"Is this wise?" Rhesis asked as they approached the large iron door set into raw, uncut stone. The repository was only a few miles from the crystal forest the deep dwarves called their temporary home away from Lagarra. The siren seemed more cautious than even before, still grieving the loss of her arm. Rhesis would die before admitting she was anything less than her normal self, but Tali had caught the siren running fingers over the gruesome scar on her shoulder where once there had been a joint. Jarek had done his best to tend it, but the necromancer had no way to restore the lost limb. Even with a laboratory and a great many reagents, he claimed, it would be almost beyond possible.

Tali reached out, putting a hand on Rhesis's elbow. "I promise it will be worth it," the young dwarf said resolutely. "I won't let you down."

Rhesis picked her words carefully. "You are not my concern, little dwarf," she sighed.

"I am inclined to agree with Tali," Jarek said, rubbing at his chin as they drew to a halt in front of the door. "A repository of dwarven knowledge lost to even dwarves for centuries sounds most intriguing. Who knows what exists on the other side of that door?"

The siren shook her head slightly, lips twisting. "Trust a mage to see a locked door and insist it be opened, the reason it's locked be damned."

"My dear siren, are you suggesting I am unwise?"

"It is either your insatiable curiosity or Tali's bumbling trust that will be our death knell, and I have not decided which is more likely. You seem inclined to make the decision for me," Rhesis said acidly.

Tali didn't take the critique to heart. It was Rhesis's way of being worried about what might happen to them. "I wish we had Lekt with us," she murmured.

Jarek shrugged. "Better that he not draw the wrath of the God of Artifice on us. Though it is a shame that they are in his disfavor. Tek is such a fascinating deity. I'd hate to be barred access to his knowledge."

"He may take umbrage with us as well, given our lack of dwarfness," Rhesis pointed out.

Tali felt a sudden weight on her back as Prideep scaled her again. The frog-like goblin's throat pulsed as he settled his elbows on her right shoulder, legs wrapped around her waist to support him. He seemed quite comfortable on his strange little perch, his bone spear slung across his back. "Tek likes goblins," Prideep said with confidence.

Jarek chuckled at that pronouncement. "Are you willing to wager your life on that, my friend?"

"He'd risk his life for a mealworm," Rhesis muttered.

Prideep swiveled, bulging eyes focused thoughtfully on the siren. "Meat is meat," he said almost plaintively. "Why bitey?"

"You have been more irritable than usual," Tali said gently as she studied Rhesis's almost slumped posture.

"Maruk took something out of me," Rhesis admitted, sitting down on a cleft of rock. "More than just my arm."

"Shall we leave you to talk to Tali?" Jarek's tone was softer now, no longer jousting back and forth with Rhesis in their usual fashion. When the siren inclined her head, he reached over and peeled a suddenly limp Prideep off Tali. "Come on, you little rascal. Let's take a closer look at this door."

Prideep raised no croaking opposition, only a muted cheep of protest when Jarek didn't immediately don him like a backpack. Clearly he understood that Rhesis needed some time without being antagonized.

Tali waited until their companions had left to sit down beside Rhesis. "What's bothering you?" she asked, tipping her head to the side to hear more closely.

Rhesis swallowed hard and swiped her fingertips across the lashes of each eye. "I used to think very well of my...independence," she said quietly. "In the days before my imprisonment here beneath the earth, I could defend myself against any comer. It took great power from many mages to seal my magic and chain me here in the Deep."

The dwarf was no expert on surface dwellers, but she kept her peace. Sometimes people needed silence most of all, and Rhesis definitely seemed in one of those moments. Instead of butting in with words, she allowed herself to catalogue every sound, the irregular intake and exhale of breath, the tentative shake of fingers, the unsteady click of Rhesis's teeth when the siren tried to shape a dwarven word or two.

"I...it is very difficult, to know that you are not safe, that you cannot protect yourself," Rhesis managed before falling silent, stemming the tears with her fingertips and then the sleeves of the shirt Tali had given her right as they rose.

Tali placed a hand on Rhesis's back, offering the warmth and rock-steadiness of a dwarf. "I can't fix that arm," she admitted readily. "I'm not very good at adventuring or fighting, but I won't leave you when Maruk comes again. Maybe you can't protect yourself, but we can protect each other. You have Jarek, Prideep, Lekt and I. The deep dwarves will protect you too."

The siren sucked in a deep breath. "It is hard to trust."

"You don't have to," Tali said firmly. "We'll be here whether you like it or not, let alone whether you trust us or not."

When Rhesis laughed, it sounded almost like a sob. She shook her head slightly. "You are such a rare creature, little dwarf. In all my life before, I cannot say that I have had a friend like you."

Tali shrugged a little, keeping her hand on Rhesis's back. "You haven't met many dwarves," she teased. "How do you know there aren't a thousand like me?"

"There is only one Tali Khondurahl," Rhesis said thickly. "I feel very fortunate that she was the one who stumbled across me and took mercy enough to shatter my chains."

The dwarf gave Rhesis's good shoulder a brief squeeze. "You're worth it," Tali said.

It seemed like the siren wanted to disagree for a moment, but what she said instead was, "We should probably go provide adult supervision to Prideep and Jarek. Gods only know what havoc they have wreaked."

Tali clicked hard with her teeth, sending out a pulse of sound to map the depths beyond the little alcove where they were sitting. She could distantly make out the shapes of Jarek and Prideep in front of the great slab of iron that served as a door. "I think they're just poking at it right now."

A grating sound shrieked from the direction of the door and Tali felt vibrations crash out from the opening portal, filling her perception with a brief surge of chaos.

"Or not," Rhesis said dryly, back to her normal self. "Either we should hurry to save them or leave them to whatever evils Fate intends without exposing ourselves."

There was something reassuring about her friend's splinter-sharp speech. Tali rushed forward, stopping beside Jarek and Prideep as they peeked through the doorway.

Inside was a large, octagonal room covered in engravings. The pool at the center of the room contained liquid, with a central island carved in the shape of a lidless eye. On either side were pipes and gears that seemed to feed into the pool, though none were flowing. There were no bodies, only scorch marks on the floor and traces of ash. There was not a single sign of a door leading deeper in.

"Was that dwarf?" Prideep asked, pointing his bone spear at a pile of ash.

Jarek shrugged slightly. "Who knows? My curiosity is whether they died on entry or for failing some test of Tek."

Tali stepped tentatively into the room. "I don't know," she admitted readily, clicking to map her new surroundings. The bas reliefs carved into the walls told stories of a great conflict and a terrible conflagration. Everywhere were images of the horribly dead and an all-consuming fire. The floor's carvings she recognized more readily: the Litany of Tek. It was less religious than she'd heard of skyborn and their gods, more reminders of the lessons imparted by the God of the Machine.

"I see no door," Rhesis observed as she followed Tali in, head swiveling as she sought to take in everything with a mixture of clicks and the enchantment on her eyes. "The dwarves here concealed it well."

Jarek chuckled at that. "Well, Tali's people are known for their clever concealment. There's a reason they never reveal themselves to humans and the rest of the surface unless they wish it. It's not just golems that protect them. Secrecy does a fine job as well."

Tali crouched down beside the pool, running her fingers along the carvings at the edge.

Knowledge is the cup that never runs over, one section read. Humility is to say 'I know not' and seek to learn truth.

As the dwarf contemplated the pool, Prideep made a quick circuit of the room, pushing and prodding and pulling at various parts of the carvings. Nothing budged. Meanwhile, Jarek knelt by the door and furrowed his brow in concentration. For her part, Rhesis seemed content to sit beside the mage and frown.

"This isn't water," Tali said finally, recognizing the subtle smell and the slippery feel of the liquid between her fingers. "It's quicksilver."

"Fascinating. I wonder why," Jarek said thoughtfully. "I sense only magic coming from the roof, of a highly destructive variety. It would likely immolate us as well, if it perceived us as intruders. So far, it is inert. No illusions concealing a door."

Rhesis huffed. "Dwarves don't use magic. I fail to see why they would make an exception to that rule simply for the sake of a little library in the middle of nowhere."

Tali rose to her feet and approached the gears. A quick turn on each side revealed their purpose: the one to the right added more quicksilver, the one to the left drained it. A single inscription remained on both of them. Delve deep, return to the source, look within to find a center. "I think the answer is at the bottom of the pool."

Jarek approached quickly, putting a hand on the gear that drained the quicksilver away. "Shall we empty it?"

"I don't think it's that easy," Tali murmured, rubbing the back of her neck as she studied the pool.

"We can give it a try," the mage offered.

Rhesis rolled her eyes. "Yes, please, let us rush headlong into this and get ourselves killed."

Before Jarek could snip back at her, Tali started to move, circling the edge of the pool, reading by the map created in her mind by the echolocation she used to explore the world around her. There was something there, just beyond her. She frowned as she walked, pausing now and then to kneel down and trace the stone with her fingertips when she felt a line was particularly important. She paid no attention when Jarek and Prideep started to turn a gear, lowering the level of quicksilver in the pool ever so slightly in an experiment.

Something rumbled above and Jarek immediately stopped their goblin from enthusiastically continuing. "It seems angry, my froggy friend," the mage advised. "I do not think we can empty the pool."

Knowledge is the cup that never runs over.

Tali bounced up from her kneeling position. "The cup that never runs over..." She darted towards the other gear and twisted it experimentally.

Quicksilver flowed into the pool, the levels rising. The rumbling above seemed to intensify, but Tali paid it no mind despite the warnings coming from Jarek. In this, she was confident that she knew the answer. She poured more and more quicksilver into the pool, raising it to the very brim, letting it cover the island in the center.

A whirlpool appeared in the center of the pool and abruptly, everything drained away to reveal the interior of the perfectly carved stone. It was a smooth basin with a raised column at the center that disguised a hollow space, the rock jutting up surrounded by a spiral staircase leading down.

Tali beamed. "It was a Cup of Temperance!"

"Explain," Jarek said, staring down at the pool.

The young dwarf waved a hand at the central column, still grinning from ear to ear. "Knowledge is a cup that never overflows, because the more you have, the less you know you have."

Her mage companion looked absolutely fascinated. "But how does it work?"

"You can drink normally out of a cup of termperance so long as it's not full. The moment the levels rise enough to completely cover that center column, it starts to flow down through the hole at the center. That makes a suction and pulls the rest of the liquid out. A good reminder not to drink too much, or you lose the drink all over yourself."

"Clever little dwarf," Rhesis said with a smile despite her caution about their surroundings. "Shall we see what lies in wait?"

Tali nodded and pulled in a deep breath, approaching the carved stairs. They fit seamlessly into the central pillar of the pool, likely carved out of it rather than constructed alongside it. She quickly did her best to shrug off the glow of pride. Anyone could have figured it out if given long enough, she knew that well enough. There was no sense in gloating about it when there was so much waiting for them ahead.

Prideep peered over the edge of the pool, sticking to his precarious perch with the suction cups on his fingers and toes. "Traps?" he said curiously.

"Probably not," Tali said. "Still, we can be wary just in case."