[The Keep] Walking to Skye

[Straken]

“That so?” Ruarc tensed visibly at the mention of the Ard Rhys, but regained his composure a moment later. He seemed to look around to see if there were any other druids around. “I’d have thought he’d be out of town this time of day. That’s quite the chance encounter. And… yes, there is merit in meeting him. He is… a man of ambition, and has dedicated his life to helping the world. By whatever means. There are few practitioners more skilled or more powerful, and Lecturer Engleby himself was the man’s mentor. The Order has prospered under his leadership, but… the more high profile you become and the more he notices you, the more he will expect of you; and turning down an order from the Ard Rhys is difficult.”

The Irishman idly looked off down the curved hall as he stuck his left thumb through one of his belt loops. Looking back at Drysi he had grudging smile on.

“But that’s probably just my own bias of wanting to keep to myself.”

[Kokuten]

”That’s what I meant to say. I didn’t know the words.”

Drysi’s eyes lost focus for a moment as she thought inward to respond.

”What do you mean, Gid?”

”The Archdruid’s eyes said everything Master Flynn just said.”

There was a sense of satisfaction in the back of her mind, she could feel it from Gideon. It wasn’t the sort of satisfaction one felt at getting the better of others. The feeling was a sense of relief. Why Gideon felt comforted by this, Drysi couldn’t tell. The triclops could only feel a little more tension building in her forehead as she realized she may have tried to mingle too high above her station.

But the thought of having such importance appealed to Drysi, and it was hard for her to grasp the caution in everyone’s voices. Perhaps she would know a little better after seeing the kind of person Mastrogiacomo was, and see what the bar for brilliance was among the druids. It could be a target. The next milestone to prove herself. Something about it made her lose sight of what her true goals were, and her mind ran wild with the possibilities.

”Drysi, take a breath.”

Reflexively, she inhaled, realizing her breathing had become flat and shallow as her mind raced. Her ambitions had gotten the best of her, and she had stopped paying attention to the man in front of her. Mr. Flynn was still looking at her, but she could sense that his words were just merely the tip of the iceberg. Her master was like an oak tree, tranquil, implacable, and sturdy, but it seemed like his leaves had bristled in recalling the Ard Rhys. A question formed in her mind, one that she knew she probably shouldn’t ask, but her mouth sometimes moved more quickly than her mind.

“He must expect a lot from you,” said Drysi, with a strange pang of sympathy. She wasn’t sure why the words came out like that at first, but she slowly realized that Ruarc Flynn had probably lived more and harder than likely a good nine-tenths of the druids in Carneath Keep.

[Straken]

The Keeper did not speak for a few long moments, and his eyes seemed distant; as though he were remembering days gone. He had indeed seen things most other druids never would, fought things most Keepers never would, and found himself in a position of favor with the Druid Council that others his age rarely knew; he had fractured his soul, uncovered ancient mysteries, toppled gods, befriended the fey, and started a school. All of that was outside of his responsibilities as a Keeper, and were he to add the experiences he'd gained doing missions for Mealla and the Ard Rhys that list would grow further. All of it made him who he was today, and yet little of it had been of his own choice. One could even say he had stayed in Japan after completing the Caoranach Job as a form of rebellion. As a rule he tended to try and ignore everything that has happened to him and to go on living his day to day life as best he could, but it all became difficult to ignore when someone else addressed it.

"Yes," Ruarc spoke plainly as he turned towards the lab door. Perhaps someday he'd share some of what bothered him, but that was not the purpose of this trip. "Now, let's meet Chief Mastrogiacomo."

The doors to Lab One were made of heavy metal that felt cold to the touch, but they swung open soundlessly with ease despite their weight. The first look inside showed the duo a room starkly different from anything else they had seen in the Keep. The floor appeared to be a single pristine slab of stone and the walls appeared the same way, and even where the two met there seemed to be no seam save for the openings of doorways; almost as though the room were merely a negative space within the stone. The air was colder by at least ten degrees compared to the hall, and everything from the work tables to the electric lights gave off a similarly cold and sterile appearance. Approximately seventy-five feet square in the main room a half dozen druids wearing white cloaks hemmed in goldenrod toiled away in silence at various tables around the lab; each table donned with projects and papers of varying complexity and completion. At the far left side of the room about thirty feet from where they stood at the door was a large corner desk situated to create a partial cubicle. Sitting behind the desk was a woman who appeared to be a little older than Ruarc was, perhaps around her mid to late thirties. She had a small round face, pale olive skin, thin build, and hair so brown it almost appeared black save for a few streaks of grey weaving back over her ears and into a tight bun. She wore large glasses that looked to rimmed in amber, a once-pressed white button up that betrayed a few wrinkles and creases as she had rolled the sleeves up, and a ribbon bow tie that had started the day neat but now sat loosened overtop of her undone top two buttons. Her cloak hung nearby on a hook, pure goldenrod and what looked to be a sigil on the back. If she had noticed the door then she gave no indication as she remained focused on a sketch she was working on.

Ruarc's face had adopted a curious look as he took in the Lab's first impression, and he lingered as he looked at the woman before turning to Drysi.

"That's the Chief," Ruarc whispered to his apprentice as he motioned for her to take the lead.

[Kokuten]

Properly redirected, Drysi found herself in a pleasant center of learning and experimentation. She felt as though her master had more to say, but he had shuffled her into the goal of their little trip. They had arrived, she had arrived, this was likely to be the first of many meetings. Once she grew old enough to be a druid on her own, Mastrogiacomo would be a lasting figure in her life.

But the bravery she felt earlier with the Ard Rhys had bled away. She gave Ruarc a pensive look over her shoulder, before taking a couple cautious steps.

Good impression. Good Impression, she chanted the words in her mind. Just like with the Ard Rhys.

Wooorrggglllggll…

Drysi's stomach spoke up before she had a chance to get the words out. The pang of hunger was intense in light of her prior reaction to transportation magic, and just audible to anyone nearby.

"Fookin' fook." The initiate blushed furiously at what accounted for her first utterance, and tried again before this fell through. Thankfully she had her lines practiced, and they worked well so far. "Mistress Mastrogiacomo. I’m Drysi Llewella Maelgwyn of the 3rd Circle, apprentice of Ruarc Flynn. I’m here to keep my appointment with you."

[Straken]

If Mastrogiacomo had noticed Drysi’s moment of embarrassment then she gave no indication; a druid man of Spanish heritage on the other hand side eyed the door for a moment before going back to work with what appeared to be a series of interlocked metal rings. It was only after Drysi approached that Mastrogiacomo looked up from her sketching, but by feat of skill or some sorcery her pencil continued scratching away at the paper even without her looking directly at it. At first glance she wore what appeared to be a pair of fine leather gloves, but closer inspection would suggest the leather was actually interlocked plates of chitin that formed to her hands in an oddly elegant way.

“Good day, Initiate Maelgwyn. Please, feel free to simply call me Chief. My name can be inefficient to say more than once,” Chief Mastrogiacomo said. Her tone was straightforward despite seemingly making a joke, and bore a hint of her Northern Italian accent. With her off hand she gestured towards a stool near one of the work tables while her main hand continued to sketch unbothered, and Drysi could see Mastrogiacomo look past her towards Ruarc who looked like a dad unsure of what to do while escorting his daughter to a store at the mall. “Please, pull up a seat, Drysi. Let’s chat. And you are welcome to a seat if you wish, Master Flynn.”

Once the teenager had situated herself, Mastrogiacomo continued. Ruarc meanwhile did his best to casually grab a stool and take a seat off to the side.

“Do you have any questions for me, as we begin?”

[Kokuten]

To have someone be so welcoming and straightforward was a thankful reprieve from every other Mage’s way of doing things. Cowboys, clowns and jocks seemed to be a way of life at Safeholme, but here she found a common sense of purpose in Mastrogiacomo. It took a while for Drysi to respond, as her three eyes kept drifting to the moving pen in a sense of admiration and wonder. She had never even begun to manage achieving the art of sightless writing even when she was trying to pass herself off as an inscriptionist.

Druids were amazing, but Mastrogiacomo was something else entirely.

“Chief, how soon can I begin work?” Drysi was emboldened in her admiration, and perhaps assuming a bit too much familiarity, “How much freedom do I have in what I study and produce?”

Without waiting, she pulled out a folded manila file that was thickly packed, and gently set it on Mastrogiacomo’s desk, trying to find some empty space for it. Gideon had stopped her when she was getting ahead of herself before, but she had practiced this. Ever since she had settled on the 3rd Circle, she had begun practicing for this moment. No. Ever since she had told her master that he would be living in the world she would make, she had begun practicing for this moment.

“This is a copy of a proposal I drafted,” Drysi spoke cleanly and plainly, in that same posh voice she used with the Ard Rhys, “I didn’t know the format, so I thought I would present the data and discuss it with you. Inside are combat ratings and observations of one of the foremost Keepers currently active in the field today. Ruarc Flynn. I have gathered recollections from articles posted in the past ten years along with four first-hand accounts from members of the Menagerie. He is the best of the best, and was guided by the same people who are training the Keepers of tomorrow; making him the perfect control for a project aimed at improving the overall kit of Keepers in active duty.”

The initiate sat up, staring at her new boss with only the faintest trepidation beginning to enter her voice, “I would like to focus in Security Development, chiseling runes and armament for Keepers, and using Mr. Flynn as an effective means of testing these developments. The goal is to make reproducible gear that Keepers can use to more effectively maintain peace while also preserving themselves. My initial projects include the study and reproduction of an ancient runic gauntlet, a breastplate that designed with a ‘smart-web’ of runes that are weaved to react to and act upon stresses in the body, and a ghoststone-dust ink that stains skin with the intent to enable the users to rely upon the effect of a rune for a longer period of time, but not permanently…”

And that was it, a proposal that Drysi had practiced delivering every night since she knew she would be coming to this place. It was only until after she finished that she realized she may have overstepped herself out of the gate. She began clenching the straps of her satchel nervously and looked at the floor, “... is… they… th– those are my questions, Chief…”

[Straken]

Ruarc listened to the entirety of Drysi's presentation feeling like if his seat had a back he would be sinking into it. At first he had been curious as to which Keeper Drysi had data on. As soon as his name was mentioned Mastrogiacomo’s blue eyes flicked over to settle on him. It felt as though he were being appraised before being sold to a pawn shop, and Mastrogiacomo was looking for ways to haggle down. Between being talked up and being stared at by an objectively pretty woman, Ruarc did something he rarely ever did. He blushed. Mercifully the Chief shifted back to looking at Drysi as the apprentice began detailing her plans. By the time she had concluded, the Irishman had regained his composure.

“Best of the best, are you, Master Flynn? Take a break, Francesca.” the Chief started, giving Ruarc another look as she cocked an eyebrow. At the same time her hands stopped sketching and she flexed her fingers; light glistened from the chitinous gloves as it caught various angles and joints.

“I am versed in Master Flynn’s exploits, and as such would disagree with the assertion that he is a perfect control. If anything, Ruarc is an extreme element.” She turned her head to address Ruarc directly. “You reside well outside of standard zones of operation that we have data on, associate with individuals well beyond standard Druid cohorts, and undertake missions that have little to do with your responsibilities as a Keeper as far as the Council is concerned. For that matter, many of your undertakings have created a fair amount of extra work for us on the Council, as a number of third party organizations get rather leery about us allowing a God slayer to run around with so little oversight. Chief Bombellas even put forward a motion to have you indicted and brought in when we were contacted by the Boston Consortium some months ago.”

Ruarc felt like sinking into his seat again, but for different reasons now. Mastrogiacomo looked back to Drysi and laced her fingers together as she leaned forward on the desk.

“Thankfully I prefer testing with extremes,” the Chief’s tone became lighter, the pressure she was exerting almost vanishing. “Initiate Maelgwyn, if you are able to create gear that can stand up to all the trials Master Flynn goes through, then I am confident you will go far in the Third Circle.”

The Chief sat back in her seat and began to look through the offered material.

[Kokuten]

The second that the Chief began talking, Drysi realized she had overplayed some aspects of her project plan. In tandem with Ruarc’s desire to sink, the initiate actually began sinking in her chair as she realized how much she may have embarrassed the man. Her arms curled into herself like a nervous tyrannosaurus and her wide eyes wouldn’t dare look at her master. That is, until the term god slayer rolled over Mastrogiacomo’s lips, and Drysi turned sharply.

It was true, it wasn’t just qualitative assessment or hyperbole, he had actually done it. Ruarc Flynn was a god slayer.

Realizing herself, she pinned her butt back down into the chair and sat ramrod straight for her own lashing. This would have to be the first of many, she was at the bottom of this organization, and would have to learn to take her lumps as with anything else. The triclops bunched her fists into her lap and repeated a steady mantra. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

Gideon’s scaly head pressed against her jaw, and her heart began to slow down just in time for her boss’s true, initial assessment. At first, Drysi had no idea what to say, having been so prepared to have her proposition dismissed by a stranger. She thought would would feel elation at the approval, but only more anxiety crept up from the ocean’s floor of her mind when her work was being analyzed.

“Th-thank you,” Drysi managed as she patiently waited.

The file contained an overall project assessment, an executive summary detailing the basis and goal of the work, analysis notes of the three potential projects, two living documents and their sources. Drysi had seemed to have been working on this for longer than she had considered being a druid, at least part of the project. Obsessing over people was a hobby of hers and she had been collecting information on the Menagerie for a few years.

The first three item files included drafts of analysis of runic gauntlet recovered from the Maw Incident. From what Drysi could determine, it was made from the leather of a mystic creature, and the blank runes on the knuckles were prime for a depth of analysis. It was there that the term automagical first appeared in source documents.

The armor was a draft, and clearly the least developed, but was based on Ruarc’s layered battle leathers. What she intended was something that employed a similar philosophy to the gauntlet, but on a different function. There was a lot of theory, but most of her notes were stopped by developing an effective control system, the nervous system of the runes she had called it.

The ink was almost a finished project, and not really a project as much as it was a study on the effects of applying runes to skin. There were only a few issues in dictating the permanence of the ink, and not bringing out undesired effects. Drysi had found that even though one could apply a stoneskin rune to skin, sometimes the stone effect went too deep and could cause less-than-desired effects.

The meat of this project were two papers, Studies of the Druidic Fighting Arts in the Modern Age and its Effect on the Modern Keeper and The Automagical Properties of Runes. The first contained most of the interviews and articles, along with published reports on the performance of Keepers in standard duty that she managed to finagle from Ruarc. Included was some of Drysi’s own experience in watching Ruarc work.

The last, and most thickly packed was the latter paper. If Mastrogiacomo took the time to even skim it, she would find Drysi had become absorbed with a concept she had termed automagic. Each mention of the term was attributed to the idea that certain magical processes could be pre-engineered like the common rune, but in a more complex fashion. Runes working in tandem, not just to complete a stronger effect, but to complete a task that they could not perform individually. The ancient gauntlet that Ruarc had recovered was proof of concept; it was not like the normal application of runes, where they were applied to imbue strength or individual properties. The gauntlet was a network of runic processes that consumed and stored information and then responded to pre-programmed input.

It was all very ambitious, but almost entirely analysis. It had limits based on Drysi’s own lack of experience, and her own budding knowledge of the druids. It was a gargantuan amount of information for a small amount of time, and it would be clear that the tired look in the initiate’s eyes was more than just translation sickness.

At this point, Drysi was getting so nervous, she was starting to become plain sick. Gideon gracefully slid down from her shoulders into her lap, and she went from abrasing her hands against her bag straps to gently stroking the snake.

[Straken]

Mastrogiacomo read in silence as her sharp eyes darted back and forth. The silence became palpable, and the only noise came from the rustling of paper in the Chief’s hands and the toiling of engineers scattered around the room; similarly working in silence. About halfway through the Chief reached into her desk and drew out a protein bar before sliding across the desk wordlessly and without looking away from the paper. The wrapper showed a black bear at play in a pool of mixed berries and nuts. The gloved hand tapped the bar before withdrawing back to join the second hand at the papers. A few minutes more passed before Mastrogiacomo finally set down the papers.

“Not bad for early drafts. I will give you that I wish all the initiates that join my Circle had your enthusiasm,” the Italian woman said as she tucked the papers back into the file. “Most recruits join the Sages because they think they’ll be able to sit around reading all day; they join the Somatics because it’s the equivalent of business degree; the Keepers because being a cop is an easy fallback plan while also giving a sense of authority; and they join my Circle thinking that being a Druid that can use a cell phone is something worthwhile. So for the time being I am pleasantly surprised. Now, follow me.”

Mastrogiacomo pushed her chair away from the desk and stood before making her way around. The two could now see she stood a couple inches below six feet tall. With the two following behind, she led the way through the array of work tables. Drysi and Ruarc could glimpse various projects, but Mastrociacomo moved quick enough to where they couldn’t dally and inspect them. Eventually they came to the table with the Spaniard who had noticed Drysi’s stomach grumble.

“Leonel, if you’d be so kind,” the Chief said once they came close. The man, who looked to be around twenty-two, picked up the interlocking pieces of metal he had been working on and handed it to his superior. In turn, Mastrogiacomo moved to hand the artifact off to Drysi. It appeared to be a series of heart shaped scales connected end to end in a chain approximately nine inches long.

“Consider this a test. You seem a little lagged from your journey, so take the rest of the day to rest up and get a proper meal. Tomorrow morning, come back, tell me what it does, and why it does what it does,” Mastrogiacomo explained as she crossed her arms.

[Kokuten]

Drysi took the linked scales in her hands, and looked between her Chief and the other researcher with a wide-eyed wonder. She had been so tired, that she began to immediately regret the zest at which she had come at this. In only five minutes, she had managed to get herself assigned homework that felt very non-standard, nor planned. Then again, Mastrogiacomo was probably not expecting homework to grade, either.

The initiate had earned this test with her ambition, and now the Chief was testing her to see just how far her brilliance reached. Was Drysi the real deal, or was she just reaching? Now she'd get some empirical evidence.

“Okay… Oh-- I mean… Yes ma’am,” Drysi corrected herself as she looked at the scales. She gave the chain an experimental flick with her gloves. “Do I have to analyze it on my own, or can I use resources here at the Keep?”