The Restored: Chapter Nine

“So, let me get this straight,” Devi asked, leaning forward and taking a long slurp of her noodles. I shifted uncomfortably, my knees banging into the table, which got me a glare from both Devi and Jin. 

“Sorry,” I muttered. These booths were not made for someone my size. 

Getting a meeting with Devi had been surprisingly easy for me. I’d phoned up one of the contact lines Nexus had given me for status reports, told them that I had a lead that required breaking into a vault in the Wandering Path, and requested help from the elusive Egress. 

I had been surprised that we were going to meet in the same noodle shop that we’d already met at, but on second thought, it made a lot of sense. If it was a known spot that Devi frequented at all hours, frequently doing business for Nexus and her own freelance work, then her randomly being there at another time wouldn’t set off too many alarm bells. Especially since Nexus were, at the end of the day, a bunch of wealthy and powerful people.

It was a lot like dressing up as a janitor in order to avoid notice in a building. Something that was beneath people’s notice and that belonged in the location was unlikely to draw much scrutiny.

“So let me get this straight,” Devi repeated, shooting me a glare. “You’re telling me that the Arenamaster has a vault of ancient treasures? What is she, a pirate? Yar har har?” 

“She did hire pirates a lot, but most air pirates don’t sound like that,” Jin said, shaking her head. “Mostly they have a long, drawling accent, since they come from lower class members of Saxum.”

“Not important,” Devi said, waving her spoon emphatically. “But the thing I don’t get is this – how in Fallen Void is she able to access it here in Elderglass? Are you absolutely sure it’s the same vault?”

“Absolutely sure?” Jin asked, then pursed her lips. “No. But I am reasonably sure. I only got glimpses of it, but they looked like the same one.” 

Devi frowned and shook her head. 

“I don’t get it. The Wandering Path is geographically locked.” 

“How do they send messages?” I asked, then realized that was probably nonsense, so spoke again. “The Ligature, I mean. They’re able to send messages across the continent through the Wandering Path. But you said it’s all connected and geographically locked.” 

“They do it through a pretty backwards method, using faerie magic to conceptually tie everything through the Autumnal Court, its sub-counts, and splinter courts,” Devi said. “Even then, they have to run the messages for miles with fae horseback riders, or have their sovereigns respond.” 

She pursed her lips for a moment, then tilted her head. 

“Trying to pull the same trick in the Fallen Void would be a lot harder, since their magic is all built on the consumption of soulstuff, but with the right tethers in mortal contracts, it could be possible. But it would take a lot of power – like, it would eat up a dozen aura sparks a year to run a line that far. Horrible waste, but doable.” 

“Great,” I said. “Can you get us in, then?” 

“Hah. Not based on just having half a theory on how she did it. I’d need to find out where her mortal tethers were, and I’d also need a sample of the work that she or her demon has used for either the tether or a gate to the Wandering Path. Preferably, I’d have both. And a month. And twelve thousand thick panes. And–” 

“I get it,” I said. “But I can actually give you one of those. I have one of the gates she made to the Wandering Path, and I can… lend it to you. I also have an idea of who we could ask about the whole mortal anchor bit.” 

“Oh?” 

“The Contractor,” I said seriously. 

“The old aspirant? Why would he know?” Jin asked, tilting her head to one side. 

“Back when I was Mist–” 

“You know, before Queen Titania was born?” Devi interjected. 

I sighed and contemplated telling them that thirty-five wasn’t old, but I thought that would just set them off.

“Yeah, sure kids. Back then, when I was Mist, I did a lot of wetworks for the Arenamaster, and sometimes for the other powers in the underground. That included the Contractor. He was also the one to make the stronger bond between Odril and I.” 

“Wait, what?” Devi asked. “He can mess with bonds?”

“He set up your bond?” Jin asked at almost the exact same time. 

“Yes and yes,” I said. “My bond keeps me connected to Odril even if her vessel is destroyed, and he was the one to set it up. He’s also Alyphize’s uncle.”

“The Arenamaster and Alyphize did that to me,” Jin said. 

“Well, Starless Night, why not?” Devi said. “Might as well ask!”

She started muttering under her breath about how she knew he made those intensification pentacles that half the contractors in the underground had, and I tapped the table. 

“Eat, so we can leave.” 

We finished our meal, with Devi grilling us between bites. She wanted to know everything about what we remembered of our respective rituals that had intensely bound us to our respective demons. There were a lot of similarities, but it was so long ago for me that I had trouble remembering exact details, other than having a lot of demonic magic. After we paid, and Devi went to the bathroom, I looked at Jin. 

“Do you want to see if he can break your bond?” I asked. “If anyone can remove an intense bond like that, it’s the contractor. I remember you saying that your demon was mocking you.” 

“I…” Jin started to say, before trailing off into nothing. “It’s worth asking,” she finished a moment later. 

With the three of us together, my guns in my hands, Jin’s hand on her sword, and Devi holding a pulsing, glowing orb of bright green and yellow light over one hand to light the way, nobody was dumb enough to attack us as we skirted the cordon and headed into the post-cordon area where the Contractor set up his work. 

Walking in, I was struck with just how different the Contractor’s area was from the White Rooms territory. It had been so long since I’d been outside of the cordon in the undercity the first time that I’d been here the first time that the stark difference between the two hadn’t really hammered into me. Now, though… 

While the people who set up shop and worked here might not look amazing, none of them were visibly starving. There were certainly a few people with the distinctive scratching scars of drugs, but even they were at least more fed. Fewer people looked like they would attack us, even as I put away my guns and Devi extinguished her light. And none of their bodies were falling apart from old augmentations. 

That tickled a thought in the back of my mind. When it came to augmentations and body morphing magic, making permanent, stable changes was difficult. It was far easier to juice someone up temporarily and let the damage play out over the course of their life – not unlike what some athletes did, either with performance enhancing alchemy or the same magic. 

But the Arenamaster, for all that she’d done experimental research, had made it stable. The stability and long term usability had been more important than being able to squeeze out an ounce more power. 

Which begged the question: why? 

If she was really just using me as promotional material to draw people in and collect aura sparks, why give me stable augmentations? It might explain raising another batch of kids and fighting in an underground arena in Saxum, but then, why the same names? Why the similar powersets? It couldn’t be a coincidence that both Mists had the ability to move through force magic while also being metal mages. 

I forced the thoughts aside. I wasn’t able to get any answers right now, and I had more pressing matters to concern myself with. 

When we approached the gates to the contractor’s manor, however, I was surprised to see that it was busy. People were moving in and out, a mix of humans, demons, and demons that were possessing humans. The entire place was a flurry of organized chaos, and I was able to spot the Contractor himself standing on the porch of the old house. He raised an eyebrow when he spotted us, and descended the steps, heading in our direction. As he walked, the crowd of people smoothly parted around him, and in moments he was standing in front of us. 

“Elder and younger Mist, Egress, to what do I owe the pleasure?” the canny old demon asked, smiling at us.

“What are you doing?” Jin asked sharply, looking around. “It looks like you’re moving or something.” 

“Oh, I am,” the Contractor said, the smile never leaving his face as he spoke. “I had hoped that you would be able to stop my wayward great-niece, but it seems increasingly unlikely. The events being set into motion are not the kind of thing that anyone wise would stay within the city for.”

“What is going on, exactly?” Devi demanded, and the Contractor just continued to beam his placid smile over us. 

“I understand that you’re unable or unwilling to say,” I said. “We don’t need you to. We’re not sure exactly what the Arenamaster and Alyphize are doing, but it’s not good. We aren’t here for that, exactly.”

“Oh?” 

“Two reasons,” I said. “Egress?” 

I had almost called her Devi, but we were here under our Undercity names, not as friends.

“Are you providing the soul-tethering arrays that the Arenamaster is using to skirt around the geographical locking of the Wandering Path?” the dark skinned young woman asked.

The Contractor studied her for a long moment, then simply nodded. 

“I am. Not all of them – she has grown distrustful of me. But many of the anchors within the city were created by me.” 

“What would it cost for you to show us one of them, and let me use it as a basis to crack open the vaults?” 

The Contractor’s fingers danced along the corner of his finely tailored suit, and his smile actually vanished for a second, replaced with a look that was both serious and thoughtful. 

“I will show you one of the soul anchors and we will attempt to work out a deal for you to use it. If we are unable to reach an agreement, then you will have to leave peaceably. All I will take as payment for showing you its location is six hundred Auric Units.”

I raised my hand and lit my aura, then pushed it to the Contractor. The gray light swirled into him until my aura was depleted, and then I drew from my first arch-star. It continued to stream in for another moment, then petered out. 

“Excellent,” the Contractor said. “Come with me.” 

At that, he turned on his heel and began walking into the manor house. Again, the demons, humans, and possessed humans parted around him, and he led us to a set of stairs, where complex and powerful demonic magic unspooled from his hands, unlocking a series of wards that had laid invisibly over the hall. He walked downstairs, and we followed silently. There was a tremendously final sounding click as the wards re-engaged behind us. 

It took us much longer to reach the bottom than I had expected, and my skin began to tingle as we passed into an area where the boundaries between this world and the Fallen Void thinned. When we finally emerged into the open space at the bottom of the stairwell, I sucked in a breath and stared in amazement.