It took six days for my puppets to discover the Rainbow Grotto, which is what I called something I never expected to find. But in order. The fireflies scurried through the darkness and found many cracks in the stream channel. All the cracks and branches were carefully examined, and some of the caves had fungi and mold, so there was plenty of food for the spiders, and they didn't have to go up.
Fireflies, on the other hand, did not need it, and magic is collected from the air by crystals, I did not bring them to life — and why should I? The second branch of the underground stream was found, or a tributary — I don't know yet.
Many cracks had to be simply marked on the general map — another of my creations, in the form of a small ball with six small and one large complex crystal with thirty-six facets. The dense illusion displayed a three-dimensional map of the explored dungeons, with schematic markings.
The spiders lingered at the cracks long enough to widen them and peer a few feet or three deeper, so that the new passage was better marked on the map. The fireflies were not enough, and I had to make a dozen more to cover the main passages, because a dozen is not enough.
I also had to think: how can I take all the puppets with me? I'll be leaving in a month or so, and it's a shame to let all that work go to waste. In general, the larger part of the Fireflies continues to explore the creek bed and its second tributary. And the smaller part, three of them, found the Rainbow Grotto.
A message from the leader brought me out of my meditation and I immediately fell into a trance, fishing for the right thread of connection. Darkness torn by thin webs of light was the first thing I saw when I connected. Then, looking around, I realized what I was seeing through the doll's eyes.
The stream flowed into a rounded cave bowl, collected in a small lake, and left the mountain through small, thin cracks in the rock, literally ejected by the pressure of being below the water level. Taking control of the exploration, I carefully examined the cracks, quite thin, lowered the dummy to the water itself, and turned on the light.
The desire to check the depth without diving raised a faint hope, and the two remaining scouts were already on the walls under the vaulted ceiling. All three Fireflies turn on their lights at the same time. I can't take my eyes off the colorful reflections under the calm water. For a few minutes I just admire the view and listen to the sound of the water.
The water, collected in a bowl-shaped chamber, flows under pressure through narrow cracks in the rock, creating a constant noise-music — an intertwining of clattering rocks, rushing water, and polyphonic echoes. Everything that came from deep inside the mountain settled at the bottom of the pond, unable to penetrate the crack.
Under the gaze of the dolls, in their light, the stream brought a small red pebble that rolled into the dark bowl. Only the smallest and worst stones ended up on the outside. The rest, the biggest ones, stayed here, waiting for ME!
Transparent, yellowish, pink and red, blue, blue, dark — the floor of the grotto was literally littered with raw minerals. My eyes were dazzled by the wonders I saw. Even if the stones had not been worked, had not learned to shine, they were not gray cobblestones. Well, I'll have to find a way to extract them, and then I'll have to organize the artifact storage. I don't want to leave anything here, just in case.
***
I opened my eyes and looked around, the sky was just beginning to take on the hues of sunset, so I still had time. The sapphire I'd found first was in my hand, and it had become a habit to twirl the dark stone around in my hands. Over time, I'd grown too attached to this pebble, and I'd managed to think of several ways to use it effectively and comfortably, so that the stone always stayed with me.
A ring, a pendant, an earring, a rosary, a bracelet. The first three had to be discarded for various reasons. In Asia, rings are worn by "mature" and "respected" people, because the thing is expensive, becoming an indicator of status rather than wealth. In addition, magical concentrators are often made in the form of a ring.
A ring with a large sapphire will immediately attract attention, and any of the elders will take it from me without delay, and I will not be able to say a word against it. I have no desire to give gifts to those moldy mummies. I already have a pendant, and here in Japan it's normal to wear different things around your neck.
Often there is more than one. When I had my mother's pendant, it was noticed, but they didn't comment on it, I don't know why (no one paid attention to it because it's charming to "divert attention"), but the second one will cause questions and I will have to answer them.
Earrings, like rings, are also a matter of status and rare, because as a simple piece of jewelry is not particularly accepted in the circles of the arrested. I had almost closed the question of rosaries, for there were few stones large enough in the "spheres", and the quality of the large stones was insufficient — cracks and inclusions were a discovery for me.
The book said that such disadvantages cause problems in processing, and a large stone with cracks is split, because it can split later. So I was leaning towards the bracelet, especially since there is gold, even if only in the form of ore.
Today's discovery turned everything upside down. I did not want to delay the solution of the problems, preferring to "pack a bag from the evening", so one of the evenings was spent on the reconfiguration of the "Sphere" — so decided to finally call the furnace for crystals.
The added customization feature revealed itself to me in a new light. By weakening and changing the pressure vector, as well as the gravity point and the sphere, and by disabling the magical background — a prerequisite for the creation of magical crystals — I got something similar to what I had seen in a movie. In the first test, however, I had to make small changes to the sphere itself: diagnostic charms, substance analyzer, and substance purity analyzer. With the last two, I had to work hard to form the necessary formula in ancient hieroglyphics. I won't describe how I asked Mayuri-san for her gold ring for the evening, but it was a strange and uncomfortable conversation.
But I needed a sample for the Sphere's memory base. Later, I managed to scan many materials, including the hostess's emerald earrings, a silver pendant with an opal, and even a sample of surgical steel of excellent quality.
Everything scanned was stored in the crystal's memory, so if anything went wrong, you could simply remove the crystal and move it to another location. As a general result, I now put the cut ore into the sphere along with the sweat (cutting the ore produces metal sweat, which is also collected), start working, and watch as pure molten gold collects in droplets and threads in the upper part of the sphere. The view, it must be admitted, is amazing, mesmerizing.
The process goes on around the clock: early in the morning, I extract pure metal and waste, load a new batch, come in the evening, repeat the process, leave for the night. It is not much, but in a few days I have collected enough gold to make a massive bracelet like the ones worn on the biceps in India.
I had already resigned myself to the fact that it would have to be redesigned later, for I had no skill or knowledge in making such miniature and multifunctional artifacts. The crude artifacts I use are crude artifacts with a single, undisguised function, without sufficient protection. Man, it's something to be proud of, but on the other hand, you can tell it was made by a self-taught kid. Too simple, too crude, too irrational.
Well, now I should rethink my plans....
The first change was the bracelet. From massive and heavy, it became a ring with a diameter of three millimeters. It was easy to cast — the sphere rules! Asking Mayuri-san for help was more difficult, but not critical. As a result, the gold bracelet now stretches like rubber, but only at my will, to other people's hands it's a monolithic metal ring.
Four very small, untreated sapphires fused into the bracelet fixed the artifact's properties: adjustable binding, under the spatial pocket, diversion of attention, and the dual function of strengthening the artifact and weak self-repair (this is when the pale blue stone with a given function is intact and filled with energy). A few weeks before I left, I finished the bracelet and immediately began packing up the treasures I had acquired.
Getting the gems from the cave was not much more difficult, but no less time-consuming than creating a complete, albeit crude, artifact. I sent the fireflies to explore the passages and caves they could get through. I dragged all the spiders freed from their work, except for the gold miners, to the lake. For several days they melted the rock above the water level.
I just thought: there was a lot of rock, and it would take a long time for the spiders and harvesters to move it, but if we could make a straight passage to the grotto, it would speed things up. When they were done with that, they began to carefully lower the water level, but only so that the gems would not be carried away by the current.
I warned them not to touch the cracks through which the water had originally flowed, so the spiders began to melt the stone away, in several places at once. As the water level receded, the holes stretched into lines, and I was careful not to increase the thickness.
After a few more days, a convenient ledge emerged from under the water for me to stand on instead of just watching the spiders and harvesters at work. Of course, I should have changed the order: start draining the water first and then — melt the passage for me, but we are all good at hindsight. After a week of work I felt very strange. I could not describe and explain my feelings even after a long time, although I repeated the very first thing I did when I reached the gemstone deposits.
I lowered my hands, dipped them into the multicolored layer of stones, raised them in my palms, poured them out, picked them up again, poured them out, and began to drive my hands in the amazing wealth.
The action and the sight were mesmerizing, drawing him into the murky glitter of the stones, hypnotizing him, taking away his consciousness. Only a cut of my palm on a particularly sharp edge of a milky yellow stone brought me back to my senses.
It is an unheard-of sacrilege to value such treasures in money, but it is also barbaric to measure them in sacks. But I had no other measure. I collected precious gems in rag sacks from under the rice — nothing else occurred to me.