Uru's Third Temple

by A F Kay

  You have received 1,500 experience.

  Ruwen checked his experience to see how the battle and quest had impacted him and saw he’d almost reached level twenty.

  Experience: 179,165/190,000

  Another notification appeared.

  Ting!

  You have received Uru’s quest…

  The Search for Truth (Part 3)

  Restore the Temple to find answers, and return Uru’s Blessing to the Southern lands.

  Reward: 10,000 experience

  Accept or Decline

  Ruwen chose Accept, and yet another notification appeared.

  Do you wish to Bind to Temple?

  Yes or No

  “Did anyone else just get a Bind notification?” Hamma asked.

  “Yes,” Lylan said.

  Ruwen nodded.

  “Choose ‘No’ because we have no idea if the revival baths even work in here,” Hamma said.

  “Where are you bound now?” Ruwen asked Lylan.

  “Stone Harbor Temple,” Lylan said.

  Ruwen chose “No” and then opened his map and expanded it as far as he could. In the center of the temple, there appeared a small green area labeled “Uru’s Blessing.” He looked in his settings where Hamma had shown him and confirmed that he’d just synched with Uru. If he died now, he would be up to date.

  “We just synched, too,” Ruwen said.

  “That’s a relief,” Lylan replied.

  Ruwen looked around the large open area. The walls, ceiling, and floor were smooth and constructed from the same strange grey metal as the temple in Deepwell.

  “Hamma, do you know where to start?” Ruwen asked.

  “If we can find the revival baths, I have some ideas where we can look,” Hamma said.

  “Are you two okay with guarding the exit?” Ruwen asked.

  Sift and Lylan nodded.

  Ruwen followed Hamma, who strode toward the back of the room. Ruwen triggered the Worker ability Glow, and his skin emitted a soft light that made it easier to see.

  “Is any of this familiar?” Ruwen asked.

  “We have rooms like this, though not as big,” Hamma said.

  A ladder attached to the back wall went up and down through a cylindrical hole in the ceiling and floor. It reminded Ruwen of the ladders in the temple at Deepwell. Hamma went down without hesitation. They went down two floors when the ladder ended, and they needed to cross the room to continue down. They did this twice more, and then Hamma stopped and studied the room. It didn’t look much different to him, but Hamma nodded her head.

  “This is it,” Hamma said and pointed to a door. “I’m sure that leads to the revival baths.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  They walked to the rounded door, and Hamma pulled up on a lever, but it didn’t budge. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” Ruwen asked.

  “See if you get a notification when you try and open this.”

  Ruwen stepped up to the door and pulled up on the lever. A notification appeared, and he opened it.

  Restricted Access – Binding required

  “Does that mean we need to bind here?” Ruwen asked.

  “Yes, and if this temple is like Deepwell, there will be security measures once we’re inside. They might be deactivated like the Guardians outside, but if they’re not, it will be fatal.”

  “What are the risks of binding here?”

  “This temple isn’t fully functional. If something happens, and we die, we’ll queue up here, but never revive. It would be like dying for good.”

  Ruwen rubbed his forehead. “I need to do this, but you don’t. Thank you for getting me this far, but I’ll take it from here.”

  The Scarf of Freshness hid Hamma’s lips, but he could tell she was biting them. After a second, she shook her head. “Uru told me what you’re doing is important, and that my contribution is important. How can I not take this risk, even if my brain is telling me it’s foolish. We need to succeed here, or it doesn’t matter. Naktos and the other gods will destroy our country.”

  Hamma reached down and pulled up on the lever, and this time it released the locks on the door.

  “How do I change my Bind Point?” Ruwen asked.

  Hamma told him where to look in his settings, and a moment later, he received a notification.

  Do you wish to Bind to Temple?

  Yes or No

  Ruwen chose Yes. “Isn’t it a little weird this temple doesn’t have a name?”

  “Very.”

  They both walked through the doorway, and Hamma locked the door behind them. A short hallway later, they entered a sizeable room filled with revival baths.

  “Uru’s freckled–” Hamma stopped herself from finishing and covered her mouth with a hand.

  Ruwen laughed, remembering how Hamma had cursed multiple times after his revivals in Deepwell. “Harder to curse after actually meeting your Goddess.”

  Hamma narrowed her eyes but didn’t deny it. Instead, she walked across the room, and Ruwen followed her.

  “In Deepwell there were less than ten revival tubs,” Ruwen said. “There are a hundred in here.”

  “And if this is like Deepwell, there will be multiple floors of these.”

  Ruwen hadn’t known that, but it made sense. Between deaths and Ascendancies and the time it normally took to revive, you’d need a lot more than the eight tubs he’d seen. Still, this seemed really large.

  “How big was this city before, you know, whatever happened here?” Hamma asked.

  Ruwen shrugged. “I’ve never heard of this place.”

  Hamma tilted her head. “I thought you were all smart and stuff.”

  “I am. I just like math more than history.”

  “It’s a little weird that nobody’s heard of a place this large. This is bigger than Stone Harbor. I think this temple could have supported over a million people.”

  Hamma stopped at a glass window.

  “Does Uru even have a million people?” Ruwen asked.

  Hamma shrugged. “The church keeps a lid on that information, so I’m not sure.”

  Hamma tapped the glass with her finger, and text scrolled down the window. Ruwen stepped closer to watch, fascinated by the secret Order Class functions. Hamma used her hand to push the text up and to the side. A moment later, her hands dropped to her side.

  “What?” Ruwen asked.

  Hamma pulled the Scarf of Freshness down and locked eyes with Ruwen. “There are over seven hundred thousand people in the queue for revival.”

  “Uru help me, what happened here?” Ruwen asked. “When did it happen?”

  Hamma tapped on the glass a few times and then looked at Ruwen. “They all say nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine. My guess is the system never thought someone would be in the queue for over ten thousand years. Who knows how long they’ve been in here?”

  Ruwen pulled his Scarf of Freshness down as well. “What kind of world was it before the Pact?”

  “It seems pretty terrible.”

  “Uru says it’s coming again. That I’m going to cause it. I can’t be responsible for this level of suffering.”

  Hamma grabbed Ruwen’s shoulders. “Hey, you aren’t going to cause it. You will set things right. Uru told me.”

  Ruwen took a few deep breaths. “Right. I can’t look that far into the future. Let’s get through this first. Can you sort the other way? Who were the last people to die here?”

  Hamma nodded and tapped the screen. Names scrolled down the window in a blur. It suddenly stopped, and a name burned brightly in the glass. The date only a year ago. Ruwen groaned, and Hamma steadied him.

  Colyn Starfield.

  “No,” Ruwen whispered.

  His dad had died here.

  “Check the next name,” Ruwen choked out.

  Hamma swiped, and the next name appeared, with the same death date from a year ago.

  Clarysa Starfield.

  Ruwen’s eyesight blurre
d, as his stomach twisted. His parents had died. Even through the grief, a part of him felt relief. He’d finally found them.

  Hamma swiped again and then staggered backward. She cried out, and Ruwen spun around, looking for the danger. Her cheeks were wet with tears, as she silently pointed at the window.

  Ruwen turned and found a third name, the death date sixteen years ago. One he recognized from Hamma’s stories.

  Niall Blakrock.

  Chapter 60

  Hamma screamed, stepped up to Ruwen, and pounded on his chest. “This is your fault! My dad died because of this!”

  Ruwen’s eyes filled with tears, while Hamma sobbed. She struck him again. “I would have had my dad if not for you! He was here helping you and Uru!”

  Ruwen pulled Hamma close and let her vent. He hadn’t even been born when Hamma’s dad died, but she was right that he had come here to prepare the way for Ruwen. He could understand how she made that connection, especially when there was no one else to blame.

  “I’m sorry, Hamma. I’m sorry.” Ruwen just kept repeating the words over and over.

  Guilt ravaged Ruwen’s mind. His parents had been stuck here for a year, while he had gone about his life. Common sense tried to reason that he only recently had the skills to save them and that his parents were effectively sleeping, and the year wait meant nothing to them, but it didn’t matter. All those nights Ruwen spent in sleepless worry now looked like wasted time. He had let his parents down.

  And just like Hamma, Ruwen blamed himself for his parent’s situation. They had only been here to prepare the way for him. The common thread through all this tragedy was him.

  Ruwen couldn’t imagine the guilt, anger, and despair Hamma felt.

  Eventually, she pushed herself away, wiped her cheeks, and glared at Ruwen. “We have to revive him.”

  Ruwen nodded. “Of course.” He waved at all the revival tubs. “Why aren’t any of these working?”

  Hamma turned back to the window. Text flew by at a dizzying pace as Hamma jumped from status to status. Ruwen looked away to keep from getting a headache.

  “Terium is the first problem,” Hamma said. She strode to a rectangular drawer in the wall and pulled it out. From her Dimensional Bag, she removed one of the bags they’d taken from the Plague Siren. Pulling out a terium coin, she dropped it in the eight-foot-long drawer, closed it, and then marched back to the readouts.

  Light filled the room as the strips along the ceiling glowed. Ruwen toggled off Glow and watched Hamma. She pounded on the glass, and Ruwen worried it might break.

  “What’s wrong?” Ruwen asked.

  “It let me mark the four of us as friendly, and the revival capacity is now ten people, but it won’t let me activate the revival baths.”

  Ruwen opened his map, hoping it might have information about the temple. There were no details, but he noticed that Uru’s Blessing had grown and now covered the entire city and parts of the Grey Valley.

  “What does it say exactly?” Ruwen asked.

  “Restoration of Temple Required,” Hamma said.

  Which obviously meant nothing to Hamma.

  “Is there a library or someplace they keep manuals?” Ruwen asked.

  After a moment Hamma marched out of the room, and Ruwen hurried to keep up. They climbed down another ten floors and walked through four hallways until they came to a door twice as big as the other doors.

  Hamma pointed at it. “This is the High Priest’s private chapel. No one is allowed in it but him, and it contains the word of Uru. I’ve only heard rumors about it, but it’s the only thing close to a library.”

  Hamma’s voice had lost its friendliness as she dealt with the pain of finding her dad. Ruwen worried that Hamma might not forgive him for her dad’s involvement and death. Blapy’s words, spoken in the Spirt Realm, echoed in Ruwen’s thoughts: “I even know where Hamma’s father is. I wonder if your relationship will survive it.”

  Ruwen pushed the fear away. Hamma’s high Wisdom would hopefully overpower the anger and hurt of finding her father dead and waiting for the past sixteen years. She probably felt immense guilt, just as he did.

  Hamma stared at the door but didn’t open it. The penalties for disobeying this rule were probably severe. But Ruwen didn’t care. He pulled up the lever and opened the door. A smaller room with another, normal-sized door appeared.

  Ruwen opened the smaller door and stepped inside the High Priest’s private chapel.

  The ten by fifteen-foot room had few furnishings. Colored etchings covered the walls, and many of the scenes were strange and otherworldly. A small altar sat at the far end of the room, and an alcove held a small statue of Uru. On each side of the altar sat what looked like revival tubs.

  Ruwen walked to the leftmost tub, and in the window next to it recognized the menus Hamma had used in the large revival room above. He turned and walked to the other tub’s window. Gold lace covered its edges, and a thin veil covered the window, blurring the words underneath. Wondering what it said, he lifted the veil away, and to his shock, couldn’t read the words.

  How could that be? His level of Hey You had reached esoteric. Nothing should be hidden from him anymore. Ruwen remembered the twenty-two books in Rami’s collection. There were still things hidden from him. He opened his Abilities tab and read the advanced ability for Hey You again.

  Advanced Ability: True Name

  Base Ability: Hey You

  Cost: 10 Ability Points

  Hey You Level: 15

  Class: Worker

  Effect: Understand the language of the Universe, and see the roots of Ascension.

  Restriction: Worker Class

  Restriction: Minimum Class Level 16

  Restriction: Minimum Base (Ascendancy Day) Intelligence 16

  Type: Self

  Either the words on this screen were actual gibberish, or they hid behind the True Name ability. The only way to know for sure was to spend ten of the precious twenty-six ability points he’d earned.

  “What does it say?” Hamma asked from the doorway.

  “I have to spend ten ability points to find out,” Ruwen said.

  “Then do it,” Hamma snapped. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I…it’s just…”

  “It’s okay, Hamma, I understand.”

  Ruwen allocated the ten points to Hey You and accepted it. The words on the window came into focus. He hadn’t known what to expect. Maybe some words of wisdom like a Shade’s first rule or a parable about kindness, but not another mystery.

  Failsafe Complete.

  Temple Restoration [INITIATED].

  Temple Parameters Incomplete.

  Temple Restoration [PAUSED].

  Navigator Required.

  Ruwen dropped the veil and studied the tub. A glowing handprint sat on the lid, and Ruwen placed his hand on it. Nothing happened, but he realized this tub differed from the revival tubs.

  “Have you seen a tub like this before?” Ruwen asked.

  Hamma closed her eyes, muttered something, and then stepped into the room. She paused as if waiting for punishment and then walked over to him.

  As soon as Hamma drew near, she shook her head. “That is not a revival tub.” She turned and pointed at the other one. “That one is, though. And it looks active.”

  Hamma dashed to the window and jumped from menu to menu, but they all remained mostly empty.

  She clenched her hand but didn’t punch anything. “This is a stand-alone unit. It’s not connected to the queue, so we can’t reach our parents. This must be so the High Priest can always be revived, even if the other tubs are full. It even looks like you can place a body in here, and the tub will reuse it to speed up the revive. Must be nice.”

  Ruwen pointed at the veil-covered window. “Have you ever heard of a Navigator Class?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because the sacred word of Uru over there reads more like my revival log, and it says a Navigator is required.”


  Hamma’s eyes filled with tears. “Why would the temple require a Class that doesn’t exist? How would you even get that Class? How are we going to save my dad?”

  Ruwen wanted to slam his head into the wall. There was only one way to get another Class. He opened his Profile and selected the Root Class. The familiar tree appeared, which displayed his Worker Class along with the five branches of the other Classes.

  But now, underneath the tree, among the roots, something else had appeared. The word Architect appeared and under it three more words: Navigator, Creator, Annihilator. They were all greyed out.

  Rami, what happens to you when I die?

  I die, too.

  Does it hurt you?

  I don’t lose any attributes if that’s what you mean. If you die suddenly, I’ll lose any progress on my searches.

  What do you have running right now?

  I’m searching for Ancient Mother, Lalquinrial, essence patterns, and how to remove your Aspect.

  Please save your progress.

  Ruwen started to undress.

  “What are you doing?” Hamma asked.

  “Are you sure this revival tub will work?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Then I’m going to let my Void Band kill me.”

  “What?”

  “I might have access to this Navigator thing. But there’s only one way to be sure.”

  “Ruwen, let’s talk about this.”

  “If I don’t come back, you and the others need to leave. It won’t stay safe here for long.”

  Ruwen didn’t know what happened to the items in his Void Band when he died, so he removed everything consuming energy: all his plants and grasses, the amulets, and the Mobile Alchemy Lab, which he dropped on a bench. Unsure if his body got vaporized before being rebuilt, he removed all his gear.

  With a thought, he extended his Void Band toward the floor. Without the rings, his natural twelve Energy per second Regen couldn’t keep up with the seventeen Energy per second his Void Band now consumed. In two-and-a-half minutes, his Energy bar would flash yellow, twenty seconds later red, and when it reached zero, he would die.