Bladesinger. Sword song. Tyr would've grumbled in the past, but not now. If anything would lend humility to his thoughts and words, it was the selfish desire not to die. A need to listen considering Thomas was the only person offering a helping hand what with his ticking clock of a life. As for the technique he was taught...
It worked, but it wasn't exactly the answer he'd been looking for. Worked in the sense that it was a way of fighting, but gave him no new power. He still fought in the panther style with the more controlled footwork of the fire dance as he'd been trained. His movements, strength of limb, and speed of striking improved through technique, but as for the 'song'. It was too vague to give him power. Magic was far more literal in its benefit, but this world energy was the complete opposite. If anything, it taught him to watch his opponent more closely. If they were a mage, he'd have a much easier time reading their mana and throwing himself out of reach of their spell. But it wasn't some catch-all power up. He was a neophyte introduced to a new way, more confusing than the other styles he'd practiced in.
As one might assume, and as he had – it was a song. A singing in the head if not the lips. Thomas said these were only the basics and one would graduate beyond the metronome in the mind to match the heartbeat after some years of training. Tyr didn't have years, he wanted the ability necessary to keep himself alive now. It was a system of controlled movement predicated on keeping track of the 'beats per minute' that things moved at. Observe, match, and overcome. Often this involved falling onto the back-foot and unloading once he matched the rhythm of the opponent. Allowing yourself to be led first, to slowly turn the 'dance' as it were to your advantage was... Definitely eccentric, but Tyr had little need for fear of being hit with a blade. Hell, his head had come clean off and he'd survived, it was no big deal if he messed up on the way toward intermediacy.
He marched, and marched, and marched. Finally able to convince Samson and the others that he needed no bodyguard after his exhibition against the bandits. 'Walking to the villages' he lied while taking the opposite path. The rest of the villagers would scarcely look at him, a fear in their eyes and bearing. That had saddened Tyr. Only Micah looked at him as if nothing had changed, but he hadn't seen the extent of it. Even Rorik stared at him with glazed eyes at times across the hall table, so bizarre and discomforting was it that Tyr had begun taking his meals to the roof to avoid their stares.
Mikhail and the other blackguard, at least had the grace to continue acting as they always had. Calling him 'one eyed pup' or 'pumpkin prince' or 'skeleton man'. Proudly unloading on him these 'witty' titles or simply referring to him as Tyr. Samson remained the steadiest of all, not changing whatsoever in his demeanor toward the prince. In his lands, he'd said, there were many gods who watched over death and the spirits that served them. One who rose from the lands beyond life were considered blessed rather than cursed. The ways of his people were odd, those southerners who had no fear of the undead and instead named them tools of one god or another. Death was sacred to many tribes in Agoron and they revered it more fervently than was done in the north.
It was cold. The peak of winter, while Tyr continued about the seemingly arbitrary tasks given to him by Thomas. He never complained, not anymore. After hearing of the man's motivations, he trusted him more than any other. The only one who was like to know his 'secret', or at least admit it. Tyr didn't know why nobody had told him of this infirmity, especially his father, and he'd have his answers one day. Living bomb or not.
What is this place...?
Five days on the road and a fair stretch of space between he and the village. Nearly four hundred miles along the mountain range and the valleys that split the peaks. He'd been given a map, some supplies, and pointed eastward. That was it. It seemed like an incredible distance, one that Tyr could never have made alone, and he couldn't. The horses native to this region were incredible, seemingly immune to the concept of fatigue. This whole region was dominated by inhospitable mountains framing a valley they called 'disputed' once. No men lived here, and none were permitted to enter without writ. It was a massive, winding series of valleys and sloping basins dense with snowy forest. Terminating to the north in the aforementioned mountain range and south at the 'span', a harrowing descent of a canyon so clean at the sides that it looked cut by the axe of some giant. Below that was a waterway, far below, though no ships were likely to be seen. All rapids and falls, it was not possible to cross from east to west through the canyon by sea.
'Go here. Seek out conflict. Introspect. You will understand.'
Again, so vague and frustrating. Still, here at his destination... Tyr had to admit it was awe inducing. He doubted if any other man had discovered this place, and if they had – they hadn't been here in decades or longer. Far longer. Otherwise, surely the site would have been disturbed and torn apart in the name of 'discovery'. He was deep in the mountains now, with the only paths through the rough terrain being that which was tread by game animals through the forest. He saw a few bears, poking their heads out of their hibernation dens and huffing, returning to their seasonal sleep. Not enough meat on his bones to make the expenditure of energy worth the chase, maybe.
Mountains to the north, and the deep canyons and fjords of the 'span' to the south. That which separated this part of the eastern empire from the successor lands. A stretch of water that would go on for several hundred more miles before the stretch thinned enough for bridging and the old dwarven keeps sat. In better weather, he knew it would've been beautiful. A vista of crystal clear water over gray rock and tufts of green everywhere. Here in the dead of winter, it had its own beauty, but it was cold and frozen and silent.
Deeply nestled in the mountains was a basin that looked to be artificial in nature. A deep crater gouged in the earth broken by small streams and bubbling waterfalls surrounding a series of arching stone structures and raised paths above the ground. Carved by no hand of man, one look at the impossible geometry was enough to tell him that. Not in the size of it, for the constructions were not necessarily titanic, but rather in the artifice. Everywhere here, there was magic. It was thick enough to taste and the stone obelisks framing the single bridge into the raised temple-like structure were carved with runes he could not read. Things that probably predated his own race.
Tyr had seen dwarven structures, though only at a distance. Dwarves were an old race, building in a squat and square fashion with thick stone and metal. This belonged to neither they, nor any other race Tyr was aware of. Not they, nor the Anu or the beastkin, not the elves who's city silhouettes were illuminated in vivid detail on the pages of a tome or two. Whatever race had built such an impressive temple, they were long gone. Lost to time. A race of unchallenged artisans and engineers capable of building a platformed city so few were its pillars connecting it to the ground one would think it was floating. It was only about two meters thick at the 'floor', a hundred meter radius, with spindle thin pillars lofting the entire structure. No obvious reason present why it hadn't crumbled down to the crater below.
He followed this path, horse plodding lazily through the shallow snow. This stone was no marble nor granite, too dense for that. So dense as to feel almost metallic, with a lacquer over every square inch of it, like a shallow veneer of glass. Everywhere were those words, the runes that he wished he could read. Blocky and full of angles and circular embellishments, wholly separate from human runes that swirled and danced on the page. Different from the dwarven runes with their harsh lines and symmetry. Statues framed the door to the place that must've extended beneath the mountain. If anything about this construction was titanic, beyond belief besides the 'floating' platform – it was that door. A truly massive slab of the same stone everything was built out of. Easily the size of a castle wall, Tyr would've never believed it was a gate if not for the split in the stone and its relative position. Well... That and the arrows that pointed on either side of the path leading up to it... It must've weighed a hundred tons, that door... What chain or pulley mechanism could lift something like that?
Tall, gaunt, long limbed figures frozen in the cliff side for an eternity. Not a single crack or bit of weathering had defaced their watchful countenance. Tyr had never seen anything like them, with their ovoid skulls and four fingered hands. If they stared at him in judgment, they didn't act, so perfect was their form and shape that they looked soon to leap from the stone at any moment like magic golems.
The purpose of this place was unclear. It looked a temple, but Tyr saw no altars or signs that would indicate anything like one. Everything was made out of the exact same materials, with the lip of the basin camouflaging the platform from observation. Large, too. At least two hundred meters by the same with crisscrossing catwalks and nothing that one would call a dwelling. Other statues interspersed the place but there was no symmetry to them, caught in vivid detail as if they had been about their daily lives before being frozen in the same lacquered stone as the platform.
Tyr reached the door, warily eyeing the much more reasonably sized statues randomly dotting the platform. If there was anything here, it'd have to be beyond the massive portal set into the sheer face of the mountain. Blissfully, the statues remained motionless, not rising from their plinths to smash him flat as he might have feared.
“...Hello?” He called out. There was no mechanism on the door whatsoever to indicate how he might open it. No gears nor guards to answer him and perhaps let him inside. Just... Silence, his voice bouncing back at him to cement his solitude in this place.
“Hello!”
“Ahh!” Tyr drew his sword, looking back at his horse running it's snout through the snow and snorting to watch it rain down on its face. Playful, it didn't seem to have heard anything and certainly showed no sign of being spooked. Meanwhile the prince was near ready to jump out of his skin at the voice he'd heard.
“I'm going insane...” He sighed, calming himself and returning his sword to its home at his waist.
“A common fate to befalling creatures of the flesh though I see no reason why this is relevant now?”
“Ahh!” Tyr repeated, pointing his sword at the gateway.
“Mana forged steel. Slight traces of element: Cronite. Wholly ineffective against constructs cast of everstone. Conclusion? Nim expends too much energy brandishing their weapon and not enough on observing their surroundings. Sanity? Inconclusive and irrelevant. All nim exist in a state of perpetual delusion. This is known.”
“Uh...” Tyr stared at the gate, noticing six or seven plates arrayed in the roughly symmetrical shape of a face. A close approximate to one... Maybe. The segmented bits of stone slid against one another silently to make it appear like it was talking, but the voice was disembodied, coming from somewhere else. Some kind of golem or ancient magic. This was no living thing, tinny and dull in the voice. Rare magic, clearly far more advanced than that possessed by the empire, but they had golems capable of similar function. “This is too much. O mysterious talking wall, what would you have of me?”
“This is not a question.” The gate responded. “As for my designation, I am most certainly not a wall. Tiny nim, you are speaking to the mighty god of gates and doorways, supreme among all deities of the Orik. Tremble and lower yourself in reverence lest every gate remain barred and all windows shuttered.”
What the hell...?
“Orik?” Tyr asked, he'd never heard of such a race, nation, or people. “Are they Orik?” Pointing at the statues framing the gate, he stares at the mechanism speaking to him. He had to admit, the empire and various nations had golems, but none so articulate as this. If he was keen on the subject of magical engineering, he'd have found it beyond fascinating. As he was now, had he a pick or sledge...
“Yes. Were. Are.” The thing replied matter-of-factly. “Designation: Water Caste. To the left stands the image of... The image of...” It began to whir, clicking and opening its mouth wide enough to reveal the impossibly fine brassy cogs that allowed it to move. “Error. Memory database corrupted by error combustion engine offline error cascade failure. Rebooting. ErrrrrrrBZZZZZZZZZZ. Designation Orik, identity unknown at this time, pending pylon maintenance. And you are?” It turned about, spinning on its central axis in a blur with a fragmented piece of its 'forehead' rising as if to indicate the raising of a brow.
“Tyr Faeron of House Faeron. Prince of the Harani Empire.”
“Identity: Tyr Faeron. Unknown. House Faeron. Unknown. Species, scanning. Nim. Greater classification unknown. Cataloging. Harani Empire... Unknown. This is a kingdom of nim?”
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“Of man.” Tyr responded. “Mankind. Evolved apes and all that.”
“Cataloging. Conclusion, nim academia has devolved over time. Devolved. Concept of evolution, searching... Conclusion, considered preposterous by superior Orik minds. Cataloging. Cascade failure, memory database corrupted. Error. Restarting sequence. Insufficient mana, need more pylons. Manual restart of independent construct... Success!”
Another whirring, the thing spinning like a top within its alcove in the gate. Again, it rested before 'looking' at the prince.
“And you are?”
“Erm...” Tyr rested his face in his hand, massaging at the bridge of his nose. “Will you let me inside? Ask me a riddle, or something. I'll answer it, like in the old stories. Right? Like, you ask me a tricky question and I tell you the answer so you permit me passage?”
“A riddle?” If a thing, or a golem, whatever it was could sound excited. It did. “I know of many riddles. This is acceptable. Answer the greatest existential question of my makers and I shall happily grant you passage to the facility beyond! Does nim find this acceptable?”
“...Sure.” Tyr replied, now rubbing at his temples. A riddle. He was good at riddles, but the 'greatest existential question of an ancient race far superior to humanity? There was an anxiety within him.
“Processing.” The tinny voice matched the whirring of its internal mechanisms, buzzing like the beating wings of a beetle while it rolled about in its moorings. “What lies at the end of everything.”
“The end of everything?” Tyr raised his eyebrow to make the mockery of a face on the panel.
“Yes.”
“How am I supposed to know that? Is that even a riddle?”
“It is a riddle.”
“It doesn't sound like any riddle I've ever heard.” Tyr frowned. “There are supposed to be, like... Multiple steps to it.”
“Well it is.” The gate replied matter-of-factly. “And the answer is not nothing, that's my hint for you.”
What lies at the end of everything? An existential question, it said. How am I, or anyone else supposed to know that? Wait... Maybe it's a trick question...?
“The rune 'G'...?” Tyr replied halfheartedly. “Is that the answer?”
“Is it? Gee?” The thing asked, spinning again. “Is this the answer?”
“I... Think so? How could you now know the answer to your own riddle, man?”
“I am the great god of gates and portals, not riddles. If the best minds of my creators could not come up with a solution, how would I? Is this truly the answer?”
“Uh... Yes. I believe so.” From a standpoint of the word 'everything'... It wasn't technically incorrect...
“Splendid! Ah but if we had possessed such an answer in our time. Four thousand cycles and yet this was the question none could answer. Now I am here, all alone. Well... Not alone, technically, but you definitely don't want to meet the other guys! Cataloging information. Backup X0-340 full. All backups full. Searching for low priority data for deletion. Found: Synthesized Cure for Autoimmune Diseases: Mammalian Species. Successfully deleted. Attempting to store answer to ultimate question. Insufficient space.”
Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.
“Insufficient space. Calculating. Deletion scheduled for select data archives. G04 Titan Class Anti-Deity Surface to Plane Cannon specifications and usage manual. Deleted. Leviathan Class Worldship blueprint. Deleted. The Key to Immortality, A Thesis. Deleted. Freudian R12 Worldbreaker 233 Megaton Interplanetary Hydrogen Bomb specifications and usage manual. Deleted.”
Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.
“Insufficient space. Further low priority data quarantined for deletion... Transcendence theory. Deleted. Atomic theory. Deleted. A Correction on the Law of Thermodynamics. Deleted. Anti-Gravity Generator blueprints one through forty four. Deleted. Cure for cancer in mammalian subjects. Deleted.”
Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.
“Successful. Data saved with maximum priority. Answer: 'G'. Thank you, and have a splendid day!”
He didn't understand half the words. Some of them must've been in a foreign language, mixed in with the language of common that he was naturally fluent in as all humans were supposed to be. The gate crashed open with force enough to send Tyr's horse sprinting down the bridge a ways and sending snow hurling near halfway across the platform. With that, an impossibly long hallway was revealed with mana crystals along the walls flickering unevenly in the gloom.
“Wait!” Tyr called out, hands cupped about his lips to allow his voice to carry. “Did you say cure for cancer? Oi!”
Whatever it was, the thing didn't seem to be interested in responding, if it was present at all. All he heard was his voice echoed back to him by the walls of the crater. Alone again.
–
Gloomy was a word for it. Gloomy and depressing. Strewn across the monolithic hallway were bits and pieces of the same statues he'd seen outside. Sheared away either by time or some unknown force, leaving most of them damaged in some way. Few were in the pristine condition they'd been on the platform, and the walls had been scratched at by something to reveal the rough layer beneath the enamel surfacing everything. The same enameled stone that Tyr couldn't mar even with a full swing of his sword. Whatever had done it, it had been powerful indeed.
He felt no danger here, and heard nothing other than droplets of water where the earth had begun to crack and rend open the ceiling in an uneven spiders web. Regardless, his horse didn't seem to mind, plodding along uncaring and sniffing in interest at the statues they passed nearby. This place, and whoever the 'Orik' were, was ancient beyond ancient. Yet in all the time this place had sat unobserved, undiscovered, and unguarded... Not a speck was present on the floor on walls. It would've been near universal in its incredibly cleanliness if not for the rust stains and stalagmites brought here by the natural process of flowing water. Burst pipes or underground springs, he couldn't tell.
A strange place, but one would expect no less. He found it equally strange how he'd managed to travel so far through the hinterlands without the smallest hint of a monster or magical beast to interrupt his journey. Upon arriving at this temple, or city, or citadel... He understood why. The mana here was not stagnant. More like... Frozen? Atmospheric mana typically moved in whirling eddies but all throughout this place the mana was still and unmoving. It wouldn't react to his attempts to move it, passing through his hand as if it existed, and he did not. Strangest of all, it was separated entirely from the surroundings. Not mana in the air or rock, it was just mana. Pure mana. Things like this, as Tyr understood them, did not exist in nature. Mana would bleed and seep into any solid matter, metals and minerals in the ground would become infused with it. Here, it seemed content to just hang around doing nothing.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
He rode for at least eight hours. It must be night now, but time was an unfamiliar concept here in these cavernous depths. The floor was universally flat and impossibly straight heading into the mountain, only broken by two lines of steel that traced each side of the hall. He did not know their purpose, but they were not so dissimilar to the cart tracks used in mines... Only bigger, and without a single cart in sight. The mana lights above flickered dimly, some cracked or shattered entirely. Giving a ghostly and inconsistent gloom to the place.
If the golems words were true and four millennia had indeed passed, it was remarkable well preserved. Four thousand years! Men, as far as Tyr knew, had only existed for half that time. Less, maybe. Of the races that could claim to have a heritage of civilization that long there were few. Anu, elves, which Tyr doubted existed... That was about it. 'Dragons' if one had the predilection for fantasy and believed flying lizards actually existed. Gods... Probably. Gods were pretty old.
After what seemed like an eternity, the perfectly angled edges of the cavern opened up into a geometric chamber. Some kind of tram on either side, far larger than any mining cart and segmented into separate component cars. What looked like chairs... More statues, and the skeletal remains of creatures so old as to have passed beyond mummification. He toyed with the mechanisms inside the bizarre artifacts mounted to the walls, metallic boxes were levers and switches, only to find them inoperable. Some would flicker on and buzz, doing nothing, those that worked at least.
Everywhere he looked, there was only quiet. Too much quiet. Quiet to make the skin crawl and the only noise the padding of his leather riding boots against the stone floor or plodding steps of the horse that followed him.
“What's this...?” Tyr startled himself by the sound of his voice. The horse too, but thankfully the creatures bred for riding around there mountainous lands were not so quick to bolt as the geldings and destriers used by denizens of the palace. It was an odd thing, with two nobs and a long cylinder of brass that carried the blue patina of time. A cylinder of it over a thin frame and a rear stock one might expect on a Milanese crossbow. There were no arms with which to propel a projectile, only the hollow cylinder. Tyr had used such weapons in the past and had an elementary understanding of how they worked. There was a small metallic trigger set within a rounded guard and when pulled...
Whatever happened, he wasn't sure. He pulled the trigger, and a cacophonous booming of unprecedented might violently shook his eardrums. A tail of fire spouting from the cylinder and barking against the walls, the recoil was immense – slamming against his shoulder until it was raw and smarting. The horse finally broke, sprinting deeper in the gloomy depths of the place while a fist sized hole was punched clean through the stone of a nearby pillar.
“Ugh...” Tyr groaned, gently laying the overly loud crossbow without arms on the floor and gingerly stepping away from it. His arms were sore and his ears were near deafened by the foul thing. He was, however, impressed at the power of it. Who wouldn't be? The force of an explosive scorpion in a form that could be carried by the average man? It didn't please his aesthetics, though, choking on the acrid smoke it emitted and deciding never to attempt to use such a thing again.
Whatever magics that artifact was capable of summoning, it had cracked and looked fit to break after a single use. Tyr gulped at the idea of allowing the common man to access such a terrifying thing. A sword or bow required some measure of thought or skill, but this...? Like the crossbow, it was a cowards weapon. At least that's what the knights would tell you. The prince figured that there were men who were alive and men who weren't, their particular level of cowardice was irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. What did it matter if it was by 15 inches of forged bolt or 35 inches of broadsword? Cowardly... Maybe not, but Tyr had never favored ranged weaponry for other reasons. Mostly because his aim was shit and he couldn't stand the chuckles of the huntsman after he'd sent one arrow too many wide of a grazing buck. He was far more confident in his aim when he was close to something...
His horse was gone. Long gone, somewhere deeper in the tunnels rather than nearer to the exit.
“Shit...” More hallways, more tunnels, more locked doors than he could count. A few that opened just fine but didn't contain much of anything. At least, nothing he could wrap his head around. Porcelain chairs full of water and a mechanism that whisked that same basin of liquid down and away through some sort of plumbing. He easily understood their purpose, finding the development quite genius. Very convenient as well, taking a mental note to remember the construction. Whatever mind formulated such an incredible artifact was beyond his, but it didn't seem overly hard to replicate. He used one just to see what it felt like, nearly 'going' twice just for the pleasure of it when a tongue of water shot like the spit of the cobra to slap at his nether regions.
“...Incredible...”
More than incredible! The water was pleasantly warm and hadn't stagnated in its time inside of the reservoir. It had an unpleasant scent to it, though not one of waste. More like... Alcohol overdone in the keg. Tyr wasn't really sure, but it didn't matter. He explored the place from top to bottom, finding wonder after wonder. Water flowed here through piping at the flick of a long handle, though the vast majority of receptacles only spat rust colored liquid or viscous ooze. All of these fixtures were forged from the same brassy metal that he'd never seen before other than on the handheld cannon. It had a hardness beyond his sword, no decorative 'brass' at all. Beneath the blue-green patina, it was a brown-orange that didn't scratch even when he put his enchanted mithril knife to it.
Everywhere was worked with strange runes, and the rooms were much too square. The geometry of it all combined with the disorienting effect of being beneath the earth was too... Too something. Certainly too perfect, it made him uncomfortable whenever he looked at the corners. Every single chamber had stone walls set to a fine ninety degree angle... Beyond that, there were other chambers filled with yet further wonders. Metallic cabinets that intermittently spat frigid air, a white room constructed purely of mosaic glass, with a pool of too vivid a blue to be natural, similar to that which the porcelain thrones had held.
More rooms containing the humanoid statues and the tools of war they used. Those things that spat fire and smoke. Blank slates of some kind of crystal or glass lay near everywhere. All rooms seemed to contain these devices, some wired to the walls and some not. Tyr wondered at their function, but what magic must've animated them had long fled from most of them. Only one worked, connected to the ceiling of one of the rooms with a button inlaid on the side of the glass. A bed chamber of some sort. Activating it, he saw... Well, it was best not to repeat what he saw. Whatever bizarre rituals of mating these creatures must've considered a valid form of copulation were beyond his understanding. Animated in vivid detail like a moving picture, too bright and clean at the lines to have been a depiction of real life.
A statue in near pristine condition lay atop what must've been a bed, prone and fetal with its head turned toward the screen before being frozen. Tyr began to wonder if these had been statues at all, or rather corpses petrified in stone. Concerning enough what with the outlandish imagery that he hurried on and skipped the remaining rooms left in the place.
Hmm... So judging by what I saw, some of these creatures appear more human than others... Some even have beastkin traits? And where did those tentac--
Finally, he came to what must've constituted an exit. Gates barred by waist high spinning mechanisms that creaked and crunched when he tried to turn them before seizing, deciding to leap over the turnstiles instead. What he saw next would take his breath away. Something he'd remember forever.
“What the...”