Legacy of the Fallen

by Luke Chmilenko

  There was a short pause as my hand rested on the crystal, then without any warning at all the room went completely dark as the azure light emanating from the crystal suddenly vanished, plunging us all into complete darkness.

  “Yep, this is about what I expected,” Sierra was the first to comment.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing there?” Lazarus’s voice followed a second afterward.

  Amaranth asked sleepily in my mind.

  “Uh, just hang on a second,” I replied loudly, seeing that all the crystals on the pillar had gone dark. Terrified that I had broken the device, I took my hand off the crystal and reached out to touch one of the others, hoping that I could undo whatever I had done earlier.

  “Shit, did the whole thing die?” Halcyon whispered from beside me, reaching out to also touch one of the crystals on the pillar we had grouped around.

  “Looks like it,” Caius whispered back, going as far as to poke several of the crystals with his fingers. “It almost looks like it turned itself off.”

  “Who the hell puts an off-switch right in the middle of…whatever this thing is?” I said under my breath as the three of us went through each of the crystals on the pillar, testing to see if any of them elicited any sort of reaction.

  Minutes passed as we continued to poke and prod the crystals in an attempt to reactivate the pillar and undo whatever it was that I had managed to do, but no matter what we tried, there was no visible reaction to our efforts. With every second that passed, it became more and more difficult for the three of us to hide our frustration at the lack of results, until I finally threw up my hands in the air, ready to admit defeat.

  “Okay, this—” The words were barely out of my mouth before once again without any visible signal, the room suddenly illuminated itself as if some distant switch had been flipped, the familiar azure light from the large crystal set in the center of the chamber resuming its bright glow and banishing the darkness.

  “—should work,” I finished, trying to hide my surprise while turning my head to look around the chamber as several white lights set high in the ceiling above us also activated, shifting the room from the deep azure tint that had been there just seconds earlier to a near daytime brightness.

  “Well, that’s better I guess,” Constantine commented as I turned to look in the party’s direction, all of them visibly squinting from the change in light.

  “Must have needed a chance to reboot?” Halcyon muttered quietly, sounding slightly unsure as he spoke. “Looks like the crystals are slowly reactivating one by one too.”

  “I honestly have no idea, Hal,” I replied, turning around to look at the pillar and seeing that nearly all of them were now steadily flashing with a magical glow. “But seeing what happened last time, I’m a little hesitant to poke it again.”

  “I know what you mean, Lyr, but we’re going to need—”

  A distorted mental voice rang through my head without warning, causing me to flinch and look at the pillar in surprise.

  “Did that thing just talk to us?” Caius asked, the rest of the party behind us immediately falling silent, surprised at the voice that had just appeared in our heads.

  “Whatever it was I heard it too,” Sierra said, her footsteps echoing across the floor as she moved closer to us.

  “Same here,” Drace added, a shuffling sound indicating that he too was following Sierra. “What did you guys do?”

  “No clue,” Halcyon replied with a shrug, just as the voice echoed through our heads once more. “I think it’s some sort of leftover technology…”

  the voice announced with urgency.

  “Huh,” I grunted as the mental voice temporarily faded from my mind, then glanced around at the party that had grouped up behind me, seeing all their surprised expressions. It seemed that the large floating Æther Crystal wasn’t the only piece of technology that had survived the destruction of the ruin.

  Maybe it’s a security system of some sort? I thought to myself, making the best guess I could, based on what it had just said. No sooner did the thought cross my mind that I remembered the security system back at the Transport Hub and how we had been forced to destroy it after it went haywire and tried to kill us, if somewhat indirectly. Hopefully, this one isn’t hostile.

  “Well, I guess we know when this place was destroyed now,” Halcyon said, breaking the silence as we all processed what the voice had just told us. “Hard to believe that this place was just…buried under here for so long without anyone finding it, and bits and pieces of it are still active.”

  “I think that’s only because there was no one left to find it,” Sierra answered with a sad note in her voice.

  “Or more likely because the Irovians either didn’t have time to, or didn’t want to dig into an active installation to repair the Ley Line right in the middle of a war,” I offered. “And instead, they used whatever they built at the Tower and the Annulment Sphere to keep the Ley Line in check.”

  “Great,” Constantine stated. “That worked for them, but now what do we do? Because we can’t exactly get out of here now, short of dying that is, and I think pretty much all of us want to avoid that.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice,” Caius agreed. “I’m pretty close to level fifteen now, and I’d really rather not have to deal with an experience debt from a Death Penalty. Not to mention the skill loss…”

  “I think we’re all on board for that,” Lazarus added dryly.

  “Well, we’re open to any ideas on how to get this thing talking,” Halcyon said while waving a hand at the pillar.

  “Hmm, hang on a second,” I replied thoughtfully, an idea popping into my head. “It said mental communication mode before, and the way it spoke to us wasn’t that much different than the way that Amaranth and I speak to one another. I can maybe try reaching out to it, and see where that gets us.”

  “So…you want to think at that stone pillar full of crystals and hope it replies to you?” Constantine asked me dubiously.

  “No, I want to think at the stone pillar full of crystals and sweet talk it into opening the door for us,” I replied while rolling my eyes at the rogue.

  “Oh, well, that makes much more sense then,” Constantine said in a sarcastic tone. “Try ‘open sesame’. Maybe that’ll do it.”

  “If you prefer, I can try touching one of the crystals again,” I offered, reaching out blindly towards the pillar behind me.

  “Try that mental thing first,” Sierra cut in quickly. “If that doesn’t work, then you can try playing with the lights again.”

  “Works for me,” I said turning away from the group and looking towards what I was beginning to suspect was the Nafarrian equivalent of a computer. Pausing for a second to consider how I would even begin communicating with it, I decided not to over think it, and simply willed my thoughts in its direction, the same way I separated my internal thoughts to myself, versus those I wanted Amaranth to hear.

  I sent cautiously towards what I now mentally thought of as a machine, not knowing any better way of introducing myself.

  The very same distorted voice I had heard before filtered directly into my head, causing me to flinch at its mental volume.

  “It worked,” I told the group, glancing back towards them with a smile on my face, before turning to the face the pillar once more, hoping that my idea would play out and that the machine wouldn’t
question it too much.

  I sent, crossing my fingers as I spoke.

  There was a long pause as the Nafarrian device considered my answer, leaving me staring at the crystals and waiting nervously for a response.

  the distorted voice replied.

  I told the machine without missing a beat.

  it replied to me once more, before going dormant for several seconds.

  They only survived little more than a day after the Ley Line ruptured, I noted, doing a quick mental calculation based on the Nafarrian computer’s report. They must have known they wouldn’t be able to get out of here.

  I told the machine, deciding to see if I could entice it into helping us out.

  The voice barked almost instantaneously.

  I replied enthusiastically, sensing a track that I could take. If I could convince the machine that we were here to help, then maybe we could find a way forward and out of this room.

  the machine’s rote reply had my stomach suddenly twisting in knots as I considered what we would do if I wasn’t able to get it to open the door going forward.

  “Oh shit,” I cursed as I glared at the crystal, not having even paused to consider that the device would detect Amaranth and me as being Ætherwarped.

  “What’s wrong?” Sierra asked, her voice sounding worried.

  “It can sense that Amaranth and I are Ætherwarped and won’t open the door yet,” I replied while trying to think of a way around the machine’s statement. “Hang on a second.”

  I sent to the device.

  the Nafarrian security intoned once more.

  I said to the machine, wondering if it would allow me to approve my own access.

  it replied once again before falling silent for a few seconds.

  I replied suddenly hopeful, realizing that it must be referring to Freya and her group.

  The device stated, falling silent for a moment.

  Without another word, the door at the end of the chamber began to grind open, causing all of us to spin and glance in its direction as it gradually revealed a pitch-black passageway that visibly descended further downwards. As the door slowly opened, I felt a wave of relief shoot through me, along with seeing a skill notification followed by a quest update appear out of the corner of my eye.

  Your skill in Wordplay has increased to Level 13!

  Quest Update! The Ruptured Ley Line!

  After excavating the collapsed passage, you and your party have confirmed your earlier suspicions and have discovered another level to the Nafarrian Ruins, leading even deeper underground, possibly towards the Ley Line. Since entering the ruins, you have encountered twisted remains belonging to both the Irovians and Nafarr who had been trapped within, each of whom appears to have been warped by magic.

  During your exploration of the ruin, you have managed to make contact with a still functioning Nafarrian device, successfully convincing it that you are part of a Containment Team sent to clear the ruins of ‘Ætherial Anomalies’ and repair the Ley Line. As such, the device has agreed to unlock the route to the next Æther Matrix.

  Attempt to excavate the collapsed passage and see where it leads: 1/1

  Gain access to the Nafarrian Ruin: 1/1

  Secure the next Æther Matrix: 0/1

  Ley Line Sealed: 0/1

  I must have missed an earlier update, I thought to myself, noting that there was a completed stage in the quest that I hadn’t seen earlier. Though considering how this day is shaping up, that’s not surprising.

  With a mental shrug, I dismissed both the notification and quest update from my vision and took a step towards the door, flashing a smile back towards the rest of the party that looked towards me with surprise, none of them clearly having expected that my idea of ‘thinking at the crystal pillar’ would have worked.

  “Well,” I prompted, motioning for everyone to follow me. “Shall we see what else this dungeon has in store for us?”

  Chapter 36

  “Aaah!” I let out a brief shout of surprise and pain as I felt my feet leave the ground, a blast of intense energy sending me cartwheeling through the air. I barely had the chance to process what had happened before my body, and very shortly afterward, my head, collided with smooth, unforgiving stone, leaving me lying on the floor rattled and staring upwards at a new combat log entry.

  An [Unstable Ætherbound Shade] hits you with [Æther Bomb] for 81 points of damage!

  Damn, I cursed internally, reflexively sitting up despite how badly my head was spinning. Where did that one come from?

  “Lyr!” Drace shouted over the incessant voices that echoed through our minds, the near deafening cacophony not having changed in volume or content since the encounter had begun. “We need you guys back here, now!”

  “Us guys?” I asked dumbly, feeling my brain slowly start to function again as it recovered from its most recent impact on the ground. Glancing around me, my blurry vision sharpened, revealing both Constantine and Lazarus lying on the floor a short distance away from me, appearing just as dazed and confused as I felt.

  Movement from ahead of me caused my eyes to shift from the pair and focus on several ghostlike shapes that were running towards us, my mind gradually rebooting as the last few seconds of battle came rushing back.

  The three of us had been trying to break through a group of Shades, I recalled as I forced myself back up onto my feet while yelling something unintelligible at both Lazarus and Constantine in hopes of getting them moving. Standing up, I reflexively scanned through the advancing attackers, carefully reading the four tags that appeared in my vision and remembering that we were supposed to look out for one type of Shade in particular.

  [Ætherbound Shade] – Level 12

  No Unstable Shades in this batch, I breathed with relief as I leaped forward to meet the oncoming group, sending a Shocking Touch into Splinter’s edge and swiping it
through the lead Shade’s outstretched arm, feeling no resistance as the blade passed through the ghostly limb and severed it from the apparition’s body. That last one came out of nowhere; I never even saw it coming.

  Sidestepping a lunging slash from another Shade and repaying the favor in kind, I shook off the last of the cobwebs that still clung to my mind and returned to near full awareness, unable to stop myself from replaying just how we had gotten ourselves into this situation.

  After the Nafarrian security system had finished opening the door for us, we had continued in our exploration of the ruin, delving even deeper and descending several more stories downward as we reached another set of switchbacks. But unlike the still intact portion of the ruin that we passed through earlier, we had begun to see signs of damage and destruction from whatever cataclysm had befallen the region.

  As we descended, we passed by several collapsed or completely blocked passageways, some of them appearing as if the entire bedrock had shifted just enough to send entire hallways off their original course and blocking them from access, while simultaneously cracking others below them wide open. Navigating through the ruined passages carefully, we slowly pressed onwards, until we had eventually reached a nearly identical copy of the chamber that we had just left upstairs, complete with a floating Æther Crystal set in the center of it. Completely identical except for the one tiny difference, that instead of glowing with a pale azure light, like the crystal before it, this one instead emitted a sickly green one and had a palpable haze hanging over it. Curious to what may have caused the difference, we had all waltzed into the otherwise empty room, thinking that because we couldn’t see any creatures standing around, that there weren’t any to find.

  Unfortunately, that line of thinking only lasted for a few moments, just long enough for us all to approach the emerald colored crystal and to be in prime position when a horde of angry Nafarrian ghosts began pouring out from inside it, their angry mental howls filling our minds. The pitch of the voices changed with every word spoken, interchanging seamlessly between one another, with the rare word distorted almost beyond recognition.