Sproing!!
Clark came back a couple of days later, without Gascone. The ex-chancellor was dead, and he didn't have the Key.
"What key?" Luciana asked.
"The artifact that Divayth Fyr came here looking for - Nocturnal's Skeleton Key. What part it has to play in the false Sotha Sil charade, we don't yet know, but apparently Gascone was holding it for her, until he sold out to Clavicus Vile. He's dead now, by the way. I suppose someone should gather his remains from the Ventral Terminus."
"One bit of good news, at least. We're better off without Gascone, especially now we know he was a traitor."
"I believe the Key was in the chancellor's chambers, but was stolen during the unrest in the Loqutorium. He fled because he knew Vile and Nocturnal would both be after him. We have to get that Key, and find out why it's involved in this whole confusion."
"My priority is finding Sotha Sil, the real one. You can go looking for the key."
Not long after that, Clark came looking for Luciana again. He'd established that the Skeleton Key was now in the hands of Seht's Shadow, who was heading for where Sotha Sil was being held captive. They'd need to pass through part of Evergloam to get there, so did Luciana know of any Gloaming Gates?
Her patrols had reported finding two. One east, and one west, of the Brass Fortress. Both were hidden in clefts of the rocks, but not too hard to find once you got close. She showed him on the map.
"We'd best take one each to save time. And hope those really are the only two." he said. "You go west, and I'll go east, OK?"
Luciana woke up and looked around. This wasn't the same part of Evergloam she'd just stepped into. What had happened?
Clark was standing over the body of a shrike nearby. It faded from view before Luciana could get up.
"They moved you from the other gate to here, and that made it easier for me to find you," Clark told her. "A good idea to split up, wsasn't it?"
He didn't wait for her response. He pointed at the nearby gloaming gate and urged her to come along.
"I know where we are," Luciana exclaimed. "This has brought us to the Mechanical Fundament, just outside the Cogitum Centralis. We must be close to where they're holding Sotha Sil!"
Clark hoped that it meant she knew the way, as he'd never been there before. She took the lead, and was almost immediately confronted by a wall of shadow that hadn't been there before.
"So not only are we going to have to deal with the Cogitum's defenses, it appears the Shadow has added some of his own," Luciana deduced. She recalled a spell that Seht himself had taught her, centuries ago. "Like one of my regular Templar spells, but more so," she remarked as the shadow dissipated.
The next thing they had to do was cross a bridge, which wasn't where they needed it to be. This was part of the Cogitum's own defenses, and of course, controlled from the inside.
"I think I can override it from out here," Luciana told Clark, 'but we'll need more power to do that. See if you can turn on the core pumps."
She pointed to two corridors leading off the central chamber.
"There's a switch at the end of each of those. You'll know if the bridge opens before you're done, and that will mean I've managed it with partial power. Not likely to happen, though."
Clark ran off to the first one, and came back to find Luciana fighting off several factotums and fabricants. He helped with those, and ran off to the second pump switch. There were more defenders when he got back.
Luciana was struggling with a bent arm, so they paused to fix it. She pulled a toolkit from inside her hollow thigh, and Clark helped hold the ends while she straightened it out.
"Does that hurt?" he asked.
"I do have an 'awareness of damage', but it's not exactly pain. It serves the same purpose of dissuading me from letting the damage continue, but I can turn it off for procedures like this. And most repairs are done by the factotums, while I sleep.
"What I'm really missing is a better sense of touch so I can avoid this sort of impact in the first place. I only have that in my hands so I can modulate my grip, and a rudimentary sense in my feet to supplement my balance."
She got back to her work overriding the bridge controls, and soon they were able to use it.
More shadows blocked their way, but this time there were switches to turn lights on. Naturally each switch was guarded; nothing is ever easy. Then down a long series of ramps to the Throne Aligned.
The Shadow of Sotha Sil was waiting. Seht himself was held in a mechanical contraption at one end of the room. It appeared that Divayth Fyr had made his way here, too, and was trying to pry him out the device.
"You'll not open that without the Key," the Shadow interrupted, "and I have it. Seht's going nowhere, but you should all leave now, before I kill you."
So of course, everyone did the exact opposite and attacked the Shadow. Not easy in a room full of darkness, but Fyr and Luciana were both using spells that produced a lot of light, and Clark was a close-in fighter who could do so by touch if needed. When the Shadow fell, he was able to grab the Key.
Luciana and Fyr were both totally drained, she even more than him. Fyr directed Clark to use the key, and release Sotha Sil, and then slumped back to the florr. Luciana didn't move at all.
As Clark turned the key, the darkness seemed to thin, and flow towards Sotha Sil, who was soon lifting his head to take in the scene. The bands confining him retracted into the walls and floor, and he waved his hands to bring up the lights. Fyr struggled to his feet, but Luciana remained inert. Factotums came in and picked her up, carrying her out between them.
Everyone else took the portal Seht opened, back to the Basilica in the Brass Fortress. Luciana was back in her room, standing in her recharging frame, apparently unconscious. Several factotums were attending to the damaged parts of her body.
When they woke Luciana, Varuni and Clark were watching her.
"How do you feel?" asked Varuni.
"Like my tank has been emptied, and I've been running on the sludge at the bottom. Even though it's been refilled, I'll need some time to get back to normal.
"But what about Sotha Sil? Were we sucessful?"
They nodded.
"Thank the gears! The people are safe. Seht knew - he told me one day I'd shine a light. I never knew what he meant before, but it finally made sense."
"Not finally, you did survive the ordeal yourself. Although we were worried," Varuni added.
Clark said nothing. He just walked over and gave Luciana a hug. After a moment, it dawned on her that she could feel it. They'd made some changes when they repaired her.
"That felt like I'm in my full armour, hugging a man who's also in full armour, so not exactly exciting. But probably totally accurate. That's a big improvement."
Clark and Varuni winked at each other. Did they know something Luciana didn't?