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Arc F1.8 | Chapter 17: A Question That Will Never Find An Answer

so stupidly reckless she was liable to get herself killed how

List of Things to Ask People About Later

✮ ✮ ✮  Clemence ✮ ✮ ✮

I had to give Emilia’s xphern over to her, the other girl waiting for me to reach her as our group made our way through the path the murder machine had created for us.

I had to give it over, yet, I was afraid.

Realistically, I knew that somewhere between and had passed between when Porsq had been found and now. It hadn’t been that long, and there was nothing Emilia would have been able to do—no bit of information she could have supplied any of her friends to increase their understanding of the situation. Rayleen and Jerrial had supplied a bit, taking Emilia’s xphern from my hands at times to add their own knowledge of the boy to the chat.

Mostly, we all knew that the boy was valuable and in no world would Fräthk be willing to let him escape without a fight. Emilia knowing about Porsq and the situation with her friends, the lawyer, and the little boy everyone thought likely to be a non-dev, wouldn’t have helped. She’d been stuck and stressed and banging her head against the murder machine. In no world would laying more complications at her feet have helped.

Emilia said, startling me out of my fretting. Her hand reached out, nails chipped from everything she’d been through today—or maybe she always had chipped nails? I’d have to watch her more closely later, assuming she didn’t toss me aside as a friend, once she learned everything I’d been hiding from her. As much as she’d taken my black knot in stride, that was only one flake of the secrets I was keeping.

I admitted, adding that there was a new message thread from someone—those were what the most recent bings had been about.

the other girl sighed, not seeming overly concerned that I—and by extension, Vern, Jerrial, and Rayleen—had been keeping things from her.

Our conversation from before, about Emilia likely being a low-dev, came back to me. Perhaps, the Baalphorian girl had come to the correct conclusion: we were only hiding things from her because it wouldn’t have been helpful to tell her?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I could ask—find out the truth. I was afraid to ask.

Vern breathed out as we followed after Rayleen, the woman having vanished into the abyss of the room that was tucked behind the murder machine.

Following his gaze—I had eyes only from Emilia, her own eyes trained on her xphern, a little frown pulling at her lips as she went through messages new and old—I found that we had come to a large room filled with people.

So. Many. People.

Even Rayleen, who had been able to confirm that some number of people were tucked away back here, seemed shocked to have found so many. I had expected a dozen, perhaps two. There had to be at least a hundred. I hadn’t even realized Fräthk had been sending this many people into the dungeons, let alone into a single dungeon.

How many more must be hidden in the other dungeons, dotted throughout the city?

A cough pulled itself up through my chest as the first wafts of the stench of the place reached me. Neither Jerrial nor Vern were particularly pleasant smelling, but they were fresh fruit compared to the people down here. If Jerrial and Vern had been unable to wash themselves regularly, their scent pulled through with sweat and the stench of , these people were covered in the scent of shit and piss, of rot and decay.

It was horrific. Almost immediately, it dissipated a bit, Emilia’s aether swirling around us and pulling the scent into something a little softer—still there, but not so rancid I worried I’d be adding the stench of vomit to the mix… not that that wasn’t already there, the scent of bile mixed in with everything else.

someone called, the woman in question stepping forward to begin talking to the group who seemed to be in charge, everyone around them stepping back to let them speak with Rayleen.

Beyond them, this main room—all hard rock and bare surfaces—branched out into yet more paths, more faces poking out, seeing what all the fuss was about. Most everyone wore threadbare clothes, although some wore nothing at all or little more than underwear.

I examined the people, trying to pull up a thread of the empathy I so often failed to find. I could find a scrap, summoned up from my own inclination to never find myself living like this. I could imagine how terrible I would find living within this squalor; therefore, I could summon a bit of for these people.

I could summon yet more when I imagined my friend down here, suffering as I had no way to reach her, and unbidden, my eyes began to search for my friend—for any feature, coated in grime and misery that reminded me of the smiling girl I’d once considered , would always consider .

Of course, I already knew my friend was dead. It wasn’t something I could explain, this knowledge that she had long ago been killed. I’d felt it, like a splinter through my entire being, the moment she died. Still, I’d let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, I was wrong.

I knew I wasn’t, and when I spotted someone I recognized—someone who had also known my friend, who had so immediately felt like the missing part of my soul from the moment we met, years ago now—I wandered over. The words caught on my tongue as I reached him, my throat unwilling to voice my question—to ask what I already knew.

I asked, the look of remorse in the man’s eyes enough to tell me I had long been correct: Zarthia was dead, and with her, a piece of my soul had died as well.

✮ ✮ ✮

something.

good luck

“I’m sorry,”

“I’m not stupid, you know. With how closely I’ve always watched you, of course I’d know,”