Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 13
"Definitely seems that way to me. In a way, it's not surprising. Getting to the seventh tier isn't intuitive, because it actually requires taking a step backwards. Anyone who's focused on short term power and doesn't know the tricks would never get there."
"What are the secrets, then?"
"Easy on the ambition." Senka smirked at him. "I was giving you blook earlier, but you're actually ascending at a good rate. Doing it right is better than doing it quickly. You need to focus on a solid Authority ascension, not four tiers up."
"Fine, fine." Theo rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "I'll slow down for your sake. But at least tell me what the higher tiers were called."
"Even in my time, they were rare enough that they didn't have simple names that translated between all worlds. Instead they had titles from a language almost forgotten. Beyond Dominion, the seventh tier of soulcrafting was called a... Bupplesniffer."
Theo stared at Senka. Senka stared back. Krikree twitched her antennae.
"Are you sporping kidding me?" Senka smacked her head with both fists. "There's no secret to the names, what reason would they possibly have to lock them?"
"You'd reached that level before, hadn't you? Maybe they wanted to prevent you from claiming your old title."
"Pretty sure they're just fumpets." Senka sighed and shook her head. Though her mood had been good, now he saw that her eyes were beginning to darken again. "I'm still struggling to remember most elements of my past, but for the record, I think I had reached the seventh tier and hit a major roadblock. I might be able to offer some help, but with my head like this, I don't want to advise you wrong. I need to rest."
"Does that mean you need to... go away?" Theo set a hand on her shoulder, trying to make it clear it was a gesture between adults instead of condescension. "I don't like dealing with the other you, but I don't want you to harm yourself."
"I've been thinking about that. It seems like when I push against the curse's limits, the backlash is particularly bad. If I fade out early, I should be able to control myself better... ya big fumpet!" She promptly shook off his shoulder and bounced away doing a little dance.
Theo didn't say anything for a while, just staring after her. He wasn't exactly sure what he felt. After some time, Krikree crept up beside him and whispered, "Senka-what?"
"Good question." He didn't have time to say more before Homez approached. Theo shook off all other thoughts and forced himself to think about politics again as he approached the Asplundat soulcrafter.
"We've come to an agreement," Homez told him quietly. "Not everyone believes you, but few of us are comfortable with what the Movement has been doing here. We will withdraw for now, and if you can bring us stronger proof of your claims, I promise I will do everything within my power to prevent the Asplundat Movement from harming the innocent."
The words sounded sincere, for all that mattered. Theo knew that he only had a little leeway to press them, so he searched for the right question. "Exactly what is that sublime material you were transporting?"
"It's called bloodcrete. I can't tell you its secrets because I don't know them myself, but the Movement manufactures it when it's time to go to war. They really do believe that the Ruling Cities are courting demons in order to consume the Dustwind Plateaus and then assault our territory."
"Some factions may want that, but not most." Theo made sure to maintain solid eye contact with Homez and tried to sound sincere. "I'm almost certain that this entire conflict is being manipulated. I wasn't sent here to prepare for war, just to find proof."
"If you ever find it, let me know. There are many who would view this agreement as a betrayal of the Movement, so I cannot do anything overtly. But if you can bring me stronger proof, I might be able to prevent my superiors from starting a war neither side wants."
Before they left, Homez gave him a few code words and an identification slate. For all that the two sides proclaimed different ideologies, the slate appeared to be basically the same technology as Norro Yorthin. After confirming that it didn't contain any sort of trap or tracking mechanism, Theo slid it into his coat and said his farewells.
Now he had a method to contact Homez. Allegedly. Theo watched the Asplundat soulcrafters retreat and hoped that this hadn't all been a mistake. It could still have been deception, but he doubted it. This was the edge he needed.
So Theo reached into his soulhome to trigger the signal to House Blacksilver.
Chapter 12
One of her ants was dead. Nauda stared down at the crumpled body and wondered exactly what she should feel.
As she explored the abandoned termite city, she had done her best to keep all of her ants alive, which pushed her new healing skills to the limit. They were simple creatures, mindless and merciless, so they never gave her the slightest gratitude. Part of her felt a bit sad anyway, part of her was just frustrated by the limits of her healing, and part of her considered it as a purely military setback.
Because the city was huge, and she only had so many loyal troops to conquer it. So far she had discovered some sublime materials, beetle hives, and enemy ants. Now she had one ant dead, and two injured enough that they couldn't fight effectively. Given that she still struggled with the compass, that wouldn't last.
In the end, with no input from the others, Nauda decided to bury the dead ant. None of the others seemed to care, and there was a good chance they'd just eat their own companion given the chance. Since they had enough goo from the local beetles, she decided that it was worth burying the ant that had fought for her this far.
Beetles were the one thing she had more than enough of. The local mounds seemed similar enough to those she knew, if a little more proactive. They were quite pleased to be free of the little rogue ant groups, since they were even more oppressive than those ruled by a hive. Just taking her troops to clear out spires that guarded valuable materials made the beetles eager to trade food with her. That, at least, wasn't going to be a problem.
She wished there was a way to recruit the ants as well. From her brief conversations with Queen Yeshir, Nauda thought that simply never happened. The Slescan way was to eradicate all enemy soldiers as well as even more neutral assets like beetle mounds. Still, it all seemed like such a senseless waste.
Too late, Nauda realized that she was dreaming of changing Slescan society. She didn't even have the strength to make any impact on her home world and she was imagining how she might change another. Clearly trying to do anything now would be futile and probably lead to unintended consequences. That didn't stop her from wondering if it might be possible.
When she returned to the hive, her ants sat around the entrance and went still. She wasn't sure if they even had a concept of relaxation, but that was what they did if she didn't give them a command. Nauda ignored them and went to find the beetles.
[Nauda. Welcome.] Bluepetal approached her first - she'd learned that many members of the local hive actually had names, and she had been doing her best to remember them, but translating the signalscents was difficult. It was easy to remember Bluepetal, because he had scarring all across his back. [Success?]
"None." She dropped to sit down next to the scarred beetle. "I think I know the rough part of the city, but there are too many tunnels."
[We could help.]
Instinctively Nauda turned to look at Bluepetal, but she couldn't make out anything from his insectoid face. "You mean help search the city?"
[Yes. With guards, would be safe.]
"I could use help, but what do you want in return?"
[Safety.] Bluepetal shifted closer to her and rubbed his forelegs together. [Here, we are vulnerable. Wild ants will only steal our food. But a true colony could kill all of us. If your group is here, then others will follow.]
It was a more complex collection of signalscents than Nauda had heard before, and unlike the others, she had the feeling that Bluepetal was making an effort to make his pheromones understandable to her. She understood what he was asking, she just hated how her arrival had coerced them into it. No doubt Theo would advise her to make promises and take them for all they were worth, but...
"I don't know what I can offer," Nauda said. "I might be able to get you transports to take you back to the beetles I told you about. But the queen there doesn't really care about me, and she might decide to kill you and I wouldn't be able to stop her."
[This is no different than the threats we already face.]
"That's... depressing, but maybe so. Just let me be clear. I'm not from this world, and I can't stay forever. I have kin of my own who need help. So one day, I'll leave, and any protection I can offer will go too. So I might not have anything to offer."
Bluepetal was silent for a long time before speaking again. [The termites said that no one could harm us. They had an army and a great city. Now all are dead. We will help, if you offer what you can.]
That was technically good, but Nauda fixed on the first part of his sentence. "Wait, you knew the termites? Just how long ago... how old are you?" Soulcrafting on Slest could be strange, but she didn't think he could be anything more than an Archcrafter.
[Old. Our kind lives much longer than the others know.] Bluepetal shifted forward. [We still have some industry. We can join the beetles you know and teach them. We will provide enough value that your queen will be less likely to destroy us.]
"Well, if you can help me find the weirkey, I'll do what I can to make it happen." Nauda smiled at the old beetle, wishing she knew what kinds of affectionate gestures they might have. This mound didn't rub horns like leafpullers, so she settled for making the pheromones echoing her voice as intense as possible.
[Then it is agreed. We will take you to the most profitable regions.]
"Wait... most profitable?"
[We know more of the city than we have pretended.] Bluepetal twisted his head from side to side and she wondered if it was just her imagination or he looked a little mischievous. [Some regions have been raided or degraded, but some remain intact. There could potentially be valuable finds there.]
"The weirkey, I hope," Nauda said, "but you mean more than that?"
[Sublime materials. Preserved food. War acid.]
"War... acid?"
[A termite invention. Filtered from certain beasts and enhanced, capable of destroying even cantae defenses. With it, we would have a weapon against invading colonies. It has sat forgotten for too long.]
"And just why do you know so much about this acid?"
Bluepetal sat back and didn't answer, again with something she couldn't help but interpret as a smug expression.
But the beetles were as good as their word. With their guidance, she was able to focus on the most useful parts of the city. They discovered the acid Bluepetal mentioned, stored within specially-treated vats and apparently still quite potent. Nauda decided that it was best not to let Queen Yeshir know about its existence and had it stored in a location where she could access it easily.
More importantly, working with the beetles allowed her to adopt a much more efficient system. She had bands of soldier ants go along with beetles to map the entire region where she thought the weirkey might be - fortunately, the ants obeyed her commands to accept the beetles. Whenever they encountered rogue ants, they retreated while the beetles let out a cry. Nauda would then leap from her position to back them up and reduce casualties. She didn't lose her second ant until an entire month later.
Only rarely did Nauda need to go out herself to take readings with the compass, which left her with plenty of time to soulcraft. Since the ants and beetles brought her back any extra materials they found, she could make more progress than before.
Her rebuilding had been rather brute force up to that point: creating strong walls and stuffing them with powerful materials. Now that she wasn't a broken excuse for a Ruler, Nauda focused on all the smaller details that she'd been neglecting. Doors, wall ornaments, pedestals. Sublime materials that generated cantae, enhanced her centerpieces, or shaped her flow. There were dozens of things to do.
She actually adjusted some of her former work so that it followed her theme. For her death tower, she used almost entirely dead materials to complement the skulls: Slest offered an abundance of chitin and bone that could serve all her purposes. There were fewer strong plants, but for her life tower she found vines for support and moss to carpet the floor. Her list of refinements was growing ever longer, but at least she didn't feel like she was a soulcrafter with all power and no skill.
Filling her staff tower would be a more difficult task. She decided that she would use materials that had never been alive, and Slest was short on sublime rocks. When she returned to Norro Yorthin, she would have to speak to Navim and see what she could find on Arbai.
Eventually the weirkey hunt actually brought her down from her tower. She could interpret all the needles and dials well enough to roughly triangulate positions... and it seemed like there were at least two concentrations of power. That had been what had confused her for a long time. Once she reconsidered the measurements as different sources overlapping, she was able to read the results much more clearly.
There were indeed two points of interest: one within a sealed building and one inside an ominous termite spire that lacked exits. With no way of telling between them, Nauda picked the one closest to ground level and broke her way in with brute force. It took longer than she expected, as the simple walls were actually somewhat reinforced sublime materials.
The chamber she discovered contained only a doorway to nowhere... and Nauda hesitated as she realized that she was staring at a gate. If the city contained a gate to another world, why had it been locked away? She couldn't see much of anything on the other side, and it didn't feel like anything in particular. That made her nervous, but after throwing a few rocks through had no negative consequences, Nauda stepped through herself.
It was dim on the other side, so Nauda generated enough cantae to see. Immediately she understood why it was dark: the gate opened into a cave. She didn't need to walk far before her path was entirely flooded with boulders.
In theory it could have been a natural process, like an avalanche, but Nauda suspected otherwise. When she bent down beside the boulders, she noticed old symbols etched into the floor. Not exactly like the wards she used, but close enough for her to guess. Their power had mostly faded, so the entrance was primarily blocked by the rocks.
If Fiyu had been present, she could have sensed beyond the cave. Theo probably would have looked at the dust and pronounced they were in a world he knew like the back of his hand. Nauda wasn't sure how she was going to move forward.
"Well, this was underwhelming," she said. As she spoke, she listened carefully to her own words, trying to hear the sounds instead of her mother tongue in her head.
Nauda realized that she was speaking a Fithan language. She was almost sure of it. That meant she'd found the first gate she knew of between Fithe and Slest, which could be valuable. There was no guarantee it would be anywhere near the Norron continent, but it came out on land, and that was good enough for her.
After a few minutes attempting to clear the rocks, Nauda realized that it would be a daunting task. It seemed like the Fithans really had buried the entrance under a whole avalanche. Had they not wanted a gate to a brutal world like Slest, or had it been buried when the termite city was destroyed? Something to ask Bluepetal, but for now Nauda mostly wanted a simpler type of help.
She ordered several of the ants to follow her, and they marched through the gate without hesitation. But when she ordered them to begin clearing the rocks, they sagged to the ground. One of them even had its central body part crack, leaking out its internal juices.
Nauda grabbed the ants over her shoulders and pulled them back through. On the other side, she began healing their injuries, which felt more intensive than expected. It really was like they couldn't exist in other worlds, which was a bit puzzling. While she worked, she gestured for Bluepetal to come closer.
"Do you know why this gate was buried?" Nauda asked.
[I do not. The termites were not generous masters.]
"That's fine. Do you know why the ants couldn't survive there?"
[Uncertain.] Bluepetal was silent for a long time, but unlike most of the beetles, he wouldn't just leave it at that. [Some have said that other worlds hate ours. One termite said that Slest has something other worlds do not. I do know that I would not survive.]
"I wasn't going to send you through." Nauda finished healing the last ant and sat back to stare at the gate. She doubted that other worlds "hated Slest", especially because she had seen that Krikree suffered no ill effects. Theo had claimed he was able to use pheromones just as easily over there, so Slest didn't contain something fundamentally alien.
Deciding that it was worth running an experiment, Nauda asked the beetles to bring her several containers of acid. She tested them with one finger - the acid created a nasty burn - and then stepped to the other side to test again.
No apparent difference. Nauda sucked on her injured fingers and waited for her living core to restore her flesh before she attempted anything else. She wasn't sure she could discover the reason, but the rule seemed simple enough: the Slescans that looked the most like insects were the ones that died. Even Yeshir had implied other worlds were unpleasant to her, and she had an Authority's power. The incompatibility didn't seem to affect Slescans like Krikree, so objects would likely be unaffected as well.
Perhaps it had something to do with the reason that insects on Slest were so much larger than other worlds, even before cantae got involved. Nauda didn't particularly care about the deeper theory, she just needed to understand how it worked. After waiting a little longer in case the effect took time, she poured the acid onto the boulders.
It bubbled and hissed, eating into them as rapidly as rocks on Slest. Nauda hadn't seen anything resist the acid except the film the beetles produced to handle it, though she assumed that powerful enough sublime materials would be unaffected. Unfortunately, the rocks were just plain durable: it would take an enormous amount of acid to burn all the way through.
