The silence stretched on, turning heavy.

  Isaac spoke first. “I didn't know you were in town.”

  “I didn't know you were coming to town,” David replied.

  The young noble clicked his tongue. “And what brings you to the town hall, then?”

  “Same reason as you, I think.”

  Isaac's eyebrows knitted. “The Azure Guard's arrival?”

  David nodded, his younger brother scoffing, speaking up again. “And why would that pertain to you?”

  “Their camp is going to be an enthusiastic stone's throw away from my home.”

  Isaac lifted an eyebrow. “Your home? Weren't you an hermit, wasting your time wandering around the realm? What got you to settle down? Did your feet hurt too much?” He said mockingly.

  His eyes finally leaving his older brother, he noticed the short catkin woman half-hiding behind the man, staring back at him.

  Understanding flickered on the young noble's face. “...Ah. A commoner woman, I see.”

  The sudden hardening of David's features made Isaac flinch.

  Brushing off his older brother's reaction, he put on a detached air. “Well, no matter. Return to your hovel, me and my men will have better things to do than bother you.”

  Isaac turned his attention to Leandro, who had so far stood silent behind David. “And you, Leandro, I'm glad to see you managed to meet the soldier who sent you that letter. Has your retirement suited your old bones?”

  The veteran nodded. “That it has, my lord. This town has been nothing but pleasant surprises so far.”

  “Hmm,” Isaac mulled the man's response over before raising his shoulders. “Very well. Please let my valet know where you reside, we might need to consult with you on the reason of our visit.” He said, glancing at the man at his side, who curtly nodded.

  Under David's continued glare, the young noble resumed his march toward the Mayor's office, not sparing David's group another look.

  The valet stayed behind just enough to gather Leandro's information before hurrying back to his lord's side.

  Niala began to speak, but held her words back when she saw David looking at her and shaking his head. “Back home,” he explained.

  They left the town hall, passing by the oppressive-looking Wardenfel autocarriage parked nearby, flanked by four more house guards, and headed back home in silence.

  David sat on the couch, an arm holding Niala, who leaned into him. Leandro rested on a sofa opposite them. Anaakendi had gone back to Hodge's home, claiming disinterest in “humanoid spats” and asking to be informed when they would be departing for the planned expedition.

  With both men looking too preoccupied to break the silence, Niala took it upon herself.

  “Your brother sounded like the typical noble.” She said with some scorn.

  David glanced at his girlfriend. “How's that?”

  “Arrogant and disrespectful.” She spat.

  Leandro snorted as David sighed and spoke.

  “That's... not undeserved, but...”

  The veteran continued David's thought, looking at the catkin. “It is both learned and encouraged. The Wardenfel family, especially the main branch, is second to none except for the Royal family. Their members must act the part. Do you know of their history, girl?”

  Niala thought for a second. “I know they're important, and they basically run the kingdom's military.”

  Leandro looked up to David, who lightly shrugged. The veteran then continued. “Their founding predates the current Royal Family. In fact, they predate the previous Royal Family. Their history goes back nearly two thousand years. Some people say that the kingdom and the Wardenfel stories go hand in hand, but it is more fitting to say that the story of the Wardenfels is entwined with the story of the land.”

  Niala's ears wiggled. “Really? They must have so many books!”

  Leandro nodded. “Their private libraries fill multiple floors. Their oldest records are stored within enchanted vaults to keep the crumbling tomes from disintegrating, even though their contents have long since been saved to archiving plates.”

  David felt Niala's head rotate up at him. He looked down to see two wide, glowing, hungry eyes. “Trumpet, do you think they'd let you into the archives?”

  He sighed. “Probably not. I was thrown out, remember?”

  “But you said you were still a family member!”

  “I did, but that doesn't mean much. There are thousands of Wardenfels. I think a third of the kingdom's nobles are distant cousins. The family tree fills eighteen volumes.”

  “...oh.” She said, slumping in his arm.

  Leandro chuckled. “Whatever the story of David's family, does this change anything for your... Old Woman plans?”

  David shook his head. “Not really. Hopefully, Caleb can still delay them by a few days. We'll just have to leave before they come asking questions, and be out of the vault before they show up.”

  “And if they catch us there?” Niala asked.

  David shrugged. “They'll probably kick us out. We just need to make sure we have all the herbs we'll need by then, until Totori's first delivery.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The catkin sighed and pressed herself into her boyfriend. “I'm still not convinced it'd be that much of an issue if we ran out...”

  She felt David stiffen and noticed both his and Leandro's stares on her. “...what?”

  “It would be a terrible issue,” David said.

  Leandro nodded. “I agree.”

  Niala blinked, looking at the veteran. “You too?! It's only been three days since you discovered the drink! You couldn't go, I don't know, a week or two without?”

  Leandro shook his head, keeping his eyes on the catkin. “I did not have the drink the next morning, and my focus was not as sharp. I was not less than before, but the Old Woman acts like a soft breeze on a hazy morning; it clears the mist away, leaving everything sharper. The dulling of old aches is also appreciated, and it enlivens your step, making everything feel slightly easier.”

  Niala looked at the large man, squinting.

  He shrugged. “While I could go without for longer, it is akin to having worn an excellent pair of boots one day, and them exchanging them for old, worn ones with a pebble stuck within the sole. Bearable, but having known better, you wish for the new pair again. Men and women with less... control than I might be more irritable as time goes on, just as someone in sweltering heat will begin eyeing his neighbour's water skin.”

  She gulped.

  This sounds way more serious than just a morning drink. What in the pits did I create?

  They elected to leave early the next morning, before the Azure Guards detachment could reach town.

  The trip took three days, their progress slowed by the heavy snow. Upon reaching the area, David and Leandro's imbuements began glowing, just as had happened to David the last time he'd been here. Leandro explained that this occurred in areas with a high concentration of mana and taught him how to shield his imbuements, cancelling out the unwanted glow.

  Soon, they reached the one known entrance to the Living Vault; the mound with the door that led to the service ladder down the main shaft.

  Anaakendi was utterly uninterested in either plodding down the rungs or waiting for the rest of them to do so, and instead returned to the winds, flinging all of her companions into the shaft, before catching them with a strong updraft that let them float down at an appreciable pace.

  Except for Jordo, who energized his feet and vertically jogged down.

  The incarnation let them off at the large room where all of the elevators seemed to congregate. The living members donned filtering masks, not wanting to contract Delver's rot, and waited for the golem. When Jordo reached them, he walked back them and meandered throughout the room, his eye flashing red.

  David, in the meantime, did what he had done during his first visit and poured mana into the room's circuitry, jump-starting the system back on. As the lights and display flickered back to life, Jordo turned toward the group.

  “Sir, I am pleased to report that the service elevator seems to be functional, now that you have restarted the mana generator. However, I can also sense that the generator is operating on a negative loop and will shut down in half a day.”

  David scratched his head. “I didn't see any other elevator shaft. Where is it?”

  Jordo bowed slightly before turning back around and heading for a seemingly featureless wall. Once there, he pressed his hand against it, and a pane of the wall revealed itself to be a hidden door, as it stammered open and slid laterally, as silent as a screaming oxen.

  The room beyond looked like a small control room, with a few work desks, tool benches, instrument panels and, at the back, a small elevator platform surrounded by a metal grill, as well as a set of stairs leading down.

  The room also contained one more surprise: actual skeletons. They were more compacted dust than bones after all this time, but their presence clearly contrasted with the boneless remains that filled the rest of the installation.

  No one in the group had a valid explanation, but they all agreed that it meant something had happened beyond simple decomposition.

  Exploring down the stairs led them to a large room a few levels down, filled with arcaneotech machines, most of them in various states of decay, dead and silent, except for one sputtering assembly.

  Jordo identified it as the backup mana generator, the one that David had forced back on. The golem offered the possibility of performing some basic repairs upon the unit, hopefully to keep it running for longer than half a day.

  The group selected against it, not wanting to extend their stay in the Vault any further than they needed to. With Anaakendi confirming that she could push them up the central shaft, they weren't too concerned with access to a “working” elevator, which none of them really trusted to not break partway through the descent anyway.

  They had Jordo access the installation's systems to try and see if he could locate the herbs they were looking for. He unfortunately reported that the central consciousness was unresponsive and that the data network was rife with corruption. He affirmed that he could work through it, potentially restoring backups and retrieving the needed information, but this would again require time, at least half a day.

  They instead proceeded to the observation deck. The view down into the vault awed Leandro and, surprisingly, Anaakendi, while David and Niala allowed themselves time to observe the man-made marvel in further detail.

  From their vantage point, Niala identified the biomes and areas where the herbs were most likely to grow naturally, and Jordo was able to spot several greenhouses in various states of ruin throughout the lands.

  The last thing they did before travelling down to the Vault's floor was to investigate the Fel that Niala had killed within the maintenance corridors.

  The smell hit them long before they arrived at the scene, with even Jordo reporting a foul presence muddying his sensors.

  Various gasps erupted from the group when they spotted the thing's corpse.

  Crushed as it was between the spikes jutting from both sides of the corridor, its flesh had begun expanding and filling the cracks, like a corrupted fungus, and it oozed a slimy substance that pooled on the floor.

  And there, in the middle of the disgusting puddle, a small patch of pallid yellow flowers had sprouted. A single black pistil grew from their globular centres, which, when looked at from the right angle, gave the impression of a sickly-yellow eye with a black pin-prick iris staring at you.

  Niala separated from the group, walked up to the flowers and, with her gloved hands, harvested them, sticking them into a small sealed canister.

  She then washed her gloves and canister with a neutralizing agent, stored everything, and looked back up at eyes staring at her in silence.

  She blinked. “What? It's a new kind of flower that I'm pretty sure nobody has ever seen. Think of the alchemical potential!”

  Her explanation did nothing to alleviate their shock.

  Riverwall, three days ago.

  Isaac oversaw the troops' preparations at their temporary camp. The old market road had been cleared of snow, and a few of the more serviceable buildings had been patched up with tarps and wood planks to serve as stores, kitchen and officers' quarters, while a small town of tents had sprung up to house the troops and support staff.

  Seventy of the hundred guards would be leaving on the expedition, along with a handful of support staff, while the remainder would finish setting up the camp and provide security for it.

  The dogkin mayor, Caleb, paced at his side, attempting to dissuade him from proceeding with his plan.

  “I still think, lord Isaac, that rushing out into the hungerwoods in the middle of winter is ill-advised. A few more days spent resting your troops after their long journey, and gathering more information from the adventurers about the dangers you will be facing, would serve you best.”

  Isaac moved his focus from the armourers he was observing to the annoying Mayor. The man had pestered him and his officers with forms to fill, records to annotate and sign, and all manner of officious proceedings.

  The man was either the most punctilious city official he had ever met, or he was trying to slow them down.

  Thankfully, as heir of the Wardenfel main house, he had plenty of experience with expediting and cutting through red tape, which led to his present situation, where he had to suffer the audacity of being advised on the topic of tactical deployment.

  He scoffed. “Mayor Caleb, let's stop this farce. I don't know why you want to delay my departure, but it won't work. I've signed all your papers, I've met all of the important people you directed me toward, and I've fulfilled all of your demands on the respect of proper procedures for setting up an army camp within close proximity of a town.”

  The young noble turned fully to face the pest. “I will make this clear. We are leaving tomorrow morning. Nobody will stop us. Do we have an understanding?”

  The dogkin's ears twitched, though his eyes did not cower away. “We do, my Lord.”

  “Good. Was there something else that required my attention? I am busy with the preparations.” Isaac asked.

  “No, my Lord. You have, as you've said, fulfilled my every request, and you have listened to my recommendations. I will leave you to your duties.” The Mayor said, bowing, and departing, followed by his tridget guard captain.

  He watched them go before turning back to his troops, allowing himself a smirk.

  That behaviour was all the confirmation I needed that my reject of a brother was involved after learning that the man and his group had left in a hurry yesterday. I would bet my autocar that we're headed in the same direction.

  Isaac's stare hardened, sending the armourers who noticed his irate glare into frenzied hurriedness.

  Whatever happens, I'll find a way to drag that man back to the estate, so he can start paying back the family. I don't know why father has allowed him to eschew his responsibilities for so long, but it ends now.