Cries of worry floated down the crevasse from above, yet they were soon cut off as the crevasse closed like a healing wound. Now, Fel was alone. A little dizzy, Fel got to his feet, turning on his battered headlamps, taking in his surroundings. It was a cave of modest proportions with only a distance of ten centimetres between his head and the ceiling and the opposite side of the cavern was only a dozen short steps away. However, the cavern wasn't desolate.

In the centre of the cavern lay a pristine, circular and elevated platform made of smooth obsidian, engraved with complicated lines and intricate runes, with a perfect circle around it all. Surrounding the platform sat eight basalt pedestals with dome-like stone lamps upon them. The whole scene was almost occult, only lacking splotches of blood and a set of skulls. Wait, nevermind, there was a dusty skeleton in the corner. Huh?

Fel doubled back to the dead skeleton to make sure he wasn't tripping. Fel inched towards the skeleton as if it could leap at him at any moment. You couldn't blame Fel, the thing looked terrifying! Although it was humanoid, it had six arms with long, slender fingers. An extra pair of eyes adorned its forehead, with yet another pair just below the cheekbones, crystal-like and still in their sockets. It's skull, apart from the eyes, was alien in itself, being a tad too long, with a squashed jaw and the back of its skull protruding out a just an inch too far. To top everything off, mystic lines and tiny runes decorated into the surface of the bones while a black monastic robe covered his lower half and a rough stone 'donut' pendant hung around its neck.

Fel tossed a pebble at the inhuman skeleton. Nothing happened. Fel sighed in relief and walked right up to the skeleton. Up close, Fel noticed that there was a small, old, black leather book poking out from of a pocket. He fished it out and flipped open the cover, revealing… a mess of incomprehensible characters. But Fel didn't give in and he continued to flip through the aged paper. Hours passed as Fel examined page after page. As he continued to read, the pages became increasingly decrepit; by the time he was halfway through, he could hardly make out the individual characters, further on, the pages were completely ruined. However, aside from the incomprehensible characters, the book also contained many strange and alien illustrations.

On one page he saw an illustration of a three-eyed, goat-headed and legged demon with eight long, lanky arms that touched his feet, each of them covered in patches of ugly scales. The next page contained the blueprints of a sphere that contained thousands of miniature blades, each engraved with almost microscopic runes. As he continued to read, the content grew stranger and stranger, Fel was lost in the wonders of the book. Although they seemed to be ridiculous, he felt that everything in it was true but in the end, he understood nothing and gained little from what he saw.

He clasped his hands in respect towards the skeleton and reached out to hold the skeleton, intending to give it a proper burial but as his finger brushed against the skeleton, the mysterious runes and lines seemed to peel off the lifeless skeleton and flitted over towards Fel. With little time to react, Fel hardly lifted a finger before the runes phased through his solid armour and body and branded themselves on his bones while the complicated lines seared themselves onto his skin. If being branded was painful, what was happening to Fel was ten times worse. The lines covered every inch of his body making Fel feel as if he had been set on fire while his bones were melting from the runes branding themselves onto him. This only lasted for a minute, but to Fel, it was an hour of fiery hell.

Sighing in relief, Fel cleared his eyes of tears only to come face to face with six, hovering crystal eyes.

'Please, no no! I love my eyes, I really love them!'

Fel's pleas went unheard and the six eyes phased into his face, trying to fuse with him, scraping out the flesh in the way. This time, Fel lost consciousness. It wasn't a sensation meant for humans.

Fel woke up, his face, covered in blood. After wiping off the thick layer of dried blood, he lowered his faceplate to check the time. An entire day had passed. By this time his squad mates would of have given up the search and returned to base and he, he was stuck in this godforsaken cavern with this godforsaken skeleton.

Stomach grumbling, Fel took out some rations from a hidden compartment. These suits had some serious storage space. As he brought a brick-hard biscuit to his mouth, he noticed something weird. Thin, golden lines covered his nose. Fel ejected himself from the power armour and tore off his own pilot suit, proceeding to inspect his body.

'My, god'

That was all Fel could say. Golden lines crisscrossed his body while circles and a few delicate runes sat on random areas across his flesh, but there was a strange sense of order to their placement. Oddly enough, Fel didn't feel that different even though he had gotten a full body tattoo. If he could see his shoulders and checked under his arms, he would notice four circles, crammed to the brim with golden lines and runes.

Fel zipped up his pilot suit and hopping back into the power armour and turned on the selfie function to look at his face. His face wasn't spared from the treatment and had gotten the full makeover, though his eyes looked the same as usual, no colour change or weird pupils. But one feature was out of place, if anything was at this point. That feature, or features, were the golden lines, painted across his face. One on each cheek and on either side of his forehead. A thought passed through Fel's mind, causing him to shiver in fear. No way that would happen, he's still human. Right?

Fel pushed the thought to the back of his mind. It wasn't something he wanted on his mind. More importantly, the skeleton! Eyes swivelling back to the skeleton, Fel saw only a pile of ash on a black monastic robe. A few ghost stories came to mind, but he dismissed them, it was obvious that the lines and runes were holding the skeleton together. It made perfect sense! Humans were very adaptable creatures.

'Well, since you seem to be a pile of ash now, you won't need your worldly belongings.'

Fel licked his lips and robbed the pile of ash of its robes, pendant a strange black feather and another small leather book he found hidden in the folds of the robe. Although he couldn't wear the rings and bracelets in his power armour, he put the pendant on and stored the rest away in a compartment on his back. He also found an ink bottle among the ashes but he threw it away as it was useless to him.

'It was nice doing business with you!'

Fel rotated on his heels and was about to walk away until he remembered where he was. A cave. A small, dark, sealed off cave. Mood dampened, Fel trundled off to the opposite side of the cave, as far as the pile of ash as possible. The trauma was deep. After awhile Fel browsed through his new book. He had nothing better to do.

The first few pages only contained dense paragraphs of unknown characters but on the thirteenth page, he saw something interesting. A full body drawing of the skeleton, with flesh. The thirteenth page had the body standing up, arms splayed out while the fourteenth had one of it sitting in a cross-legged pose with its arms in meditative positions. Tens of tiny blue arrows flowed through both of the drawings, cycling around in a circular motion that expanded, escaping the confines of the body. The images were trippy, Fel could swear that they were moving but when he checked with his camera, they were normal arrows. Flipping the page, found another set of bodies in the same positions but with ten times the amount of lines that flowed in two different patterns, one expanding out and the other contracting inwards. He kept turning the page and discovered that there were eighteen different sets of drawings that were separated into seven different chapters, each set being more complicated than the last with golden, red and even white arrows being added into the mix.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

There were many other diagrams in the book, depicting detailed manuals for various martial techniques. There were six different techniques, each having eighteen variations. One of them depicted a six-armed man soaring cross-legged through the air while another showed the same person lobbing handfuls of lightning at a mountain. Even better, the manual preferred to use diagrams instead of words, as if the author feared that the person reading it wouldn't be able to understand. The diagrams not only contained the poses of the martial arts but coloured arrows that pointed every which way.

Another day passed. Fel had nothing better to do other than chomp on dry rations and examine the books and play with random objects he found. The books themselves were getting old because although they were fascinating, he understood nothing. To him, they were useless. He sat on the obsidian platform in the centre of the cavern, leaving his power armour standing at his side and thought of the image of the six armed man on the thirteenth and seventeenth page.

Fel took a deep breath, calming his mind, closing his eyes and honing his focus. Half an hour later he lied on the floor and rolled back and forth, grabbing an empty ink bottle from his power armour's hands, that he had been playing with, tossing it to the other side of the cavern. Nothing had happened during his little session and boredom was consuming him. Just as he was about to get back to his feet, he caught a small glint of light at the edge of his sight. Finally, Something interesting!

Fel rushed over towards the anomaly and extracted the source of the glint of light. It was an Energy Stone. It was a resource that humans had uncovered when they arrived at the New World. Everything in the New World ran on it. Although there were the artificial Energy Crystals made before the discovery of Energy Stones, they were expendable, one use items. Energy Stones were rechargeable.

This one seemed to be a high-quality one, being a light sapphire and emitting a dense, sky-blue light. The only reason he hadn't seen it earlier was because it was buried in the wall, only uncovered when he threw the ink bottle at it. It was one sturdy ink bottle.

Fel jogged back to the power armour, intended to give it some long-needed juice. Tripping on the way, he dropped it onto the platform. The dark platform absorbed the light from the Energy Stone, sucking it dry in a matter of moments. The blue light flowed through the intricate carvings on the platform's surface, seeping out and drawing close to the eight pedestals. Alarmed, Fel hopped back into his power armour and stood on guard. Who knew what could happen.

The stone lamps on the eight pedestals lit up, casting eerie shadows on the wall while the platform hummed. The fires in the lamps roared and the lights on the platform soared, the intense light drowned out Fel's figure and when it all died down, he was nowhere to be seen.

'System detects a lack of oxygen in the area, sealing off suit and engaging emergency oxygen supply.'

Awoken to the mechanical voice of the assistant system, Fel opened his eyes to the sight of... darkness.

'Alert, unit energy supply at 8%.'

'Alert, oxygen supply will last for 3 hours.'

'Alert, large pressure detected, origin unknown. Aler-'

'SHUT THE FUCK UP!'

Somehow, this worked.

Fel was clueless of what was happening. He wasn't able to do anything anyway. So, Fel continued to float through dark, empty space, until, he heard a crack.

'System? What's happening?'

'Pilot ordered this system to 'shut the fuck up' and so this system complied although this system was in the middle of dispensing important information'

'And so what, was that 'important information''

'That the power armour could only resist the external pressure in this space for half an hour. Ten minutes have already passed.'

'If it was so impor-' A massive crunching noise interrupted his outburst. Now, Fel was in deep shit.

'Everything's okay, deep breaths, 1, 2, 1, 2. Wait a second, that's not right.' Under the threat of inevitable doom, Fel was panicking. If he could at least do something, he wouldn't be so flustered.

'System recommends that pilot continues with the exercise, it is very suitable for the current situation.'

'Reminder, increases breathing pace and emotions such as rage and annoyance will increase oxygen consumption.'

Fel felt like the system was getting back at him but it was just him. Just as his thoughts were coming under his control, a deep groaning noise seeped from the power armour. However, Fel couldn't do anything. He was a fish in a barrel.

In the next moment, one of the air vents folded, giving the outside pressure full access to his soft, human, body. As the system sent out warnings, Fel scrunched his eyes closed, preparing for the flattening of his being. His fears were, yet again, founded.

A great hand wrapped and around him ready to squeeze him dry but in his most dire moment, the previously inert runes and lines on his body lit up as if they were about to fight against this pressure. Contrary to Fel's expectations, however, the mysterious markings did no such thing, instead of welcoming the pressure in. Thus began Fel's hour of hell.

The markings somehow redirected the intense pressure that pressed into his body, preventing it from scrunching him into a ball. However, it still didn't stop the extreme pressure from squeezing blood out of every pore in his body. Blood wasn't the only thing that oozed out of his body. Along with the blood came a thick, black liquid. The stuff was far denser than blood and was like crude, blunt syringes as it oozed from his body.

There was however, a hint of hope. As increasing amounts of black liquid poured out of every possible hole in his body, the pressure acting on him got less and less although, unfortunately, the same could not be said for the pain. Eventually, however, the last drop of black liquid was forced out and at that moment, everything changed.

Although Fel's eyes were bloodshot and his mind was teetering on the brink of insanity, he could feel a change. A deep, fundamental change. Wheezing out a sentence, Fel ordered the system to open a small window on the faceplate, allowing for him to look out of the suit with a naked eye. Though the suit was still being crushed into a pulp, Fel wasn't able to feel anything and before him was a breathtaking sight. A sea of light.

There were millions, perhaps even trillions of tiny points of blue light, packed so tightly together that they formed a massive sea of light. But Fel could feel in his bones that that wasn't the end, there was something beyond, something even greater but for now, that was beyond him. As he wished that he could see it up close, thousands of points of light rushed towards him, teeming about him in joy. There were so many of them that instead of breathing in oxygen, he instead inhaled a large amount of these points of light.

This reminded Fel of something. It reminded him of the diagrams in the mysterious book. Although he failed in his last attempt, this time, he believed that such a thing wouldn't happen.

Fel closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, inhaling swathes of the points of light into his body. As they entered his body, he concentrated them into the centre of his chest and when he could breathe in no more he, at a snail's pace, exhaled. The points of light spiralled out, just like the blue arrows in the diagram, becoming smaller and smaller as they reached the surface of his body, dissipating into space and they exited, having no more energy spare to support their form. When he emptied his lungs, he breathed in another batch of 'light.' Rinse and repeat. The exercise, unlike his pathetic attempt at it before, was fulfilling, pleasant, almost addicting. Fel descended into a trance, paying no attention to the river of time.

Unbeknownst to him, the four painted lines on his face opened, revealing golden eyes that emitted rays of golden light. The circles around his shoulders seemed to stretch out, as if they had been squashed into a 2d plane all along, forming half transparent golden arms. You would be forgiven for mistaking Fel with an armoured Hindu god if you saw him from a distance.

Five hours later, long past the point that his oxygen supply had run out, metaphorical chains fell from Fel's body. The golden eyes and arms on his body exploded into rays of golden light, looking like a golden sun from the distance but before Fel noticed this change, the space around Fel distorted, and a strong force dragged Fel from the sea of light. His time was up. He was wrenched away from the sea of light, through the fabric of time and space and dumped into a cold, stone hall.