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Halfway To Egilrun, pt. III
Last time, on Golden Cliffs Adventure:
Episode One:
Episode Two:
- On his very confused search for Egilrun, Jinyel encountered the foraging party of a bandit crew on the hunt for wells. He left Monya outside for her safety, and after getting past the foraging party, Jinyel made his way deeper into the tunnels of the adventure zone.
Episode Two:
- In his search for the rest of the pirate crew, hopeful that he could capture and interrogate someone for directions to Egilrun, Jinyel found himself inside the foyer of a minor fracture. He spied the pirate crew, and their captive: a traveling University student who had been kidnapped for her ensorcelling ability. The motley crew was on the hunt for wells, and Jinyel resolved to free their captive and ask her for directions. Using a bit of rupturing ether as bait, he drew emeyan beings to attack the pirates, and snuck around them to free the scientist. He was almost chomped to death by an emeyan sea turtle, but a knife through its eye and a bit of help from the scientist got them free of danger.
“Incredible… does it hurt, when the squishy bits all knit back together?”
The scientist crouched over Jinyel, her eyes wide with fascination. In her hands was a well, pulsing with bright blue ether, and she held it near him to better illuminate his gnarled leg. Jinyel had told her he didn’t need light, since he could read his own enervations with his eyes closed, but she wanted to see it anyway.
“It can.” He sat against the wall of the tunnel, holding his mangled leg and trying to weave Graft: Energize: Repair Flesh and Bone with as little ether as possible. They had escaped the fracture, but not the cliffs. “Have you been this way before? I don’t know this tunnel. I came in through the mine shaft.”
“The mine shaft?” she echoed. “The captain told me that passage was full of boulder snakes. Was it full of boulder snakes?”
“I saw no snakes.”
“Hmm. Well. We’d better keep a lookout, just in case. I’m fairly certain this is the tunnel I was dragged in from, so I have good news and bad news. Which would you like?”
“I would like them both.”
“Oh, good. Well, the good news is that this tunnel should take us straight outside. It doesn’t have any turns or branching tunnels, so there’s no way for us to get lost.”
“And the bad news?”
“It opens straight into the main camp full of more pirates.”
Jinyel blinked at her. “And to move backwards is to move back into the fracture.”
“Yep! Both directions are bad and there’s no alternative paths. But your leg looks much better now. Does it still hurt?”
“No.” Jinyel groaned as he got to his feet.
“I don’t know, you groaned as you got to your feet. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Back problems. Not leg problems. I can walk.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Jinyel paused. After threading around pirates he was absolutely sure would kill him if given the chance, the kindness was unexpected. Not that he assumed the scientist was unkind, he was just taken off guard by how earnest she was. Scalvoris was a melting pot of the kindest and unkindest people he had met.
“... No,” he eventually managed to say. “It must simply run its course. And so must we.” He glanced behind them. “If any of them survive the emeyans, they will come up this way.” He looked ahead of them. “We must move forward, if we are to move anywhere at all.”
“Well, I’ll just follow you, since you’ve got magic and I haven’t. That's graft, isn't it? Can your graft magic get us past a crew of pirates?”
“Probably not.”
“Oh. Well, it’s remarkable, anyway. And the fracture! A real part of Emea, right here, filled with emeyan creatures mimicking our own! Oh, I do hope I’ll have enough free time during my apprenticeship to write an article. I don’t know if the Almanac will even take me on as an assistant, I’ve been kidnapped so far past the day I was supposed to report.”
“Where is the Almanac? Where are you going?”
“In Egilrun somewhere, though I couldn’t point it out on a map. I’m terrible with maps, that’s how I got so lost… you’ve stopped walking. Are you alright?”
Jinyel blinked at her. “I am also traveling to Egilrun.”
She gasped. “What luck! We’re going to the same place. And we’ve also gotten terribly lost in the exact same way, it seems.”
Jinyel nodded in agreement. “I was trying to follow the river. That’s what the map said to do.”
“Mine, too." The scientist shook her head. "Following the river is definitely the correct thing to do, however, I think you and I followed the Sweetwine instead of the Egilrun. Which is a completely different river which goes to a completely different place.”
Jinyel had surmised as much, but it was reassuring to hear a true Scalvorian say it. “Do you know the way to Egilrun from here?”
“Yes, it’s very easy. We’re right on the coast. All we have to do is follow the shore north for a few days, and the first village we see will be Egilrun. Except…”
“Except there is a camp of pirates in the way.”
“Yes. That.”
Jinyel hummed and stared into the darkness ahead of them. They were still far enough away from both fracture and camp that their only light came from the well, and no noise echoed except their own voices. They had time to plan, for now. No telling when that time would run out.
“That thing you carry,” he said. “The well. What you pried out of the fracture. Can it help?”
“What, this?” She looked down at her chunk of glowing rock. “No, not in this state. It needs a lot of poking and prodding before anything useful can be made of it. But once that’s done, it will surely be a wonder ― wells are such fascinating things, to put magic in the hands of the unmagical, and it’s really so funny that you’re a mage, because the captain of this whole crew was terribly jealous of mages. Went on and on about how he ought to have a spark, but when I told him he could simply go study at the Academy and get a good basework of ether theory before he did anything magical, the man smacked me. Smacked me! When I was just giving him a clear, attainable path to his goal, and he…”
She shook her head with a scowl.
“... some people just have no appreciation for the scientific process. They want all the results but none of the work.”
Fascinating as that all was, Jinyel needed a plan. “You’re sure the well won’t help?”
“No, unless you know how to purify it.”
“I don’t.”
“Understandable. I don’t, either.”
Jinyel raised an eyebrow. “You seemed to know how to extract it from the fracture.”
“Well, the captain sent many many men to try before me, and they all blew up. So I simply used the methods they hadn’t.”
“Have you ever worked with a well before?”
“Before this very moment, yes. Before I was kidnapped, no. I managed to get another one out a few days ago, but haven’t seen it since. Not sure where the captain put it.”
“You hold that rock like treasure. Why do you hold it if you don’t know how to use it?”
“Because wells are valuable, and these brigands took all my money when they kidnapped me. I would very much like to figure out how this well works, what this well is, but my first priority is to escape and then make sure I don’t starve. Perhaps I might one day write a research paper convincing enough to launch a proper expedition into these caves, and I can extract a well I won't have to sell, but only if I live long enough to publish it.”
“Then let us tarry no longer. Let us go to the tunnel entrance, and tell me when you think we are getting close.”
“I will. I agree. It’s a bit of a walk from here, but not terribly far. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut until then.”
“Why?”
“Well, because…” She seemed surprised by his question. “Because I talk too much. It’s irritating.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to have irritated you.”
“No no, you didn’t do anything irritating. I’m the one who lets my mouth run away. I’m the one who irritates you.”
“Are you?”
“Aren’t I?”
“I don’t think so. If I were irritated, I wouldn’t talk at all.”
“Oh. But… are you sure? Perhaps I’m not giving you a chance to speak. Perhaps you want me to stop and I haven’t yet picked up your signal.”
“And perhaps the sky is made of cheese.”
“What!” She laughed. “The sky isn’t made of cheese.”
“No it is not.”
She cleared her throat. “You… really aren’t irritated, then.”
“I don’t like talking at all,” Jinyel replied. “If you do it for both of us, that’s less work for me. So long as you don’t talk where there are pirates to overhear.”
“Oh no, of course not.” By the pale light of their well, her teeth glowed blue as she grinned. “I’m in no hurry to be kidnapped again. But once we’re free and on our way to Egilrun, my goodness ― I might die if I cannot talk about the fracture, and how many days I’ve spent breathing air in a slice of reality which is convinced it’s underwater.”
She held out a hand to him.
“I’m Artiga Crowley, I can’t believe I talked so long without introducing myself.”
Jinyel held his hand out to her. “Hunter.”
“Hunter. Alright. Do you shake hands, Hunter?”
“Oh. Were we supposed to?”
“Yes, that’s what I held my hand out for. Here―”
She shook his hand.
“―now it’s done and we don’t have to do it again if you don’t want. Are you one of those people who doesn’t like to touch? We don’t have to touch.”
“I’d prefer not.”
“Then we won’t touch. Or talk, I think, because I recognize that lantern hanger bolted to the wall.”
“Are we getting close to the camp?”
“Yes.”
“Then get behind me.” Jinyel stepped in front of her. “One way or another, we will be free of this place.”
