THE RADIANT ARCHIVE

  Rinka had David answer seven pages worth of questions, filling out the forms in Lumiran for him. She passed the pages to #3, who scanned the documents with red beams shining out of his eyes before moving back inside the facility, returning a few moments later.

  #3 bowed toward David. “This unit greets the Scion.”

  Rinka quirked a brow at the golem. “It's official then? The data has been submitted to and approved by the central consciousness?”

  He rotated his eyes toward her. “It has, Magister. David Wayman-Wardenfel-All Brew is recognized by the Radiant Archive as a newly inducted Scion, with the appropriate rank and grade.”

  She smiled and turned toward David. “Congratulations, Mr. Scion! Now we can go sit on nice-ish chairs and trade questions!”

  David met her gaze. “What about my companions?”

  She waved his concern away. “All registered as your retinue, or consort, in the catkin's case.”

  “Niala.”

  Rinka blinked. “Niala to you too? What does it mean?”

  He frowned. “No, it's her name, Niala.”

  “Oooooh! Well, don't worry, we'll get to know everyone's name! Follow along now!” The magister said, turning around and walking deeper into the building, not really waiting to see if she was followed.

  David's group glanced at each other under the waiting stares of the three golems. With nods and shrugs, they came to a silent consensus and made their way to the end of the room. The three golems let them pass before following them.

  As they walked down the long corridor, it didn't escape anyone that they didn't know of any other exit, or that the large, imposing doors that had just closed behind them would be hard to punch through.

  Rinka led everyone to a large conference room. The furniture was as decrepit as anything they had seen so far, yet still seemed somewhat serviceable. At least, none of the chairs broke under their weight as they sat down.

  The magister was to one side, the three golems behind her, facing David, Niala and Leandro, with Sybil and Sammie remaining standing alongside Jordo.

  Both parties eyed each other for a few moments, before the woman snorted, lightly chuckling.

  David angled his head. “What's funny?”

  Rinka waved a hand. “Oh, you know, just how we look like we're about to haggle over a hostage or something, all serious and tense.”

  She leaned back into her chair, making use of its armrests for her arms. “Since you're the visitor, why don't you start?”

  David slowly nodded, conferred with Niala, and asked his first question. “How is it you can speak Amberfallian?”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “You're starting with that? Meh. The neural imprinter still works, so #3 transferred the knowledge of your tongue to it, and then from it to my brain. My turn: Why did you come here?”

  “We, huh... quite a few reasons,” David said.

  Rinka frowned. “That's not an answer.”

  He sighed. “There's a long story before I can answer with something that'll make sense.”

  “Oh. Well, I have time. Right, #3?” She asked, turning her head toward the golem.

  It rotated its eyes toward her, answering after a few seconds. “I am not aware of any time constraints, Magister.”

  She returned her attention to David, grinning. “See? No time constraints. I'm all about long stories, anyway. It's almost a prerequisite for being a Magister,” she said, snorting.

  He shared a look with Niala, who was still as excited about the whole situation as she had been when they stepped into the archive.

  He nodded and began telling his tale.

  Rinka nodded along as David spoke. Once he was done, she tilted her head, staring at him. “So, to resume, you're hoping to find some sort of document that will allow you to claim the Living Vault, along with information about how to avoid the mana corruption that threatens most scions.”

  David scratched his head. “Yeah, that's about it.”

  Niala leaned forward. “Also, anything you have about alchemy.”

  He nodded. “Also, alchemy.”

  Rinka quirked a brow, looking at Niala. “Are you an alchemist?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  The Magister hummed, turning her head toward #3. “If she can brew up a batch of polymatter...”

  #3's eyes spun around its head once, realigning to look at his boss. “Magister, the polymatter recipe is a rank 8, grade B piece of information. They do not possess the required clearance.”

  Rinka slouched to the side and tapped at her chin. “We could just give them the required clearance.”

  The golem's eyes dimmed. “The Archive consciousness will object.”

  “Blah! Of course it will! But, we just need to figure out a way to convince it.”

  David cleared his throat, grabbing their attention. “Some explanation, please?”

  The woman slumped further on her chair, her legs jutting out and her head midway down the backrest. She waved a lazy hand up into the air. “It's the lizard and the egg problem. What you're asking for will need unrestricted access, so we can look through enough material. The problem is that, as a newly registered Reign citizen, you have no social credits, so you'd be limited to a few hours, sorry, bells, of time each week.”

  She spun on the chair, sitting on it sideways, her legs and head limp as she grasped at the ceiling. “The solution to that is to have you provide a service that's valued highly enough to give you all the credits you need. The problem with that is that the reign doesn't exist anymore, or at least not in any centralized form. Finding a task is going to be hard...”

  Rinka re-seated herself properly before slumping her upper body over the table. “Your friend being an alchemist is a solution. The archive's polymatter reserve is just about depleted, which means repairs and maintenance can't be done properly, as you might have noticed from all the cracks.” She said, snorting.

  Niala frowned. “Polymatter... what's that? I feel like I heard that word before.”

  Jordo nodded. “You did, madam. I mentioned it when Sir decided to head out to the Living Vault to retrieve the herbs necessary for the Old Woman, before our associates began their deliveries.”

  The catkin looked at Jordo. “Oh, yeah, I remember now. What is it, though?”

  “Polymatter is a base substance used by recombinators to create a wide variety of materials, both organic and not. It was one of the core industries of the Luminous Reign.” The golem explained.

  Niala's ears began wiggling. “To create... wait! You're talking about transmutation?!”

  Rinka snorted, earning her a puzzled look from the catkin. “Sorry, sorry! It's just that... well, calling recombination, transmutation is like calling concrete, wet rocks.”

  Niala frowned. “I don't get it.”

  “Heeeh, not important, I guess. Think of it this way: transmutation was the idea, recombination is the working solution. Your golem is right, it was probably the crowning achievement of the reign.” Rinka explained.

  “It still doesn't tell me what it actually is, though. You said it can be brewed?”

  The woman nodded. “More like refined on an industrial scale, but yes. There is a formula- quite a few, actually, and if you could, ah, donate enough of it to the archive, the central consciousness would give you social credits in exchange. But, well, you don't have the clearance for the formula, so... lizard, meet egg.”

  “Could you... Give me a small sample? I bet I could figure out something with it, maybe find a way to replicate it.” Niala offered.

  Rinka lifted her head and blinked, eyes opening wide. “Replicate...? Girl, polymatter required centuries of work by the reign's best mind. Even if I could convince the central consciousness to give you a sample, there's no way.” She said, shaking her head.

  “I could at least try.” Niala insisted.

  The magister tilted her head and looked at the determined catkin for a second before sighing and shaking her head. “Sure, I'd let you try, but the consciousness probably won't allow for a single drop of the stuff to leave its store, given how low its supplies are. You'd need to find some, out there, somehow.”

  David's brow rose. “Find some? Would it even still be viable, after so much time?”

  Rinka shrugged. “Maybe not out on the surface, but the stuff was usually put into small metal cylinders enchanted with stabilizing fields. I guess, over time, those enchantments would have degraded, but if they were stored somewhere with enough background mana, the enchantments would have siphoned enough to stay active.”

  David scrunched his brows. “A small metal cylinder with liquid inside, in a mana-rich environment?”

  Rinka nodded. “Yeah. Got an idea?”

  He stared at her for a moment and, wordlessly, got up, opened his satchel and sorted through his cargo cloths, picking one and unrolling it over the table. Rinka watched the strange ritual, only to gasp when the image sewn into the cloth rose out of it, turning tangible.

  “What is that?!” She exclaimed, shooting up to her feet and leaning forward, adjusting her lenses. “I can't see any spatial and temporal traces, so it's not stillness! But its content isn't emitting any degraded mana! It's like... they really were just sewn images before, and now they're real!”

  She looked up at David. “Is that an artifact?!” She demanded.

  He shrugged. “Cargo cloths. Expensive, but not artifacts. There are a few suppliers out in the kingdom. Don't ask me how they work, I don't know.” He said, seeing the look in her eyes and pre-empting her next question.

  He rummaged in the small pile of doodads and curiosities, smiling when he found what he was looking for, picking up the small metal cylinder he'd found on his first visit to the Living Vault with Karline.

  Rinka's eyes widened in surprise as he held up the object before her and spoke. “Is this a polymatter container?”

  She kept staring at the metal object, eventually looking up at him and slowly dipping her head. “It looks like it.”

  His smile widened as he handed the cylinder to Niala, who took it with equal reverence and curiosity. He looked back at Rinka. “So, do you have an alchemy lab somewhere for my very smart wife to bust a century's worth of work within a few bells?”

  The magister blinked, glancing at #3, who flashed his eyes twice before nodding. She turned her head back toward David. “We do, deeper in the archive.”

  David smiled.

  Niala smiled.

  Jordo's eye flashed.

  Rinka smiled, then snorted.

  They were brought a few levels down, to a section filled with tools and workbenches, and to one specific room within that section.

  David wondered if a millennia-old alchemy lab would even still be usable. Rinka had only snorted while pressing her hand to a panel next to the door and speaking a few Lumiran words. A low mechanical humming was then heard coming through the door, just as it receded into the wall.

  Niala's eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw what was inside: a pristine, fully-furnished alchemical lab, untouched by dust or time. She looked at Rinka with the eyes of a little kid who'd just spotted a pile of presents waiting for her. The woman had barely begun nodding when Niala had already bounded forward. She moved from one piece of equipment to the next, gushing about their craftsmanship, asking what some of them were, and not waiting for an answer before moving to the next piece.

  When she finally turned her attention back to Rinka, asking her how something could remain in this perfect condition for so long, the woman explained that it couldn't. The lab, along with half a dozen similar crafting rooms, had been stilled. Nothing within had been allowed to move until now, when she'd just quickened it. The same process that she had been put under.

  Even if that answer had asked several more questions, Niala refocused on the task at hand. An alchemical challenge! For unlimited access to all the alchemy knowledge of the archive!

  After properly familiarizing herself with all the equipment, making sure she understood what everything did, she got to work.

  David ended up underestimating the difficulty of the task quite a bit, though Niala reassured him that she could do it. She just needed a bit more time.

  Leandro used this time to have Sybil and Sammie accompany him on “patrols” outside. The two Azure Guards complained that the retired Knight-General just had them fight whatever beast he could find.

  Leandro countered that fighting off beasts was the point of a patrol.