by Turtle Me
An indescribable force suddenly pulled us forward, and we skidded across the tiled floor until we were both standing in front of a massive gate made of what looked like black crystal. The white hallway was gone, and only the gate remained.
Air suddenly returned to my lungs, which made me realize I had been holding my breath. Indigo runes glowed subtly on the face of the glassy black gates, throbbing like a pulse.
In my head, a drab, emotionless voice said, ‘Welcome, descendant. Please enter.’
Having shared telepathic communications with both Sylvie and Regis, I was accustomed to voices speaking in my head, but this was different. It didn’t feel like someone or something was speaking in my mind; it felt like I had suddenly thought the words to myself.
“Did you hear that voice too?” I asked Regis.
He tilted his head. “I heard something, but the voice was too muffled for me to make out the words.”
“Get inside me, just in case.”
The shadowy form of my companion disappeared as he vanished inside of my body.
I looked around one more time. There was no corridor behind me now, only three white walls, the white ceiling, white-tiled floor, and the solid crystalline gate. The runes pulsed brightly, painting the white room pink.
I stepped in front of the gate and cautiously reached for the handle.
When the tips of my fingers grazed the surface, however, a warm, almost familiar, touch enveloped me, and my hand sank through the seemingly solid crystal.
I hesitated to walk further in, but I couldn’t help but be drawn to whatever was on the other side. Stepping forward, I went yet again through a portal that would deliver me into the unknown.
The crystalline gate clicked and whirred as if it were made from millions of solid, tiny moving pieces and was making way for me to slip through. The last thing I saw was the black crystal flowing like water over my eyes.
Then everything went dark.
279
Being of Aether
Traveling within this weird and otherworldly dungeon, I had grown accustomed to meeting the unexpected at each turn. The Relictombs didn’t abide by the conventions of either of the worlds I had lived in, and mentally preparing myself for that was all I could do to stay above the crippling anxiety lurking within me.
The innumerable black and purple crystals parted before me, rolling away from each other in geometric patterns both alien and familiar, though I couldn’t make sense of why. Revealed behind them was a more immediately familiar scene.
It was the very picture of the messy laboratory—even messier than Gideon’s. The room was fairly large, but felt cramped with the dozen or so tables shoved into it, each one buried under an array of beakers and test tubes, funnels and crucibles, and other equally cliché and unremarkable accoutrements. Lining the walls in the hexagonal room were tall glass shelves filled with little curiosities, but I knew they were just a distraction.
The shelves lined only five walls; the sixth was entirely occupied by a portal, but unlike most portals, which shimmered in an array of multicolored lights, this portal looked more like a thin screen of glass. On the other side, I could clearly see two guards clad in black plate armor in an otherwise empty room.
“Huh. You’d think with an entrance like that, it would lead to something… more,” Regis, now back in his shadow-wolf form, said from behind me. “At least we’ll finally be out of here.”
I held up my hand, my eyes darting around the room. “The voice in my head referred to me as ‘descendant’. Maybe… maybe the Relictombs thinks I’m one of the ancient mages because I can use aether?”
“Either that or the ancient mages were all pretty princesses,” Regis quipped. “But yeah, that makes sense too.”
“There has to be something more to this place,” I said as my eyes continued to search every corner of the room. “I’m guessing it wouldn’t have let me in here otherwise.”
“Wait.” Regis narrowed his sharp eyes. “Is that why you didn’t want to go back with the other ascenders? You expected something like this to happen?”
“Somewhat,” I said while walking through the aisles of metal tables. “There are too many variables that I can’t account for, like finding Caera’s brother in the jungle zone with the aetheric millipede, or the way that golem behaved back in the platform room. But what’s certain is that my presence has an influence on all of these zones, so it’s reasonable to assume that whoever built the Relictombs only wanted beings inclined toward aether, like them, to get this far.”
“Then how have all these Alacryans been able to bring relics of the past to the Vritra?” Regis asked.
I paused, thinking for a moment before shaking my head. “It’s hard to say for sure. Maybe the Relictombs are focused on just keeping asuras out. Or it can just be degradation. The Relictombs might be powerful enough to still keep asuras out, but nothing can last forever, especially something as intricate as this place.
“Anyway, this room shouldn’t be something as simple as an easy way out.” I turned toward my companion. “Do you know what these relics look like? Anything in your Uto memories?”
“Aside from the massive amounts of aether held within, they can look like anything, from a book, to an artifact, to a bone,” he answered. “Why? Hey, you don’t suppose there is an artifact hidden in here, do you?”
“Maybe. There is definitely some reason we were brought here though.” Pausing, I gazed thoughtfully at an untidy pile of narrow glass vials, one of which hung dangerously off the side of a table. Then it hit me. “Books!”
Hopping up and placing his front paws on one of the tables, Regis said, “Nope, definitely no books here.”
“Exactly. No books, no scrolls, no journals, no notebooks. Every mad science lab I’ve ever seen has been covered with things like that.”
Regis continued to search through the lab, hoping to find some sort of clue as to where we were, but I took a different approach.
Focusing, I steadied myself, forcing the anxiety down and away from my mind to let me think clearly, then carefully scanned the room again, watchful for even a hint of purple aura. But there was nothing. Even with my enhanced vision, I couldn’t sense anything made of aether here aside from the portal.
Had I read too deeply into it? Was this place simply just an easier route to get out of the Relictombs, like Regis said?
I considered leaving—Regis was already waiting impatiently by the portal, his shadowy tail thumping the ground—when the words the voice had said echoed in my head once more.
It had referred to me as a ‘descendant’, so maybe just trying to detect aether in this room wasn’t enough.
I unleashed an aetheric aura, bathing the room in a suffocating pressure.
Regis stiffened and bared his teeth, and I sensed his confusion as he glared around, looking for an enemy. Then the room started changing. As if everything that I saw, smelled, and felt within this room had been nothing more than an illusion, it all started fading away… including the floor.
I began to fall, and then just stopped. It felt like I had jerked awake from a falling dream as my feet suddenly found themselves firmly planted on a floor that didn’t exist a moment ago.
I heard Regis let out a startled gasp, but my eyes were focused on the construct in front of me: a pedestal that stood ten feet high with aetheric runes carved around it. Four revolving halos of glowing stones, covered with the same intricate runes, gyrated smoothly past one another without ever touching.
Floating just above the pedestal, at the center of the gyrating halos of stone, was a small, glistening crystal. It put off a brilliant lavender light, but, while it appeared rather valuable, the amount of the aether it radiated was miniscule. However, there was something in this room that held an unfathomable amount of aether.
Regis, although his perception toward aether wasn’t nearly as sensitive as mine, felt it too; his hackles were raised, and the purple mane of
fire around his head blazed in agitation.
Looking around, I realized how deteriorated the state of this room was. Unlike the illusion of the lab that we had fallen from, the rune-covered stone walls were cracked and chipped, some holes large enough for a man to fall through, and rubble littered the floor all around the central construct.
I grew tense, even fearful, as I tracked the source of the aether. It wasn’t coming from any one spot; it was constantly moving, and though I could feel it, I couldn’t see any sign of a purple aether aura.
“Who’s there!” I roared, my eyes trying to follow the unseen mass of aether.
Suddenly, I sensed it rapidly approaching from the other side of the room. Unable to tell how large this invisible force was, I shrouded myself in aether and threw a punch at where I thought the center of the mass was.
My punch should’ve either gone through the aether, striking nothing but air, hit something and sent it flying, or injured my own hand and arm from the recoil. Strangely, none of those things happened.
My fist definitely hit something solid, but it was as if the force behind my attack had been completely nullified.
And manifesting in front of me, with its hand wrapped around my fist, was a humanoid figure, opaque purple in color with short-cropped hair of a similar hue. Tattoos of interlocking runes ran over almost the entire surface of its body, even its cheeks and forehead, leaving only its eyes, nose, mouth, and chin bare.
“So you can sense me,” it said, its violet eyes gazing at me with intense curiosity.
I pulled my hand back and stepped away. Regis appeared beside me, teeth bared.
The being studied me, brows furrowed, eyes glowing. “You have an aether core, yet no spellforms to protect your body.”
“Spellforms?” I asked, exchanging a confused glance with Regis.
“I see. A human descendant with the body of an asura—a dragon no less. What an unprecedented anomaly you are.”
The being looked down at Regis, who flinched from its gaze. Intrigue gave way to puzzlement on the being’s face. “You carry an edict for destruction, yet the knowledge remains in the descendant’s mind.”
“I keep hearing that word, ‘descendant.’ What do you mean?” I asked, unnerved by the being’s ability to see so clearly that which Regis and I didn’t even fully understand.
“Descendant of the djinn, the people of life.”
“Hold on. The djinn?” I glanced at Regis, wondering if the name might be held within Uto’s memories somewhere, but the shadow wolf just shook his head.
The entity looked into the distance, its face grim. “So the dragons have taken even our name from us, stealing it out of the histories and burning it on the funeral pyre of our people. I should not be surprised.”
“What do the dragons have to do with any of this?” My mind jumped to Sylvie’s stone, and I backed up a step and tensed for another attack. If this being was an enemy of the asura…
“Peace. Time enough for both answers and a test of your abilities. I have waited a long time, yet what was brought to me is something even I didn’t know was possible.” The being waved its arm and I found myself in an impossibly large enclosure surrounded by a dome of translucent purple. The entity, which had been right in front of me, now stood several yards away, and Regis was gone.
“What did you do with Regis?” I growled, scanning the enclosure for my companion.
“The pup is safe. This is a trial of your skills after all.” The being stepped toward me. “I know you’ve undergone many challenges thus far, but I sincerely hope that you pass this final trial.”
“You’re right. Ever since being thrown into this godforsaken dungeon, all I’ve done is face trials.” The edge of my mouth curled into a smirk as anger leaked into my voice. “At least, unlike the other monstrosities this place conjured up, you have the sentience to give me some answers.”
“And that I will,” it said as a spear of aether manifested into its hand. “Given that you prove your worth, of course.”
I had failed to protect Dicathen, and in doing so had been hurt so badly that my bond had to sacrifice herself to keep me alive. I had awoken in the middle of a sprawling, otherworldly deathtrap to find that both my loved ones and those to blame for the danger Dicathen faced were far out of my reach. I had carved my way through countless bloodthirsty monsters to reach this point, and now I found myself standing before a creature claiming to be my final test before I could have answers.
‘Prove your worth,’ my ass.
I burst forward, brandishing the white dagger in my hand. My blade was met with the shaft of the purple spear, and, once again, the force of my attack was nullified. This was very different from the ability to alter the gravitational pull that Cylrit, Seris’s retainer, had used against me. There was no delay or recoil, nothing that I could use against it.
My attack just stopped.
Stepping into my opponent, I followed up with a strike to its sternum, channeling aether in quick bursts through my arm, like I had done with Burst Step, to maximize strength and speed.
Again, my attack stopped just as it should have hit below its ribcage.
However, I had noticed something. The runes marking almost every inch of its body glowed slightly as it channeled aether through them.
The two of us soon fell into a flurry of attacks, with me on the offensive. Using my dagger like an extension of my right hand, I slashed, lunged, kicked, and punched, but the being matched every one of my attacks with a perfect defense.
Dodging a barrage of thrusts from the glowing spear, which moved too fast to see, I used my left palm to redirect the being’s last strike downward to my right and used the momentum to launch a reverse roundhouse stab at its head.
As I expected, the runes near its temple glowed as my attack approached, and the tip of my dagger simply remained suspended just above its right ear.
It swung the spear in a wide arc, putting some distance between us before lunging forward at me once more. While this momentum-nullifying defense was beyond frustrating, I had to admit that the entity’s technique with the spear was astounding.
The shaft of its weapon swayed and bent as if it were made of wood, curving and springing in the air with every stab and swipe, as if the spear had come alive.
However, my martial capabilities were nothing to scoff at either, and my asuran physique only supplemented two lifetimes of training. I wove, parried, and redirected each attack until we were both at a stalemate.
At least, that’s what I wanted him to think.
I had realized that the nullifying defense mechanism wasn’t automatic. The way the being’s eyes followed the movement of my dagger to block proved it.
The entity aimed for my left collarbone as its spear rushed toward me. Rather than sidestep out of its path, I dipped my left shoulder forward and grabbed the shaft with my left hand. While pulling the entity’s spear toward me, I imbued aether into the dagger in my right hand.
Again, the runes glowed and I could already sense the accumulation of aether protecting my opponent’s stomach.
Rather than strike at its stomach, though, I brought my right leg forward and stabbed past him, hooking my right arm right below the being’s armpit.
It never saw the shoulder throw coming. I released a pulse of aetheric intent to further disarm my opponent before twisting and slamming it into the ground.
Concentrating aether into the palm of my hand, I prepared to unleash a destructive blast at the prone entity, but he was no longer lying on the ground right in front of me, and was instead now a dozen yards away.
“Damn,” I said under my breath.
The entity calmly stood back up, its expression a bit more serious. “Very good. I must admit that I’m embarrassed that I did not see that throw coming. Perhaps I have lost a step over the years. It has been a very long time indeed since anyone, djinn or otherwise, has undergone this test.”
Brows fu
rrowed in concentration, it stabbed its spear forward. I sidestepped, expecting the spear to stretch forward and reach me—my opponent was a user of aether, after all—but the tip of the weapon disappeared and a sharp pain exploded in my shoulder.
The spearhead had sprung out of a portal just beside me.
Expect the unexpected, I reminded myself.
Relying on my body to recover the wound, I imbued aether into my legs once more and rushed toward the tattooed humanoid. Except, I wasn’t getting any closer to it, no matter how far and fast I sprinted.
The entity stabbed forward once more into a small portal in front of it, but this time I was able to dodge the attack thanks to a slight delay between the fluctuation of aether and the spear emerging from the portal.
“Your technique and physical prowess are superb, but your utilization of aether is inexpert and lacking refinement,” it stated conversationally as it prepared to stab forward once more.
Lowering my head, I hid my grin, letting aether flow freely from my core, triggering a reaction from the ambient aether around me.
I welcomed both the familiar surge of warmth spreading from my lower back and the knowledge that flooded into my head.
Then, I stepped forward.
That single, divine step brought me behind the entity, aether crackling from my body in branches of violet lightning.
“Is this refined enough for you?” I asked as my dagger dug deep into the entity’s back.
280
The Crystal
The dome of translucent purple shimmered out of existence, and I found myself back in the hidden chamber. The entity that I had just fought was nowhere to be found. I was barely able to remain standing as the mental and physical strain of my new rune shivered through me like cold claws.
Regis came bounding toward me, his expression one of shocked concern. “What the hell happened? You got another rune!”
“Where is it?” I asked through gritted teeth, my eyes searching for any sign of the purple figure.
“It?” Regis echoed in confusion. “You were just standing there—totally blank—for a few seconds, then this purple lightning started crackling around you.”
