Pieces of Sonder

Diviner Houkyu used his staff to kick start the mana stone-powered ceiling fan. After a long, carefully worded explanation, the room had warmed considerably.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, sitting back down. “I’m not sure how open other diviners will be, but I have some good friends outside of Kai Nai that may entertain the idea. I never thought it would be possible. But if there are more people like you all–that appear to have no energy but can learn to control their blood–I would be happy to teach them.”

“I’m not sure how you’ll be able to distinguish between people like us and regular people, but I think teaching as many people as possible will help in the bigger picture. Plus, they can help if you ever run into trouble like this again,” Infamous Biscuit said.

Freya frowned at his last statement. It was likely the dungeon they just cleared out of high orcs would reset at some point. And then this whole problem would start again.

The more players that could take care of the dungeon, the better.

“If you ever hear someone say the phrase ‘Meridian Manipulation,’ then you found the right ones,” Freya said, scoffing at the skill name.

“Meridian Manipulation….” Houkyu said slowly.

“Also, players usually learn faster than normal,” she added. “We have a small sample size, but all three of you learned really fast. If someone asks you to teach them, I would teach qi breathing, let them practice for two or three days, then try to awaken them. If they don’t awaken on the first try, then they might be just normal people.”

Diviner Houkyu nodded, “Yes, that sounds reasonable. It’s not good to try the awakening process multiple times. But just once shouldn’t cause harm.”

“Good, now that that’s settled, what did you want to talk to us about?” Infamous Biscuit asked.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. I was communicating with Pekkae last night, and I noticed something strange in his memories inside the cave.”

The spirit bird hopped up and down on Diviner Houkyu’s shoulder.

“You went inside the cave?! Inside the dungeon?” Freya said incredulously. She shot a panicked looked at the other players.

“We all went back inside,” Infamous Biscuit explained. “Large dungeons like that won’t respawn for at least a few days.”

“I had a hunch that the rock collapse that stopped us was hiding something,” Heilong said. “One of the items we got could create an explosion, so we used that to clear the path.”

“I thought I was going to die,” Diviner Houkyu said, probably remembering the explosion. “But the city that path led to was amazing!”

“There were more buildings in the dungeon?” Freya asked.

“It was nothing like those ruins from before,” Heilong said. “It was like a metropolis. There was sort of a castle structure with a city around it. The architecture was much more advanced than those simple houses in that cavern. It was really something else.”

Freya was surprised to hear a bit of awe in Heilong’s voice. The marksman was unmoved by the grand buildings Freya found impressive in Kai Nai. The underground city must be extraordinary.

Diviner Houkyu nodded, “I guess Pekkae thought it was cool too because he showed it to me again, but I saw something strange. Here it will be faster to show you.”

He turned off the ceiling fan and lit some incense. Freya recognized the scent as bergue.

“Are you familiar with mind connections?”

…

A great castle spanned half of Freya’s vision. The other half was taken up by the side of Diviner Houkyu’s face. As Pekkae hopped around she also saw Infamous Biscuit, K13, and Heilong in the distance. 

Despite half of the view taken up by Diviner Houkyu’s neck and head, Freya felt like she was seeing more of her surroundings than she normally would. 

Giant stone bricks made up the gigantic structures around them. All the buildings shared a rectangular shape, with triangular roofs. Some only appeared to be a few stories tall, but the ones at the center of the city stood hundreds of meters tall with branching buildings around them. Vines curled up some of the stonework, but the tall buildings were free of them.

Curiosity streamed through Pekkae. The spirit bird flashed back through the memories of the long dark dungeon corridors with distaste. But this wide-open space with high perch possibilities made it want to stretch its wings.

Flapping its wings, Pekkae left Diviner Houkyu’s shoulder. As the ground disappeared its wingbeats slowed. 

Soaring far above the castle, Freya got a better appreciation for the bird’s eyesight. The entire cavern of the dungeon spread out below. Pekkae’s vision was not quite as good as a hawk Freya made a mind connection to before, but Pekkae had a much wider field of view. 

A vast complex of interlinking stone buildings dominated the space. Diviner Houkyu and the others appeared as small dots on the floor plan. The ruins Freya saw in the other open dungeon space couldn’t compare. 

Pekkae’s memories showed the entirety of the bird’s vision, but Freya could also sense when it narrowed its focus. The ipowani bird often focused back on Diviner Houkyu. Despite being a speck from this height it recognized his unique shape holding a staff. 

After circling a few times the spirit bird let itself slowly spiral closer to the tallest building. 

As it glided down, Freya noticed some lines of scratches on the roof of one of the towers. Pekkae focused on a different building it wanted to land on, but for a brief moment, the spirit bird’s peripheral view contained a perfect glimpse of ancient runes.

Ancient runes filled the entire roof panel.

…

“I can’t read ancient runes, but I do know wizard work when I see it,” Diviner Houkyu said.

He opened up the windows of his shop and turned the ceiling fan on again. The smell of incense started to dissipate. 

“They are definitely ancient runes,” Freya agreed. “I think I saw a phrase in there for ‘rising,’ but I could be wrong. It was such a quick view.”

“I gotcha,” Heilong said. “I took a screenshot.”

“A what?”

“Here, I’ll send you the picture. You can get a better look at it then.”

Beep!

[Heilong sent you a screenshot]

Freya blinked at the crisp picture in front of her. Putting aside how Heilong acquired this, Freya carefully studied the ancient runes. She recognized a few symbols. 

“This is some sort of summoning contract. It’s a little odd because it doesn’t have a mana stone connected to it, but there’s a lot of script I don’t understand. Maybe it’s powered by the wizard that wrote it?”

“What if the high orcs wrote it?” Infamous Biscuit suggested.

“I doubt it,” Heilong said. “Why put it in this inconvenient spot? They didn’t seem to use ancient runes anywhere else. All dungeons have enchanted lights, so I don’t think the high orcs created them.”

“We should go back to the dungeon,” Freya said excitedly. “If we disturb the writing the summoning will fail. Maybe we can prevent the dungeon from resetting!”

“But then no one else can complete the dungeon.”

Freya looked at Heilong.

“What does that matter? If the high orcs don’t come back it will be much safer.”

“But not having dungeons defeats the purpose of this game.”