Chapter 23: 23 - Dungeon Research (L)

What he'd said before was true; he'd never asked me to cross my boundaries in our dreams. But at the same time, he hadn't needed to. They'd only been dreams to me, so my inhibitions had been significantly lower than they were in the waking world. Not to mention, I'd been attracted to his arka and feeling his desire. I'd done things with him that I didn't know if I would ever be comfortable doing while awake—not sex, but we had gotten close once before. Given how enthusiastic I'd been, I couldn't really blame him for not trying to fend me off.

"When I'm afraid, it doesn't have anything to do with our history." I hugged myself, wishing I could just brush off his question. "I'm afraid of people I can't control. Which is basically everyone. It doesn't help that you have super-human strength and magic powers, but that isn't really the problem; I'm just like this. If you're sticking with me because you hope I'll go back to 'normal'—how I acted in our dreams—you need to stop hoping. I've never been that person in the real world, and I never will be." My chest tightened. "I'm so, so sorry, Mar'kost. I wish I could go back and tell you the truth months ago, but I- it's too late, and I've already hurt you." My stupid eyes were dripping acid again.

I futily wiped them dry. "I would say that it's fine if you can't stand to look at me—just go off and live your life somewhere else—but I need you for arka. I can't really pay you back. The best I can do is work off my debt to Cadmus and then pay you whatever I don't use on necessities." Would that leave anything left to pay Finders to go after the other Ortai?

Mark slumped against the door. "The time since you've realized Vangorn is real—that's who you always are?"

"Yes." My voice was a faint whisper. "I'm sorry."

"It's a pity. I loved the paintings you showed me in our dreams. Who actually painted them?"

"Well, I did, but that's not really-"

He batted his eyelashes. "Then it's our talks I'll miss. Since you've been here, you've shown little interest in history and myths, and you certainly haven't shown interest in animal behavior or biology."

"I am interested in that stuff, but I've been kind of busy trying not to die, so-"

Sighing theatrically, he plucked a loose feather from the end of his tail. "It's too bad you aren't brave enough to face a firing squad on a wild drykon's behalf. I do so admire bravery."

"I get the point. I mean, I kinda get what you're trying to say, but still-"

"Still what, Liza?" His big eyes flicked up to meet mine. It was an unnerving gesture, given their sightlessness. "Do you honestly believe I only love you because of the physical enjoyment you've given me? In that case, I could easily replace you with Baliko. Or a lead weight."

I was too surprised by his statement to come up with a real answer. "Wha- what would you do with a lead weight?" I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know the answer, but I was morbidly curious.

"Ah..." He scratched the back of his neck. "Shifters find weight arousing."

"Just, like any weight? Like you put on a backpack, and...?"

"Not- no, a backpack alone wouldn't-" He grimaced. "To be specific, it's a combination of weight distributed over a large surface area and physical stimulation, coupled with a mental image of someone attractive." He spoke quickly, as if to get it over with as soon as possible.

His answer only created more questions. "How do shifters reproduce?"

He gave me a funny look. "One of two ways—either a shifter grows a duplicate of their main core and removes it after six weeks of growth with some extra flesh, creating an identical copy of their infant self; or a male and female shifter press against each other, the male releases spores, the female absorbs them, and she gestates an infant for twelve weeks before removing it."

"You're kidding." That was an insanely short gestation for a sentient species. Not to mention, they could clone themselves. "So, could you just start making a baby copy of yourself, or can only females do that?"

"Males can also do it; shifters with "Vek" before their surname—such as myself and my father—have only one identical parent. Shifters with "Tor" before their surname—such as Baliko—have two parents."

"Incredible." I vaguely remembered that I was supposed to be having a serious discussion, but it was difficult to stop the questions running around my brain. "Do you want to talk about important relationship things?"

"Not particularly."

Well, that was all the excuse I needed to bring up what had been niggling at the back of my mind. "What's inside you? Like, do you have organs like a human or structures more like a plant? What's a main core? What are the other cores? How do you change shape so easily? Do you not have a skeleton, or does magic make it go away? Where does the extra mass come from when you turn into a scalewing? Or does your density just change to fill out the extra limbs? Does arka affect the laws of physics, or do your laws of physics include the laws of arka?"

He held up a hand before I could ask any more questions. "I'd be glad to answer you, but I'm afraid I can't remember all your questions at once." He pushed the bed back into position and sat on the edge of it before gesturing for me to do the same. Once I did, he continued, "Shifter biology is unique, to say the least. We have no skeleton and only one vital organ—our main core. We start life with only the main core, and we develop secondary cores as we grow. Each core contains memories and parts of our personality. We have other organs that maintain our health and growth, but we can regrow them quickly. Changing shape is only a matter of moving a fluid-like body, but shapeshifting into another form requires arka. We do gain mass when doing so, but to be honest, I couldn't tell you where it comes from. My only guess is that it emerges from the 'burning' of arka."

"Right, so arka can change from energy to matter. And back again, I assume. But you also said before that it can be a liquid or a gas?"

"Or a solid—crystage. To be honest, the term 'arka' is more accurately ascribed to an element that can become a liquid, solid, and gas, while the energy it releases is something else entirely."

"Like radiation."

"Yes, arkane energy."

"... is like radiation?"

He cocked his head. "I assume this is another translation issue. I'm saying 'arkane energy,' and you're also saying 'arkane energy.'"

"So it is-" I stopped myself before saying 'radiation' again. "You said arka comes from these Sources that Ortai made? If arkane energy is radiation, they sound like nuclear generators. But they couldn't be, since you guys don't even have electric lights. Not that you'd really need them with those glow balls of yours. Which are presumably powered by arka, right? Arkane energy is your electricity. Only, not everyone can use it—but that's kind of like how not everyone can do electrical work, so it's not too strange. Except-" I realized I'd been rambling to myself and addressed a question to Mark instead. "Does everyone have glow balls? Are they something that the average person can use, or do you have to be an arkan?"

"There are arkan and non-arkan luminspheres. The non-arkan ones are more expensive because they hold a rechargeable storage crystage—meaning, the user doesn't need to channel arka through their body and can instead store arka in the device itself."

"Ooh, I want to try one of those."

He chuckled. "I can arrange that." He retrieved a small luminspere from a drawer in the bedside table. It was dark and had two sets of runes written in gold paint. Unlike most of the other writing I'd seen, the runes didn't translate themselves.

I took the luminsphere, and it let out a small whisper. It almost sounded like a voice. Jiggling it a little, I held it up to my ear.

"Denov." There was a little voice coming from the sphere. It wasn't robotic, but it didn't seem human, either. More like a chorus of male and female voices speaking all at once. "Kris." There it was again. "Denov."

I placed the orb on the bedside table, resting it on a round stand. The voices stopped. At least it wouldn't be super annoying if I used it as a reading light.

Mark picked up the orb and held it to his ear. After a moment, he asked, "Did you hear anything?"

"Yeah, don't you?" I frowned. "I mean, I can't hear it now, but it was saying denov and kris-"

The luminsphere filled with golden light.

Mark stared at me with a blank expression.

"Is something wrong? If you're really tired, we can totally put this off until later."

He shook his head, and amazement dawned on his face. "You can hear Bontair, the language of magic. It's only fitting, given what you are, but it is incredible."

"Why? I can read and speak every Vangorn language I've come across so far. Except Bontair—I can't read it, just hear it."

His head feathers flicked straight up. "You can read?"

I stuck my tongue out. "Yes, I can read. What'd you think I did at college?"

"I didn't think you were illiterate." He nudged me with his elbow. "I assumed we could communicate due to your telepathy—which wouldn't allow you to read our languages. You must have a Polyglot Skill. I wonder what kind of Polyglot you are..." A delighted spark danced in his eyes. He leapt up from the bed.

I started to get up, but he waved at me to stay seated.

"Didn't you see my Interface with the Skills and stuff?"

"I did, but it was in your native language." He crouched by one of his bags and began rifling in it. "We could only navigate your Interface using muscle memory." He retrieved a notebook and fountain pen. "Would you mind translating this?" He sat next to me again.

"Sure, no problem." When I opened the notebook, the left page was covered in perfect lines of numbered text, despite the lack of printed lines on the paper. The right page was less organized, with images and snippets of text featuring the numbers of the previous page. Flipping through the book revealed that the entire thing was organized this way, with tight writing on the left page and more disorganized notes on the right. "What is it?"

"My notes on the exploration of the dungeon. These are the pieces of text I've observed-" He gestured at the numbered list, then at the opposite page. "-and these are my observations about the location of the text and any likely translations based on my research and context clues. I haven't been very successful." He pulled out a map tucked between the pages. It was obviously a copy of an older map; the paper was whole and clean-cut, but it had images of holes, tears, and burns. "I marked this with the locations of the text plaques and artifacts."

"You guys have printers?"

He flicked me with his tail. "We aren't so backward as to lack the automated printing press."

"I'm talking about a printer that can perfectly copy a document and replicate it."

"Yes?"

"Dude, you ride around in a drykon-pulled carriage. How was I supposed to guess you have printers?"

"I fail to see how the two technologies are linked."

"Well-" I stopped. He was kind of right. There wasn't much in common between a gasoline-powered car and an electricity-powered printer. Only, electricity was generated by burning fossil fuels like gas—which I guessed they didn't use here. At the same time... "Doesn't a printer need a lot more computing than a drykon-less carriage?"

"While I'm not an expert in printers or self-propelling carriages, I believe the former requires significantly less arka than the latter, and neither requires any computing. Self-driving carriages, on the other hand, require an incredible amount of computing. Only a very high-Level Enchanter could craft one."

I very much wanted to delve into the mechanics of enchanting and self-driving carriages, but he'd asked me a favor. Translating his notebook was the least I could do for him right now. I flicked back to the first pages.

"Anyway... do you want me to write it down or tell you so you can write it?"

"Try writing a few words in Aiba."

"Sure." Reading the first line, I started writing it on the opposite page.

Hallway G.

He touched the page, brows furrowed in concentration. "You wrote in the original language. I'd better write the translations." He took the book and pen. "What did you mean to write?"

I repeated the translation, and he wrote it down.

"I assumed it would be something like this; the word 'hallway' has been recorded at the start of every passage." He was grinning. "And the second text?"

"2. Officer Showers."

He froze with his pen hovering over the page. "Are you certain?"

"As certain as I am about anything I translate. Why do you ask?"

"These ruins are over a thousand years old. Indoor showers are a relatively new convenience." He scribbled down the translation, chuckling to himself. "Harker theorized the partitions were for prayer cubicles. He would kill to know the truth." His smile faltered. "Nevermind—what does the next say?"

"3. Engine Room."

"Strange... I didn't see any water-drawing equipment there. It must have been taken by previous Adventurers."

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. "I don't think it's a steam engine room."

"Does it mention another type of engine?"

"No, it's just a hunch." One that was strengthened by the following text. "The fourth one-"

He pointed at a rough sketch and accompanying label on the opposite page. "The text was written on the back of this artifact."

Thin glass plate backed with unknown metal alloy. Interior runes—painted, preserved with an inorganic resin, too numerous to record or decipher all. Simpler sequences include light generation, user identification, and sound generation.

I stared at the 'artifact' that totally wasn't a magic iPhone. According to the text he'd recorded, it was 'Infoscreen 00842.' A bewildered laugh escaped me.

"What is it?" Mark's voice was full of anticipation.

"I might be wrong, but... I'm pretty sure this thing is like a device we have back home. It says it's an 'infoscreen.' The thing we have can call people- like, it lets you talk with someone else from a long way away. It can also show moving pictures and play music, among other things. Do you still have it?" Reality dampened my excitement. "Not that I'd be able to fix a normal iPhone, much less a magic one."

He gave me a sheepish look. "We aren't allowed to keep what we find in the dungeon. Zephyr holds the exploration rights, so we give him the artifacts. He sells them to collectors."

"Oh."

"I wrote down as many runes as I could before I had to hand it over." He flipped to the back few pages, which were filled with words in another language. "I recorded nearly a thousand, but it was an incredibly small fraction of the runes in the artifact."

Something dawned on me. "It's code. The runes, they're code, just code that affects reality. I mean, I guess normal code affects reality, but it only really affects the reality of the device it's on."

"That's one way of thinking about it, but it's more like a language than a code. It has its own rules of grammar and syntax for complicated spells."

"Right, so does code... which you probably don't have an equivalent to. I'm not talking about the code you think I'm talking about. Unless you have devices like this that work?" I touched the sketch.

He shook his head. "Only broken relics."

"Wait, but you have Interfaces. They're like this."

"I suppose so, but they have a very specific purpose—to control the development of one's essence into desired Skills. What you've described sounds like it has more varied uses."

"It does, but it's the same basic concept—a screen that displays information and can be controlled through touch. Don't take it the wrong way, but it really is crazy to me that you guys developed a specialized hand-held computer before drykon-less carriages could become popular."

"We didn't. The Ortai invented the Interface. We merely copied the runes. No one knows how a single line of runes casts such a complicated spell."

"Huh." I was getting serious 'ancient aliens' vibes from this. "How much do you know about the ruins' history?"

"Not much. Until thirty years before the Ortai disappeared, it was the temple of a minor Void Ortai named Gal. Then Shiel took it over. She rarely shared information with the outside world, and given what you've said, I can only assume she stored that information on infoscreens to prevent other people from accessing it."

"Probably. How long was the temple there?"

"Forever."

"Could you estimate?"

"Most history books claim that the world is one thousand one hundred and nine years old, but given the Ortai's advanced technology, I have to assume they existed long before they seeded this world with life. They could have made the temple before the Great Seeding." He shrugged. "There's no way to know."

This 'Great Seeding' sounded like aliens terraforming a barren planet. "This is nuts." Though, were aliens actually more nuts than the amorphous blue man sitting next to me? I wasn't sure. At least high-tech aliens kind of made sense; there was nothing logical about Mark turning into an identical copy of another person in seconds.

It was always possible that I was completely off base. There could be a magic-related reason the 'temple' on the map was shaped like a thick paper airplane and had two engine rooms.

Before I could find such a reason, a loud knocking sounded in the distance.

Mark stiffened, eyes narrowed. "It's the Enforcers." His tail curled, growing sharp spines near the end. "And Falek. I'll get rid of him." He started to get up.

I grabbed his arm. "Don't. Let Kaliska deal with them."

He spoke through gritted teeth. "They'll want to speak to a man."

"Then wait for Cadmus."

He placed a hand over mine. "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, I won't lose my temper. Stay here." Shifting into his scalewing form, he left the room.