After Ereli unceremoniously demolished the castle, the few survivors did not include the Rawi. Neither did most of his soldiers and cornered supporters. While brutal, Ereli's demolition had resulted in the tying up of a number of loose ends. Most of the survivors would never fight again and the sole aristocratic survivor was matched with the records of known slave abusers and promptly executed anyway.
A month of excavation work followed as the broken stones were carted away to the nearby villages, the steam engine set up and fuel procured. An expert miner had to be brought in from halfway across the country to inspect the safety of the tunnels that Morey didn't trust after the castle's fall. Surprisingly, the submerged zone of the bunker was undamaged.
Eventually, the pump was started and they quickly found out why. The lower tunnels were reinforced with crysteel beams far exceeding the strength required for this depth of tunnel. The reinforcement only grew thicker as Morey ventured deeper, eventually becoming solid crysteel walls. The stone of the tunnels was slimy from the stagnant water but the crysteel was smooth and pristine as Etani's door.
At the bottom of the bunker in the very bottom of the shaft, sat a sealed crysteel hatch. This one was much like the company's document room, only the entire shaft here was lined with crysteel.
Etani and Ereli immediately proposed digging around the whole shaft, and while that project did start, Morey and Nal continued to work on the hatch. However, trying to guess how to open it was an exercise in futility.
The hatch had a free spinning wheel set into it, with one spike coming out the top. Around the wheel was carved a circular pattern of all the characters of the First language.
It was probably a combination lock, and Morey and Nal proceeded to try guessing passwords.
Nothing worked. Ereli, Etani and most of the camp soldiers had a go at it, trying anything from randomly guessed sequences to what must have been every word in the dictionary. Morey had immediately sent a letter requesting any information from the Queen, if her scholars could dig up any clues in ancient legends.
But in the meantime, there was no reason not to keep trying.
----------------------------------------
"No, 'firstlight' isn't working," Morey grumbled as the wheel clicked to the last position and the door remained firmly shut.
Nal took his place and Morey sniffed, "admin123. "
She sniffed back at him and shook her head, "your guesses don't make sense for passwords and will not work. But we've been here for a month now and I'll try anything. "
She spun the wheel despite her misgivings, but the door remained closed.
Nal paused as she considered the lock.
"The bloody First had better have a good reason for this!" She screamed suddenly and kicked the wheel. It rebuffed her boots with as much reaction as all their previous efforts.
Morey tried to calm down his suddenly racing heart. And hide the fact that he had jumped a good foot into the air. Who knew her small body could shout so loudly in this confined space that his ears were ringing?
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better," he said dryly.
Nal raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"You've been listless and unhappy for months," Morey said, trying to find a spot on the hard crysteel floor that didn't hurt his butt. "You're less tense now, and you don't look as if I kicked you."
She froze and looked at him in shock. Morey waited but nothing came out of Nal's mouth even though it was open.
"Did you think I didn't notice?" he asked.
Nal flushed and looked away. Well, that was a clear yes.
"I thought you were ignoring me," she whispered, "I didn't think you paid any attention."
How that worked when their eyes met as often as they did, Morey did not understand.
"I guess this is why your world does not allow relationships between people in the same party?" Nal asked, smiling wryly.
Morey nodded. "Partly. We don't have independent parties like you do but the principle is the same. Relationship drama tends to be more important to the people involved than what the unit's focus should be. It's distracting."
"Should I leave then?"
Should she? Despite her behaviour and the tension it generated, Morey did not feel as if her performance as part of the Hero's party had been affected. She was someone he knew personally and valued their connection. Or was it because she was a cute and attractive girl?
Morey shook his head. No, no matter what the reasons, he definitely did not wish that Nal leave the party. "No," he said for her benefit, "I don't want you to leave. Unless the queen withdraws you, or you want to go, you should stay with us."
The dark clouds on her face blew away with a brilliant smile and Nal bowed deeply, "then I will stay. No matter who interferes, even if the queen calls me back to her side, I shall not leave you. My magic and life is at your command. This I swear."
Did she just- "Did you just swear to me?" Morey asked. He recognized that! It was very close to the oath that Amarante's personal retainers made to the Federation.
Nal just smiled back.
He blinked. Given how far Nal was willing to go to reassure him, perhaps Morey could release some of his doubt on her intentions. Even if Amarante had given her instructions to get close to Morey, that shouldn't matter if Nal switched loyalties. Not that he actually wanted Nal to give up her position and ambition as Amarante's spellstorm.
Nor was Morey the type to expect lovers to be dedicated to each other above all else. That was borderline creepy, no matter how romantic at first glance.
His musing was interrupted by a clattering from the ladder they had installed into the shaft to bypass the ancient stone stairs.
A messenger from the ISL outpost slid down next to Morey. His stiff pseudo-uniform was well groomed and taken care of, a lowly soldier was meeting the Hero after all.
"Sir. A message from the Queen arrived for you. " The soldier saluted and handed Morey a fat sealed envelope.
Ah, perhaps their answer to the password had arrived? Time to work on the door again.
----------------------------------------
Hero Morey,
The demise of the King of Illastein fills me with regret but I agree with the necessity of your actions. Do not feel that it is your fault. Your goals have been achieved and Illastein is a better place for it.
Your find of the First bunker is fascinating. It is clear that they wanted to protect something there but the site was not known in history as a significant place. That said, your problem of needing a 'password' leads me to remember an old tale of the Sword of the First.
In that tale, the Hero finds the Sword in the possession of the Holder who protects it. The Holder would judge him to be worthy of the Sword in newer tales but this older version speaks of the Hero obtaining the Sword by speaking a magic word "Tiral". Later tellings of this story substitute this event with the Holder's Trial, reasoning that the word must have been Trial instead.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
I have enclosed a list of possible spellings using the older alphabet but you might want to test your own variations. Further enclosed is a list of every single magical word or meaningful words in old letters, with variations.
I am very excited to know what might be found inside. If you still cannot gain entry, please do not attempt to smash the door. Any effects powerful enough to breach it might damage the contents. In that case, I pray you and Cato can find a less destructive measure.
Amarante,
Queen Inath
----------------------------------------
The door opened on 'teeval', which wasn't a word in the First language anyone recognized. With a lot of encouragement added, as the old hinges were quite stuck.
The door opened to reveal an ancient dusty ladder that led down into a small receiving chamber. The walls, all crysteel, had a series of First runes carved into the metal. In one of the walls, a door. Fortunately, not one guarded with a lock.
The few scholars that had arrived along with Amarante's message began to translate the carved letters while Morey and the party proceeded carefully into the next chamber. The second room was also small but wasn't empty. The far corner held a big person-sized box that glowed faintly with magic, a raised pedestal in the center that was also magical, and against the rest of the walls were stacks of crysteel sheets.
Before any of them could see more, a flare of magic sent Etani rushing forwards with her door. Instead of the expected trap however, the magic stopped at the pedestal in the center of the room, expanding into a cuboid that extended from the pedestal to near the top of the room.
Not unlike the visible phantoms that summoning stones had, the full colour hologram, apparently powered by stored magic in the box, appeared to be that of an old man. Dressed in a tight robe of an unknown purple material, he looked ancient even as he stared out towards the door, ignoring Morey and the girls. He spoke slowly but clearly, in what Morey recognized as the original First language.
Nal immediately ran out to get the scholar most fluent in the dead language into the room with his clipboard and transcribe the entire speech. It was short, just a poetic few sentences and the man's tone was dark and foreboding. After it completed, the hologram flickered and began to repeat itself.
This continued for four times before the box in the corner as well as the pedestal shut down.
The scholars crowded around the transcription, working to translate it.
It wasn't difficult as the message turned out to be the same as what was carved into the walls of the receiving chamber.
----------------------------------------
"A Message to the Future
We leave this message to the children.
Of friends and families left behind.
If any survive the Winter of Magic.
We leave this knowledge for your sake.
If you wish to seek us, remember the Gate.
Do not make the mistakes we made.
Beware the Enemy.
The next part of this message will play if the second trigger is pressed. "
----------------------------------------
And wasn't that ominous? Morey sighed and looked around while Nal and Ereli tried to find the second trigger on the pedestal.
The crysteel sheets were very thin, about a fingernail's thickness, and into their surface was embossed letters, the words on the top sheets obscured by a thick layer of dust. A small library had been recorded onto crysteel, a stupidly durable material, sealed into a great crysteel chamber buried deep in an apparently deliberately flooded bunker that was nevertheless heavily reinforced. This was a time capsule.
The First, from before the Migration, had wanted to send a message to future generations and this was how they had chosen to do so.
Time to do what all game protagonists do: Loot everything.
----------------------------------------
"I leave this message to whoever will find it. As you have bypassed the Dust detection chamber, I hope this message remains free from that menace. Here, we have recorded a general history of the rise and fall of our civilization in hopes that you will not repeat our mistakes. We have placed these on a lasting medium in a protected environment along with a language primer we hope will help you decipher these words.
We hope that you will make a copy of these records and leave this room as you found it for future generations. "
----------------------------------------
"This record is a warning of the Enemy.
In the shadow of our war with the Tsarian movement, we destroyed the very basis of our life. The mana power that we use to raise our buildings, to grow our food, to live our lives, this was all destroyed by the Dust. This, the Dust should never have done, the project must have been altered unknowingly.
What remnants of the Tsar came to us and revealed that their Ascension project was also sabotaged by an external force. The scope of the sabotage was unclear but their project's corruption caused massive loss of life when Ascension was attempted.
Where this force comes from, we do not know. It is a subtle corruption, preferring manipulation over overt force, but to what ends, we do not know. All we know is that this Enemy is intelligent, devious and likely comes from outside this world.
In the wake of the Dust, all magic began to die and the world itself was threatened. We decided to leave through the Gate at Landing, those who stayed behind would have been your ancestors. The corruption of Ascension seemed to have been the main thrust of the Enemy's efforts and it is our hope that it sleeps in this magical winter.
If you are seeing this message, then the Dust has expired and, hopefully, magic has returned to this world and to your hands.
Hopefully, the Enemy that struck us in the back still sleeps and your world is peaceful. It will awaken one day and threaten all peoples, though what form it will take, we do not know beyond a corruption of the purpose of Ascension itself.
Our Sword lies too far for the Dust to reach and may yet be useful to you if the Enemy returns. This world has already borne great scars from the Sword, use it only on the Enemy or the Sword will be your doom. While the Sword is a great weapon, it is also blunt and destructive. You cannot defeat the Enemy with it alone, but it may ease the way for you.
The Sword can be wielded at Landing. There is a link there we hope has survived, buried near the Gate.
If you wish to reach your cousins, our descendants, then seek the Gate at Landing. Be warned, the Gate may lead elsewhere, study its use carefully.
This poor broken world is all we can leave to you, children of our past. "
----------------------------------------
To Cato,
I have sent this message by a direct courier to you because I have come across a clue of how to return!
Yes, indeed! The bunker I requested a mining pump from you for was a time capsule buried by the First!
In those records, there was mention of a Gate through which they left this world after the Dust somehow started to erode all magic. The scholars here have already placed that event as the Great Migration in the legends, in which most of the people of the world migrated back to Landing City after the war destroyed their civilization. From the oral tales of that time, it was unclear whether 'leaving' meant they actually left or it was a euphemism for the mass death that must have occurred.
Nevertheless, the Summoning Ceremony by which Queen Amarante brought me, and likely you, here was also in the Landing city ruins. And since the scholars tell me that the Summoning circle itself has legends that it was the route by which the first humans came to this world, it is likely the Summoning circle there is actually the Gate itself.
It appears my journey has come full circle. I am headed back to the Summoning circle immediately.
The time capsule also contains records that the Sword that is mentioned in legend can also be found at Landing. I have my doubts as to the scholars' interpretation that another time capsule exists there. The Sword was said to be beyond the reach of the Dust, but the Dust destroyed all magic in the world. Something is not right here.
Furthermore, from the details given in the record sheets, the Sword is probably a superweapon on the same tier as nuclear bombs. The three times where it was used, is the area where Ektal was founded later. The Little Sands, Littler Sands and the canyon where Fort Yang is; those were the locations where Tsarian forts and bunkers used to exist. I know for certain no ruins remain and, given how overengineered everything the First and the Tsar seemed to have built, that is rather impressive. The craters of the strikes still exist to this day and you can probably see them in any map.
Their mention of this threat called the Enemy is unclear. Since it is linked to the Tsar's Ascension too, which you have speculated and I agree that is likely the origin of the zombies, I am not certain that this "Enemy" is actually the zombies.
We do not know enough to say for certain. If the zombie sieging of Fort Yang ever slows and Ektal gains the leeway to strike north, please keep this in mind. There may be worse than zombies out there.
To my mind, the First and the Tsar must have been insane. What little translations and copies of the records we have made so far are horrifying. At times, I wonder if the war wasn't fought entirely with superweapon exchanges. There are records of human lifeshaping done with little regard for failure, the making of virtually all the monsters in the world, all done by the Tsar. The First started with chemical weapons and weather manipulation. They rapidly came up with counters to each other's attacks and the weapons escalated in response.
All used with little regard for collateral damage, used almost gleefully on the opposing side's civilian population.
And even in these records after the end, the names of the inventors, the military leaders who used them, the workers who built them, they're practically worshipped as war heroes. Their culture celebrates mad scientists! For inventing the very weapons that destroyed their world!
That was obviously not a good idea when superweapons seem to be much easier to create here than on Earth.
Nevertheless, included in the records were descriptions of the containers and general shape of these weapons. I have written a strong recommendation to Queen Amarante that she seek out and destroy any she finds. I hope you agree and send her your support.
It is a grim silver lining to the dark cloud that no descriptions of how these weapons work exist in the records. Or at least we haven't found any yet.
Morey