Chapter 11.3: The Vigil's Findings

His first night at the Vigil Keep, Ventyr had had the blessing of exhaustion to bring him sleep. The second night, though, lacked rest almost entirely.

Housed with a small group of other captains and sergeants on furlough or in transition from one assignment to another, he found himself the only one awake, several hours before the sun came up. As he stared up at a ceiling he couldn’t see in the utter darkness of the stone room, he heard the subtle sounds of life around him, shifting sheets and the occasional footsteps of a guard in the hall.

My information is now in the hands of the warmasters, he thought. They were the ones with the most ability to help, all the resources of the Vigil at their disposal, to finally vindicate the lost: Edward, Gina, Dulf, Alayna, Pypp, and now Braxus. And yet, it had been a whole day, and he still hadn’t heard anything. He wanted to be patient, knew he should be. He breathed deeply.

My information is now in the hands of the warmasters, and they’re working on it, he thought. His situation had waited this long, after all; he could be patient. But as he gazed blankly into the darkness, Ventyr was unable to pry his mind from the faces of the lost and a vague fear for future losses. There was no telling what more of those creatures would be capable of. He halted his thoughts. He was touching fire, and he knew it. He breathed deeply, letting the connection wane.

My information is now in the hands of the warmasters, he thought. I can trust them to find answers. But answers couldn’t take away the memories; he’d seen the carnage firsthand. He’d cleaned it from the bloodstained dirt of the moors, collecting the possessions and pieces of men and women he’d known, served with, lived with. He’d traveled halfway across the continent for them. Ventyr knew he’d done his part, and he’d do it again if it was necessary, but he was angry. He burned. And when he let himself, Ventyr felt like he was the only person who understood the urgency of the situation, like no one else was paying attention.

He couldn’t see the hairline tendril of smoke rising from the corner of his blanket, but he could smell it. He was touching fire again. He breathed deeply, and it went out. My information is in the hands of the warmasters, he thought again. They will have answers. They must.

That was Sergeant Ventyr’s lot until the sun rose over the horizon and started peeking down into the handful of light shafts built into the ceiling of the room.

Since they’d been traveling, he’d not had many opportunities to separate himself and intentionally connect with the elements. Outside of combat, he wasn’t sure he’d touched anything but fire since the party had set out from Divinity’s Reach. However enlivening it always was, it took both time and energy to do any serious exercises in the four elements, and he hadn’t had much of either to spare since they’d left. But, now that they’d stopped, and he was forced to wait—well, it seemed he had both.

Rising from his mattress, he dressed himself in a light tunic and loose woolen trousers and made his way up the spiraled stairs toward the open air on the ramparts above him. He didn’t need clothes for any practical reason, especially not clothes meant for exercise, but he wore them still. And why he’d grown to prefer the feel of human garments to the living attire of his own people, even he didn’t know.

He made his way across the keep, down the ramp, and into the hills just beyond, glowing gently in the barely waxing daylight. In a little knoll just out of sight from the keep, he found what he was looking for: earth, air, and privacy. He closed his eyes, exhaling his frustrations.

Digging his bare toes into the loose dirt, Ventyr let his thoughts halt. He drove his mind into the ground below him, letting himself tendril out into the earth and stone around him. He felt for what was nearby. It was moist dirt all around, just below the surface, most likely remnants of a recent rain. There were large slabs of stone a ways underfoot, fragments of the mountains’ roots, but those weren’t what he was after. It was the dirt, the perfectly softened dirt.

Reaching downward, he cupped his hand and scooped back upward, straining as though lifting something invisible and impossibly heavy. The earth before him vibrated for a moment then spouted upward, like a geyser of soil bursting from under the grass and piling back onto the surface of the ground.

His eyes remained shut as his left hand joined in the effort. Slowly, methodically he pressed the air between his hands, and as he did, the pile tightened and erected, compressing into a solid cylinder of earth that could bear its own weight.

He opened his eyes and let his hands fall to his sides for a moment. Now he could take to the real exercise.

His hands returned to work before him, slicing patterns in the air with an artist’s precision as his feet moved him around the cylinder. Sections were shaved off and fell to the ground.

He did this for minutes, perhaps hours. He’d lost track of time. But that was how his practice with earth had always gone, since the first day he’d experimented with the element. Where fire was often born of his anger and magnified it, and air had a tendency to worsen his impatience, the stable beauty of earth would root and calm him, teaching him both the greatest patience and finest control. It was stable, solid, and it made him so too.

When he finally lowered his hands and stepped back, he sighed. It wasn’t his best work necessarily, but it was very clearly an image of the Grove. He’d found in years past that when he was least at ease, he’d often sculpt the Grove, his birthplace, and the only place he’d seen in all the world that exhibited the peace he wanted for Tyria, for himself.

For at least that hour or two, Ventyr had forgotten all about his mission, but as his eyes rose to the sun now entirely over the horizon, it all flooded his mind once more. He shook his head.

Widening his stance, Ventyr put his hands together over his head and drove them downward in front of him, as though pushing a post into the ground with his bare hands. In one swift motion, the sculpture collapsed back into the hole it had sprung out of, followed quickly by all the dirt that he’d shaved off the sides. He could sense it refilling the pockets he’d collected it from below, and like that, the knoll looked exactly as it had, as though nothing had ever been there.

With a sigh, Ventyr turned and walked back up the hill toward the keep.

When he returned to the junior-officers’ quarters, he found it almost empty, with the exception of a human captain who’d just been released from the infirmary after a bad encounter with a tribe of Jotun in the north. Ventyr nodded a greeting to the young man as he made his way to the back of the quarters to rinse himself down at one of the basins. By the time he’d finished, the human had left, leaving Ventyr alone to walk back to his bedside stand and change into his regular uniform.

The thick strips of studded leather that hung from his shoulders and draped over one side of his woolen breeches were a welcome weight, making him feel almost himself again. After so many days of traveling under the guise of a merchant, it was a relief to be back in that charcoal and silver uniform, to again physically bear the duty he’d been bearing all along in every other regard. He looked down at himself one last time as he buckled his belt, straightened his tight leather tunic, and made for the door.

When he reached the central headquarters of the keep, he greeted the crusaders on guard, flashing his seal as clearance, and proceeded toward Warmaster Efut’s door. His eyes wandered around the room as he went, taking in the immaculate, circular room that was as decorated as the soldiers of history celebrated in paintings and statues around the upper story. The columns alone, which spanned from that second floor to the edges of the domed ceiling, were enough to make most people feel small. Soldier as he was though, Ventyr only felt larger at the sight of them.

For a moment he breathed freely. Others had carried his mantle before him, many carried it alongside him, and still more would carry it after him. He was not alone.

He rapped on the tall, carved door.

There was some unintelligible mumbling inside before the warmaster’s voice spoke up. “Yes, what is it?” He slowly opened the door and stepped into the room. “Oh, Sergeant Ventyr,” she observed curiously. “I didn’t call for you.”

“No, ma’am,” he said, raising his fist to his chest in salute.

She responded in kind, releasing him from the gesture. “Then, what are you doing here?” the asura asked.

“Ma’am, I wanted to check in on—” he paused, now recognizing the other three in the room: a norn woman leaning passively in the corner, a round charr with spotted markings, and a pale-faced human male in the garb of a records-keeper. “I wanted to see if there was any progress on— yesterday’s matter.”

“Yesterday’s matter?” The warmaster repeated incredulously. “You were perfectly fine sharing yesterday’s matter with a pair of civilian travelers, but now you go tight-lipped with a crusader, a tactician, and a warmaster in the room?” Arms crossed tightly, she stood against her asura-sized desk. It would have looked like a child’s toy beside everyone and everything else in the room, were it not for the warmaster beside it. She had a knack for making spaces seem to shrink around her.

“Ma’am, I—”

“Oh, drop it, Sergeant,” she said waving him off, “and drop that ma’am stuff as well. You’ve actually come at an appropriate time—your ears must have been burning. Warmaster Yulia, Tactician Michael, Crusader Rugan, and I were just talking about yesterday’s matter.” She turned her attention to the others in the room. “This is Sergeant Ventyr, the soldier who brought us word from Brisban and carried those shards you’re holding, Crusader.” At those last words, she focused in on the charr sitting on the edge of a red, velvet chair that clearly wasn’t meant for someone his size. “As you were saying?”

Hunched over, the charr raised one of those purple shards to his eye once more. The chair groaned under his shifting weight. “Like I was saying,” he said, in a voice much softer than Ventyr had expected, “it is purple, but it’s not from the Brand. It’s too dark, too heavy, and it doesn’t smell right.”

Efut blinked. “It doesn’t smell right?”

Rugan nodded. “Brand crystals stink something strange, Warmaster. Like decaying saltwater.”

The warmaster shrugged, arms still crossed. “Well, that sounds disgusting—and scientifically impossible. So that’s not a brand crystal. Is it a searing crystal?”

“No,” the human beside Rugan replied suddenly. Michael held out a hand with another crystal shard sitting in his palm. “This is a searing crystal, ma’am.” At the word ma’am, Efut threw him a glance that quieted him for a moment. “I’m sorry, ma’am—” he apologized, “I mean—”

She put a hand to her face. “Oh, just carry on, Tactician.”

“I—” he stammered for a second before looking at the stone in his hand and regaining his train of thought. “This is a searing crystal,” he said. “We happened to have one in storage with a record from two years back. There was a scuffle between a band of humans and some charr sentinels in—”

“Get to your point, Tactician. We’re not interested in a detailed recounting of two-year-old field reports.”

“Yes, of course, Warmaster,” He conceded, bowing slightly. He pointed at the stone with his other hand. “As you can see, this searing crystal is far more translucent than the one the sergeant brought to us. Furthermore, they vibrate differently.”

“Pardon me?” Yulia suddenly asked from the back corner. The tall, thick norn woman raised an eyebrow and stepped away from wall. It was suddenly clear just how tall she was. “Those two rocks vibrate differently? What in the Mists does that even mean?”

The tactician rotated in his chair to see her better. “Yes, Warmaster, they vibrate differently. The asura might say they have different frequencies.” He looked at the charr beside him and gestured to the stone he held. “May I?” Rugan half-nodded and dropped the stone into his hand. It was much bigger in the human’s hand than it had appeared in the charr’s.

One stone in each hand, he held them out toward the norn, who was now coming closer. “If you hold them gently,” he said. “You can feel the pulse of the magics, and they’re quite different.” The man fell suddenly quiet, almost reverent.

Yulia took hold of the two stones and held them out in front of her in open palms. She looked skeptical, but only for a second. Her eyes quickly widened and wonder spread across her face. “Raven, it’s true.”

“Fine, they’re different,” Efut said. She held her hands behind her back and started to pace the width of the room before her desk. “Whatever we have is neither branded nor searing-related. It still killed our people, so what in the Alchemy is it?” It was unclear whether her words were meant for the others in the room, or if she’d entirely forgotten that they were there.

Ventyr waited silently in the back of the room, having never taken a step away from the door. Someone had to have the answer.

Both the the charr and the human shrugged and shook their heads. Michael was the one to speak. “We don’t know, Warmaster.”

Ventyr surveyed the people in the room. That was all the response anyone had to her question. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?” he broke in from the back of the room. All eyes turned to him. “We’re the Vigil,” the sylvari went on. His bioluminescent green glow shown a little brighter, and he felt the air warm slightly around him. “It’s our job to understand and combat the threats to Tyria. I came all this way to help the people of Brisban and avenge our comrades. How can we know nothing about this thing?”

The norn beside him reached out for Ventyr’s shoulder and grasped it firmly. “Calm yourself, Sergeant.” It was unclear if the touch was reassuring or controlling, but it worked, and he went silent.

Efut looked at Michael as if for an answer to the sylvari’s question, but the human only returned her an awkward look and a low shrug. “We’re the Vigil, not the Durmand Priory. We keep records, but only of missions, battles, supplies, casualties—” he trailed off, thinking for a second before looking back up. “Actually, you could send this to the Priory. If anyone knows what it is, they will.”

“No,” Efut replied without a thought. “The Vigil doesn’t need help from that hapless sect of librarians.”

“But if they know anything—” Ventyr began.

“And with their library of lore and artifacts, they would,” Michael chimed in, gesturing in support of the sergeant.

Efut closed her eyes and shook her head. “Fine. Say we did send for help,” she conceded, opening her eyes and looking at Ventyr. “Who would go? You?”

“If I must. I’m already 400 miles from my post. If there’s any way to learn what we’re dealing with out there, we need to act on it.”

Efut flexed her jaw, staring at the floor as she weighed it over. “Crusader, Tactician,” she said, looking up at the two in chairs before her, “you’re dismissed. Thank you for your time.”

A little surprised at their sudden dismissal, the two stood up and each put a fist to his chest before turning and slipping out through the door. Ventyr stepped aside for them and came a little closer to the center of the office. When the door had closed behind them, Efut glanced questioningly at the norn woman now also standing closer. Warmaster Yulia nodded her agreement to whatever had wordlessly passed between them.

“Fine,” Efut agreed. “You’ll go, Sergeant, but you’re not going alone this time. Yulia, how many can we spare right now?”

“Right now?” Yulia replied, pursing her lips. “We could reassign maybe five from the company that just came in from Safewatch.” She crossed her arms and shifted her weight. “We’re pretty thin right now.”

Efut nodded. “So be it. You’ll have five, Sergeant Ventyr.”

“And how many are being sent back to Brisban to reinforce the company there?” Ventyr asked.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Yulia said with a look of genuine sympathy, “but you and your five will be the reinforcements when you’re done with this task. No one else can be spared right now. Korgal should have some new recruits up and running next season, and some of our missions in Sparkfly are coming to an end soon, but nothing fast enough for this.”

Ventyr clenched his jaw. With so many resources at the Vigil’s disposal, he’d never understand how they were so continually unable to find enough people willing to fight to protect their world. “I understand,” he said at last, still tight-jawed. “Then send those five to Brisban, as quickly as possible.”

Efut set a hard gaze on him, as if reining in a dolyak pulling its cart in the wrong direction. “This is not your decision to make, Sergeant. I am not letting you travel the Shiverpeaks with those stones by yourself. After your account of that human highwayman you encountered, we’re not taking risks with this package.”

“Then I won’t go by myself,” he conceded. He was still perturbed, but his mind was snapping puzzle pieces together more quickly than usual.  “I know we have resources for hiring contract engineers, weaponsmiths, and armorsmiths.”

A distrustful expression fell across the small warmaster’s face as she exchanged a look with Yulia. “Yes,” she said, looking back at the sylvari again. “The Vigil’s problem is men, not money. What’s your point, Sergeant?”

“I might know someone we can hire.”