Chapter 452: The Ebon Tower
The Central District sat at the very heart of Hollow Shade. The district was filled with officials’ buildings, such as the city council chamber, and religious temples for each of the ebon gods, along with minor temples for the pantheons of other realms.
During the day temple acolytes and city scribes ran about in an almost chaotic swarm of people. Merchants from the city and beyond would come to make trade deals with the aristocrats and their Houses. And the average commoner would come to pay respect to the gods and sometimes attend the city-wide festivals.
Yet in the dark hours of the night, the bustling Central District was quiet. Gone were acolytes and scribes, merchants and mages, nobles and commoners. There were no rattling chains of the city’s iconic undead sentinels. The district was guarded by elite soldiers and battle mages who kept silent in their night patrols. What was once one of the busiest of the seven districts had suddenly become the quietest.
At the district’s very center, looming tall over the rest of the city, stood the Ebon Tower, a round black spire of unknown material that stretched towards the sky, split in half as if a god had cleaved it in two. Twin pairs of half-circles perforated the spire, one near the top, and one at the middle. At the bottom of the tower was a grand round base of white stone that stretched outwards, forming a giant ring-shaped mound of steps of sorts.
Unalla Noir wandered through the district in the late hours of the night. The guards had at first tried to give her trouble, but when she showed them a strange ivory nameplate the captain of the guard profusely apologized and hurriedly pushed his guards in the other direction.
Nameplates were built from metallic substances and enchanted with secret spells by the city’s brown mages to denote one’s social status and legitimacy within Hollow Shade. An ivory nameplate was very rare, for it did not denote social status; it was a symbol of the city’s most elite agents, an assassin of the highest caliber, or perhaps an agent delivering a secret message of the utmost importance. No matter the case, the guards knew better than to impede the owner of an Ivory plate.
Unalla rarely showed her nameplate to anyone, but tonight’s circumstances called for it. Her Mistress Holo had disappeared without telling a soul earlier that afternoon. That was common enough for Holo, but now of all times, when war was looming over Hollow Shade, many in the Singing Willow Troupe were beginning to panic.
The Noir family and several of Holo’s mages had gone searching for her, but none had found her. This wasn’t at all unusual. Unalla had known Holo since she was a baby and had spent much of her youth following Holo around. They were as close as family. And during all that time Unalla had grown used to Holo’s disappearances.
Still, with the Monster’s presence closing in on them, Unalla couldn’t help but worry. As panic began to well up in the pit of her stomach she caught a glimmer in the corner of her eye. A ghostly light shined faintly at the bottom of the Ebon Tower. Unalla crossed the city square and made a beeline towards the tower. Votum dragged behind her small thin frame. The tip of the giant blade had cut through the sheath and made a groove in the grey bricks.
Unalla winced as she glanced back at the tarnished paved city square. She needed to get her sheath fixed one of these days. Just one more thing that she didn’t have time to deal with.
Shaking her head, she adjusted the giant blade on her back and walked up the white stone steps. At the top of the polished stone steps stood the Ebon Tower, a massive structure that could be seen even from the hills outside the city. And in the shadows of the tower, between both half-spires, sat a lone figure, holding a massive scythe with a glass-like blade that flickered with ghostly light.
Unalla stopped at a respectful distance and bowed her head. “Lady Holo.”
Holo sat on the ground, her head between her knees, her scythe’s grip and snath resting on her shoulder. She slowly looked up at the sound of Unalla’s voice and brushed her brown hair aside. “Little Noir? What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t leave a message or tell anyone where you were going. My parents and my uncle have been looking for you, along with what feels like half our people,” Unalla explained.
“Oh, I guess I did forget…” she mumbled, her voice trailing off.
“Lady Holo? Is everything alright?” she asked worriedly.
“Hm? Oh… yes. I’m just— tired,” Holo said softly. “Come. Sit with me a while.”
Unalla nodded and closed the distance. As soon as she stepped between the tower’s half-spires Votum began to shake on her back. She glanced behind and stood stock-still in surprise as her sheath fell apart in tatters. She slipped Votum off her back and tried to calm the sword down, but the blade only began to shake more violently.
“What’s happening…!?”
Holo grinned half-heartedly, “Your orichalcum sword is reacting to the Ebon Tower and the Crosspoint of leylines underneath. Don’t worry, it will pass soon enough.”
Unalla nodded anxiously. After a few moments, the violent shaking stopped but the giant blade still trembled faintly with a subtle hum.
Unalla carefully placed the sword on the ground before turning to Holo. “H-How? Why did this happen?”
“Orichalcum is made from the soul of this world given physical form.”
“What?” Unalla’s eyes widened. She turned to her sword in shock. “Votum is a soul?”
“Not exactly, no. More like a very, very small piece of the soul of the world. It does not have a consciousness per se, but it can feel. It’s why it responds to the Ebon Tower drawing power from the Crosspoint.” Holo placed her hand on the polished white stone underneath her. “Think of the world soul as the heart of the realms and the leylines are its roots stretching outwards.”
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“How did the titans manage to create metal from the world soul?” Unalla asked in awe.
“They didn’t, they simply learned how to work the metal into weapons and tools in powerful ways that no one has ever since figured out. Orichalcum itself is a gift from the world soul to all of us.” She scoffed lightly, “Whatever that means.”
“So the world soul is— good?”
Holo shrugged, “The world soul is akin to Mother Nature itself, she can be cruel just as she can be kind.”
“That’s comforting,” she mumbled.
Holo smiled wryly, “No, I guess it isn’t.”
Unalla stared at her freckled olive cheeks. It was different from the vampiress form she had been using earlier today, but her smile was still the same.
“What is it?” Holo asked.
“You changed your form…”
“I prefer the human shape these days. Draws less attention, easier to move around.”
“Even with that?” Unalla glanced up at the enormous scythe.
“I can change Lyrae’s appearance to a more— mundane look, if need be.”
Unalla stared warily at the white ghostly light flickering at the edge of the scythe’s blade. “What is that? Why is it glowing like that?”
“It is the reason I came here tonight. The Ebon Tower is the central construct that holds the complex array of sigil equations that form the city’s enchantments, but the tower is more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
Holo looked up at the twin half-spires that stretched towards the night sky. “It is a bridge.”
Unalla furrowed her brow. “A bridge?”
“A millennia ago the Great Artificer Parathyan once tried to replicate the world’s natural realm bridges. After years of hard work and countless failed designs, he managed to create the first chrome gates. It was a miracle, really.”
Holo lifted both her hands, “Unlike a realm bridge which could only take you from one specific point in a realm to another specific point in another, a chrome gate could theoretically take you to any other chrome gate in the world.”
“It must have been amazing to witness,” Unalla whispered reverently.
“It was, I suppose. But chrome gates are very finicky. They require a perfect synchronized stream of all ten chromatic colors, a feat usually reserved for prime archmages.”
“In other words, only a prime archmage could operate the chrome gates.” Unalla surmised.
“Precisely. A chrome gate encapsulates its passengers in a short-lasting but powerful shield, a chromatic bubble you could say, and then the gate tears a hole into the Null and shoots the passengers through it at incredible speeds. A second chrome gate acts as a beacon and directs the bubble to it. If all goes well, the bubble flies through the Null and comes out at the second chrome gate, its passengers unharmed.”
“Sounds pretty safe.” Unalla grimaced, “At least safer than how we usually travel through the realms.”
Holo laughed. “Sure, our dark-ways are long and riddled with dangers, but we are still within the boundaries of our world, relatively speaking. Whereas if a chromatic gate’s bubble were to tear in the slightest in the middle of travel, all the passengers would be ripped apart by the energies of the Null instantly. The only reason a chromatic gate even works is because the distance between the realms is so short. If it were any longer, the bubbles might attract— things that dwell in the Null. Things that you and I should hope to never encounter.”
“I s-see…” Unalla looked away nervously and her eyes wandered towards the Ebon Tower surrounding her, “So this tower works like the chrome gates?”
“No, my bridge design is quite different, albeit just as exclusive,” Holo admitted wryly. “Unlike a chrome gate, there is no second ‘Ebon Tower’ serving as a beacon at the other end. Hypothetically, if you had a traveling vessel and a beacon, you could reach the Ebon Tower from anywhere in the Null Realms. Quite amazing if I do say so myself,” Holo grinned proudly.
“That’s— incredible,” Unalla said in awe. She wrinkled her brow, “But you said there was no second tower acting like a beacon, so how do you reach this tower? And what was that about a vessel?”
Holo looked pointedly at Votum lying on the ground. “A chrome gate is the door into the Null and the chrome bubble is the ship that travels through the Null, but when it comes to the Ebon Tower an orichalcum weapon can act as both.”
Unalla paled in fear, “Wait a second! Are you saying Caligo could use Honorem to reach the tower?”
“No, the enchantments etched within the tower prevent Caligo from entering Hollow Shade through any means. You can relax.”
“Oh… Wait, so could I use Votum to reach the Ebon Tower whenever I wanted then?”
“Eh, not exactly whenever you wanted, you’d still need to have a beacon directing you here. Not to mention I’d have to teach you how to travel, which is incredibly dangerous because you’d be traveling through the Null, albeit for a brief moment. You’d be safer sticking to the dark-ways.”
Unalla frowned, “But you taught me all inter-realm travel is technically dangerous.”
“Yes, but this method is far more dangerous than the others. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Oh… I understand…” Unalla mumbled, disappointed.
Holo smiled sympathetically, “I won’t teach you how to use Votum as a vessel, but if you’d like I can teach you how to use it as a beacon.”
Unalla’s head shot up curiously, “What?”
Holo glanced up at the ghostly light flicker over Lyrae’s blade. “You need an orichalcum weapon to travel into the Null, but another must act as a beacon so that you may find your way through the darkness of the Null.”
Unalla’s eyes widened in understanding. “That’s why you’re here. You’re acting as a beacon.”
“It’s more exhausting than it looks,” Holo said wearily.
“You’re waiting for someone, the friend you sometimes spoke about? The Champion?”
She nodded, “Yes. I’m not sure they’ll make it on time if they use the dark-ways. So I’m acting as a beacon, in case they try to reach us through the tower.”
Unalla glanced around. “How long do you have to wait here?”
“As long as it takes.” Holo sighed, “...I don’t know when they’ll come.”
“You sent out the call for help in the dreamscape weeks ago, right?”
“Yes.”
“If your friend really heard it then shouldn’t they be here by now? If they really care about any of this, about you, wouldn’t they already be here, even if they traveled through the dark-ways? And if they somehow couldn’t, why not just use the Ebon Tower right now?”
Holo smiled tiredly, “I never told you why they were called Champion, did I?”
“No, but why does that matter?”
“Because if anyone should understand why I sit here in the dark with Lyrae as a beacon, it should be the city’s only other orichalcum wielder.”
The serious tone in Holo’s voice struck a chord in Unalla. The young drow nodded quietly and sat down to listen.
Holo tapped her fingers on her knee, “Hm, where to begin…? Well, I guess I should start by saying my friend’s title wasn’t really Champion, it was Champion of Mortem.”