The first leg of our journey into the depths of the earth was best described as disappointingly uneventful. Days of trekking through one cave system gave way to another, nearly identical cave system; some were sprawling while others were just about wide enough to walk through, some went on without turns for hundreds of meters while others twisted back and forth like the intestines of some abyssal monstrosity. No matter what, though, they were all perfectly passable for the four of us; some even had lighting, though only for short stretches. Extensive work had clearly been done down there, with natural passageways widened and giving way to fully artificial tunnels in places. Jorfr brought up that a significant portion of the caves here had been modified by the local deep dwellers, and mentioned that we would need to pay them in metal to secure passage through the areas which the dwellers claimed as their territory. Zel seemed interested in paying with that weird gun-like trinket she took off of the Poltragow deep dweller chieftain’s corpse.

Victor’s recovery went smoothly, more or less, though it took several days before he regained his ability to cast magic. The matter of curtailing the possibility of Koschei’s awakening remained, and we managed to decipher the pertinent portions of the Itrian shrine-maiden scroll. As the Smoke Witch had said, there were several rituals specifically for disrupting the influences of malign spirits and curses, with one specialized towards sealing a cursed object’s influence for multiple days at a time. It was linked to an emergency rite for completely stonewalling a “curse link” in the short-term, detailed as being for the purpose of re-establishing the long-term seal. The scroll warned that the emergency rite couldn’t just be used over and over, that it would lose potency. Since all of the rites demanded a site of power, we were still some time from being able to perform any of them. “Just a day or so, not too far,” Jorfr claimed. We - or rather, Zel and Victor - deciphered portions regarding Servitormancy, but neither of them could make any sense of it, and Jorfr declared that it read like something straight from one of the elder druids’ mouths.

Of course the willful creation of an artificial spirit capable of animating a lifelike construct wouldn’t be an easy thing. Were I pushed, I couldn’t explain how Death’s Lieutenant works or how exactly I coaxed Pentacle’s and Tempesta’s spirits into taking that form. It’s not something I understand well enough to share the knowledge in words; I dredged it up from somewhere deep inside and molded it into a workable shape. I must admit that it felt like a cruel joke at first when I saw the spirit take the shape of a skeleton in my own old uniform.

They made camp on a cliff shelf overlooking a cave so magnificent that neither its other end nor its ceiling could be seen, with only a cliff path along the wall. A sprawling, multicoloured volcanic lake bubbled at its bottom, perfectly translucent and dimly lit from below by shining crystal formations at the bottom. Though a horizon was in sight, it was nowhere near the cave wall. The air smelled of sulphur.

Zel pondered aloud, speaking to Jorfr: “Y’know, now that I think of it, we haven’t really spoken at any length about the way Clans work in Borea, even though they seem to be sort of a big deal. I seem to recall that the place has supposedly never had a true aristocracy of any sort, but there are… Five? Was it five clans that have access to some sort of cultivation-accelerating spring?”

“You spoke about Borean society and by some miracle didn’t get to the Great Clans or the Honor System?” Vic blurted out a question of utter gobsmacked disbelief.

Jorfr’s body tensed up as he hissed through his teeth: “I did not think it relevant.”

“You’re still a shit liar!” cackled the homunculus. “C’mon, what’s the real reason?”

A rumble of frustration issued from the northman. He swallowed a half-chewed mouthful of meat, sighing: “I came to Ikesia and suggested the visit to Borea in the hopes of restoring the standing of my clan. The honor gained through victory in real conflict is an order of magnitude greater than that which can be gained through wargames and holmgang. I feared that revealing this reality would make you think my motivations for associating with you and joining the sect were entirely selfish. Really, things just… Fell into place is all.”

Zel stared at him for a few seconds. Her brow furrowed, and an incredulous expression took hold as she questioned: “...You know you could’ve just asked and I would’ve gone along with it, right? Jorfr, I’d be dead if it weren’t for you, even ignoring your aid with the Monad Communion Ritual.”

“I- Yes, it was foolish of me to doubt…”

“Don’t. Just mention these things honestly from now on, that’s all I ask. Now the clans and the springs, what’s up with them?”

“Right, the Springs. They are… Something to do with keeping the Great Oasis stable, getting all the heat out in a way that won’t melt the glacierglass. There are five Primary Springs, ten Secondary Springs, and fifteen Tertiary Springs, determined by how close to the bottom of the Boiling Lake they originate. The Primary Springs bubble up from all the way at the bottom at the Boiling Lake. They carry immense spiritual power, as well as minerals and rare elements. Secondary ones are one-third to two-thirds of the way up, and Tertiary ones are near-surface. There are Quaternary springs that are surface-level, but they’re meaningless for the purposes of the classification since its purpose is to determine exclusive access, and “Quaternary” springs are all over the place in the Oasis. Every public bath house runs off of one. They are still tremendously beneficial, mind you, just not rare. As for the clans, they are classified in the same way as the Springs based on which ones they have access to."