140. Wimpy Wimpy Petter

Serac clambered over the wall, then immediately shut off [Metabolic Shift]. Fending off Rodrin had eaten into her [Satiety], now leaving just a quarter of the creamy-orange bar. But there was another matter that required the most urgent attention.

"Chef?"

Right on cue, a pale-faced mackerel man rushed over to Serac's side, [Ulvknall Liver] already in hand—the very last slice in Team Serac's supply. Serac took it gratefully and chewed at record speed. The benefits were three-fold: stanch the [Bleeding], grant 20 seconds of [Regen], and 'heal' about a quarter of the [Satiety] gauge, thus bringing her back to about half-full.

With that out of the way, now it was really time to pick up the pace. For fending off Rodrin had also been as loud as costly, and Serac had no way of knowing how long she could remain undetected. Luckily for her, at least the entry point appeared to be deserted.

The Queen's private room was surprisingly similar to the one Serac herself had been given, both in its shape and size. It even looked to be a good deal more spartan, with not much furniture other than a simple desk and the rolled-up bundle of a Nether-kelp bed. In fact, the only thing really fancy about the room was its balcony.

Serac didn't know what she'd expected, but it hadn't been this. Moreover, she was overcome by a powerful sense of déjà vu. She herself had spent much of her life stuck in a room a lot like this one. Stripped of all creature comforts, and containing only the bare minimum required to while away the hours between one torment and another.

Not for the first time, Serac was struck by what she had in common with the Rakshasa queen, but now really wasn't the time for it. For it was their differences that had brought them into this situation—the driving force behind Team Serac's mission. Onwards then, to search for Renate's whereabouts.

Here again, division of labor seemed to be the most sensible method. Serac went straight for the desk while Petter roamed and scoured every inch of the room. It only made sense for the Rakshasa to work with something she could read with her eyes, while the Yaksha looked for clues potentially hidden in the ripples.

Loha must've been confident that no one in the palace would dare raid the Queen's chamber, for she'd done little to hide the documents that had passed between her and her co-conspirators. Not only that, but many of these notes and letters were written in the Common Meruvian Vernacular, the same language used by Pathsight and therefore legible to all Wayfarers. This held true even for a Serac Edin, whose only education had consisted of familiarizing herself with various torture devices.

It almost feels too easy? The thought did cross her mind, but she pushed it aside in the interest of urgency. Even if the sneaky approach turned out to be a dud, she and Zacko could still pivot to what they usually did best. Strictly speaking, given the obstacles they'd encountered thus far, they were already halfway there.

"Lots of letters from Palmr Jorgensen, like we expected," she muttered now for her own benefit as much as Petter's. "Much of it seems innocuous; just stuff about restocking the kitchen. But there are several mentions of something called 'emerald syrup', which I assume is code for the Realmtree Dew. Eh, Petey? What do you reckon?"

"H—huh? Y—yes, Miss, I reckon you're right."

"Hmm, then there are these other notes that she seemed to have kept for herself. A few words I can make out here and there, like 'bellows', 'temperature', 'pump', and 'siphon'… but all the rest of it uses these strange symbols. I guess Loha did take some precautions on the chance someone might try to read these, hey?"

"… Y—yes. W—whatever you say, Miss."

Despite the urgency of her task, Serac couldn't help but glance up at Petter. His stutter was back, which meant he was either nervous or distracted. Judging by his pale face and fidgety feet, it was likely both.

"Petey?" Serac decided to verbalize her earlier misgivings. "Is everything alright? What's on your mind?"

Petter stopped his fidgeting, then looked to Serac with a kind of forlorn misery. The latter's concern turned to alarm, as she was suddenly reminded of a deeply unpleasant memory. For Petter had worn the same expression once before, when he was callously and brutally mocked by a catfish businessman.

"I don't know what I'd expected," the mackerel exclaimed, clearly distressed. "That I'd made something of myself just by becoming a Wayfarer? Like I'd flick on a match and instantly become a different person? I'm still the same old Petter Svensen. A good-for-nothing coward. A freeloader, as Mr Palmr once—"

"But you're not—"

"I am, Miss! I know you mean well, but a lie is still a lie. Just now, I watched you and Miss Rodrin from the safety of the balcony and did nothing. I knew I ought to help, but when it got down to it, I just… lost my nerve. You should just go on without me, Miss. I'll only hold you back. After all, I can't do anything without relying on—"

That was when Serac slapped Petter, open-handed and right across his face.

[43!]

Serac inwardly winced. Her improved [Substance], together with Petter's inferior Physical Mitigation, meant that the slap attack had hit him a little harder than it'd done Zacko some two months ago. She couldn't lose her nerve, however… not with the mission hanging in the balance.

"Well, I'm relying on you now!" she yelled in Petter's face. "So snap out of whatever funk this is and focus! Oh, and one more thing: don't you ever call me a liar again!"

Had she overcooked it? It certainly appeared that way for the first Ksana or two after her outburst, as Petter's lips quivered and his round, stricken eyes brimmed with tears.

But then the mackerel chef gave his own face a rough rubdown, and his tears went the way of his miserable expression. For the Yaksha who looked up at Serac again did so with clear eyes and tightly drawn lips. Maybe not quite a fledgling just yet, but the hatchling was nevertheless growing before Serac's eyes.

"Good," she said, much gentler in tone. "Now, if you've got a second, come and help me make sense of these, er, drawings."

Among Loha's personal notes—those filled with indecipherable hieroglyphics rather than the CMV—were several pages that contained no words at all. The first such illustration was instantly recognizable: a vertical rectangle, 'crowned' by a mushroom cloud and 'rooted' with multiple, slender extensions.

"That's gotta be the Realmtree, right?" Serac resumed her muttered commentary. "And look at these arrows drawn on the Trunk. Or are they inside the Trunk? Whatever they are, they all seem to be pointing up."

"Is that what's meant by 'pump'? Some kind of mechanism to pump the Realmtree's internal reservoir up towards the Crown?"

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

As Petter said this, Serac's attention fell upon one of the 'roots' in particular. It was in the very center, noticeably broader and longer than the others—notable also for the fact it was filled in with black ink. The taproot.

"I'll bet you anything that this filled-in portion represents… er, represented Mulaharta," Serac mused out loud. "And the fact Mully's in this picture at all must mean it served an important function in this here 'mechanism'. We all assumed it was just a worm that ate the Realmtree hollow, but could it have also been spitting stuff back out?"

"Spitting what out? And why?"

"Look at this."

Serac spread out a second page, one that featured an array of smaller diagrams. Most of them made no sense to a pair of laysouls… except for one.

It was a single leaf, missing one evenly-shaped corner as though it'd been eaten by a precise and fastidious caterpillar. From this missing corner extended a teardrop figure—obviously meant to represent a liquid of some description. And the kicker: a bucket-like object to catch this teardrop for 'harvest'…

"The Realmtree Dew," Petter murmured, drawing the same conclusion as Serac.

"I think so. It's just the obvious connection to make, isn't it, given everything we know about Queen No-Chill? I'll bet you the purpose of this 'pump' is to extract—no, 'siphon'—as much of the Realmtree Dew as possible—in greater amounts and a lot faster than what's naturally feasible."

"Is that what really caused the withering?" Petter joined the guessing game. "But… by that logic, the whole tree would wither, and not just the Roots."

"And maybe it would have. Maybe it was only a matter of time before the withering reached the Trunk. Then the Stammers would've really had something to worry about."

"But… why?" Petter asked again, now frowning in consternation. "All for some petty vendetta against her husband's bastard child? For that, the Queen would hollow out the entire Realmtree… put all of Pretjord at risk of starvation?"

And as Serac pondered the differences between herself and the Rakshasa queen, a familiar answer floated into her mind. Because she could. She sensed it wasn't the whole answer, but at the same time, she realized it wasn't far off.

For yet another memory had come to her while she examined the Queen's drawings. Taken together, the individual diagrams appeared to be parts of a larger, cohesive whole. A blueprint. Much like something an architect might draw…

Along with the recollection, Trippy Version One's contemplative words rang anew:

I'm in awe of the intricate craftsmanship that went into constructing this prison. It's artful is what it is. Whoever was the original architect of the Damnatorium clearly had a bold vision and the means to follow through in spectacular fashion.

A chill ran down Serac's spine, simultaneously as her right temple pricked with warning. The puzzle she'd been working on ever since her first meeting with the royal couple—nay, ever since she first heeded the ripple-borne call of an ascended Hellspawn—was finally coming together.

Bellows. Temperature. Pump. Siphon. DIAPHRAGM. FURNACE. Vision and follow-through.

A Dew-harvesting mechanism inside the Realmtree, one that threatened to turn an entire population of Yakshas into Starvelings. An intricate shrine to torture called the Damnatorium, one that had, over centuries, turned an untold number of Rakshasas into Frenzied Penitents. Could it be that the two shared the same architect?

But the question remained. If anything, it loomed ever lager. Why? Why? Why? Because she could? No, that wouldn't cut it. Not when there were literal centuries of kinship, fellowship, and love at stake. Then why?

Because this is her Path. Serac mused again, but kept it to herself. And this is the only way Loha knows to keep going.

Despite the urgency of her task, Serac couldn't help but feel as though time had stopped. She lifted the page with the leaf drawing, turning it over just to remove it from her vision.

That was how she and Petter came upon the third page. Back to a single illustration, and a familiar one again, thanks not to a life-sized reference but to the simple fact that Serac had seen a drawing almost exactly like it—just earlier this morning, in fact, drawn into the dirt by her partner in crime.

"It's the Apical Bough, Petey," Serac murmured absent-mindedly, still not quite recovered from having 'completed' her puzzle. "Looks just like the one you drew. Guess you did a pretty thorough job of—what was it?—recon, huh?"

Petter ignored Serac's quip, to instead stare closely at the schematic, with one scaled finger tracing the lines and circles. It occurred to Serac that he too was taking stock of similarities and differences—between Loha's drawing and his.

Then, without a word, Petter jumped away from the desk and ran, back towards the balcony. Serac was caught between two minds, whether to stick to their division of labor or to sate her curiosity. After only a brief moment of indecision, curiosity won out. She followed Petter onto the balcony, where the mackerel now knelt over the amber floor, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"What is it? What did you find?"

"Shh!"

Serac took a step back, startled by Petter's welcome but sudden assertiveness. She realized that her friend was in the midst of a finely tuned ripple-read, so she gave him a wide berth and let him work.

As she waited, she pondered what might lie beneath this balcony of petrified sap—King Tyr's wedding gift to his Rakshasa queen, and the only discernible luxury in her room. It was, as Serac had experienced first-hand, held up by about a hundred feet of support, built from the nearest branch below. Could it be that this branch too had been excavated, thereby offering passage into the Realmtree's hollow center?

Not long into his read, Petter moved again, with SHAKER this time, pouring a layer of fine crystals onto the amber floor. He must've found what he was looking for, and Serac was deathly curious of what it might be, but then—

"Your Majesty?"

A muffled voice from the other side of the room! A servant? Or perhaps a soldier here to check on their queen?

"Pardon my intrusion, but I must ask—are you well? It's just that we've been investigating the source of a commotion, and it seems to have come from this room. Do—do you require any aid?"

Serac froze with indecision again, this time caught between waiting on Petter or dealing with the new 'threat' swiftly. She ended up taking the middle road, unholstering REVOLVER where she stood and aiming it at the door.

"Queen Loha? Is—is that a no? Or… are you unable to speak for whatever reason? If—if it's the latter, then I…"

The soldier was hesitant, but he also clearly knew that someone roughly Rakshasa-shaped was inside the room. Damn these Yakshas and their ripple-reading… No privacy at all! Serac would have to act sooner rather than later, but she really hated the idea of confronting an Anchored soul. Petey, please… whatever you're doing, hurry it up, will ya?

[MATCHSTICK Spell: HEAT SOURCE]

And just in time! Serac heard a soft 'crack' and a faint 'pop' at her feet. Looking down, she saw that the balcony floor was now in need of repairs, namely due to a hole that was just large enough to fit a slender Rakshasa woman or perhaps even a skinny mackerel man.

This in itself wasn't surprising, given what Serac had already theorized. What did surprise her was that the hole kept going. Deep 'underground'—perhaps even the length of the whole wall.

And that wasn't the only sign that the hole was 'Yaksha-made'—that it'd been there long before a MATCHSTICK-wielding chef had cracked it open. For its walls had been smoothed down, with one side in particular lined by wooden planks that could easily serve as footholds or handholds.

A ladder.

Serac gulped in anticipation. Had it all gone a little too smoothly? Should her proverbial hackles be up for the possibility of a trap? An ambush? But the consideration was moot at this point, for a clear and pressing danger was already knocking on the door.

"P—pardon my impudence, Your Majesty, but I'm left with no choice. I'm coming in!"

Serac didn't need any more encouragement. She stepped onto the 'secret ladder', with Petter following close behind.

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