Chapter 8.1: The Ceilings Have Ears

Two more days had passed, and still Skixx had nothing to show for his time or effort. It had been seventeen days since his observance of that sylvari had spurred this futile mission, eight days since he’d left the comfort and regularity of his post at Divinity’s Reach, four since his capture by the bandits, and two since he’d picked up the trail and started following the group again from Stoneguard. Now he was in Ascalon Settlement, sitting in the attic over their room, listening to the group’s conversation and feeling almost sick over how little he’d accomplished in so much time. If it weren’t for Kikka’s ridiculous rule against confrontation, he would simply have firebombed them all in their sleep, chalked up the destruction of the inn to an act of the Alchemy, and sauntered off with the stone shards. But that wasn’t how Kikka wanted it, and she had enough power to make life a nightmare for anyone who displeased her.

At times like these, Skixx had taken to puppeting Kikka with his hand. “And avoid confrontation at all costs,” he mocked. He dropped the act and flailed his hands. “Bah. Moron.”

He heard someone below begin speaking again. Chances were good it was either another conversation about local food from the asura or more moaning about the death of the charr from the blonde human. In the event it was something worthwhile, though, Skixx pressed his stubby ear to the splintery wooden floor.

“Sir, I hadn’t thought about it until today,” the female crusader began, “but it hit me when I noticed that traveler coming into town via waypoint. Why haven’t we used the asura’s waypoints to travel to the Keep? Even now, if we chose to cut our losses and waypoint you and the package instead of walking the rest of the way through Applenook, we’d save at least two days’ travel.”

Though he didn’t like the stocky, blonde one, Skixx had to admit she had a point. He had wondered the same thing more than once. Yes, the sylvari’s decision not to use the waypoints had personally benefited him, but the folly of it was one of many things that annoyed him about the arboreal creature.

“It wasn’t an option,” the sylvari replied.

Skixx could only hear what transpired, but those in the room below didn’t miss each other’s visual responses to Ventyr’s short answer. Jindel couldn’t stop the incredulous expression from forming on her face, and Penny didn’t even try.

“What?” Penny asked. The creak of a bed frame told Skixx she’d set herself on it rather tactlessly. “Blondie actually has a good point. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of it. Why are you risking your neck to walk that stuff across the world when you could just—poof—be there?”

Skixx only heard footfalls as Ventyr strode lightly to the window. He closed the shutters and crossed the room to peek out their door and into the hall. The door creaked as he closed it, returned to the chair in the center of the room, and scooted it across the floor toward Penny. He spoke in a tone so low Skixx could barely hear it.

“First,” Ventyr began, “I am not registered for waypoint travel. Few in the Vigil are. Second, and more importantly, My counterpart in Brisban worried that magical travel methods could have a negative effect on the latent magic in the shards.”

“Latent magic. That’s right,” Minkus mused too loudly. The others shushed him, and he yipped, covering his mouth in surprise. “Latent magic. That’s right,” he tried again, just above a whisper. “Is that also why you didn’t use the asura gate to Lion’s Arch?”

There was no sound, but Skixx could assume the sylvari had made some affirmative gesture.

“What sort of magic do you think it is, Ventyr?” Minkus asked, still keeping his volume hushed.

“Truthfully, I don’t know,” the other responded with a shake of his head.

The blonde one spoke again. “What kind of bad effect would it have, sir?” She was terrible at masking frustration in her voice.

“That I don’t know, either, crusader.”

As usual, the other human Penny had no interest in masking her displeasure. “Please. You’re not going to start with the I-don’t-knows again, are you? You know enough to say that there’s hocus-pocus around those rocks and things could go south with a waypoint, but you don’t know anything about what the hocus-pocus is or how it would go south?”

“Correct,” he said. “I don’t.”

There was silence for a few moments. “Fine, Vent,” the woman finally conceded. “What’s your best guess?”

Ventyr voice held the slightest edge of annoyance. “I told you I would tell you what I know concerning this task and the danger surrounding it,” he started. There was the gentle sound of scraping wood that normally accompanied the sylvari rubbing his brow. “Worst case scenario, I carry the remnants of a new elder dragon’s minion. Best case, they’re bits of some new elemental in the jungle.” Skixx blinked hard, scowling.

“Elder dragon?” the dark-haired woman snorted. “There are only four. Even I know that, and I’m not sure half of them aren’t just made up to scare kids.”

“Penny, I can assure you they’re all real,” Ventyr replied. “And there are rumors in some circles that we’ve only encountered the first of several.”

“Fine,” she said. Skixx could imagine the obnoxious eye-roll the woman was almost certainly giving her friend. “Then what do you think it is: dragon or elemental?”

“I do not know,” Ventyr repeated. The splash of water said he, or someone down there, was pouring a cup.

“If you had to guess?” Penny persisted.

Ventyr replaced the cup on the table, letting the silence hang a moment. “If I had to guess,” he admitted, “it’s my job to guess the worst. That is why I need someone with more knowledge to tell me whether or not I’m right.”

“And to honor your friends that the creature killed,” Minkus added, somberly.

“Yes,” Ventyr agreed. “To discover a new threat would begin to justify their deaths.”

With a grunt, Penny stood and walked a few paces away. Even she had no response in light of what the sylvari had said.

Skixx pinched the bridge of his nose. A new elder dragon? he thought. Imbeciles.

His first guess was that the sylvari was simply lying. In most cases, it was a logical conclusion. However, it seemed quite unlikely to Skixx that this Vigilman was prone to deception—or that he was even any good at it. He was probably telling his cohorts the truth, at least as far as he knew.

The weight of that hit him. These people had no idea what they possessed, which, of course, flew headlong in the face of the report he’d been given at the outset of his assignment. They didn’t know at all that they had Kikka’s power crystals. Suddenly Skixx had to ask himself the same question: did he?

All he had to go on was Kikka’s initial message, which had said the Vigil had raided one of her mobile research teams in Duststruck Moors and confiscated a small collection of experimental power crystals, which she wanted back. He had taken it at face value, especially when Wepp had reminded him that succeeding for Kikka would likely create inroads for them with her and those above her. But now there was a new story: all this about a creature killing Vigil soldiers. Kikka’s tale and that of the sylvari were not lining up, and though the sylvari wasn’t prone to lying, Kikka most certainly was.

After a long silence, Skixx heard the blonde human start speaking again. “So that’s why we’re headed to the Keep—to the warmasters? To determine how bad the situation is?”

“Yes,” Ventyr answered. “Someone there must have answers.”

There you and I concur, Skixx thought to himself. I want answers too. His thoughts began to drift, though he remained with his ear pressed to the floor—a force of habit. He blinked hard and came back to himself; there was much for him to consider, but that was no reason to miss any further information those fools might give him. He focused once more on the four talking beneath him.

Unfortunately for Skixx, the sylvari and his partners didn’t give up any more information that night. In fact, they were only awake for another hour or so. All except one, that was. He assumed it was the black-haired, snarky one. The creak in the floorboards indicated her approximate weight and the graceless stride with which she usually walked. That, and there was an incessant tapping on the windowsill, which fell perfectly in line with her well established propensity for fidgeting. He gritted his teeth. The tapping on surfaces, the clicking of a tool over and over again, the popping of her knuckles, the unholstering and reholstering of her pistol—it was always something with that woman.

In any case, with most of them asleep, there was nothing more for him to spy out. He shook his head and sat up in the darkened attic. He listened to the wind beginning to kick up outside. It whistled gently, scraping at the thatched roof above him.

He rubbed at his chin and then reached overhead to hold the beam behind his head as all the questions came flooding in at once. Why would the Vigil be at all interested in stealing Inquest power crystals? They were a military outfit set against elder dragons, not asura science, and theft wasn’t exactly their modus operandi. And why was Kikka’s request for their assistance sent via a unilateral holographic transmission? That meant Kikka had to record a message for each and every remote cell she wanted to put on the lookout for her lost materials, when she could have simply sent a mass transmission to the entire Inquest network. And if that by itself wasn’t strange enough, why demand the recovery be made without complications? The Inquest was not often shy when it came to getting what they wanted. Then, of course, there was the human bandit who’d demonstrated a keen knowledge of these alleged power crystals. Why would he have any interest in such a thing, or make that odd reference to his ancestors? And to top it all off, the sylvari was now saying these power crystals were fragments of a dragon minion who killed his associates. Why? Someone was lying, but who?

Skixx crossed his legs beneath him, feeling the scrape of unfinished wood beneath his bare feet. In recent years, many asura had taken to cobbling and wearing shoes, slippers, sandals, and boots like the other surface-dwelling races, but Skixx was a bit of a purist. He’d often reasoned that thieving required a light step and tight grip, and shoes had a knack for spoiling both.

He came back to his thoughts. Why, he pondered, would Kikka—the infamously aggressive Kikka—who has nearly all the resources of the Inquest at her disposal, have to resort to deception and intrigue within the Inquest, making up stories and hiding motive and actions—for surely that was the most reasonable explanation? Unless— His eyes narrowed as the possibilities flickered across his mind. Unless she’s doing something she doesn’t want everyone to know about, something she doesn’t want leadership to know about.

Though no one saw it in that darkened attic, a wicked smile inched across Skixx’s face. Whatever the specifics, Kikka was playing at something, and knowing what that was would give him an edge. Edges were what Inquest careers were built on.

For a moment, he debated on timing, but he quickly decided that waiting made no logical sense. First, he had the entire night to do what he would before having to track the group again. Second, with the human female still awake, a theft was currently out of the question. Sometimes besting a wakeful mark was a worthy challenge, but at the moment, it was yet another mistake Skixx didn’t wish to make. And third, as much as he hated to admit it, he would need Wepp’s help if he was going to use this theory to his advantage.

With the silent skill of any self-respecting thief, Skixx crept across the attic, between overstuffed crates and pieces of old furniture worn past their usefulness. He re-opened the slatted vent he’d snuck in through, stepped out onto the narrow wooden trim, and shimmied himself to the edge. With a flip, he was around the edge and standing out on the roof.

He bit his lip. “Do not look down,” he whispered. “Hex you, do not look down.”

The wind was still whistling by, tugging at his hood and the loose folds of his dark overcoat as he shuffled softly across the thatching. One quick leap onto the cliffside the town was butted up against, and in a blink he was already halfway down the stony face and to the ground.The whole way, he whispered to himself, “Just climb, you idiot. Do not look down.”

Once again on solid ground, Skixx sighed his relief and ducked quickly into the shadows against the side of the inn. He hated heights, but it was a part of his job, and he’d learned to master it, just as he had everything else.

Darting from one darkened corner to the next, he made his way through the town unseen.

When he rounded the last corner and saw the waypoint in the northeastern corner of the town square, Skixx stopped. Pressing his back firmly to the wall of another sleepy cottage, he searched the square for anyone who might be within eyeshot. The town watchmen were elsewhere, probably at the gates and along the walls, and while a few of the nearby windows were lit, no one appeared to be visible inside them.

After pulling up his hood in preparation for his arrival in Divinity’s Reach, Skixx pulled a thick, steel disc about the size of his hand from his coat pocket. On its flat face were two sets of buttons, one above and one below a large round button in the center. Shading the device between his body and the wall, he rapidly tapped out a rhythmic series of presses on the center button, which lit up every other button on the object. Checking the town square one more time and deciding it was clear, he sped out under the waypoint, which seemed to respond to the glow of his device with a faint blue light of its own. The stone cube hovering on end overhead split open at the top and bottom points. It glowed all the brighter from its core and began to spin as Skixx tapped a sequence of lit buttons in his palm. In a quick flash, he was gone. The cube reconnected itself and slowed its spin to a halt, as though nothing had ever happened.

Seconds later, on the other side of Kryta, the Divinity’s Reach waypoint at Rurikton took up the same activity. It separated, lit up, and began to spin. With a flash, Skixx appeared, dropping an inch to the cobbles and assessing his surroundings from under his black hood.

An orange cat strode by as the asura materialized. It gazed at the event with leery eyes and continued on without looking back. Few had access to the asuran magi-matter-transportive technology, but no one in Divinity’s Reach was surprised by it anymore.