Chapter 16: Why’s the mnemonic so cringy?
The lower channel ponds weren’t far, but Fabrisse felt like they were venturing into a different ecosystem entirely.
Past the eastern greenhouses and the old clock tower, the land sloped toward a series of runoff-fed terraces where the Synod kept its minor aquafauna: the silt-swimmers, scale-eels, and the occasional duck-thing that wandered in from the canals and decided to stay. The air smelled even more of moss and charcoal than other parts of the Synod, and a light mist clung to everything as if the water was eternally shrouded by Veil magic.
The duck-things, as Liene called them, were somewhere between aquatic birds and confused garden spirits. They honked like opinionated old men and moved in slow bursts, as though deciding whether they remembered how legs worked.
“Look,” Liene whispered, pointing from behind a willow-like vine. “Duck; duck! Go.”
One of the duck-things had a glowing beak, and it looked like it had swallowed a very small candle. It was swimming away from the others, veering toward a section of the pond marked with warning glyphs and a half-collapsed shrine gate draped in algae.
“That’s not normal,” Fabrisse muttered. “Even for them.”
He reached slowly into his satchel and retrieved a flat, speckled Stupenstone named Gravelkin.
“Let’s try this first,” he whispered. With perfect hand movements and surprisingly decent timing (probably luck), he was able to cast the spell.
| [SKILL ACTIVATED: Sedimentary Recall (Rank II)] |