3
Unsurprisingly, it was harder than Milo expected.
Firstly, the library didn’t have any detailed maps. This was because the lower halls seemed to move. While no one had ever seen it happen, corridors disappeared and rooms shifted location overnight.
It would be easy to get lost if he spent too long down there.
“That’s why you shouldn’t go wandering around, kid,” Ket said. She handed him a satchel filled with cloths and cleaning fluid. She gave him an enthusiastic pat on the head and flashed him a wide grin. “Now, be sure to make those windows sparkle down there! I wanna see my pretty face in them!”
Pretty face?
Squinting at her, he said nothing.
Maybe she was, but she was older than him by at least ten years.
He took the satchel into his cubicle and emptied it out before packing it with a small lunch and notebook and pencil.
He planned to sketch today.
He wanted to copy down all the runes he could so maybe he could work out what they were trying to say.
Feeling determined, he began the long trek down spiraled staircases towards the lower halls. Sometimes he passed other students. Most of them ignored him, but a few sniggered at his back.
Everyone knew who he was now.
The mage who couldn’t cast a single spell.
Gritting his teeth, he ignored them all.
Soon the air grew musty and he saw no one else in the stairwells. The only sound was the soft click of his shoes on granite as he descended.
Each level had a symbol, and he’d been assigned to one which looked like an inverted cross. He considered going deeper, but figured it didn’t matter right now where he started.
So, he slid out into the hall and paused.
The hall stretched a good distance, with wide corridors branching off at multiple points. Closed doors dotted the walls. None of them looked out of the ordinary, so would be fine to open.
The little glowing crystals next to them glowed as though eager to let him pass inside. He ignored them all for now.
Along the top of the wall, dwarven runes formed an unbroken line of shapes from one end of the corridor to presumably the end. Taking out his notebook, he looked up.
And started to draw.
They weren’t hard to copy down. Dwarven runes were surprisingly simple.
What was interesting about them was there was no pause. But despite that, it was relatively clear they weren’t a single rune. They were combinations.
It was just that they seemed to slot together perfectly. Where a flourishing curve of one rune ended, it cleanly swept into the beginning of the next, to form an unbroken line.
And every single one was different. Even if only slightly. Some might appear to be the same, but there were subtle differences. An extra circle. A longer curve.
He didn’t think this was a matter of style like some mages had proposed.
This felt mechanical and structured.
As the hours wore on, he kept sketching. His mind was completely absorbed by the task. There was a familiar sense of organized calm sweeping through him as he worked. He’d felt this way when pulling apart a clock.
Meticulously noting each gear in his notebook.
Numbering them.
Labeling them.
So he could put them back together in the right order.
When he finally stopped for lunch, he leaned against the wall and unwrapped his sandwich while letting his mind move through what he’d learned.
Which was pretty much nothing.
But even nothing was something.
For starters, the fact that every single rune was different in some way was interesting. For Milo, every clock he’d ever repaired was also different. While they were often made with the exact same principle, there were always differences in size of cogs and gears. Or in the number of them.
Some were simple.
Others elegant and complex.
Dwarven runes seemed the same. Some of them were a few crisp lines. Others were criss-crossed with little crosses and strange curving thorn-like flourishes.
It was easy to see why the mages had assumed they were different depending on the style of the engraver. Some had gone so far as to assume each was different because they weren’t runes in the first place.
They were, they said, simply decoration.
But Milo wasn’t convinced of that. There was something useful about them. Something he couldn’t quite describe. But they had a purpose. He was sure of it.
The mana humming through them was sign enough of that.
It was like machine cores.
No two cores were the same, either. This was due to the gems being of differing quality, but also size and how they were mounted.
Some were mounted in silicon. Others in expensive metals like platinum or gold.
Some gems were quartz. Others diamond or sapphire.
To the mages, the only thing that mattered was how much more mana the core could give them.
But to Milo, he couldn’t understand why each was so erratically different.
There were two cleaning golems in the city which he’d spent a long time sketching. Both looked to be the same design. Yet, even they had completely different machine cores. One had a bright red ruby while the other was simple quartz.
Two very different cores for the same golem.
He couldn’t believe dwarves had made a mistake. Or that they cared so little about uniformity when their Keep was structured with such rigid and practical architecture.
Munching on his sandwich, Milo thought about how the corridors and rooms moved in the lower levels but not so much in the upper ones.
There had to be a reason for that, too.
It was almost as if the dwarves had projected an image of simplicity while hiding complexity in plain sight.
For what purpose?
Defense was the first thing to come to mind.
The runes were proof that the differences in their design could ensure they wouldn’t be easily translated. And if rooms moved, it encouraged people to stay away. No one wanted to get lost down here.
Or killed by traps.
Opening a small flask of water, he took a long drink.
Then tucked everything back into his satchel and stood again. Ready to keep sketching.
He followed the runes further down the hall, meticulously copying them into his journal. He was getting close to the end when the wall suddenly looked different.
It took him a few moments to realize there were three small faces in the granite. They blended softly into the stone. They weren’t deeply carved. But it was easy to see what they were when he took a step back.
Their eyes were closed. Their faces stretched into a strangely alien grin.
Each mouth was open, tongues out as though requesting a taste of something.
“You’re not having my lunch,” Milo grunted, amusing himself. “Get your own.”
There was a brief moment where he had a feeling the eyes would open and stare at him as his words echoed in the hall.
But that moment passed quickly.
Still, it made him look over his shoulder.
To find three wall sconces. Aligned with the faces.
But only one held a small crystal mana light. The middle one.
He looked back at the faces.
Then turned his body to look at the sconces.
It was just a coincidence, he thought.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the mana light was there for a reason.
Ket’s words drifted through his brain.
“Don’t touch anything, kid. Just clean and get out.”
Pursing his lips, he looked at the three faces again. They were all very different. One looked like a warrior. He had a thick helmet with a horn jutting out from either side.
The middle one looked like a king. He had a circlet around his head with a giant gem embedded in the front.
And the third had an eyeglass covering one eye.
Similar to the one Milo used as an artificer.
Scratching his chin, Milo turned to the sconce and winced.
“This is a terrible idea,” he said.
But now the thought had occurred, he had to know. Plucking the little crystal out of the sconce, he held it in the palm of his hand. It weighed almost nothing. The mana glowing in its core flickered gently.
“A really bad idea,” he murmured.
Then reached out and set the mana light into a small groove on the tip of the third dwarf’s tongue. The one with the eyeglass.
Nothing happened.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he lifted his hand and patted the dwarf’s head. “From one clocker to another,” he said, grinning at the face. “I hope you enjoy your meal…”
Flick!
The dwarf’s eyes snapped open to reveal glowing pits of bright red energy.
“Blast!” Milo threw himself back, anticipating a trap as the ground began to shake under his feet. The stone behind the face let out a heavy rumbling groan as massive hidden gears started clicking fast. “I knew it was stupid!”
A line split the face in two.
And the line grew wider.
Wider.
As the door behind it opened, Milo flinched. Not knowing if he should run.
The door suddenly ground to a stop and he stared deep into the darkness within. It was completely black. No sense of anything beyond.
It was empty.
Like a void.
Then something clicked in the distance.
And a small pinprick of light appeared.
Another click.
Another.
Then a rush of them as a wave of crystals on either side of the narrow corridor suddenly burst with light to illuminate the path within.
A path no doubt filled with traps.
Milo gulped.
Waiting.
As nothing happened.
He’d had a lot of stupid ideas in his life, but this was by far the stupidest. He took a hesitant step towards the entry.
Then another.
Carefully, he stepped into the brightly-lit corridor and took a few more steps.
“So far, so good,” he breathed.
Then, behind him, the doors let out a hiss as the gears spun wildly.
Turning, he dove for the narrowing gap only for it to crash shut right in front of his fingertips with a titanic crunch.
The hairs down the back of his neck tingled as he realized there was no way out.
“Oh, Milo,” he muttered. “What bullshit have you gotten yourself into this time?”
He turned back to peer down the bright corridor, imagining all kinds of traps suddenly opening up to kill him in more and more exotic ways.
But what choice did he have now?
He took a step.
Then another.
Knowing the only way out was through.