Interlude – Temple of Artificers
Biminey looked up, cocking his head. The sound came again, the voice of one of Torel calling from outside the complex. He put down the scroll he was reading and removed the glasses. Rubbing his forehead he waited for the headache to go away making yet another mental note to work on the plan for the translation goggles, one that wouldn’t leave him feeling like a foot long spike was being shoved through his head each time he took them off after using them for more than a few minutes.
But without them the scrolls would be nothing more than scribbles and strange alphabets. He tossed the scroll into his pack where it joined a growing selection. The ancient outbuildings of the temple of artificers had proven to be a wealth of information of curious natures of his craft. Reluctantly he’d marked several an collected them but had no plans for taking them. There was only so much space in his pack after all.
Head only pounding now rather than splitting he went outside, grabbing a silvered spear he’d found next to a jumble of parts that had once been one of the spear constructs. Night had fallen while he was reading and the moon shone down giving the courtyard a silvery blue tint. Â He headed to the gate, his feet making soft noises on the heavy stone tiles filling the inside of the temple walls.
“What? I didn’t catch that?” he yelled over the wall.
Torel’s voice came back, “Just checking on you, we’ve found a good place to set up, it’s about 50 yards south, southwest of the gate. Some walls are still standing and give us some concealment but we can still keep an eye on the gate.”
“Great, I’ll find a place in here to get some rest and keep at it! There’s a lot of information here to go through but I’ve found a building that holds a lot of rituals and knowledge that seems to be specifically with the air ships!”
“Fantastic! Okay scream if you run into a problem and we’ll stand here and mourn you appropriately.”
“What a friend you are!” Biminey called back laughing.
“Get to work! It’s cold out here! And there are dark priests!”
“Riiiiight!”
The artificer went back in, the building he was currently rummaging through looked very promising as many of the scrolls held illustrations of various ships and ship components. With a sigh at the upcoming pain, he slipped the glasses back on and continued his search. The hours came and went as he scanned scroll after scroll, the building headache looming larger and larger.
Finally he found it, a set of scrolls outlining how to make field repairs to elemental ships and another set that outlined the control mechanisms. He scooped them all up, hugging them to his chest before storing them carefully into his pack, pulling out several of the others that he’d collected to make room.
Even tensing in anticipation did nothing to prepare him for the shattering white pain that ripped through his head as he removed the glasses and he was literally driven to his knees by the pain. As darkness took him, he though, “Perhaps I won’t wear them so long next time.”
Sun was shining through the windows as he woke up, groggy and disoriented and for a few moments unaware of where he was. Panic set in momentarily before the memories came crashing back. Â His head was pounding still and it was the work of several minutes before he was able to climb to his feet. And several minutes longer before he realized that the sun was slanting in from the wrong direction. It was almost evening again with morning come and gone.
“Biminey!? HEY!!!” called an urgent voice from outside.
He stumbled out, pausing to lean against the door frame. It took a couple of tries before his voice worked and then he replied, “I’m okay!”
“Baphomat wept! For the gods sake man, we’ve been calling all day! Dra’kin lost his little eye familiar trying to see inside and we didn’t know if you were alive or dead!” It was Elisssa’s voice that came back.
“I’m alive! Mostly! Over did it a little and… never mind! I’m okay!”
“Don’t worry us like that! Did you find anything!?”
“Right, found something.” He remembered now what he’d been reading right before he’d dropped and his eyes widened, “Found something?! I found EXACTLY what we needed! Let me collect my stuff and I’ll figure out a way to get out of here.”
Gear in hand he headed toward the gate, a panel on the wall inside that he’d seen earlier glowed with a soft pale light much like the light of the crystalline windows of the tower on the island, the gleaming controls of the air ship and the crystal plaque near the tomb of Larkson. At his command his familiar emerged from from a pouch at his waist and he picked it up and placed it on the panel. The massive gate slowly began to shift open and he walked through it.
His friends stood just out of range of the guardian bolters atop the walls and waited for him. Biminey held up his pack, “Got what we need, well I know what we need to do and where we need to find it.”
“Great, where to?”
“First I need to make you some passes that will get you into the grounds. I found the ritual on how to make a amulet that will get you into the grounds without triggering the defense systems.”
Dra’kin spoke slowly, “And why do we need to get into the temple?”
“Because we’re going to raid the vaults under it of course.”
“Raid the vaults… say that again?”
“I found scrolls that tell me how to repair the damage done to the ship at least enough to get it moving again. For that I’m going to need residium. An ass load of residium. And I’m betting we can find it in the residium vaults under the temple. We’re also going to need an override amulet of control. These are also stored for safekeeping in the vaults under the temple.”
“What’s that do?” Stak asked.
“With that I’ll be able to direct the elementals powering the airship and we’ll be able to fly that bad boy anywhere we want. We’ll be gods damned kings of the world with that thing under our control.”
“Riiiiight…” Torel said rolling his eyes. “Until someone steals it.”
“Or sets it on fire with arrows.” Elisssa chimed in.
“Or he crashes it into a tower.” Stak added.
“Or a….” Dra’kin started to say.
“Enough! I get the point.” Biminey int erupted wryly.
Elisssa snorted, “Someone has to keep you down to earth. So we just waltz down to the vaults, grab what we need and we’re off to save our ship. The ship we don’t know where it is?”
“Exactly. Well maybe not quite that… easily.”
Torel sighed, “So what are we looking at?”
“The amulets I can make should get…”
“Should?!” Dra’kin sputtered.
Biminey continued on, “should get you all onto the grounds and into the main temple. In there we’ll find an entrance that leads down to the vault. I should…”
“There’s that word again…And by the way I need a new eye construct.”
“I should be able to get us through that door without a problem.”
Stak asked, “But?”
“The vaults probably have a few safe guards on them. You know to keep people from doing what we’re wanting to do. On the plus side, the place is falling apart. There are bits and pieces of constructs laying all over the place where they just gave out. The nine spearmen that came out? Those are probably the last working ones. I got this spear from a pile of parts just inside the door.”
Torel held up a hand and started checking off fingers, “So, just to sum up, you get us into the temple maybe. We find the entrance to these vaults. We fight our way past guardians, traps and whatever else they might throw on the pile. That may or may not be working. We break into the vaults. Damn ran out of fingers. Steal the temple’s loot. Figure out where our ship is. Go get it from whoever took it. Fix it. And then you pilot us out home again. Where the city council is probably dying to try and take it away from us not to mention everyone else with a sword and a desire for the power such a ship would give them.”
Biminey grinned, “Yep, that about covers it. So. Are you in?”
Torel grinned back, “Of course.”
