Nym stared at Naera silently while he waited for her to put together her answer. It took her a while before she finally started speaking. “I can only present a theory based on reverse engineering the techniques and principles used here.”
“That’s fine,” he told her. “I’d like to hear it.”
“Like many of the creatures created by Research Lab Six, an ascendant is, at its core, a human being that has been permanently altered by magic. One could make an argument that it is a separate species, based on the amount of alterations made to it at the most fundamental levels, alterations that it could theoretically pass on to its own offspring.”
“And if they weren’t passed on, those alterations would have to be made when it’s a newborn?” Nym asked.
“Not necessarily, though it would certainly be easier. Older, stronger creatures usually possess a sense of self that can be difficult to alter if they are not cooperative. In the case of the ascendant line though, I believe almost all alterations are made before birth. Certainly a mortal human’s mind would break if they had to experience time the same way an ascendant does.”
“So what you’re saying is that one time thousands and thousands of years ago, the first ascendants were just humans who altered themselves enough to become something greater?”
“Possibly, or possibly thousands of years that have yet to pass. None of the assistants here at the lab possess the ability to experience time the same way an ascendant does, but my theoretical understanding allows for their future actions to influence what’s already in the past.”
“But what about humans who reach the sixth layer on their own? Do they become ascendants as well?”
“I am not sure,” Naera said after a moment’s hesitation. “There is more to an ascendant than reaching the transcendence layer. Perhaps it would be best to think of them as a half-step or partial ascendant, capable of completing the transformation but not actually having learned how to do so yet.”
“Do you think this is an experiment that you could run here?”
“Oh yes, definitely. I can have this up and running within fifty cycles, once we’ve discussed the goals of the experiment and what methods you’d like to utilize. I would recommend starting out with a sample size of at least one hundred humans to use as test subjects. Depending on the exact goals of the experiment, we may need more to cover a spread of ages.”
“You know, maybe we shouldn’t run that experiment after all. Yeah, let’s just hold off on that one for now.”
Naera nodded along. “If that is your wish, Exarch.”
“It is,” Nym said firmly. The last thing he needed was to be responsible for hundreds of people being abducted and experimented on. Maybe he should just shut this whole lab down if those were the kind of experiments they were running here. There was no telling what kind of alarms that might set off though, which reminded him that he needed to think about leaving soon.
“Okay, the scarab experiment is terminated. You need a new arcana print so I can leave at will. We’re not going to do the snow wolf update until later, and we’re not doing the human experimentation at all. That sums it up?”
“Almost. You wanted the original source of the corrupted arcana that produced the scarab. Would you like to take possession of it first or update your arcana print first?”
“Let’s do the arcana print first.”
“Very well, please step away from the data archive and follow me.”
The illusions disappeared as Nym moved away from the center of the room. Naera led him down several halls to a room that contained an enormous padded chair, the back easily six feet tall and wide enough for three Nyms to sit on. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else in the room.
“Please stand here,” she said, pointing out a spot directly in front of the chair.
Nym stood facing the chair, waiting for new directions, when a small cube appeared in front of him. It looked identical to the one he had hidden beneath Ciana’s cellar, so much so that at first he thought it was the same thing. A glance at Naera showed no surprise on her part to its appearance, so he decided it was far more likely that it was just a standard ascendant design used for multiple purposes.
“Please cast your arcana print into the memory cube,” Naera instructed.
Nym had no idea how to do that. After a few silent seconds, she added, “Would you like some help?”
“Please,” he said.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
“This is the spell used to cast a print.” An illusion of a spell diagram appeared in the air along with some notes about an intent filter that represented self being used for the arcana. It didn’t seem to matter what layer the arcana came from, so Nym just gathered first layer arcana and quickly built it. He cast the spell into the memory cube, then looked to Naera.
“That’s odd,” she said, “This does not look anything like your previous print. Sometimes a print can deviate, but I’ve never seen one outside of tolerance, let alone look so completely different. If I hadn’t done the biological scans myself, I would think you are not Exarch Niramyn.”
“Oh, that’s probably because I’m missing some memories right now,” he said. It wasn’t even a lie. “I am in disguise.”
“I see. Yes, missing memories could explain the drift pattern in this arcana print. Very well, let me update this new print as a subset on your profile.”
Nym had no idea what any of that meant, but he hoped she was saying that he’d be able to come and go as he pleased now. It would be nice to pop back in whenever he thought up a new question without having to worry about being trapped. There was still the concern that he’d run into another ascendant here, but if no one had shown up in the last century, they weren’t likely to change their habits any time soon.
Then again, ascendants seemed to have only a passing regard for things like linear time, so Nym could be way off-base. There was no reason to assume that one wouldn’t come in the future, see that Nym had been here in the past, and then adjust the past so that they were here to meet him. He thought. Maybe. It was very confusing.
“I have completed the update to your profile,” Naera told him. “You should be able to leave at any time now.”
There were probably a million things he could learn from this place, but he had other priorities. He had a pact to eliminate the scarabs, which reminded him that he still needed to secure the talisman before he left. That could go back to Archmage Veran for safe-keeping. He doubted it would be as safe as if he left it here, but then again, when the lab golems had gotten hold of it, they’d started playing with it. He trusted the archmage to keep it contained, but the lab might try to start a new experiment with it in a few years.
“Let me just collect the source of that scarab arcana then, and I think I’m ready to leave,” he said.
“Yes, of course. I’ve sent one of the other assistants to remove it from the specimen vault. If you’ll come with me, we will deliver it to you shortly.”
A different lab golem met them in the hall, holding a sphere of arcana with an amulet on a gold chain floating in the center of it. The amulet itself was shaped like scarab, the lines of its shell made of diamonds, and the coloring was done with studded rubies. It was probably worth a small fortune just for the gems in it, but Nym could clearly see the curse struggling to break through the containing arcana.
He pulled out the curse capturing orb and handed it to the lab golem. “Please place it in this,” he said.
The golem examined the item for a second, then fed it a thin strand of arcana, causing it to explode outward into equally sized pieces. He placed the talisman in the center and retracted his own arcana. The orb snapped back into one solid piece, now with the evil necklace safely tucked away. “An interesting design,” he remarked, holding the orb out for Nym to take. “I have saved a copy for future use and will add it to the data archive.”
“The orb or the amulet?” Nym asked, bemused.
“The orb,” the golem told him. “The amulet was added years ago. We can produce as many as are needed at any time, as long as the batteries retain the necessary arcana.”
A shudder worked its way down Nym’s spine. Of course they could just make a new one. He’d once again underestimated how powerful the ascendants were, even in a seemingly abandoned lab being run by nothing but sapient golem helpers with almost no initiative. They’d been nothing but courteous to him, but Nym got the distinct impression that not even Archmage Veran could stand up against a single one of them, let alone the whole lab’s worth.
“Well then, I think that’s all of my business here,” Nym said, suddenly eager to leave. “Do I need to do anything special, or can I teleport straight out?”
“It is not impossible to leave directly, but given the divergence of your arcana print, I would recommend exiting through the foyer. The wards there will not stop you. Once you’ve reappeared outside the lab, you can teleport wherever you please,” Naera said.
That was more or less the same set up the archmage’s sanctum used. It wasn’t impossible to teleport around inside it, but for security reasons, it was heavily restricted. Even reaching the landing platform required a sort of mental key to bypass the wards. It was annoying, but he understood why it worked that way.
He followed Naera back to the entrance. “Thank you for your help,” he told the golem.
“You are very welcome, Exarch. Please feel free to return whenever you like.”
“I will,” Nym said, not at all sure that he’d ever be back. He wanted to return, but there were risks involved that he wasn’t prepared to take on. As it was, he’d already spent more time inside the lab than he should have, thanks to his curiosity.
With a thought, he left the lab and disappeared back into the darkness of the basin, lit only by the glowing metal nearby. Nym caught himself before he fell more than a few feet, tucked the orb away into his pack, and flew out into open space. With a final glance around, he took a breath, centered his mind, and teleported to the Garden of Winter.
The scarab infestation there didn’t look any different than he remembered, but perhaps the miasma of corrupted arcana was a bit thinner. The true test would be to clear out the remaining scarabs and see what it looked like in the next week or two. Before he did that though, he had some other tasks to take care of. First, he needed to return Archmage Veran’s talisman capturing orb. The last thing the world needed was that floating loose, just waiting for some sort of accident to set it free.
After that, there was a certain fox he needed to talk to. Nym had a lot of suspicions that he’d known what he was setting Nym up for when he’d set him out on this job, and Nym wasn’t too happy to be moving blind. He might not be strong enough to do anything about it now, but he’d just see how strong a mystical fox was once he’d regained ascendant level abilities.
It wouldn’t be much longer now, he was sure. He could practically feel how close he was to breaking through into the fifth layer. Then he’d have some decisions to make, decisions he’d been putting off for too long. Soon.