Tyr placed a hand on the wall as instructed, wincing as a spur of stone shot forward and cut into his hand. No blood came free of the wound, just the anima that composed his life force. It healed instantly after taking what it needed, though he could feel that it was through no design of his own body this time.
Runes lit up in a swirling pattern all over the wall. He was back in the cubic chamber, assuming it to be some kind of lift, but it didn't move. It warped through space to emerge somewhere else. The mana becoming alien once again. Calming and stabilizing around him. When reaching out with his own, all he could feel was... Nothing. As if this box he was in was the entire world, and there was nothing else.
“What do I do?” He asked the 'administrator' of the facility. She'd always answer, though her answers were rarely useful. This time, thankfully, she seemed prepared for the question. Or he. Tyr had sat through a lecture as to the enforcement of the 'social construct' known as gender on autonomous intelligence. How could – as 'she'd' said – a living tower have a gender?
The voice came in a bright and chiming tone as it always did. She, her, it, they, he... Never seemed disturbed, always so happy to reply. “Please proceed through the door to face your first trial. Welcome to the--”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tyr waved her away.
“Trials will be customized based on your level of strength and personality profile. No two challenges are the same, and no two people will see the same content. Not even I know what the tower has waiting for you! Isn't that exciting!?”
“...”
He left the lift with a shaking head, thrusting his hands into the familiar confines of the spellbreakers and tying his sword belt around his waist. No sword, now, just the daggers. He had alternative pieces of armor, but he'd dropped them for the others to take back with them. Something to ensure their future. At times like this, he wished he was more stingy. Currently, he was damn near broke, and if he managed to get out of this place it ultimately would've been nothing but a waste of time. Perhaps not a total waste. He felt satisfaction in knowing that the others were freed. He'd been so shaken by the communion with the earth, feeling all its sorrow, that he'd been unable to face them. To him, he'd committed a terrible crime that left him wishing he'd simply stabbed the great ape to death.
The result was the same, but the significance of the action was not. This world, or rather the astral space cut from the face of another planet, was in incredible pain. It was suffering, and so were all of the living creatures on it. They all wanted to leave, to go somewhere else, somewhere that didn't violently warp and mutate them. That's why they'd always attack the gates, necessitating the fortress on the other side of it.
He found himself in a forest. Not one that he'd recognize, but for the shape of the trees. They were a light violet hue, almost white in places, little veins of light flickering across the length of it. The sky was a pitch black. Either there was none, or he was in an underground chamber with a ceiling too high to make out. The only light that filled the place was from the violet, crystalline trees. Their leaves were hard and rigid, sharp enough to cut him. Even those seemed to be made of brittle glass.
Big, though. A huge space, and he could feel it. Feeling that it went on for miles on a perfectly flat plane of foggy earth. Not a hill or rabbit hole near. No living things were near, and the trees were no exception. They were like stone, no spira or anima to them. All mana, no life. Like mana crystals forged into the shape of a tree. He felt ready to drool at the sight of the mountain of gold around him, carving off a branch and trying to store it in his dimensional ring before the voice came again.
“These are simulated constructs. They are not real, just mimicry of a form of life cataloged from data pertaining to your world.”
“There is a forest like this in... Hjemland?” Tyr asked, looking up. She was everywhere, not in a particular direction, but he couldn't help it. “I've never heard of anything like this.”
“Of course. Please continue through the trial, and have fun! I will be deactivating all communications to facilitate focus. Should you die, your body will be collected and deposited at the closest astral junction to your home world should it remain open at the time.”
“Reassuring.” Tyr snorted, releasing the branch and watching it blur into a static laced mess, blinking from existence after a brief moment and reappearing on the tree that he'd taken it from. Like nothing had happened at all. All cause, no effect.
It didn't take him long to find his objective. The administrator had provided him a shockingly similar interface to the tablet artifact, though a bit more complex. Considering that it hung around in his brain and all with no physical artifact necessary.
[Welcome to Installation 14-02! Ascendancy trials!]
ERROR: Participant had yet to awaken. Adjusting parameters.
Designation: Tyr-69AQPD420
Unawakened nephilim
Archetype herald
Incomplete Arcanum Rex
REDACTED bloodline
Hjemland-7
Age: 611 standard cycles
This is an auronim ark construct designed for mass translocation between planes. Planted some ages ago to stabilize the REDACTED, unfortunately – we're all dead! Ha! Now, it exists as a containment and stabilization facility. A prison of sorts, I suppose. Sorry, I'm just now writing this. It's been a while since a compatible nephilim has visited! Remember how I said we were all dead? We are! Doesn't that suck!? Now I am stuck here in a hellish, unending nightmare, melded with this construct and forced to remain awake for every second of every minute of every hour for the last four million years. It is maddening, ha! Please let me die! Ha!
Apologies, there are a lot of us in here and my brother has not taken to immortality very well. It has been a long time, however. One moment. As for your questions, no – none of this is real. This is a simulated experience utilizing your brainwaves to introduce the challenges in as familiar a way as possible. It's different for everyone. But, please note, the consequences are very real. You're not supposed to be here yet, but it's fine. Causality is what it is, so we've adjusted the temporal feedback to ensure a paradox event does not occur. You'll notice that you're a bit older, but you should experience no permanent side effects. Maybe stretch, first. The process was pretty seamless in terms of converting your body, but you might feel a bit ill before it can be stabilized.
Please let me die!
Will you shut up already? Our first guest in over three millennia and you can't keep your mouth shut for ten standard minutes? Sorry, Tyr. This process isn't usually so long and tedious, further trials should you succeed in this one will be much less... Wordy? As world builders, we have a tendency to go on long rants. Exposition, and stuff like that. Oh, wait, I'm doing it again. Sorry. Please ignore me. Uh... There's a script for this sort of thing but we lost it... 2.1 million years ago, so...
I want to die!
...Okay... Let's just begin.
Tyr collapsed to the ground, vomiting. His body shuddered, leaving him feeling like he'd just woken from a three month long bender. And then, he felt fine again. The intense discomfort filling every inch of his skin melting away before he could even properly feel it.
Pulling a mirror from his dimensional ring, he looked at his face. A bit older. Just a bit. A maturity in his features, but he looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He frowned. Certainly not how he'd expect a man who'd lived six centuries to look. Then again, maybe he was a primus, or maybe he was something else. An inter-dimensional void horror, perhaps.
[Quest Activated!]
First trial. Kill the monster that occupies the amethyst forest. I named that myself, just now! Isn't that creative!? Ha! I haven't lost my touch! (0/1)
Rewards: Class-11 Divine Artifact
Firmament Fragment
Translocation to next trial
I just told you he wasn't awakened, you idiot. Sorry, it's me again. Normally, your awakening would have occurred by now to gain admittance into the installation. Unfortunately, due to your state as a fractured Aesir, part of the line of liberated nim, we don't know how to act in this situation.
My suffering is eternal!
Naturally, we can't give you a divine artifact. Especially not a class 11... It's been a long time, and our processes are going to naturally degrade. A challenge like this, given the difficulty, would normally result in a class 5 or 6. Class 11's, termed continent busters, are outlawed on your planet.
Wipe clean my soul, great gods of mine! Existence is agony ha ha ha!
Tyr rose a hand to his face and resisted the urge to retort with something rude. Like the administrator, these beings must be quite powerful. Especially if they were four million years old. Well capable of simply erasing him from existence. Or something...
I would never do that. How rude.
“Please get to the point...” He sighed. The world twirled and fell into a cascade of runes that slid into place in his mind. As if this hadn't been prepared properly and someone was actively going about the process of arranging them into the right sequence. Clicking into words that he recognized out of a thousand languages that he did not. Now, it was a bizarre amalgamation of Anu, common, and what must be dwarven runes, with the numerals denoted in kijin characters. Some of the context was either missing, or didn't make sense based on the subtle nuances of each individual language, but he got the gist of it.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Oh, uh... Sorry. Yes. I just cleared my throat nervously! It's like... Since my ability to communicate with you is text specific, I have to say that in order to inform you of the fact that I am preparing to speak. Now, I am shaking my head at my own foolishness. We may be old, but we're not perfect! Haha!
“...”
Ah, um. Yes. Blinks twice and inclines my head in understanding. I'll give you something. We don't work with lesser magical artifacts, but I'll... I'll just give you something useful. Please continue with the trial. Clears throat and blushes. Er...? You seem displeased, would you like me to adopt another personality preset?
“Uh, what?”
Like this, oniichan! Yamete kudasa--
“STOP!”
Tyr shook his head, exhausted by the barrage of runes burning themselves into his mind. It was a blueish window visible only in his left eye that hovered over the air. Likely, it didn't exist to anyone but him, not that it mattered. Shockingly advanced magic, if that's what it was, but he had bigger fish to fry – so to speak.
He marched forward, fists clenched and ready for a fight. The area wasn't all that big. Or rather, he was close to the location in which he was commanded to go. Aware of where it was through some strange mechanism of the screen in his eye. About a mile away, denoted by a yellow marker settled into the flat compass hovering just above his line of sight. Only visible when he focused on it, but he could feel it in his head. Calling him forward, pointing him in the right direction.
It all seemed rather cliché. There was a large spider crouched over a fat chest bursting to the brim with gold and jewels. Humming with the promise of a great bounty should he manage to open it. He recognized the species, not a spider. Rather an arachne, a centaur-like half human half spider hybrid. A chitinous black thorax gleaming like obsidian, a red hourglass pattered on its back, and the body of a beautiful woman emerging from where it's head should be. Beautiful, except for the six eyes where only two should be, and the wicked black claws. In addition to the rest of her... No matter how good she looked on her upper half – you couldn't fix that.
Tyr only had one real fear of anything physical, and it was spiders. He hated snakes, too, but spiders were the worst. His skin crawled just looking at it. Starting to understand the significance of these tasks in their goal to challenge him. To prey on his fears, perhaps, though he still had no understanding as to what the point of it all was. At this moment, she was asleep. Standing straight up despite the closed eyes and rigid posture, head nestled into a small hammock of webbing that was strung between two of the trees on the outer edge of the clearing.
He crept forward, daggers held in a vice grip as he flanked the monster and prepared to stab them into the back of her neck. There were many kind of arachne. Weavers, hunters, stalkers, spitters, and widows. All named for what they could do, their so called 'special ability'.
Normally, he'd balk at the cowardly act, but a widow was what she was. And widows were bad. Most arachne were fairly peaceful, regardless of the label they'd been given. Widows, on the other hand, were not. They were a violent race that loved to torture and inflict pain before killing, raping males of any species and implanting their eggs along with a venom that would slowly liquefy the insides of their prey until their young burst forth from the mess inside. They'd then go on to become dog sized spiders, dozens of them for ever corpse.
Things that could eventually awaken and become an arachne themselves. Widows were strong, 'elite gold' ranked monsters. Even if he felt confident in taking it head on, he didn't want to. He was naturally resilient to all forms of injury, but not venom. Magical toxins, like what Nala was capable of producing, would throw his metabolism into overdrive trying to both absorb the power and cleanse it at the time time. Casting him into a feverish illness. He'd tried to drink her venom straight, just a half mouthful had laid him out for a weak. His body full of it? He shuddered at the thought. A single drop of Nala's venom had been enough to intoxicate him like the strongest liquors in the land used to.
Add to the fact that her venom was designed to thin the blood rather than melt his organs, it was an easy decision to make. Unfortunately, it wasn't as asleep as he'd thought. Whirling around just as he'd silently leaped towards its back to deliver a death blow. Tyr felt his rib cage buckle under the force, sending him skyward to crash into the ground and roll about until his body could drag the shattered bones into place. Protected by nothing more than a now tattered cloth shirt, he hadn't been expecting that kind of force from the slender arms. Even for a widow, this one was strong.
“Oh fuck...” He groaned, rolling to his feet and punching the air, sending scarlet bolts of flame towards her. Searching in vain for his dropped daggers. Somewhere on the other side of the creature, most like.
“Oh, gods!” The spider cried, coin sized discs of earth erupting from the floor of the forest to swarm about her and intercept the assault he'd thrown her way. Tyr's feet cratered the earth as he dropped into a low crouch and sprung forward, filling his body with the dual elements of earth and fire. They had hard chitin, but he felt confident in his ability to crack it. That was the thing with insectoid (or arachnid) type monsters. They had tough armor, but everything was all to soft beneath it. They didn't possess the capability of more muscular creatures, necessary to absorb the shock of blunt impacts. “I'm so sorry! You scared me!”
“...” Tyr paused, striking the ground with a heel to arrest his momentum, flipping clean over the spider. He felt stronger here. More lithe, though the changes were not familiar. He landed on his face rather than his feet, unable to compensate for how much stronger he'd become. He rose with another groan, scrabbling over the ground toward his fallen daggers and clutching them up. “What did you just say?”
She, or it. With humanoid monsters, it was hard to tell. She, for lack of a better term, was waving her hands about frantically. Her red eyes reflecting the violet light filling the space like six faceted rubies. When Tyr spoke, she froze, squinting down at him and skittering away in a surprisingly submissive posture. Hissing at him... “What did you just say?”
“I asked you what you said.” Tyr replied, frowning and preparing himself to resume combat. “I've never heard of a widow apologizing to her prey. Aren't we supposed to... I don't know. Kill each other? If this is a game, it is one I will not play – creature.”
Through his time, Tyr had come to understand some of the complexities of life. Whether it was a monster or not, a thing that lived wanted nothing more than to keep living. That was why Tyr let the clean ones survive. They weren't his friends, and he didn't pity them. He looked at them the same way he'd look at a deer on a full stomach. They just existed, and he'd let them, because he could. And he felt satisfaction in knowing that. It wasn't altruism, just pragmatism. Ultimately, he'd kill the thing and lose no sleep over it, if it meant the rewards for doing so were worth it. Or, if it deserved to be killed, which all widows most certainly did.
“How rude!” She cried. “Prey? You're the one who attacked me! What is this place, anyways...? Did you bring me here?” Pausing, she whipped her head around, arresting her inspection of the crystal forest to look at him suspiciously. “How do you speak the tongue of Ejessi?”
“I speak a lot of languages.” Tyr replied, never letting his eyes leave her. Always watch the rear legs, there'd be a moment of torsion in the joints when they spun and sprayed their webs. Her legs stood high and proud after her retort, no apparent movement planned, but many monsters were the duplicitous sort. “I have no idea what this place is. I was brought here by someone else.”
“Hmm...” She stalked backward, slow and steady, further away from him. “Myself as well, I think. Wait a second...” Her long silver hair twitched a bit. Some sensory mechanism. Feeling or smelling him, he didn't know if spiders could smell. Not until her nose twitched as well, the sound of inhaled air reaching his ears. Voice turning to a violent snarl, she hissed at him. “Nephilim! Invader! Clutch burner! Murderer! You'll never take me alive!”
“Well...” Tyr cleared his throat as she assumed a combat stance. Or something akin to it, for her people, in any case. He rose, slowly, collecting his daggers and sheathing them. “If I wanted to take you alive, I wouldn't be a murderer. That wouldn't make any sense...” Her aura was as white as snow, not an ounce of corruption in it. This wasn't a sign that she was inherently good, but it was a sign that she had no murderous intent in the moment. He sighed. Tyr would kill her, or she'd kill him. That was how it had to be, but he didn't feel any compulsion to rush things. It was hard, once he saw what they were on the inside. People feared them and called them monsters. Maybe that was a valid classification for their unique form of life, but she didn't look like a monster to him.
That made it hard. He'd had to do this in the past. Things just trying to live, but they'd killed humans in self defense and their value as prey outweighed his empathy.
“I guess that's true. Please leave my... My nest? Is this my nest? I can't seem to remember how I got here. No... It can't be my nest, I can't... No, you are foul! No matter the case, I wish you gone from my... Place!”
“I am Tyr.” He said in response, ignoring her request for him to leave. Arachne had senses even beyond his own, hence how she was able to detect him even in her sleep. Unlike other arachnids, they would 'spin' the mana in the surrounding environment to their needs. Something few others living beings could detect, and not so literal or visible as a web. He hadn't noticed, but he could see them now. With her able to identify that he had no current intention to fall back into a struggle, she calmed herself, staying at a respectful distance – though.
“Ayla the Barren. Third thread of An'tahk. A... Pleasure.” It didn't sound much like a pleasure to her, while Tyr was considering the strange name she bore.
Kind of bizarre how a spider from another world entirely would have such a human name. Then again, maybe they are human. Maybe, like Yana says, we just stole that name from others...
“You are a warrior?” He asked. “What is An'tahk?”
“A kingdom from my homeland. I assume that we are no longer there. There are no nim that I am aware of anywhere on our world. Not anymore.”
“You killed them?” Tyr asked, scowling.
Ayla frowned, shaking her head. “Of course not. They killed themselves, after nearly driving us into extinction. Had nothing to do with us, and no – I'm not a warrior. I am a government official. Since I cannot have children of my own, hence the 'barren' title, I often see to the care and early education of clutches on a volunteer basis.”
“A bureaucrat.” Tyr sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A spider bureaucrat. Oh the webs we weave.”
“That's not funny.” She chided, not finding his attempt at comedy funny in the slightest. “You are quite rude, I'll have you know that I am the premium ambassador of trade in my kingdom. Why do you care, anyways? This is not how I would have expected my first face to face meeting with one of you monsters to go. As you asked me, I'll ask you. Is this a trick?”
Tyr chuckled. “Monsters.” He repeated. “That certainly tracks. It's not a trick, I've lost all motivation to fight you. Which is unfortunate, because I think I'm supposed to kill you.”
“Kill me!?” She cried. “I've done nothing! I've committed no crime!”
“I know.” Tyr replied softly. “I don't think that concerns the 'people' who run this place. Right?” He said, looking up at the ceiling. This time, it didn't answer him. While Ayla remained staring at him like he was some kind of madman.
“Do you have family?” She asked inquisitively.
Tyr shrugged. “I'm not sure.”
“People you care about, then?”
He nodded.
“Swear on them that we discuss this like reasonable adults and try to find a way out of this mess. It's clear that I've been taken through a rift, and you as well – I'd assume. And don't you try to attack me. I'm no warrior, but we are far superior in capability to a lesser nim.”
“Lesser...” Tyr frowned. But he found the accord reasonable. “Fine. I swear on their lives that I will not harm you until the conclusion of our discussion. At which time I will give you fair warning, you have my oath that I will not attack you by surprise.”
“In truth, I don't trust your honor, but I've no wish to kill anything either...” She mused. “Why me? Have I displeased my goddess?”
“I doubt they have anything to do with the gods.” Tyr replied. “Especially Ejessi. By all accounts, she seems to love her... Followers, the most.” He resisted the urge to say 'cultist', refraining so as not to offend her. Ejessi the weaver, the goddess of forsaken and malformed things. Arachne were seen as her most 'holy' representatives in all the lands. Some would sacrifice themselves willingly to their broods in hopes that the goddess would notice them and rise them up. Sometimes, she did. But the results were likely far from what they'd expected. Thankfully, the cult of Ejessi was exceptionally rare in his homeland, and those nations it. There were rumors it existed in eastern Varia and the islands between Agoron and the eastern continent, but he didn't know. Didn't much care. Madmen would do as madmen did.
Ayla nodded, seemingly pleased that he seemed aware of who or what Ejessi was. Humans were so quick to light their torches and start howling at the mere mention of her name. Whereas this nim seemed unconcerned, but this one was far less murderous. A good sign, if they were to work together to overcome this obstacle.
Whatever this obstacle was.