Corvis Eralith
The sensation was… liberating. A strange, giddy realization bubbled up through the constant undercurrent of my dread. I… I feel actually good.
The thought was so foreign it almost startled me.
Navigating the immense, subterranean sprawl of Burim would have been an impossibility without Olfred—a labyrinth of shadowed alleys and crowded thoroughfares carved on a scale that dwarfed even the grandest plazas of Zestier.
But within that impossibility, there was a profound anonymity.
This was a metropolis contained within the belly of a single, unimaginably vast cavern.
From what I recalled of the novel's descriptions of Vildorial, the multi-leveled dwarven capital, Burim felt every bit as significant. Perhaps it was the second city of Darv, or maybe its singular, sprawling level just created a different kind of grandeur—a horizontal majesty rather than a vertical one.
For the first time since my rebirth, I was not Corvis Eralith, Crown Prince and focal point of terrified prophecies. I was Finn Warend, a nondescript dwarven child in a city too busy to look twice.
I... I could be someone normal, not a fraud fooling his family, not a "prophesied saviour" who was afraid of his own shadow. I, I could be a kid.
"You seem to be enjoying this…" Olfred's voice, a low rumble like stone grinding on stone, pulled me from my thoughts.
The observation was flat, but I sensed the faintest hint of bemusement beneath it. He was a man who clearly despised small talk, whose every action was bent toward efficiency. Stopping here, at this noisy tavern, was a concession.
Not for himself, I realized with another small jolt. For me. For the four-year-old he presumed needed rest and sustenance. The rough, cold exterior he projected was a shell.
With that realization crystallizing in my mind another one followed immediately after. I thought of his Fate in the timeline lost to time: executed by Aya in a duel, dying for Rahdeas's dreams. A loyal soldier sacrificed on the altar of a treason he likely didn't fully comprehend until it was too late.
I couldn't let that happen here. Agrona's machinations didn't require the specific pawn of Elijah Knight. The god across the ocean was a master of exploiting existing fractures, of twisting noble intentions into weapons.
If Rahdeas was truly loyal now, he was a prime target for that insidious corruption. My mission to the Red Gorge was, in part, a desperate attempt to find tools to prevent such twists of Fate.
My gaze drifted to the thick, paned window of the tavern.
Outside, one of Burim's narrow arteries was bathed in an eerie, beautiful gloom. Illumination came from the warm, orange glow of forge fires and hearths leaking from countless windows and vents, painting the cobbled street in pools of shifting light and shadow.
High above, fixed to the cavern ceiling like fixed stars, clusters of pale, luminous crystals emitted a soft, blue-white radiance. It wasn't sunlight, of course. It was more of a moon-glow world, a perpetual twilight that felt both cozy and profoundly alien to me.
"It's… good," I finally replied to Olfred, the words inadequate.
The ambiance was oddly comfortable. Here, in this smoky, boisterous hall, no one watched me with the expectant eyes of a subject. No one bowed. No one measured my words for hidden royal meaning or future political implication.
The weight of the crown, a weight I'd never asked for and felt utterly unfit to bear, was momentarily lifted. It wasn't that I hated the palace—the soaring arches of home, the sun-dappled gardens, the quiet corners where I could almost forget the looming future.
What made Zestier home was the people: the solid, loving presence of my family, Tessia's relentless warmth, even Alwyn's fierce, quiet loyalty.
But here… here I was free of the performance. The core of my elven being ached for the green, living whisper of the Elshire Forest, for the scent of damp moss and sun-warmed bark, but this dwarven stone-and-fire world offered a different kind of peace: the peace of invisibility. It spoke to the once-human deep in me.
"But?" Olfred grunted, finishing my unspoken thought with unnerving perception.
"But… I am still—" I caught myself, my eyes flickering around the room at the other dwarves—miners with dust-ingrained hands, craftsmen with forearms like knotted rope, all lost in their own conversations and tankards. "Well, you know."
Olfred simply hummed, a non-committal sound that seemed to hold a universe of understanding.
"Here you have lads!" Mr. Oreguard's booming voice heralded his return. He thumped a massive, loaded plate onto our table with a sound that promised generosity. "Shrooms, roasted tunnel-boar meat, hearth-bread and ale! Everything a growing dwarf might desire!"
I stared at the feast. The portions were heroic, at least double what I was accustomed to in the palace.
The shrooms were thick and glistening, the meat a dark, savory heap, the bread a dense, crusty loaf. And beside it, a frothy tankard of deep amber ale. A new, practical problem presented itself.
Do dwarven children drink alcohol from a young age? My knowledge of dwarven child-rearing customs was, unsurprisingly, nonexistent.
Olfred solved the dilemma with a curt glance at Durzek. "Bring some water for the kid. I'll pay."
Mr. Oreguard's cheerful face clouded. He scratched the back of his head, his fingers disappearing into his wild golden mane. "Now, Damien, boys need to drink beer if they wish to be strong and healthy! Builds character and bone!"
"Durzek," Olfred's voice took on an edge of impatience. "What's the problem?"
The tavern owner's shoulders slumped slightly. "We… we have plumbing problems. Running water has stopped to flow. Has been so for two days. Something's blocked or broken in the main feed for this district. The reservoir's low so we have ale, beer and other fermented drinks, but not water."
Water. The word landed with a thud in the pit of my stomach. Of course.
In a desert kingdom living underground, water was lifeblood, currency and power. Elves, with our forest and natural water mages, could never truly fathom such scarcity.
In the Elshire Forest ruch with rivers, ponds, lakes and other sources, even if a stream dried, a water-attuned elf could summon a new one from the very air.
In Darv with water mages being among dwarves as fire mages were among elves, a broken aqueduct was a crisis. It was a vulnerability I'd never viscerally understood until now, seeing the genuine worry crease Durzek's friendly face.
"Damn," Olfred muttered, a flicker of genuine concern breaking through his stoicism. "Couldn't you have contacted Elder Rahdeas? He has resources for such situations."
"Ehy, Damien, you know how occupied the Elder is with all his businesses!" Durzek waved a hand, his tone defensive. "And there isn't much he can do from Vildorial, still…"
"Maybe he could be hiring a water mage from Sapin, then?" Olfred pressed, clearly annoyed by what he saw as a lack of initiative, or perhaps a lack of faith in Rahdeas's willingness to help.
I cleared my throat, a small sound. The moral calculation in my mind was instantaneous and fraught. I could help.
I was a water mage—one of my three affinities, a secret I guarded as closely as my core. A simple, directed spell to clear a blockage or encourage flow… it would be trivial, or so I guessed.
But the risk was monumental. Revealing myself as a mage, here and now, would shatter my cover. It would paint a glaring, magical signature that Agrona's agents, if they were watching Rahdeas's network, could not possibly miss.
I'd be putting a target on my own back and potentially confirming Rahdeas's involvement with a mysteriously powerful elven child for any observer.
Yet… to sit here, to eat this man's food while his livelihood and home were crippled by a lack of the very element I could command… it felt like a profound betrayal of the decency he'd shown us.
"Oh, sorry, boy," Durzek said, mistaking my cough for impatience. "No worries about the water! We'll manage. But I must ask…" He turned back to Olfred, his expression turning sly. "He doesn't seem your son. And if you had a son, well, we'd be throwing the greatest party in Darv's history! So…" His gaze, magnified and kind behind his spectacles, settled back on me. "Who are you, boy?"
"Finn. Finn Warend," I said, sticking to the script.
Durzek's reaction was immediate and spectacular. He slammed his palms on the table, making the cutlery jump.
"You are related to Elder Rahdeas?!" he boomed, his voice carrying across the tavern. Several heads turned.
"That he is, Durzek. Lower your voice," Olfred said, his hand coming down on the tavern-keeper's shoulder with a weight that was both calming and commanding.
"Again, apologies," Durzek said, chastened but beaming. "The Elder's kin! Here in my humble place! Wait till I tell my Doradrea!"
That's not what I wanted to say, I screamed internally. The path of caution was clear: eat quickly, leave, remain invisible. But the image of Durzek's worried face, the knowledge of his daughter, Doradrea Oreguard—future member of Xyrus's Disciplinary Committee, another name from the ghost-narrative given flesh, and the simple, human need to help warred against my survival instincts.
This could be a test, a twisted one.
If Agrona had already turned Rahdeas, this could be a trap to lure out my capabilities. But if Rahdeas was still innocent, if this was just a miserable coincidence, then fixing this problem wouldn't just be an act of kindness.
It could be a tiny, tangible piece of evidence in his favor. The gamble was terrifying.
"I wanted to say another thing," I said, my voice firmer than I intended.
Olfred's eyes locked onto mine. The look he gave me was a masterpiece of silent communication: a warning, a question, and a flicker of sudden, sharp suspicion all rolled into one. I ignored it.
"Sure, sure. Say anything, boy," Durzek said, pulling up a stool and joining us at the table, his earlier boisterousness replaced by avuncular attention.
"How does the plumbing work?" I asked, trying to sound like a precocious, curious child. "And how would a water mage help? I mean… if the pipes are broken, wouldn't you need a smith, not a mage?"
Durzek's face lit up with the pure joy of an expert asked to explain his craft. "Oh, little Finn!" he exclaimed, his chest puffing out. "Let Uncle Durzek enlighten you on the engineering genius of our people! It's not just pipes and pumps, you see. It's about the source."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble.
"The water that feeds Burim, that feeds all of Darv, doesn't come from some mountain spring. Centuries ago, our ancestors conquered a dungeon—a special one, deep in the roots of the Grand Mountains. Not a beast-dungeon for training, mind you, but a water-dungeon. They cleared it, secured it. And from its heart flows a river. An endless, underground river of fresh, cold water."
He paused for effect, and I found myself genuinely leaning forward, the prince and the reader momentarily forgotten.
"This water," Durzek continued, tapping the table with a thick finger, "is rich with mana. Water-attributed mana. Useless for most of us, of course."
He gestured around the room, at the earth and fire-attuned dwarves.
"But that mana… it leaves a residue in the air within the aqueducts, a… a potential. A whisper of water. The pipes and pumps, they move the physical liquid. But the magic of it, the essence, lingers in the system. A skilled water conjurer," he said, emphasizing the word with reverence, "could theoretically connect to that lingering essence, that memory of the source, and coax it into being. Not just unblock a pipe, but summon water directly from the mana-saturated air within the system itself. They could rejuvenate the entire flow from the residual energy alone!"
"Which means the problem might not be a physical break," I finished, the pieces clicking together with the clarity of my meta-knowledge. "It could be a… a spiritual clog. A buildup of inert stone-dust or a pocket of dead air that's disrupting the mana resonance in the conduit, stopping the water from being 'encouraged' to flow. A conjurer could sense that dead zone and… revitalize it."
Durzek stared at me, his mouth slightly agape. Then a brilliant smile split his beard. He snapped his fingers with a crack like splitting rock. "Exactly! By the Mother Earth's own forge! How old are you, even?"
"Four…" I mumbled, suddenly self-conscious.
"Four!" Durzek roared, shaking his head in wonder. "Just a year older than my Doradrea, and you grasp hydromantic theory like a master! Truly, the blood of Elder Rahdeas runs strong! The boy's a thinker, Damien!"
"Thanks for your adulation, Durzek," Olfred commented dryly, but his eyes hadn't left me. I was talking too knowledgeably. The line between curious child and something else was blurring dangerously.
But the idea was fully formed in my mind now, and with it, a reckless, compassionate plan.
My Pseudo-Mana Rotation technique—the painful, foundational skill I'd developed to feed my ravenous core—was the key.
It was a method of drawing ambient water mana into myself. What if I reversed the principle? Not drawing it in, but using my affinity as a catalyst, as a lens to focus the lingering water mana in the plumbing system?
I wasn't a true conjurer yet; I couldn't create water from nothing. But I could, perhaps, act as a living magnifying glass for the dormant power already there. I could nudge the dormant potential into actuality.
How much water could that generate? I had no idea. But for a single tavern? It had to be worth a try. The risk was still astronomical, but the compulsion to act, to do something good and tangible in this shadow-war of fear and deception, was overpowering.
"Can I see the plumbing system?" I asked, the question bursting out.
"Ehm… sure?" Durzek said, puzzled but amused. "Curiosity is a good trait in a thinker. Follow me."
Olfred let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire cavern above us. He didn't understand my aim, but he clearly saw it as a time-wasting diversion. To him, I was just a strangely intelligent kid fascinated by machinery.
Durzek led us through a door behind the bar, into a warm, steamy kitchen, and down a short flight of stone steps into a cellar.
One wall was dominated by an impressive, if now silent, apparatus: a complex network of copper and bronze pipes, some as thick as my leg, valves, pressure gauges, and a large, bell-shaped pump mechanism.
It was a masterpiece of dwarven engineering, a symphony of purposeful metal now sitting in ominous quiet.
"This is the heart of it," Durzek said, patting a large pipe fondly, as if comforting a sick friend. "The main feed comes in here, branches to the tavern taps, the kitchen, and up to the living quarters. The reservoir tank is upstairs, nearly empty now."
I studied the system, my mind mapping the flow. I needed Olfred out of the room. His earth-attuned senses might detect the subtle shift in mana I was about to attempt. I turned to him, putting on my best wide-eyed, forgetful child expression.
"Damien!" I cried, injecting a note of panic into my voice. "I forgot my… my toy! Back on the table! The little clay one!"
The expression that transformed Olfred's stern features was nothing short of spectacular. It was a perfect, frozen canvas of pure, unadulterated exasperation—eyes widening slightly, mouth tightening into a thin line, a faint twitch in his jaw.
It was a look I'd imagined in comics, not on the face of a stoic Lance. He knew I'd brought nothing with me.
"I can go, Fi—" Durzek began, ever helpful.
I shook my head vigorously, cutting him off. "No! Grandpa Rahdeas gave him the job to look after me! He has to get it!"
I challenged Olfred with my gaze, pouring all my will into the silent plea: trust me. Or at least, humor me.
Olfred held my stare for a long, tense second. I saw the calculation in his eyes: the mission, the timeline, the absurdity of the request. Finally, he rolled his eyes skyward, a gesture so human it was startling.
"Aye," he grumbled, the word laden with long-suffering resignation. "I am going…" He turned and trudged back up the steps, his heavy footsteps echoing his disbelief.
The moment he was out of sight, I turned to Durzek.
"Mr. Oreguard, could you open one of the main valves, please? Just a little? I want to hear if there's any air in the pipes."
"Sure, little Finn," he said, hiding a fond smile. He clearly thought this was adorable childish mimicry. He moved to a large wheel valve and, with a grunt of effort, began to turn it. A hiss of trapped air escaped from a venting spout.
Now or never. I closed my eyes, blocking out the cellar, Durzek's presence, the immense risk. I focused inward, on the dark, swirling pool of my mana core.
I activated my Pseudo-Mana Rotation, but reversed its intent. I turned my awareness outward, not as a vacuum, but as a sensitive membrane, feeling for the specific, cool, flowing signature of water-attuned mana.
It was agonizingly difficult without the enhanced perception of a cheat code like Realmheart. It was like being nearly blind, trying to identify colors by touch alone.
I stretched my senses into the cold metal of the pipes, into the damp air of the cellar. For a moment, there was nothing but the mineral scent of stone and of old water. Then, a spark.
A faint, trembling thread of blue sensation, cool and familiar, like the memory of a forest stream. It was the residual mana Durzek had spoken of, clinging to the inside of the dry pipes, a ghost of the river that should have been flowing.
I latched onto it with my will. It wasn't about brute force. It was about resonance. I was a water-attuned being. My own mana, thrumming quietly in my core, began to hum in sympathy with that faint ghost in the pipes.
I imagined my will as a pebble dropped into a still pool, sending out ripples. I envisioned those ripples traveling down the pipes as a wake-up call, a reminder of what water was, what it did.
I must have looked absurd. Standing stiffly in the cellar, arms slightly extended, face screwed up in concentration. From the corner of my eye, I saw Durzek watching me, his initial amusement softening into a kind, puzzled curiosity. He thought I was playing a game.
The spark of sensed mana grew. It was joined by another, and another. I was gathering the disparate, dormant fragments of water mana, aligning them, amplifying their collective song with my own affinity.
A faint, mist-like coolness began to gather in the air around the pipes. A soft, groaning sound emanated from the metal—not the sound of breaking, but of expansion, of pressure returning.
Then, with a sudden, shocking cough and a splutter, a jet of water, rusty at first, then clear and cold, erupted from the valve Durzek had opened, directly onto his tunic.
"W-what?!" he yelped, fumbling to twist the valve shut, but a triumphant smile was already breaking through his shock.
The water stopped, but the pipes around us now hummed with a healthy, liquid pressure. A distant clunk from upstairs signaled water hitting the empty reservoir tank.
"It works again!" I exclaimed, forcing pure, childlike surprise and delight into my voice while internally cringing at my own terrible performance.
The relief, however, was real. I had done it. I had helped, without a visible spell, without a grand display. Just a focused nudge.
Olfred's heavy footsteps descended the stairs a moment later. He held a small, crudely shaped clay doll—he must have fashioned it himself with earth magic in the tavern.
His sharp eyes took in the scene: Durzek, slightly damp and beaming; me, trying to look innocently amazed; the pipes, now audibly full.
He tossed the doll to me. "What happened here?" His voice was carefully neutral, but his gaze was a probe.
"It seems you bring luck, Damien!" Durzek laughed, wiping his face with a corner of his apron. "The moment you stepped out, the water started flowing again! Must have been a pocket of air in the main line that finally shifted! A lucky coincidence!"
Olfred's eyes met mine over Durzek's head. He didn't believe in coincidences. He knew I'd sent him away. But he said nothing. He simply gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
"We need to go," Olfred stated, his voice back to its usual gravelly command. "And you," he said to Durzek, "are going to have a bit of work in front of you, checking all your taps and refilling your reservoir. So I would like the key for the surface tunnels. Now."
Durzek's expression turned serious, all mirth vanishing. "Oh. You're here for that. You could have said that immediately, Damien."
"And for what other reason would I be in this district, at your door, with the Elder's kin in tow?" Olfred asked, his annoyance flaring again.
Durzek didn't answer. He reached into a deep pocket of his trousers and pulled out a single, long, rusty iron key. He pressed it into Olfred's palm. "The grate is at the end of the western alley. Marked with three yellow stripes."
"Thank you."
"Careful on your way to the surface," Durzek said, his voice dropping. He looked at me, then back at Olfred, his kind eyes serious. "The serpents have been restless lately. More sightings near the old ventilation shafts."
Serpents? My head snapped up, a new kind of dread, primal and cold, trickling down my spine. What kind of serpents lived in the tunnels between a dwarven city and a desert surface?
Olfred's grip on my hand tightened. He didn't ask for details. He just gave another curt nod, then turned, pulling me with him. "We will. Your help is remembered, Durzek."