The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia) Read Online Free

this was the most likely spot for the workshop to be.”
    The location for the fabled workshop for Tinker and Jones, the inventors who had made Molly, had been one of great debate among the three women over the past weeks.
    Tinker and Jones were the best clockwork makers in all the Nine Realms. Their creations were so sophisticated that it was nearly impossible for someone to claim they were not alive in some strange way. Coveted as the best of the best by the most influential people in the worlds, they went from being two little-known inventors to the only word in clockwork construction. They built a massive factory in Djupur Byrjun, Realm of Earth, to be closer to the raw materials needed to keep up with the ever-growing demands of customers. They were the very model of overnight success, and the legend was that both men grew insanely wealthy off their talents.
    Which was why the dwarves of Kh’zdule had enlisted their aid against the Gnome King.
    They had ordered an army of tik-tok soldiers to aid them in their struggle for survival and traded several hundred tons of raw material in exchange for the inventors’ services. It is here that the narrative becomes muddled. Some legends say that Tinker and Jones took the payment and fled Djupur Byrjun entirely. Other stories stated that the duo did indeed create an army of tik-toks but were attacked by the Gnome King before they could activate the army to defend them. These stories explain how the Gnome King was able to successfully attack the factory and wipe it off the face of the Djupur, leaving no trace of it at all.
    Either way, the army, the tinkers, and the factory were never seen again.
    More than a few adventurers had tried to find the fabled workshop, claiming that the tik-toks were the most mundane of the treasures that could be found within. Every decade or so the tales resurfaced and grew in stature, fueling even more curiosity about the lost factory of Tinker and Jones.
    Caerus believed she knew where the factory was most likely to have been constructed and destroyed.
    Molly, who had been designed and built at the factory, said she had no knowledge of the factory’s whereabouts but was adamant it had to be somewhere still within the city of Evna, the fallen capital of the Land of Eva. Caerus explained that the ruins of Evna had been explored extensively numerous times and had never once yielded a clue to the factory’s whereabouts.
    The sapphire believed the Gnome King had not destroyed the factory but had instead stolen the entire building and laid waste to the city to cover the theft.
    Ferra had settled the debate by saying the trio should explore both possibilities.
    They had spent ten days rummaging through the ruins of the once great capital city and had found what every other explorer had found: absolutely nothing. Molly and Caerus, who had no need for sleep or sustenance, had searched the ancient ruins without pause, covering in seven days what other exploration teams had spent months doing.
    Ferra had done her best not to show how bored she was with the whole endeavor and spent the week trying not to imagine the city as one giant tomb. Now, surrounded by a darkness that had eyes, Ferra realized she wished she was back in the tomb.
    Molly walked out of Caerus’s light before Ferra could stop her.
    “We should stick together,” the barbarian called out to her companion.
    Silence answered her.
    “Molly,” she tried again.
    More nothing.
    “Can you see in this?” she asked Caerus, worried.
    “There is some kind of enchantment in the area…,” the gemling answered in a tight voice. She was obviously straining to push past the magics around them.
    “Molly! Answer me!” Ferra shouted into the darkness. More silence, which had developed from a nuisance into a menace in only a few seconds. Ferra’s warrior’s instinct came to the fore, and she took charge.
    “Follow me,” Ferra said to Caerus. “Make as much light as possible.”
    They got two