A ripple spread from the hologram’s fingertips as it pressed them to the wall. They grew in intensity, ringing louder and delving deeper until the entire room was set off-kilter. Noem put one hand on his knife for comfort, but otherwise took in the sights and sensations with a morbid sort of curiosity. Common sense told him he should’ve been running for a few minutes now, but his experiences told him that you couldn’t run from something more than five times as powerful as you were.

And if you could, you weren’t running. It was letting you escape.

With a single high note, the stone shattered into five-sided pyramids that slowly floated away into the darkness. “There you go. You’re attuned to this place now, so just pick up your key and open the way.”

Noem raised an eyebrow in question, but stopped himself before he could ask something stupid. He nodded and reached into his pack for little miss meteor, who had to be the key the hologram was referencing. She fit nicely in his hand, and when he turned to ask the hologram for help, it was gone.

“Well, that’s ominous.” He chuckled. Little miss meteor vibrated in agreement. “You’re the key to this place, huh? So, what, do you just… open up and cut through the darkness?”

It began with a low hum of Qi, followed by little miss meteor breaking open just a centimeter to reveal her glowing core. Power arced over Noem’s heart and brain in the form of entwined Qi, then raced down his body to gather in his stomach. It swirled comfortably for a handful of seconds, then settled as something… exactly the same.

“That was probably supposed to do something.” Noem noted and shifted little miss meteor in his hand. He forced the Qi up and out of his stomach, then shoved it into his hand. “Here, can you drink it like this? Or do you need me to turn it into a skill first?”

No answer. Noem nodded to himself, then coated his hand in Block. “Skill first it is.”

The moment his skill solidified, little miss meteor began to glow. A lattice of small lines connected the bottom piece which Noem held to the cube in the middle, which slowly took on the lines and the coloured tint of his Qi. Which had changed from its norm to be the exact colour of the Great Quarry’s stones without any of their coloured flecks.

Darkness bled away into plain stone. Plain stone bled away into carved stone. Carved stone gave way to a sparsely decorated room larger than anything Noem had lived in for a long while. It didn’t look like a perfect cube, which was what he’d sort of expected, but more like a natural cave that someone had turned into a fairly nice living space. Well, that someone had started to turn into a nice living space.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The floors were covered in marigold rugs with angular patterns just like the lines that were now on little miss meteor’s cubic core. One wall had been carved out into something that looked like a bench, which had thin cushions the same colour as the rugs, and a small kitchen off to one side that had a fridge, a stovetop, and a pantry without a door. A pane of yellow-tinted glass separated a raised pool of water off to his right, and on the other side of the pool was what Noem hoped was a functional bathroom. He didn’t see any way through the glass, but there had to be one.

Noem took a step into the room which he was already in and felt little miss meteor grow silent. He glanced down at her for a moment, but his attention was stolen away by the sudden appearance of a waist-high stone pedestal with a small cubic indent. Little miss meteor fit perfectly in the indent, without a single centimeter of clearance, and she clicked into place with the smallest amount of pressure.

“Well, that’s nice. A new hideaway.” Noem brought up his interface as he walked over to the bench, but before he could step on one of the yellow-gold rugs, an irresistible force took hold of his shoulder.

He turned, and a strange face stared back at him. The best way to describe it was statuesque, but in the way that it looked like it had been peeled off of a statue. A statue made from the quarry-stone. Its feminine face was twisted into a frown, with large eyes and little freckles the same colour as the rugs that accentuated her expression something fierce. Noem paused as he took in the statue that felt exactly like the hologram, but which was barely a meter tall in comparison.

She held tight until Noem ceased his attempts to move. He raised an eyebrow at the thing that felt like a mixture of little miss meteor and the Great Quarry itself, but packed into a body small enough that it could’ve been a child. A statue of a child.

“Well, hello there. What’s a statue like you doing up and moving about?” He asked seriously with a glance over at the pedestal. Little miss meteor was still there, and even though she’d expanded a fair amount, he couldn’t feel anything off about her.

The statue gestured down at his feet. Noem raised his eyebrows and followed her gesture, which was pointed directly at his dusty, dirty boots.

“You want me to take off my boots?”

The statue nodded in confirmation. When she moved, Qi the same colour as the rugs shone through cracks in the stone that hadn’t been there before. And as she finished moving, the cracks closed as if they’d never been there in the first place.

Noem popped his feet out of his boots and looked around for somewhere to set them down. He settled on putting them up next to the glass, then returned and tried to step onto the rug once more. His eyes stayed on the statue while his foot slowly inched towards the fabric, but she didn’t move to stop him, and his sock pressed into a slightly soft barrier between flesh and stone.

With confidence he’d satisfied the statue’s desire, Noem grabbed his pack and moved to the bench. He set all of his things down next to it and threw himself onto the plush cushions, which easily absorbed his fall. If he’d been tired, the bench would’ve been more than enough to fall asleep on. But he wasn’t tired. He felt more awake than he had in days, even in the face of everything that had happened a week too early.

“You said two weeks, goddess.” Noem sighed as the statue climbed up on the bench next to him and folded her hands in her lap. “Wonder what got her calculations all wrong.”

“If you give me a few minutes, I can come up with some possibilities.” The statue said in the hologram’s voice. “Or if you just want to insult a celestial being for a few hours, I’m cool with that.”