“It's good to be back,” Alex said, inhaling deeply.
He let the sights, sounds and smells pass over him.
The sight of researchers bustling about the lab dressed in their protective equipment. The sounds of liquids boiling in beakers, and the whir of mana powered machinery. The smell of brewing potions.
All felt good.
It felt familiar.
Comfortable. He felt at home.
“I missed this lab,” Alex looked around the laboratory in the Research Castle. “I missed it a lot.”
“Well, you can miss it with your protective equipment on.” Professor Jules huffed from beside him. “Hurry, Mr. Roth, we don't have all day.”
Snapping out of his reverie, Alex headed to the safety equipment hanging on hooks nearby. He ran his hand over the leather beaked mask and apron. He wiggled the fingers of the gloves, then slipped everything on, turning to find Professor Jules and Isolde geared up and ready to go.
“Come on, then,” the professor said. “I'll catch you up on the progress we’ve made, such as it is. Follow me.”
Alex followed the two women deeper into the lab; ahead of them was a steel door, sealed with a magical glyph. Throughout the room, researchers paused what they were doing to look at him. Plenty of whispers were exchanged.
“Hello,” he said. “Well, this door’s new.”
“What we're doing is very sensitive,” Professor Jules said, pressing her hand to the glyph on the door. There came the hiss of escaping air and the click of a lock. “We needed another area for privacy.”
She opened the door. “Come in, come in.”
Alex and Isolde stepped inside, and the professor quickly shut the door behind them. Air hissed again followed by another loud click. “Welcome to the Ravener research chamber. It’s secure, and the walls are soundproof. We can speak freely here.”
“Good spot,” Alex nodded, looking around. The alchemical equipment was definitely cutting edge, most of it was currently turned off. In the centre of the large room stood a long table with copies of Uldar’s notes spread over the surface. Dungeon cores—both ‘living’ and destroyed—were on the table, sealed in glass containers.
“We have been trying different ways to determine what makes the Ravener reconstitute itself,” Isolde said. “We have entertained many theories—”
“—but haven't been able to test any of them. Not properly,” Professor Jules finished Isolde’s thought. “We’ve run tests using dungeon cores, but that's not exactly a one-to-one comparison with the Ravener.”
“Makes sense,” Alex said, stopping in front of the table. “So, what are your leading candidates for theories?”
“The first one is that when the Ravener is destroyed, it moves to a central location to regenerate itself over the following century,” she said.
“Sort of in the same way that you-know-who was restoring his strength in his sanctum,” Isolde said.
“Right,” Alex paused. “There’s some sense in that. Maybe it's not destroyed at all. It couldn't just ‘fake its death’ when the Heroes finally strike it down, but maybe it teleports elsewhere. Then when it’s ready…” He paused, thinking about Uldar’s journal. “…nevermind, the journal didn't say anything about teleportation.”
“You're quite correct,” Professor Jules said. “And though we haven't decoded all of his notes, we haven’t seen any mention of anything in its design to indicate an ability to teleport.”
Alex looked at Professor Jules. “And nothing in the design gives us any idea of how it renews itself or where it goes?”
“We have not been able to determine that,” Isolde said. “And that brings us to theory two.”
“The phylactery theory,” Professor Jules said. “Mr. Roth, how much do you know about liches?”
Alex shrugged. “Only that they're undead wizards, and they’re really powerful.”
“Correct,” she said. “But did you know that a lich can reconstitute itself after the destruction of its physical body?’
Alex looked at her with interest. “No…I didn't know that.”
“It is true, and the way it works,” Isolde jumped in. “Is that a lich’s body is not actually its body…well, it is and is not. A lich’s soul lies in its phylactery: a powerful magical item that holds its essence, binding it to the material world.”
“Right,” Alex nodded. “So would that make its body—the one that looks like a skeleton or corpse—something like a puppet?”
“Yes, and no,” Isolde continued. “In the process of becoming a lich, a wizard creates a shadow of their soul: an incomplete copy that is connected to their actual soul, within a phylactery. The soul’s shadow is what drives the skeletal body that we associate with liches.”
“So what happens when that body’s destroyed?” Alex asked.
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“The soul’s shadow is freed, it returns to the phylactery and rejoins the soul inside,” Isolde explained. “The soul and the shadow bind together, and—over a period of days and weeks—regenerates its body. The soul’s shadow enters this new body, and the lich is able to wreak havoc as it once did.”
“Right,” Alex said. “And you think the Ravener has some kind of ‘phylactery’ maybe?”
“It's possible,” Professor Jules said. “We found no evidence of that yet, but it would explain its reconstitution quite nicely.”
“But the Ravener wouldn't have a soul, would it?” Alex pointed out.
“No, but it could send its consciousness back to an object of some kind in the same way that a lich could,” Isolde suggested. “It is difficult to tell. Which leads us to theory three.”
“It could be that when the Ravener’s physical body is destroyed,” Professor Jules said. “It sends its consciousness to one of the dungeon cores somewhere in Thameland, then that dungeon core grows over time, expanding until it becomes the new Ravener. It’s possible that—though historically, it’s been recorded that dungeon cores crumble when the Ravener is destroyed—a single core might survive its destruction. We’ve found some evidence suggesting that dungeon cores could be connected to one another in a way that we don’t quite understand yet. And we do not know everything about Uldar’s designs—be they the Ravener, the Marks or the dungeon cores—his secrets were many and complex.”
Alex nodded. “I remember when I connected to the dungeon core in the Cave of the Traveller, I saw all these different sights. It felt like there was a presence on the other side of that connection. Maybe the Ravener can send its essence into a dungeon core and then be reborn for the next cycle. I know dungeon cores are all supposed to crumble when the Ravener dies, but then again, Uldar was supposed to be protecting us, so what do we really know?”
“Well.” Isolde said slowly. “We do have a fairly good idea of what is inside the Ravener.”
“What, how?” Alex asked. “So, what’s inside it?”
Isolde took a sheet from among Uldar’s notes, handing it to Alex. “You tell me.”
He examined the diagram; a cutaway of a sphere illustrating dozens of pathways for mana and other energies to channel through. It reminded him of an extremely advanced golem core.
But there was also something odd about it.
Something was missing.
“This…looks incomplete,” Alex said.
“We thought you’d notice that,” Professor Jules smiled, handing Alex another sheet. “Here, take a look at this one.”
It was another diagram of a cutaway of a sphere; this one contained more pathways, arranged in an entirely different configuration to the other one.
“Okay, this one looks more complete, but—” Alex’s eyes flicked from one image to the next, contrasting the two diagrams. “That many pathways wouldn’t fit inside such a small amount of space. There’d be too many of them: it’d be like trying to fit the insides of a golem core into something the size of a piece of chalk.”
“Exactly,” Professor Jules said. “The dimensions of the construct must be immense. Historical records and Uldar’s notes both indicate that the Ravener is a black sphere, roughly forty feet in diameter.”
“Yeah.” Alex eyed the pathways. “You’d probably need something twice that size to fit all of those pathways.”
Isolde and Professor Jules looked at each other, then gathered an additional ten sheets of paper.
Each displayed a diagram, another cutaway of a sphere; showing a different configuration of pathways and inner apparatuses.
Alex’s jaw dropped. “I…that can’t be right. What’s it doing, transforming its insides?”
Professor Jules shook her head. “Every diagram indicates that this is all one network: one vast and terrible magical machine.”
“Then how the hells…where’s it keeping all of that?” Alex asked.
“We are still creating new diagrams in our efforts to understand more of Uldar’s notes,” Isolde said. “There is probably much more to the construct’s inner workings.”
“What’s going on, is it bigger on the inside?” Alex wondered. “That’s…that’s impossible, right?”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. We know that Uldar’s sanctum exists in its own divine realm; He created a demiplane, connected it to Thameland and built his sanctum in it,” Professor Jules said. “It’s possible that he used his powers to do something similar with the Ravener.”
“That…” Alex frowned. “That’s going to make things trickier. Even if we do find how to shut it down permanently, we’ll have to…deal with its internal structure…whatever that looks like. And that’ll be tough if it’s…made up of this massive space on the inside. And just how much bigger are we talking about, anyway?”
“That, we don’t know,” Professor Jules said. “But we’re hoping that with you here, we can answer that question.”
The young archwizard sighed. “Alright, well let’s see if we can figure this out.” Alex looked at one of the living dungeon cores. “Hmm…maybe…I could…”
“What are you thinking, Mr. Roth?” Professor Jules asked.
“When I connected with the dungeon core in the Cave of the Traveller—that was the first time I ever touched one—I was able to connect to all these unfamiliar images: so, I’m wondering if I could do the same thing now. If the Ravener really is deeply connected to the dungeon cores, maybe I could learn something that could help us.”
“I am not sure I like that idea,” Professor Jules said.
“It could help us, professor,” Isolde said.
“...if you’re sure about this, Mr. Roth. You have done it before without imploding, so go ahead, but do so with caution,” The professor relented, nodding curtly. “But, at the first sign of even the slightest hint of anything going awry…stop immediately, understood?”
“I got it, professor.” Alex went to the living dungeon cores. “Which one should I use?”
“Use the one on the far right,” she said. “It’s the ‘freshest’, and we haven't used it for any experiments yet.”
She waved a hand at the core; the glass case surrounding it opened with a hiss of escaping air. Alex picked it up gently, holding it between his palms. Uttering a single syllable, he conjured a pair of Wizard’s Hands.
“Mind if I take a quick look at the notes you’ve made so far?”
The professor gestured to the notes. “Why would we mind; have at it, Mr. Roth?”
Glowing Wizard’s hands picked up sheets of parchment, floating to Alex at eye level. The young archwizard scanned the pages, eyes flicking across the notes, quickly absorbing the information.
He nodded.
Isolde and Professor Jules had accomplished a lot while he was in the Empire. Much of Uldar’s notes had been translated into modern alchemical notations in the common tongue.
He wasn’t only amazed at how much they’d achieved, but also at Uldar’s creation. The complexity…and efficiency of his design was something to marvel at.
‘What the Ravener is made of amplifies the power of its mana many times over,’ he thought.
A host of apparatuses gave the construct a wide range of devastating powers: it could alter terrain, project destructive beams of power, mimic spells much like a wizard’s staff…
…Alex’s eyes flew wide when he reached a notation.
“It can make venom?” Alex turned to Isolde and Jules. “Can it make the same venom its namesake poisoned Uldar with?”
“We don’t think so,” Professor Jules said. “The alchemical symbols in his notes show a wide variety of poisons, but nothing like the substance that killed Uldar.”
Isolde shuddered. “The black ichor leaking from his corpse was devastatingly toxic, and that was diluted.”
“Yeah—” Alex paused. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“We took samples from the body,” Professor Jules explained. “There’s already been analysis done on it.”
“Tell me more,” Alex said, his mind sharpening.
An idea was forming in it.