The interior of the shrine building wasn’t exactly the same as the one in the original village. Even without being able to see into the central room where the Eight were, there was a clear route through the building for people who only wanted to come see the Eight, along with a separate route for people who wanted to spend more time. It was clear that someone had thought a lot about what the building should look like to visitors.
There were still a number of side corridors. They were led down one of them directly to a door. When the warrior knocked, Serenity heard Speaker Hulvex’s voice. “Come in!”
The Speaker was working out an incomplete office that was simpler than his original and didn’t yet have the framing in place to make it an octagon, but the desk was there even if nothing else was. The speaker himself appeared a little frazzled but happy. His grin widened when he saw Serenity. “Welcome back, friends! Since I assume you’re not here to fight in the tournament, not that I wouldn’t arrange that if you wanted to, what do you need?”
That wasn’t quite an invitation to the tournament, was it? Serenity didn’t think so, but it also wasn’t exactly not an invitation either. Whatever it was, Serenity had no intention of participating and he doubted anyone else did either. The only one of the group that might be interested was Blaze, and Serenity was certain that would be more to heal the injured than to compete himself. Given Blaze’s hobby on Aeon, Serenity couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure that his involvement in an underground arena started as a healer.
“We’re looking for the same thing we were last time,” Senkovar started. “Only this time we’re pretty sure it’s here instead of being fairly confident it isn’t. Something’s changed and it’s not just the revival of the Eight.”
Serenity noticed that Senkovar didn’t mention the fact that Serenity could feel the change. He didn’t really want to mention that either, at least not directly. “Have the Eight noticed anything? It should be a particular location, probably a tunnel that’s recently been dug?”
“A tunnel?” Speaker Hulvex looked surprised, then frowned. “No, they haven’t mentioned anything about a tunnel. You may want to ask yourself; Samvi has seemed concerned about something other than the city’s ambitions. I’ve been busy dealing with this accursed tournament, so I haven’t had the time to pursue something he doesn’t think is an immediate issue. Come on, then; I’ll happily step away for a few.”
Speaker Hulvex suited his actions to his words and emerged from behind his desk. He led the group down some back passageways to emerge from an entrance to the central area that was clearly not intended for the general public. It looked like there were three major entrances to the room where the Eight’s stone sat, one for a line of people who wanted to see the Eight’s stone quickly, one with seats for those who wished to spend more time and meditate or worship, and one for the Speaker and his assistants.
The Eight’s stone had been shifted onto the platform that made the floor of the Speaker’s area; since that was two feet above the public areas, Serenity expected that made it easier to see.
There were people in both of the public areas. They were dressed differently; almost all of the people wearing octagons were in the area with seats, while a half dozen people who didn’t seem to be associated with the Eight stood in the other public area. Four of the six were in armor, which made Serenity guess that he was probably looking at people from the city, Aurble. They seemed almost shocked by Speaker Hulvex leading Serenity’s group into the room, while the followers of the Eight looked almost pleased.
Was the Speaker taking advantage of the Tournament to draw attention to the Eight? When Serenity thought about it, that made sense; no matter what the reason for the tournament was, the people of the Eight needed others to visit if they wanted to return to the old days the Speaker had mentioned.
The rest of the shrine was large and mostly unfurnished. The octagonal room was roofed by a set of eight upwards-pointing triangles that met in an octagon at the top. A chandelier hung from the light that had to have been moved from the other town, since it was eight levels of magical lights, each with eight lights on each of the eight sides.
The lights were in the eight different colors of the spheres, though Serenity wasn’t certain if anyone else could see that. Speaker Hulvex certainly didn’t seem to have noticed it about the eight legacy orbs and the light they shed seemed oddly white for the mix of colors it should have been. All of that probably meant he was seeing something that wasn’t exactly a color and translating it that way because he didn’t know what else to do with it.
The only thing that made him feel better about that was that whoever made the books for the Eight seemed to have translated whatever it was into the same exact colors, which implied some level of reality behind them.
Speaker Hulvex walked to the stone and set his hands on Samvi’s legacy orb. A moment later, wisps flew out of the orb and floated up to form into the image of a man. “Samvi, can you tell Serenity about your concerns?”
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The Speaker made no effort to keep his question silent. By the time he finished speaking, everyone in the room was staring at Samvi, regardless of their origin.
Serenity sighed internally. He didn’t really like being the center of attention and knew that was about to happen. Again.
Samvi ignored everyone else and floated over to Serenity. “It’s good to see you again. I wish the circumstances were better.”
Serenity shrugged. He needed to tell Samvi enough to get his assistance but he’d probably best be a little vague to avoid creating a panic about World Eaters. That wouldn’t go over well. “There are always problems. I’m looking for the same thing as last time; we think there may be a tunnel involved. Speaker Hulvex says you haven’t seen that but may have seen something else?”
“I suppose I can trust you to look into it.” Samvi’s words didn’t have any particular emphasis, but Serenity could still see Speaker Hulvex flinch. Samvi also seemed to notice because he gave the Speaker a small nod before he continued. “Our people really don’t have the tools necessary, and while I am more powerful than I was, I am not currently prepared for what the mystery might bring.”
Serenity wondered if Samvi was deliberately talking vaguely to avoid clueing in the other people present or if he simply didn’t like thinking about how close he came to nonexistence. Either or both seemed likely.
“With that said, it’s not a tunnel, or at least I don’t think there’s a tunnel,” Samvi continued. “It might not need one. There’s something happening deep in the Cavern. It started as an explosion of magic; since then, it’s calmed down but I can still feel something happening.”
“Something?” Serenity didn’t like descriptions that were quite that vague.
Samvi shrugged and looked at Serenity’s feet. “It feels like a duel, or maybe a series of duels. The thing is, there’s enough magic being thrown around that it’s noticeable on the surface if you get near the Cavern. No one does, the area is hazardous, but I’ve been keeping watch on it since I felt that first rush of power pour out of it. We don’t actually know what’s at the bottom of the Cavern; it’s never been explored.”
That was helpful and yet at the same time completely unhelpful. It was a direction without any more information; Serenity didn’t even know if it was the right direction. Unfortunately, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to tell, either. The itch he felt was nondirectional, so unless he managed to trace along ley lines and tell the difference between ‘more itchy’ and ‘less itchy,’ he wasn’t going to get an easy answer. It was worth a try, but he didn’t have high hopes of success.
“Thanks,” Serenity said with a nod. There was no reason to be ungrateful, after all; Semvi had done the best he could. There was one more question to ask that might help narrow it down more. “When did the explosion of magic happen?”
“Hm.” Semvi frowned. “I don’t always know how long it’s been, but closer to when you left than when you returned. I haven’t felt anything from down there for a few days; maybe it’s over now?”
Serenity nodded thoughtfully. The cub didn’t have a good sense of time either; he thought he’d been digging the tunnel for years, even though the apparent damage to Themrys was far more recent. It wasn’t clear to Serenity if that was because the cub had been there for quite a while before the damage was obvious or if the cub simply had no idea how much time passed inside the World Core. Some of each seemed likely, since it was clear that Themrys was far worse off than Eitchen.
If the tigers arrived only a few weeks ago, that was definitely in the necessary time window and also gave Serenity some hope that the mother tiger might still be there. From what Senkovar said, the World Eater attacks were usually months or years apart. That was probably because of the tunnel that was required to reach the World Core; if Semvit was correct and no tunnel was required because of the Cavern, it was possible that the mother tiger had already moved on. Serenity didn’t like that idea, but there was nothing he could do about it other than look.
“Serenity, can you quickly check and see if that’s the correct area?” Senkovar spoke quietly. It was probably audible to others in the room, but might well not be clear. “I don’t want to chase a decoy but I also don’t want to miss the chance to catch up if it’s actually possible.”
“I can try,” Serenity agreed. He was close enough to the nexus here that there was no reason to go anywhere else; the sooner he started, the sooner he’d finish.
There were no seats in the section he was in, so he sat down on the floor. It was a nice wooden floor; he hadn’t paid attention before but now it was appreciated. It wasn’t as cold as stone.
Serenity could feel Eitchen in the distance. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by the itching Serenity could feel; indeed, Serenity felt enveloped by cheerful welcome as Eitchen noticed he was there. That was good, at least. Eitchen hadn’t even noticed there was a problem. Serenity tried to send a burst of happiness and comfort to Eitchen. He thought some of his other emotions might have slipped through, but if they did, they didn’t bother the World Spirit.
Serenity turned his attention in the direction of the Cavern. There was no ley line that ran through it, only nearby. That still ought to be close enough if it was like the pain he felt on Themrys.
It wasn’t. No matter how far he went, Serenity couldn’t tell if the itching was more pronounced closer to the Cavern or not. Serenity only looked for about an hour; he was unfortunately fairly confident in what the answer was by then. He opened his eyes and found the others also sprawled on the floor. “I can’t tell. It’s simply not intense enough for me to isolate a location.”
They were going to have to check out the Cavern and hope that it was the correct location.