Furious Scribe
patreon
53. Basil - Foolish or Wise
🕑 Added 2024-11-13 02:03:10 +0000 UTC
Chapter 53
Foolish or Wise
The place Azure took me to looked like a regular counting house with a painted sign of stacked coins hanging out front. However, once within and a floor down, I discovered that the belly of the structure was considerably more expansive than I would have guessed. There were multiple stone-lined corridors fitted with metal doors, and Azure explained that another floor down there was a tunnel that led all the way out of Treledyne, running beneath the southern wall. I had wondered why we had traveled here instead of up to the reinforced noble houses, or even the Palace, but having access to an escape route made sense, and, shamefully, made me feel relieved.
“This is the room you’ll be staying in for a time,” Azure said, stopping us in front of a door that looked exceptionally sturdy due to the extra straps of iron that criss-crossed its frame. There was also a hard looking man stationed outside of it who was wearing indigo robes of a similar shade to the voluminous one the Secret Keeper had wrapped around their body. “Use your ability on the cards that are brought to you,” Azure continued, “and if it becomes necessary, you will be evacuated.”
Being near a getaway tunnel and actually using it were apparently two very different things in my mind because I instantly balked at the idea. “If we are to flee the city, surely we should do so with as many people as possible,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “And once we are outside of Treledyne, it will be important for us to have access to combat oriented summoners, not just those with unique skills.”
“Like your betrothed,” Azure said, easily seeing the direction I was trying to take the conversation. “I am doing all I can to preserve as much of Treledyne as possible, including those who you care for. You play your role, and I will play mine, and if Fate and Fortune are kind, we’ll all see the sunrise on the morrow.” They gestured with a gloved hand and an arm draped with fabric toward the door. The guard had already used a key at their waist to open it enough for me to enter. From within I saw the flickering light of what must have been a hearthfire or many candles, and I heard a bit of music playing.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to see the sunrise from inside a box or if I would be able to leave the city without Esmi at my side. When I told Azure the second of those things they sniffed behind their mask.
“You say that, but you already have once. You both knew what Fate might have in store when you parted ways.”
“I came with you because Esmi encouraged me to do so –” I said, puffing up.
“And because you both recognize that your talents do not lie on the battlefield,” Azure interrupted. I wanted to argue, but an image of me fainting in the middle of a scrum and my friends dying as they tried to protect my prone body flashed before me. I had done well against the replicating demon because I had known that what I was killing wasn’t a person, similar to destroying Souls in a duel, but the front lines wouldn’t be like that – it would have real people and real blood spilling from their corpses. “The foolish fight against their nature,” Azure said, almost gently, “but the wise embrace it and use it to their every advantage. Please, Basil, help us with the gifts you do have.”
I straightened and gave a tight nod of acceptance. If this was the role I was made for, I would do it to the best of my ability. Also, every moment Azure was here, coddling me, they weren’t seeing to the rest of the city, and I needed to stop being selfish.
“Thank you for the encouraging words,” I told the Secret Keeper. “May the Twins favor your efforts.” I then took my leave by entering the room, nodding to the guard as I passed him. The chamber was spacious considering it had been built below ground, perhaps twenty feet by twenty feet, with a stitched rug underfoot and tapestries that warmed the stone walls. There was indeed a large fireplace with stacked wood burning merrily behind a golden grate, and a handful of high-backed armchairs positioned around it. Sitting in one of them was a girl playing a flute, who removed the instrument from her lips when I entered. In another was a boy with a mop of brown hair that partially obscured his eyes. He was holding a teacup upside down, using the shallow impression of its base to sip from.
And, as I had guessed, there was not a single window.
“No need to stop on my account,” I told them. I didn’t much care for the sound of the door closing behind me, and even less so when I heard the lock click into place, but I tried to focus on what was ahead instead of behind. “You were just reaching the crescendo of The Fall by Gruben, were you not?”
“You know your music,” the girl said, seeming impressed. She was around my age while the boy couldn’t have been older than ten.
“I cultivate Air,” I said by way of explanation. I was immensely curious as to what sort of abilities they each had. “Ones that could aid humanity,” Azure had said, but it would be impolite to ask, so…
“What can you do?” the boy said, looking at me with eager eyes.
I had just reached the nearest open seat, but slowed as I lowered myself into it, regarding him carefully. He appeared harmlessly inquisitive, as any boy his age might, and if the two of them had been kept in here long, I could see him being interested in any information he could come by. There were some trays of food to eat and a few bookshelves, but the boy didn’t seem interested in either of those distractions at the moment, his focus entirely on me.
“Introduce yourself before asking something like that, Devin,” the girl said, speaking before I decided how I was going to respond.
“Why?” the boy said, screwing his face up. “You just did.”
She released a put upon sigh and then turned to me. “You’ll have to forgive him. His upbringing was far from ideal.”
“Yours wasn’t any better,” Devin said, finishing his tea with a single slurp – there couldn’t have been more than a thimbleful the way he was drinking it.
So neither are nobles, I thought, which explained why I hadn’t seen either before. How long had Azure kept them like this? I wondered. Surely their reward for having unique abilities wasn’t imprisonment, was it?
“Yes, but I learned the lessons I was given,” the girl said, whose name I still didn’t know.
“Because your card helps you,” Devin said and then he placed the teacup atop his head like a tiny hat made of porcelain.
The two obviously already had a well established relationship; so established, in fact, that I didn’t see an opportunity to get a word in edgewise as they continued to snipe at each other. Not that I particularly minded. At least this way I wouldn’t have to answer the question. Instead, I mused on what had been said. The girl's card helped with her memory somehow. That was interesting. Or at least it would have been if the people most precious to me weren’t in mortal danger while I sat warming myself by the fire. I wrung my hands together. Is this really the best way I can help?
The door clicked and opened, and I popped out of the chair. “Has something happened? Is there news from the front?”
The newcomer flashed a card at me, its green border putting a halt to my questions. I eased back into the seat, and the card-bearer came to a crouch before me. It was a woman with streaks of gray in her hair, robed like the man outside had been. Closer now, I saw that she had not just a Mythic but a handful of other cards.
I glanced at Devin and the girl, who were both watching me closely. The door had been closed again, so it wasn’t as if I could ask them to leave before speaking of my ability. I sighed internally, resigning myself to them knowing.
“I can only use my Seersight on one card a day,” I told the robed woman. “If I push it to two, I’ll be unable to see anything the next day.” I thought the information might disappoint the card-bearer, but she merely rearranged the cards, holding up an Epic I had last seen when dueling against Losum of House Drakk.
Staring at the card, I unfocused my eyes, looking beyond the physical to see the three ghostly images that floated behind.
“At Mythic, it can gain an Aura that gives Unit to all friendly summoned Souls. Or its Mercy could apply to any Soul that is damaged; when used, it refreshes a friendly card fully to Ready. Lastly, it can become a 6/6 with Armor 2 and have an ability called Divine Light that does 6 damage to any Soul or Summoner it is fighting before combat begins. No changes to cost or stats otherwise in any of these forms.”
The woman with the card was writing furiously on a small pad of paper she had placed on the floor. I didn’t recognize the script she was using, or the symbols that were interspersed throughout. As soon as she was done, she put her charcoal pencil down and switched the card she was holding to the Mythic I had first seen.
It was Orelus, Losum’s Mythic. The High Paladin could have been from someone else’s deck, but Losum would have never traded this card away.
“Is Losum of Drakk out there?” I asked the woman, pointing toward the door. “I know him and could tell him these possibilities in person.” The fact he had been nothing but an arrogant bully for most of our lives didn’t matter right now. If his cards could help hold the enemy at bay long enough for our army to arrive, so be it.
The robed woman hesitated but didn’t answer my question.
“The Hands of Azure have no tongues,” the girl said in a soft voice to my side. “That’s why she’s taking notes.”
That seemed unnecessarily barbaric to me, but when the woman jerked the Mythic back and forth in front of my face, her message was clear: we did not have time for idle chatter.
Calling upon my Seersight once again, I peered at the card. The second time was always more of a strain, but getting to see visions of Legendaries was well with the discomfort.
“One possibility is that gains a +4 Aura instead of +1. No other changes. Another is that its Devote Ability now allows you to target a Soul or a Summoner. Again, no other changes.” It’s last was fuzzy to me, but perhaps that was just because my head had started pounding. With a final push of effort, the writing on the third possibility unblurred long enough for me to memorize it. “Or, its Devote ability can target all enemy Souls. No other changes.”
I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed the sweat from my brow as the woman finished up her writing. Against the hordes we were facing, that last option seemed the best to me. I couldn’t even imagine how many shards would be required for such an upgrade, but if they were showing me the card, it must have been decided that no expense would be spared in Treledyne’s defense.
It seemed that Azure really was doing everything they could to protect the city.
The woman stood to leave, but I caught her by the arm. “Let me try another,” I said. With everyone else working as hard as they were, it was only right that I do the same.
The Hand honored my request, quickly slipping the notes she had made out the door along with the respective cards. When she returned to me, the card she produced proved without a doubt I was looking at Losum’s deck. Was he dead, or was he about to receive a windfall of a lifetime?
I stared at the card on and off for at least thirty minutes, both handkerchiefs I carried growing sodden with sweat that had nothing to do with the fire that burned at my backside.
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally slumping back into the chair. “It seems a third truly is beyond me.” What was it that Air monk had said? The Twins could be made to recognize the things we invested our time in. Should I have been striving to push past this limit from the very beginning to show them what I wished for from my next Soul upgrade?
The woman, however, offered no such judgment. Even though I felt like I had somewhat failed in the one paltry task I had been given, she merely tucked the card away and then departed as silently as she had entered. Only when she was gone did I realize that I could have asked her to answer my questions about Losum using her notepad, or perhaps I could have used my Life Source Power to regrow her tongue. Of course, she still could have refused me. I looked up at the coffered ceiling, thinking of the people on our streets and walls who were risking their lives. Hopefully what I had just done would make a modicum of difference.
“You can see a card's elevation path,” the girl said into the silence that had taken over the room. “That is quite the Soul ability.”
“It has little use in the field, unfortunately,” I said, continuing to feel down on myself until I remembered that the High Paladin and Orelus weren’t the only cards I had used my ability on. With any luck, the cards I had helped Hull and Esmi upgrade were making a difference for them. “Sorry,” I said, pulling myself together, “thank you for the compliment. This war has me out of sorts.”
The girl gave a nervous laugh, gripping her flute. “So it’s true then? We really are being attacked?”
My eyes widened. After having fought with the enemy – seen them, heard them, smelled them even – it was hard for me to believe that someone wouldn’t know that we were under siege. And yet, kept behind our high walls, perhaps sequestered since the beginning and seen to by tongueless guards, her ignorance was not so impossible.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, “the force we are fighting against is quite massive.” I watched the knuckles on her flute turn white and regretted saying so much. “But we have defeated one of their Mythic generals, so all is not lost.”
“Well, that’s something, at least,” she said with a sniffle, her eyes wet.
A clang of silverware got my attention, and I saw that the boy was messing about with some of the small forks that had previously been stuck in cubed cheese. He still wore the teacup atop his head. “Mine is better than yours,” he said, stabbing toward me with the tiny tines of a fork.
“Is it now?” I said, wondering if the boy would give his ability away.
He nodded, which threatened to dislodge the cup he wore but it miraculously stayed in place. “I think things no one has before,” he declared, hands on his hips, looking like a miniature prince.
“That… is indeed a very impressive ability,” I told him. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like, but I supposed that was the point. “Like putting dishware on your head?” I ventured.
He gave me a wide grin, which revealed some gaps in his teeth. “No, that’s just for fun because Chrissy hates it.”
“I do no –” the girl named Chrissy started, but she stopped herself, smoothing her skirt. “If we’re sharing now, my name is Christine” – she shot Devin a glare – “and my ability is the collection of knowledge. I know everything my mother did, and her father before her, and his father, and so on, eight generations back.”
I popped a bit of cheese into my mouth, feeling rather famished after my exertions with Seersight. “That is quite the ability, too. I can see why Azure would want to preserve it.” She was like a walking library, better even, since ink would eventually fade and paper mold. “I haven’t heard of an ability that is passed down through generations like you describe. Here and there, of course, but never an unbroken guarantee.”
“Yes, well, that is part of it,” Christine said, “but I can’t learn very much stuck in here, can I? And until I have a child, there’s a risk of it all being lost.”
Devin snickered, but I wasn’t sure what it was he found funny or why he was looking between Christine and me. When I did, my cheeks colored.
“I wasn’t –” Christine started, looking as embarrassed as I felt. At the same time, I said, “I’m betroth –” but a resounding BOOM cut us both off, the sound accompanied by a tremor running through the room.
Once again, I bounded from my chair, listening closely to see what noises might follow, my stance wide in case there were any aftershocks.
“What was that?” Devin asked. I looked over, seeing that the cup had fallen from his head, the frail porcelain having broken against the carpet. Sitting there stunned, his lip quivering, he looked very much like a scared little boy now.
Christine gently got him up and away from the broken cup, and I dashed over to the door. There was no handle on this side, so I pounded on it with my fist. “What is happening?” I called “Open this so we can speak!”
I put my ear against the cool metal to listen for a response but heard nothing. If this building was somehow under attack, they should be evacuating us, but if they had been caught up in the fighting…
There was no handle, but there was a keyhole. “It seems you were right after all,” I said, pulling a card from behind my ear to make room for one I kept in my shoe, where few would think to look. It took a bit of drawing, but eventually I got it and focused the necessary source to summon.
“What are you doing?” Christine asked from behind me, but I was too busy fitting the key into the lock to respond. It slipped into the keyhole like they had been made to go together, and I was about to open the door when I realized how unwise I was being in my haste. If this building was under attack, I would be slaughtered in no time as I was.
I started by summoning two Elf Bearkin, the swarthy elves appearing beside me.
The elder one looked around. “This is not the open-air hunting you promised us. And I smell no meat.”
The Rare was absolutely right: I had yet to make good on any of my promises to them. “You are correct and have my deepest apologies. As soon as this war is over, I will do the things we spoke of, by the Twins I swear it.” Assuming I lived to see that day.
“Time is not the same for us as it is for you,” the other Bearkin, who was covered in tattoos, said, “so we have not waited as long as you think. Yet we do not wish to wait forever.”
“Nor should you have to,” I said, bowing to both. “Thank you for your patience.” Speaking with them like this was just another reason to survive, another reason to find out what was going on and assist if I could.
I summoned a Master Shieldbearer next, followed by the Spiderkin and the Pantherkin.
I greeted the Epic, since this was our first meeting, but she just eyed me warily, eyes like golden pools. I would have also liked to have Atrea at my side or my new Acanthi Wanderer, but from experience, I knew neither would do well in such tight confines.
I also donned my usual armament but held off on using any enhancement Spells until I had more information.
I was fitting the Helmet onto my head when I heard Devin speak up.
“You have so many Souls,” his little voice said with an air of wonder.
I looked back into the room to see that he and Christine were sharing a chair: he was in her lap, and she had her arms wrapped protectively around his small body. They were both watching me and my summoned force with expressions that couldn’t have been more different.
“You can’t mean to go out there,” Christine said. She looked utterly terrified, her face drained of blood. “Every memory I have of war is beyond awful. Better we stay in here.”
I might not be fit for the front lines, but seeing the pair as they were, I could also tell that I wasn’t meant to be with them either. Besides, I had already given the ‘Hand’ all the information I could for the next two days.
“Keep each other safe,” I told Christine and Devin. “I’ll lock this when I leave.” Then I transformed the Kin, summoned a few Webs, and turned the key.
The hallway was the same as last I had seen it, with no orcs or other invaders present, as far as I could tell. The guard, however, was quite surprised to see me and tried to push me back into the room.
“Don’t you be touching him now, lad,” the Master Shieldbearer said, always the Soul who stayed closest to me. She grabbed his hands and barreled him back, giving us all room to exit.
“What happened?” I asked him before remembering what Christine had said about these people lacking tongues. I quickly closed the door and relocked it with my Key, all while having the Spider get up to her maximum of four Webs. “Thank you for what you’re doing,” I told the man. “Protect them well.”
He frowned at me, but I was already off, walking through the hallway back the way Azure and I had entered. Along the way I encountered Hands, all of whom seemed disturbed to see me out of confinement but spoke not a word and didn’t try to stop me, probably knowing they couldn’t match my current force. I might be in trouble if they banded together, so I kept my steps swift, so I could leave this place as soon as possible.
On the main floor, the desks and chairs that would normally be occupied by money lenders were empty, but a few more robed Hands were boarding up the windows. They seemed equally surprised by my presence but not enough to stop the work they were doing. A few others were in the middle of the foyer seeing to three bloodied individuals, one of which was none other than my cousin.
“Dafil?” I said, rushing over to her. My Life Source dimmed as I moved, suffusing her in a soft, green glow when I reached her.
She coughed, and I felt something wet strike me, but I didn’t look down. “Basil,” she managed to say through breaths that were becoming less labored each time, “it’s madness out there. Utter madness.”
As she spoke, telling of the breach in our northern wall and the flood of enemies that had poured into the city, I gave Healing Potions to the Hands to use on the two other injured people – a few of the the Relics would work faster than my still recovering source.
Dafil’s story of abandoning the eastern wall to help with the invasion in the streets, being set upon by demons who butchered nearly her entire squad, and only managing to escape to here, a safehouse she knew of, because of her corporal’s familiarity with streets, should have made me wet myself, but instead it only hardened my resolve. I was here doing something instead of hiding in a room.
“Have you seen my parents or my betrothed?” I asked when she was finished, sitting up now, color having returned to her cheeks.
Dafil shook her head, her chin brushing against her high collar. “Some of your father’s summoned guards slowed our pursuers, but I never saw the man himself.”
It would have been good information to have, but Esmi at least, I knew would be fighting where the conflict was the thickest. If I headed toward the breach, I would find her.
“Cousin, I have need of one of your cards.”
“One of my cards?” she said, looking at the transformed elves who waited behind me, so quiet I had almost forgotten they were there.
“Indeed,” I replied. “A fair trade for saving your life, I should say.”
She grumbled at my request, but fished the card out of her skull and handed it over. But when I went to take it, she didn’t let go. “Basil, you’re shaking,” she said.
I looked down at my hand, spattered in her blood, and saw that it was indeed trembling. “So I am.”
“It is suicide to go out there,” she pleaded with me. “Come with us instead. There is an escape tunnel out of the city we can all use.”
I kept looking at my hand and even the blood upon it, willing it to still. What Azure had said might be true, but fool or not, I wanted to change, I would change. And, unlike my attempts to force a breakthrough with Seersight, after a few more breaths, my hand eventually stopped moving on its own.
“Basil?” she asked, since I had yet to respond.
I gave her my most confident smile, stolen directly from Gale’s repertoire. “Don’t worry,” I said, taking the card from her with sure fingers. “I always have a plan.”
Comments
Evin
Aw, that's sweet of you to suggest! But I will have to decline. There's already a Morgane in Book 1, and having characters named after both my first and middle name feel too much of a luxury, gotta leave some for the others after all :D
Furious Scribe
Whoops! Thanks for catching that. It was meant to be Devin, and I've updated the chapter accordingly. Though, I could swap them to Evin if you prefer =)
Evin
Got startled about the boy being called 'Evin', haha. Or is it Devin? It seems to be Evin the first two times, but then Basil calls him Devin within his thoughts and then the boy keep being called Devin.
iridium248
RIP Losum, he's dead as Elvis.
Myrdin
Good of Basil to escape that place. He would never be able to elevate there. Also, seems like a perfect hunting ground for Countess Felstrife or Hull’s mother
Death56
I'm glad he decided not to stay there maybe it will factor into his next upgrade
Cal
Go Basil! We believe in you
