VII walked through the catacombs, looking around with some degree of wonder. Her wonder did not come from the sights themselves, she had plenty of amazing things to gaze upon at home, but from the sheer effort and dedication that would have had to go into the preservation of so many bodies and such a supply of resources. Such dedication was rare in her experience. Practical concerns would usually supplant concerns of belief and spirituality.
She walked through the cache of bodies, metals, and even weapons that lined the shelves and walls. She was searching for something, something she caught a whiff of once her mother healed her soul. It was a strong barrier beneath the tower, stronger than most could make, even among her acquaintances and siblings with the resources available. It surrounded a triangular room within the deepest level of the catacombs, but she could smell it from the Shrine room.
She continued on her way, passing rows upon rows of coffins and amassed wealth, until she finally reached the lowest level of the underground area. Again, coffins and wealth abounded, but she had seen plenty of it already. What interested her was the room at the far end of the massive room. As she walked through, she took notice of the numerous coffins and gave each one a glance. They were going to become part of Mori’s horde, anyway, so there was plenty of reason to learn their professions.
Some were farmers. Others were scholars. Some were soldiers. Others were priests. Some were craftsmen. Others were miners. They were all dwarves, all people who once lived. She sighed, wondering what death was like. For her, there would be little chance of a final death. Between her own instincts, her mother, and the other contingencies in place, she would be hard to kill. Fara was a normal mortal with a preternatural ability to predict and build while Mori was a vortex of every near-nil occurrence given a physical shape, but VII was the daughter of a goddess. Mori might have been harder to defeat, and likely harder to kill, but she was clueless about the ways of the Rift, as was Fara. She decided at the meeting that she would make sure that they flourished in the Rift, for what they did for her and the fun times that would come.
Eventually, she reached the end of the long room and found a large, circular door. On the door, there were a dozen circles of images, all layered around a single, bronze button. Not even clocksteel, but bronze. She tilted her head and looked at the images. They all had iconography related to battle scenes, great cities, and other wonders of nature to the locals. She looked for any pattern, anything that could give her the answer of what the solution was, she realized that the rings were generally cut into slices of three, one being buildings, one being battles, and the last being natural wonders. The problem, however, came from the fact that, somewhere within the slices, there was an outlier. A goliath unit image might occupy a space beside a tall mountain and a luscious tree, or a building would stand tall in the middle of a group of battle images.
She wondered what the message behind the puzzle was. Since someone went through the trouble of carving the images into familiar things, and even went so far as to clump some together, there had to have been a message. And yet, as much as she looked at the set up, nothing popped out to her. As she looked at the tower standing in the midst of a dozen battles, she realized something. The outlier above it, a few spaces to the left, was of a flat-topped mesa, while, at the bottom of the tower in the lower image, there was a flat-topped mesa. The outlier in the nature section of the ring below it , surrounded by barren desert images, was the scene of a battle in the ruins of a tower. She quickly lined the three up, which gave her a small story line of that third of the slice. The desert tiles at the third ring down were actually town-like tiles, all clumped around a central flat-topped mesa. Afterwards, a clockwork invasion occurred, with the town being flattened and the newly-built tower remaining unassailed. At some point after that, there was a siege of the tower and the defenders were driven off.
She smiled, proud of herself. Quickly finding every tile that had anything to do with the mesa, she arranged them all into order and grinned happily as the images were complete. There different stories were told in each of the sections, but none after the first made any real sense to her. As she slid the last tile into place, she heard a heavy click and a deep rumbling. Stepping back, she watched as the door slowly rose, opening its interior for her to see. Before she could take a step into the room, she heard a tapping behind her. She turned, meeting the Keeper’s eyes with her own. “So, you opened the door,” he said.
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VII nodded, “I did indeed. So, what was the story behind that? I could tell that a message was being told, but I didn’t really see it.” She watched as the Keeper slowly hobbled his way over to her, standing beside her with an amused smile, “What?”
“There was no message,” he replied, chuckling, “That was meant to be a test to ensure that the ones who accessed the treasures within were the gods themselves. The thinking went that only someone who knew the events of those battles could open the door. She was wrong, it seems. I suppose this means that you may claim the treasures within for yourself. Go on, then. I will await your return here. Go on,” he urged, almost shooing her into the vault. VII shrugged and walked into the vault. If she were somehow trapped, then it would have been easy to break free.
The vault itself was quite mundane. There were white stone walls, a tiled floor, and five pedestals, each one holding a weapon or tool. At each of the vertices of the triangular room, there was a different ornate weapon held in its place. In front of her, there was a thick black sword. To her right, there was a very large, cannon-like rifle, the same type of mana-based weaponry the dwarves used. And, to her left, there was a staff of twisted, black metal that was absolutely covered in runes. Not an inch was left untouched. She could also feel the mana-active metal that pulsed in response to any little hint of mana passing through it. They were all decorated with golden vines smithed into the structure of the weapons, while also acting as channels for mana to travel. While the weapons were interesting, the two pedestals in the middle held the greatest treasures.
One was a pair of gloves decorated with jewels, gold linings, and so many mana gems that VII wanted to giggle. The foreign mana wafted from the gloves, ranging from basic mana types like fire and ice to complex and complicated mana types like absence and need. While she herself was more interested in the gloves, the other treasure was nothing to scoff at either. It was a necklace, with a large disc of gold and runes hanging from a silver chain. The wiring of the runes were so complicated, so thick in the disc, that not even VII knew what they did. All she knew was that there was something magical in the disc, and that was it..
Tilting her head, she decided to take them all and ask Mori what she wanted to do with them. After all, she had an army of equipment-deficient undead to manage, and VII had plenty of toys at her home. Gathering them all up, she left the vault with her loot and passed the Keeper as she walked away. “Fruitful, I see,” he joked.
“It was,” VII replied, smiling, “I found something I want, but I think Mori could use some of this stuff.” She continued on her way out of the catacombs, climbing the stairs until she reached the first landing of the long descent.
There, Mori was laying out another body, while her slime, Unio, sat by her side, “Alright, try to stretch the bones out a bit, Unio,” she said. The slime wibbled a bit before diving into the body. Suddenly, the limbs began to grow in length while shrinking in girth. The same happened for the torso and the head, eventually resulting in the body looking like an elf with far less muscle than the average elf. Elves were tall and dwarves were not, so it was little surprise. Mori caught sight of her after a moment and waved with her happiness showing on her armor, “Hey, VII. What do you have there?” she asked, standing and staring at the assorted weapons.
“There was a vault down there with a puzzle to open it. I, obviously, opened it. I wanted to know what you wanted to do with this,” she explained, putting the assorted weapons onto an empty coffin. She laid them out so Mori could examine them all, lined up side by side.
“Hmm… I think… these three would be great gifts for Mae, Ally, and Tisi, don’t you?” she asked, pointing to the sword, staff, and gun, “I mean, they each use one of these, so…”
“It’s fitting,” VII answered, “So what about the necklace and the… uh, gloves?” she asked.
Mori examined the necklace for a moment before putting it to the side, “Fara could probably make some sense of this. This, on the other hand,” she said, narrowing her vision onto the gloves, “I can think of an owner for these,” she remarked, picking them up.
VII nodded, secretly disappeared. She really wanted those gloves, but she gave them to Mori, and if the lich had a better use for them, then she would not complain, “Who?” she asked.
Mori smiled again, armor matching her mood, when she took VII’s hands and slipped the gloves onto them, “You!” she said, “You seemed to like them, and I don’t know what most of those gems do anyways, so they’re all yours. Have fun with them!” she said, giving VII a hug and turning back to the corpse. “Alright, test number three!” she remarked.
VII, somewhat stunned from the hug, shook her head and put the gloves aside. She could play with them later. after she saw whatever Mori was doing. The lich flicked her wrist and, with a burst of echoes, raised the zombie. It stood, stumbled, and then fell over, dead. Mori scratched her head in confusion as VII simply watched. She found watching the coalescence of so many unlikely events much more entertaining than some ancient gloves.