FIC: The City Over the Mountain (6/9) - (PG-13) - Fullmetal Alchemist
Title: The City Over the Mountain (6/9)
Author: Zippit
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Timeline: Post Manga/Brotherhood
Character(s)/Pairing(s): established Roy Mustang/Edward Elric, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: N/A
Word Count: 3,321 / 25,070
Completed: March 15, 2013
Challenge: 2012 round of fmabigbang
Prompt: Wonderful picture by bob_fish found here.
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed within are not mine. This is merely a loving response to the original work.
Author’s Notes: The picture I received from bob_fish was utterly gorgeous and I'm just pleased I could write something to accompany it. Hope you enjoy!
Summary: When a clandestine mission to Aerugo doesn't go as planned, Roy and Ed stumble upon an unknown civilization with unexpected ties to their past and designs on their future that may not allow them to return to Amestris.
~*~*~*~
When the time comes, there’s a knock on the door with both Edith and Margaret on the other side, which helps their plans somewhat. After perfunctory morning greetings, Edith wastes little time in requesting Mustang go with her and of course he can’t refuse. She has a nod and a smile for Ed, but it’s obvious she really wants to talk to Mustang. It leaves Ed with no choice but to go with Margaret. He honestly doesn’t give a crap, but he wasn’t under the impression that they needed to be split up to fix whatever the hell is wrong with the city. Mustang’s paranoia must be catching because he’s not happy about them being out of each other’s sight for too long.
Margaret smiles brightly at him as he steps outside into the hallway. He cranes his neck in the direction Edith and Mustang went and catches a glimpse of Mustang’s back as they disappear down a different hallway. She gives him a knowing smile. “He’ll be fine. Mother only seems scary.”
Ed lets out the breath he’d been holding and smiles back. Thank fuck she’d assumed the wrong thing. Better for them all if she thought he was just put off by her mother instead of worried about Mustang’s safety. She probably didn’t even realize the potential danger he imagined he and Mustang might be in. “Isn’t that always the case with people in power?”
She laughs. “Maybe but I wouldn’t know. I’ve known all of them for my entire life.” She grins at him and motions for them to get moving. They head down the hallway in the opposite direction from Mustang and Edith. “But that’s not why we’re here. Once you’ve fixed things, I’m hoping you can help me convince Mother that the outside world isn’t as bad as she thinks it is.”
“Why does she think that?” They're walking back down the hallways with natural light flooding in. Ed can’t figure out where it’s coming from, but the hallways are decorated with the same taste as the room they’d been shown to last night. Wall hangings and sculptures interspersed with rich colored wood tables.
Margaret casts a furtive look around, but there’s no one in sight. He hasn’t seen anyone at all aside from Jonathan, Edith, and Margaret this morning. They don’t seem to be heading toward the entrance he and Mustang came in last night. So how are they getting to wherever they’re getting? “All the people that’ve ever left have never come back.”
“Really now? No one ever?” Ed’s surprised and a little skeptical. It sounds like quite a few people wanted to leave and have left over the years. For none of them to come back at all, there could be something else going on.
“Mother doesn’t like there to be talk about it. She wants people to forget about the outside world completely. Especially since the Great Hohenheim himself never came back.”
She guides him down a series of hallways that don’t look familiar, but they all look unfamiliar. They really would have a hard time finding their own way back out. “But why? Don’t people get tired of being cooped up in here all the time? Seeing the same things, the same people? Don’t they wonder about what else could be out there and what new discoveries they could bring back?”
They stop in front of a large painted section of wall that gives a view of the whole city from up higher on the mountainside. Stone pillars like he’d seen on the walk into the city are depicted uniformly along the streets and all around the city. Are those part of how the city hides itself? There’s so little they understand right now, and he has to be careful in how he gets his answers.
Margaret faces him and the fervor of rebellion lights up her eyes as she brings up her clenched hands in a beseeching gesture. “Yes, yes we do! And people petition to leave all the time, but the council only allows a select few to leave every year.” She scowls and shakes her head. “It all requires boring, complicated procedures and days upon days of arguments about who should go and who should stay. It’s all very complicated.” She scrunches her face up in distaste and reaches out to grip Ed’s shoulder. “That’s why we need you and your friend. When you fix the issues with the barrier, it’ll be a sign that the outside world is nothing like what Mother thinks. And you’re of the Great Hohenheim’s blood. Your word has more weight.”
Ed shifts uneasily. For the most part, he tries not to think about Hohenheim and how they’re family. He’s not liking the sheer amount of faith Margaret’s putting in him. He’s someone that just walked into their close knit, protected society, and even if everyone agrees he's Hohenheim’s son it’s not gonna make everyone happy, especially if he throws in with Margaret’s side in letting people out. He’d understand it from people like Mustang or his unit who’ve known for years, but this girl who he’s barely known for two minutes doing the same? He has a bad feeling about it all. “I’ll try my best, but if this debate’s been going on in your city for what sounds like forever, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”
“As long as you try.” The light in her eyes hasn’t dimmed at all. If anything it’s shored up by even more determination. It reminds him of Mustang and his desire to make Amestris a better place, but that required a bloody revolution and the coming together of very different factions. He hopes it doesn’t come to that here because he and Mustang will be caught up right in the middle with no allies and no escape.
He gives her a grin that he hopes is reassuring. “I’ll give it my best shot, but you should still be prepared for things to go wrong. Changing long held opinions never happens like you think it will. Either both sides have to be ready to make concessions or one side overthrows the other.” She’s young, but he was even younger when he blazed his own path through Amestris.
“The only concession ever made was allowing a few people to leave each year and with all the trouble that comes with it.” She throws a hand at the painting of the city. “This is all we’re allowed to see. It’s not enough! Your coming here is the perfect time for us to fight for more. If you hadn’t come, what would’ve happened to us? Forced out to find a way to save ourselves or trapped in a dying city?”
Death by refusal to leave the city or panicked exodus into an outside world they have no idea about. It wouldn’t be pretty, and it’d probably end up killing a lot of them too. “Take it easy. I’m on your side and Mustang is too, but it’s not gonna be a quick process.” Revolution isn’t as simple and easy as it appears on the surface. Years after the Promised Day they're still trying to forge a better Amestris.
So much for avoiding getting caught up in the middle of this revolution, and one they have no control over. The last time they’d planned for months and even as the plan fell apart on the streets of Central, at least they were on familiar ground. They have none of that here.
A smile breaks over her face and she throws herself at him in a hug, which he returns awkwardly. She pulls back still smiling. “Come now, I need to show you the barrier system and where the issues are and you’ll fix them and then we’ll go speak to Mother.”
Ed can only nod and watch her press her hand to a series of panels in the stone wall next to the painting. A section of what he thought was solid wall moves inward, revealing the entrance to what seems to be a tunnel.
~*~*~*~
The tunnels take them directly to the outer boundaries of the city and into the domain of Marissa who oversees the city’s protection measures. The walk there isn’t overly long, but it isn’t short either. Margaret fills the time with the city’s history, the barriers, and occasional stories about those who left for the outside world. She wishes he could meet some of those that still desire greater access to the outside world, but the tunnels are too well protected for them to come see him.
They emerge from the tunnels onto a broad, flat clearing much like the one he and Mustang camped in. It’s surrounded by the walls of the mountain rising on each side, but instead of an unbroken surface, several arched doorways yawn open. The protections are built within the mountainside. That would explain the seamless way things were hidden in plain sight. Ed’s still not sure how they managed to pull off the solid feeling of the mountainside. Maybe he’ll find out shortly.
To his left, there’s a nondescript building that fits in well with the surroundings. It has none of the decorations or personality the buildings in the city had. People bustle back and forth with satchels and shovels or rakes thrown over their shoulders. He sees a mix of men and women, easy to tell apart by the differing colors on their clothes but only barely. The colors that surround him here are much more closely matched than those he saw arrayed around the dining table last night.
“That’s the repair building. Everything that might be needed to repair the barrier stones can be found within them.” Margaret waves at people she knows and they give her a warm smile back. They look at Ed with curiosity and wariness. They probably know everyone in the city and even in his borrowed robes he must stand out as foreign. “Maintenance on the barrier is an ongoing thing. There’s always something to do.”
Other workers only greet them with polite nods and the respect Edith’s daughter deserves but not an inch more. She doesn’t seem to notice and Ed would bet she’s used to it, but he doesn’t like it at all. Margaret’s the face of those wanting to explore the outside world. She’s probably built up a lot of anger and resentment in those that don’t want more contact with the outside world.
Margaret takes him up to Marissa’s office where he’s greeted relatively warmly and told of the issues they’ve been having with the barriers. There are weak spots across the network of alchemical arrays that power the barrier protections with no discernible cause. They’ve had their best alchemical scientists go to those spots and found nothing. They’ve examined every inch of the network and still have no idea what could be wrong with it.
Ed’s goal will be trying to figure out what’s wrong when people that know this place inside and out haven’t been able to. Talk about setting someone up for failure. He pastes an interested look on his face and nods in the right places. It turns out after a childhood of wandering the tunnels with assorted people Margaret knows them as well as anyone and she’ll be his guide.
He’s handed a map and a repair satchel filled with the usual tools. He has no idea what they expect him to do with it. It’s not like he’s trained in the same repair methods they are. He tucks the map into one of the satchel pockets and takes a quick look at the tools inside. Chalk, handheld rake, brushes of various sides, polish, cloths of various materials. He can’t make any sense of it. What makes up the barrier arrays? How do they do maintenance on them?
Marissa walks them to the tunnel mouth where the majority of the weak spots come from and she clasps Ed by the shoulders. “I have faith in you.” She smiles and then heads back to the repair building. He and Margaret watch her go for a moment then turn to head into the tunnel.
“What are the other tunnels for?”
“The daily functioning of the city,” Margaret says. “They haven’t been impacted at all by weird fluctuations and no one knows why.”
His shoulders itch from the stares boring into his back. They don’t let up until they can’t be seen from outside the tunnel. He rubs the back of his neck. “It always that…hostile?”
“Sometimes.” Margaret shrugs. “They’re very protective of these tunnels and they don’t like non-professionals wandering through them much less people from the outside world.”
“Still that obvious, huh?” Ed says ruefully.
“The tailors did their best, but in this city everyone knows everyone. A new face is hard to miss.” Margaret chuckles. “And those robes don’t exactly make you blend in.”
Ed plucks at it and snorts. “No kidding.” He glances around and instead of the darkness he was expecting, the tunnel’s brightly lit with lights strung up along the ceiling. Handrails are built into the walls too he assumes in cases the lights go out. He doesn’t see anything resembling arrays or anything at all that might be what he’s here to fix, not without tearing the place down around their ears anyway.
Their steps don’t echo off the walls and it’s nothing like any of the caves or crevices he’s wandered into before. He has half a mind to ask about the dryness when they come upon an alcove set off to the left with a sign. Ed can’t quite read what it says since it’s written in that script he doesn't know but still feels familiar.
“This isn’t one of the spots having issues, but maybe you’d like a look?” Ed nods and follows Margaret inside. “Since I’m my mother’s heir, I need to have knowledge of all the different areas that help the city function. I admit I’m more fascinated by the tunnels than anything else.”
Before them is a circular area filled with sand and a dais rises out of the middle. To reach the dais there’s a suspended pathway built out from where he and Margaret stand now. She points to the dais. “The arrays are carved into the stone there and flow down the sides into the sand. The tunnel workers are tasked with keeping the lines in the sand straight. There are also arrays that help keep the tunnels dry that need monitoring. It’s not much of a hardship since few people are allowed in here and the arrays rarely change.”
“The sand’s to allow any changes? But if the dais array is permanently etched then how can the sand be changed without breaking the array?”
“Ah, but that’s not completely true.” They walk along the raised platform to the dais and Margaret points out the barely perceptible lines in the surface. “These plates are interchangeable. They can, theoretically, be lifted out and exchanged for others. I don’t believe it’s ever been done except in the rare instances when one’s been damaged.”
“Don’t the different pieces disrupt the flow of energy through the array since the lines aren’t whole?” Ed reaches out to carefully touch his fingers to the edge of the dais’ flat top. He’s not shocked with pain so he rubs his fingers along the rounded edge.
“Yes, but there’s some inherent property of the plate material that bypasses that requirement. They’re carved from the stone of the mountain and it hasn’t been discovered how, but it’s as if the rock channels and amplifies the alchemic energy. We constantly see people probing the limits of the rock, but since samples are strictly controlled, the limits of the rock aren’t usually tested.”
“How are alchemical advances made then?”
“We’ve become accustomed to working within the confines of our current knowledge. Advances still happen, but couldn’t you imagine all that could be discovered if we didn’t treat the rocks like such precious commodities? If we could only explore the outside world?”
Ed doesn’t like this train of thought. She might ask him to create an array to break down the barrier permanently and where would that leave him? In a position that’s even more precarious than it is right now. He steps closer to the dais and examines it closely. It’s built of the same sandy colored stone that surrounds them. There’s no inherent protection laced into the stone. They rely on human security and the fear of what might happen if someone tampered with the barrier. Anyone could still wander in and do something with no one the wiser. It’s probably what’s happened to make the barrier reach this unstable, weakened state.
The dais is far from uniform. The edges of the top where the array pieces fit may be rounded but the rest looks like it was shaped directly from the mountainside and merely extracted. Ed wonders how these daises and the array pieces were made. It’s intricate work especially when the amplification properties of the sand are also thrown in. It’s a complex thing he’d love to learn more about, but first he needs to figure out what’s wrong. “At some point, you’ll have to explain how any of this was created. We should get to the problem daises now that I have a general idea of how things work.”
They head back into the tunnels and go deeper until they come to one where the array is weaker for some reason. Ed walks up to the dais and examines it. He traces the array lines from one plate to another and they seem to connect like he’d seen on the first one. He then follows the lines down the sides of the dais into the side. Each side looks pristine and exactly like it should. No one would be able to change the array on the dais sides without it being obvious.
He sits back on his haunches after peering into the sand and pulls the satchel in front of him. It’s time to see if he can use anything in there. Rake, brushes, cloths, nope, nope, nope. What the hell would he use them for? The sand is in perfectly straight lines. The dais top looks shined within an inch of its life and the sides of it are untouchable. He fingers a long metal tool with a flat hook on one end that might be used for levering the plate pieces out of the dais, but he can’t be sure. He looks up at Margaret watching him from the alcove entrance. “How are the arrays turned off and on?”
“A red lodestone gets placed into the sand to gather and redirect the energy while whatever changes are necessary are made to the dais plate pieces.” The Aerugian amplifiers may be offshoots of the city’s lodestone and if they ever get out of here, Ed’s going to figure out a way to learn about both.
There’s nothing useful in the satchel that’ll help him figure out what’s wrong so he goes back to examining the dais by sight and touch. He doesn’t find anything and visits to the other alcove daises don’t turn up anything either. It’s a fruitless day and Ed’s frustration mounts. It’s alchemy. He should be able to figure out what’s going on. After several more few hours, Margaret suggests they head back and Ed grudgingly agrees. On the way back they stop at one of the problem daises and one of the normal ones so Ed can make sketches of the arrays. There has to be something he’s missing and maybe if he spends some time with them on paper he’ll be able to figure out what it is. Mustang’ll be there too and with the two of them working on it, they should be able to figure it out.
Previous | Index | Next
Author: Zippit
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Timeline: Post Manga/Brotherhood
Character(s)/Pairing(s): established Roy Mustang/Edward Elric, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: N/A
Word Count: 3,321 / 25,070
Completed: March 15, 2013
Challenge: 2012 round of fmabigbang
Prompt: Wonderful picture by bob_fish found here.
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed within are not mine. This is merely a loving response to the original work.
Author’s Notes: The picture I received from bob_fish was utterly gorgeous and I'm just pleased I could write something to accompany it. Hope you enjoy!
Summary: When a clandestine mission to Aerugo doesn't go as planned, Roy and Ed stumble upon an unknown civilization with unexpected ties to their past and designs on their future that may not allow them to return to Amestris.
~*~*~*~
When the time comes, there’s a knock on the door with both Edith and Margaret on the other side, which helps their plans somewhat. After perfunctory morning greetings, Edith wastes little time in requesting Mustang go with her and of course he can’t refuse. She has a nod and a smile for Ed, but it’s obvious she really wants to talk to Mustang. It leaves Ed with no choice but to go with Margaret. He honestly doesn’t give a crap, but he wasn’t under the impression that they needed to be split up to fix whatever the hell is wrong with the city. Mustang’s paranoia must be catching because he’s not happy about them being out of each other’s sight for too long.
Margaret smiles brightly at him as he steps outside into the hallway. He cranes his neck in the direction Edith and Mustang went and catches a glimpse of Mustang’s back as they disappear down a different hallway. She gives him a knowing smile. “He’ll be fine. Mother only seems scary.”
Ed lets out the breath he’d been holding and smiles back. Thank fuck she’d assumed the wrong thing. Better for them all if she thought he was just put off by her mother instead of worried about Mustang’s safety. She probably didn’t even realize the potential danger he imagined he and Mustang might be in. “Isn’t that always the case with people in power?”
She laughs. “Maybe but I wouldn’t know. I’ve known all of them for my entire life.” She grins at him and motions for them to get moving. They head down the hallway in the opposite direction from Mustang and Edith. “But that’s not why we’re here. Once you’ve fixed things, I’m hoping you can help me convince Mother that the outside world isn’t as bad as she thinks it is.”
“Why does she think that?” They're walking back down the hallways with natural light flooding in. Ed can’t figure out where it’s coming from, but the hallways are decorated with the same taste as the room they’d been shown to last night. Wall hangings and sculptures interspersed with rich colored wood tables.
Margaret casts a furtive look around, but there’s no one in sight. He hasn’t seen anyone at all aside from Jonathan, Edith, and Margaret this morning. They don’t seem to be heading toward the entrance he and Mustang came in last night. So how are they getting to wherever they’re getting? “All the people that’ve ever left have never come back.”
“Really now? No one ever?” Ed’s surprised and a little skeptical. It sounds like quite a few people wanted to leave and have left over the years. For none of them to come back at all, there could be something else going on.
“Mother doesn’t like there to be talk about it. She wants people to forget about the outside world completely. Especially since the Great Hohenheim himself never came back.”
She guides him down a series of hallways that don’t look familiar, but they all look unfamiliar. They really would have a hard time finding their own way back out. “But why? Don’t people get tired of being cooped up in here all the time? Seeing the same things, the same people? Don’t they wonder about what else could be out there and what new discoveries they could bring back?”
They stop in front of a large painted section of wall that gives a view of the whole city from up higher on the mountainside. Stone pillars like he’d seen on the walk into the city are depicted uniformly along the streets and all around the city. Are those part of how the city hides itself? There’s so little they understand right now, and he has to be careful in how he gets his answers.
Margaret faces him and the fervor of rebellion lights up her eyes as she brings up her clenched hands in a beseeching gesture. “Yes, yes we do! And people petition to leave all the time, but the council only allows a select few to leave every year.” She scowls and shakes her head. “It all requires boring, complicated procedures and days upon days of arguments about who should go and who should stay. It’s all very complicated.” She scrunches her face up in distaste and reaches out to grip Ed’s shoulder. “That’s why we need you and your friend. When you fix the issues with the barrier, it’ll be a sign that the outside world is nothing like what Mother thinks. And you’re of the Great Hohenheim’s blood. Your word has more weight.”
Ed shifts uneasily. For the most part, he tries not to think about Hohenheim and how they’re family. He’s not liking the sheer amount of faith Margaret’s putting in him. He’s someone that just walked into their close knit, protected society, and even if everyone agrees he's Hohenheim’s son it’s not gonna make everyone happy, especially if he throws in with Margaret’s side in letting people out. He’d understand it from people like Mustang or his unit who’ve known for years, but this girl who he’s barely known for two minutes doing the same? He has a bad feeling about it all. “I’ll try my best, but if this debate’s been going on in your city for what sounds like forever, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”
“As long as you try.” The light in her eyes hasn’t dimmed at all. If anything it’s shored up by even more determination. It reminds him of Mustang and his desire to make Amestris a better place, but that required a bloody revolution and the coming together of very different factions. He hopes it doesn’t come to that here because he and Mustang will be caught up right in the middle with no allies and no escape.
He gives her a grin that he hopes is reassuring. “I’ll give it my best shot, but you should still be prepared for things to go wrong. Changing long held opinions never happens like you think it will. Either both sides have to be ready to make concessions or one side overthrows the other.” She’s young, but he was even younger when he blazed his own path through Amestris.
“The only concession ever made was allowing a few people to leave each year and with all the trouble that comes with it.” She throws a hand at the painting of the city. “This is all we’re allowed to see. It’s not enough! Your coming here is the perfect time for us to fight for more. If you hadn’t come, what would’ve happened to us? Forced out to find a way to save ourselves or trapped in a dying city?”
Death by refusal to leave the city or panicked exodus into an outside world they have no idea about. It wouldn’t be pretty, and it’d probably end up killing a lot of them too. “Take it easy. I’m on your side and Mustang is too, but it’s not gonna be a quick process.” Revolution isn’t as simple and easy as it appears on the surface. Years after the Promised Day they're still trying to forge a better Amestris.
So much for avoiding getting caught up in the middle of this revolution, and one they have no control over. The last time they’d planned for months and even as the plan fell apart on the streets of Central, at least they were on familiar ground. They have none of that here.
A smile breaks over her face and she throws herself at him in a hug, which he returns awkwardly. She pulls back still smiling. “Come now, I need to show you the barrier system and where the issues are and you’ll fix them and then we’ll go speak to Mother.”
Ed can only nod and watch her press her hand to a series of panels in the stone wall next to the painting. A section of what he thought was solid wall moves inward, revealing the entrance to what seems to be a tunnel.
~*~*~*~
The tunnels take them directly to the outer boundaries of the city and into the domain of Marissa who oversees the city’s protection measures. The walk there isn’t overly long, but it isn’t short either. Margaret fills the time with the city’s history, the barriers, and occasional stories about those who left for the outside world. She wishes he could meet some of those that still desire greater access to the outside world, but the tunnels are too well protected for them to come see him.
They emerge from the tunnels onto a broad, flat clearing much like the one he and Mustang camped in. It’s surrounded by the walls of the mountain rising on each side, but instead of an unbroken surface, several arched doorways yawn open. The protections are built within the mountainside. That would explain the seamless way things were hidden in plain sight. Ed’s still not sure how they managed to pull off the solid feeling of the mountainside. Maybe he’ll find out shortly.
To his left, there’s a nondescript building that fits in well with the surroundings. It has none of the decorations or personality the buildings in the city had. People bustle back and forth with satchels and shovels or rakes thrown over their shoulders. He sees a mix of men and women, easy to tell apart by the differing colors on their clothes but only barely. The colors that surround him here are much more closely matched than those he saw arrayed around the dining table last night.
“That’s the repair building. Everything that might be needed to repair the barrier stones can be found within them.” Margaret waves at people she knows and they give her a warm smile back. They look at Ed with curiosity and wariness. They probably know everyone in the city and even in his borrowed robes he must stand out as foreign. “Maintenance on the barrier is an ongoing thing. There’s always something to do.”
Other workers only greet them with polite nods and the respect Edith’s daughter deserves but not an inch more. She doesn’t seem to notice and Ed would bet she’s used to it, but he doesn’t like it at all. Margaret’s the face of those wanting to explore the outside world. She’s probably built up a lot of anger and resentment in those that don’t want more contact with the outside world.
Margaret takes him up to Marissa’s office where he’s greeted relatively warmly and told of the issues they’ve been having with the barriers. There are weak spots across the network of alchemical arrays that power the barrier protections with no discernible cause. They’ve had their best alchemical scientists go to those spots and found nothing. They’ve examined every inch of the network and still have no idea what could be wrong with it.
Ed’s goal will be trying to figure out what’s wrong when people that know this place inside and out haven’t been able to. Talk about setting someone up for failure. He pastes an interested look on his face and nods in the right places. It turns out after a childhood of wandering the tunnels with assorted people Margaret knows them as well as anyone and she’ll be his guide.
He’s handed a map and a repair satchel filled with the usual tools. He has no idea what they expect him to do with it. It’s not like he’s trained in the same repair methods they are. He tucks the map into one of the satchel pockets and takes a quick look at the tools inside. Chalk, handheld rake, brushes of various sides, polish, cloths of various materials. He can’t make any sense of it. What makes up the barrier arrays? How do they do maintenance on them?
Marissa walks them to the tunnel mouth where the majority of the weak spots come from and she clasps Ed by the shoulders. “I have faith in you.” She smiles and then heads back to the repair building. He and Margaret watch her go for a moment then turn to head into the tunnel.
“What are the other tunnels for?”
“The daily functioning of the city,” Margaret says. “They haven’t been impacted at all by weird fluctuations and no one knows why.”
His shoulders itch from the stares boring into his back. They don’t let up until they can’t be seen from outside the tunnel. He rubs the back of his neck. “It always that…hostile?”
“Sometimes.” Margaret shrugs. “They’re very protective of these tunnels and they don’t like non-professionals wandering through them much less people from the outside world.”
“Still that obvious, huh?” Ed says ruefully.
“The tailors did their best, but in this city everyone knows everyone. A new face is hard to miss.” Margaret chuckles. “And those robes don’t exactly make you blend in.”
Ed plucks at it and snorts. “No kidding.” He glances around and instead of the darkness he was expecting, the tunnel’s brightly lit with lights strung up along the ceiling. Handrails are built into the walls too he assumes in cases the lights go out. He doesn’t see anything resembling arrays or anything at all that might be what he’s here to fix, not without tearing the place down around their ears anyway.
Their steps don’t echo off the walls and it’s nothing like any of the caves or crevices he’s wandered into before. He has half a mind to ask about the dryness when they come upon an alcove set off to the left with a sign. Ed can’t quite read what it says since it’s written in that script he doesn't know but still feels familiar.
“This isn’t one of the spots having issues, but maybe you’d like a look?” Ed nods and follows Margaret inside. “Since I’m my mother’s heir, I need to have knowledge of all the different areas that help the city function. I admit I’m more fascinated by the tunnels than anything else.”
Before them is a circular area filled with sand and a dais rises out of the middle. To reach the dais there’s a suspended pathway built out from where he and Margaret stand now. She points to the dais. “The arrays are carved into the stone there and flow down the sides into the sand. The tunnel workers are tasked with keeping the lines in the sand straight. There are also arrays that help keep the tunnels dry that need monitoring. It’s not much of a hardship since few people are allowed in here and the arrays rarely change.”
“The sand’s to allow any changes? But if the dais array is permanently etched then how can the sand be changed without breaking the array?”
“Ah, but that’s not completely true.” They walk along the raised platform to the dais and Margaret points out the barely perceptible lines in the surface. “These plates are interchangeable. They can, theoretically, be lifted out and exchanged for others. I don’t believe it’s ever been done except in the rare instances when one’s been damaged.”
“Don’t the different pieces disrupt the flow of energy through the array since the lines aren’t whole?” Ed reaches out to carefully touch his fingers to the edge of the dais’ flat top. He’s not shocked with pain so he rubs his fingers along the rounded edge.
“Yes, but there’s some inherent property of the plate material that bypasses that requirement. They’re carved from the stone of the mountain and it hasn’t been discovered how, but it’s as if the rock channels and amplifies the alchemic energy. We constantly see people probing the limits of the rock, but since samples are strictly controlled, the limits of the rock aren’t usually tested.”
“How are alchemical advances made then?”
“We’ve become accustomed to working within the confines of our current knowledge. Advances still happen, but couldn’t you imagine all that could be discovered if we didn’t treat the rocks like such precious commodities? If we could only explore the outside world?”
Ed doesn’t like this train of thought. She might ask him to create an array to break down the barrier permanently and where would that leave him? In a position that’s even more precarious than it is right now. He steps closer to the dais and examines it closely. It’s built of the same sandy colored stone that surrounds them. There’s no inherent protection laced into the stone. They rely on human security and the fear of what might happen if someone tampered with the barrier. Anyone could still wander in and do something with no one the wiser. It’s probably what’s happened to make the barrier reach this unstable, weakened state.
The dais is far from uniform. The edges of the top where the array pieces fit may be rounded but the rest looks like it was shaped directly from the mountainside and merely extracted. Ed wonders how these daises and the array pieces were made. It’s intricate work especially when the amplification properties of the sand are also thrown in. It’s a complex thing he’d love to learn more about, but first he needs to figure out what’s wrong. “At some point, you’ll have to explain how any of this was created. We should get to the problem daises now that I have a general idea of how things work.”
They head back into the tunnels and go deeper until they come to one where the array is weaker for some reason. Ed walks up to the dais and examines it. He traces the array lines from one plate to another and they seem to connect like he’d seen on the first one. He then follows the lines down the sides of the dais into the side. Each side looks pristine and exactly like it should. No one would be able to change the array on the dais sides without it being obvious.
He sits back on his haunches after peering into the sand and pulls the satchel in front of him. It’s time to see if he can use anything in there. Rake, brushes, cloths, nope, nope, nope. What the hell would he use them for? The sand is in perfectly straight lines. The dais top looks shined within an inch of its life and the sides of it are untouchable. He fingers a long metal tool with a flat hook on one end that might be used for levering the plate pieces out of the dais, but he can’t be sure. He looks up at Margaret watching him from the alcove entrance. “How are the arrays turned off and on?”
“A red lodestone gets placed into the sand to gather and redirect the energy while whatever changes are necessary are made to the dais plate pieces.” The Aerugian amplifiers may be offshoots of the city’s lodestone and if they ever get out of here, Ed’s going to figure out a way to learn about both.
There’s nothing useful in the satchel that’ll help him figure out what’s wrong so he goes back to examining the dais by sight and touch. He doesn’t find anything and visits to the other alcove daises don’t turn up anything either. It’s a fruitless day and Ed’s frustration mounts. It’s alchemy. He should be able to figure out what’s going on. After several more few hours, Margaret suggests they head back and Ed grudgingly agrees. On the way back they stop at one of the problem daises and one of the normal ones so Ed can make sketches of the arrays. There has to be something he’s missing and maybe if he spends some time with them on paper he’ll be able to figure out what it is. Mustang’ll be there too and with the two of them working on it, they should be able to figure it out.
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