A Spellwarden’s Duty – Part 1

“So this is what I am reduced to: enforcing Conclave’s laws in a lawless land.” Londriel thought to herself as she approached her destination. 

At first, the Seeker had found her banishment from Quinvala to the Wystral a light punishment for her alleged crimes against the Spheres. The Council had even allowed her to keep the title of Spellwarden, and her superiors at Sphere Akhenza had tasked her to continue her work on the cities of the coast. It didn’t take long for Londriel to understand the true depths of her punishment. Having been raised in Dynas from a young age and being forced by circumstance into a Conclave apprenticeship at fifteen years old, Londriel had never had much cause to visit the Wystral. She was only familiar with Gateway, the larger of the settlements, and even then, she only knew the city in passing and had been insulated from much of its worst aspects. Over the past few months, as she inspected the factories and laboratories operated by the people of the Wystral, she had come to understand how deep the rot she had denounced really spread. A memory kept resurfacing, from a childhood before the Fall. In it, Londriel was in the gardens of Osterath, turning a stone as children do, only to be disgusted by the vermin hiding below. At least those vermin had shown the decency to hide.

Today, Londriel stood before an automaton assembly facility in Arrecife. In these places, people with little to no training in magic handle Liastrum to fuel and test the constructs they assemble. Facilities such as this, where the unenlightened perform the manual labor required by the Spheres, are common in the Wystral. Most of them are owned by a Sphere or a Master, despite the documentation rarely revealing such connections directly. At first she had wondered if the workers knew about the dangers of Liastrum. She had been forbidden to speak of such things by the Council of the Nexi, but had inquired as much as she could without revealing the truth. The Spellwarden had been shocked to discover that many suspected something was wrong, even if they could not pinpoint the source of the problem, but none dared speak against the Masters of the Spheres. Most of them did not fear that the Masters would attack them, but rather that they would abandon their ventures in the Wystral, taking with them a source of gainful employment.

She stood alone, as she had trusted no one but her superiors with the information about her mission. As a Legacy bearer, she was allowed more leeway than other Spellwardens, for her power meant she rarely needed reinforcements to perform her tasks, at least outside the Malediction. Londriel steeled herself for the battle she was sure to wage inside the building, one where her spear would do her no good. Today, her wits would have to be her shield and her blade. She approached the building, announcing herself as a Spellwarden, and demanded entry. She was surprised when the guards simply bowed and cleared the way, without the typical rush to warn others or hide small violations. 

“You are expected, Spellwarden.”, one of the guards said. 

Right then, she realized she had lost the first bout. They had known she was coming, and had prepared for her inspection. It was useless now to guess at how they had gotten the information. It could have been a spy or even one of her own colleagues in the Akhenza Headquarters in the city. Even within her Sphere, there were those who would betray honor and duty for the right price. She tried to hide her frustration and entered the facility. 

Looking around, she saw what she had expected. Rows and rows of people, packed together side by side as closely as possible, their hands inside gauntlets affixed by chains to the floor. They were not prisoners, but one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Atop the tables before the workers, Londriel recognized the intricate metallic pieces of a hundred constructs, ready for assembly. These were large and unwieldy, nothing like the ones used by the Masters, but much cheaper to produce. The workers used the gauntlets to manipulate the Liastrum cores and perform functionality tests. Londriel saw a man near her use the gauntlet to command the Liastrum to flow from the core to one of the constructs’ arms. When the Liastrum stopped flowing through the thin copper tubing, the man took the Liastrum-filled vessel to his lips and sucked on it to try and remove the blockage. Londriel shuddered as the Liastrum started flowing again, and the man was only narrowly able to place the end of the tube in its designated spot. The worker showed remarkable skill, but the Spellwarden knew such things could only be learned through trial and error. 

It was then that the man responsible for the facility made himself known. He was no Master, but Londriel had found no name on the deed to this facility other than his own and those of other members of his family. His slicked-back hair, the smell of too much perfumed oil, and his ferret-like face were immediately disagreeable to Londriel, but it was his smile that turned her stomach as he looked up at her.     

“Welcome, Mistress Londriel. I am Rafio Strabus, foreman of this facility, and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance. We expected you to make a visit at some point next week, but you’ll find us more than ready now. You and the members of your esteemed Sphere will surely find no issues with the work we perform here. I remain ever a reliable and lucrative business partner to the members of the Conclave who grace me with their patronage. Perhaps we could skip the formalities and—”

“The proper titles to address me are Master or Spellwarden, and we will not be skipping any formalities.”

The man started. He had made a slip, even if a small one, and both of them knew it. 

“Apologies, Master Londriel, I did not intend to give offense. I had maintained a wonderful relationship with your predecessor, and—”  

“My predecessor is no longer with us, as I’m sure you must know, and, although not publicly announced, the circumstances of her departure were more than a little suspicious. I have been charged with her files and found within them various inconsistencies. That is why I am here.”

The man paled, and Londriel’s resolve was reinforced by this small victory. Most thought the death of Eliette had been an accident, and Akhenza had maintained the lie, to ensure their secretive investigation proceeded unimpeded. Only Londriel and two other people were in the loop, so if Rafio was aware of her inspection but not of the larger investigation into a previous Spellwarden’s death, she could exclude a couple of names from her list of suspects for the information leaks. 

Before the foreman could recover, the Spellwarden continued: “Please, if you are the one responsible for this facility, present it to me.” It was not a request.

Beads of sweat rolled down the foreman’s face now, as he apologized profusely and led her through the rows of workers. As he explained inane details about the manufacturing process, her attention was drawn to the faces of the people around her. She could see in them the telltale signs of Liastrum poisoning. Londriel noticed a number of people were missing limbs, or horribly scarred in other ways, but their workstations and uniforms had been made spotless. As she passed, people smiled awkwardly at her, as they surely had been instructed to do. They need not have bothered. Londriel had once thought to denounce the abuse committed against the people of the Wystral, and had been informed that these people were not “true citizens of the Conclave”, and therefore held no rights before the Council. Even if they were citizens, she had been told in no uncertain terms that her jurisdiction extended only to crimes related to the dangerous misuse of Liastrum, and no farther. She had not yet come to terms with this reality, but for the time being Londriel had resolved to save those she could and pray for those she couldn’t.

The inspection of the facility took no more than half an hour. Londriel said very little during that time, while Rafio spoke far too much. Such a man would have annoyed her on any other day, but she paid the foreman little mind as she was looking for something. By the end of their little tour, Londriel had found confirmation of her suspicions, without having to ask a single question. She had looked at and memorized the blueprints of the facility, registered with the Akhenza Headquarters in Arrecife, and noticed a discrepancy in the shape and measurements of several of the rooms. As she paced through the work floor, each step taken with military precision, she was also constructing a mental map of the space. When she overlapped that map with what she remembered of the blueprints, they did not match. 

There was a missing room.

As Rafio prepared to finalize the visit, Londriel walked beyond him to a space about three feet wide, between two doors that gave access to rooms on another wing of the building, and stared at the wall between them. There were murmurs behind her and then silence for a moment. As Londriel turned to look, several of the workers were staring back at her with terrified expressions. The foreman was aghast, trying to conjure up some protest or condemnation, but his words failed him. Londriel smiled, as their fear had betrayed their secret. She turned back to the space between the doors and summoned the power of her Legacy, the Ark of Lamentation. With a touch of her hand, she pushed, commanding whatever spell stood before her to begone. As the spell broke, there was no wall before her anymore, but a third door. Londriel pushed it open, seeing a small square space and a set of stairs going down. 

As she descended those steps, Londriel was exhilarated. She had finally found it! This factory had been requisitioning too much Liastrum for the work they did. Eliette had shown too much wealth for a Spellwarden, and then had suddenly been murdered in a not-so-well-disguised accident. Had she been turned? Had she pressed them for more bribes? It didn’t matter now. With the information she uncovered below, she would force the answers out of them. What manner of experiment was being performed here that they would risk so much to hide? As Londriel reached the bottom landing, she could barely hear the words of undignified protest from the foreman above. She opened the door to a chamber and saw—

“By the Triumvirate!” These words had not escaped her lips in years now, and were uttered as a reflex, like a prayer to ward off evil. That is what Londriel bore witness to this day. True evil.

Before her, there were workstations, much like the ones above, except the parts, the tables, and the workers assembling them were much too small. Children. A hundred of them or more. The oldest must have been twelve, but it was hard to make a guess considering how sickly many of them were. They looked at Londriel confusedly, and then, when she didn’t say anything, went back to work. The Seeker herself was dumbfounded, but was awakened from her trance by the realization that the children were manipulating the Liastrum, without gauntlets. The Spellwarden’s stomach churned in disgust, as she realized there were no dangerous experiments being performed here, not as defined by Conclave Law. This factory simply needed smaller hands to perform the precise work required by the most intricate parts of the constructs.

As disgust turned to rage, Londriel thought that her spear would be useful today, after all.