Scourge Forty-One - Safe

“Is it safe?” I ask.

The big wolf-monster nods his furry head. “Borf.”

“Good,” I say. I know that we haven’t seen any fresh undead in a bit, but my friends and I haven’t exactly scouted out the entire area.

The vault is massive. The area near the entrance is just a small part of it. There are doors to the sides and rear of the room that lead into other, equally huge rooms. And it’s not just books. Semper has statues, crates filled with strange things, some training tools and even an entire watermill. Everything is covered in labels, and there’s a lot of magic resting in the air. It’s faint, but it’s there.

“This place is making me thirsty,” Felix says.

“That is likely the salt dust,” Bianca says. “If it’s potent enough to keep all of these tomes dry, then I imagine it will not be healthy for us either.”

“It shouldn’t be that bad,” Esme says. “We have some water, if you want.”

Felix shakes her head. “I’ve got some too, I’ll be fine. Just saying that I wouldn’t want to live in here.”

“I don’t think anyone would,” Esme says. She gestures to a sign which hanged from the ceiling. There are arrows on it. “There’s a living quarters two junctions down. We can check in there. But for the most part no one stays in a vault for a long time.”

“I thought Semper’s people lived in here?” Felix asks.

Esme shakes her head. “No, of course not. The vaults aren’t living spaces. They’re repositories for knowledge and information and magical artefacts. If people lived here, then the vault would need... you know, stuff for people to live.”

“You’d basically need a village around the vault,” I say. “Food, water, housing. You’d need farms and people to work the farms and people to make the things those farmers need.”

Felix shrugs. “Okay then,” she says. “What do we do now?”

Esme chews on her lower lip. “I don’t know. We could clean up.”

“I can get some monsters to help with that,” I say. “I can even make a few for the nastier parts.” The same sort of monster I use to clean my room back home. “But we didn’t come all the way here to dust the place off, I don’t think.”

“No, we’re here to look into the vault to make sure it’s secure,” Esme says.

Felix kicks a zombie’s head and it rolls off to bump into another’s corpse. “It’s not.”

“I had noticed, yes,” Esme deadpans.

“Did Semper tell you what to do if it’s not secure?”

“No, but there are procedures. Mostly they involve making sure that the vault stays secure, to protect what’s in it. Then you’re supposed to hunt down any stolen items or artefacts,” Esme says.

That sounds doable. All we need to do is look around for any remaining undead, then... well, I think I know who’s responsible for this one. Altum’s pretty much the god of necromancers, and his servants weren’t exactly subtle in here. Tracking down the artefacts might be tricky though.

“The capital’s not too far from here. I bet if they stole anything they’d have to go there after,” I say.

“There might be other ways to track things,” Esme says. “Depending on what they stole. Some books have spells woven into them that activate when they leave their place. The library had a lot of those, at least for the more precious books. Sometimes Archivists could follow the traces they left and track the books to whomever had them.”

That’s handy. “So all we need to do is secure this place, then?” I ask. “That’s pretty easy.”

“It’s a huge vault, Valeria,” Esme says.

“Then we’ll get a huge monster or two to sit inside and keep it safe. I can tell them not to touch the books and things. They don’t need feeding.”

“And when new Archivists arrive?” Esme asks.

“They’ll know about the monster, so they’ll be able to handle it. Or we could swing by ourselves and remove it. It’s no big deal.”

Esme crosses her arms and doesn’t look too happy, but she doesn’t seem to have any better ideas. “Fine. It’s a temporary solution at best. Felix, Bianca, can you stay by the entrance and keep an eye out? Valeria and I will be going further in. I need to grab a few things.”

“Why are you going with Valeria?” Felix asks.

“Because she knows more about magic than you do, and the things I’m getting are secretive secrets of Semper’s archive. No one but an Archivist is supposed to know about them.”

“You’re not an Archivist,” Felix points out. “Valeria isn’t one either.”

“I’m in training, and Semper likes Valeria, she wouldn’t punish her,” Esme says. “Besides, I don’t need to explain myself to you.” She reaches down, grabs my hand, then starts off into the dark of the vault.

Laughing, I jog to keep up with the pace she’s setting. “You’re in a mood,” I say.

Esme grumbles a little. “I’m sorry. And... I should probably apologise to Felix too. It’s just been one of those days, you know?”

“One of those days where we get attacked by undead, you mean?”

“The fact that it’s happened twice in one week is kind of disturbing, actually.”

I shrug. “I don’t mind. I mean, I mind that we’re getting attacked, but I don’t mind that it’s from undead as opposed to people. They’re great for Dark magic.”

“The undead have a weakness to Dark magic?” Esme asks. She perks up. “I’ve noticed that surprise magic doesn’t impact them as well as it might. They’re held up by magic, so the physical impact of an electrical current is greatly diminished. Surprise is pretty good at disrupting magic, but only if it’s not firmly rooted in place, and I think the magic that creates undead has to be. It works, but not very well. Does your magic work better because of that kind of disruption?”

“Nah, it’s mostly that they’re really disgusting to look at, so it makes it easier to cast,” I say.

“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose that makes sense too.”

I lean to the side, bumping my shoulder against Esme’s. I think some of the tension that’s been making her all nervous is bleeding away. She’s been pretty eager about this whole Semper-given mission ever since she received it.

“You okay?”

She nods. “I’m fine. A little angry, actually, but nothing too big.” She takes in a deep breath, then lets it all out. “This mission was supposed to be the one where I showed Semper that I... I don’t know that I’m worthy?”

“You’re plenty worthy,” I say.

I can’t see it, but I know she’s rolled her eyes. “Now the whole mission’s gone wrong.”

“What? No it hasn’t.”

“Val, there’s zombies in the vault.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “But they’re not here because of us. We’ve killed dozens of undead. Do you think the average Archivist would be able to do that?”

“Probably. Archivists are pretty strong.”

“Esme, I think you’re about as strong as the average Archivist. You have the classes for it, the training, and a bit of the practice. Felix is a super good fighter, and I’ve got monsters for days. We cleared this place out in a way that would have required a whole team of Archivists. Semper’s going to be plenty happy with that. Besides, we’re not just going to stop here, are we?”

“You don’t mind chasing after whatever Altum stole?” she asks.

“If he stole anything. I mean, he probably did, why else would anyone break in here?” I gesture around. We’ve crossed into the next section. More boxes on massive shelves. No undead though, so that’s good.

“I bet he has something to do with the temples in Algecante,” Esme says.

I narrow my eyes. It’s possible. Very possible, even. We’re not too far from that city. It wouldn’t be hard for Altum’s people to make it from here to there, or to Vizeda afterwards. “We’ll look for more news once we reach the capital,” I say.

Esme nods. “Thanks Valeria.”

“You’re welcome,” I say. “Anything for you.”

Esme walks a bit straighter after that.

She leads me over to a small room at the back of this section of the vault. “How big is this place?” I ask as I look around.

“Big enough to hold copies of every book Semper thinks is important. History books, accounts from various nations, lots of textbooks. Everything you need to jumpstart a civilization back to where we are now.”

“Huh,” I say. “I always thought that it was just a place for Semper to hide all of her favourite books. Like how mom hides hers in the forbidden section of the library.”

“Well... there is a forbidden section to every vault too,” Esme says. “B-but we’re not here for that! We’re looking for the book tracker. It should be in this room right over here.”

And with that, she leads me into a little room that looks more like an office than any sort of vault.

***