Iskander
The crude rudimentary knuckledusters felt alien and clumsy in my hands as I worked, the unfamiliar weight both thrilling and deeply unsettling. Sylvia's voice, warm yet edged with maternal concern, cut through my focus.
"What are you doing, child?" Her spectral form hovered nearby, lavender eyes watching my fumbling attempts to bind the sleek, metallic fountain pens with strips of tough leather, using the translucent, acrid-smelling glue as adhesive.
"Knuckledusters," I declared, holding up the awkward, spiked contraption. The pens, designed for delicate script, now protruded like jagged fangs from the leather-wrapped base.
"Not pretty like you, Dragon Mama, but necessary. My hands might be strong," I flexed the powerful fingers of my terrific demigod body, feeling the contained force within, "but punching The Thing bare-knuckled? It'd be like hitting solid rock with wet clay. These,"
I tapped the reinforced leather binding the pen barrels, "might just let me hit back without shattering my own bones." The practicality felt grim, a stark counterpoint to the exhilaration of my new strength. This wasn't play; it was desperate improvisation for survival yet filled with the excitement of adventure.
"Moreover," I added, a spark of defiant pride cutting through the grimness, "I made this!"
I held up my other creation: a haphazard sphere formed from several pens glued together at odd angles, wrapped tightly with leather cords, and further secured with messy globs of the adhesive. It looked like a child's failed art project, lumpy and inelegant.
I never had the occasion to master arts and crafts in my past life, my own hands often betrayed me.
Sylvia tilted her head, ethereal braids shimmering. "And… what is that supposed to be?" Confusion warred with fond exasperation in her tone.
"A decoy!" I explained, enthusiasm momentarily overriding the tension. "I proved I can be quiet enough to avoid The Thing… mostly. But if it finds me head-on? Hiding won't cut it. This," I jiggled the ungainly ball, "makes noise. A specific kind of noise."
To demonstrate, I carefully lobbed it against the pearlescent wall of the Shell Room. It impacted with a sharp, clattering rattle—the unmistakable sound of multiple hard, cylindrical objects striking a surface and scattering. Exactly like the pens falling when I'd hidden under the table. My grin was fierce.
"The Thing heard me before because I moved. But this sound? It's the sound of objects being disturbed. Hopefully, it'll think it knocked something over… or investigate a potential source of the noise instead of me."
The logic felt flimsy, built on Alfred's adventure stories and sheer, reckless hope. But it was a plan. Better than charging blindly like Sylvia warned me about.
Standing, I felt the unfamiliar weight of the knuckledusters strapped securely over my knuckles with more leather strips. They were uncomfortable, bulky, a constant reminder of the violence they were designed for—violence I wanted to leave in the corrupted nation of Etharia, but I couldn't be so naive.
The decoy felt cold and inert in my other hand. The violet light of the Shell Room seemed suddenly small, a fragile sanctuary against the consuming dark beyond the spiral door.
"Time to test the theory," I murmured, more to myself than Sylvia. Stepping through the sighing spiral door felt like crossing a threshold into a different world—the 'Office Zone', as I'd dubbed it for its hauntingly mundane strangeness.
The familiar scent of ink, dust, and latent power washed over me. Immediately, I dropped into a crouch, my new body moving with predatory silence ingrained in its stolen grace. Every sense stretched taut, listening beyond the frantic drumming of my own heart.
I moved like a shadow, hugging the right-hand wall of the corridor, guided by the increasingly potent thrum resonating through the floor—my beacon, the potential generator. The violet light from the Shell Room dwindled rapidly, swallowed by the suffocating darkness.
Ahead laid the intersection where I'd first encountered The Thing's burning crimson gaze. My target: the corridor branching left from that junction, the source of the hum.
Reaching the junction just as the last vestiges of light faded, I paused. The darkness was absolute, a tangible pressure against my skin. My plan required precision. With agonizing slowness, guided by touch and memory, I maneuvered one of the overturned tables—heavy, humming faintly—to hug the left wall of the main corridor, just before the junction.
It would be my bolt-hole if the decoy drew the Thing this way. The smooth, cool material felt reassuringly solid beneath my fingertips. Alfred would approve of using cover.
Position secured, I crouched beside the table, the knuckledusters cold against my palms. The decoy felt slick in my grip. This was it. No technique, just raw power and desperate hope. I drew my arm back, muscles coiling in this magnificent, terrifying body.
Throw hard. Throw far.
With a grunt of effort, I hurled the ungainly ball of pens and glue down the opposite corridor—the one branching left from the junction, away from my target path. It sailed into the darkness, silent for a heart-stopping moment, then impacted somewhere unseen with that distinct, sharp clatter-rattle.
Now. Hide. I dove under the table, pressing myself flat against the humming floor, clamping a hand over my mouth. Silence. Thick, oppressive silence. Had it worked? Was the Thing even nearby?
Then, the vibrations started. Deep, rhythmic THUDS, shaking the floor beneath me. Getting closer. Fast. The insectile drone of its breath swelled, filling the corridor like a physical wave of dread. It was coming!
But… which way?
The footsteps grew thunderous, vibrating up my spine. The drone became deafening. A massive, obsidian leg slammed down mere feet from my hiding spot, the impact jarring my teeth. Another followed. It was passing the junction. Passing me. I risked a sliver of a glance from under the table edge.
The towering silhouette blotted out the distant violet glow of the Shell Room entirely. It stood at the entrance to the right-hand corridor, the one I'd thrown the decoy down. Its back was to me, a wall of shifting, hungry darkness radiating palpable malice.
Those twin crimson embers burned fixedly down the corridor where the clatter had sounded. The susurrating breath paused; a wet, sniffing sound filled the air. It was investigating the decoy!
My breath hitched. It worked. Relief, cold and sharp, flooded me, instantly followed by a surge of adrenaline.
Now! Move!
Sliding out from under the table with serpentine silence, I didn't hesitate. I turned the corner into the left-hand corridor, plunging into the pure, consuming darkness. My hands stretched out before me, fingertips brushing the cool, seamless wall, my only guide. My hearing, preternaturally acute, latched onto the deep, resonant thrum—my lifeline now.
The sound of The Thing's investigation faded behind me, replaced by the oppressive silence of the unexplored corridor and the beckoning hum.
The darkness was a physical entity, pressing in, threatening to disorient. Every nerve screamed, expecting a clawed hand to snatch me from the void at any second. I moved quickly but carefully, my crouched form gliding forward, guided solely by the vibration in the floor and the wall under my fingertips.
The hum grew stronger, deeper, vibrating in my chest cavity. It felt less like a machine now, more like the slow, powerful heartbeat of the Relictombs themselves.
My probing hand suddenly met empty air where the wall should have been. A recess? A doorway? I traced the edge—smooth, curved. Then, under my touch, the familiar sensation: warmth blooming beneath my palm, a resonant thrum traveling up my arm.
With a soft, sighing sound, a section of the wall spiraled open inwards, revealing another space bathed in the same soft violet emergency light as the Shell Room. Sanctuary? Or another puzzle?
Without hesitation, driven by the need to escape the oppressive dark and the proximity of the Thing, I slipped inside. The door spiraled shut behind me with finality, sealing out the corridor's consuming blackness. The sudden shift was jarring. Gone was the claustrophobic corridor, the scattered office detritus. I stood on the threshold of an immense, cavernous chamber.
The scale was breathtaking, dwarfing even the Shell Room. Vast, curved walls of the same pearlescent material soared upwards, vanishing into shadowed heights far beyond the reach of the violet light emanating from unseen sources high above.
The air here felt different—cooler, damper, carrying a faint, mineral scent like deep caves. The only feature in this echoing immensity stood directly in the center: a structure so mundane, so utterly out of place, it felt surreal.
A windmill.
Not a towering, menacing construct, but a simple, sturdy mill built of weathered-looking, pale stone bricks. Its four large, canvas-covered blades hung still and silent, attached to a central shaft rising from a small, square stone building.
It looked like something transplanted whole from a pastoral landscape on Earth or maybe that continents Sylvia told me: Dicathen and Alacrya—the last one where the Relictombs where located—a relic of peaceful industry deposited incongruously within this cosmic vault.
"This looks rather eerie, don't you say, Sylvia?" My voice, despite its new resonance, felt small in the vast, quiet space. The juxtaposition was profound, unsettling. The Shell Room felt like a sacred nautilus; the Office Zone, a forgotten workplace; this… this was a reliquary holding a single, humble artifact from a casual countryside.
Sylvia materialized beside me, her luminous form casting a soft glow. Her lavender eyes were fixed on the mill, filled with a profound, ancient sorrow that seemed to deepen the chamber's shadows.
"The Ancient Mages…" she began, her voice hushed, thick with emotion. "They were a people unlike us Asuras. They resembled humans in form and spirit—not gods, lessers as my brethren would call them. Peaceful. Deeply peaceful." She paused, the word hanging heavy.
"They never developed weapons. Never crafted machines for war. Their ingenuity was bent solely towards understanding, sustenance, harmony." A gesture encompassed the mill. "This… it likely harnessed aether, not wind or water. A peaceful application, generating power for growth, for life."
Her words painted a picture of profound tranquility, making the mill's presence here, in the dangerous, shifting Relictombs, even more jarring. Why is it here? The question burned, but seeing the raw grief etched on Sylvia's ethereal features, I swallowed it. The Relictombs, it seemed, had repurposed even relics of peace for its own enigmatic, often deadly, ends.
The blades of the mill were covered in intricate, swirling runes. Not just carved, but seemingly grown into the canvas and the wooden frames beneath. They pulsed with a faint, internal light, shifting through subtle shades of blue and silver.
Trying to focus on them, to decipher their meaning, sent a sharp, stabbing pain lancing through my temples, a mental recoil from complexity far beyond my comprehension. I looked away, blinking.
"Sylvia," I asked gently, drawn to a sturdy wooden handle protruding from the side of the stone building, "if the Ancient Mages were so peaceful… how are the Relictombs… well, this?" I gestured around the vast, eerie chamber, thinking of the Thing lurking outside.
"How did they become these dangerous, reality bending, shifting dungeons?"
A shadow deeper than grief passed over Sylvia's face. She didn't look at me, her gaze fixed on the silent blades. "In their final moments…" Her voice was barely a whisper, trembling. "When the end came… some tried to fight back. To protect what they had built, what they were. But others… consumed by anger, by terror, by despair at the destruction…"
She shuddered, a ripple passing through her spectral form. "They… corrupted the Relictombs. Twisted their purpose. Turned sanctuaries of knowledge into… into this labyrinth of peril. They poured their fear and rage into the very fabric, and it… responded."
She fell silent, the unspoken horror hanging thick in the air. She couldn't, or wouldn't, say more. The guilt I'd sensed before—was this its source? Did she feel responsible for failing to prevent this corruption?
Respecting her pain, I turned my attention to the handle. It looked like it belonged on a village well. Solid, worn wood. Purpose. If this was a puzzle piece, this was the lever. Planting my feet, I gripped the handle with both hands, knuckledusters scraping against the wood.
Using the full, coiled strength of my new body, I pushed. At first, it resisted, immovable. I strained, muscles bunching, pouring every ounce of stolen power into the effort. My breath came in ragged gasps. Slowly, grudgingly, the handle began to move, groaning as if waking from centuries of slumber.
As it turned, a deep, resonant thrum echoed through the chamber, emanating from the mill itself. The intricate runes on the blades flared brighter, blue and silver light intensifying. With a creak of ancient timber and a whisper of canvas, the massive blades began to turn.
Slowly at first, then with gathering, silent momentum. No wind drove them. No water rushed beneath. Pure aetheric potential translated into graceful, powerful rotation.
Suddenly, high above, dozens of points of light flickered into existence. Not the violet emergency glow, but warm, golden orbs, like captured sunlight. They ignited one by one, bathing the immense chamber in a soft, welcoming radiance.
The oppressive gloom vanished, replaced by a cathedral-like grandeur illuminated by these floating suns. The pearlescent walls shimmered, the mill stood revealed in all its humble, rune-covered majesty.
Light! Glorious, revealing light!
"It worked!" I exclaimed, a laugh of pure, unadulterated triumph bursting from me. The sound echoed joyously in the vast space. "We have light, Sylvia! Real light!"
A genuine, warm smile touched Sylvia's lips, momentarily banishing the sorrow. "I am happy for you, Child," she said, her voice regaining some of its usual gentle warmth.
She drifted closer, peering upwards. "But… how do you propose to use them? They seem rather… inaccessible." Indeed, the orbs floated near the apex of the cavernous ceiling, easily a hundred feet above the floor.
"Don't worry, Sylvia!" I declared, already assessing the stone mill building. Its rough-hewn bricks offered handholds. "It's clear the Relictombs are one giant interconnected puzzle. The Shell Room—a starting point, maybe a sanctuary. The Office Zone—archives, workspaces? This Mill… a power source, or a key? They're all different chapters," I recalled her earlier explanation, "but they link. Solving one unlocks the next."
"That's true," Sylvia confirmed, watching me as I began searching for footholds on the mill's base. "The Relictombs were conceived as vast repositories of the Ancient Mages' knowledge. Each subsection, each unique zone, was termed a 'Chapter'. You are very perceivable Islander."
The concept resonated—this was the Mill Chapter.
Finding purchase on the rough stone, I began to climb. My new body made it possible—powerful fingers gripping tiny ledges, legs pushing with explosive strength. It was still perilous; a fall from this height onto stone would test even my enhanced healing.
Sylvia watched, a silent pillar of anxious support, as I ascended the side of the structure, moving towards the rotating blades and the central shaft just below the floating orbs. The view from the top was dizzying—the vast chamber spread below, the warm light bathing everything, the silent power of the aether-driven blades sweeping past just feet away.
The nearest orb pulsed gently about ten feet above the apex of the mill's structure. Too far to reach from the roof itself. Need momentum. Taking a deep breath, ignoring Sylvia's sharp intake of breath, I crouched low on the stone roof, coiling like a spring.
The knuckledusters felt absurdly out of place. I focused on the orb, its warm light beckoning. My battery. My chance. With a grunt of effort, I launched myself upwards, legs driving with all their stolen power. Time seemed to slow. The chamber wheeled below me.
My outstretched fingers, straining, brushed cool, smooth crystal—then closed desperately around the glowing sphere!
The impact jarred my arm, but I held on. Immediately, the orb's light dimmed slightly, and we began to descend together, slowly, gently, as if the air itself had thickened to cushion our fall.
Aetheric resistance, did that even exist? The orb's own property? I didn't care. My feet touched the stone roof, and I held the captured sunlight aloft.
"Got it!" I crowed, exhilaration surging through me. The orb was warm in my hands, not hot, humming with a profound, gentle energy. It felt… alive. Like holding captured starlight infused with the essence of growth.
"Vivum," Sylvia breathed, drifting closer, her lavender eyes reflecting the orb's golden glow with awe. "The Edict of Life. Of existence itself. Governing healing, growth, the very spark of being." She traced a spectral finger near the orb, not touching it.
"These weren't mere lanterns, Iskander. They were tools of profound creation. Likely used to nurture impossible crops, accelerate growth, heal blighted land… perhaps even to sustain life in artificial environments like the Relictombs." The ingenuity was staggering.
"The Ancient Mages mastered the application of aether to nurture life on a scale we dragons, focused on dominion and combat, could scarcely imagine."
"So are these… life-lanterns?" I wondered aloud, turning the orb in my hands, feeling its potent, benevolent energy resonate with my own body.
"Ingenious. Truly. They were so powerful… how did they…?" I trailed off, remembering Sylvia's earlier grief.
Sylvia sighed, the sound heavy with millennia of sorrow. "As you see, their power was bent solely towards creation, advancement, peace. They reached technological and aetheric heights even we dragons, in our long history of martial arts and dominion, never approached. While we honed our Realmhearts for battle, they refined their understanding to build… this."
She gestured at the mill, the orb, the vast, peaceful chamber. "Their strength was their focus… and their vulnerability."
"Sorry for asking, Sylvia," I said quickly, the joy of my prize dimmed by the renewed pain in her voice. "I didn't mean to bring back… bad memories."
The weight of her past, the guilt over the Ancient Mages' fate and the corruption of their legacy, felt palpable. She carried oceans of sorrow within her spectral form.
Shaking off the melancholy, I hefted the warm, humming orb. Its light played over the makeshift knuckledusters on my hands, a stark symbol of the contrast between the Ancient Mages' vision and the brutal reality of the Relictombs now. But it was also my key.
My stolen piece of vivum, of life-energy. Trapped aether I could use.
"Well," I declared, forcing a brightness into my tone, trying to cast light on Sylvia's shadows as the orb cast light on the chamber, "time for me to use these glowing gifts to procure my real aether reserve!"
The orb pulsed warmly in my grasp, a beacon of stolen potential, a piece of peaceful power I would now wield in my reckless, desperate fight for survival and the birth of an impossible core.
The Mill Chapter had yielded its treasure. Now, the hunt for The Thing could begin.