be patient though, classes do take an hour and fifteen minutes each, so I don't have the entire week to write, as fun as that would honestly be. Going to start some new stories after I finish the ones I'm currently working on, btw - reviews would always be appreciated, for any story. Enjoy!