For something inside a mountain, Synketros was cozy. Rhys pursed his lips and sauntered forward, keeping his spatial awareness active. Every breeze tickling the sensitive nerves of his wings, every hair on his arms—all of it were on high alert. So far, since the Synketrian left him, no one bothered him, not even with a side glance.
The platform gave way to a huge lobby, hollowing out maybe an entire half of the mountain. Everywhere he looked, supplies littered the expanse, inviting him to start pilfering for the sake of it. Crates stacked over each other, no doubt containing mass-produced flintlocks and other weapons. He had seen some in use in other cartels, so Synketros having some wasn't a far-off possibility. Kegs containing everything from wine, nuts, fruits, and shards of glass peppered the spaces the crates left out. This left a maze-like expanse for Rhys to navigate if he wanted to make it into the various entrances carved right into the foyer's northern end.
People milled in and out of the entrances, carrying more woven baskets. Some, especially the ones who had an air of superiority to them, walked without anything but a weapon strapped on their backs or hung on their belts, and they're out of the prescribed uniform. They might be going on classified missions for world dominion directly under the Sovereign's orders. Who knew? They might even be some of the rumored generals.
Rhys stumbled through the mess of supplies, taking everything in his willpower to avoid colliding into things and drawing attention to himself. Several times, he got himself into a dead end and would have to use his wings to leap over the obstacle. If the Sovereign intended to weed out the newcomers, having this impromptu maze was a nice way to do it.
The air stirred overhead, and he looked up to see other winged fairies sail right in, picking entrances as they saw fit. Which of those would Rhys go to? Then, as he stepped towards the end of the maze, something rippled over his skin. He froze. Was he being scanned? Was someone reading his mind and analyzing his threat level?
Nothing of the sort happened. He'd feel it when someone's trying to poke around his mind, considering he knew what trail thyminka magic has. If it's a rysteme spell, it's going to be flashier and not at all subtle. The Sovereign using sparkling spells to a random nobody like him was out of character.
But something did happen. Rhys continued walking, checking his systems as he went. He chose the entrance in front of him, leaving his fate and what he's bound to find at the end of the tunnel to the gods. Not that he believed in them at this age.
It was quiet. The only sound he heard were his own echoing footsteps against the rugs and the occasional clanking of the platform from the lobby. Amber light glowed from rods stuck into corners made by the leveled ceiling and the walls. They must have had Earth Sprites work on this place. He couldn't wrap his mind around someone else without the affinity to bend the earth working to such a precision.
He reached inside himself and attempted to wrap more cloaking magic into his trail. Just to be sure. His senses were met with a solid wedge of something. A frown pulled at the corners of his lips. What in Rudik's ass? It wasn't like this at the platform. His mind lit up with a realization. Of course. The tingling he felt before he entered this tunnel—that's what it meant.
By some unforeseen security measures, Rhys' magic was now out of reach.
It's fine. He could work with that. But a nagging feeling at the back of his head told him he's extremely crippled without access to the only thing he knew how to do better than an average varichria. A glance at the walls. Close-quarter combat was next to impossible. A sword wouldn't do well in these corridors. Daggers, maybe? But their scope was so little Rhys would end up being mobbed too soon. Flying out would be tricky too.
All in all, he felt like a butterfly trapped in a menagerie.
If the Sovereign was watching his every move since entering, she must be having a laugh of a lifetime at his cluelessness.
The corridor stretched on for forever. Rhys lost his sense of time inside this secret hideout in the mountain. He might as well be walking for a week and wouldn't have realized it. Which was worse—getting captured or getting trapped in a hallway that never ended?
Metal clanged against its kind, coloring the unseen horizon. It was enough to seize Rhys' attention and flood relief into his magic-deprived veins. His footsteps quickened, and with every muffled thud on the carpeted floor, he grew closer to the source of the noise. The lights, if possible, burned brighter the deeper he tore forward.
Eventually, the ceiling and walls widened into a wide cavern. It was smaller than the lobby, but it was sizable enough to contain at least fifty people. All of them were engaged in a mock-fight which Rhys could only attribute to a practice session. He stuck to the walls to avoid being seen as someone who had just walked in. The lights and the shadows bleeding from his feet weren't helping. Sooner or later, someone's going to notice him. Worse, they'd invite him for a quick spar. He'd rather not be forced to bust out his sword, not when he couldn't even access it.
He narrowed his eyes to filter most of the amber glow. Grunts followed by the sharp clash of metal floated above the field. His gaze followed the movements of the warriors, each one lost to the ferocity of their match. Flip, slash, dodge, feint. It didn't take long for him to notice these people used the same maneuvers over and over without breaking strides. That's...strange.
Two more entrances led off to more obscure parts of the training hall. Metal rungs and stairs bled off the cavern's walls. On it were people differently-dressed than everyone Rhys had encountered so far. Instead of tunics and trousers, they wore fitted pants, short-sleeved vests, and had light armor over their breasts and knees. In the few minutes Rhys observed them, they moved from the metal rungs and disappeared into the entrance. They didn't return.
What was that?
He moved to follow, his mind running through all of the factors he had to make sure of in order to slip undetected. Then, he realized without magic, he wouldn't be able to copy the deserters' armor. Bummer. Just as he was about to step into the training hall, a roaring buzz ripped through the cavern, seizing his muscles to a stop.
As if the noise was a signal for something, all the fighting dropped. Rhys opened his mouth in quiet shock, watching the sea of people ambled as one towards him. No one appeared to notice him as they brushed into his personal space. Without much of a choice and in fear of being choked to death by the crowd, he peeled off the wall and blended into the current.
Every once in a while, he looked behind him and resolved to follow those armored people to whatever hovel they disappeared to.
The low, orange dimness told Rhys it must have been nighttime in the outside world. He picked his way back to the training field after a hurried meal in another huge cavern that could only be the mess hall. That must have been dinner. The fairy potion churned in his stomach along with the meager lunch he consumed before he entered the tavern.
His skin prickled with an invisible wind, telling him he wasn't supposed to be here. Well, where else should he be? It's not like he could crash into one of the rooms provided to each member.
He shouldn't even know about those rooms. He just sidled next to a random member during dinner and struck up a conversation. The poor man didn't even know he's being driven to reveal more details about the organization he's supposed to be loyal to. Let Rhys hope he hadn't caused the man's downfall. Although, for the record, one life was hardly anything against the rest of the world, especially if he had already sold himself to an organization such as Synketros.
Despicable as that might be, Rhys didn't have a choice in this situation. If he didn't do it, he wouldn't have figured out he'd have to find a place to crash into when it's lights-out. He wouldn't even know lights out was a thing in this place. It's a giant desis hill, as far as his observations could muster.
The same corridor he tackled earlier was dimmer, making it harder to glimpse his own boots. He sniffed, noting the absence of dust in this place. Despite the movement of traffic, not one particle from the outside world made it inside this chamber. Why was that? Did the Sovereign cast a spell so large it'd expel anything she didn't want to be inside to be cast out like some sort of barrier? And if Rhys was still here, did that mean the Sovereign was somehow expecting him?
A shiver ran down his spine. He shook his head and steeled his nerves. It wouldn't do anyone good should he break down now. One foot in front of the other—it's the only way to survive.
He crossed the training field, forcing himself to ignore the eerie emptiness at the absence of the warriors and their overseers. In speaking of those armored people, what would happen if Rhys walked in on them while they're doing whatever nefarious thing they're bustling with? Should he fight? Maybe. He'd think about it when he got there.
The right entrance loomed ahead, and in time, he ducked into it. His heart thumped against his ribs, and he did his best to even the beats out. Didn't work. After a few steps, the corridor divided into three. He halted, teeth digging into his lip while his mind turned. Looking through these one by one would take a long time. He wouldn't be sure if it's the same room the overseers went to while he was in it. So, he did the most logical thing he could think of.
He released a breath and lowered his senses into the trail dimension. Bright streaks of light burned into his eyes, but he forced them to keep looking. Seeing trails wasn't magic—it's simply a difference in the perception of reality around them—so the Sovereign's restricting spell. And it's enough grace that the overseers weren't varichrias or had access to cloakers, because their trails, all bright purple, bled from the corridor and into the left fork.
None of the other entrances, which Rhys assumed were made to add confusion to any unwelcome spy, contained traces of purple. So, left fork it was.
The walls in the left fork were cruder and darker. The glowing sticks were replaced by sconces slotted with metal torches, making the orange light flicker and dance. Rhys blinked and massaged his temples. It's hard to see when the light performed an impromptu raltz with the dark.
A few minutes in, he reached the end of the tunnel which ended in front of yet another sliding door. Anticlimactic, yes. Unlike the platform up front, this one didn't have a panel of buttons with a secret combination of pushes. The door simply slid back, revealing an empty room and a thick darkness.
He squinted, forcing his eyes to adjust faster. Through the veil of ink, he made out silhouettes of tables, sheets of parchment, and shelves pressed against the uneven walls. It's a hovel, indeed. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Kept the pretense up longer, but cut off all the meager light he relied on to see.
The darkness wrapped around his throat, squeezing until it's harder to breathe. He hooked a finger into his collar and pulled. The weaved fabric stretched against the force. It did nothing to loosen his tightening chest, though.
His legs carried him towards the nearest table. In the dark, it's impossible to read whatever's scrawled in them. He couldn't even tell if they're written in ink or graphite. His fingers ran across the surface, feeling for anything else that might clue him into what went in this room. His knuckles knocked against a metal lump with a spout. A lamp. The flint must be near it.
Feeling around, his fingers eventually closed around a set of smooth rock. Elation gripped his gut, but he toned it down as he struck it. Sparks followed the loud scratch of two rocks. One caught the tip of the lamp's wick, burning bright in an instant. It's no bigger than a glow Rhys sometimes summoned to his forefinger, but it'd have to do. He took the lamp by the curved handle and swung it towards the sheets scattered on the table.
As his eyes adjusted more, he noted the array of jars and pots stocking the shelves. What's the deal with those? The first sheet yielded nothing but computations of servings and proportions. Rhys didn't understand all of it, so he passed it up for the next sheet. And the next. Most of them contained some concoction for treating the most common illnesses in Umazure. He was close to giving up and declaring this room to be of no value when he swung the light close to the first parchment and familiar words caught his attention.
The script was written in both Keijula and Ylanenla by parts. While Rhys understood the Keijula script just fine, he wasn't the best at decoding the common language, whether it be by hand or by words. Whoever wrote this must have been a half-blood, a human who took the time to learn the fairy bits, or a fairy who wasn't squeamish enough to learn Ylanenla.
Still, he translated it as best as he could, and he came up with—The concoction yielded results close to what Kriachoria ordered. Composed of one part izkine extract, two parts urdesi wine, and four parts crushed dolyere leaves, this potion will need to be activated by a rysteme spell for it to truly function. In theory, the izkine extract will inhibit most of the reasoning ability of the target, the urdesi will make the target suggestible and fluid, and the dolyere leaves are known to dull most of the target's physical agency. The rysteme spell, Tartiorosa, needs to be uttered by the caster who wants the target to be partial to, else risking the concoction's impotence. Observed effects in several training batches are up to standards. A little more time is needed to ascertain the duration and strength, as well as root out the souls that have the inclination to resist or be immune. The following ingredients are proven to be good substitutes but with expected difference in results' severity and duration of effect.
Rhys stepped away from the table and dropped the sheet back to its pile. This was how Synketros was able to leash its members? By basically feeding them potions and tying their minds to the Sovereign's will? Holy Rudik.
Footsteps came alive outside, jolting Rhys into alertness. He snuffed out the lamp and slid out of the room. He spread his wings and launched himself to the ceiling. As the black-clad members sauntered into view, he flattened himself against the uneven ceiling, nails digging into the makeshift handholds made by the pockmarks in it. His muscles screamed against his form's weight, but he gritted his teeth and held on.
The platoon of Synketrians, a total of five people, passed him by, none of them noticing a fairy stuck to the ceiling like unwanted cobwebs. The night patrol, Rhys guessed. When they slid the brewing room's door open to check if there were people inside, he dropped to the floor and made a run for it the moment the door shut the patrol inside. He didn't stop until he was back in the corridor taking him back to the mess hall where he could claim innocence and tell people he was just heading back to his room.
Not one confrontation came his way. He made it to the rows of rooms and picked the earliest one he could. He'd deal with the occupants should they arrive. Now, all that's running through his head were the ingredients he gleaned from the parchment.
It looked like Rhys would need to start playing healer.