by Han Yang
Another button glimmered as it called for my attention so, after making sure everyone else was ready for whatever was about to happen, I reached out and pushed it down.
The whole room shuddered as the inner door wrenched itself open. I wasn’t sure how many years’ worth of plant life and coral was ripped apart as the massive stone leaves of the door slowly but surely dragged themselves into the wall to reveal…
“A cave?” I stepped to the front of the group and slid a finger across my forehead to activate the night vision mode for my augmented eye. The tunnel before us dipped downward and, as it went, it curled around. I could see up to a certain distance before it turned too far for me to look any further down its long, winding path.
“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Leon grumbled from the side as he pulled his long rifle and a pair of pistols from his waterproof satchel. The steam blades might work after being immersed in water, but the same couldn’t be said for the more technologically advanced pieces of our equipment.
I followed suit and hefted Darcy Sr. to my shoulder. Whatever we might run into as we descended into the temple, I very much doubted it could survive a direct blast from my pride and joy.
Then again, if it did survive, the combined assault from the rest of the team would likely finish it off.
With that optimistic thought in mind, I stepped forward, leaving the weird transition chamber behind as I led the group onward. The tunnel walls were relatively smooth, though they did show some wear and tear in places that indicated erosion, most likely from a constant flow of water.
Maybe that’s where the water from our entrance had went, or perhaps the temple had sprung a leak in the far distant past.
But, if that were the case, who had taken the time to fix it?
Gearnix might have stepped in, but the strange force that watched over the creature’s living on its surface didn’t usually directly interfere in anything that took place between the different sides in the never-ending war.
In fact, it seemed happy to perpetuate the violence. Either it reveled in the carnage, or the being who oversaw our world truly did want us to use the adversity of our home to improve ourselves.
It was pessimism against optimism, and I would always go with the latter option of the two.
So that meant Gearnix had likely repaired whatever leak had occurred in the temple. Good to know, as the patch was unlikely to break any time soon if that were the case, but who or what had caused the damage in the first place?
The only positive I could think of was that the damage looked old. If someone else had heard the story of the hidden temple from an outside source in the last few years, it would have been obvious if they had been the ones to break their way in.
As the various theories behind the odd traces fought back and forth in my mind, my eye dimmed down a little as it caught sight of something not too far away.
Light. And a bright one, at that.
I glanced at Duke, who gave me a firm nod to confirm he saw it too. After signaling the others to be as stealthy as they could be with a few sharp, well-practiced gestures, I pulled Darcy Sr. firmly against my shoulder and crept around the last bend in the tunnel.
Damn it. Another one!
Several sputtering lanterns surrounding a third door which blocked our route going forward. This time though there were no buttons or levers, and no sign of any other way to open the giant stone slab that obstructed our path.
The others watched on cautiously as I tread closer to the entrance and tried my hand at opening it. A firm push obviously yielded no results, as did my attempt to pull it open after I dug a hand into one of the carvings on its surface.
For all I knew, it might have seized up years ago.
I placed an ear to the door and concentrated with all my might. Though my hearing was still unaugmented, an issue I planned to fix someday, I was certain that there were no noises coming from behind the doorway.
Sure, there might be a huge amount of water held back behind its immovable stone, but that didn’t mean we would give up before at least TRYING to get it open.
“Leon.” I motioned for the experienced guild master to approach. He moved forward and, sensing what I had in mind, he swung the large pack from his shoulder and unzipped it so I could see the contents.
Several sealed Hydrox containers rattled around at the bottom of the bag. Each one had multiple layers around them on top of the usual protective barrier. The number of sides each had indicated just how much explosive power they would provide once their shells were broken.
I pulled out the smallest container with both hands. Once it left the confines of Leon’s pack, the glimmering energy with it shone out, bathing everyone’s face in a pale, blue glow as I turned to carry it toward the door.
They might see it as a misuse of funds, but it wasn’t possible to repair the damaged Hydrox containers.
Duke had accidentally created one while he was experimenting on the Moonlit Goddess’ engine. With a choice between evacuating as many as he could and trying to contain the explosion, my ever unflappable second in command chose the latter option.
And, luckily enough for him and everyone who was staying in the manor at that time, he had succeeded in getting the Hydrox container under control.
Most containers would merely vent off their energy into the air if their protective layers were penetrated. Gearnix would then take that energy and feed it back into the system, once more closing the loop between itself and those who lived on its surface.
But Duke had forced that energy to remain confined within the container, even when it did everything it could to escape, and the moment it was given even the slightest crack in the walls of its prison?
Boom.
I didn’t want to desecrate a temple, but it wasn’t like I had been given much choice. After giving the door another once over, I decided to place the container against the center, where the two edges met.
If it had had hinges, those would have been a better target, but it seemed like the designer of the temple had a thing for doors sliding into walls.
It was cool, though, so I couldn’t really say anything to counter that person’s choice.
Just before I could place the bomb up against the door, the flame in one of the lanterns flared up.
Then another, and another.
Eventually, every single bracket was holding a roaring fire which seemed on the verge of breaking their containers. I considered fleeing, just in case it was some sort of trap, but a weird little urge crept into the back of my mind.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
So, after a few seconds of back and forth, I decided to trust my instincts. The flames grew stronger and brighter while the damaged Hydrox container in my hands thrummed happily. Power buzzed out between my fingers, leaving faint trails in the air as it drifted up toward the blazing lights above, causing them to dance and twirl with even more ferocity than before.
“Sacrifice accepted. Entry request received. Priority escalation required, please wait.”
A rolled my jaw several times to clear my ears of the booming after echoes of the announcement. The other members of my team had taken up defensive stances but, after I gave them a quick wave, they lowered their guns again as we waited for whatever was about to happen next.
“Escalation requires full authorization. No authorization received.”
“Escalation requires full authorization. No authorization received. Escalation requires full authorization. No authorization received.”
“Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received! Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received! Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received! Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received! Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received!”
I could feel my teeth grinding down into stubs as the same phrase bounced back and forth with ever increasing speed and intensity. The robotic voice seemed to strain itself more and m
ore as its words grew frantic and hurried, reaching a point where it stopped making any sense at all.
“Escalation requires full authorization! No authorization received! Escalating internally! No response! Protocol zero one zero one activated!”
The voice cut off suddenly, leaving the tunnel in silence for a few blessed seconds. For some weird reason, its words tugged at my memories, as though I could half remember hearing them before, but then the announcement rang again and pulled me back to the present with its finally calm and tranquil voice.
“Welcome. Please enjoy your stay.”
As I watched on, confused and concerned in equal measures, the doors slowly juddered apart before my eyes. For a moment I couldn’t see anything, but then more lanterns flared up, revealing something astonishing.
A huge hall lay behind the door, far larger than even my manor and its ground combined. Large supporting columns lined the sides from the floor to the ceiling, and massive carvings and enormous statues dotted the walls and roof far above my head. There was even a huge window in the distance, through which I could see a view of the lake outside illuminated by the light cast from the innumerable lanterns dotted within the hall.
The other members of my team didn’t seem like they wanted to go into the hall first, so I took a deep breath, handed the now tiny container of Hydrox to Leon, and moved forward to take the lead again.
Thankfully, the voice didn’t show up again as I crossed the boundary into the hall. On the other hand, after a quick glance around the room, I found myself at a literal crossroads as to where we should go next.
The hall, grand as it was, didn’t contain anything more worthwhile than its exaggerated artwork and the stunning view of the lake outside, but there were several corridors leading off along each wall, and not one had any sort of marks or distinguishing features to make choosing a route any easy than a blind guess.
For a moment I thought that it might have been easier to break in through the glass, but then I noticed that there was a cavernous roof far above in the water outside.
Lights dotted its surface, more like stars than any form of illumination, but my augmented eye allowed me to zoom in and see the truth.
There was no way in or out of the space outside of the window. Though fish and other small creatures darted back and forth, it was clear they lived in a closed environment, separate from the rest of their brethren in the lake far above them.
Leon stared out into the waters for several long moments before he turned to me with a conflicted look on his face.
“What’s your plan now, Baron Lord?” He glanced past me to the openings on one slide of the hall, the back to those on the other wall. “Do we split up, stay together? How do we find our way back if we get lost?”
Those were all questions I had been considering, but there wasn’t an easy answer. Part of me wanted to break the team up into smaller groups to expedite the search, but the chances one of the squads might run into a situation they couldn’t deal with, even including the possibility of them getting lost, was too high to risk.
“We stay together.” I inspected the bizarre natural aquarium again before I turned back to the rest of the crew who had been waiting patiently for the next order. “Take a short break, I’ll let you know when we’re going to head out.”
The team gave me thankful looks as they settled down to dry themselves off and recover from the trip through the lake. Leon joined in while I moved off with Duke to inspect each tunnel leading off from the hall.
“No differences at all. It’s as though they were specifically created to be indistinguishable from one another.” The venturebot muttered to himself as he moved back and forth between two of the exits. “It has to be a test, or perhaps a trial. Pick poorly, and you will face the wrath of the temple. But no, why would they do that-”
I watched as Duke settled into a dazed state as he tried to figure out which path to take, an impossible task, given the fact there were no differences between each of the options presented to us.
But I refused to believe Gearnix would leave something like this up to blind luck.
The main treasure room, side vaults, and traps. Those were the three options I could think of for what we would find, though the latter could also be spread out in other areas as well.
I looked back out through the window into the calm waters and tried to collect my thoughts, but then I froze up as I noticed a faint orange glow hovering in the distance. It danced back and forth, pulling my gaze along with it until it finally vanished in one spot.
The signs of water erosion, an impossible choice, and a seemingly useless aquarium.
Maybe every bit of the room was part of the puzzle.
“Duke, hear me out.” I walked over to my companion and shook his shoulder to catch his attention. “What do you think about the idea of joining me for a little swim?”
Chapter 28
The rest of our squad watched on nervously as Duke and I worked on our little project. I could tell when they overheard me explaining the gist of my thoughts to Leon that not many of them liked my thought process, but it wasn’t like we had many other choices.
Every single one of the passageways ended in a deep, seemingly endless pit, or a tunnel that shot directly up into the ceiling. Climbing was out of the question, thanks to their smooth, slippery surface, and the immense toughness of whatever material had been used to create the inner temple.
Thankfully, I had been stopped before we tried to blow our way in because otherwise, the blast would likely have just blown right back into the tunnel.
Still, there was one easy solution to our climb or fall issue.
Just swim.
We could break the glass window and let the water outside flow into the hall. It wouldn’t flow UPWARD, sure, but at least it should fill out the tunnels deeper into the temple. There was also the option of trying to use the remote escalators to brute force our way up into the other exits, but that only had two potential results in my eyes.
First, the thrusts would run out of Hydrox before we reached the top, leaving us to plummet back down onto the cold, hard floor far below.
Or second, we would have enough fuel, but our flight would end in an equally messy way as we slammed up into the roof wherever the tunnel ended.
Each remote escalator had been tailored to the member they were assigned to - weight, body shape, and everything had been input. They could be altered a little to account for some heavier items if we found anything large enough to tip the scales, but other than that they would bring their user up to a specific altitude.
Directly into the Moonlit Goddess’ open arms.
Probably.
Those were the obvious answers, though. If I had told the rest of the team that I wanted to cut a hole in the top of the window so Duke and I could swim out there to follow a golden glow only I could see, well…
They might believe me, after what had happened at Norn, but it wasn’t worth the hassle to even try to explain it.
Leon knew, probably because Joanna had shared what happened when I first found Duke’s head back in the scrap pile at Tarco’s shop slash cover business. That was before he became the Langshire Tycoon, but it seemed like his lofty goals had been cut short quite abruptly not too long after that.
“Are you sure about this?” Duke grabbed onto the last section of glass we had yet to cut through as he turned to me one last time. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you saw it, but is it really worth risking your life? Who knows what we’ll find out there-”
“Duke, tell me this, do you have any other suggestions? Other than running away with our collective tails between our legs, I mean.” I waited for a few seconds but the venturebot didn’t respond. “Then we follow my plan. If you think about it, this might actually be the safest thing we could try.”
“Potentially.” Duke grumbled as he dug his finger into the inch thick glass once more. After a few more slices, the panel we had cut out was ready to fall with only a l
ittle bit of pressure. As we moved aside, I turned to the group below, who had used their ropes to shimmy to the top of several columns in the hall.
“Get ready! We’re popping the cork… NOW!”
Duke and I kicked off from the glass as we both shattered the last remnants holding the piece in place and pushed ourselves out of the way of the huge surge of water it released into the hall.
My feet slid and skidded on the glass as I swung up to the roof and caught onto the edge of a bizarre, upside down gargoyle statue. While not the most elegant of positions, at least the creature’s stone hands helped me avoid being washed away by the current of icy liquid we had released.
Eventually, the flow calmed down as the water outside settled below the edge of the opening we had created. The silt and muck had been disturbed from the floor of the aquarium, but I still had a fix on the area indicated by the golden glow.
So, before anyone could try to talk me out of the plan again, I shoved the water filter device into my mouth, slid back down, undid my clasp, and dived into the murky depths.
I made sure to keep my unaugmented eye closed, but my steam powered replacement could still operate even in the horrible conditions I had thrust it into. Visibility was down to a minimum, but I could see enough to know when Duke had slammed down into the pit beside me.
After we met up, I carefully tethered myself to him to make sure we didn’t get split up before I turned to lead the way. At first, I had planned to head out by myself, but then Duke had asked several pointed questions, including ones like ‘what if you get attacked?’ and ‘What if you need to move another door?’.
Eventually, I just gave up the discussion and agreed to let him tag along. I knew he didn’t want me to endanger myself, but it felt like half his reason for being so obstinate was the promise he had made with Joanna before we departed.
Thankfully, our trip through the grimy water didn’t take all that long, and the point marked out by the golden glow became obvious as soon as we moved close enough to see it through the faint grey sludge.
It was… a compass?