41. Before the return of Fureve-Yung

Three months was far too short a time for the number of projects Jaden had planned. Even with the surprisingly compliant help of Ivasha, there were only so many hours in a day and only so much iotum to go around.
 
With the amber crystal expertly supplied by Marius, the two-week project of putting together the perpetual fountain was finally underway. Like any large project, setting up tooling in the workshop took a week on its own but made the whole process of scrap to the final working machine much easier. Even Scaberous, the random iotum-eating robot, was handy around the workshop for cleaning up the leftovers at the end of the working day. Some days were frustrating and ended in getting less done than expected, while others breezed by, adding to a feeling of accomplishment. At the end of two weeks, Jaden and Ivasha proudly installed the perpetual fountain to the side of the Tilted Spire. It worked better than expected, providing the equivalent of thirty people’s water supply a day instead of the expected twenty.
 
With the large project now done, Jaden turned her attention to the communities programs, the charcoal and clay kiln. These were more about time and raw effort than technical knowledge. She offered her advice and left others to the labour-intensive or mucky work of making the clay dome for the kiln or watching the charcoal.
 
With Fureva-Yung’s armour complete and Marius protected by his built-in armour, Jaden got to work on her own and Nox’s lightweight versions, . Nox looked at hers with a bit of trepidation.
“Can I still hide?” She asked, listening to the rubber creak as she fussed with its tight fit.
“I don’t know, can you?”
 
Jaden then turned her eyes to scraps of ideas she’d picked up on their month-long trip from Cerelon. These were the seeds of ideas that exploring the installations of the past had provided her fertile mind. A flying machine seed, inspired by the hovercar, was put aside for now as requiring parts she just did not have. Same for a Sacristan mental shield based on one metal shield that she was loathed the waste on a mistake. She did, however, have both the time, knowledge and parts for a gardening mechanoid. Though the sight of the spider-like contraption reminded several of the servitors, the similarity were few. This was definitely a machine with only enough intelligence to do the specific task of looking after fifteen square metres of plants and soil. The machine was placed away from town, down towards the lake, far enough away that most residents didn’t even see it regularly. There it could look after its piece of land, only needing human interaction during sowing and harvest.
 
Bellyache was now empty of even the most basic parts. It was time for the scroungers to return to work and find more iotum.
 
 
Three months was a very long time. From being the weird one that hid in the shadows of others, Nox found herself training nursing staff for the Tiltspire Hospital. Nox was trying not to intervene with Mina Mayes' nursing of Fureva-Yung. Mina was doing fine. Really she was. She was attentive and gentle when needed, but being a barmaid back in Cerelon had given her a certain authority when it came to people who didn’t want to do what was good for them. She joked, cajoled, bargained and bullied, all for her patient’s welfare.
“It’s the least I can do,” said Mina one evening as she left the hospital, “I would be magr stew if Fureva-Yung hadn’t stepped into the village and blown them all to hell. Besides, during this time, I’ve come to see what a gentle soul she really is. That’s a view not many appreciate around here. All they see is the big strong warrior Fureva-Yung wants them to see. No, I wouldn’t give up this opportunity for the world.”
 
This meant Nox was now freer than ever for more of Marius' grand adventures. After raiding the installation where the floating blob was imprisoned and returning with the acquired amber crystals, Marius had gained a reputation as a “...man who got things done…”. Marius' stories of the adventure contained all the right details about Nox welding the wall in place and teleporting them out when it was clear the monster had found its own way out. It was just when it came to praise it all seemed to fall on Marius. Though she would have hated the public praise as much as Marius loved it, she was realising how people like Marius and Risina rose to positions of power.
 
Three months was long enough for the group that made up Nox's world to become, if not strangers, at least estranged. Marius asked her to come on his expeditions, and she eventually agreed, something that had been a given only twelve weeks before. Jaden and Marius made time to see Fureva-Yung. Before, all their time had been her's to share. Jaden didn't need Nox's help now that Aunty Ivasha was her right hand. And now, Fureva-Yung was improving, Nox wasn't required there either. Nox had never worried about being alone before, but now she found herself feeling lonely.
 
Marius adventure had been found exploring the foothills to the north of Tiltspire. In the afternoon light, he’d found an odd-shaped shadow that turned out to be the collapsed ceiling of an old installation. Peaking his head into the darkness, he judged the floor nine metres down and far too far. A rope ladder with a pole support over the entrance would do the trick.
“So, I’m thinking me, you, Yitti…” Marius started listing his ideal group, only to be interrupted by Nox.
“Yitti? I don’t know him.”
“You know him, the noisy one who’ll probably blow us all up if he gets his still running.”
“Yes, I know of him,” Nox replied uncomfortably. It was hard not to know people when the whole community numbered little more than fifty people, “But he’s your friend, and I don’t know him.”
“Well, we’ll soon fix that with a trip together. Who else? Temila?”
“She’s busy.”
“I’m sure she’d like a break away from all her work…”
Nox was sure she wouldn’t. There was nothing that Temila loved better than working hard for others and seeing them bloom around her. To that, the Tiltspire community was just an extension of her herbalist garden. Everyone had their own needs attended to by the gardener, so they, in turn did their best for the greater community.
“She’d rather stay here with the people.”
“Well, then, who else?”
 
One person had shown themselves capable during the flight from Cerelon, A good fighter, calm in stressful situations. Though they did oversee the building of Tiltspire, their days weren’t so full they couldn’t get away from a day trip.
“How about Risina?” Asked Nox just as Marius said, “Well, I suppose there’s always Risina.” They looked at each other, silently contemplated a group with Yitti and Risina working together and laughed out loud.
“Yeah, you, me, Yitti and Risina.” Marius agreed and went to tell the two of them.
 
At least he told Yitti everything, including about Risina.
“Just like old times, you say? What old times would those be? When she threatened our livelihoods because we demanded she improve conditions in the mines? What were you thinking?” Yitti complained. It was only Yitti’s railing against the unsafe conditions for the Dritmen all those years ago that made Marius realise how badly his family were treating the workers. After that, they fought side by side against his own mother to make working in the Dritvein a living occupation, not a dying one.
“I’m thinking it will be fun to see her face when she turns up for the trip and finds you’re coming too,” Marius grinned conspiratorially.
“Ah,” Yitti mirrored the smile, shook hands with his friend and promised to be ready in the morning.
 
Yitti was up and ready first, waiting at the hovercar. He could see Marius had been busy acquiring a rope ladder and pole strapped to the front of the vehicle. Risina was second. She stopped in he tracks when she realised who the fourth member of the party was.
“Morning, Rissa!” He called in his most grating voice. They were equals in this new society, a fact he was very happy to remind her of every chance he could.
“Yitti, this is not like you, up early for an actual day’s work?” She sniped back, the rounded tones of her elocution lessons clear in the still morning air.
“Not work?” Yitti sparked up. If there was anything he prided himself in was working as hard as anyone, “How can you possibly believe that?”
“I have eyes,” Was her only response.
 
Nox and Marius walked up a few minutes later, and the two were still sniping at each other.
I am not connecting them to the network, Nox said silently to Marius, referring to her telepathic link.
Ah, no.
 
The four of them clambered into the hovercar, and Marius soon had them zooming over green plains towards the foothill and their destination. When they arrived, Yitti and Marius pulled the rope ladder and support rope off the hovercar and laid it across the gap in the ground. Nox didn’t wait but stepped off and hovered down as first Marius, then Yitti, and finally Risina descended the ladder.
 
“Hey, watch it!” Yitti cried as, for the second time, Risina’s foot came down on his hand.
“Your hand shouldn’t be where my foot is,” Risina bit back.
“Lady, allow me to show you where you can stick your foot…” Yitti snatched for the boot. Risina swung away, making the whole rope ladder twist and jostle.
“Move on, you lazy lout, or you’ll get a boot to the head next.”
Risina swung again. This time, it was too much for the thin ceiling holding the support bar. The roof collapsed, bringing down with it the pole and rope ladder. Marius, Yitti and Risina all dropped and rolled away, breaking the sudden fall’s impact as the echoes of the clanging bar reverberated. The sound propagated around the room only to return like a shockwave.
“It has something to do with the shape of this room,” Nox said, floating back up to the ceiling. Now they were at the smooth acorn-shaped roof with rocks or debris embedded in its surface. Black scorch marks showed where a powerful explosion had occurred sometime in this facility's life. Marius scuffed his foot through a pile of debris on the ground and nodded at the salvage possibilities.
 
He looked around the dome spying three passages, one heading north, one south and one to the west.
“Would you like me to put the ladder back up?” Nox asked, breaking his train of thought.
He looked to the hole above them, made larger by their entrance.
“I don’t know. I’d hate something to come down behind us while we’re trapped in here,” He said thoughtfully.
“I’d hate for us to need to leave in a hurry,” Nox countered.
“You could always teleport us up. It's less than ten metres.”
“What? The four of us?” Nox cringed at the mental effort it would take to move all four of them.
 
 
They headed up the north passage, a long corridor with a black swirling feature at the far end. Nox stopped at a door in the left-hand wall and scanned it as usual. There was nothing behind it, but the door itself was unpowered and wouldn’t open without a spark of energy. Focusing her psychic blast, she pushed a little energy into the locking mechanism. The door crashed open, the sound of metal crashing into metal resounded in the acorn room. It set off harmonic vibrations up the corridor.
“Can you please be careful, “ Risina dismissed Nox’s door-opening skill, “No need to be melodramatic.”
Beyond the door, they saw the transparent image of two people frantically working at a control panel. Though their mouths moved, they made no sound. Their hands moved across the controls, but the still dials could be clearly seen through the moving hands and shadowy readout. Suddenly, a flashing red light turned on and another display revealed an increase in…intensity? Eventually, the vibrations in the hall faded and so did the images.
 
“Noise, we need a noise,” Nox scrambled through her few possessions, grabbing her lockpicking wire and a suitably shaped piece of scrap off the ground. She wound the wire and tried making a low rough sounding drone as she pulled it across the doorway. Risina seeing what Nox was trying to do, lifted her head, took a deep breath and sang a strong, clear note. The figures returned just as they had been. Things were not getting better. One gestured to the readout as what seemed to be another shockwave ran through the space. The two people shuddered in place as if electrocuted and then collapsed where they stood. Dust and pieces of what was now obviously bone lay in the spot where they fell.
 
“Now is not the time for silly games,” Risina stopped singing, a note of accusation in her voice. Unsure what had disturbed Risina this time, the group turned to see Risina’s whole body had faded to semi-transparency. Nox reached out to touch her hand. Though there was flesh and bone, the contact made Nox start as a sharp buzzing transferred up her arm.
“I think she’s…on a different wavelength to us,” Nox said, making Yitti laugh, and Risina shook her head.
“She’s always been on a different wavelength. This time, she took it too far,” Yitti said as Risina replied, “The problem is not m. It's you.” They glared at each other, neither willing to give an inch.
“Marikan dear, I may need your assistance,” Risina finally turned from Yitti to her son.
“You look faded to us,” He shrugged.
“Faded is a matter of perspective,” She grumbled, “Look, your education was very expensive. I demand you put it to use at this minute.”
“You were educated?” Nox asked, surprised to find out her reactive companion had received anything more than basic tuition.
“Yeah, “ Marius replied sheepishly, another marker of his upper-class upbringing. Then, he thought about her question, “ Why?”
“Um…no reason,” She replied innocently, returning to the dark and lifeless consoles.
 
“They were trying to control the intensity….sound maybe. That would explain the domed room. It’s a resonance chamber.”
“But then there was an explosion that killed everyone inside,” Marius added, putting together the clues from the first room.
“But where does that leave me?” Risina almost stomped. She was not used to being ignored, certainly not when she felt an injury had been done.
“Ur…you have a very pretty singing voice,” Nox said, trying to lighten the mood and compliment the older woman.
“Don’t state the obvious, child. There are more important issues at stake here,” Risina brushed aside the compliment with contempt. Risina walked through the door and into the next room.
“There’s always time for pretty,” Nox mumbled, confused by the woman’s behaviour and followed.
 
Past the long console, a second door barred the way heading south. Not happy at how Risina had been treating Nox, Marius gestured for his mother to try and open the door. She nodded as if it would be the most simple thing in the world and examined the mechanism.
“Pass me on of your iotum, dear,” She held out her slender hand. Marius obliged and handed her one which she used as a weapon to punch out the plate covering the circuit board. Here she could see the mechanism was intact, it only required energy. She tried rewiring, but there was not a jolt of power to be had in the whole system. Minutes ticked by.
“ Another iotum, if you’d be so kind,” She asked again and used the small device to power the door. It peeled open.
“The door wasn’t powered, was it?” He asked casually.
“No need to state the obvious.”
“Nox did it without iotum in less time.”
She turned to face him, an imperial expression contorting her face.
“And what? Do you expect me to apologise or something?”
“Or something would be nice.”
 
Risina flounced through the door, before stopping dead and staring down a passage to her left that led back out into the resonance chamber.
“What?” Marius glanced down the hall but saw nothing.
“There was a…I’m sure…there was someone watching around the corner,” She pointed and Marius ran down the corridor and into the resonance chamber on the lookout for their peeping tom. He glanced back at her and shrugged.
“They may also be out of phase,” Nox commented heading for another door in a small niche, “Just more than Risina.”
“Ah, I always thought her image would fade into history,” Yitti quipped, “I never thought to have seen the actual day it happened, however.”
Risina for the first time did not reply with an acidic comment of her own. Instead, she just stood there looking back at where she saw the face disappear around the corner.
“Don’t worry mum, I’ll save you,” Marius grinned, knowing it would rouse her ire. Instantly she took a breath in lifted her head and seemed to glanced down at him, though they were the same height.
“Of course you will. I raised you.”
 
Nox ignored the banter and scanned the door. It was the same as the others, not locked, just unpowered. She zapped it with psychic burst, and again the door slammed open on a store room. The sound rebounded off the hard walls and collected in the resonance chamber, vibrating through the whole complex.
“Get out of the way!” Risina yelled at Nox, who still found loud people hard to deal with, especially rude, ignorant ones.
“I’m safe, I want to see if there’s an echo in here too!”
“I said, move!” And Risina placed a transparent hand on Nox to push her out of the way. Instead, she went straight through the girl crouched on the ground and stumbled into the storeroom, crashing through the echo of a man with a clipboard doing inventory. Risina’s hand instinctually grabbed the shelves to steady herself, and a metal cylinder, as long as her forearm, came away with her hand.
“Look what you made me do, you stupid child!” Risina seemed deeply shocked as she and the stocktaking echo held the same space for a moment before it eventually disappeared. Nox was oblivious to Risina's discomfort however.
“I am not stupid.” She said in a low menancing voice, quite unlike her usual quiet nature.
“What?” Risina quickly stepped out of the storage room as if stepping out of spiderwebs, the metal cylinder still in her hand.
“I am NOT stupid.” Nox repeated, no less menacing.
 
“Ah, what do you have there, mother?” Marius stepped in between the two women. Risina looked down at the item she’d extracted from the echo as Nox slunk away, still grumbling.
I am NOT STUPID!
“ I think it's a monopole, quite a useful item for extended or prolonging the use of certain cyphers,” She said, her experienced mine owner’s expert eye assessing the item.
“It was invisible to us. Now it's the same phase as you,” He commented, putting out his hand, “Put it in my hand and see what happens.”
Risina looked to do just that and then thought better of it.
“Let’s experiment on something less…” She was going to say expensive, but being concerned about the cost of an item in present company didn’t seem a good move, “...rare.” She moved passed Marius, the monopole firmly in her grasp and brushed against his still outstretched hand. The sudden connection gave her a jolt like static shock and she turned to her son in surprise.
 
His face was grim, and he glanced towards Nox and Yitti, rummaging through scraps before turning back to talk to his mother.
“You know that young woman is probably smarter than the two of us put together.” He said seriously.
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
“I wonder if you remember what it was like to be young and adventurous.” He sighed before calling Nox back over.
Risina did not comment but stayed conspicuously quiet for a while after that.
 
“There will be plenty of time to search for salvage later. I’ve just remembered something I read about phaseshifting. Can you scan Risina and compare her to our state?”
 
Nox did as she was told and scanned Risina before scanning her own hand. Her head quirked to the side, and she hummed a small high note.
“E-sharp,” She said amused by the curiosity, “We don’t seem to have a note, but Risina is vibrating at E-sharp.”
“So this place has made your…essesence vibrate. We just have to find a way to dampen it somehow.”
 
There was nothing else to look at in either the corridor or store room so the mismatched group continued around the corner to the left, where it widened out into an octagonal room. In the centre, a square pillar of black display screens dominated the space. One wall collapsed, a hallway long lost, one was an open arch back to the resonance chamber. Here Marius spotted boot prints in the dust leading from the black pillar and fading as they led away into the chamber. He turned and noted his mother’s prints, still as strong as his own with no sign of fading.
 
Nox carefully touched the black surface, and a string of symbols rose up the pillar. Not Ferrian or the modern common, the symbols were a curious mix that seemed to have more to do with music than words. She pressed one, and a chiming sound filled the room to be once more picked up by the hallways and rooms. Echoes of people from a nearer past walked into the room. Their clothes were not uniform like the others and seemed more homespun like their own clothes. Like Nox, one went to the pillar and played with the symbols that appeared. The second silent berated the first for playing around with something they didn’t understand. The words, “...what the hell do you think you’re doing…” clear on their lips if not in the air. As will all the other echoes, as the chiming sound faded from the air, the images also faded and disappeared. A start from Risina made Nox turn to see now Marius was faded just like his mother. Scanning him, he also vibrated at E sharp.
“I can’t tell, are things improving or getting worse?” Risina said sarcastically, reaching out to touch Marius who was now solid to her. Marius now studied the patterns on the column, drawing no more information from it than Nox. Looking away in disgust from the column, his eyes caught movement from the resonance room. At the same time, Risina also flinched. It hadn’t been a trick of the light, there was something watching them. Sprinting through the open archway into the acorn-shaped room, Marius chased the figure, identifying them as the ‘what the hell’ guy.
“Hey! Hey! We just want to chat!” Marius called. The man did not stop, instead, he ran into the northern corridor. Marius followed.
 
Here the wide corridor narrowed down to a walkway surrounded by a cylinder-shaped room. The room was filled with a black scaley liquid that rolled and moved like heavy oil, adhering to the room's walls. Here the corridor ended, and Marius was able to catch up. He reached out and grabbed the man’s shoulder, making him start.
“You can see me?! You can touch me?!” The man exclaimed, nearly collapsing with relief.
“Yeah, we’re in the same boat as you. Can you help us?”
 
Though Risina could see and hear the man, he was totally out of phase with Yitti and Nox. Nox reached through the telepathic network, and through Marius’ senses, heard and saw the invisible man. She shared that information with Yitti.
“What’s your name?”
“Milton.”
“How long have you been stuck like this?”
“I don’t know,” The man replied miserably.
“We saw an echo of you in the blue column room. Is that when it happened?” Marius pointed back through the resonance room to the south, where the blue column was visible.
“I’m an echo?” The man asked and a spark of realisation came to his features,”Yeah, it must have happened then.
“Tell us about that?”
“Um..I don’t know. My friend was fooling around with the column and then this noise ran through the whole place and then…they couldn’t hear or see me. I couldn't even touch them.”
“What happened then? What did they do?”
“They…left.” These last two words were spoken so sadly it was clear at that time he had given up hope.
“Did you try and follow?”
“Yes, but the sunshine burnt me so I couldn’t leave.”
 
Risina found this little fact curious and was determined to test the theory. She walked back into the acorn room where sunlight streamed through the hole in the roof. First, sticking her hand into the sunlight and then stepping into the rays, she reported no burning sensation at all. It was odd to watch the dust motes swirling through her form, but otherwise, there were no ill effects.
“I wonder if it has more to do with being outside the building,” Nox suggested. Picking up the pole, she levitated up through the hole and replaced the rope ladder so Risina could climb it. Again, Risina poked her hand out through the hole, only to pull it back again sharply.
“Yes, burning but not by heat, more like being…erased.”
 
Back in the room, Nox scanned the area where Milton stood and noted that he resonated at a Bflat note. It seemed not to matter what frequency, only that frequency was moving their bodies out of phase. It seemed Marius was right, dampening the vibration seemed to be the solution. Marius walked back to the room with the black roiling liquid.
 
“What does this stuff look like to you, Nox?” He asked as she tried scanning the surface, but could gain very little from it. The moving surface made it difficult to focus on, and its depths seemed impenetrable by her scan. On a whim, she clicked her fingers and watched as the surface responded with a sharp peak in a nearby wave. The click in that large metal cylinder of a room did not echo.
“So it does absorb sound,” Marius looked around, “ But how to test it?”
“Obvious, really,” Risina replied before climbing the handrail and recklessly plunging her hand into the black liquid. The liquid was thick and pulled Risina up and around with the current. Holding onto the handrail she was able to pull herself back in, her hand now back in phase with Yitti and Nox.
“Now I see where he gets it,” Yitti commented. Nox could only nod. Risina poked Yitti.
“May I ask why you’re poking me?” He asked.
“Just testing.”
 
“Well, proof of concept, Milton, would you like a full-body dunk?” Marius volunteered the lost explorer, who agreed grudgingly. It was relatively simple to get him up into the black goop, hold him up and let the current take him, but how to reel him back? He couldn’t touch any of the ropes they had as they were not in phase with him.
Marius threw in a metal cup and watched it bob along in the waves encircling the catwalk before jumping up and grabbing it out once more.
“It’s just a matter of timing, “ He said, before climbing the handrail just as his mother had done, only this time plunging full-body into the swell. He went down under the rolling surface, pulled by the liquid’s own gravity. The group watched helplessly as the tops of his fingers or white strands of hair broke the surface. At one moment, Marius’ legs broken through against the wall of the cylindrical room. With his head and body still in the swirling black, he couldn’t fight the current, and he was quickly swept up once more.
 
As Nox ran to retrieve the rope ladder. With her boy in trouble, Risina leapt in after Marius. Once in the swirling black, she grabbed him and tried pushed him out. His head broke the liquid, and he was able to take a breath. Nox levitated the rope into his now solid hands, and he let the rope wind around the catwalk pull him out. Now it was Risina’s turn. As soon as she'd shoved him to the surface, she had disappeared under the waves. Yitti and Nox worked at unwinding the rope, this time tying it to Marius before he dove back in and capture his mother. The rope ladder wound once more around the catwalk, but nothing came out of the black. Long minutes passed until Marius’ legs appeared, his torso, arms and head. He had caught Risina, but as heads broke the surface it was clear she wasn’t conscious.
 
Pulling them back to the catwalk, Marius carefully lay his mother down. She wasn’t breathing.
“Well, I’m not doing the breathing for her, “Said Yitti, just as Risina spluttered and coughed back to life. A small black something left her mouth and scuttled away.
“Well, I think we’ve got the hang of it,” Said Marius with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, “Your turn, Milton.”
 
Milton was thrown up into the black with the instructions to hold his breath and keep his hands up. While the group watched Milton’s hands circle the catwalk, Marius used the rope ladder to stand just about the surface. As the hands swept by he grabbed hold and withdrew Milton now fully back in phase.
 
Quiety, the group now swept the whole installation for scrap. They made a good start and rebuilding Jaden’s iotum supply as well as finding a number of interesting cyphers. Marius took a minute away from his mother to graft one as Risina was busy talking to Nox.
 
“I may have made an error,” Risina said as Nox carefully repacked her cyphers for the trip back, “Foolish you may have acted, that might be down to age, but stupid you are not.”
 
Nox glanced up, locking eyes with the older woman. She watched,waiting for any sign of mockery or scorn in Risina’s expression before nodding.
“Good,” She said and went back to her work.