Chapter 6:

Arcadia, please. You have to wake up! The desperate hiss of Boones' voice seemed to cut into my addled brain, and it was the fear laced through it, more than the words, that caught my attention. I got the feeling he had been trying to get my attention for a while.

Everything bloomed with pain, and I groaned at the agony of it as it settled into my bones and muscles. A sharp intake of breath filled my lungs with air - and my whole chest cavity with fiery agony. I tried to scream but the cold, smooth feeling of Boones’ telekinetic hand pressed down on my mouth. For a second notice recognising it, I bucked and bit, until his voice managed to cut through my sudden panic. No, Arcadia, listen to me. You have to be quiet. I know it hurts but you can't make any noise! I realised that Boone was speaking silently in my head, and the sounds I made were the only ones we were making. But not the only sounds in the area.

I heard the cracking and settling of stone and metal, the blowing swish of fresh air over freshly disturbed dust, the heavy, panting breath of my friend - and the shuffling, clacking footsteps of something moving just beyond my vision. The sound was like fingernails tapping against porcelain, and the soft creak of old, dry leather.

I realised then that I couldn't actually see anything. The world was cloaked in absolute blackness. I would have believed I was blind if it wasn't for the dim, blue glow of Boone lighting up just a few inches around himself. His glow was so pale, his body so dim, I actually panicked, more than even my situation at the bottom of a cave-in should have elicited, as I gathered the tiny, limp body of my friend closer to me.

"Boone, what happened? Are you hurt?" I hissed a whisper to him, mindful of his warning. The fox looked at me and slowly blinked his eyes, his thin chest panting in a staccato rise and fall under my hand.

Good. You're awake. I'm…I'm glad that worked. Didn't think I had the strength to keep us both in one piece. He sounded drained, exhausted. I ran my fingers through his electric blue fur, looking for injuries or broken bones, but couldn't find anything. It's okay, Arcadia. I'm alright. Just…overdid it a bit. Think I overstrained my core.

"What did you even do?" I remembered falling, realising too late that I stood on the rusted platform of an ancient elevator, made of oxidised steel and not Maxwellian Bronze like much of the rest of the room. I remembered Boone leaping at me as tonnes of debris fell around us. I remembered the marble that he created around us, shiny and solid - then my torch had gone out and we had fallen, bouncing and bashing off of everything on the way down. At some point I think I hit my head, and then I couldn't remember anything else.

Something I had been working on while you've been sleeping. Thought I could make a barrier to keep us safe in an emergency. But it was too much. Not..don't think I'm supposed to try to do that before we unlock our system. But mother always did respect those who question what should be possible. Every law is meant to be broken. I gathered the tiny fox in my arms and held him to my chest. I was scared, and I realised it - and not just the fear of a child lost in the dark, although that was deep and chilling to my core, but the fear of an adult who understood just how bad our situation might be.

I remembered many stories from my previous life of children stuck down holes and mine shafts, and even there it was a toss of the coin whether they lived or died before they were rescued. Those children didn't have to worry about monsters in the hole with them, of course.

“What's out there, Boone? What did we fall into?” The fox squirmed until I let him go, and he started to sniff and paw at me, trying to find if I was injured.

I thought I must be, as literally everything hurt, but no. I checked where he poked - I was battered, bruised and cut in dozens of places, but I don't think I broke any bones in the fall. Boones’ shield had saved me. Even better, while I had lost the torch, my catapult and long knife - the bone handled one that had used to belong to my sister - had survived, along with my pouch of stone ammunition. I was going to find a whole damn Mutock haunch for the fox if I ever got out of here, I swore to myself.

I'm not sure. We fell a long way. I think we fell into a ruin from an earlier civilisation. The stone here is old - very old. I doubt whatever is outside these ruins is still living. He spoke into my mind, and shrugged his bony shoulders.

“Can you lend me your eyes for a few moments? I can't see a thing in this dark.” I whispered, and reached out a mental tendril down our connection, which I felt him accept and draw in with a tendril of his own energy. Suddenly my vision tunnelled, and swam, before coming back at a new angle, much closer to the floor.

Boones’ eyes were magic, more than just having an awakened perception stat - Boone literally had magic vision, like a spirit would, and they cut through the dark like a spot light. The vision was stained blue, but I could suddenly, at the least, see where we were in relation to all the stuff that had come down around us.

The stone that made up the bottom of the shaft was definitely not the 7th age of the ruin far above - heck, just the fact that it was stone at all and not Maxwellian Bronze said that - but it was composed of massive, tightly fit square blocks that must be feet thick. Utterly dry and waterproof, masterfully put together with no mortar, yet completely solid, and a long way underground.

“These could be a thing from the 2nd age to the 5th age, I think.” I whispered, trying to give Boone hindsight back. Instead, his energy latched onto mine and held me there, while his body climbed mine and wrapped around my shoulders. Very quickly I realised what he was doing, and I ended up with a vision cone just slightly to the right of where mine would normally be. I smiled warmly, strangely noticing the expression on my own face from Boones’ peripheral, and scratched the fox between his ears. He was a good friend, and helping however he could. “Which means,” I continued, “if they are unexplored we’re probably looking at elementals or undead, or something that has tunnelled in. It doesn't smell of animals, decay, or damp, so I'm going to rule out an outside force. And those sounds don't sound like an elemental of any element I know. At least I hope not. An elemental that's that old will kill us instantly. At least a skeleton or two we could maybe avoid - but a hostile elemental and we are dead for certain.” I swallowed hard at that. My whispers took on a frantic tone as anxiety crawled up my throat, but Boone rubbed his fur against my cheek and I started to calm down. I wasn't alone and we weren't dead yet. There was hope.

If this is either ruin, how do we escape? It is not as though we can climb back out, the shaft is most likely collapsed completely above us. It is a wonder that we seem to be alright, even with my shield.

It really was, now that I looked around. It seemed the marble had forced the falling debris just out of alignment enough that it had fallen in a triangle all around us, and had wedged itself into the shaft both to the side and a few metres over our heads. There was even a low, crawl space of a passage out to the greater ruins - or at least I hoped there was. If there wasn't, then it would be a long wait for rescue - and a dark part of myself didn't know if the small amount of snacks and water i had crammed into my travellers bag would last for very long.

I racked my brains, trying to remember everything Boone and I had read about 2nd and 5th age ruins and what they contained. Mostly, right now, all I could really recall was that they often contained artefacts that were completely unknown in later ages. Especially the deeply buried ones.

But this one has already been explored, most likely. The 7th age facility above had dug all the way into this one after all.

“I don't know. But I do know if we stay here, we will most likely starve or die of thirst before rescue can dig down to us. We need to explore and see what we can find.” If I was honest, the very idea terrified me, going out into the dark full of monsters, and if I was a normal eight year old, I imagine I would be paralysed with fear. But I wasn't, and I had a family I’d very much like to see again. “Guess it's time to put on the big girl shorts,” I said, lamely, and tried to force a quiet chuckle through a suddenly chilled throat.

The first obstacle was, of course, getting out of the rubble. The marble shield may have kept us alive, but if it had truly trapped us, it was just a slower death. Using Boones’ eyes, I got down on my stomach near the hole that seemed to lead out, and started to crawl.

The tunnel that had been formed in the debris was tiny. If I'd been any bigger than I was, I doubt I would have fit. Even so, I had to crawl, and Scrabble, and slide on my stomach, contorting myself through rough shaped gaps in fallen stone and sharp metal.

At one point a jagged spur of rusted steel caught the back of my shirt, near my tailbone, and dug in. For a moment I was pinned and the sudden claustrophobia of having a mountain of rubble pressing me down swam up from the base of my spine and caught in my throat, made my brain freeze and roar all at once and I started to panic. I felt the metal scrape into the skin and as I struggled it cut a long furrow into my back and bottom. I nearly screamed as it dug in, but Boone forced me to stop moving, to look at him, and to breathe with him until I could think again, until the panic faded and I could wriggle and twist myself free of the spike and carry on.

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At points I had to climb and contort myself, and the dust and loose debris would shift. Each time I thought that this would be the point where the entire lot shifted and dropped on me, and I prayed, not just to Kintsuji, but to every god in this world that I could name, that I got out of here alive.

Each time the mass didn't move, and while I grew filthy with dust, I passed further from the centre of the crash towards the open air of the buried facility.

I don't know how long it took, but finally, I saw light. It wasn't the flicker of torchlight, either, but a soft, golden glow that seeped through the cracked stone and lit up the space in bars of radiance in the darkness. I imagined it was some for of magical rune light, but it was unlike any that I had seen before. It almost looked like the light from an electrical bulb I remembered from my last life, but somehow cast fewer shadows.

Just a little further, Arcadia, we are nearly through. With the return of light, Boone had returned my eyesight, and had taken to moving slightly ahead, and encouraging me on, pointing out what shape I would have to contort myself into to fit through the next piece of fallen rubble. There is a blockage ahead, but it is the last barrier. I think with enough force, you could just push it loose. But I do not know what is on the other side. It will probably make noise.

I wondered if the noise of the elevator platform had brought every monster in the ruin right to us. If they were elementals, or intelligent undead, then undoubtedly they would have come to investigate. But if they were mindless undead, there was a good chance they hadn't all gathered.

Father had told me many stories about the undead in the sunken pyramid. They almost seemed pre-programmed, to only stick to a certain area or a certain set of actions, and only reacted when you entered their sphere of influence.

Even if you attacked one down the hall from another - the second one would stay oblivious unless you crossed the invisible border between one room and another.

I never thought I'd dearly hope for undead. But with every bony tap and leathery creak I heard from the rooms outside the rubble, I became more and more convinced I was in luck. However, you could never be too careful…

“Boone, in case this is it for this life, I want you to know how much you've meant to me. I wouldn't change you for the world.” I whispered, and grabbed the fox up in a quick hug, before I leaned back against the rubble behind me and braced both feet against the slab that was keeping me trapped. With a grunted heave and a strain of all my bruised muscles, I felt the stone shift, and teeter, and eventually topple, and light flooded the tunnel, brilliant and warm. Along with the hiss of creatures from beyond the grave.

I pulled my legs back into the hole I had made as a rusty sword arched down where they had emerged, chipping into the fallen stone with a shower of sparks; A bony hand held the rotted leather grip of the blade. As I dodged And crawled back, I saw a notification from the System scrawl across my vision in the same gold ink as my soul card:

You have now entered the Dungeon: Chimeric Temple. Progress ever forward, ever onward.

A dungeon. A Dungeon!? My mind reeled, but the undead monstrosity that was even now trying to force its way into the hole I had made to get to me kept me well grounded in the present. A human skeleton with glowing blue flames where it's eyes should be and carrying a rusted sabre kneeled down at the entrance, opening it's empty jaw and releasing a hiss that shouldn't have been possible as it tried to stab at me.

While I scooted back as far as I could, it was Boone who took the initiative and found something useful to fight back. He focused and I felt a deep tug on our soul, as he thrust at the bony monster with a telekinetic fist, and a blue splash of spectral like slammed into its ribcage, knocking the monster back, stumbling and reeling from the force.

Quickly, Arcadia, your catapult. I don't have the energy to fight it myself Boone said into my mind, his mental voice a wheeze as I saw his tiny ribs move like bellows and he gasped for air. I didn’t have time to question him, I simply fumbled for the pouch of stones on my waist and slipped one into the firing cup on my catapult. I drew the arm back as far as it would allow and, in a tiny moment of clarity, touched the thumb of my bracing hand to one of the empowering runes engraved on the piece of leather that protected my hand. The Essence reserve dipped a fair amount, and the stone glowed with a wispy yellow light. With a last adjustment for angle as the skeleton righted itself and headed back toward us, I loosed the stone, and watched it fly and almost explode against the cranium of the undead monster.

The empowered stone ploughed through its skull, and I watched as the lights went out on its eye sockets and its bones disconnected from one another, falling in a heap on the floor.

The dungeon corridor that had been revealed became silent and still, with only the floating dust my entrance had disturbed to mark it. With a deep gasp of air as my tension drained all at once, I finally got a good, unobstructed view of the ruin - what I now knew was a dungeon.

The walls of the corridor I had found myself branched in three directions from me - left, right, and straight ahead. The golden light that had illuminated the hall seemed to be coming from the left, where a doorway was coated in a shimmering, water-like covering. To the right and straight ahead, the tunnel continued into darkness and heavy shadow, until I either lost the ability to pierce it, or it possibly hit a corner.

The walls themselves were solid, heavy stone blocks, tightly fitted together and without any visible sign of age or wear - except where the ruined elevator had fallen down into the dungeon from above. The ceiling was high overhead, and was arched and supported by massive, rib-like cross braces every twenty or so feet. At the peak of the walls, where they joined the ceiling, there was a band of continuous and tightly engraved Runework, that, judging from the few symbols I could make out from where I still crouched in the opening of the rubble, was of a language dating back to the 5th age - the age of Legends.

I tried dredging my mind for what I knew of 5th age temples, and dungeons in general. The 5th age has been called the Age of Legends because of the creation of Heroes and Champions by the pantheon of God's who had deemed the recovered humanity as having redeemed themselves in the several hundred thousand years of the Age of Ruination. The gods decided on a new way to attain worship from their followers - they created trials that warriors, mages and scholars could undertake to be named a champion of a particular god.

Champions and Heroes had been a driving force in rebuilding the world from the gods’ wrath during the Ruination, and advancing magic and civilisation until the point that the singularity known as the System had come about. As such, most of the Temple ruins that had been found by archaeologists in the current and previous eras had been set up as little more than shrine sites, with a statue to the dedicated god, with the rest of the complex designed as a trial to weed out the Worthy from the otherwise teeming Masses.

If I sounded bitter about the gods of this world, it was because I was. Kintsuji didn't seem anything like the fickle creatures of this world that demanded servitude but destroyed the world over and over again in jealous tantrums when humanity rose a little too far above its station. I sighed; Perhaps having historians for parents wasn't the best education for teaching me to respect and fear the gods. I just knew that it would come to bite me in the ass one day. Heck, there's every chance it already has, I thought, as I looked around at the buried temple I had found myself in.

Dungeons, on the other hand, I knew very little about - and that scared me, as neither did Boone, or my parents. Dungeons were randomly their very nature, but some rules applied to all of them - for the most part. For a dungeon to form, you needed several things - a powerful source of essence, an underground space large enough to hold one, and usually a treasure that would draw people and monsters to it. Dungeons also usually seemed to favour some form of intelligent design. The contents of one were always completely different to the next, and they could evolve and grow over time, but they always seemed to be laid out in a recognisable format - there would be a safe room that monsters couldn't enter at the start, and one or several boss rooms with stronger than average monsters at the end. There would also be rewards for progress.

The last thing I knew was that dungeons were extremely dangerous, and I had been warned to stay far away from them until I was much older, as once you entered one, you couldn't leave unless you completed it, and others couldn't rescue you - everyone not grouped together entered a separate version of the same space, though I had no idea how that was possible, other than powerful magic.

I looked at the shimmering portal to the left, shedding bright light from beyond it. “If this is a dungeon, do you reckon that is the safe room?” I asked my friend as he climbed back up to lie on my shoulders again.

I couldn't tell you for certain, but it makes a certain kind of sense. Besides, if that barrier denotes something else, there is a good chance it will simply not let us pass. I say we try it, and perhaps we can find some more information.

I nodded, and as I moved out into the corridor, careful of the sound of any more skeletons coming this way, I swallowed and rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on my dirty and torn trousers. I wouldn't lie to myself - I was terrified, though I tried to force my logical mind to work in spite of the panic slowly simmering in the back of my brain.

When we arrived at the portal, I saw that it was a sheet of silvery water, that stood vertically and seemingly held there in space, slowly rippling in a breeze and letting through distorted beams of golden sunlight. I touched it and found it cold, but somehow not wet - the water didn't cling to my skin. It felt more like slightly thicker air. I swallowed, sent a quick prayer to Kintsuji that she’d see me through, and clutching my fox friend close to my chest, stepped through.

What I came face to face to, though, stopped me in my tracks. Kintsugi - in the flesh, more or less.

“Well, fancy seeing you here, my little Catalyst.”