Nua turned very, very slowly.

On the walls, oval etheric lamps flickered. For a blink of an eye the chamber was flooded with light, then the lamps died away, only one glass sphere remaining with a tiny yellow flame inside. The sudden shift from darkness to light and back blinded Nua for a while, but left her with an afterimage of the room ingrained in her memory.

There was a throne in the chamber.

Or a chair. After all, thrones were just ornamental chairs, wasn’t that right? Only this one was so much more ornamental than necessary. Enmeshed in golden wires, cables, half-transparent tanks and all sorts of contraptions. There was no particular order to them, or so she thought at the first sight. The construction looked as if built in haste, with loose metallic tendrils hanging around, and pieces of thousand-year-old equipment still littering the floor.

Even hastily made, it suggested enormous, painstaking work. It filled the whole room and there was not a single part that looked deteriorated. Which, as Nua already noticed, meant etheric. Or made of True Silver and Star Gold. Or both.

Etched signs of Forsaken tongue ran across all surfaces, no matter how small. They glittered with deep, dark red.

In the center, a figure sat on the throne. Mummified and shriveled, clad in tattered remains of a simple robe. It had one adornment that drew all attention. A crown – or a headband, really, because crowns were supposed to be much larger and more decorative - made of pale gold metal. It sported a single red crystal. Nua decided to think of it as a ruby, although she had never seen a ruby in her life. They were said to be red. And very precious.

“Er… hello.”, she said. And after what appeared to be an infinite moment of awkward, profound silence, she added. “Are… are you a ghost?”

More silence. Then an answer.

“Of a sort, I suppose. I guess it means nobody did remember after all.” The voice sighed. “It is not what I hoped for, though certainly what I expected.”

“Sir, I mean…” Nua hesitated. She could not tell either the voice’s or the figure’s gender. “Are you a man, or a woman, or anything other?”

“A man, if any of those categories still apply.” There was a smidge of humor in there, somehow. “Why ask?”

“A… auntie Hala says calling others properly is a nice thing to do.” Nua felt awkward. Here she was, talking to an ancient ghost, filled to the brim with mysteries, very dangerous probably, and she was trying to make polite small talk. Well. Perhaps it won’t hurt to be polite.

“His Most Luminous Golden Imperial Majesty would be very proper.”

Nua considered it for a while.

“I won’t be able to remember all that. Do you have something shorter?”

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The silence that followed was almost solid.

“While I am not certain about the passage of time, I guess no titles are of importance either. You can call me Anki.” More silence. “It’s been centuries since anyone had used this name. Even before.”

Nua wanted to tell her name in return, then she remembered what it meant in the ancient tongue, then she realized something.

“You’re talking in the ancient tongue. How come I can even understand you?”

“I am technically not speaking. I have no lungs. I am projecting ether waves directly into your brain’s auditory areas.”

She stuck a finger in her ear. “… and now I stopped understanding.”

“I am thinking to you.”, the voice retorted. “By sorcerous means.”

“Oh.”

“Now, are we good and settled? Because I would like to ask you several questions as well, child.”

She sat down on the floor. The ghost, his shriveled body barely visible in twilight, was reasonably well-behaved. The door seemed impervious to the centipede – come to think of it, she hasn’t heard it approaching. She had no food or water down here, and no way out, but that could wait. Right now she needed to rest. She could do it well enough engaging in the weirdest conversation she ever had.

“Ask away.”

“How long has it been since the Calamity?”

“I’m not even sure what that is.”

“A great war. No matter how much time has passed, probably the greatest one. The war ended Zalag-Uzu Kalam, the Empire of Dawn and Dusk. Other conflicts must have inevitably followed, though I cannot imagine anything more disastrous. Perhaps if a greater empire, with more powerful Autarchs, had succeeded ours.”

“I don’t know what it all means.”, Nua said. “I was told about the fall of the Forsaken, powerful, depraved, and demonic kings that once ruled my kin. They were so frightening and evil that their rule had cursed us for all eternity.”

“Ah. History is written by the victors. When was that?”

“I’m not good at history. A thousand years. Maybe more.” She frowned. “Wait. You mean we’re not cursed? Though if you were really evil, I guess you’d never tell me…”

“You’ll have more time to figure that one out, I promise. Now I’d like to ask some more. If you’re so unaware, how, in the power of Utu, did you pass the guardian?”

Nua sighed.

“I came here with an explorer. Some prince, he was. I was supposed to be a human sacrifice for that monster bug, but he died instead.”

Silence.

“What do you mean by that?”

Now Nua was surprised.

“He told me that the guardian needs a human sacrifice. One must give their life away, so the others might pass. He said it was written on the door.”

“That’s not at all what was written. It was a commemoration for those who gave their lives so that the memory of others might live. The guardian needed a spellwork password.”

“Oh.”

“He was a lousy translator, that explorer of yours,” Anki said with distaste. “It makes sense, though, that the guardian was occupied with dispatching him, and after a thousand years it might have gotten slower.”

“Does it mean that the monster bug is still at large?” Nua’s heart sank. Anki just confirmed her worst fears. Then she remembered. “But you know the password, right?”

“Yes, I do know it. But I can’t cast it. I don’t suppose you could as well.” He seemed to huff with frustration. “Trickster Sun be cursed, you’re my only chance of getting out of here, and I’ve been burdened with a village idiot.”

Another important guy who wants something, but likes to offend her, huh?

“I’m all you’ve got, so be nice.” She said. “Even if Overlord’s Mercy is not a village, but a really big city.”

“In my time it was called Eshunna.” He interjected. “Point taken, good child. Please tell me everything that happened that led you here. It might give me some ideas. You can still make a fine bearer, I guess.”

Nua blinked.

“I can try to carry your body.” She started with hesitance. “But won’t it fall apart after I move it?”

A burst of soundless laughter resonated in her head.

“I’m not in the body anymore. The gem.”

Nua looked at the ruby. It flickered.

“I’m in the gem.”