This building was an old harbormaster’s office. A customs house for Port Town, some centuries ago, before the river pushed the shoreline forward significantly.

  It was customary to reward treasure at the end of dungeons. Calaf and Jelena encountered one such gestalt dungeon a while ago where the rewards were themselves another trap. As a church-sanctioned holy place celebrating the Scout from the Ancient Heroes of Yore, the rewards here ought to have been legit.

  Mikail was already looting the place by the time Calaf’s group arrived.

  “What’ve we got?” Zilara asked all matter-of-factly.

  The level-up item here was a box of contraband. Mikail took one and summoned it into his Inventory before Calaf could properly read the description.

  “Here’s another one,” Zilara said.

  “Goanna take it,” Zilara said, then did so. “Never know when it’ll come in handy.”

  Calaf nodded.

  There were a few other trinkets, mostly items of value to church faithful. Mikail and Zilara both took the time to loot the place of these valuables for latter relic-hawking. By the time they pilfered the place, Enkidu arrived with Yonah.

  “Thank you so much for saving me,” the young cleric-aspirant said, to the usual grumbling acknowledgment from Enkidu.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Mikail said to Calaf’s party at large. “C’mon, Yonah. We’re going to see if we can find what’s left of Riordan. Gotta loot him too, give him, I dunno, some kind of burial.”

  Judging by that previous gore bauble, there wasn't enough left of poor Riordan to commit to the crypts. At least his demise was hardcore. It was how he'd wanted to go, is what the group told themselves to avoid the gibbed-into-past demise of their underleveled comrade.

  “I’ll… stay with them.” Yonah clinging near Enkidu.

  “We… operate on the opposite side of the law,” Jelena said. “We’ll take company, but, well, do you want to run with us?”

  Yonah nodded slowly. “E-even coming here this early was Riordan’s idea. And, well, h-he’s gone now. I’d just feel safer in numbers.”

  Again, the Seer shuffled closer to Enkidu, to a knowing smirk from Jelena and confusion from Calaf.

  “Very well.” Mikail saw himself out.

  Now the group stood in a narrow treasure room – a glorified storage closet – with no obvious way forward.

  “Let’s see. The dungeon dedicated to dexterity and agility ought to have…” Jelena knocked on the walls, searching for false walls or hollow spaces.

  Zilara snickered, evidently catching something in her Menu-enhanced sight. Calaf peered at the far wall, guessing where Zilara was looking.

  “I see it,” he announced. “Pressure plate under this book…”

  Calaf took the book into his inventory. It was a collection of church hymns. Anachronistic, as the church was in its infancy when these docks would have been in use. With the book gone, the pressure plate gave way. A false ceiling moved aside, and a ladder fell.

  “Good thinking.” Jelena patted Calaf’s armor affectionately.

  The group let themselves up, one at a time. Yonah arrived last. They moved confident of the fact that there should not be any traps in this area.

  Upstairs was a plain administrative floor otherwise purposefully bricked off at the doorways and all windows wide enough to sneak through.

  A Menu-applicable plaque sat in the dark. Calaf read it out for the unbranded.

  “Here lies the harbormaster’s offices. Fleet of foot Gustavo long called this space his home. Truly, these wharves are most holy and blessed under the Menu.”

  The harbormaster’s quarters contained a side chamber with a cot in an ancient style. The threads were dusty and threadbare with age. Everything was preserved perfectly in stasis. Frozen in time in the instant the last harbormaster left the desk.

  “So, this is where that Gustavo fellow lived?” Zilara asked, frowning.

  “Evidently.” Jelena stroked her chin. “The treasure map said…”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “To seek out his old home. But there’s nothing here.”

  Something wasn’t quite right. The preserved harbormaster’s office was immaculate despite the age. But everything was draped in the airs of officialdom. Paperwork sat on the desk, waiting to be signed. The windows would’ve offered a full three-sixty view of the entire docks before it all got sealed with layers of masonry. The person who lived here was the master of the harbor, true to the title. They would have commanded authority. From this high vantage point, Gustavo would have been a highly visible figure.

  Everything a Scout class was not.

  Certainly everything that a Thief was not.

  “This isn’t his quarters,” Calaf said. “At least, not really. Officially, sure, per church decree. But I suspect there’s something more to the room.”

  Jelena and Zilara nodded understandingly.

  The room was set up this way intentionally. A museum piece for worship. It was a reflection of how the church wanted adherents who made it to the pinnacle of the pilgrimage leveling circuit to think their holy trailblazer behaved.

  “You mean this place is… not the office of our most holy scout?” Yonah cocked her head to one side. “That’s impossible. Why, this space is a church-sanctioned holy zone. That would imply that our deacons and bishops were lying. And that’s – ha – that’s ridiculous! The Menu’s very existence is evidence of its immaculate and self-evident truth.”

  “Heh. She’s talking like your boyfriend used to, Hoss.”

  Calaf scanned the room. So much of it was likewise anachronistic. The paperwork on the desk made it obvious; in those ancient days written records would have come on scrolls.

  “There’s another floor here,” Calaf said. “Or some secret.”

  “Lemme speed this up,” Zilara said with a whistle. “That air duct against the west wall. It’s placed directly under those bricked-over windows.”

  They had Enkidu tear the hinges off this air duct. There was just barely enough crawlspace for everyone to get through. The light coming through the windows above were indeed fake. This didn’t lead outside, but further into the building. Calaf had to unequip his armor. But they went in, Enkidu then Jelena then Calaf, then Yonah, then Zilara as the smallest. Sending Enkidu in first was Jelena’s bright idea – it would confirm that the tallest among them was able to shimmy through here. Everyone who came next would have no problem.

  “Always layers with this place,” Jelena said as she crawled through the duct.

  “Getting’ a nice view?” Zilara asked Calaf, two spots ahead of her.

  “Hmmph.” Calaf pouted but did not respond.

  The ducts led to a dead-end junction somewhere deep in the rafters. A time-ruined cot sat in the corner, dwarfed by collections of contraband of all kinds. It was a messy alcove clearly used for long stake outs and furtive dealings.

  Which is to say, a perfect dwelling for a Scout or a Thief.

  “Breadcrumbs, followed,” Jelena declared.

  A withered diary sat on the bed. It crumbled to dust when Jelena touched it sans the Interface. Zilara threw it in her Inventory long enough to confirm the pages were blank. What remained intact, though, was a bit of scroll patchwork hidden in the pages and folded tight.

  “Guess they built these things to last,” Jelena said. “Glad I didn’t accidentally disintegrate our evidence.”

  Calaf took the scroll into his Inventory and examined it that way.

  The rest of the scroll was written in the archaic officialdom of the church. Even the handwriting was different. But this scribbling pre-script, however, was plain. Maybe the spelling was archaic in a few places but it was not so different than any letter people would write in the current day.

  Zilara and Calaf handled a trade window, passing the scroll to the former for deciphering. Then Calaf returned to scanning the room with Interface-enhanced sight.

  A shaft in the back of the room contained a bridge. A portcullis really. It was held up by a readily visible set of ropes and a lock. Jelena cleared this with another thrown knife, and a false wall fell down, forming a natural ramp into yet another warehouse.

  The group could hear the whirring gears from here. But they followed the letter’s invitation downward.

  Rows of strange mechanical storage boxes full of gears sat interconnected by wires. The architecture here was different. Metal, built to last and keep the rains and river out. Calaf felt as if they’d ventured into the dungeon's guts and were now rooting around.

  “I… wish to go no further,” Yonah said from the ramp. “Going off the church-assigned path. It’s unnatural!”

  “Well, Gustavo’s room should be clear,” said Jelena.

  “Umm…” Yonah tugged at Enkidu’s shirt. “May he… protect me?”

  After stifling a chortle, Jelena nodded. “Sure. Any objections, ‘Kido?”

  “Very well.” He unsubtly but politely shrugged Yonah’s hand off his cuff. “Doubtless you will tell me what narrative-shattering revelations you find down there at our next camp.”

  The remaining three members of the group pressed onward, stepping over wiring and spark-inducing circuits.

  The warehouse full of strange gears converged at a central point. An extra-large clockwork casing appeared dead-center, and before it, a simple pedestal.

  “What does it want us to do?” Jelena asked.

  Zilara shrugged. “The scroll doesn’t say.”

  Even so, the holy child approached the pedestal. “Hmmm. Some kind of station by which we’re meant to interact with this thing.”

  They were treading where no pilgrim had tread before. Of course, nobody knew about that hidden pedestal, and traffic through the most dangerous part of one of the less straightforward dungeons was always lax.

  “It has a receiver of sorts where we’re supposed to talk. And another that may talk back…” Zilara said. “Hmmm. Well, big button here. It’s not of the Interface, but I think it says to press it.”

  They pressed the nodule, but nothing happened.

  “Hold on.” Zilara said, crouching down to take a look under and inside the console.

  Calaf walked between the casings. He peered inside, observing interlocking layers of gears. On the nearest ‘shelf’ there was a mighty lever.

  “Zilara, hands off the pedestal for now. I’m going to try something.”

  “Clear.”

  With a nod, Calaf pulled the lever. There was an internal spark, then a whiff as some gear lubricant was applied for the first time in ages. Then the first casing came to life in a whirring of ten-thousand clockwork pieces.

  The second case, then another activated. Then another. Soon all cases were whirring, the gears fading into a constant but subdued background hum after a while. Steam poured from the roof of every third shelf periodically, venting up to the ceiling by some unknown means.

  The receiver came to life.

  “Prrrrrrzzzzt. Startup checks passed. Memory, passed…” The voice was oddly monotone, crackling unnaturally. Then, “Input and output checks, passed. Buffering. Buffering. Buffering— complete. Playback welcome response A-1: Ahoy, Ahoy. Is this thing on?”