The Armorer Ch 33 (Patreon)

Morning light woke me up, sunbeams splashing down on my face from a small, blue, stained glass window. The pilot's bedroom was small and austere just like the inspector's office, but there was a pretty damn cool Skyship poster on the wall to admire. A human figure clad in a long, steampunk-style leather coat and a wide-brimmed cap, stood in the middle of the poster facing away from the viewer and looking up at soaring skyships. The poster was rich in detail and looked akin to the 1920's Art Nouveau style paintings from Earth.

[The Dawn of Aeromancy, 8047.] I read the tagline in the top left corner of the poster.

I went to the small bathroom attached to the pilot's bedroom. It had a steel toilet, sink and a shower with hot and cold water! My first hot shower in four years was heavenly. The local humans were a lot more advanced than the chimera. I was starting to love magitek and admired the Victorian-style iron knobs shaped like little lions for a bit. Having dried myself off, I dressed up once again in Grogtilda's leather armor and went back to admire the poster as I dried my dark brown, straight hair with a towel.

Upon closer inspection the poster had a circular rune on it, similar to the depictomancy cards. I put my thumb on the rune and pushed a bit of magic into it.

The poster suddenly came alive. The painted flowers at the front moved as if blown by an invisible wind. Skyships started moving and painting of the person shifted into that of a more feminine shape, featuring bright-red, curly hair. She turned around, readjusted her blouse and skirt, winked at me and saluted me with a bright smile. If I had to guess, she was supposed to be a skyship pilot. The girl’s steampunk goggles glinted in painted sunlight, sitting above a black-rimmed captain's hat.

"Pretty cool," I said through a yawn, putting the towel away. "Depictomancy continues to impress me. Shape-shifting, animated art!"

The pilot giggled. She was an attractive-looking woman, tall and slender with the sort of hourglass figure that made me feel like a potato. Her skin had an orange tint to it and her hair was long, curly and red and fluttered in the wind.

"Did you just... laugh? Or did I imagine the sound?" I tilted my head.

"Yes, I did," the pilot grinned at me.

"Uh..." I scratched my cheek. "Feels weird talking to a drawing. Who are you supposed to be, I wonder?"

The drawing smiled widely. "I'm the future you, if you choose to become a skyship captain! All you have to do is graduate from an Arcanarium with the top grades and advance to a degree in Aeromancy and you too can look like me! Someday you too can pilot the skyships of Illatius and see the world of Andross from the sky! Just think of all the places you can visit! There's no job that's more liberating and fulfilling than that of a skyship pilot!"

"Ah, you're a personalized advertisement for skyship pilots," I rubbed my aching muscles, stretching. “Neat.”

"Only for someone like you, with potential for becoming one! If you were a pilot already then our conversation would be different," the painted girl tilted her head, ember eyes flashing at me. Her face had a bit of a chimera-look to it, the slight tilt of the nose making her look the tiniest bit feline.

"Different how?" I asked.

"I'm a pretty decent conversation companion, I am told," the potential-future-pilot-me said.

"Are you... really?" I asked. "How exactly do you function? Are there more than one of you? How and why do you look like a future-me?"

"There are 1047 surviving copies of me hanging in Skyship Stations across Illatius. I was painted by Ambiss Huron in 8047."

"That doesn't answer my questions," I said.

"A Depictomancer doesn't reveal her secrets," the future-me smirked.

"I should put you through the Turing test or something," I said. "You seem a lot more advanced than the Mimmins cards."

"What's a Turing test?" The painted girl blinked.

A knock resounded from the door.

"Come in," I called out.

The door swung open and Lambert stepped inside. He wore his gray constable uniform and had a gray, leather bag slung over his shoulder.

"Good morning, Inspector," I said.

"Morning… Yulia," Lambert nodded. "Good to see you up and about already."

"Good morning Inspector Lambert," the painted companion curtsied.

Lambert looked at the poster and then at me. "Hum. Who is that?"

"She's supposedly the future me," I replied. "The poster says so."

“This is your future self?" Lambert asked. "Why is her hair red? That's... odd."

"It's a pretty old poster," I said. "Maybe the magic in it broke?"

"Nuhuh. I'm functioning perfectly fine, thank you very much." The drawing smiled. "This one has great potential... She's very different!"

"Potential for completely different color hair and eyes?" Lambert squinted at the future-me. "First time I've seen that happen. Then again, it is a very old poster."

"Hey, I'm not that old!" The painted-future-me huffed.

I smiled weakly, sending the drawing an annoyed glance. I've been exposed by a Depictomancy poster, of all the things!

"If she's broken, can I have her?" I asked. "I'm studying Depictomancy."

"You're... studying depictomancy?" Lambert raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a lowborn? How can you afford entry into the Arcanarium?"

"Self-studying," I quickly replied. "I've… inherited a book about it."

"Ah," Lambert nodded.

"It's a book about the life of Thomas Cole aka Ignius Vox and his depictomancy work," I explained.

"You're a bright girl. Who taught you to read?" Lambert piled another heavy question on top of me.

"Who do you think?" I looked at him. "Whom did we talk about yesterday?"

"They... taught you to read in Basq?" The inspector froze.

"Mhmmmm," I nodded. "I've been living in the Dungeon for a VERY long time, inspector. You have no idea how happy I am to finally talk to a human. Even talking to this... drawing of a human is wonderful!"

Lamber's expression softened when he looked down at me. He must have felt pity for me. I wondered if he had kids of his own.

"How long were you down there?" He asked.

"Four years," I confessed with a sigh, answering without thinking.

"You can have this poster, Yulia," he said. "I'll tell the Pilot’s Guild that this one faded and have them send in a new one."

"Hey! I'm not faded! I'm supposed to hang in the pilot's bedroom, you can't just give me out to lowborn girls!" The painting tried to interject.

Lambert ignored her. He pulled out the pins holding the poster to the wall, rolled it up and handed it to me. The complaints of the drawing became muffled.

"I'm sorry you had to live down there for so long," he said. "The Dungeon is no place for a child to grow up."

"It's alright, inspector," I shoved the rolled up poster into Saccy. "I might have been raised by them, but I'm back to humanity now... that's what really matters. I almost forgot what it was like to be with people. You're my first human friend, Lambert. We're friends, right?"

I looked at Lambert's face. He now looked like a parent fretting over a long-lost child that was finally back. My Mowgli, raised by monsters, themed backstory had gained sudden weight. It was a bit of a lie, but it was weaved from plenty of truth.

"Of course we are friends," he said. "You... remind me of my daughter."

"Hold old is she?" I asked. "Does she work at the constabulary too?"

"No. I never got to see her grow old," he said. "She was a diver, determined and passionate about going lower with every trip. The Dungeon took her from me when she was seventeen."

"Oh..." I paused, trying to think of something to say. "That's... hard. I'm sorry to hear that.”

"Yeah," he sighed. "They never found her body.”

“How far down did she go? Do you think that she still could be alive?”

“It is possible. But, it has been far too many years.” Lambert sighed. “Some nights... I dream that she's still alive down there, too far down to return safely. Places like the Folding Forest are impossible to go through without special equipment. I’ve hired trackers to try to find her. Her trace vanished around level 37 and her armacus stopped responding."

We stood there for a moment, in deep silence, before he continued. "Anyway. I bet you're hungry. Let's go to a café for breakfast and then to the bank to pay off your missed Guild payments."

I followed the inspector down the stairs, hissing as my feet refused to cooperate. Lambert patiently waited for me and helped me along when my limbs failed me. This time around he was much more patient and careful with me, treating me like a person and not a sack of grain.

We walked to the café and ordered cream cheese bagels and coffees to go from a small gothic window located in an ivy-covered cobblestone wall. I inhaled the smell. This world had coffee! It didn’t exactly smell perfectly like the coffee from Earth, but beggars can’t be choosers. I devoured the bagel and slowly sipped on my foam-covered coffee as we walked to the bank.

“What’s an armacus?” I asked the inspector, swimming in a pink-daze of coffee-related joy.

Lambert lowered his wrist, revealing a thick, silver bracelet on his wrist.

“It’s a constable’s magitek tool,” he explained. “It is very hard to break and impossible to use by another. This one is expensive and only given out to constables, but there are cheaper versions that don’t have killing spells in them. The most basic ones are very handy communication devices. We’ll get you one from the local Artificer.”

“Ah,” I smiled. “Thanks. I hope I’m not taking up too much of your work-time.”

“I am at work,” Lambert said. “Your… case takes precedence over anything I’ve done in three decades as an inspector. My assistant will handle the station while we’re out. She’ll call me if there’s an emergency.”

I nodded.

As I was about to step into the bank, a transient thought percolated through my brain.

My ‘raised by monsters for 4 years’ backstory would fall apart if Lambert discovered that Grogtilda only missed three months of payments.

Crap.