Alycia droned on and on.

  “When two gears mesh, they rotate in opposite directions... Clockwise becomes counterclockwise, and vice versa...”

  As if to prove her point, she reached for the clamped gears on the workbench and gave one a spin. The teeth clicked together, and the second gear turned the other way. All the while, she watched the whole process like this little whirring dance was the most extraordinary thing that had ever existed.

  Viktor yawned.

  [Master, you should have paid more attention to the lecture.]

  Ugh, this is the driest speech I’ve ever heard, he replied. It was like the blonde had swallowed a textbook and vomited it back up, page by page, word for word. She was in her twenties, but for some reason she sounded like a hundred-year-old librarian. She rambled on, spewing one piece of incomprehensible gibberish after another. Force this, torque that. Ugh.

  The atmosphere didn’t help, either. The only things that weren’t dead in this dusty room were Alycia’s pigtails. Thick, fluffy things somehow full of life in a place that had none. They bounced and swayed with every movement she made, defying the dullness of the topic and the still air of the workshop. Before he knew it, he was watching them, his gaze tracking the arc of their motion instead of the gears clacking on the bench.

  “The gears are down here, Quinn.”

  “I know.”

  Alycia let out a resigned sigh. “I get that these might not seem exciting at first, but trust me, you can use them to make a lot of amazing things. Like, for example—”

  “A ballista,” Viktor said.

  Alycia blinked, caught off guard, then smiled. “Yes, exactly. If you study hard, one day you can build your own ballista.”

  I already have one, Viktor thought. And I don’t need to know how to build it myself. That was what subordinates were for. The most important thing was to see the bigger picture, not to get bogged down in every tiny detail.

  The woman turned back to the messy diagrams cluttering the wall behind her, and her pigtails bounced again. Lively, wonderful things. Without them, this room would be deader than Khenemhotep’s chamber. And all of a sudden, Viktor found himself missing the storytelling session of the ancient priest dearly.

  [Master, she is not going to be happy if you keep acting like this.]

  And what’s she going to do? Kick me out? After practically begging me to be her apprentice?

  Celeste made a sound like a sigh.

  [Master... she has put a lot of effort into preparing all this. You should at least appreciate it a bit. Besides, if you are not listening to what she teaches, then why do you even bother coming here anyway?]

  It’s like mining for gold, Celeste. You dig and dig, and most of what comes up is just dirt. Useless, yes, but you’ve got to haul all that shit out of the earth if you ever want to find something shiny. What he was doing with Alycia was the same. There was probably something useful buried in her rambling, some tiny gem that might come in handy one day. So he kept digging, even if it meant he had to endure waves after waves of convoluted technicalities and pointless demonstrations.

  But you’re right, he told his Dungeon Core. It’s a waste of time to just sit here watching pigtails bouncing. Let’s make the most of this moment and hold a strategy meeting.

  [About what, Master?]

  What else? Our targets, of course. Brynhildr and Dagnar.

  [You still want to strike when they are in the courtyard of the mortuary complex?]

  Yes, that’s the ideal spot.

  Stone walls surrounded those two, quicksand under their feet. Then, tomb guards swarmed in from every direction, while skeletal mages unleashed a storm of rocks from above. Khenemhotep would be the tip of the spear, raining down deadly spells while commanding his troops. No matter what secret power Dagnar was hiding, Viktor highly doubted the man could walk out of that trap alive.

  Sebekton would be held in reserve, kept back from the front lines unless something unexpected happened. After all, Brynhildr’s blade could heal her every time it tasted blood, so it would be best to fight the warrior woman with things that didn’t have any flesh.

  And while all the chaos unfolded, Viktor and Kazyk’s crew would provide fire support from the ballista. The rate of fire might be an issue, though. Unlike the test run, Sebekton wouldn’t be there to help with reloading. The gnolls could manage, but they were much slower. The Cyclopes had the strength for the job, but they were so clumsy they might break the damn thing by accident.

  As he mulled over the plan, his eyes drifted around the cramped room. Alycia was still in full flow, her words spinning out like a Dread Spider’s endless strand of silk. Beside him, Rhea sat perfectly straight, every part the diligent student, eyes locked on the blonde, hands feverishly scribbling notes to keep up with the monologue.

  Yup, Alycia has definitely picked the wrong apprentice.

  The room they were in was on the second floor, directly above the shop that occupied the first. It was cramped, cluttered with all manner of useless junk, and smelled like someone had tossed inside a handful of random odors, half of which he couldn’t even identify. This was Alycia’s workshop, also her storage room, lunch room, nap room, and now, apparently, her classroom.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  [I think the biggest problem we have right now is how to lure them to the mortuary complex.]

  Yes, no doubt about it.

  Dagnar was a coward. A pampered, spoiled coward. The guy couldn’t walk ten steps in a dungeon without wincing at a cobweb, so how the hell was Viktor supposed to get him to march through the desert to reach Khenemhotep’s tomb? Just thinking about it felt like an ordeal.

  [Master, have you learned anything from Yvonne’s Reliquary? It could give us ideas for the bait we might need to lure them.]

  No, not yet.

  The artifact was supposed to record conversations that occurred inside Brynhildr’s room. But of course, it only worked if there was any conversation to begin with. It seemed Dagnar never set foot in his aunt’s quarters, so unless the warrior woman had suddenly developed a taste for monologuing like a certain blonde, there was nothing to gain from it.

  Viktor let out a slow, irritated sigh. If worst comes to worst, we change the plan. We attack them at the edge of the desert. Not ideal, obviously. But sometimes, we can’t wait for perfect. We have to make do with what we can get.

  “Am I boring you?” Alycia said, grimacing. “Was I that annoying to make you sigh like that?”

  “Well, I...”

  “If that’s the case, then I have some good news for you. The lecture has just ended.”

  “Oh, great. Lunchtime now, right?”

  “Yes,” Alycia said with a sly smile. “But the bad news is, you have to solve a little quiz before you can eat.”

  Viktor frowned. “A quiz?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s very simple. If you’ve paid even a tiny bit of attention, you’ll breeze through it without any problem.” She shot a glance at Rhea. “You’re in, too. Let’s see who cracks it first.”

  The girl hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I don’t know if I can, but... yes, I’ll give it a try.”

  The blonde seemed to be plotting something. Probably hoping Rhea would get the answer first so that she could rub it in his face. Oh well, whatever. He didn’t mind in the slightest if Rhea won. Who cared about her stupid quiz anyway?

  “We have a set of two gears,” Alycia began. “The driving gear has fifteen teeth and the driven gear has forty. What is the gear ratio of this set?”

  Rhea frowned hard, scrunching her eyebrows as if she were trying to squeeze the answer out of her brain.

  “Eight to three?” said Viktor.

  “Correct!” Alycia’s expression went soft in an instant. “Well, it’s an easy problem, so no wonder you got it. But at least that means you did pay a little bit of attention during my lecture. So, I’ll let you off the hook. For now.”

  She did her best to sound stern, but he could see clearly a smile curling the corners of her lips.

  [Excellent work, Master.]

  Viktor rolled his eyes. It’s just simple math!

  [But without understanding the core concepts, how can you figure out what to calculate?]

  If someone gives you two numbers and asks about something something ratio, what else do you do? Multiply?

  Rhea stood up. “I’ll go reheat the food,” she said, before vanishing through the door.

  Viktor was left alone with Alycia, who moved to the workbench to tidy up her tools and materials. Gears clinked together as she gathered them from the table, placing each one into its shelf. Diagrams were pulled down from the wall, parchment curled up and tied with strips of ribbon. And he, once again, watched the two long, lively pigtails dancing while all of that happened.

  “I’m sorry...” she said suddenly, without looking at him, voice quiet. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

  Viktor shrugged. “Well, I can tell you’ve spent a great deal of time preparing for this. So you’re right to be upset if your student doesn’t pay attention.”

  [Oh, Master? Does that mean you are going to take her lectures more seriously from now on?]

  No, it means I’ll yawn more discreetly.

  “I was just... worried,” Alycia said. “That maybe I was not good enough. That you got bored and... you’d quit.”

  “Don’t worry,” Viktor said, grinning. “I’ll keep coming back to annoy you until you kick me out.”

  The woman let out a soft laugh, before turning back to her tidying.

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, I’m nearly done.” She closed a drawer, then brushed dust off her clothes. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking of giving you a gift.”

  “What for?”

  “To celebrate. You officially becoming my apprentice.”

  Shouldn’t that sort of thing be saved for graduation, not the very first day? Viktor thought. “I already said I’d keep coming back. No need to bribe me.”

  “I just... really want to give you a gift,” Alycia said. “But I don’t know what you like, so I’m asking.”

  “Gold, then. I’d be happy to take some of your coin.”

  [Master...]

  What? Instead of some useless trinket, I’d rather have money to buy what I actually want.

  [You should take her feelings into account.]

  It was weird, being lectured on feelings by a Dungeon Core. Shouldn’t the receiver’s feelings matter more when it comes to gifts?

  Alycia had a very complicated look on her face. “If that’s what you want then I don’t mind, but... I prefer to give you something I made myself.”

  Great, what was he supposed to take now? Another bomb? So that he would have one ready to use when needed instead of having to steal from her again?

  “You once said that you were impressed by my mechanical birds,” Alycia said, picking up a small metallic cylinder from the table. Viktor recognized it immediately, the item she called the rotator. “So I was thinking of making a new one for you. Unfortunately... I don’t have enough parts for that.”

  Well, actually, after she explained to him how those flying toys worked, he had lost all interest. That whole mechanism ran on pure insanity.

  “What do you mean you don’t have enough parts?”

  “I told you before, didn’t I? The core components were the wind gems produced by the Mourning Woman. But that Reliquary is the most prized among Arstenia’s treasures. Civilians are not supposed to get their hands on those gems. I got some thanks to Lord Manfred, but my stockpile’s long since dried up.”

  “I see.”

  Viktor walked to her side, resting his hand on the table’s edge as he gazed at the pile of rotators. These leftover parts weren’t enough to build another bird, and by themselves, they were useless. They could spin as he commanded, yes, but tiny as they were, there was little use for them.

  Wait.

  “Can you make a bigger one? This big.” His hands sketched a shape in the air. “Stuff all the remaining gems into it. Make a rotator that can produce serious torque,” he said, mildly impressed with himself. He couldn’t believe he had actually used that word in a conversation.

  Alycia blinked. “It’s... possible. But why?”

  “It’s a secret,” Viktor said with a grin. “But that’s the gift I want. So make it for me, Master.”

  “All right. Casting the case and components might be tricky, though. I don’t think any smithy in Daelin can manage it. I’ll probably need to put in a custom order from Iskora. That will take time.”

  “No problem. I can wait.”

  [What are you planning, Master?]

  It’s the ballista, Celeste. If we can get a device that can rotate on its own, something powerful enough, then we won’t need Sebekton to man it anymore.

  [I see. But how can we make them work together?]

  Yes, we’ll need to connect the rotator to the ballista somehow. Some sort of interface. A gear train, perhaps. Again, Viktor felt smug for a moment. Another technical term used correctly. And figuring out how is Kazyk’s job.

  After all, that was the whole point of having subordinates.