by Will Wight
For a moment, he felt as though he'd stumbled onto a dragon's hoard. He was shocked by the sheer value of what was presented before him, overwhelmed by the weight of wealth.
He wanted it all.
He was surprised at his own greed, but his hands trembling as he reached to open the first cabinet. The bottom row of cubbies was the largest, big enough to contain a large dog, but each row got progressively smaller up to the top, far above his head. Those were only the size of his fist.
If each of these cabinets, down this endless hallway, contained precious treasures of the ancients...there might be millions of weapons down here. He might have enough to buy the entire Empire.
Or to destroy it.
The cabinet was smooth to the touch, and he seized the wooden handle and pulled it open.
It was empty.
So was its neighbor, and the eighteen others he checked in an instant. He was sweating by this point, his gut heavy with disappointment. Where had all his wealth gone?
He shook himself. He wasn't worried about riches, but about the fate of his family.
He had to tell himself that very firmly.
Ten more empty cabinets went by before he found something: a ring of pure white, scripted inside and out, set with a single black gemstone. He had no records of this, so he swept his spirit through it.
He couldn't sense anything. It would be an Overlord weapon, then, or perhaps even one for Archlords.
Reluctantly, he set it back and shut the door. He left all the empty ones open.
He moved to the next cabinet feeling like an idiot. Why couldn't he take the ring? Surely he should stuff his pockets.
He knew why: because everything he took was another chance to get caught, and he could only carry one object at a time in his soulspace. He had to find a weapon he recognized if he wanted to kill Eithan Arelius. Anything else would only weigh him down.
Ten more minutes passed before he found something that initially excited him: a duplicate of the Ancestor's Spear.
Until he realized it was cracked in the middle. The scripts around the edges of the cabinet were preserving it, keeping it from dissolving, but he would need a Soulsmith to repair it. Which may or may not succeed.
He tucked the two halves of the spear away; it wouldn’t be enough on its own, but at least he wasn’t leaving empty-handed.
Finally, when he was almost ready to give up, he pulled open a cabinet the size of his head. The object inside was so unremarkable at first glance that it wouldn't have grabbed his attention anywhere else. Only that it was here, important enough to seal up, drew his focus.
It was a crystal ball slightly bigger than a hand, filled with a dim, diffuse light. The light swirled like smoke, as though something invisible swam within.
He touched it with his spirit, and felt an endless will to devour that almost consumed him. He wanted to tear through every cabinet, cramming his pockets full. So what if he died in here? He would die the richest man in the world. The will of an Underlord was not so easily swayed, and he resisted.
But he recognized this device from the records. It was perfect.
He focused his power onto it, then took in a deep breath. As though he had inhaled it, the stone vanished and reappeared inside his spirit.
Inside him, above his core and behind the cage of his tangled madra channels, a crystal ball floated. It seemed to orbit his soulfire, as though the two attracted one another but could draw no closer.
His soulspace was full, and he may have even obtained a replacement for the Ancestor’s Spear. This may have been the most profitable day of his life; it was cause for celebration.
No matter how much he might be leaving behind.
Feeling as though he were leaving behind his own limbs, he left the chamber and sealed it once again behind him. The satisfaction of success carried him away, and allowed him to break the hold of whatever feelings had swallowed him back in the storehouse.
Armed with this Archstone, he couldn't lose.
***
Information requested: Makiel’s influence on Cradle
Beginning report…
The Jai Patriarch exits the labyrinth proud of his prize. The facility's unique aura shone like a beacon for the duration of his visit: twenty-six minutes.
In ninety-nine out of a hundred projections, this aura goes unnoticed. Jai Daishou returns from his trip safely. There is only a negligible chance that a Dreadgod will notice this aura, which calls to them like the scent of meat to a predator, and choose to investigate. His gamble has paid off.
Influence detected: designation zero-zero-one, Makiel.
Makiel's influence confirmed. Recalculating...
The possibility of a Dreadgod noticing increases in likelihood as the probability shifts. The will of the Hound bends Fate, twisting chance.
Currently, there is only one Dreadgod within range: the Bleeding Phoenix. Hundreds of miles to the south, it rests beneath a city of tattered cloth. Its servants, the Redmoon Hall, attend to its feeding as it sleeps.
During the first twenty-five minutes, the Dreadgod tosses and turns, sending shivers through the members of Redmoon Hall. They sense their master's needs through the parasites embedded in their bodies, and they seek the cause of its distress.
On the twenty-sixth minute, as the aura fades, the Bleeding Phoenix regains a fraction of its consciousness. It catches the scent of power it has almost forgotten, power long lost. It calls to a memory buried deep in the creature's awareness.
For the first time in centuries, its bloody feathers stir.
The members of Redmoon Hall, from Jade to Herald, fall to their knees in supplication. Their master has spoken to them through its Blood Shadows, preparing them.
They must head north and pave the way.
Suggested topic: Yerin, reluctant host of a sealed Blood Shadow. Continue?
Topic accepted, continuing report...
Yerin is seeking the voice of the Sword Sage as she cycles. She has uncovered four of his memories since achieving Highgold, and combs over them every day for fragments of his wisdom. The remaining memories in his Remnants will help polish her techniques, if not advance her to Truegold.
At the moment the Bleeding Phoenix contacts its subordinates, she feels a sudden restlessness, an urge to rise to her feet and destroy everything around her. The call seems to be pushing her north.
She shifts in her meditation, uncomfortable, but she knows where this compulsion comes from.
An idle hand moves behind her, to feel the knot tied in her Blood Shadow, which she wears as a belt. Her fingertips pass through it as though through a liquid, though nothing remains on her skin.
The thought is pushed aside, a momentary distraction, and she returns to her training.
Report complete.
Chapter 3
Renfei finished buckling on the green plates of her Skysworn armor, clipped the dark hammer to her belt, and sent a whisper of spiritual awareness to test the Thousand-Mile Cloud preserved inside her armor. It was fully powered and ready to deploy.
And so was she.
She pulled her hair back and tied it into a tail, then walked to the door. As she expected, Bai Rou was waiting on the other side. He had to bend down to see her through the doorframe.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Time's up,” she responded. “Let's go get him.”
Bai Rou, her partner in the Skysworn, was two feet taller than she was and twice as broad. He always wore a hat woven from dried stalks, which cast a shadow across his face. Only his eyes shone from within the darkness, bright yellow—his Goldsign. He wore the same armor she did, though his was three sizes bigger and he carried no hammer.
They had to travel down cramped hallways lit only by flickering, damaged rune-lights—no one had done the maintenance on these scripts for years.
Fortunately, their destination was nearby.
They reached the end of the hallway in a minute, in front of a...well, it wasn't a door. More
like a thick metal plate bolted to the wall, with a script in the center.
This script wasn't derelict, like the others. The custodians of the prison knew better than to allow actual security to lapse.
From inside a pocket at her belt, Renfei pulled out her half of the key—a ceramic half-disc etched with one part of a script-circle. Bai Rou handed over the other half, and she fit the two halves of the disc together.
When the script was completed, she let her madra flow through it. Another security measure: this key was created anew for each new jailer, and would shatter if power from the wrong Path flowed through it.
She pressed it against the circle on the metal slab, and power spun through the door. The metal lit up in lines, as hidden scripts activated.
The bolts around the edges, each marked with a script-circle of its own, began to spin out of their mounts. An instant later, they pinged to the ground, followed by the thick metal plate swinging soundlessly open.
Renfei walked through the doorway, Bai Rou ducking after her.
They found themselves in a room of twisting mist. Images seemed to swirl and die within the mist, as sounds haunted the very edges of her hearing. She heard something like children whispering, a gong sounding, the cries of a thousand birds.
It was easy to ignore the illusions, as she and Bai Rou carried ward keys to this formation. The two of them saw only mist and heard only distant sounds, but anyone without ward keys would be snared in convincing visions.
They walked across a narrow bridge with no railing, a sheer drop on either side.
Though it looked bottomless, Renfei knew that more than simply air and darkness waited beneath. Anyone trapped in the tricks of this world would live only long enough to hit the bottom, whereupon they would be devoured by what waited there.
“This is too much,” Bai Rou said, his deep voice drowning out the whispers.
“Too much to secure him,” Renfei replied. “But not enough to keep him isolated.”
“Not enough?”
She sighed. “You know it won't be.”
The next door was wooden and opened to a simple physical key and lock. She opened into a dark stone room, lit only by light spilling in from the room of illusions. A pair of crimson lions waited at the end of the room, embers burning in their eyes, flames building in their throats. Remnants, sealed to the defense of this room.
The Remnants had been Truegold when they were imprisoned here, but were fed weekly to make them even more formidable. If she and Bai Rou had to fight their way through, they might be able to do it, but they would have to pay a heavy cost.
Fortunately, the Remnants recognized them and parted, allowing them to walk through. That didn't lessen the tension—their heat pressed against her like she was locked in an oven, and their burning gazes made them look anything but tame. She brushed her fingertips against the hammer at her waist.
Remnants could be bound, but they weren't predictable. These looked like swirls of bright color painted onto the world, their eyes like balls of fire. They glared at her, and she found herself wondering if they might make a fight of this after all.
She could feel Bai Rou's madra, like water and nightmares, gathering behind her. She realized she was cycling her own Cloud Hammer madra, and picked up her pace.
The next door was made of heavy stone, moved by brute strength. This might be the least secure entrance, but it was made so that it only opened slowly. Anyone who tried to ignore the lions and open the door would find themselves trapped and delayed.
This room was thick with water aura, a pale green waterfall splitting the hall in two. It wasn't water, not really—instead, it was liquid madra, water fused with the essences of death and venom. A truly vile combination.
A construct provided by the prison allowed them to pass through this one—a personal shield that repelled this exact Path of madra. Renfei was still nervous as she walked through the green waterfall, even though she could feel the shield intact. Bai Rou might survive contact with this liquid, though even he wouldn't enjoy it, but she would die without a doubt.
The next room was full of security constructs. The floor was a web of etched circles, and brightly colored devices made of Remnant parts stuck from every wall and the ceiling. Eyes on purple stalks pushed away from a mass of muscle-like madra stuck to one wall, examining them. The ceiling bristled with spiked tails, clenched claws, sparking fangs, and pieces she couldn't identify. She could, however, sense the power of the Striker bindings in all of them.
If the scripts beneath them were triggered, the constructs would unleash enough power to vaporize an Underlord.
Her heart rate picked up every time, but they were once again allowed to pass.
“No sign of entry,” Bai Rou noted, as they approached the last door.
“There wasn't last time either,” she said.
“This is different.”
Renfei had to admit that she couldn't imagine these defenses being penetrated. Their prisoner wasn't too dangerous on his own—he was locked in more as a political statement than to protect others from him. The Skysworn had received orders to keep him isolated, but that had proven more difficult than they anticipated. Everywhere they put him, no matter how secret or protected, had been infiltrated within days.
This time, with the approval of their Underlord, they had placed him in the most isolated facility that could hold him without killing him. Having just passed through the security herself, she had to admit, she couldn't imagine how someone could pass through each of those measures without the keys. Or without blowing a hole through each wall in sequence.
Maybe this time will be different, she thought.
It wasn't.
This cell was originally designed for top-level security threats that couldn't be executed by usual means. Its door was shot through with halfsilver veins, and the room itself was broad and brightly lit. There was a separate prison in the center of the room: a box of bars, at least twenty feet away from each wall. The box itself was fairly roomy for one prisoner, with a bed, a chair, and a pit with a water construct that flushed away his waste twice per day. The only thing a prisoner wouldn't have was privacy—anyone who entered the cell would see everything from every angle, through the gaps in the bars. Even the bars had flecks of halfsilver in them—the empire spent a fortune furnishing this place, and a smaller fortune powering and maintaining it.
Wei Shi Lindon Arelius stood outside those bars, his white sacred artist's robe scuffed and torn. He was on the balls of his feet, madra flowing through his body in an Enforcer technique, and blood trailed down from a split lip.
His eyes weren't black-and-red, as they had been when Renfei had first seen him. Now he didn't look quite so horrifying, but he had that rough look to him that she associated with lawbreakers. He looked like the kind of young man who started fights for fun.
Over her interactions with him in the last several months, she had grown to realize that he was practically the opposite. A troublemaker, certainly, but of a very different type.
He was supposed to be inside his cage, but she didn't wonder how he'd gotten out.
Instead, she wondered—not for the first time—how all these other people had gotten in.
Yerin Arelius stood opposite Lindon, a pale sword held casually in one hand. The Skysworn had obviously interrupted a training session between them—they were facing one another, and Lindon had a few more cuts than just his lip.
She had not taken a single injury that Renfei could see. At least, not in this fight. Yerin's whole appearance was a map of battles won and lost, her skin crisscrossed by thin scars, her black robes sliced and tattered, her hair cut straight above her eyes. A pair of silver arms stretched up from behind her, flattening into sword-blades that poised over each shoulder: her Goldsign. A red rope of living madra had been wrapped around her waist, with a complicated knot at her back, and Renfei instinctively kept her spiritual awareness away. The rope was rank with blood aura.
A huge blac
k turtle waited in the back of the room, as long as a horse from tip-to-tail, and the peak of his shell as tall as a man. Orthos regarded her with black eyes that burned with circles of red, and then snorted out a puff of smoke, ignoring her. Dull red light smoldered in the facets of his shell, and smoke drifted up from him as though from a dying fire. As she watched, he stretched his neck out and took a bite from the nearby stone.
Fisher Gesha was the only one to greet the Skysworn with respect, drawing herself to her feet and bowing over her fists pressed together. The old woman was tiny and almost impossibly wrinkled, her hair drawn up into a tight bun. She carried a sharp-edged hook of goldsteel strapped to her back, and the weapon was almost as large as her entire body. From the bottom of her robes, long purple spider legs stretched out, evidence of her drudge. The Fisher Goldsign, a web of madra between her fingers that slowly gave them webbed fingers, was difficult to make out at this distance.
Renfei had checked Gesha’s background after finding her with Lindon that first time. The woman was an ordinary Highgold Soulsmith, having spent her entire life in the remote Desolate Wilds out west. If there was anything strange about her, it was finding her in the Empire proper.
Body parts of vivid color, so bright they looked unreal, had been spread out on the floor behind Fisher Gesha. She had abandoned these Remnant parts when Renfei came in, and the pieces behaved oddly when left alone: one claw scuttled in circles, a sapphire lock of hair started to fade as though it were starting to vanish, and a loop of twisted violet entrails reached out a questing tendril as though to slither away.
Was she here to work as a Soulsmith, or had she just turned to her specialty to pass the time?
A man leaned back from an easel and a half-finished swirl of color, holding a brush in one hand and a shallow clay bowl of paint in the other. With a brilliant smile, he turned to her.