Cohost writing prompt: @Making-Up-Adventurers — Adventurer who knows that THIS delve is gonna be the one that puts their name in the books
Crane swaggers into the library, up to Archivist Ynglaite's writing-desk, and produces a sheet of parchment from the breast of her jerkin with a flourish. Unfolding it, she spreads it out on the desk for Ynglaite to see.
"How about that," she says smugly.
Ynglaite looks up, first; at the new, pink scar running down from her hairline, bisecting an eyebrow, interrupted by the socket of one twinkling eye, and finishing its course in a sloppy starburst dip of scar tissue on her cheekbone. She allows herself a moment of internal chill at imagining the injury when fresh, then looks at the paper.
"A fair rubbing of a family crest medallion," she says, and shifts it a little closer to the lantern on the desk. "That's — hm."
"First human to crack the Pnelotic Labyrinth," Crane says.
Ynglaite bites her lip.
"Second," she says quietly, and watches Crane's face fall, posture deflate, and shoulders slump in a slow sequence. It doesn't occur to the human for a second, she notices, to disbelieve it; and her heart squeezes unhappily.
"But there's nothing in the—" Crane waves a pleading arm toward the shelves of records.
"The last Contessa was...very traditional." Ynglaite runs her finger along the edge of the parchment. "Refused to record the defeat of the dugeon by...not an elf. The renowned adventurer Merak of Beum took the family medallion in Sun Year 10; she arranged to buy it back in secret, along with his silence."
"Fuck," Crane says, under her breath, and runs her hand through her hair.
"I'll have the records for the Pnelot estate updated within the day," Ynglaite says. "Is there anything you'd like entered in the record—"
"Why bother." Crane thrusts her hands dismally into her pockets. "I thought, finally something impressive—" and she audibly throttles whatever other words were following.
"You're one of two humans to ever beat the Labyrinth," Ynglaite says carefully. "There are fewer than two hundred recorded defeats of its inner ring. Is that not impressive?"
"Not enough," Crane says resolutely. "Not for — not enough," and Ynglaite looks at her downcast face and wants to throw down her pen and say: whoever they are, if it's not enough for them, they are worth nothing.
She tightens her grip instead. "Shall we be graced for a while with your presence in the stacks, then?" she says, lightly as she can manage. "There are older dungeons in the northwest, which I feel are under-valued by the general focus on more recent construction with more fashionable design philosophies. Your researches—"
"No," Crane says, shoulders tight. "No, fuck it. If you can't trust the records because they wouldn't even write it down when if human managed it...no, it'll have to be something undeniable in its own right. One of the Ten."
The Bloody Ten. Challenges to the elven tendency of such demanding technical skill and lethality that they are now not considered valid targets. Only eight of them still stand, the families who constructed the other two having demolished them as sources of family shame for their body counts.
"Crane—"
"Vault of Verain," Crane says, and straightens her shoulders in grim resolve.
"Crane, the Hemi-Oceanic Vault of Verain has killed twenty-eight people of elven Master qualification, of full mastery of the Tree-of-Knowledge," Ynglaite says softly. "Full masters of schools of literal specialist dungeon-cracking magic. That dungeon is so lethal it killed the entire school of design that held the purpose of the dungeon to be actively adverserial, not simply an obstacle to entry."
"I did the research on it a decade ago," Crane says.
"Crane...."
The Vault of Verain demands not just flawless technical execution, but an endurance gauntlet of repeated flawless technical execution, with instantly lethal consequences for failure, beyond exhaustion. And with its tidal flooding, it changes character to be unconditionally lethal, a hard timer that demands every one of its uncompromising tests be performed not just perfectly, but with record swiftness.
Crane takes a deep breath. "That'll be enough," she says, with square-jawed bravado, and marches out.
Late that evening, Ynglaite cautiously tips back her hood in a smoky tavern taproom. "May I sit?" she says meekly to an anvilthane whose facial expression has guaranteed herself a table alone.
"You're the archivist," the dwarf grunts.
"I'm — Crane has come to me across the years, to have her successes at the tendency put into the record," Ynglaite says, hovering, excrucuatingly aware that she has not been told she's welcome.
"She certainly has," the anvilthane says, and swigs from her tankard, narrowed eyes looking at Ynglaite over the top of it.
"I think she's trying to — make a show of her capability to someone." Ynglaite stumbles over the words, rehearsed as they are. "Impress on them her skill. Her daring. Her — sufficiency."
The dwarf puts the tankard down and, maintaining eye contact, belches.
"Please," Ynglaite says. "If you know who it is, can you — find them, and ask them to say to her that it's not necessary to their affections? It can't be necessary, they'll surely say it if they know to, the Vault is death—"
"You could have told her," the dwarf says.
"I did!" Ynglaite clutches her shawl. "...As much as my place would let me, anvilthane; nobody wants the pen's opinion of the deeds it records."
The dwarf, not breaking eye contact, raises her arm and signals the innkeep for more drink. "Lord of Hammers, forge me patience," she gravels.