Chapter 223: Who Said It Was Broken?

Iris Rowan arrived at Warehouse Nine at exactly three-thirty on Thursday afternoon.

She walked through the main doors with a canvas bag slung over her shoulder, her eyes immediately scanning the high storage racks and the hunters hauling salvage crates near the loading bay.

Arthur was waiting for her near Sophia’s high desk. He led her back past the main sorting tables to a heavy wooden workbench, where Tolan was waiting.

"Iris, this is Tolan," Arthur introduced them. "He handles our alchemy and sensitive salvage."

Iris set her bag down on the bench and looked directly at the single, tarnished metal plate resting on the wood.

"You said you had old dungeon enchantments," Iris said, leaning forward to inspect the dull metal. "Is this one of them?"

"Recovered from a dungeon entrance," Tolan explained. He tapped the edge of the plate with a gloved finger. "The original team labeled it a defensive ward, given where it was found. The guild tried to activate it during preliminary sorting, but it didn’t respond to standard mana input."

Iris pulled a brass magnifying loupe from her bag, leaned over the plate, and started tracing the faint, grooved inscriptions with her finger.

She turned the plate over, examining the smooth back, then flipped it again to study the edges. "The central containment channels are intact. But these exterior routing lines don’t loop back to the primary core. They terminate at the edge."

"Does that mean it’s broken?" Arthur asked, leaning against the bench.

Iris glanced at him. "I haven’t determined that yet."

She pulled a small, brass calibration tool from her bag, placed it over the central node of the plate, and closed her eyes.

Arthur watched her work. She fed a trickle of mana into the metal, feeling out the structural pathways without attempting a full activation.

"You’re keeping the flow incredibly steady," Tolan noted, watching her hand closely. "How are you avoiding fluctuations with an unknown array?"

"By not forcing it," Iris said, her eyes still closed. "The channels are narrow. If you push too much volume, the excess just bleeds off the edges."

After a minute, Iris opened her eyes and pulled the brass tool away. The plate hadn’t produced a spark.

She frowned, pulled a notebook from her bag, and began sketching the inscriptions. Over the next twenty minutes, she tried feeding mana into different routing lines, checking the metal’s response against her drawings.

Nothing happened. She had two pages of sketches and no explanation for the open connections.

Sylvia walked over from the main counter. She watched Iris study the dead plate for a moment before speaking.

"How’s it going?" Sylvia asked.

"I’m still working on it," Iris admitted.

Sylvia glanced at the plate. "You’ve got until half past five. See if you can get something useful out of it."

Iris picked up the loupe again, staring at the terminated routing lines at the edge of the plate. "If the pattern isn’t damaged, it’s supposed to connect to something else. Is there a larger consignment from that haul?"

"Sophia!" Arthur called out, turning toward the front desk. "Where did the rest of the Oakhaven recovery go?"

Sophia checked her ledger. "Aisle four, crate seventeen. The unclassified metal salvage."

"I’ll get it," Arthur said.

He walked down the dim aisle between the high storage racks, pulled a heavy wooden crate marked seventeen from the bottom shelf, and carried it back to the workbench.

He set it down with a heavy thud.

Iris immediately started digging through the crate, pulling out tarnished belt buckles, broken iron spikes, and rusted armor fragments. Near the bottom, she found a smaller metal plate with a series of intricate grooves.

She wiped the dust off and set it next to the larger plate on the bench.

"Here," Iris said, pointing to a set of grooves on the smaller plate. "Look at the alignment. The routing lines on the large plate terminate exactly where the receiving channels on this one begin. They’re a paired set."

"A paired set of what?" Tolan asked, inspecting the alignment.

"They pass a signal between them. I think."

"What kind of signal?"

Iris studied the smaller plate again. "That’s what I want to find out."

She turned back to Tolan. "If I supply a baseline trickle of mana to establish the connection, we can see what the signal actually does."

Tolan inspected the two plates. "I’m not seeing any attack or discharge channels. Keep the mana low. If the thing starts pulling more than it should, stop."

Iris positioned the two plates across the workbench.

She placed her hands over the central nodes and closed her eyes. A faint pulse of pale blue mana left her fingertips, sinking into the metal.

For ten seconds, nothing happened. Arthur leaned in closer.

Then, a faint, pulsing light appeared along the edge of the larger plate.

Iris’s eyes snapped open, a huge smile breaking across her face. "The connection is established. It’s an active field."

She looked at Tolan, then at Arthur. "Move your hand between them."

Arthur didn’t argue. He reached out, passing his hand through the empty space between the two glowing plates.

A sharp, ear-splitting chime rang out through the warehouse.

Arthur jumped back, startled, rubbing his left ear.

"What the hell was that?" a junior hunter shouted from the loading bay.

"It’s a proximity trigger!" Iris exclaimed. "The resonance field is unbroken. Do it again."

"No," Arthur said flatly. "I’m not the test dummy."

"It works," Tolan confirmed, nodding at Sylvia. "It’s a localized alarm. Responds to movement across the connection."

Arthur studied the glowing plates. "So it doesn’t shoot anything?"

Iris stared at him. "We just got a centuries-old enchantment working, and that’s your first question?"

"I’m just saying it’d be better if it shot whoever set it off."

Iris shook her head and turned back to the plates.

Sylvia leaned closer, inspecting the steady light. "Can it be installed somewhere else? Say, across the doors of a secure storage vault?"

"We’d need to run a full diagnostic before permanently mounting it," Tolan said carefully. "But the basic function is intact."

"There was probably another piece to control how loud it gets," Iris added helpfully.

Sylvia counted out the agreed silver and placed it on the bench. "Good work, Iris. I’ll contact you when we have another batch worth examining. Same arrangement—paid by the hour."

Iris scooped the silver into her bag. "I’ll need to know what kind of artifacts they are before I agree to the hours."

"I’ll provide a description," Sylvia promised dryly.

"Can I keep a copy of the routing line diagrams I traced today?" Iris asked. "For my own research."

"Subject to Tolan’s review," Sylvia said. "I don’t want commercially sensitive guild assets detailed in a first-year student’s notebook. But the basic structural principles are fine."

Iris nodded and packed her tools, glancing at the warehouse clock.

"I should get back. I’ve got my practical tomorrow morning."

She took another look at the glowing plates before finally slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Thanks for bringing me in," she told Arthur.

"Don’t thank me yet. Sylvia might put you to work sorting rusty swords next time."

Iris gave him a brief smile and headed for the doors, her notebook still in her hand.

Once the heavy doors closed behind her, Sylvia looked back down at the two metal plates resting on the bench.

"Run the full tests," Sylvia told Tolan. "If they’re reliable, I want them protecting the lockbox room."

Tolan glanced at the still-glowing metal. "I’ll also see what I can do about the noise."

"Please do," Sylvia said. "I don’t need the entire district knowing whenever someone opens a door."