Kaius entered his shared common room, Porkchop on his heels. He was dressed for battle, clad in scale mail made up from the second-tier artefacts they had found in their delve. His glyphs were charged with a variety of spells. Only Eirnith on his temples lacked many inscriptions. He kept a few charges of Zone of Discombobulation and Compel Obsession, just in case they ran into any beasts or creatures down there, but any dangers would largely be of the crafted variety, lacking the living mind needed for his mind magic to work.

  While some automata could be broadly considered to fit that category, he’d struggled to find a reliable source on if mind magic would work on them. At best, he’d read in the archives that similar skills from other affinities sometimes might work to a lesser degree. In either case, he’d rather rely on the certainty of cold steel and bound lightning.

  He’d even inscribed a singular instance of Starfall, in case they ran into something that needed the application of overwhelming firepower. He’d prefer not to use it. The explosive, wide-ranging devastation of the spell would be potentially catastrophic deep in an underground structure in an unknown state of disrepair.

  Shaking his head, Kaius looked over to his brother — double checking they’d managed to get the ties on his under armour right.

  As they entered, Ianmus and Kenva looked up, giving them nods.

  Ianmus was ready to go as well. He, perhaps, had the easiest experience, with his robes, not having to spend time on the extensive buckles and straps that the rest of them were foisted with.

  Kenva’s fingers were a blur, tugging on fasteners that ran down her ribs. She tightened her chain back cuirass so that it would move as fluidly with her motions as if it were made as a second skin.

  “Are we good to go?” Kaius asked, nodding to the ranger.

  “Yeah, I won’t be a second. Just these last ties.”

  Today was the day that they’d begin their exploration. They would enter into the city’s underbelly. From there, descending into the highest levels of the installation, they would have a search on their hands. To evaluate the threat and potentially disable the Imperial ruin, they would need to find its most heavily armoured, defended, and hidden sections, all of which would be deep beneath the earth.

  But before that, they had one more stop. Rieker and Ro had set a small team on gathering the alchemicals they had requested — mostly restoratives for their resources, but a number of others as well. Tonics that would let them deal with absent or toxic air. Common resistance potions for the threats they might find, and other things of that nature. They’d even requested a couple of vials of strong corrosives in case they needed to get through any obstacles without leveraging simple brute force.

  Other than collecting those supplies, they already had everything they needed. They’d spent their afternoon hours the day before trawling the city for basic sundries: food and water, ropes and tarp — any form of mundane and cheap supply that might come in handy. While their storage rings were not enormous, such things barely took up any space and were well worth it, considering that they wouldn’t weigh them down.

  They had, of course, spent some time in the guild archives. Much of what they found was information that Ianmus was already familiar with — indeed, that all of them were, to some degree, thanks to the ubiquitous infamy that Imperial ruins possessed. Excluding Porkchop, of course.

  The largest, most universal dangers would be caverns and industrial runework that was decaying and growing unstable. If they were unlucky enough to find a heavily defended noble vault or military bunker, things would grow more complex. Advanced and highly sophisticated traps, both mechanical and runic, would be in unreliable states of repair. They could be pristine, preserved by automated repair mechanisms, or they could be liable to detonate at any moment, with the slightest breath disturbing them.

  Among the most dangerous threats they could face would be the automata — artificed facsimiles of warriors and beasts. Supposedly they were almost like mechanical depthsborn — furious and incredibly dangerous, but not possessing a true mind or intelligence. They’d seen references to some that could be smarter, even use some crude amalgamation of language, but nothing more than isolated footnotes which couldn’t be verified. Unfortunately, Deadacre’s archives were nowhere near as expansive as what might be found in a guild hall located somewhere truly dangerous.

  The guild archives had, at least, gone into detail on common ways that threats might be neutralised:tips on what to do when forced to pass through cave-ins and how they might be cleared without further destabilising the structure; notes on avoiding the use of spells around unstable formations, lest they detonate and other things of that nature. Unfortunately, Kaius had found no reference to examples of the actual runes or scripts used in Imperial ruins. He’d known that it was unlikely, but he’d hoped he might find something. The Empire had stretched across the continent and, for all that much of the knowledge it had possessed had been lost to the Shattering, Kaius wouldn’t have been surprised if there were principles that he could understand.

  They had even found some good tips for disabling automata. The creations lacked health, much like the undead, and although they often had self-repair enchantments like his blade, in all but the most dangerous units such enchantments were slow — useless in combat. If joints and gearing could be fouled, movement could be disabled, making it easier for them to locate and destroy the central formation that animated them. Apparently, it was often hidden in the chest, and the head, unlike with most things, was not much of a weak spot — if they even had one at all. It was a simple housing for sensors.

  “Ready,” Kenva said, buckling a reinforced flap over the exposed stitching of her armour ties. The ranger picked up a knife from the table beside her, twirling it through her hand before she slotted it into the sheath that was buckled at her waist.

  Kaius nodded approvingly. Even if her class had evolved to be more focused on archery and she’d lost the melee components to her mastery skill, it would have been foolishness itself not to have some fallback option of last resort.

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  Kaius nodded, and they left as a group. As they made their way down and out of the Dusty Stables, he felt a glimmer of pride and nerves twisting up in his chest. It would be their first proper venture into the city geared up like this. Even if they used all of their authority to constrain their Silver auras, it would be impossible to hide what they were.

  Magic dripped from their artefacts with pulsating waves, and with the comforting weight of his armour he knew he would be unable to hide the ease he felt in its protective carapace. This would garner them a bit of attention if they hadn’t already had it.

  …

  Dozens of glistening crystal bottles lined the table in orderly rows, square and boxy of standardised make. Each held potent liquids of a riot of colours. Most were relatively identifiable: the oranges, yellows, and reds of health-related elixirs; the greens and browns of stamina; the blues, purples, and silvers of mana. But one row was far more varied.

  A quick look with Truesight confirmed that they were utility tonics, clustered in sets of four.

  He grinned. They were marvellous. While they weren’t second-tier tonics, most of them were rare, and a few were unusual—and they were plentiful. It was a staggering display of wealth for the average Delver. For them, it could, in a pinch, be just what they needed to tilt the scales at a pivotal time.

  Apparently, a fair deal of effort had gone into their selection, picking ones of high purity and low toxicity. They would be able to take more of them before the foreign magic started to influence and foul their command of their resource pools.

  “A mighty haul, isn’t it?” Ianmus said.

  “It is,” Kaius agreed.

  “Let’s just hope we won’t need them,” Kenva said.

  “And what do you think the chances of that happening are?” Ianmus said, cocking an eyebrow with a smile.

  “Bah!” Porkchop replied with a snort. “Zero. You know our luck.”

  Kaius grinned and shook his head. That was very true. While statistically the vast majority of Imperial ruins were nothing more than long-forgotten and broken hovels — not war caches or deep estates teeming with treasures, lost magic, and danger — something in his gut told him that nothing would ever be so simple for them.

  Right as he reached forward to start gathering the tonics, there came a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Kaius said, curious. Who could it be? The attendant who’d shown them to this room in the guild, where their tonics had been stored, had said that both Rieker and Ro were too busy to see them off personally. They didn’t have much personal contact with too many others in the guild, and an attendant would have no reason to come back.

  The door opened to reveal the guild’s operational lead. Bronwyn, who was neither armed or armoured. Instead, he was dressed in simple but high-quality and serviceable wool trousers and a linen shirt with tough leather boots and his hair tied back. Far from his regal countenance when he was ready for battle, he seemed calm, almost approachable.

  “It’s me,” the Silver said.

  Kaius waved the man in, giving him a curious look.

  Bronwyn held up two bottles, shaking them.

  Teardrop shapes with a fluted neck and bound in an intricate weave of silver wire, each held a thick liquid that gleamed a brilliant ruby red. Almost looking like jelly with its translucent shine, they were utterly distinct from what lay on the table, and reeked of the potent smell of magic flavoured with the screaming vitality of the body and strange notes of small creatures crawling around in river muck.

  “Ro asked me to run these to you, since it took a while to procure them and she’s busy,” the Silver said, setting the bottles down.

  Kaius cocked a brow and identified them with his Truesight.

  Salamander Flesh-Mending Tonic:

  Uncommon — Tier II

  Limbs are like coins: better to spend ‘em if it saves your life.

  A tonic that grants flesh regrowth properties.

  Artisan-brewed potion

  Salamandric Tenacity II

  He let out a low whistle. Regeneration tonics. Not just rare and expensive, but in a place like Deadacre, without easy access to alchemists who could make them, they were a strategic resource.

  “See, even Ro agrees with me,” Porkchop said, his nose wrinkling as he leaned in to sniff the bottles.

  “It’s an insurance for the two of you who don’t have limb regeneration,” Bronwyn said, nodding his head towards the almost-recovered stumps of Kaius’s fingers. “They’re slow, and they won’t recover any health, but it’s better than nothing. With the aid of proper healing spells, you should be able to speed up the recovery.”

  Ianmus nodded as Kaius gave him a questioning look. “I can manage that. It’s a bit trickier than normal healing, but I can bolster the available energy if need be. It’s a complex technique, though, so it’ll take a lot of focus.”

  Kenva picked one of the bottles up, inspecting it in the light before she vanished it into her ring. “Thank the bloody gods. Only a matter of time until something goes wrong.”

  Bronwyn only grunted, giving them a slow nod. “Listen. I know you guys are progressing fast, but still try to be careful. If there is something down there, it’ll be a big threat.”

  “We will be,” Kaius assured.

  While their approach might look reckless to many on the outside, they weren’t suicidal. Sure, they pushed closer to their limits than most, but because of that, they had a far greater grasp of what they were. If the risk was too great, he wouldn’t throw their lives away for nothing.

  Bronwyn seemed to take his reply in stride, but Kaius could tell that the man wasn’t entirely convinced. Still, the Silver seemed to hold his tongue.

  “How are your skills progressing? I know it can seem a hellishly frustrating task right after your ascension to Silver.”

  Porkchop let out a deep grumble of dissatisfaction.

  “Those two were lucky enough with their class evolutions to blow through their roadblocks in one fell swoop,” Porkchop said, nodding his head towards Ianmus and Kenva. “Me and Kaius, however, were not so lucky. I have progressed one. Kaius has me beat at two.”

  Bronwyn winced. “Yeah, I don’t miss that part of my life. It takes a lot of hard work to shore them up, or you can start your climb again in earnest. Don’t worry, though — it speeds up a lot once you’re dealing with the stresses of real danger rather than training and sparring.”

  Kaius certainly hoped it would. It lined up with most things in the System, but he couldn’t deny that he would have much preferred if they could have broken through all theirs in one go.

  Bronwyn slapped the doorframe, pushing himself up straight. “Well, that’s it for me, I’ve said my piece. Take care and good luck.”

  “You too. When are you and your team off?” Kaius asked.

  “Two days,” the Silver replied. “We have a few more preparations to make, but we’re trying to make it quick. Gods know what those beasts are up to.”

  With that, Bronwyn gave him a nod and left.

  Kaius sighed and looked to his team. “Well, shall we gather these up and be on our way?”

  Swiping potions into his ring, he couldn’t help the burgeoning smile that crept across his face.

  Imperial ruins. He couldn’t wait.

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