Alden meandered over to a corridor, opening the door and peering down. A hallway identical to all the others greeted him. Alden nodded and moved down, coming to the end of the similarly plain hallway he was on, and going up one floor. There he checked one of the doors near the stairway, peeking his head in checking the area. He had been doing this for a couple of hours at this point, searching the area around Frank’s apartment. He was traveling in steadily expanding squares, following the hallways and stairs. He was hoping to find something interesting. Or rather, someone interesting. Alden moved down the hallway, randomly stopping to check some doors or ignoring them altogether. He moved down the stairway onto another, lower, floor. Here he began his search anew, checking the occasional door. There was no rhyme or reason to which doors he checked, and which left alone.
Bob sat on his shoulder, clucking and going on about each turn, stair, or hallway Alden took. Alden found that after the first few hours of the search Bob’s charm began to come across a bit flat. Still, after a couple of hours- most of the morning, really- Alden found what he was looking for. He swung open a certain door in a certain hallway and poked his head in. Inside that hallway were two different men, talking quietly and casting gazes all around them. Both were dressed in extensive leathers that obscured their features, and the shorter one had the unmistakable outline of a knife against his upper thigh. Alden smiled and fully opened the door, strolling towards them at a causal pace. He didn’t go out of his way to make noise, but neither did he stalk them. Even so, he went unnoticed for an astonishing long time- at least a minute or two- before the tall man’s darting eyes finally landed on him.
He immediately shifted to face Alden, whispering furiously to the man beside him. That man shifted-shorty, Alden called him in his head- looked Alden up and down before sprinting down the hallway. He was heading towards the stairs at the far end, which he clearly thought would make Alden unable to pursue. His partner gave him a startled glance before following suit, darting down the hall. Alden nodded once before he cast a cantrip. Aether flowed into his Mind’s eye, filling in the levitation cantrip. Both of them, actually. The tall man cursed as his boots tore upwards, flipping him onto his face. A crack echoed out as red began to pool from his nose, feet still up in the air. He began to claw his way forward, pulling along his levitating feet on his hands. Alden laughed at the man’s dedication as he strolled his way forward.
The man kept crawling, but he was so slow that Alden easily caught up to him. As Alden pulled up beside the man he just watched amusedly. He was curious how long the man would keep going for. The man- probably just having reached adulthood if Alden had to guess- crawled forward another few meters before his quivering arms gave out. He rolled onto his side and stared at Alden. “Whaddya want? I’m just an innocent man, minding my own business.” Alden snorted as he folded his legs beneath him, dropping down onto the hard stone. “An innocent man, huh? Why’d you run then? Or attempt to rather.” The man shrugged, or as close an approximation as he could. “You see a strange man with a chicken on his shoulder begin to walk towards you, you run away.” Alden chuckled at that.
“Fair enough. Still, I know what y’all were doing.” The man stared dead faced at Alden. “And what’s that?” Alden smiled and leaned forward. His hand darted out, grabbed something out of the man’s robes, and pulled it back. “Hey!” Alden ignored the man and held up a small book. “Now, you wouldn’t have run because of this, would you?” The man yelped and swiped at it. Alden easily pulled it back. The man tried a couple more times before flopping onto the floor, limp. “Alright, you got me. What do you need?” Alden raised an eyebrow. “Why do you assume I need something?” The man just glared at him. Alden chuckled and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Alright, fair enough. I need information, an investigation into certain things, if you will.” The man sighed. “And what exactly might that be? Because I’m not going to cross certain lines. No matter the cost.” Alden waved his hand.
“Don’t worry about that. All I need is some information on a couple of people who used to live here. And some information about any newcomers into the city.” The man was silent for a minute before eventually nodding. “Alright, I can do that. You can call me Heron and I’ll call you Chicken. No real names, makes things easier.” Alden clapped his hands together. “Excellent. We’ll use this as a drop off point, say in three days?” The man grunted. Alden sprang to his feet and began to walk off, whistling merrily. “Wait! Get my feet down!” Alden spun around and waved his hand, the man’s boots slamming into the ground with a grunt. Alden spun back around and kept walking. It was becoming a wonderful day.
Now that Alden had his source of information on the inside, it was time to figure out what exactly they needed to be looking for. Frank- Alden had spent a lot of time figuring out when people were lying to him. It was something he was a bit of an expert in really. Frank knew more than he was sharing. The only difficult part now was figuring out how to get it out of him.
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Alden knocked three times on the door. He only had to wait for a moment before the door was opened by Frank, the man dressed in an apron. “What are you doing back already? I thought you were going to explore for a little longer?” Alden shrugged as he stepped inside. “I found what I was looking for quickly enough. What’re you doing?” Frank gestured around to the numerous different pastries laid out on nearly every surface. “Baking. We’ve got a baker’s market in a few days, and I need to be prepared. It’s one of my best events.” Alden nodded as he surveyed the scene.
“Do you have time to talk?” Frank’s eyes narrowed before he shrugged. “Sure. Everything in the oven right now is going to take a little bit to be ready. What’d you want to talk about?” Alden considered different ways he wanted to phrase it- before shrugging and deciding to be blunt. “What are you hiding about my parents’ death? I know there’s something you’re not telling me.” Frank stared at Alden silently. Slowly he shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Alden sighed and then reached into his pocket. Frank tensed before slowly relaxing as Alden pulled out a small ring. It was a simple band of iron that fit perfectly around his middle finger. The only thing that stood out about it was the insignia, made from twisting gold and ruby. It was a dragon, flipped upside down with massive rends in its body. Frank stared at it for a second, and his eyes widened when as soon as Alden equipped the ring it began to throb with a white light. Alden took the ring off, and the glow faded. Frank stared at him a moment more before gesturing. “Follow me. I’ll show you what you need to know.”
Frank moved into the backrooms, Alden following. He stopped briefly by the oven and fiddled with the coals there, taking most of them out. “Just in case this takes as long as I expect it will.” Alden nodded at the explanation as Frank moved back towards one of the walls and pushed in a certain section. The room grumbled some before a click sounded out. Dust fell as cracks revealed themselves in the wall, forming a small door. “Come along now, we haven’t got time to waste.” Frank pushed open the door and stepped smoothly in. Alden followed, curiosity tugging at him.
They walked in silence along a dark tunnel, the walls only a handsbreadth from Alden’s shoulders on either side. They twisted and turned this way and that, threading through the stone. As they walked Frank spoke, his voice filling the still air. “Your mother was never satisfied with the way things were. She wanted to do more, to be more, to accomplish more. She was imbued with a sense of purpose that filled her every waking moment. She crafted these tunnels herself. She had an Affinity for stone and was never one to shy away from training it. I don’t know when she created these passages, but she did and somehow managed to keep the Cadre Legionem from finding out.” Frank’s voice was quiet but still reverberated in the small stone hallway.
“I didn’t know what she was doing for the longest time. I thought she was just out with her friends, or researching more on famous delvers and monsters.” He paused at a staircase downward, staring at the wall. His lips quirked, even as he blinked furiously. He shook himself before beginning his descent downwards. “It wasn’t until she showed me this- all of this- that I realized why she wanted to become a delver, an adventurer. Why she would give up her home and her family to go out into the wilderness and fight beasts, rival mages, risk her life for glory and gold.” They descended downwards, the air beginning to chill until Alden’s breath left a white mist in the air.
“I won’t say that it was all out of self-sacrificing love. No, I suspect that some part of her wanted those things. Wanted the glory and the gold and the respect and power. But, ultimately, those were minor concerns. Her true passion, true purpose rather, was to propel this world forward.” They came to a stop before a large door, constructed out of some type of stone with various reliefs on it. It took a second for Alden’s eyes to pierce the shifting light and take in the images. When he did, his breath was taken away.
Intricately formed veins of stone and gems painted a mesmerizing picture. It was a map- a map of something that didn’t exist. Couldn’t exist. Magnificent cities spread across the empty plains. Caravans, molded from dull stone into life, moved from these cities. They passed by small settlements, with pictures of them trading and prospering.
As Frank’s words sank in, Alden’s eyes narrowed and swiveled back towards him. “The world?” Frank shrugged. “Maybe that is giving her too much credit, at least in the beginning. It all started with a simple desire. She wanted to make her people safe. And as she dug into our history, our enmities and friends, our betrayals and wonders. She saw a deeper issue and so sought to correct that.” Frank pushed the door in, letting it swing on silent hinges. It revealed a room that was small but packed with so much that it seemed minuscule.
What must be dozens, hundreds of books were stacked. Various papers were pinned to the wall, lines of rope leading from one to the other. Alden stared at it all with a slack jaw, even as Frank threw out his arms to encompass the whole room. “Welcome to your mothers’ obsession. It was what drove her, inspired her, motivated her. And, in the end, it was what killed her.” Alden’s jaw came together with a click.
