The Book-Seller (Gossamer)

[Hadrian]

Hadrian nodded along with Narivan's examples of relative value. It was an idea he had often considered, especially as the son of a merchant who would frequently talk about supply and demand, which was similar, though not the same thing at all. But when he made his price known, Hadrian was momentarily stumped. Something valuable on his person? He had some coin, but Narivan didn't want it. If this was but a copy, then the supply was greater than he imagined, but Narivan controlled the supply, so that didn't rightly matter.

He frowned, wondering if after all that he wouldn't get to take the book home. He sighed.

"I'm sorry, Master Narivan, but all I have on my person is a bit of coin and the clothes on my back. What I value is mostly in my head. That's where I keep what I've absorbed from books and classes and experience and life..."

There was a flicker of thought in his eyes. No, would he? He could take out his pen, borrow some parchment, and write out a simplified process for the blood-compass he had crafted for Hrair under Professor Stonemiller. It was precious to him in that it was a new level of complexity and skill at enchantment. It was precious to Hrair in that it might help him find his lost sister. But it might be useless to Narivan, unless he was a magecrafter-in-disguise. Stranger things were possible.

"I could... If you have paper, I could share the design and process for my thesis enchantment. With it, a competent magecrafter could copy it. There are some innovations involved. Perhaps not the sort that would help one survive the Valterrian, but..."

There did seem to be a sort of balance to the idea: his innovation for a book full of the innovations of others. But Narivan seemed to be able to read Hadrian while remaining for the most part obfuscated himself. It frustrated Hadrian, who wanted to know everything, but it was a frustration he had lived with his whole life.

He maintained eye contact with the other man, wondering if it would be enough or if he would scoff at what Hadrian held dear.

[Gossamer]

The old man smiled. "Now, that is something of value, isn't it?" He said softly, laughing lightly. "By all means, boy, get to writing." He said, passing the boy a sheath of papers and a quill and ink. "That is exactly the type of thing I like to value. New ideas, born of inspiration, set into the context of todays world." He said with real enthusiasm, then sat back and tilted his head.

"As you write, boy, let me know what you think exactly of today's world." The man said. Then, because he knew Hadrian had to put down the book he was holding in order to work on the paper he was going to write out for Narivan, the old man picked back up the book. He marked a page in it, carefully, when he hoped Hadrian wasn't looking. It was an entry that depicted a hoist that was fashioned for the oddest of things - hoisting boats up out of the water in a subterranean river.

The River Avikan was a surprise to us. It came out of the darkness of our explorations much like a gift presented by some strange unknown preternatural god. And because we were Zeltivans, we did what came naturally to us. We crafted boats to sail her. It was discovered that The Avikan actually ran from a sea cave on the coast just south of the old city of Zeltiva to deep into the heart of the mountains to her west, running less than a mile past the Valterrian Shelters that the city erected therein. After some debate it was agreed to tunnel to the river to give the survivors access to the fresh water and a direct route to the sea. However, in our usual fashion, we needed wood from the surface and tools, which were all acquired, and then brought below to begin fashioning boats to traverse the river itself with.

Victor Zevkan was the chief boat builder and a very renowned magecrafter in his time. He decided to take a rather isolated chamber near the sea itself accessed simply by the Sea Cave and turn it into his laboratory. From that workspace, many of our designs sprang to life. It was a call for a celebration in and of itself when Victor did the ribbon cutting on the first boat hoist, though the ribbon wasn't the fancy red silk of the past. It was simple vine ribbon and the boat that was lowered into the water was only a small four man fishing vessel. It was still a proud day, enabling those underground to traverse the river for short periods of time and fish the sea like Zeltivians used to do in the old days.

Carefully noted at the bottom of hte page was an artists sketch of the hoist, what it looked like, then a fully formed copy of the blueprints to hte hoit along with what machine parts were needed for its construction - down to the very last nail.

But Narivan made sure he was sneaky, marking the book so Hadrian would see it, but only after the trade was made and he was alone to flip open its pages and start to read it. If Hadrian finished his drawings, Narvian would graciously accept them and send the student along his way, book in hand.

[Hadrian]

Well, he had been the one to offer...

When Narivan exchanged the papers and quill for the book, he had no choice but to make good on his offer. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. His memory was often eidetic, but his own notes back home were such a hodgepodge of initial ideas, alterations, and notes, that he could only attempt to offer a streamlined version, cutting out what hadn't worked so well and including changes made along the way.

He nodded and began to draw out the circle of glyphs that had surrounded the pedestal, his design looking like engineering schematics more than anything else. Hadrian was no mystic, but a scientist of magic if such a thing were possible.

"The world?" he asked, finally, once he had begun and could compartmentalize his brain to encompass his careful printing as well as a conversation. There wasn't enough left at the moment to pay close attention to what Narivan was doing with the book. There would be plenty of time to look at the book later, but he would rather talk to Narivan while the man was still there. He got the impression that Narivan would disappear and he might never see him again.

"I think we teeter on a knife's edge, but that might be true of any day in any age. Of course, to speak in generalities isn't always helpful... specifics define things better, even if they aren't as all-encompassing... But I think you might be right about that book. We need to need innovation. I have this sense like we might be about to backslide. To relapse. Like if the Valterrian was a lesson from the gods, we haven't learned it...

"I was talking to an ethaefal once, and I was probably less compassionate than I could have been... or perhaps just less tender. I asked him if he thought there was some lesson to be learned by having tasted the celestial realm only to be sent back here. I have met a few. Some of them are so self-pitying... But it makes me angry. At least they were chosen to commune with Syna and Leth for however long. They act like it's some indignity to return here...

"Everyone is so focused on the past, when the present is right here. And the future is coming. I don't know... sometimes I think I'm crazy. Sometimes I think I should have given up my studies here to go squat in the Spires with the Jamoura and ponder the meaning of everything, but somehow I feel like that would be a waste too..."

He paused after writing out the philtering formula he had used for the specially charged water that crystallized the enchantment and made it a permanent part of the blood-compass.

A glance was shot at Narivan to gauge how stupid he probably sounded.

"Is that at all what you were asking?"

[Gossamer]

Narivan listened quietly. It always enchanted him to hear what the youth had to say. They were so fresh, so young, so full of promise and yet so misguided in their ideals. He honestly couldn't tell if the young man believed what he was saying or if he was trying really hard to sound interesting. In both regards it was true that the man had yet to strike a balance between what he thought he needed to be and what he actually was. He wondered what gave the boy the sense that he felt the world was about to backslide. It was an interesting thought, but one the man couldn't quite see happening. He would have liked to have asked Hadrian about it - what gave him that sense and why he felt like that, but the boy rambled on.

Ethafael? Narivan blinked at the sudden change of topics. Perhaps it flowed together neatly in Hadrians mind, but in Narivan's it seemed convoluted and tangled. It was as if Hadrian was desperate to fill the silence with noise. The old copiest and explorer loved silence. He wondered absently if Hadrian was afraid of it. The young man didn't take a breath it seemed, even though Narivan opened and closed his mouth once or twice to comment on what Hadrian was saying. He gave up though, as the boy gave his critique of the Ethefal and moved on.

Another topic change. More empty silence filled with aimless comments that seemed lodged orphan style all alone out in the vast reaches of space. Truthfully Narivan stopped paying attention about halfway through. He stifled a sigh and wondered if it would be better to just give the boy the book so he could go run off and do whatever it was that he was going to do next. The book, he suspected, would get tossed up on a shelf and not read afterall. It was a sad fate, but one the bookseller should have anticipated. He wasn't sure, after speaking with Hadrian, if the young man really was more interested in knowledge or more interested in how he came across in the wake of knowledge.

The bookseller nodded at Hadrian's last question. Truth be told he couldn't see what the boy had written out nor was he sure what he meant by 'Is that all you were asking...?' but his headache was growing. In times past young men would gather around him and they'd sit and talk, respecting each other and quietly listening. True, he wasn't as good as a listener as he used to be, but Hadrian had lost him halfway through the conversation with the multiple topic changes. And beings that he hadn't actually handed the writing to Narivan, that meant the pages could contain anything or everything. But Narivan wasn't worried.

He offered the book to Hadrian in exchange if the boy would pass over the sheets, and simply said 'Good for you. Sounds like you have it all figured out, lad. And if that's true, you're already several steps ahead of the rest.'.

[Hadrian]

It wasn't until the man offered him the book and his noncommital reply that Hadrian realized that his rambling had lost its audience once again. In truth, he didn't know why he sometimes ran off at the mouth, forgetting about the other person or persons in the conversation, but he thought so much all the time that if someone seemed willing to listen, it was often like breaking through a dam.

His schematic of the blood-compass was for all intents and purposes complete. It was a skeleton of his full notebook on the subject, but it would be enough for a competent magecrafter to copy, even elaborating with their own particular verve. All the same, Hadrian wrote his name on the pages as if it would attach him somehow to the idea, but ideas, once thought, seemed to become the property of the world. Oh well, he had a new book.

He exchanged the book for his notes with an apologetic smile.

"Thank you," he said simply. "It has been illuminating, at least for me. I'll check back for you tomorrow, just in case you've acquired anything else... but if you are gone, it was a pleasure."

Once etiquette was taken care of, he fled home with the book. Eventually, he would have apprentices or employees to do things for him, he thought. He just wasn't good with people. The book was kept shut at his side, tucked under the crook of his arm like a secret or a prize. When at home, he sat at his desk, laying it out. It was only then that he noticed the marker in the book that surely hadn't been there before...

"The River Avikan," he murmured to himself, tapping his fingers to his lips as he read. Then, "Victor Zevkan." He read what came before the marker and what came after, and almost started from the beginning to read the entire thing, or ran back to find Narivan to ask him questions, but the urge to explore, to find, to know, outweighed his patience for mere words now and he felt that if Narivan had wanted to tell him more, he would have.

Instead, he packed the book into his satchel, added some rope he had, some food, some candles, and other supplies until the satchel was about as heavy as he wanted to carry, and then he set off, his skin barely able to contain the excited energy on which he ran. It had occurred to him to find one of his friends to go with him, but this was overrided by the desire to go alone. Perhaps later, he might share. But for now...

He walked first to the harbor, then south along the coast searching for sea caves. It would be beyond luck if such a cave had survived the erosion of the wind and waves this long, but it was worth the search. His shoes scrabbled on sandy sea stones, but he managed not to hurt himself. The first few sea caves were hardly deep enough to be more than a place to sleep out of the wind and wet of a Bonesnapper, but he continued south with his quiet enthusiasm undiminished.

Finally he found a likely looking one, or at least it was deeper than the others, so it would take longer to explore. He took out a candle and his flint and steel, grabbing a bit of dried grass to serve as tinder. With a bit of effort, a finger of flame appeared and he caught it on the wick. His cupped hand guarded the light from any errant gusts of marine winds, took a deep breath, and started inside.

"Eyris guide my steps," he murmured.

[Gossamer]

It ended in a sand wall. Sure, there were twists and turns and it was deeper than most. But there were signs that kids came here sometimes to drink. Broken bottles littered the ground deep inside, and even the far wall had graffiti etched on it. The sand back there was darkened too, repeatedly stained from countless bonfires and more nefarious practices. There were even bones from a pigroast and a discarded torn corset that looked like it'd been taken as some sort of college student's trophy.

Yes. He was in the wrong place.

Besides, there was no evidence of a river. There was no gush of something that the people could have used to survive spilling from the cave. The place he was looking for had to be further up the beach, maybe even several miles, and it had to have elements to fit the perfect spot. First, the river had to flow from it. It had to have enough navigational water to sail a boat in and out. It had to be accessible by foot traffic. The journal was old, but not so old that the waterway would be submerged or underground in the modern ages. No... it was new enough it would be exactly as he wrote.

He needed to find flowing water.

And after backtracking out of the cave and trudging further up the beach, he did. Oh it wasn't easily accessible. The main beach gave way to cliffs and forest that ran right down to the edge of the water. But there were animal paths that might have been carved by human hands in the stone. The tract was wide too, far large enough for a wagon if trees hadn't been growing out of its pathway, their roots anchored in stone. Walking further he found the river, rushing outwards all but forgotten less than five miles from the gates of Zeltiva. It was no inland harbor, but once he saw it he recognized it for what it was. Avikan. The name meant life, and where the animal tract that obviously used to be a road sharply turned and followed it inland, Hadrian knew he'd find a cave.

It was there alright. Wide-mouthed, gaping, overgrown and rushing with water that moved swiftly on its way to the sea. However, there was a rock fall to one side, half concealing where the wagon road obviously went into the belly of the world. It would take a few minutes, nothing more, for the stones weren't large or cumbersome for the young man to get the path clear enough for his feet to take him further.

Once in, he knew he was looking at a means to survive the Valterrian. Ancient Tongue runes lined the walls - an accounting if the population that lay within. Rules. Guidelines. Warning evil and encouraging knowledge. Even in the early days, Zeltiva was what it was... above ground and beneath. The Avikan Cave was proof of that.

Now.. all he had to do was start looking. What he wanted to find was a workshop, close to the entrance, and accessible to the coast. It would be framed with heavy keystones for the man had an accounting of setting them in place in his journal, and would fall to the north off the wagon track in the stone. All Hadrian had to do was start looking.

There was no sign that anyone else had... not for a long long time. Unlike the sand cave, this one had no trash, no graffiti that was newer, and no signs of students doing illustrious things. Instead, the cave seemed to stretch back down into the bowels of the world, its aura radiating shelter and survival in more desperate times.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian made an active decision not to let his mistake sway him from the search. How many false attempts had he made with his magical studies, his anthropological research? When one hit one's head against a wall, one merely had to find a way around. Or, as the Drykas said, when one falls off a horse, one must get right back on. When finally he discovered what absolutely had to be the River Avikan, he smiled something broad and big, a smile few people saw from the somber, aloof young enchanter.

Mostly unused muscles were taxed to move stones, but the energy came from somewhere, and he was still jittery with excitement when he found the actual cave. He couldn't believe that he was the first person in Eyris knew how long was searching the place. Admiring the Nader-canoch script, he was glad that he knew what had become the tongue of scholars and magi. This was definitely the place.

Hadrian had an eidetic memory, except when he didn't. All the same, he read every scrap of etching that he could find, and then stepped inside. As soon as he could block the sea breezes from his candle, he carefully lit it, and then began to delve deeper into the place.

"Where are you, Victor Zevkan?" he murmured. Not that he expected the man to be alive, or even a haunting ghost, although that might have been interesting. But he certainly believed that people left a bit of themselves wherever they went, like spiritual debris or something. The sort of thing a spiritual tracker might follow as a physical tracker did physical signs.

He blinked his eyes until he began to See the djed around him, hoping that his limited abilities with Auristics might help him find what he needed, or warn him of a marauding Fragment or something that might have ousted those early post-Valterrian settlers.

There were several roads he might have taken, that he certainly wanted to take. Tangential thinking was all well and good when brainstorming, but not for this. He had to remember that if he played his cards right, he could keep coming back here and plumbing the depths of the Cave's mysteries. Mentally, he tried to keep tabs on those other routes he might want to take soon, however. There was no telling what all might be waiting for him down here.

It felt safe, and that wasn't something he was accustomed to feeling, even in his own home, or the home of his parents. He only hoped it wasn't a false sort of safety, and so he endeavored to keep his senses on alert. If he got hurt here, nobody would come searching for him. Oops.

But it Looked safe to his enhanced vision. Then again, he was no expert. What he saw still baffled him half the time.

Still ... what was this?

Staring at the keystones framing a doorway, he held his candle aloft that he might see it with his normal vision as well, but this certainly looked to be the place. Quickly, but careful not to put out his candle, he found his book again and opened to the account of the workshop that had so intrigued him earlier, and he held the candle as close as he dared so as not to drip wax on its pages or otherwise damage it with fire, but match up what had been written with what had been discovered.

Grinning, he stepped inside.

[Gossamer]

Mod NotePlease read my posts closely. I said you needed to find... not that you had found an entrance with heavy keystones. These 'assumptions' keep happening in this thread and I am not accustomed truthfully to people disregarding what I've written or skipping steps.

As he began searching, Hadrian would find absolutely nothing. No entrances framed by keystones as described in the book appeared. The walls remained as smooth as one expected a cave wall to remain - meaning they were rough hewn and smooth only where water dripped down or the overspray of the river frothed across stone wearing at it. There was signs of animals having been in the caves - footprints in the sand, old bones, bird drippings - the usual suspects for things like this cave. Wagon wheel tracks were worn into the stone too, a testimony for the years it had been used by the ancestors of modern day Zeltiva. It had a feeling of being safe to Hadrian, but it also had a feeling of being empty save for the flowing of the water which wasn't nearly as fast as it was outside the cave where it tumbled roughly down to the sea.

He'd have to make a thorough search for what he was looking for perhaps in more ways than one.

[Hadrian]

Player NoteApologies. I wasn't sure to what extent I could have him find things. I'll try to keep him in check.

"Wait, what?"

He sighed and released his Auristics, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the subterranean gloom. After a few moments of rest, he blocked out the candlelight and noted that it wasn't entirely dark. Perhaps he wasn't so far in as he thought, or there might be sources of dimly filtered light coming from somewhere. It would make sense considering the old river, the rain, and other erosion caused by the extreme winds that often battered Zeltiva, Bonechiller and otherwise.

In only candlelight, it surely seemed more mysterious, more opaque as the djed didn't offer up any information to his regular vision. He ducked back out off the room he had just stepped into, peering at the doorway again. It wasn't even a doorway, exactly, but a passage through the rock into another cave.

Surmising that the djed had tricked him, or that he had assumed too much based on his low level of mastery with it, he decided to start from the basics. Closing his eyes, he turned his feet underneath him and rested his free hand on the wall, getting a feel for the makeup of the place. He breathed in through both mouth and nostrils, tasting the air and smelling it for clues beyond the smell of the sea and the musty earth. He listened too, holding his breath for a time until he could hear his blood beating through him.

It wasn't a meditation, but he did try to clear his mind and just let his five senses do their thing. Sometimes they put a few clues together and his mind would intuit something. Sometimes he even had better luck with that than thinking a problem through.

Finally, he opened his eyes and began to explore further. The book had given him some clues, but the birds and beasts and seasons had taken their toll. He only hoped there was anything to find. At the very least, it would be an interesting archaeological find, which he could share with his anthropology professors. But, as ever, Hadrian dreamed of magic.

"Hallo!" he called ahead, wanting to hear if the echoes of his voice gave him any clues. From what he understood, sea caves weren't as prone to rockfalls or avalanches as mines. He certainly hoped so.

[Gossamer]

The river flowed deeper into the ground. The wagon tracks followed. Somewhere beneath in the bowels of the world the whole population of what was now modern day Zeltiva survived. That meant that there were chambers, places to store livestock, living quarters, and a tremendous amount of space occupied by people. Following the wagon tracks would lead him to those places. However, the workshop was supposed to be closer to the surface, along the river itself that somewhere branches off deeper in and becomes many smaller streams closer to where the humans lived.

Following the wagon ruts and keeping his eyes closed using his auristics, Hadrian couldn't really see much of anything 'magical'. There was no tell-tale glow of djed, no hidden doorways marked by magical glyphs. There was only a small stream branching off that disappeared into what appeared to be a high water mark (or maybe tsunami flotsam) that snarled up over the stream and hid where it came from in some sort of indention in the stone that could have looked like a doorway. The water was shallow enough coming from it that it simply washed over the indents from the wagon marks and out into the main river itself. There were 'indentions' all over the place that lead to other chambers off the main pathway which turned out to be little rooms and irregularities in the stone. The tunnel itself was no smooth sided lava tube or anything, but a true to form natural cave obviously formed by the water flowing into it from the sea and out of it from the bowels.

His auristics did pick up small creatures - mice, bats, bugs on the walls. Slithering things moved quickly out of his way. The wagon tracks lead onward, moving up on a shelf above the river the deeper he went, well away from the blood plain of the sea though not out of the reach of the occasional tsunami in which Zeltiva was known for.

If he walked deeper and didn't explore any of the other options, he'd note the road passing through an archway of stone beside the river in which had grown strangely smaller (the streams that fed it were less numerous here) and flowed through the archway as well. There was more stone carvings here - a population number, a settlement name, directions to various places for food, shelter, medicine or to talk to authorities. There were niches in the walls as well, possibly to hang signs denoting names beside the directions. But whatever filled the niches was long gone. He was deep enough now, Hadrian could tell, that he was getting into the 'settlement' part of the cave system or would be soon.

Just past the archway was a huge open chamber to the east (the river had always been on his west). It held the remains of big wooden timbers arranged in corrals and stall patterns. A stables, close to the surface, so the animals could bet let out obviously. He'd either come to far or missed the entrance to the workshop completely.