Chapter 68: Just Another Day in Sigil Lake, Pt. 6

  “This entire place feels off,” Rocky said, eyeing his surroundings with suspicion. His brow furrowed, creating a deep chasm across his face. “Unsettlin’.”

  Theo’s brows did the opposite at the open accusation regarding Sigil Lake. “Off, how?”

  “Can’t put me finger on it. It feels…low.”

  “Low?”

  “Low.”

  “Do you know what he’s talking about? No one’s mentioned the town feeling…low before.” Theo tried mimicking the specific tone of the large miner.

  Jemma, the new smith, shook her head. “Seems fine. A bit quiet, maybe. Nothing surprising about a fresh start-town.”

  “Don’t you feel it?” Rocky tried again. “This…open space weighing us down, the—” he sniffed aloud three times. “—fresh air, unmistakably free of burnt coal and ash and dust?”

  “Oh,” Jemma nodded, as if the miner was right to feel this way about those things. Who didn’t like open spaces and fresh air?

  “Oh,” Theo also realised. “You prefer tight spaces, like caves?”

  “Of course,” said Rocky. “At least surround the town with mountains! Wide, green pastures, a crystal blue lake, barely a hill in sight? I hate it.”

  “I…don’t know what to do about that,” Theo grumbled.

  “Well, point me to the quarry! Don’t force me to stay out here where birds can just drop on me!”

  Theo eyed Jemma, who seemed to think this was perfectly normal behaviour. “Are all miners like this?”

  “Half, I’d say. The other half aren’t as hard-working, though,” she laughed.

  “You bet yer ass they aren’t!”

  “Swell! But, uh…we don’t have a quarry or a mine or anything…yet.”

  “I’ll take any hard deposit. Theo, I need ye to get me outta here!”

  Theo’s body quaked as the man grabbed his shoulder and shook him, desperate to be heard. The man seemed genuinely uncomfortable out in the open, so Theo put his official face on to fix this as soon as possible.

  “We don’t have any yet, but we were hoping you had a way of finding them? I’d love to put you to work quick as could be.”

  “Imma miner, lad, not a surveyor! I don’t find, I mine! It’s in the name of the job!”

  “Okay, alright, I get it. There’s nothing you can do? Jemma?” Theo asked, desperate to stop the unending shaking.

  “Sorry,” she shrugged.

  “I’ll be goin’ into that landlocked ‘barge’ of yours to get these birds off me tail! Here,” the miner released Theo and dumped a heavy sack from a dimensional space in front of Theo. There were also no birds around. “Let me know if ye find any o’these around, and I’ll make quick work of them! Else, I’ll be gone in a week.”

  Rocky strode towards the Barge with furious steps, though Theo didn’t sense he was angry at anyone, just uncomfortable. Theo picked up the sack of samples, checking out several lumps of minerals, be they metal, crystal, or stone. Jemma was helpful in sorting through them as they both sat down on the lush grass.

  “Iron, copper, silver, oh, and gold, even. This is platinum, don’t know what this is, but these are all of excellent quality,” Jemma listed as she separated the clumps of ore.

  “I’ve seen this,” Theo said, picking up the one she designated iron. “Back in Brook Town, the last town I stayed in. It was annihilated by the ranking several weeks ago, but there was this small pit underneath the mayor’s home, like a cellar. One wall in the pit was this brownish rock.”

  “Is it far?”

  “Half an hour south. With a heavy load, maybe a bit more. Pretty far from our town border, though.”

  “Seems a decent option B, then. Though if it looked more like rock, it’s likely a pretty low-quality deposit. If you had a way of surveying the nearby landscape, you might find something below ground, if you’re lucky. I’ll be honest, the chances are slim—this far from any mountain, you’re more likely to find dirt and clay than anything solid. Might have to dig deep to find a healthy layer of bedrock.”

  “We knew it was a bit of a stretch when we hired him. Well, both of you. I don’t suppose you want to stay even without any metalwork? We might import some in a short while, but right now we only have the beginnings of a plan to earn any money.”

  “While I signed up for a Fresh Start, I’m too proud of my skills to stop using them. I’ll wait until Rocky decides to leave. If you don’t have work for me until then, I’ll be leaving with him. Sorry.”

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  “No, I understand, believe me. I’ll try to figure something out. Do you two know each other?”

  Jemma smiled and leaned back, her arms propping her up from behind her. “No. Met on the road. He seems angsty, but he’s otherwise a pleasant fellow.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Originally, or now? Well, my answer’s the same, either way. A town close-by to Ercheat. Didn’t think I’d be leaving for a new town with a bunch of soldiers heading the same way. They caused quite the ruckus when they passed by my previous home, you know.”

  “Not often they venture out like that, is it?”

  “Not anymore, no. Used to be the continent was divided, but the Queen’s reigning over it all now. With Ercheat being a top-tier city, every other city under the same rule benefits, so there’s been next to no warmongering for many years.”

  “I didn’t know. Didn’t think many people knew.”

  “They don’t. My father was the mayor, so I benefitted in a lot of ways: information, special requests, a glimpse into high society, and the networking that comes along with it.”

  “Why’d you leave it all, then?”

  Jemma breathed contentedly and looked towards the lake, taking in its sapphire reflection. “I wanted what my father had. Not being mayor, so you’re in the clear,” she laughed and faced him again. “But my father, despite his low station back then, convinced the Queen to give him a Town Deed, and he built my hometown up from nothing. All the way to Regional Hub status. It would’ve expanded to City by now if not for its proximity to Ercheat.”

  “So you left it behind to…” Theo asked. He didn’t quite get what it was she wanted.

  “To build my own empire,” she beamed. “Long term goal. Smithing empire, I mean. I want the name Jemma Smith carved across every blade and hilt on the continent. I want every piece of silverware in every noble’s house in every city to bear my crest.”

  “Which is why you won’t stay here,” Theo nodded. “Hard to build an empire of steel without iron.”

  She confirmed with a nod, though looked a bit guilty as well.

  “I’ll ask my magic tutor if he has any spells to track down metal ore or the like. There must be…”

  Theo froze, his mind spooling back in time, even further than the day he dropped into the pit to find the possible iron vein. It went back to even before his arrival in Brook Town, to just after he arrived in Aera. Back in camp, along with Chaste’s snoring, Theo did something. He practiced his sigils. He made fire. He made water. He…remembered the third sigil on the first page of the Primer: the ‘I’ shaped sigil that, when preceding the ‘Fire’ sigil, searched all around him with a wave of light, forming a pillar right where it found flames, atop Chaste’s fire brick. The ‘Search’ sigil!

  “There’s something I can try! But can I? It isn’t really earth, so much as the earth is earth, so it’ll just find everything under me. Maybe I can designate something else, like ‘Search’ for…‘This’? ‘Search’ for ‘Target’? That should be possible, right?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Oh, sorry! Just, uh…don’t mind me for a minute. I’ll try something.”

  Theo’s eyes lit up and Jemma, as requested, didn’t ask despite her surprised-looking stare. After Theo weaved the ‘T’ sigil for ‘Target’, he checked his system for any help it could provide.

  Sigil Weaving System

  Sigils function: on Target (Missing parameter): (Awaiting further directives)

  “No, that won’t work. I can’t do ‘Target’ ‘Search’, that’ll need a third sigil to search for, like ‘on Target Iron Ore, Search for Fire’. Something to remember for later, but not what I need.”

  He kept mumbling to himself as he glowed along with the mystical pattern in front of him. This wasn’t how Theo wanted to introduce anyone to his particular kind of magic, but situations arise and need adaptation.

  “So, if I place the ‘Search’ sigil before ‘Target’…that was a tall line with shorter lines across the top and bottom, right? Like so. And…

  Sigil Weaving System

  Sigils function: Scan for Target (Missing parameter). (Awaiting further directives)

  “Yes! Or no, will I now just search for the same lump of ore I targeted? Do I have to add variability somehow? But how? Hmm…”

  Jemma stared as Theo mumbled to himself, then shifted his seated position, plucking a lone blade of grass from the ground in front of him. A thick sludge of magic grew from his fingertip and latched onto the thin, green growth.

  “Aha! If this works, it should locate all blades of grass in a wide area around me. Can’t check with the iron because it might just wind the same piece of iron and if there’s not another slab of iron around, I won’t know if it works. So, grass.”

  Theo grinned wide and finished the short line of magical symbols with a bracket below them. The symbols chimed, and Jemma inched forward to stare closer at them with big, green eyes. Theo’s sigils flashed, sending a pulse of white light out from their centre as they shattered apart. The blade of grass in his hand lit up when the pulse moved through both it and the man holding it, sending a tall pillar of brilliance high into the sky.

  As the pulse progressed, it reached the lush emerald ground, finding not just one, but hundreds, thousands of similar blades of green. The wave of light didn’t stretch as far as Theo remembered it doing back when he first searched for fire all that time ago, but—and he remembered now that it had cost double the two sigils’ base cost—it sent a slew of pillars of blinding white light crashing into the blue skies above.

  Theo’s body grew cold, the familiar feeling of mana-deprivation seeping into his very bones. This was how he felt when casting a long loop, emptying his mana reserves. It didn’t seem dangerous, but it was like a reverse fever; his body not fighting foreign invaders, but fighting to reclaim the sudden loss of its allies.

  In a tiny circle around him stood several dozen beams of light, each one coming from a different, but thankfully similar enough, blade of grass.

  He’d done it! Also, findings for future reference: The range decreased upon finding anything, or it was based on his mana levels, somehow. Finding a new target costs mana as well, draining him fast if there are plenty of targets to find. Good to know.

  An angry, piercing voice echoed from somewhere, carrying Grace’s familiar cadence.

  “Theo! Is that you or is it important?”

  He didn’t hear where the voice was coming from. He knew there was a right answer to this, and despite feeling hurt that she seemed to mean he wasn’t important, he figured he should relax her rather than pile on.

  “Just me,” he shouted, hoping she heard him wherever she was. She didn’t answer, so she must’ve.

  “This happens a lot?” Jemma laughed, looking up at the hundred white pillars forming one giant one.

  “A few times a week, I’d bet. You thought Sigil Lake didn’t have anything going for it?” he laughed along with her.

  “And, uh…the ears?” She touched her own earlobes to show him.

  “Oh! That’s just a quirk I have. I don’t think it’s contagious!”

  She giggled, the tones surprisingly feminine seeing they came from the strong-armed smith.

  Around them, Theo could see several villagers investigating the pillar from a distance, but seeing Theo right next to it, they relaxed and went back to their own business.

  “Maybe I should keep these things to a minimum with the platoon of soldiers coming this way? It might put people on edge.”

  “Maybe you should.”