Stardeep_ The Dungeons - Bruce R. Cordell [1]
"Yes, of course. I was referring to the orange prominences."
"Certainly. I am providing background, so you'll understand what I say next."
Delphe smiled. Hard to take offense with the simulated entity. Cynosure's mind wasn't confined only to the figure above, like a construct or golem. In fact, Delphe doubted Cynosure wasted any but a fraction of its precious sentience occupying the statue. After all, its arcane awareness stretched insubstantially between dozens of other effigies and red circular nodes scattered throughout the halls, tunnels, and galleries of Stardeep. Cynosure, a sentient construct with multiple awarenesses, was the perfect warden of the dungeon stronghold where the Traitor served his eternal sentence.
Cynosure continued. "What you probably can't perceive, though I can, are wards swarming up from below the barrier interface. My wider, psi-assisted perception reveals these wards as yellowish sigils,– teeming like fish. Simple mixing with the red-"
"Creates an orange hue? Are you serious?"
The shapes and colors visible upon and within the barrier were merely visual representations of a protective magical weave. Previous generations of Keepers had laid down disparate layers of security, all of them potent, though not all necessarily compatible. Still, instability of the barrier or activity on the Traitor's part would be visually detectable. So was it feasible for Cynosure to describe the activity in terms of mixing colors from the color wheel? She was a wizard of no little repute, and one trained specially in understanding the intricacies of the Well. If the…
She paused.
The runic entity had a ponderous, but definite sense of humor, Delphe knew from past experience. A few years earlier it had insisted a singing chicken was assaulting the Causeway Gate humming the ballad King of Stars, and seemed to draw immense glee with each pronouncement of the patently ridiculous statement. Was it joking now? The mental construct forged when Stardeep was first delved had evolved many personality-like traits since its creation, if the oldest records in the annals could be trusted.
"Are you having me on?"
"Sorry, Delphe." The voice relayed mischievousness.
"Do you think the Well is something that can safely be joked about?" Heat flushed her cheeks. Truth to tell, she was still slightly miffed by the chicken-on-the-Causeway incident.
"No, no! I merely implied the activity is not worth worrying about," insisted the construct. "Were it a true problem, making light of it would be my very last strategy."
She rubbed her chin, the lights thrown up from the Well giving her face a pumpkin glow. "Very well. Please keep an eye on it, will you?"
"What else would occupy me?"
Delphe sighed then finally chuckled. She shifted back in her seat. In some ways, her presence in the Well's Throat, or the presence of any living Keeper, seemed silly when compared to the resources Cynosure could bring to bear, both for watchful perception and raw physical power. Cynosure's mind and abilities were magnified-it was more than the sum of several constructs and nodes that shared the same consciousness, despite each being in a separate location around the stronghold. But the flexibility of a living Keeper had proven necessary, too. Elf Keepers were able to stem problems that a construct, no matter how advanced, was simply too constrained to deal with, even one as sophisticated and evolved as Cynosure.
Take the incident a little over a decade ago. Delphe frowned at the memory. It had happened before her service. Stardeep had been staffed by different Sildeyuiren elves, each a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, just like she and Telarian who served in their place. The Traitor had made a particularly ingenious bid for escape, and partially bypassed the barrier layer! The imprints of the Traitor's hands on the lower portion of the smooth cylinder yet remained. Only early detection of the bid, hard planning by those