"Open your eyes!"
"What happened?"
Craig heard familiar voices as his consciousness crawled back to his body. He slowly made sense of his surroundings, still in half-stupor and heartbeats pressing against his temples.
"Did the antidote work?" Brianna asked with concern.
"Hey, can you hear us?" Rhett bent down beside him, waving a hand in front of Craig's face,
Craig rubbed his eyes and checked his body – his limbs were intact, the bleeding stopped. But the golden world, the figure, the storm? It was all gone. Was it all a strange dream?
He looked up at the domed ceiling etched with constellations. The air was heavy with myrrh and astera leaves. He tried to move, but a firm hand from Brianna pressed him back down.
"Don't move yet," she said with soft authority, "You were unconscious for almost three hours. Rhett carried you here in the Astrology Room. You should thank him."
Rhett crossed his arms and scoffed lightly, "Who you should really thank is Zenobius," he said, shooting Craig a sidelong glance. "If it weren't for him, you probably wouldn't have woken up at all."
He was a tall man in his forties with silver hair and calm grey eyes, standing near the edge of the observatory. He was clothed in indigo robes and wore blue and red star-shaped pendants around his neck. His voice was low and measured as he spoke, "He's stabilizing now."
He rotated a metal volvelle in front of him, "The flux around him just dissipated." He murmured with slight disappointment, "A shame we weren't able to take the readings on our Torquetum." He scratched the side of his head and smiled, "Hey Judas, can you.. go back to that realm for just a tiny little second? For research purposes, of course!"
Rhett's head snapped toward him. "Are you serious right now?" he said with irritation.
Zenobius chuckled under his breath."Relax, Rhett,"
Zenobius thought for a while and said with euphoria, "I remember now, we can still use the seismic traces on his soul!"
He grabbed Craig's arm, "Come with me!"
He dragged Craig to a slightly elevated platform and placed his hands on two seperate plates. Connected to the platform was a measuring stand which had various numbers inscribed on it.
The plates gleamed in a pale blue aura and the measuring stand showed a reading even above the maximum reading of ten thousand. Zenobius furrowed his brows
"Rhett, will you do a Centripetal divination on it and report me on the phantasms you found?" Zenobius said in confusion.
Rhett observed the reading, "It's so strange. The last time we got such a high reading came from Nefyur, when.."
"Enough." Brianna said, "We promised when we won't bring that up again."
Zenobius' face darkened, he flashed a solemn smile, "It's fine, I don't remember that anymore."
Brianna signaled to Craig, assuring him that she will tell him about it later.
In a thick glass burette which was connected between the two plates suddenly collected celadon-blue radiation residues. Zenobius noticed it and set a suction pump on top of it.
"Aloeceus," he muttered under his breath, turning toward the bronze automaton perched at the edge of the observatory desk.
Zenobius straightened his back and gave the commands, "Set the Celestial Armillary to Orbit Seven and stabilize its heliacal axis. Apply blue-frequency filters for low-density astral radiation, and prepare a comparative resonance chart against the Progenitor Body's base tone and figure out the flux's electron spin pattern."
Aloeceus with a group of high ranking astrologers carried out his commands. The automaton's rings clicked and began to rotate in a concentric manner emitting a low sonorous murmur.
Zenobius adjusted the brass dials on the Torquetum and aligned them with the orbits of the five visible planets. They drained out the flux from a conduit and siphoned it upward.
Tiny motes of golden light glinted off the ceiling's surface. The light instead of forming over a known co-ordinate between the celestial bodies fell on a black space beyond the known planets.
"What?" Zenobius never saw this phenomenon before, "How is the damn light bouncing off from the scale?"
He and the team repeated the same procedure twice but the result was same.
"What does this mean, Zeno?" Aloeceus said with a worried face, "Where has this flux come from?"
Another astrologer approached Brianna with that accursed red gem in a petri-dish. Craig eyes were instantly caught by it.
"I'm sorry, we tried again and again but the gem is not even matching Gaia's resonance, pinpointing its origin is a far-fetched thought."
Brianna took the gem in her hands, it glimmered like a mirror. Brianna's eyes shook in dread and wonder, "So this isn't even from our world?"
'I founded the gem… yet here I am – unprepared, ignorant and utterly fumbling. With dire dependence on everyone else at every step I take. Why can't I have it for myself?'
An internal dissonance split him apart. He reasoned with himself, 'What will you do with it? You surely can't handle it by yourself? Be reasonable and play safe!'
But then a distant voice appeared in his mind, 'But it was yours, Craig, take it.' This voice was chaotic and unfamiliar, it seemed as if it was of a seductress in a wild forest.
'Think of all the power and fame it will bring, all the glory, reverence and might! Just a few steps, a few effortless steps and godhood is yours! This is a chance you get once in seven lives, do it!'
He was tempted to act – to snatch the gem and run away to never come back but he fought hard the immoral, foreign voice.
He controlled his emotions – the voice lost the mental battle.
A finger snapped in front of his face, startling him, "Huh! what!?"
"Hello..? Were you get lost in the dazing dimensions again?" This was Illiad.
"He returned with Zerfaim." Brianna said with a smile.
"Oh." Craig rubbed his eyes again, unable to think clearly.
"Look at what I found–" Illiad pulled out a photo from a diary and sneered. Craig looked at it and was quiet repulsed : it was a picture of a grotesquely sccared and conventionally unattractive man with painful blisters all over his face. There were pen-drawn red horns above his head and had various mocking symbols etched all over his face.
"Who's this?" Craig grimace at a single glance. Illiad said in a mocking smile, "It's Rhesus. The most precious and dazzling man in our temple. His funny face might help you recover."
It only worsened his mood. "Enough." Brianna scolded him, "We will not mock someone's appearance." Her tone softened but her eyes carried exhaustion, "A full evening and almost no important insight – what a waste. Let's go, we will try tomorrow again."
Craig rose up silently and followed Brianna as she exited the astrologer's observatory. She said to him when they were alone, "A new restraunt opened down the Coyule street. Will you join me for a dinner there?"
'Wait, is it a date invitation?' Craig's heart made a leap.
"But I have no money on me."
Brianna smiled, "That's okay. I'll pay for both of us. Besides, I caused you a lot of unnecessary problem today, I wanted to compensate for that."
Craig was let down instantly, "Oh, so this was not a..."
"What?" Brianna asked.
"Oh, nothing. Don't mind." He said in an embarrassed tone, looking away.
While walking, they exited the rooms entirely and entered that narrow, vault like place from where it all started. It was time to go back to the upper world again. Before that, Brianna noticed something – the most prominent room which was there between the Scriptorium and the Seer's Faction was open.
She immediately sprinted up the stairs and slammed the golden doors shut. "Who did it? Who opened the room? Who dares mock my Lord?"
Craig was taken aback by her sudden gestures. Brianna came down and realized her harsh outbursts. She exhaled strongly and calmed her senses, "I'm sorry, I became.. frightened."
"Miss Brianna, what happened?" Craig asked.
Brianna grabbed his shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes, "Get this one thing Craig – do anything you want but never enter this room. And when I say never, I truly mean it! Never will you enter this room, promise me. Under no circumstance!"
Craig was confused, "I promise, but why? Isn't it just a room?"
"No." Brianna looked at closed, golden doors of the room, "Craig, this room is the sole heart of this entire temple. We call it The Tabernacle. It is the place where all of our sacred relics are recieved from our Lord Hermes. Inside the Tabernacle is placed the Edicule, a higher dimension which is directly connected with the Lord's residence – his sanctum sanctorum! In other words, this is where the Lord's divinity is felt the most!"
They finally came to the surface, at that Chapel, to once again witness it's battered and burnt face.
"I'll inform the city renovators tomorrow. The place was old anyway, it was bound to be renovated someday." She smiled, though her eyes lingered on the ruins.
Craig smiled and was about to leave the temple along with Brianna... But then, he felt the same, monstrous pain from the past – it bloomed in his chest and crawled up to his throat and came out in the form of violent floods of blood spattering the chapel floor in vile crimson arcs. He fell to ground, this time fearing his life.
'No, no, no. Not again!'
He saw the fading image of a terrified Brianna running at him which was swallowed by a vortex of darkness which encircled around his vision.
Right then he heard the earlier voice, now it growled like the storm he saw in that "dream"
"R-E-T-U-R-N T-O W-H-E-R-E Y-O-U W-E-N-T."
His consciousness slipped into the oblivion – once again.