Months after waking to a world that had moved on, Laurel was once more camped alone on the side of a mountain.The journey home had brought her back into untamed wilderness. Her beacon stone glowed bright enough to add a pleasant contrast to the banked embers of her evening fire. The Citadel of the Eternal Archive was in the valley on the other side of the mountain.
Chittering of insects and small creatures scurrying through the brush mixed with the rasps of Laurel’s meditative breathing patterns. She was entirely focused on her internal cultivation. She was not thinking about the lack of any security formations in the surrounding area. She was not thinking about how no one had come out with a greeting or a challenge. And she was very pointedly not thinking about what her own spiritual senses were telling her about the population, or lack thereof, in the surrounding area. Instead she simply focused on her breathing. The truth would come with the sunrise.
********
With no more excuses to delay, Laurel rose and began the last leg of the journey. Only discipline honed over decades kept her from slowing her steps or turning back as she approached what was once the main entrance to the valley housing her sect. After all, if she didn’t see anything to the contrary then she could go on believing her sect still flourished.
Cresting the final rise, Laurel set her jaw and cycled the mana through her body in an attempt to remain calm. It was useless. She looked out over what was once a city of almost a million mortals, and hundreds of cultivators. It was a ruin.
Nature had reclaimed most of the buildings, leaving crumbling piles of stone in place of delicate architecture and flourishing culture. Walls that stood for centuries against beast waves, enemy cultivators, and mortal armies had been conquered by the slow creep of moss and vines. The sect compound in the distance fared slightly better, in that she could tell it had once been actual buildings. It was still abandoned, and had been that way for a very long time.
Laurel stumbled forward in a daze. She could barely breathe through the pain, but if she stopped here she would never get any closer. As she clambered over the uneven ground her mind raced for any explanation. Her sect and the rest of the city was long gone, but they could have moved and set up elsewhere. Maybe whatever had changed the mana flows was restricted to this continent, or made just this area worse for cultivators. If that was the case the elders could have transplanted the sect somewhere more hospitable. Clinging to thin strands of hope, she forged ahead.
Reconciling the vibrant city and bustling sect compound she had left – from her perspective just a few months ago – with the barren heap in front of her was jarring. She could overlay intricately carved inner walls with the ring of rubble surrounding the ruins. The piles of rocks and half-standing walls were the kitchens and workshops, sleeping quarters and sparring rooms for sect initiates.
Her body carried her past it all with little input from her, until she found herself at the former site of the sect house. The largest building in the City, having housed sect administration, treasure vaults, and of course the Library; it was in the best condition. In the way a rotting corpse could be called a better condition than a skeleton. Still worn down from an eon of abandonment and neglect, and all the roofs had fallen in, but a stranger would at least be confident it had once been a grand building.
Clouds rumbled overhead as Laurel made her way towards the heart of the former sect house. Apprehension almost choked her as she got closer and closer to the center of the building. All masters of the sect were taught protocols for if the unthinkable happened. If the sect was truly threatened, one of the elders would record as much information as possible and store the memories in a sealed chamber for any returning members to find. Laurel had been trained in the protocol just like the others, but never once had she imagined she would be following those instructions. How could she? The Eternal Archive was the strongest group of cultivators in the world. They could have fended off an entire army without too much of an effort. Initiate vortex cultivators cut their teeth defending the wall during beast waves. The grandmasters could bend the world to their will. Nothing could stand against them. So distracted, she walked by the sealed room twice before finding the correct section of the wall.
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Remarkably, the seal was still in place, much like the seal on her own prison. Closed mana systems had survived when other infrastructure crumbled. And of course the greatest scriptors in the greatest sect crafted this seal to be impervious to any method of breaking in. The end of the world as they knew it wasn’t enough to break that kind of lock. She connected her own mana into the stone surrounding the room to prove her identity. With a grinding that was startlingly loud in the tomb-like quiet of the ruined sect house, the stone blocking the door unsealed from the surrounding wall and slid aside.
Inside was a table and single chair, on top of which was a sheet of crystal slightly bigger than her hand. The memory tablet would hold answers. She needed to see what it contained. But Laurel continued to stare without picking it up. For now, the sect was thriving somewhere in the world after some sort of strange event changed the mana character of the region. Unfortunate but not the worst fate. Her friends were alive, and would have become grandmasters by now, maybe even off exploring other worlds. Until she viewed the memory, there was every reason to believe that nothing terrible had happened to the people she loved. She dropped into a light meditation to calm her thoughts. As ready as she could be, she reached her mana out to the tablet and sank into the memory.
**********
The voice of Grandmaster Florin resounded in Laurel’s head.
“I hope someone hears this, but I suspect those sect members currently away from home are dealing with their own crises. I can only hope anyone makes it back.
“One week ago, we began seeing severe fluctuations in the cosmic mana flows connected to the planet. At the time we did not know what caused this, but we now suspect some sort of large-scale formation built for the purpose. Since then we have lost contact with almost all of our members currently away from the sect, and we can no longer sense or reach out into the wider universe. The teleportation network has gone inert, and the mana characteristic of the whole mountain range has been oscillating wildly between a mana desert, and a well with so much mana density it is poisonous to mortals. If an old man can be forgiven for rambling, it's like the death throes of a wild animal. Communication with other sects has been intermittent, but everyone we’ve been able to contact has found similar events. As I record this, local mana density has dropped precipitously, and we can no longer maintain most of the sect functions.
“The City Core is failing. With the connection to the cosmic flows gone, it appears to be dissipating. We’ve cut off most of the connections to prevent worse degradation, but it is likely too late. The mortals realize something is wrong, but we can’t reassure them without ourselves knowing the cause, or the solution. If there is a solution.
“Someone either caused this to happen directly, or had enough forewarning to come prepared. Today the sect compound was attacked. The attackers wear no symbols or identification, but they were prepared to face cultivators without access to normal resources. Some sort of soporific poison has filled the air and it has almost completely incapacitated anyone below a master rank, and left the rest of us sluggish. Even cycling enough mana to purify the air in our lungs is difficult. The elders are trying to hold the attackers off, but our techniques are unreliable with the access to mana so restricted. The enemies are using sinks as sacrifices to absorb the attacks and responding with mortal weaponry. I have sealed off the library and the emergency vaults before leaving this tablet. I will return to the fighting after I finish here. We are dangerously unprepared for this threat, and I don’t believe I will have time to return with more information. Every evacuation protocol and last-ditch effort is being put into effect. Today may be the last day of the Eternal Archive.
“If any members return and hear this,please take what remains and rebuild. Whatever is blocking our connection to the greater cosmos must fight against the nature of reality itself. No such formation can be maintained forever, and the backlash when it finally falls apart will be severe. If the Citadel’s Core had fully evolved and established a World Capital, this interference would not have been possible at all. Find a new Core, establish a World Capital and anchor it to the celestial mana flows, then our sect will never face such devastation again. Good luck.”
*******
Laurel came back to herself with tears spilling freely down her cheeks. Memories stored in tablets were more than words and images. The feelings and impressions of those recording them were imparted to the viewer. Grandmaster Florin had been steeped in despair, fully believing he was going to his death and the end of the sect. The state of the city around her and the fact that the memory tablet was still here, and had not been added to, lent credence to that belief. It was not only possible, but likely, that Laurel was the only member left alive.
She let the tears fall. Heaving sobs wracked her body. There was no one left. She wept for all the people that had been her family. Martin, Faren, Imelda, they had been her constant companions and were now gone. The masters who had taught her cultivation and the new initiates that had started looking to her for wisdom had been erased. No, not just erased, murdered. She fell asleep curled up in the corner of the hidden room. Nightmares came, vague forms of sect members trying to escape, and being cut down while they ran, faceless enemies watching from afar.