The button at the bottom of the panel had another keyhole identical to the one outside. So, obviously that was the floor she needed. Another flick and press closed the lift door behind her, trapping inside. It shuddered lightly as its descent began and a tiny light appeared at the top of the button panel, then began to fall at a slow, steady pace.

She was going down. Far down.

Halari panted as the lift rattled down into the world under the Center. She clenched her hands into fists to keep the trembling of her fingers from becoming into full out shaking, but that moved to her knees when it couldn’t take her hands.

What am I doing? She eyed the light as it carved its way down the line toward the circle at the bottom. “This is crazy, Halari, this is absolutely insane,” she whispered to the empty box carrying into what very well could be Hell.

The indicator light of her journey reached the last eighth of its path.

She drew a light bar and her hunting knife just before the light hit the circle at the very bottom. In her sweating fingers, the fabric-wrapped hilt became damp and slick, but her white knuckles held the weapon secure in a death grip.

The lift stopped with a whisper and a small jolt.

And then the door opened.

Halari snapped into an attacking stance, lightbar out in one hand out defensively, knife ready for a stab with its point to the entrance.

Only darkness met her when the portal opened fully. She squinted her eyes into gloom. The lift’s ambient light reflected off metal on both sides and a few inches of dark, metallic floor.

Some kind of hallway, she realized, stepping out tentatively. With a series of clicks and snaps, lights overhead activated, revealing her surroundings in full. The passage walls were comprised of metal panels, large squares that rose from floor to ceiling and lead towards something hidden in shadow further down the walkway.

The ones on her left were blank, perfectly reflective and without blemish. The panels on her right were carved with images of such intricacy and detail that only the Flames’ old magicks could have crafted them.

“Wowww,” Halari whispered, stepping to the first, a full relief of a what appeared to be a magnificent city. Something right out of the old legends.

Halari traced her eyes over the city, noting the humanoid figure who hovered between the top of the tallest tower and an ominous storm cloud. The shape of the building looked familiar…

“It’s the Spire,” she whispered, lightly brushing the image with her fingertips. “This has to be Atlara before the Departure.”

She moved to the next panel. There appeared to be six of them in total before that darker part of the hallway. This one showed a tall humanoid standing before a throne, while five others with crown icons above them knelt before him. The throne itself was detailed with adornments and textures, but the people were featureless, barely more than outlines.

The third showed a fight. The man from before, she assumed, stood over another man in full armor with his foot on the warrior’s chest. His sword was raised high, and a bolt of lightning was carved behind him.

The fourth was rather… vague. Halari stopped in front of it and cocked her head as she studied the relief. The person stood with hands out while six objects hovered in an arc around him. She could make out a sword, but the others were just kind of jagged shapes.

She moved to the fifth, which was another battle, but marcher large in scale. To the right, an army of men and large vehicles, some with strange, long noses protruding from the front, stood underneath an ominous cloud.

The opposing army stood under a grand sun, and great beasts stood with the soldiers. Six figures stood in the cloud over the shrouded army, but only one rose above the other force.

The last panel was placed by the door. It wasn’t shrouded in darkness at all; the metal was so dark and irreflective that it gave the illusion of being unlit.

Halari froze, fear returning as she studied the thick metal slab that could be nothing other than the lock of the Vault.

Just a crank handle? She looped her lightbar around her neck so that it dangled like a necklace, then reached out with trembling fingers to the crank.

The last image… maybe it has a clue of what I’m about to find. She looked to the panel.

It didn’t.

Instead, set into a square cut out was a key. It was a large item with a straight, rectangular bitting. There was no hole in the crank, but she took the key anyways.

Maybe it’s to get out if you get locked in?

She grabbed the handle of the crank latch. The metal was cold under her fingers; its sharp sensation brought with it the reality of what she was doing.

Go back. Turn away. Her fingers stayed on the handle and even started to pull. It’s not like after millennia this thing’ll even work anyways.

The crank smoothly made an entire half-rotation without even a hint of decay or blockage.

Damn. Halari began to crank. Mechanisms in the door clinked and clunked where they lay hidden in the wall and the heavy gate, unlatching and turning the massive tumblers that kept the door shut.

Six full rotations was all it took.

The door shifted as it was disconnected from its frame. Halari raised her knife and placed her palm on the cool metal, then pushed. It moved without a groan or grind and opened into another void.

Air moved into the dark, sucked in like a vacuum.

No lights flicked on this time, so Halari spun the dial on her bar, but it only showed more of the silent shadow. She took a step in.

Her light showed no markings on the Vault’s walls or floor… until about three steps in where a curving groove in the floor stretched out.

She crossed the line with a confused glance, making her way seven full steps into the structure. Then, her foot kicked something on the ground.

A rock? Halari looked down and yelped as she locked gazes with a skull. She panickily twisted her lightbar’s dial, casting even greater light into her surroundings.

Her breath caught at the sight of a full set of bones, all black and charred as if set burned in the hottest furnace. Dread set into her skin; those empty eye sockets in the skull begged her to run.

I did not come all this way for a tomb, she insisted, gritting her teeth and looking away from the morbid gaze. She only saw the one set as she moved further inside.

It was so quiet that the rhythmic sound of her breath annoyed her. It was too heavy, terrified, so she breathed in and out like she did before pulling the trigger on a prize piece of game. It worked too. Her heart slowed, pumping a new dose of courage into her body and shaky legs.

Until she heard something move in the dark. The sound of rattling metal shifting in front of her reduced the world to her lightbar and the area of danger.

She froze, squinting into the direction of the noise, but seeing and hearing nothing else. Light glinted off something metallic on the floor nearby.

Halari made her way over cautiously, eyes flicking in all directions as her danger sense went crazy. Each hair on her neck stood on end, trying their absolute best to crawl out of her skin.

She found a cylinder of metal, like the top end of a stake planted in the ground, standing at about shin height. Attached to it was the first link of a massive chain that led into dark.

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She moved past it, seeing the second one.

Then the third.

Then the fourth.

Halari followed the immense links into the dark and felt terror rear its head in her belly.

Go back. Her traitorous feet pulled her forward. Turn around, only death is at the end of this. Go— The links led her on for a dozen or so numb paces until her lightbar revealed the shoe.

It looked normal. Halari inched closer, eyes glued to the foot incase it moved. Her light crawled up to show the leg of black pants, then a belt.

Halari steeled herself for another corpse as her light ascended past its silver buckle, but the illumination reflected off skin. Fair, healthy skin. Her jaw dropped as the man came into full view.

Wrists manacled together at the end of the chain, the man sat with his back against the farthest wall of the Vault. His head slumped to the side as if asleep in the most comfortable position he could manage.

Is he…? No. Halari watched his chest rise and fall in steady rhythm. She crouched down next to him, spotting her missing keyhole on the man’s restraints.

Halari poked him on the cheek. His hair, a dull golden color with a dead sheen, fluttered from a huge breath she had been holding and now exhaled. He looked young, no older than his mid-twenties.

He did not stir.

“H-hey,” she said, poking the sleeping man again. A prisoner, she realized, chain and manacles clicking together in meaning. “Hey, can you hear me?”

She snapped her fingers by his nose and poked him harder on the cheek.

The man’s eyes slid open like a serpent’s and fixed on her.

Halari’s fight or flight response shorted out like a bad engine circuit, like a pickaxe shattering its pointy end on a stubborn ore , and she tensed, coiling in terror. The man had eyes unlike any she’d ever seen.

The dull, unfocused, red and purple irises glued her to the spot, almost hypnotic in their effect, while his diamond-slitted pupils seemed to dive straight into her soul.

When he did not move, Halari steadied herself with a couple short breaths that bordered on hyperventilation.

“Who are you?” she whispered, trying to speak in a disarming way. Like a dustbunny squeaked when it came face to face with a predator. “Can you talk?” The man said nothing, just stared at her blankly.

Great, all this way for just a man who isn’t even lucid. The irritation trickled in past her fear and she sighed. Well, I’m not leaving empty-handed. She drew the no-longer-mysterious key from her belt and put in the keyhole. Her eyes stayed on the man’s as his stayed on hers.

If he was excited to be finally free after who knows how long, she did not see it in his face. His expression did not change at all.

After a half turn in the keyhole, the locking mechanism clicked and the chain connected to his shackles fell away, but the restraints on his wrists did not move.

“Maybe that’s better, anyways,” Halari whispered. She stood and tugged on the manacles to draw the man up with her, but he didn’t move. “Come on now, work with me. I’m trying to get you out of here.” She pulled harder, hoping he understood.

The man, still blank faced, rose awkwardly, shifting his legs like he didn’t remember how to move them in the best way to get up. He was taller than her, but not imposing, and his posture was that of a man who had not stood in a very long time.

“This way,” Halari said softly, pulling him with her towards the Vault door. He blinked, finally focusing on her, and for a moment she thought he was going to speak, but he said nothing.

He followed her to the Vault door without a word, but when Halari crossed into the hallway, he stopped dead on the threshold and refused to move anymore.

Halari yanked on the manacles uselessly; he did not budge, standing with much more weight than it looked like he actually had. Trying to pull him forward was like trying to pull a tree out of the rock.

“We’re almost there,” Halari said. “I promise, I’m getting you out of here.” She forced herself to meet his eyes, steeling herself for his unnaturally serpentine pupils. He was scared, she saw it. She wondered if he even knew if this was real. “Just another step.”

The man stepped into the hallway, then blinked rapidly as its lights glared at him. He stared at them as if they were strange creatures while they walked towards the lift, then shifted his head to looked at the panel carvings.

Halari stopped by the second one, curiosity gnawing to get some answers. She knew her time was running out, that even though her sister agreed to an hour, Viria might even be on the way now. But she had to get something.

“Is this you?” She pointed to the carved man standing with his hands out to those kneeling before him. “Are you this man?” She tapped the man on his chest, then pointed back to the image.

Her companion said nothing, but his blank stare was changing, his look becoming more focused. Halari decided that comprehension, however, was definitely not in the building at the moment.

“Alright, come on then.” She pulled him into the lift, then hit the button for the top floor, checking her dart count while she did so. The guard might be waking up by the time their ride was there.

Betrayer’s damnation! How am I gonna get him out? She sized up the man, weighing her choices based on his lucidity. He looked strong, but was his mind there enough for him to know how to climb? And what about those manacles?

He stared at her emptily while she thought, which didn’t help her concentration. His weird eyes were more unnerving than an actual pitviper’s petrifying gaze, especially when he seemed to not need to blink.

“Any ideas?” she asked, turning away from him. They were a few seconds from the top. “And where I am going to put you? What a mess…”

The lift stopped and opened into chaos.

The main room of the Center was screaming. Red lights flared, casting a bloody hue into the whole room and emphasizing the bone-shivering screech of the sirens. Something outside thudded against the main gate of the building repeatedly, like a big fist slamming on the door.

And there, just five or so steps from the entrance of the lift, Kelot stood, wide eyed and shaking with rage. He wasn’t alone.

Five of his goons, boltshots levelled at her and the man, stood behind him. The one she drugged had apparently found a new weapon, which he aimed right between her eyes, an malintent look in his own.

“YOU!” Kelot screamed, basically frothing at the mouth, “You stupid girl! Do you know what you’ve done! DO YOU know what you have unleashed! You’ve destroyed us! You’ve killed us all!”

The thing outside thudded louder against the main gate, which shuddered and groaned against whatever force struck at it.

“Now hold on a sec—” Halari tried, drawing her stolen boltshot.

“ENOUGH!” Kelot jerked his hand towards her. “Open FIRE!!”

Everything happened at once.

The lesser priests did not hesitate and fired with violet bursts of light.

The man beside her moved.

And the main gate of the Center exploded.

Halari screamed, moving her arms to protect herself from the molten shots of the Melokide. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the sensation of their bullets ripping into her body; it wouldn’t be a pretty death. She hoped Viri wouldn’t be the one to find her dismantled by the rounds, wounds cauterized on impact of the superheated shots.

The pain never came. She probably just hadn’t felt it. She always heard death was painless, that a person never actually felt the moment when their body was torn apart.

“Hala!” somebody shouted.

Was that Viria?

“Hala!” her sister shouted again. Halari opened her eyes. Viria stood at the gate… and she really had brought the whole Quarry with her. Old Bear and her pada, Fedro, stood behind her with long guns aimed at the priests. Telero was even there with his pickaxe brandished like he was about to carve out a chunk of the priests’ skulls. Dozens of other citizens piled up behind them, all shouting and waving tools.

They had knocked the door open with a mining ram, something usually applied to impossibly stubborn chunks of bedrock surrounding an ore bed.

All this wasn’t the most incredible part, however.

How was she not dead? Halari looked back towards Kelot and his crew, but her vision was blocked by the man. He stood in front of her, immovable.

Impenetrable.

There weren’t any exit wounds on his body, which didn’t make sense until she saw the boltshot ammunition scattered around his feet.

“How?” Halari gasped. The man looked over his shoulder at her. The blankness of his bearing was gone, replaced by something she thought might be determination.

“FIRE AGAIN!” Kelot screamed.

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Fedro yelled over the clamor of his throng. “Any of you so much as twitch, and the Quarry converts to atheism!”

The lesser priests did hesitate this time. Kelot sputtered and spat, utterly torn between whatever terror ruled him and how much he valued his men.

“Halari,” Fedro called, waving with one hand while keeping her rifle trained on the Melokide. “Move over to me, now.”

Halari grabbed the man by the elbow and pulled him along. He moved with her quickly, almost taking the initiative to get to safety.

Fedro and Old Bear shifted to cover her, shielding them with their bodies.

“FINE!” Kelot was enraged, face beet red against the blaring lights. “Die as you will, you insolent fools! When everything begins to burn around you, just know our doors are LOCKED!”

“We’ll just knock ‘em down again,” Bear growled. He looked hungry for a kill, glaring down the iron sights of his firearm. “Everybody back!”

The crowd pulled out of the Center en masse, flowing out like water through a funnel. Viria found her first and threw herself around Halari in a full-body, vice of an embrace that almost cracked her ribs.

“I was gonna wait the hour,” she explained hurriedly, “but the Center went crazy. Alarms everywhere, lights and everything. Figured that was a good enough signal if any.”

“Good idea,” Halari breathed, releasing the man’s elbow to return the hug. Relief flooded her, more potent that the dark fear of the Vault. “You really got the whole town too.”

“Pada got Bear,” Viria said with a giggle, “and Bear got everybody.”

“Hala!” Fedro walked up and passed her rifle over, then wrapped his wiry arms around her in his own embrace. “Idiot girl! What were you thinking? Thank the Flames you’re ok! What the hell were you thinking!”

“Pada,” Halari said, pulling away. “I know you have to yell at me, but right now, we need to get to my garage.”

“What is going on?” he asked. He looked sidelong at the manacled man, who hadn’t moved or said anything through the whole retreat. “I saw… Halari, who is this?”

“I will explain everything,” Halari promised. She reached over and grabbed the man’s restraints, preparing him to follow. “At my garage. Now please, let’s go.”