He was a well-built man, skin a rich sable brown, hair shaved around the sides and twisted into finger-like ropes across the top. A trimmed beard was slightly longer at the chin, which combined with his narrowed stare and solemn expression gave him a saturnine look. His dark emerald robes were clean and meticulously patched, and he thumbed at a beaded necklace in one hand.
“Welcome to Camp Manticore,” he said, voice low and dry. “Like Dameon said, I’m Jadon, a Flame Vault. Guess we’re walking around and taking a tour today.”
They all fell in as a pack behind him, with Scorio and Jova at the front. Jadon blew out his cheeks and looked around. “Guess we might as well do a little introduction first. Camp Manticore’s been here going on three years. Built on the ruins of every other base camp that’s been used and abused and abandoned since time began. You pick a random spot and dig, chances are you’ll turn up something from ages past. This place don’t look like much, but it’s old. We never leave it empty. Even during important missions in the Chasm, we have to leave someone topside or the fiends’ll come in and ransack the place. My guess? You’ll be pulling a lot of topside duty for the foreseeable future. Let me show you the shaft.”
They left The Sloop bobbing in the wind and headed into the center of the small camp. The buildings were as varied as they were dilapidated: some were built out of weathered blocks of gray stone, placed cunningly so that they didn’t need mortar, with huge lintels over each door. Others were wattle and daub, little more than huts whose walls were woven branches over which mud had been splattered and left to dry. Everything was single story, and there were no streets to speak of, just paths wandering from door to door.
The center of the little camp, however, was a mess of scaffolding, ropes, and a crane wheel set beside a massive shaft large enough to lower ten people into. Buckets and broken crates were tossed about, ruined equipment lay in piles, and two of the new Great Souls had returned here to work on the crane arm that extended out over the shaft proper, replacing a long support pole with a freshly carved one.
“Watch out for the shaft now,” said Jadon, stopping a couple of paces from its raw edge. “You fall in, you’ll go mad before you hit the bottom.”
“You lower a platform to descend to the levels?” asked Lianshi.
“That’s right. Either you descend with your own abilities, like Evelyn can or some of the rest of us, or you go down on the platform. It’s slow but it’s safe.”
Scorio couldn’t tear his eyes away from the shaft. It exhaled a constant cool air, damp and tinged with a faint medley of different mana types, like an open grave or an invitation to perdition.
“This here’s the main square. That big building there? The hall. We eat there, meet there, and when it’s raining, we train there. That building there is the stockroom and pantry. Never leave the door unlocked. Those four buildings are dormitories, each can take ten. Not sure where Dameon’s planning to stash you, but I’m sure there’s a corner somewhere.” Jadon looked around as if at a loss as to where to take them next. “Guess that’s it. Oh. Don’t muck around at the waterfall’s edge, either. It’s slippery. Few years back we had a caravan come through. Bunch of fools. They went to bathe on the rocks and one man fell and was sent flying out over the edge. He’s probably still falling to this day.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” grinned one of the two workers, a lanky man with ivory skin and an undulating mane of black hair that he kept tucked behind two lug ears. “Still falling my arse.”
Jadon raised one eyebrow in disdain. “Hyperbole underscores the importance of the lesson, Valt.”
Valt simply shook his head, still grinning, and returned to his work.
“Let’s get you some food,” said Jadon, and led them around the shaft to the large building. It was single-storied like the rest, but its white plastered walls rose high and inside its raftered roof was easily twenty feet above the roughly paved floor. Two long tables ran its length, while a dead hearth was set at the foot. A smaller table was set perpendicular to the others, forming a horseshoe shape, and there was no need to guess who sat up there during meal times.
There were no servants. Jadon pointed out water buckets that were fetched daily from the river and explained that whoever emptied a bucket had to refill it. Wooden platters were stacked on shelves, and Jadon returned with several loaves, a haunch of cured meat, and told them to ladle cold soup from the cauldron set over the ashes.
For the next thirty minutes, everybody busied themselves with eating; they sat across from each other on one table and exchanged impressions, occasionally glancing at Jadon who’d removed himself to sit cross-legged by the hearth and meditate.
Finally, the heavy wooden door was knocked open and Dameon entered, laughing and with his arm around the shoulders of a slender woman. She was strikingly beautiful, and for a moment Scorio forgot to continue lifting his spoon to his lips. Young, tall, with a thick belt of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her pale cheeks, she wore her flaxen hair pulled into a long ponytail but for the front where it fell to frame her face. Her eyes were a vivid malachite green and when she met Scorio’s stare she quickly looked away.
Others followed in behind, including Davelos, and a number of them carried baskets of vegetables and platters of fruit.
“Has Jadon made you feel at home?” asked Dameon, drawing his arm back and moving to the head of the tables. “Lissander, did you bring the white ale? Pour me a cup, will you?”
The question proved rhetorical; Dameon and everyone else settled down like a flock of ravens coming in to roost, and soon the hall was alive with shouts, laughter, insults, and the sounds of jaws working.
The freckled woman sat at the table opposite and ate with poise and delicacy. Of everyone present, she seemed the only one who wasn’t starving.
“So,” said a rough-looking man around a mouthful of smoked sausage and cheese, his pale skin reddened as if by a recent burn, great spade of a frizzled beard rising and falling with each chomp. “Dameon said you were a part of all this, eh?” He was staring right at Scorio. “Confabulatin’ with the White Queen, confoundin’ the Autocrats, and makin’ big waves with the people of Bastion?”
A woman down the side pointed at Scorio with half a roll. She was brutally built, as muscular as any man, her short blonde hair pulled into a rough tail and her tawny cheeks speckled with pockmarks. “The same Scorio that fought Imogen the Woe? That right?”
Everyone was staring at him now, most of them still chewing industriously. “That’s right.”
“That’s right,” repeated the bearded man, sitting back and turning to his friends in amusement. “Cool as a sadlark slipping into a corpse. And you’re just a Tomb Spark?”
Scorio felt his cheeks begin to burn and lowered his spoon. “I’m a Tomb Spark, yes.”
“Well, will you look at that?” The man’s tone was playful, but there was no denying the edge to it. “I wonder what you think of the rest of us? We poor Tomb Sparks and Flame Vaults who ain’t mixed it up yet with a Charnel Duchess or revolutionized nothin’?”
Dameon was watching with a grin, clearly enjoying himself.
Scorio stood up. “I see what’s going on here. Want to get this over with?”
The bearded man sat back in mock surprise. “What? You all offended already?”
“It’s just painfully obvious. You didn’t even wait a minute before coming at me. So let’s cut to the chase. What was it you were hoping for?”
“Ooh, he’s up for a scrap. What do you think, Dameon? Should I accept this challenge?”
Dameon shrugged. “Long as nobody gets seriously hurt, it’s fine with me.”
“Well, all right then.” The other man stood up. “Name’s Sam. Tomb Spark, just like yourself, but I ain’t been to as many fancy parties. How about a basic brawl? No powers, just what your Heart can give you?”