[Sidequest] New Technology

It took three more drops of her dwindling supply of blood to force the ghost into taking her to where Herminius was hiding. Then it was left to Katla to swallow her pride and finish the hardest part of the job.

Asking for help.

She hovered in the archway of one of the seemingly endless storage rooms for what felt like years, watching him hunch over a pathetic fire and try to bring the embers back to life. The ghost had said he was getting help from someone. Who? How was he making progress?

Katla glanced over her shoulder, at the maze beyond. She thought she spotted a statue of Teuthida winking at her.

Surely you can solve this yourself, she bargained. It’s not too late. You don’t have to-

“Ah!” Herminius reared back onto his heels, nearly unbalancing himself. The ember went out. “Young Katla! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Don’t mock me with lies.” Wait, she was meant to be nice. “Your fire might have caught, if you hadn’t been so distracted.”

There was a horrible cracking sound as Herminius straightened his knees and stood. He was smiling. Maybe he was… injured. He held out a hand. “I wondered where you had gotten off to! Any luck on finding the rest of your team?”

Katla’s first impulse was to lie and say she had already been successful. She didn’t like his little smug smiles, and the way he tried to siphon everyone else’s resources. Besides, he was worse in combat than she was. But… ghosts couldn’t lie when she had them trapped in a body, not under the spells she used. So he had to have some advantage. She couldn’t live out the rest of her life trapped in this cursed maze! “No. No luck.”

“Pity. Chin up, though. As I once told the people of my great district, a leak is not a sign that our plumbing has failed, it’s simply a sign of great sailing to come.” Katla stared at him for a moment. As it usually did, that worked to shut him up. Herminius swallowed, throat bobbing, and gestured at the wispy embers. “You don’t happen to have any food, do you? I was scrapping up a meal of sorts.”

Katla had sworn before rejoining Herminius that she wouldn’t fall for his dastardly southern tricks again. She wouldn’t hunt for him again. She wouldn’t start fires for him again. She certainly wouldn’t stand guard for him again. After all, last time she’d only done it so he would provide a map, and that had turned out to be a complete failure. His words were slicker than polished marble and three times as useless.

Somehow, she still ended up roasting her rabbit as he watched, rubbing his hands over the flames. “You have the most wonderful timing,” he informed her. “Every time I think I’m out of food, you somehow appear!”

Katla didn’t usually pray, but she made an exception to curse the gods. Not one in particular. Just whichever one was nearby. Yes, she was a necromancer. Yes, she laughed in the face of natural law and ethics alike. Still, did that mean she had earned a punishment like this?

She turned the roast rabbit and tried not to scowl. “You have a way to get out of the maze?”

“Who’s this?”

A new voice. Katla turned slowly, to pretend she wasn’t threatened. It was low, gravelly, a middle aged woman or a younger one that smoked often. Coming from her left- what had once been a bare stone wall, the other side of the small storage room.

“A friend of mine,” said Herminius. “Katla, say hello, I know you can be polite! I can watch the rabbit.”

Katla finished her turn and took a few seconds to scan over the new person first. Holy robes. That was what she noticed first. Gray, dyed to match the stones here or perhaps just naturally woven that way- they looked like the color of the wool from sheep here. It made Katla’s shoulders itch in sympathy.

The person wearing the robes was a tall, statuesque woman holding a bizarre device underneath her arm. It was a round ball of brass, with a single window in the center. Like a knight’s helmet, if a knight wasn’t concerned at all about glass shattering in his eyes.

“Hello.” Katla said. It had probably been too long.

The woman stared down at her for a moment longer. “This was not part of our bargain.”

“Ah, but she’s much better than I am,” said Herminius. “I’m more of an ideas man. I speak to the people, you know, an elected official. Katla, she doesn’t do words at all, uh, rather scary actually, but she is excellent at action.”

Katla reached over and turned the rabbit before he let it burn again.

“What’s the helmet for?”

The woman gave her another suspicious glance- at least someone was taking her seriously- before lifting Herminius up by the collar, opening up a door in the wall, and yanking him through. Katla could only watch as it closed behind them, leaving an unmarked solid wall of stone. She couldn’t even see the seam.

The rabbit would be fine for the next few minutes. Katla left it behind as she scurried to the wall, pressing her ear to the stone and trying to find narrow points. She could hear murmurs of dripping, what sounded like squeaking (did they have rats?) before she could finally hear snatches of conversation.

“….don’t trust….”

“Believe me!”

But then it was all gone, as if they’d walked away. Katla glared at the stone underneath her hands, then stepped back to go back to the rabbit. If they were going to speak without her, then she’d earned a rabbit to herself.

By the time the door opened again, she’d made it through three quarters of the rabbit and was removing part of the hindquarters. Herminius’s face dropped in horror.

“Ah- but-”

Katla just held up the remainder of the meat and sighed. Would she ever be truly free of leeches?

Behind him, the woman looked genuinely unhappy. She was staring at Katla like there was a puzzle remaining to be solved. “He says you’re here to find your friends,” she said.

“Yes.”

“What kind of friends?”

“The friendly ones.”

Katla blinked. She had a feeling who this woman was, although she was surprised she’d shown her face. It was a good sign, she thought. An indication that they had made an impact.

“I am a priestess of Teuthida,” said the woman. Yes! Katla had been right. Although she matched her joy with a drop in her gut. Priestesses tended to take exception to her magic. “There are some…. Issues within the temple. I need someone to help me repair them. It’s a…. Two person job.” She glared at Herminius. “Your companion has rejected this task. If you will accept it, I am willing to take both of you to the center of the temple, to confront who you are.”

Katla’s hope was growing greater. Maybe not everything had failed, after all. “Why can’t you priestesses just do it?”

“Our head priestess is… otherwise occupied,” said the woman. “Are you going to help, or not?”

She was still holding that bizarre helmet. Katla pointed. “What is that?”

“This is our water-breathing apparatus,” said the woman. She held it up. It shined, malevolent, in the candelight. “It has a matching suit. The only one in the world! Our engineer was said to have been divinely inspired.”

“You put it on underwater? The metal will drown you!”

“We have a new technology, fool,” she said. “It’s filled with air. You’re able to breathe while doing alterations. Obviously!” She sniffed. “I should have known. There is no one capable of helping.”

It looked like a one-way ticket to the abyss. But…

“I’ll do it,” she said. “If you promise you’ll get me through.”